Nature and Gardening

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All things green, outdoors, and nature-y. Whether it's animals in their natural habitat, hiking trails and mountains, or planting a little garden for yourself (and everything in between), you can talk about it here.

See also our Environment community, which is focused on weather, climate, climate change, and stuff like that.

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Early March New Gardeners Thread (beehaw.org)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Are you starting on your gardening journey this year? Maybe branching out to some new-to-you plants? Trying out a new style of gardening?

Share your questions! Share your plans! How can we help you grow something wonderful? What do you wish you knew more about?

And remember, if you don't need this thread then this thread needs you!

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Good options for vegetables or herbs to start from seed in zone 7a? I've only had success with marigolds and thai basil from seed, and I'm working on a more limited budget this year, so I'm trying to do more seeds rather than starter plants. Also considering trying peas this year.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Peas and beans should be great for you, and they're also some of the easiest plants to get started saving seeds for future seasons. They can make your garden beautiful to look at too - dragon langerie is a variety we grew last year and it's stunning.

Warm season crops like peppers or tomatoes, squash family plants like cucumbers and melons might be good for you too. 7a has (to me, a zone 5 gardener) sort of a Goldilocks season where you get generally good temps and a long growing season, without having the sort of heat that just kills things like in zones 9 and 10.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 7 months ago

Peas and beans! Great recommendation. Did a little looking and they can grow in five gallon buckets, which should be perfect. Wish I could do more viney plants like melons but my space is extremely tight. I'm going to start my lettuce and carrots earlier this year so they have a chance to do something before it gets real hot out. Temps here are generally pretty nice, though I did lose an entire batch of black swallowtail caterpillars to the heat two years ago. Those little buggers can't take much above 85F.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Beans for sure. When it is a wet year I pickled beans because I had so many that I couldn't use lol.

I have never once had peas work in 3 years of trying. Here in Belgium we had a year with sun, year with not much and a lot of rain, then a year of half full sun and half full rain.

The peas have never made it more than 8cm tall and refused to grab onto nets, string, bamboo, anything u put near them.

Moved to a new house and might try again though.