Do you enjoy vegetable or flower gardening?

I used to have a little garden in the back, but we have moved three times in the last two years so, I gave up trying to put one in…but I would love to grow one again.  It isn’t easy here in Arizona, not as easy as it is for my relatives in Missouri, but I bought a lot of different books to teach myself how to garden in the desert.  

I really enjoyed being in my garden every morning and evening!  It was so peaceful and felt so good playing with dirt!!

Just wanted to share something. Last year I took some seeds from a wild passion fruit vine in my yard and transplanted them into a pot. I trained the vine up a trellis and it just started bearing fruit.

Passion fruit is really popular here. We call it lilikoi. I created a truffle using passion fruit puree several years ago. It’s been one of the most rewarding experiences of my 47 years! Throughout the year I’m called to make literally thousands of these truffles. I don’t I’ll ever tire if it.

Thanks for taking a look
Cynthia

Wow!!! That is so beautiful!  From the garden to chocolate.  I’m impressed.  Do you sell those on line?  and for how much?  Yana should open up a store for all of us to sell our wares…maybe we could donate some money to her for each sale we make on her website???  Those are beautiful Chocolatier!  How cool is that!!??

Winelady,
I love your gardens! Thank you for sharing the pics with us  :)

Winelady,
not only do I love the screen name! lol I really enjoyed the couple of photos you included in your post.
I love flower gardening and the idea of veggie gardening. We put in raised beds this year for tomatoes, peppers & zucchini and the zucchini took off like gangbusters but then were affected with the worm in the stalks… we lost them all. the tomatoes are heirloom (our first try with theose) and the plants are huge with a lot of fruit but nothing is ripening… we don’t get as much sun as I think we need in the area and it’s frustrating to say the least.
I start out the season with such good intentions and then really peter out when the heat & humidity begins. But it’s getting cool again so I look forward to getting back out there and moving some things around and dividing daylilies and hosta. check out my photos – I am always adding more.

I enjoy flower gardening right now, part because of the type of subdivision that I live in, and part because it takes less time to have results, while vegetables are more time consuming. It is easier with herbs, because they don’t’ ask for much attention, and they are a great addition to a meal!
My green lifestyle is pushing me toward the vegetable one though, more and more everyday.

No, but I have recently grown a beautiful Fairy Lily.  It’s in the book I’m writing “Lessons I Learned In the Garden“.  I love the pic, girls.  I go to Books-a-Million regularly and get a Cafe Mocha from Joe Muggs (inside the bookstore), and look at tons of gardening mags.  Especially Cottage Style (or Cottage Life?).  I have been training some fabulous Morning Glory’s over my arbor (they‘re blue) and my Naked Ladies are coming up.  I have a Twisted Weeping Willow I believe I may have to lay hands on for supernatural healing if it doesn’t perk up and show some signs of life.  It may actually need to be raised from the dead. Oops! lol!  I have a few other things.

I am currently working on recycling an old box spring as an above-the-ground container garden for “cold weather veggies”  to include brocolli, cauliflower, and carrots.

I love to garden but have given up because every time I put a plant in the ground, something eats it!  =(  I’ve not been able to find out what it is that’s eating everything; some say it’s gophers, others say moles and chipmunks.  I get all kinds of advice from every one about how to avoid this happening, but it’s always AFTER my plants have been eaten…haha!  

The only thing that has survived in my garden in 4 years is an unidentified orange lilium that I didn’t plant (so if I can grow them, Choclatier, you should have NO problems with Stargazers! and P.S. those chockies look delish!!!) and one lone dafodil!

I love flower gardening AND vegetable gardening! I have way more flowers than veggies but there is nothing better than a homegrown tomato.  My current vegetable garden is housed in 2 4×4 raised beds but next friday I’m doing a major kitchen garden expansion.

Rather than post pictures of my garden here, I’ll post the link to my personal gardening blog where you can see tons of them.  www.myskinnygarden.blogspot.com

Gina

Happy to find this group. I moved almost a year ago, and have a big yard for the first time in several years. I have spent this year pruning, weeding and cleaning up this overgrown, under-tended property, but this fall I’m going to prepare a big perennial bed outside the front door.  

I am in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Would be interested to know what other gardening regions are represented here.

I love that garden! It’s adorable!

