They look pretty grown but just before I snapped this pic, one of them was begging an adult at my bird feeder, very cute to watch them flitting around.

[Image description: two small brown and white speckled finches perched on a mature sunflower that is drooping with the weight of its seed head. One of the finches is sitting upright on the neck of the sunflower, while the other is flipped upside down to get at the seeds. The whole image has grid pattern imposed on it, due to being taken through a window with a mesh screen.]

I didn't plant it (intentionally) but it's definitely more than a weed. I'm letting it grow just to see what it wants to grow up to be.

I want to become a more knowledgeable gardener, and besides research and studying, I think a fun way to enhance my knowledge would be a fun gardening game. Are there any that are particularly accurate or relaxing?

Garden Life looks pretty chill but maybe not challenging or accurate to reality.

And to clarify, by accurate I mean you need to plant in correct lighting, water an appropriate amount, and fertilize to optimize for stems, flowers, fruits, etc.. Bonus points for having the option to pick your planting zone!

Most stuff should be able to take it, but lots of pepper and tomatoe starts.

In this bed we have basically a remainder of seeds from the other ones, not gonna be able to rotate the beds like I originally planned, but oh well.

So on the left we have rutabaga and parsnips planted between rows of sunflowers and catnip.

In the right we have kale, arugula and lettuce, between those rows are carrots and radishes. Theres also an entire row of marigolds on the left side of this.

In the middle… is… carrots! Didn’t even have anymore lettuce or radishes to plant with them even.

Next year I’ll start more stuff inside properly so not wasting as many seeds scatter planting stuff stuff like lettuce.

My pak choi army has fallen. I sent them out to harden and the slugs just rolled over them in a night.

In the pots are peas. The close raised bed is flowers and strawberry plant.

All the rest are a collection of lettuces, parsnips, carrots, radishes, herb, cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers.

I’ve prepared for every square inch to be utilized, see if it backfires or bites me in the ass. But that’s now we lean.

Rock is called Alberta Rainbow Rock, probably under a different name elsewhere, shows its color when wet. I cut a strip of grass out so I could have the rock be about 4” deep where the grass is. Other than that left the old grass to compost underneath the rest.

Our kids wish we had more. I'm not sure which verity these are, but they put out tons of runners which makes me not want to put them directly in soil.

Tips for a bigger crop are welcome :)

The experimental mat has been out for about a week now, but extremely high winds during a storm last night pulled up a corner of the mat spilling out the contents.

Luckily the majority of the plants were able to be saved, so we have one empty spot now.

I added some weights to the four corners to hopefully prevent this from happening again.

This is why we're experimenting! Learning what works and what doesn't with the setup.

Spent the day pulling honeysuckle vines out of a homesteader client's back fence. I turned a perfectly good set of pruning shears into beaters pulling all that stuff out, but this guy was just extra in every way

That's pretty much it. This community seems to be more active lately, and that's really nice to see.

I have Strawberries, Jalepeno, Bell Pepper, Mint, Cilantro and

In this bed (plan is to rotate with the other one) is sunflowers and tomatoes on the left, mixed in with them is arugula, carrots and cucumbers.

Next to that is peppers (California wonder, habanero, jalepeno, mini belle, cayenne and bell peppers), spring onions, and beans, mixed in with those is beets and radishes.

On the right is spaghetti squash, pumpkin, butterscotch squash, cantaloupe and watermelon, mixed in with those is spinach, marigolds and nasturtiums.

Our retention pond in our neighborhood has a lot of algae and problematic plant growth due to the surrounding farms and lawn runoff, so we're experimenting with a floating island to pull nutrients out before they can cause problems. This will also provide some interesting flowering plants, and more fish habitats.

Will be an interesting experiment to see what survives and what does poorly.

Zinnias, sunflowers, marigolds, and a few others are in net pots, inserted into cutouts in EVA foam mats.

Design is from:
http://www.beemats.com/

More reading:
https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/02/flowers-grown-floating-on-polluted-waterways-can-help-clean-up-nutrient-runoff/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666765723000637?via%3Dihub

Shuffling around my peppers to make room for the tomatoes I just planted up.

Hi All, my fava beans are being eaten by black ants , no aphids. the ants themselves seem to be sucking the juice out of the leaves, leaving black spots where they have been nibling.

I thought they normally employed aphids to do the hard work for them but maybe they are skipping the middle man. Anyone seen this before?

Other leaves are full of holes but that looks more like snails , dont think the ants are capable of that.

Any good tips for encouraging the ants to move elsewhere ?

After a cold and rainy start of spring, finally the beans are sprouting. We also have a bunch of tomatoes and brassicae.

Let's hope the abundant snails don't take too much.

We got some tomatoe, pepper and marigold starts from HD, some sunflowers I started, there is also watermelon radishes, cucumbers, kale, basil and some carrots in there as well.

We will see how crowded one of these can be!

The top half are Black Hungarians, and the bottom are jalapeños. I actually ended up with more than I have pots for. I'll see if anyone in the office wants some of them.

Corn is finally peeking out, but something has been digging it up and chomping seedlings, too. I shotgunned it, so I can afford the losses. More stuff in a comment to follow