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Thread: Growing Stuff

  1. #1
    Forum Member ch willie's Avatar
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    Growing Stuff

    I have the opposite of a green thumb--maybe a psychedelic thumb? Anyway, it's pretty useless.

    But I've lately become obsessed with plants and growing things. I live in the suburbs and fortunately have a good sized back yard with trees and plants. I grew up partly in the country, and I love greenery.

    I'm not growing a garden, but I've gotten several plants: tomato, basil, flowers of several sorts, that I've got set around the place. I'm starting out small. In the past, the ex wife did all the gardening and growing.

    I wish I hadn't neglected it all these years.

    I have so much to learn. I'm enjoying it while I do.
    If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison

  2. #2
    Forum Member OldStrummer's Avatar
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    Re: Growing Stuff

    My gardening philosophy is, "I water it. If it grows, I keep it." That said, I had a vegetable garden in my back yard when I had a full-size house. I have to say there is something delightful about walking out, picking some fresh lettuce leaves, a tomato and a cucumber and having a fresh salad. It's true what they say, food tastes better straight out of the garden!

    Weeding is the hardest part. That, and pest control (rabbits, deer, insects). Solve those two problems, and gardens nearly grow themselves!

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    Re: Growing Stuff

    My beautiful bride has the green thumb! When her dad was alive, they always had a garden, (at our place). The front part of the shop, and our house is full of plants, and she is always cloning more. My last nurse at the VA was into plants, so I used to bring her samples of my wife's treasures. Her little office was full!
    I grow a few tomatoes in the rock wall planter in front of the shop. Something about the location/soil that they really like. I get a kick out of giving someone a tomato that you hold in both hands!

  4. #4
    Forum Member DanTheBluesMan's Avatar
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    Re: Growing Stuff

    now that I'm in an apartment, growing stuff is just a dream. Unfortunately, the trees at my old house threw so much shade that you couldn't grow anything out back. The only place that would have been any good would have been the front yard and that wasn't going to happen
    "Live and learn and flip the burns"

  5. #5
    Forum Member ch willie's Avatar
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    Re: Growing Stuff

    Bill, I'd almost consider getting married again if I could find a decent woman who can grow things. Haha. I wrote friends yesterday and told them that Although I appreciate women for their minds and personalities, I really only want the one thing from them, you know, gardening knowledge and skills.

    Dan, house plants.
    If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison

  6. #6
    Forum Member ch willie's Avatar
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    Re: Growing Stuff

    Modernist poet Wallace Stevens, who'd never been to Tennessee, wrote a poem about how everything grows in Tennessee. Pretty true. With our land and knowing as many good gardeners as I know, I ought to be an expert grower. Maybe I will become one.
    If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison

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    Forum Member Don's Avatar
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    Re: Growing Stuff

    I thought this thread was going to be about something else. Carry on.

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    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
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    Re: Growing Stuff

    Quote Originally Posted by Don View Post
    I thought this thread was going to be about something else. Carry on.

  9. #9
    Forum Member S. Cane's Avatar
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    Re: Growing Stuff

    I love animals and plants but I currently don’t have time or disposition to dedicate myself to them as a steady hobby.

    So I made my own “Mexican standoff style” bonsai... A mini desert:


  10. #10
    Forum Member ch willie's Avatar
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    Re: Growing Stuff

    Quote Originally Posted by Don View Post
    I thought this thread was going to be about something else. Carry on.
    As soon as it's legal in Tennessee, I will grow it.
    If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison

  11. #11
    Forum Member dirtdog's Avatar
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    Re: Growing Stuff

    I’m more of a landscaper than a gardener. A buddy from work gave me a whack of his pepper seedlings a few years back - jalapeños, ghost peppers, guatemalan insane peppers. They grew quite well and was looking at a bumper crop. Same with some heirloom tomatoes from seeds that my dad cultivated for years. And then then rabbits and squirrels arrived. I got a couple to tomatoes and maybe a couple of dozen peppers. Enough to make a small jar of chipotle. Tried again the next year and nothing grew. So I went back to landscaping. For the space weed, I have a store a couple of blocks away since it was legalized up here. No need for a psychedelic thumb!

  12. #12
    Forum Member jrgtr42's Avatar
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    Re: Growing Stuff

    I have a small garden going.
    I have a few types of tomatoes - beefsteak, cherry, Purple Cherokee and Black Krim (I think; some of the plants didn't make it through seedlings, and they may have gotten mixed up.
    A couple peppers - jalapeno, cayenne and poblano. The habaneros didn't sprout this year.
    Yellow squash and zucchini. Plus a few bines of hops for my homebrewing hobby.
    Cilantro, sweet and Thai basil, dill and rosemary in smaller pots.
    ********************************
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    "It is if you don't drop it."
    - Trent Lane, Daria, Episode 1-2.

  13. #13
    Forum Member DanTheBluesMan's Avatar
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    Re: Growing Stuff

    Quote Originally Posted by ch willie View Post
    Dan, house plants.
    nah, got the black thumb of death for house plants. If I can't eat it or use it somehow I don't have any interest in growing it.
    "Live and learn and flip the burns"

  14. #14
    Forum Member ch willie's Avatar
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    Re: Growing Stuff

    dirtdog, I'm going to have to do some landscaping too.

    I'm really lucky: my sister and brother have a green thumb--their homes and property are like fantasy lands of plant and landscaping.

    I'm also lucky that my brother is a contractor who's knowledgeable about landscaping and plants. He grows a hell of a garden every year.

    Because I ask them so many questions about that stuff, I wouldn't blame them if they blocked my number.
    If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison

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    Forum Member gibsonjunkie's Avatar
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    Re: Growing Stuff

    My wife is the ambitious gardener. She puts in these large and (and beautiful) gardens but when it gets hot she can't go outside (some sort of thyroid thing - she can't regulate temperature and over-heats easily) so they got overgrown with weeds and then I mow them down. This happens every year.
    "We catched fish and talked, and we took a swim now and then to keep off sleepiness." Mark Twain

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    Forum Member Offshore Angler's Avatar
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    Re: Growing Stuff

    Wow, this is certainly not the thread I expected from the title.
    "No harmonic knowledge, no sense of time, a ghastly tone, unskilled vibrato, and so on. Chuck is one of the worst guitar players I know" -Gravity Jim

  17. #17
    Forum Member ch willie's Avatar
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    Re: Growing Stuff

    Quote Originally Posted by Offshore Angler View Post
    Wow, this is certainly not the thread I expected from the title.
    Haha
    If we'd known we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.--George Harrison

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