This was only my second year gardening, and first year with my own yard 😤 Everything is in containers. I struggled a lot with figuring out a good place to put containers that got enough sunlight. I was trying to avoid the front yard because I was worried about car exhaust and grossness getting onto veggies, but when I finally caved and moved everything to the front it started growing much much better. Lots of things also got chomped by deer and groundhogs in the backyard. I had hoped that big containers would keep the groundhogs out but I caught one climbing up onto the top and eating all the seedlings. Lots of failures, lots of dead plants. I tried to plant some native flowers in the backyard hoping to get them to spread to the empty lot behind us, but no success. A lot of seeds got eaten by birds.
I had better luck with both veggie and flower starts that I bought from the local farmer’s market. I was SO CLOSE to getting sunflowers, the flower heads were coming out but then we had a big windy thunderstorm that knocked them over and they got all crispy after :( My only harvest this year are a couple of jalapeno peppers. I didn’t start anything indoors this year, but I definitely see the value in it now and I’m hoping to get a rack with grow lights set up over the winter.
What about you guys??
My raspberries are spreading more than I can even handle so I don’t have the same problem, but what does burrying the tips mean? Like your bending the shoots over and burying the tips as a method of propagation?
Yep, you got it! Many Rubus family plants will self propagate when their growing tips reach the ground by sending out new roots from the point where it contacts. With a little extra soil or fine mulch like chunky sawdust or fine wood chips and a weight, you can even get a whole cane to root out. Once you see a few roots at a length of an inch or so they’ll generally be able to support themselves when cut into individuals and transplanted.