Okay, I live in the north, and pretty much anything green is really exciting to me! I love gardening and will grow anything and everything, edible, nonedible, pretty or just plain hardy! I love seeing stuff grow and start seeds uhder lights, move them to my greenhouse, and then transplant them to my garden. Cooking? Well, not so much, but you have to do something with all that stuff!

Let me know what *you* want from your garden and I'll do my best to help you achieve it!

Tomatoes in wooden cages -- looks like overkill right now but they will soon be over the top.

Potatoes about 34 days after planting. The "seed potatoes" were originally planted in a trench about 8 inches deep; as the tops grew, I filled in the dirt around them. In the past I've tried to get a little too creative with my potato growing; once I tried planting them along with the tomato plants, a reasonable idea until I remembered the potatoes needed to be dug long before the 'maters were ripe. I recently read that the potatoes will form *above* where you plant the seed potatoes, so this time I hopefully got it right.

Ooh I love those tomato cages! We have limited heat/sun out here so any tomatoes I get have to be early, but I savor every one.

We used to have a whole ~ 30 x 35' plot devoted to veggies. Then the dahlias took over and only a few square feet are now allotted to lettuce and beans in one bed; zuchs, cukes, chard, and spinach in another. Most tomatoes are in black pots in the sunniest part of our deck hoping to catch a ray of sun. Nothing like homegrown produce in summer.

Annie, "then the dahlias took over..." These things happen!

Do you have to dig and store your dahlias for the winter, or can you leave them in the ground? I love dahlias, but didn't do very well with storing them, I'm afraid -- they came through a couple of winters stored in our crawl space, then the next year I went to get them out and they were full (and I mean FULL) of some kind of bugs, although I don't remember clearly anymore what kind, just remember they were about crawling away. Yuck! Last time I grew dahlias!

Don't blame the poor dahlias for your cruddy Michigan bug infestation! I wonder what they were though and how they lived all winter, or perhaps the clumps had eggs lain which hatched when it got warmer? Can't blame you for 'yucking' about anything crawling en masse in your house or crawl space! I'd do the same.

Yes, I have to dig. It is way too wet and occasionally too cold to let dahlias stay in the ground here, though I had 4 plants survive our milder and drier winter of 09. (Too bad; I left them in there on purpose to rot ) It takes me about 8-9 weeks, almost full time days and evenings to get them dug, washed labeled, dried, and packed away. Wish the show "Intervention" would show up and talk me out of the madness. But they're soooo pretty! There's talk of a co-op next spring and I may participate with a few of my own favorites so keep an eye peeled if you're at all tempted. No bugs, guaranteed!

These were the tail end and barely presentable, but cut on 11/14/09. What else can keep blooming that long (besides weeds?)

Oh -- when you said "took over"... you really meant it!!

I think I might have skipped that "washing and drying" step, maybe that was my problem, do you think? Do dahlias get thrips? It really was a long time ago, but I'm thinking it was something small like that.

Maybe I should try them again and try to take care of them properly! (now that I know where to get advice...)

You should try them again, if you like a long show of flowers in hundreds of sizes and colors! Yes, thrips can be bothersome to blooms; they're so tiny and hide deep inside buds doing damage before the flowers open. Creeps. But they are pretty easily controlled.

If you divide in the fall, (or just dig the whole clump) then rinse tubers/clump, and dip all in bleach water or fungicide water, that should kill off any eggs/pests that might be in your soil to later invade your crawlspace.

I think you should try a few but keep some room for your veggies!

Poochella said:I think you should try a few but keep some room for your veggies!

Well, DH has already been talking about expanding our veg garden (yet again; we just pushed it out by about 20 feet this spring), but I'd probably put the dahlias somewhere else anyway; maybe I'll make a new flower bed on the outside of the garden fence, that would be a nice spot!

Along a fence would be the perfect spot to help support the dahlias and give you visual bliss as you tended the veggies.

I've got lettuce/spinach/mesclun mix coming up in droves! Better stock up on salad dressing

I had a big surprise when I found out that winter squash grows on vines....unlike the summer squash I've always grown. Thank goodness I had some trellises! Thought like was good.

Then the vines didn't stop growing. Now I've using stuff normally used to reinforce concrete to make add-ons to the trellises over to the garden fence!

Rebar vines! They certainly look robust Crista.

I'm completely embarrassed to say with our cruddy, soaking wet, cold spring I've lost two plantings of cucumbers, and have only 2 surviving summer squash (yellow zucchini) plants out of about 50 seeds. WHO CAN'T GROW A ZUCCHINI? Apparently me

Oh my, didn't realize that picture was laying on it's side....should have previewed it first. Here's another try.

Annie, rain sure makes gardening a challenge!

Dag nab it! Forgot the picture!

Haha. In the background on the left there's a sheet...not laundry, the sheet is laying over the fence of the tomato section of the garden. This time of year in AZ the only tomatoes still growing are those that get afternoon shade, in my case, it's old sheets that go over a frame about 1:00 every day. On the right is the path to my shade garden with a blue bin in the way (where I toss clippings that will go in the compost).

Thanks for re-posting the picture- much easier on my neck! What a wonderful garden spot you have there.

This spring was particularly foul, but now we are in our NW glory months of sun, moderate temps, and no rain and all is well (except my imaginary zuchs and cukes.)

Gee, Annie, if I can grow tomatoes over here on the east side of WA, surely you can grow them on the west!

It's not that easy Woofie. We just don't get hot enough, long enough to ripen many or keep them from blighting. Eweed in NW WA has traded me beautiful tomato plant starts a couple years now which helps, and we've had a few cherries and romas already, but the big juicy tomatoes of my Midwest upbringing are just not to be had from our yard. I think if I made a little hoop house, they would get the heat they need.

If you have any tomato secrets though, please spit them out here! I love them so, and would be willing to try just about anything to get a decent crop.

Hmmmm, the heat might be the problem; it does get pretty toasty around here. You know, I've seen suggestions in some garden catalogs to use a sort of red ground cloth under tomato plants to encourage them to ripen (which of course they just happen to sell ) Have you tried anything like that? And a hoop house would certainly help. We had neighbors in Oregon who grew their tomatoes in a greenhouse in raised beds and that place was like a jungle!

Ernie grows his all in a green house that sounds pretty jungle-like too. I just need to take the time to make a hoop house some spring. No red mulch, though I've read of that too; mine are in black pots in my best sun; a couple in ground and one in a whiskey barrel. Even if I get only a few fruits, they are worth every savory bite!

One other thing, tho. Have you ever tried an Earthbox? For some reason, the tomato plants I've grown in an EB have done much better than the same variety in black pots. And I mean amazingly better. Much bigger plants and much more fruit. They're a tad expensive, but if you look around online, there are instructions for making your own.