Your 2026 Garden

[StarOnFire59]

They all talk to me so cute. Betty crows a little, very quietly, almost a whisper. But mainly when she was molting and growing her feathers back in. I think she was trying to tell the others to leave her alone.

 

[Rillowen]

I'm in Zone 7a. Last year I planted 5 pots in a sunny spot with irrigation. Nothing came up. Disappointment!

I planted about 20 (i wanted a lilac hedge ) i got 3 scraggly sprouts that struggled through the year to die before winter. I scraped them with sand and planted in a sand rich basic soil too.. I tried some hard! the neigubor has informed me she threw a handful of seeds on a pile of compost 5 years ago and they have been thriving since.... so apparently it's not the climate.

 

[Rillowen]

I started seedlings last Thursday. Then I noticed the weather outside was gorgeous. Checking the forecast is going to be highs in the 70s to low 80s for the next 10 days with overnight lows from the mid-50s to low 60s every night except Thursday. Experimenting with this this year, my grow light is 93 million miles above the little greenhouse seed trays.

I tried this last year, but my rambunctious outdoor dog kept knocking the trays down if they were on the porch, and the chickens thought it was aa treasure hunt if anywhere else! I did do the milk jug trick for some though, although I partially buried them so they cant be knocked over this year and have some extra protection from the cold.

 

[StarOnFire59]

I planted about 20 (i wanted a lilac hedge ) i got 3 scraggly sprouts that struggled through the year to die before winter. I scraped them with sand and planted in a sand rich basic soil too.. I tried some hard! the neigubor has informed me she threw a handful of seeds on a pile of compost 5 years ago and they have been thriving since.... so apparently it's not the climate.

Yes. I planted 5 lavender seeds in each pot. 1 pot the wind blew out of the bed. It gets pretty windy here. But nothing even sprouted, and lavender is supposed to grow real good here. It seems to be in yards and along the streets almost everywhere around Treasure Valley. I don't know what I did wrong. I think I'm going to get one XL size pot & plant about 15-20 seeds in it. Heavy enough that it won't blow over.
I don't plant directly in the dirt. Weeds and crab grass are prolific here. The rose bed was here when we moved in & so I figure they're grandfathered in. Once they turn the irrigation on for the summer, around the beginning of June, I put on my rose gloves & go out early morning while the ground is still damp from irrigation to pull crab grass.

 

[Rillowen]

Oh yes we get weeds and crabgrass, but container gardening or raised beds, can get expensive fast, so fighting the weeds it is. As a bous i get to work on a slow build up of healthy soil.

 

[jxp]

I grew lavender only year along the driveway. Hot, sunny, whatever soul was already there. I didn't know which type would do best around here so got 2 starts each of Hidcote, Munstead, French, and Spanish. Some did better than others but that was somewhere between five and ten years ago so don't ask me which ones.