Growing Wild

PNW-Based Gardening, solarpunk & hopepunk in trying times

[tomorrowsgardennc]

just started the last seeds i'll start until august. last succession of dwarf tomatoes, spinach, cucumber, and zucchini. literally as i type this my next raised bed is being delivered, also the last new one for this year. figured if i had leftover compost from the dirt delivery enough to fill one more bed then let's pinch some pennies and get one more raised bed in. the zucchini are gonna go in that bed and cukes in the backyard to help separate and avoid any cross-pollination. one year i'll finally get to grow my pumpkins...

lettuce is finally going to seed! sadly the leaves go bitter when it starts to bolt so can't eat any of the lucious leaves giving it all the energy to flower.

i also direct sowed carrots yesterday not really for seeds more for me to eat. i love purple carrots but no farmer around here grows them idk why.

i ordered too many russian fingerling potato seeds and for some reason nobody wants my extras. i'll keep asking around though. maybe i'll just start sticking them in pots idk. anybody on here want some?

i think right now this raised bed is my favorite. cabbage, calendula, volunteer Egyptian walking onions, and nasturtium all in one. thriving like there's no tomorrow.

i overseeded my mammoth sunflower bed KNOWING the deer would eat some but nah the deer are eating all my echinacea and pest-covered coreopsis instead. so now i need to thin out my sunflower bed and i don't wanna. i mean... what's the worst that could happen if i leave them be????

also did a germ test on seeds i saved 3 years ago, ground cherries and green tomatillo. safe to say the seeds are just fine. think ill find some place for the ground cherries because they are may's favorite toy in the entire world so i should grow some just for her to play and eat. turns out ground cherries are safe for cats 🤷🏽‍♀️

cat tax from 2023:

[rainbowofcrazy]

I guess this could count as my first harvest. No pretty artsy photo though. Future lemon balm pesto?! 😌🌱

[uncharismatic-fauna]

Green anole in a neighbor’s garden 🦎

Green on green on green fr

[tinfoilgarden]

some of the last (but the largest) of the onions 🧅

burnt out from the garden and tired of contact dermatitis and tons of crazy bug bites all over my legs. i found new poison ivy beneath the elderberry tree/bush this week, so I may be taking care of that sometime this upcoming week (I'm extremely allergic to it-- if you've been here long enough, you may remember the time about four and a half years ago when I got it just about allllll over my body). 🫠

things I'm excited about in the garden:

- the maypop plants have met the trellis they're next to and have started to climb. They're super small but once they get a little higher, i think they should take off.

- the beeeeeaaaaansss! I plan to make a green bean casserole with the first round, because I always forget to make it until we run out of ones from the garden.

- tomatoes-- caprese salad, all of the salsa, and hopefully a ton of pizza sauce to can this year 🥰

- all of the flowers. I just got in a handful of new to me flower seed varieties, so I'm excited to spread a few new seeds around the garden.

- the runner beans' flowers -- from what I've read, hummingbirds love them and they're super pretty. The flower buds have started to appear, so it's only a matter of time until they get big enough to bloom.

[growingwildgardens]

SEEDING MIX SEEDING MIX SEEDING MIX

The ingredients (will probably add more coconut Peat mixture to dilute it):

Should it have ideally been planted in the Fall or a couple months ago? Yes. But I already have a lot of perennials and some annuals either newly planted or already in the flower beds so its fine if some of this doesnt take or comes in next year.

I'm just really interested in seeing what takes in each area, they each get very different amounts and intensity of sunlight and I planted things I grew up from seed accordingly but I'd like to see what takes where with the opportunistic seeds.

I haven't done much to amend any of the flower beds, since theyre basically areas I'm scavenging back from bindweed and blackberries, but one used to be a burn pile and Everything is happier there. Also interested to see what takes in the compact clay of most of them, and in the deep shade under my native bushes.

[zooophagous]

I have been a sheep caretaker for like two days and already I'm like. Wow. I get it.

