Green thumb is itching, anyone else?

[flgardengirl]

Quote:
I know alot of people up north who grow their bananas in the yard during the summer and in the fall dig up the corms and cut some of the leaves off and wrap them in newspaper or burlap and store them above freezing ...under thier house, in a garage, in a closet, etc.

Look on this website there are plenty of people who do this in colder enviornments you should be able to do a search and get lots of ideas. I love this website.
http://www.bananas.org/

A good place to buy bananas if you want little starter plants is on ebay. I like one vender (wellspring100 his ebay store is wellspring gardens) They are small but healthy and will grow quickly if you don't overwater them lol. They have awesome elephant ears (colocasia and alocasias) cheap as well.

For larger plants (but they will cost more) I like this place in Homestead FL called Going Bananas. They ship and cost around 20-35 per plant (depending on how rare) but you get large plants and very healthy. I went to this place one time and it was awesome!! Super knowledgeable people there.
http://going-bananas.com/

Of course you could probably start the decorative types from seed this winter. The ensente ventricosum banana is super easy to start from seed as well as the musa ornata types.

BTW if you want to try and get one of your edible bananas to fruit you will need to keep it growing throughout the winter in a greenhouse. I know a girl in Kansas who gets her Raja Puri to fruit in her greenhouse. They have to be able to send up a certain number of leaves without interruption in order to fruit. Some kinds fruit much better/easily than others in pots of greenhouses. I would try raja puri, double mahoi, grand nain, dwarf orinico for starters due to ease of care and fruiting if you wanted to try this.

A hardy banana that can go down to around a zone 7 with some winter protection (i.e mulching) is the Basjoo. I have found the Thai black to be pretty hardy as well but not as much as the basjoo, it will need winter protection in the under 8b zones but makes a lot of pups and requires little care.

 

[HHandbasket]

Yes indeed, my green thumb has been itching BIG time! We have been looking at seed catalogs, ordering seeds, going through what we still have left from last year's garden-that-never-was, and planning and plotting what's going to go where this year. We are going to completely re-landscape the entire yard, and all plants will be edible or produce edible fruits/vegetables/herbs. We're very excited about what we have planned for this year. I wish winter would just hurry up and be over LOL.

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

Yep, been itching here too. Today I make cages out of plastic fencing to keep the deer from eating my poor azalea plant and my mom's baby lilac bush.

Still winter here, though it feels like Spring. I'm hoping we have a short and mild winter!

 

[rancher hicks]

I've been ear marking catalogs for weeks and even made out some orders to send as money allow. I hope to put shelves up high in the hoop coop run to use as a green house. When the weather gets warm it gets pretty humid and nice. Not for the chickens so much but should give me a head start.

Got some questions.

1. What is your favorite tomato for canning?

4. What is your favorite yellow tomato?

2. What is your favorite winter Squash for storing.

3. If there were three things you'd recommend growing for storing over the winter what are they?

5. What plant or plant do you save seeds from?

Thanks Rancher

 

[quintinp]

I have 3 apricot seedlings in my window sill. I am wanting to have a raised garden next year.

 

[WoodlandWoman]

I like roma tomatoes for canning and butternut for a winter squash. Some people like Hubbard.

Have you ever grown beans to harvest as dried beans? Like a soup type bean? That's something that stores well. Plus, it's a good compliment to vegetables and grains or breads, nutritionally.

 

[Illia]

flgardengirl - I do have a greenhouse.

I grew them, three were zone 8 hardy Blue Javas, in the greenhouse. I'm a part of the Bananas.org forum and read it frequently. Trust me, I know all the banana stuff. My issue was simply that I couldn't get it warm enough in there when temps outside suddenly dropped for a couple nights to 20 degrees. The bananas were still alive except the Musa mahoi and its pups which I didn't separate, pot, and bring indoors in time, but, after a while I was sure the Blue Javas were gone too. I'm just gonna improve my insulation and heating for next winter.

Quote:
I love tomatoes so the first year I got my huuuge greenhouse up, I planted over 40 varieties of heirloom tomatoes, tried every color out there, at least two of each color, and it was FUN.

I love peppers too so I tried about 20 varieties of those but only got to try about 9. I bit more than I could chew, and many of the peppers weren't fully taken care of enough to produce fruit before I had a frost hit the greenhouse. My favorite besides the tomatoes to go to town on though were heirloom melons. I only had so much space in the greenhouse, so I didn't try everything I bought, but I tried a lot and wow! Last year was my first year even growing melons and let me tell ya - Looking at storebought hybrids makes me nearly fall asleep.

 

[6chickens in St. Charles]

it's all I can think of. I have compost on my mind.

 

[Roosterfry]

Itching here too! I keep debating with myself on which variety of tomatoes I'm going to plant this year... The black carbons I planted last year turned out to be th OPPISITE of pest resistant, I swear everything from a beetles to a birds ate my tomatoes. Caterpillars, stink bugs, aphids, EVERYTHING I felt like my tomato plants were providing enough nourishment to the bugs to help them over come the weekly 7 dust bath...

 

[Illia]

Greenhouse

That's what I got ta say.

My Carbons did wonderfully, produced nice and heavy too. The family and I prefer the taste of Paul Robeson though; - It was less sweet and more smokey. And honestly I've had soooo many sweet tomatoes this last year.

Next year I'm doing Paul Robeson outside the greenhouse though. It's one of the few tomatoes that likes our lamely mild/cool summers and definitely shows it; - it didn't like the heat of the greenhouse.