Welcome, Gardeners!

Hi everyone, I'm Marie, the Moderator of the gardening forum, and I'd like to thank Sonshine for her hard work in starting this new venture. I think we are going to have a great time getting to know one another and learning from one another - on all sorts of topics!

Please remember that we're talking to real people online, and that there are many different ways of doing things. Variety is good! We like to hear what works and hasn't worked for you, but the very same thing may have worked wonderfully for someone else.. Let's share, be kind, and always put the best construction and intent on another's words, cuz that's probably how they meant it.

First off, I need to tell you that I'm not an expert gardener. However, gardening was a part of my life for many years - first as I was growing up, and then for most of my early married years. Somewhere along the way gardening took a back seat to other things, but now it's time to get serious about it again!

One of the things I'm doing this year to get serious about gardening again is to start plants indoors. I have not done this for a long time, so it's been fun to watch the seeds sprout and the plants to take their first peek at the world. Being that we live pretty far north (Zone 3), we don't put our plants out until late May to early June. We have a short growing season, but it's amazing what people can do between June and September!

So anyway, I'm watching my tomato and flower seeds sprouting, and it seems to me that once they've sprouted they are taking a long time to make more progress. I'm thinking it's because they're getting their root system established, and one of these days they are going to just TAKE OFF, and wildly fill up my little portable greenhouse. I'm hoping!

I have a very small garden patch and have usually planted tomatoes, onions, and carrots. A couple of years ago I switched to rhubarb and strawberries, and they have taken over the garden. This year I'll be focusing on container gardening and adding on to the garden patch to again include carrots, spinach, onions and herbs.

Long term plans - growing herbs and greens year-round, and learning about edible wild greens.

It's always fun to read what our southerly neighbors have been doing, because you all are so far ahead of us..

What's new in your garden?

We're trying a couple of new things this year. We're trying the three sisters method and we started our very first herb garden. The herb garden we set up as edible landscaping. If I can figure out how to do pics I'll try to get some of it. I'm actually pretty proud of it, myself. LOL I started several plants inside this year. I was actually going to try to do some potted tomatoe plants, but they started looking a little droopy, so we transferred them to the garden and they perked right up. We have a few blooms on them, so hopefully it won't be long till I'll be able to enjoy my first fresh tomatoe of the season.