Hello everyone! I love gardening too.  I always have. Well…my dad always said, “you can only love what you can hug“. I think I could hug a bunch of flowers! Our daughter got married June 28 and my friend and I grew all of the potted flowers. She has seven big green houses!  We have a deer problem where we live in Sewanee, TN. So she let me house many of the pots there and the others came to our deck. And I grew 60 Star Gazer Lillies or (Asiatic? Not sure of the difference) from bulbs. They are my daughters favorite flower.  I took a chance and planted the bulbs about 9 weeks prior to the wedding.  I got lucky they started blooming at 8 weeks(a week before the wedding) and the last ones bloomed out about two weeks ago.  They were amazing.  After the wedding we had lots of potted flowers to give to family and friends to enjoy.  We still have an amazing container garden going on!  I started putting the flowers everywhere.  The deer attacked!  I fought back with a product call “Hinders” it worked ok. The deer still nibbled or just pulled plants up.  I had trouble finding the product.  It is a concentrated formula that made around 5 gallons for $14.98 when mixed with water. I found a product at Home Depot for $18.98 and it was a 32 oz bottle not concentrated.  So…..I came home frustrated and decided to work on a concoction of my own.  It is working now for three weeks! I was covering everything with sheets at night and running out early to uncover everything.  It was embarrassing! I couldn’t go a day before they would ravage our flowers.  The plants are now recovering nicely. LOOKOUT NEXT SPRING!!!

Thank you for the tip on stargazers. I live upcountry so it doesn’t get too hot here and I’ll amend the soil well before I plant anything.

I have both flowers and vegetables.  Actually the last couple summers it’s been so very dry here that neither have done especially well.  Flowers are my love, veggies I grow because we need to eat.  I grow a few herbs, and am always working on something new in the garden.  This year I started an all white flower bed.  Not much to look at yet, but it’s got a white rose, white peony, white daylilies, and just to have a little bloom for this year, I put in white petunias and gladiolas.  In the next year or two, I’m looking to get some fruit going.  Strawberries, raspberries, ground cherries, rhubarb, anything I can get to grow here.

We have a garden here at Shiloh Home of Hope, but I really only get in on the harvesting. Our House Manager/Co-Founder loves to garden. This was our first year, but the owners had a garden for years previous to our moving in to the property. We enjoyed tomatoes, cucumbers and several different kinds of peppers. We even took some things to the Farmer’s Market a few times!

Considering we are a non profit and money is always tight, it was nice to have some fresh, high quality vegetables to serve our residents!

What a beautiful spot! You will have to let us know what you figure out. Unfortunately, I am no help!

We live on 2 acres so we garden like crazy and knowing you can eat off of your land and actually see what your hands have done is amazing:)  Two years ago I won a square foot gardening photo contest it was super fun!

I enjoy reading all of your comments and seeing the pictures. We learn from each other. I did not realize that the passion flower fruit was edible.  It grows at a near by lake behind our home.  I have always loved them. I wish they lasted longer as a cut flower! I think gardening is great for us in so many ways. Just think…you get excerise and it is a great stress relief. If you grow plants that you can eat it is so healthy for your body. And it is wonderful to look at a pretty flower garden, it makes you feel good.  It’s good for your mind,body and soul! We better all get diggin‘! I get sad when I have to stop gardening for the winter.  Then I turn to painting flower gardens and etc. Thank goodness we usually have fairly short winters in TN! I NEED to garden.

Those wreaths are gorgeous! I’m curious, is the passion fruit by your home purple or yellow?

The purple is harder to grow. When Yellow fruit vines are near, they choke out the purple.

I grew my purple vine from seeds that I harvested from a wild vine in the side yard. My husband keeps threatening to cut the wild one down! I have told him that if he does, he needs to be prepared for me to be very upset. We will come to a compromise. Maybe it can be trimmed.

Thank you Cynthia!  They were hectic to get made the night before the BIG day!  But it was so much fun in a crazy kind of way. We broke some flowers but kept jammin’ until we got them filled. I think they did a great job helping me on their first endeavor at live flower design!

Thank you Stargardener!  We had so much fun making all of the flower arrangements. It is my daughters favorite color palette.  The brighter the better! I love color too! The problem is I’m always wearing color when I paint.  Between the dirt and paint I always look a mess!  The other day I had my paint clothes on and ran to the mailbox. I must be attention deficit…Always switching gears! I noticed the plants looked thirsty.  So, I started to give them a squirt.  Some folks from in town/on campus(we live on the domain of The University of the South) drove by and looked at me weird with a double take.  I looked down and laughed.  My pants and top were covered in layers of paint(clean but covered like many of my clothes). I looked at my hands and they were full of dirt and weeds.  REAL PRETTY! Dirty hands… Oh well…that’s ME! I really enjoy my flowers… dirt and all.  Hope you are doing well and having fun with gardening too.
Take care,
Gayle is my name (Chrissy and Coco) is a business and logo for my sign on icon.  It is nice to hear from you… have a great evening.