Artichoke Lover’s 2022 Garden

[Artichoke Lover]

Looks like your garden is a bit ahead of mine! I hope things go well for you. We don't have any lizards here. Are they normally tame enough to hang out on your hand??

Usually not unless it’s cold outside. If it’s cold then they will hang out for the body heat. Otherwise they are pretty quick to skitter off. But they are pretty easy to tame as pets if you can get one into a terrarium. I’ve kept a few that were injured in the house for a few weeks before and mom had a whole colony when she was a kid.

 

[Artichoke Lover]

Pictures of the strawberry bed from last February vs. today.

It’s gone absolutely wild. It’s so thick in there that they’ve shaded and choked out all the weeds!

 

[digitS']

ArtichokeLove, about 15 years ago, I bought some Alpine Strawberry seeds. I'd found and eaten a few in the wild and was looking forward to more productive plants with larger berries.

They were not. Oh, maybe more productive - I don't know. The berries were so small that it was ridiculous. They were half the size of peas!

Disappointed, I sat the plants at the edge of the lawn in their pots. They escaped!!! Their new colony in the lawn amounted to nothing. After 5 or 6 years, it was about 2' square.

Well now! I have about 25 square feet of the things! They limit lawngrass growth by about 50%, plus. Of course, the berries continue to amount to nothing and you can't really see the plants unless you are standing within 10' but they are taking up more area every year.

Interesting that I had chickens during some of this time and they would walk right past the tiny ripe berries. I don't know if their color vision wasn't good enough to see them or they just didn't care about eating them.

Steve

 

[Artichoke Lover]

ArtichokeLove, about 15 years ago, I bought some Alpine Strawberry seeds. I'd found and eaten a few in the wild and was looking forward to more productive plants with larger berries.

They were not. Oh, maybe more productive - I don't know. The berries were so small that it was ridiculous. They were half the size of peas!

Disappointed, I sat the plants at the edge of the lawn in their pots. They escaped!!! Their new colony in the lawn amounted to nothing. After 5 or 6 years, it was about 2' square.

Well now! I have about 25 square feet of the things! They limit lawngrass growth by about 50%, plus. Of course, the berries continue to amount to nothing and you can't really see the plants unless you are standing within 10' but they are taking up more area every year.

Interesting that I had chickens during some of this time and they would walk right past the tiny ripe berries. I don't know if their color vision wasn't good enough to see them or they just didn't care about eating them.

Steve

They probably weren’t interested. Chickens actually have better daytime vision than humans especially color vision. Most have poor night vision. Some breeds do have better night vision than others though.

 

[Artichoke Lover]

Wildflower photos

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

At the last place I lived from '17 - '19, we had dozens of lizards. I loved watching them do "pushups" all day long in the summer. We also had alligator lizards and skinks too. Grants Pass OR.

 

[flowerbug]

Wildflower photos
...

that purple mint is something i'd keep away from anyplace i planned on gardening. that is what is out front and tried to take over. it hasn't come up yet this year, but it is probably still out there just waiting for me to get busy with other things. it went from one small area that looked pretty and harmless to all over the place within a few years and it had a vining habit and seemed to be able to smother about anything in the grass. mowing probably helped spread it. i spent a few hours here or there last summer lifting it out of the grass with a dull knife to help me get all the vines that were in the top few inches of soil. it grew through the clumps of grass too and i could not always get it all but i kept removing whatever tried to sprout to limit how much energy the vine was getting from the sun. a much faster way for me to deal with it would have been to smother the whole area but that wasn't going to happen. i'm sure i'll be back to it this season too once the weather gets warmer and everything starts to grow again.

 

[Artichoke Lover]

that purple mint is something i'd keep away from anyplace i planned on gardening. that is what is out front and tried to take over. it hasn't come up yet this year, but it is probably still out there just waiting for me to get busy with other things. it went from one small area that looked pretty and harmless to all over the place within a few years and it had a vining habit and seemed to be able to smother about anything in the grass. mowing probably helped spread it. i spent a few hours here or there last summer lifting it out of the grass with a dull knife to help me get all the vines that were in the top few inches of soil. it grew through the clumps of grass too and i could not always get it all but i kept removing whatever tried to sprout to limit how much energy the vine was getting from the sun. a much faster way for me to deal with it would have been to smother the whole area but that wasn't going to happen. i'm sure i'll be back to it this season too once the weather gets warmer and everything starts to grow again.

I’m not sure what this is but it’s definitely not a vine and it’s all over the property so no getting rid of it. It also dies back from the heat in May or June so it’s never caused problems here.

 

[flowerbug]

I’m not sure what this is but it’s definitely not a vine and it’s all over the property so no getting rid of it. It also dies back from the heat in May or June so it’s never caused problems here.

does it smell like a mint when you go through it? if not it is a different plant than what i think it is. i've been fooled by this before too.

 

[meadow]

It kind of reminds me of Purple Dead Nettle but I cannot see it well enough to know for sure. We have PDN here but it hasn't seemed to be a nuisance so far (is this a case of 'ignorance is bliss?'). I like it because it flowers so early and then very conveniently dies back to reappear next year.