I get why these were some of the earliest mammals to ever be domesticated. They look up to humans with this sort of dumb but all at once innocent and pure and trusting expression. They're happy to see you. They follow you around. They like to be rubbed under their chins. Maybe its just some latent Scottish highland shepherd DNA I still have in me but I look at my sheep charges and suddenly I see why the love of God for humanity is so often described as a shepherd and his sheep. I'd fight a wolf for these guys. I'd go way the Hell out of my way for them. I'd carry their young for miles on my own back.

[upward-bound]

nearly 80k reblogs and how many of you eat lamb

[zooophagous]

The ancient shepherds I'm referencing also ate lamb lol

[growingwildgardens]

I love having a compost pile but EUGHGGGGHGHHHHGH its too hot for this shit

[growingwildgardens]

The Progression

Compost turned and layered into itself instead of sprawled everywhere in the wake of the winter garden teardown, watered down now that I dont have to worry about that making it too heavy for me and recovered so it stays moist during the very hot days we have coming.

[growingwildgardens]

I love having a compost pile but EUGHGGGGHGHHHHGH its too hot for this shit

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

It's always so weird to come down from the biology heavens to see what the average person believes about animals, plants, ecosystems, just the world around them. I don't even mean things that one simply doesn't know because they've never been told or things that are confusing, I'm talking about people who genuinely do not see insects as animals. What are you saying. Every time I see a crawling or fluttering little guy I know that little guy has motivations and drive to fulfill those motivations. There are gears turning in their head! They are perceiving this world and they are drawing conclusions, they are conscious. And yet it's still a whole thing if various bugs of the world feel pain or if they are simply Instinct Machines that are Not Truly Aware of Anything At All????? Help!!!!!! How can you look at a little guy and think he is just the macroscopic animal version of a virus

[oh-he-grows]

Rarely do I pick up a brand new book at a bookstore, but this one really piqued my interest so I had to get it.

Plant This, Not That: Over 200 Native Plant Swaps for a More Sustainable, Pollinator-Friendly Garden, by Elise Howard

I love that it offers several replacements for every invasive, and also shows comparison photos of all the native alternatives AND their native ranges AND benefits.

(If anybody is looking to replace something lemme know and I'll see if it's in the book and scan the pages for you)

[tomorrowsgardennc]

it's not an invasive but... hydrangea?

well, invasive in regards to that's basically the only plant the box stores sell so everyone has them 😬 and i just wanna be different tbh.

[oh-he-grows]

Oakleaf hydrangeas are amazing, I got mine from Haw Honey nursery in Mebane

[bedupolker]

It feels cool to be "in" on celebrity gossip before anyone else. I ran into Californian Condor V9 and looked her up on the condor lookup website. It says her current mate is dead and she has no kids but I saw her with a new man AND a juvenile.

[taciturn-nerd]

OP I hope you don't mind but I made a tabloid cover out of this

I used two more condor photos by Andrew Orr and Alam Clampitt from peregrinefund.org

Gotta use the skills I learned from making tabloids out of the Jane Austen novels somewhere right?

Great, now I feel like I'm bird shaming. Congrats V9 on your new family!

[animals-with-fan-art]

This is art to me

[pilferedinstagram]

[myriapoda-1306]

I often feel like a forager wasp when I'm buying dairy for my family

(Self portrait)

[garryoakenthusiast]

metallic green sweat bee + douglas aster

[plantanarchy]

Ok it's not looking thaaaat bad at work right now. It's still looking like this. So it's not thaaat bad.

[anthonyhurd]

The Land Connects Us - 18x24” acrylic on wood. Available at @roqlarue opening this evening for their Summer Exhibition.

https://www.roqlarue.com/summer-exhibition-part-i

[bucephaly]

Theres moreeee, this is so so good.. it makes me emotional realizing that these kids are on the path to being fluent cherokee speakers and will be able to keep the language going.

This family is a part of the little cherokee seeds program, creating new first language Cherokee speakers by paying mothers to just bring their babies and craft and cook and speak cherokee with cherokee elders all day. There are only 1500 first language Cherokee speakers, most of them over 65. They also take donations if you want to help keep them going and doing the extremely important work they do!!