OOOO boy! I am very excited this year. I got my raised garden beds and I am thrilled with them so far. No more bending or crawling around on the ground. (except for the rose garden, no way to get around that I guess) I am excited for ALL of it. I ordered green bean seeds and got a free pack of Armenian cucumber seeds. I am not gonna plant those though. I do not know anything about them other than they are a melon, not a cucumber. I also ordered purple and pink and yellow seed potatoes. I am excited to attempt broccoli and cabbage for the first time. Usually I only grow tomatoes and bell peppers in containers, and I will do that as well. I like to grow all different colors of tomatoes. Oh, and lettuce, I have a couple lettuce varieties to plant. I really just do this for fun. My sister has a small farm and will have enough produce to feed her family and probably 6 more families for the year. So I do not grow what I know I am getting from her. Things like corn, purple hull peas, onions and a few others I will take off her hands, so no need to grow them.

I am also excited to plant 2 pawpaw trees that I ordered on a whim. And I might snap up a peach tree or two.

I hate celery but if I found pink celery I would choke it down on principle......

I tried growing celery once, had to mail order the seed since it's never sold locally here. I did not get it to grow so there is a reason the seed is nowhere to be found, not even at feed & seed stores.....and never a year goes by where I escape propping up corn, several times.

FWIW, I grow cutting/leaf celery, since it's a lot easier to grow than stalk celery, and I mainly use it in cooking for the flavor anyway. It also produces tons of seeds. I got mine from Pinetree.

I'm excited about my Tomande tomatoes. I have a handful of plants right now and fruits are beginning to ripen. I also have a few more seeds started. They are hands down the best tasting tomatoes I've ever grown, and highly resistant to the diseases & pests plaguing us here.

Also several Earthboxes of salad greens from Pinetree - their 'wild' lettuce mix, mild mesclun - & mild mustards, which are going gangbusters.

I am yearning to buy a plum tree, but so far have been hesitant, since I'm not sure where I'd put it.

Elizabeth, I have rose seeds too.

I just ordered 2 plum trees, a negronne fig tree, and a Neil Diamond rose. The rose is for my rose garden at work, I lost 2 roses a couple years ago and gave the soil a rest, so now its time to replace them. I am only going to plant one though. I have Neil Diamond roses at home and really love them, so I hope it does well in my work garden as well.

I am excited for these trees to grow. However, I am NOT excited at the prospect of digging holes for 5 fruit trees. Well, 5 and counting...............

I got some tulips from a friend, but the ground soon froze after I got them. The ones in the ground are starting to come up already so I have to get these in the ground soon. The ground has been frozen, but temps were in the low 60s yesterday so maybe next week I can plant them.

Physical limitations keep my gardening to small projects, but I'm looking forward to seeing my bean arch covered with pole beans this year. I always grow some Kentucky Wonders, and this year I bought Hilda, a flat Romano type that I've never grown, and Fortex--an uninspired name for a great French filet variety.

I was also excited to find seeds for Honeynut winter squash. A cross between Butternut and Buttercup (my favorite), it looks like a small Butternut. I bought one a couple of years ago, roasted it, and have wanted more ever since.

Seeds are so expensive this year!

I'm going to try again to grow chocolate Habanero chilies. I tried last year, and my seedlings died in the heat, and so I'm going to be more careful this year.

Thanks for the reminder, as I need to get these started right away. I should have done this earlier this week, to take advantage of the heat we are having. It was 90° yesterday, and that would have been good for getting the seeds to germinate. It will only be in the 80s for the rest of the week.

I planted parsley, Shasta Daisy & Hollyhocks.....indoors....and the kittens chewed them up, spit them out! ♥ New sprouts are coming up. The 140 tulips I got in the ground last November. 11F today, 1" new snow. I did mulch in the roses this year....I forgot to do it last year.

I grew the pink celery from Baker Creek several years ago, plus regular green celery from a local nursery. Both varieties were too strongly flavored for me to enjoy and I ended up giving them away once harvested.

New to me this season (tomato varieties): Mountain Magic, Sun Orange Hybrid, Wherokowhai dwarf and Legs Diamond. There will also be another fifty or so varieties.

I've only started my geraniums (pelargoniums) so far and they're off to a great start. I'll start my peppers this weekend. I'm growing bullnose peppers again. They're basically small bell peppers and pretty prolific. Tomatoes will be the next to get started, but I haven't narrowed it down yet.

Alisande, I grew Honeynut last year and baked the last one yesterday. I got a weird cross between a Butternut and spaghetti squash too, baked a bunch yesterday for the dogs. I still have a few left. I can't believe they've lasted this long. I gave away most of the normal spaghetti squash to a coworker. I probably won't grow them again.

