2026, My year of Garden Narcissism

[flowerbug]

@flowerbug , I should add that I STill have some of the garlic that you sent me a few years ago!!

i'm glad it's persisted for you. i've had it here now about 22yrs.

I have killed off Some of my garlic, but garlic is TOUGH.
I know that my friend insists that her garlic is a nuisance invasive, but I get a lot of wild onion and I have learned to love it when it takes the place of noxious weeds.

i like garlic chives and green garlic as much as the cloves. there's no such thing as too much for me, but Mom doesn't eat it very often any more and she also isn't using it in cooking very often so i end up giving a lot of the garlic away along with many of the bulbules to people who want to start garlic of their own.

i think i'm going to start scattering it along the edges of the big ditch because perhaps the groundhogs won't want to dig through it... hey, i'll try anything... i've got plenty of extras every year. as a bonus it will also keep away vampires...

 

[ducks4you]

Agreed! I was gonna cage in my blueberries but maybe the smell of garlic will discourage rabbits.

 

[ducks4you]

All of the garlic survived transplanting. The 4 that I found and transplanted a few weeks ago took a good week to look better, so I have high hopes.
My tomato seedlings are still SO tiny, so I used my $25 rewards at Farm and Fleet to buy some tomatoes.
They are locally grown and look very nice. I got 9 plants/$19.00
All thick stemmed and about 8-12" tall, good roots not quite potbound in large pots.
I have bought 6 packs of tomatoes in the past that resemble "tomato bonsai."
3 are going in my stock tank/planter next to the house and water faucets, 2 grape tomatoes are going in the ground next to DD's south wall, and I will keep the others alive for the next few weeks so that I can move my 6ft tall cages and supports.

 

[Dahlia]

All of the garlic survived transplanting. The 4 that I found and transplanted a few weeks ago took a good week to look better, so I have high hopes.
My tomato seedlings are still SO tiny, so I used my $25 rewards at Farm and Fleet to buy some tomatoes.
They are locally grown and look very nice. I got 9 plants/$19.00
All thick stemmed and about 8-12" tall, good roots not quite potbound in large pots.
I have bought 6 packs of tomatoes in the past that resemble "tomato bonsai."
3 are going in my stock tank/planter next to the house and water faucets, 2 grape tomatoes are going in the ground next to DD's south wall, and I will keep the others alive for the next few weeks so that I can move my 6ft tall cages and supports.

Garlic grows really well here. Our neighbor plants solid rows of garlic on one entire side of his house!

 

[ducks4you]

https://www.thespruce.com/how-to-use-garlic-for-plants-11739945

 

[ducks4you]

I managed to get the sloppy mow done before the storms moved in. DD who works one county SW of ours told me that the storms there were loud and nasty. Middle DD, 2 hours NW of us, told me that they lost power about one hour ago from the storms, probably lightning hit a transformer.
Hope to get back to finish the prep for the wildflower garden, since last year's neglect means I need to reseed it.
I Have the seeds, just too many grass-weeds that need to be shoveled out/removed, so that they don't all grow back and compete.

 

[flowerbug]

I managed to get the sloppy mow done before the storms moved in. DD who works one county SW of ours told me that the storms there were loud and nasty. Middle DD, 2 hours NE of us, told me that they lost power about one hour ago from the storms, probably lightning hit a transformer.
Hope to get back to finish the prep for the wildflower garden, since last year's neglect means I need to reseed it.
I Have the seeds, just too many grass-weeds that need to be shoveled out/removed, so that they don't all grow back and compete.

every time you disturb the soil you are moving more seeds around into the germination zone. if you can clip them off at ground level without disturbing the soil you'll have fewer sprouting... keep clipping until they die off and give up and before they can drop new seeds.

 

[ducks4you]

Agreed on the Seeds but a lot are bermudagrass and when I dig them up I can also dig up the runners, too.

 

[ducks4you]

Downstairs I had left a paper sack full of small potatoes from 2025 that had sprouted. I also found, in a closed Jar of all places, garlic cloves that Were sprouting.
Yesterday I decided to plant them all and to transplant the Red German Garlic over to the northmost bed, from the one further south of it.
All told I transplanted:
1) 12 Red German Garlic
2) ~25 Garlic cloves, probably White Porcelain Garlic
3) 41 sprouted potatoes, about 1/2 some kind of white potato and 1/2 Adirondack Blue
I discovered 3 volunteer potatoes from what wasn't harvested last year, so I Will get some potatoes.
Otherwise...

 

[ducks4you]

Not much gardening today, just laid down the ginormous 10'x20'???--forgot the size--on the weedy spot between the pine trees and neighbors yard, MY fence.
When we did "printertopia" last Saturday, we filled up 4 cardboard boxes of paper. They were colored, so a no go for gardening, and I burned some pine boughs. Had to pull it apart.
I am so good at starting fires that I could have had one worthy of cooking a meal if I had kept adding to it in my firepit.