Did an experiment last year and dug up a bell pepper, two eggplant and two tomato plants and brought them inside. I got two bell peppers and no eggplants because it takes so long for them to produce anything. All plants are still alive and I've been cutting them back every couple weeks. It's almost time to start seedlings!

Oh yum - I've had Honeynut squash from Trader Joe's and they were so good!

I've had Fortex beans too - they were enormous and delicious, but when I tried growing them they didn't do very well. I stick to Rattlesnake pole beans now, delicious and prolific.

I also need to start some sugar snap peas soon. I've been procrastinating...

Carol, I'm a Rattlesnake fan too. I did okay with them, but the catalogs always say they don't do well in the north. So I figured I'd give Fortex another shot. They weren't as prolific as Kentucky Wonders for me, but so much depends on the conditions each year. We'll see.

I will grow some arugula, parsley and cilantro. Bought some swiss chard seeds to try also. I will plant some butternut squash (I also still have 2 still in the cool, dry basement from last season) and yellow summer squash. I have a 3 year old mini sweet pepper plant that I grew from seeds from the grocery peppers (I was surprised that they grew and produce, b/c I thought they would be a sterile hybrid). It winters inside with my dwarf citrus and is blooming now.

Pretty much any other produce - like corn- is consumed by the ravenous wildlife, so I don't bother anymore. It is all I can do to keep the dwarf fruit trees, blueberries, and grape netted enough that I can harvest some! I have a native plum tree that produces a ton of fruit, and I don't protect it - as soon as the plums are ripening, they will all disappear in one or 2 nights.

I’ve learned there are certain things that are not worth my time, trouble and garden space because of our heat and humidity. I pretty much stick to things that do well here and dont exprriment as much as I once did. I do try a different tomato or pepper variety occasionally since the seed companies usually send me something free. Also, I stick to well-known varieties that do well (and taste good) here like rattlesnake beans for example.

Speaking of peas, I ordered Magnolia Blossom Tendril peas. Apparently it has many more tendrils than normla peas and you can eat them. I still have a ton of green bean seeds but ended up getting some pretty purple poded ones so they're easier to see on the vines.

I did my planting yesterday and finally opened up the package that I had ordered with Chocolate Habanero seeds. I had ordered two packets because I already knew that they contain very few seeds, and they seemed especially sparse this year. I did not get more than 20 seeds in one packet, and so I was glad that I had ordered two packets.

I had also ordered some lemongrass seeds, and they gave me tons of those - much more than I wanted - and they also included a packet of Wasabi (Japanese daikon radish) seeds, and so I planted some of those as well. I will be very happy if those grow, as I am not sure that I have ever had true wasabi. In general, horseradish is passed off as wasabi, as it is more stable. Supposedly, the flavor of wasabi dissipates rather quickly after it has been harvested or cut.

20 habanero seeds seem like more than enough to me. How many plants do you usually grow, Lars?

I'm trying celery for the first time. Started them two days ago after reading up on the subject and found out if you don't cover the stocks with news paper (they call it blanching) three weeks before harvest the stocks will be strong and bitter.

Carol, I typically plant two seeds in each container, and then only one is allowed to grow. That reduces the number of possible plants to 10. Of those, perhaps only half will make strong plants, meaning that I will only have five good plants. That is the minimum number of large plants I will need in order to make a sufficient quantity of my chocolate Habanero sauce, as I only make it once a year, typically in December - to give as Christmas presents.

Last year, I planted more than 20 seeds and got zero plants. I am not a good farmer.

I am hoping that if I get some good plants this year that I will be able to plant some in the ground, as they outgrow their pots (and I use huge pots) rather quickly - by the end of the year anyway.

If I can get some established in the ground, then I might be able to get some plants that will produce through much of the year. My main harvest is usually in December, but the plants continue to make a fair number of chilies in January and the beginning of February. I've seen 8' tall chili plants in my neighborhood, and so I'm hoping that my soil will be good enough to grow them in the ground. I will experiment with both back and front yards. I will need to use a fair amount of snail/slug bait, as slugs love the chili plants.

Chocolate Habanero chili plants are very difficult to grow, and it is especially difficult to get them started. Once they are started, they are easy, however. You may have noticed that you never see these chilies in the grocery store, and I only very rarely see them at farmers' markets. They do not keep more than a few days after they have been picked, and so when I have a few extra, I put them in the dehydrator to preserve them, if I do not have enough to make a chili sauce. The flavor they have is worth the effort - they are extremely different from regular Habanero chilies.

Do you start your seeds in seed starting mix and transplant, or sow them directly?

FWIW, I grew 1 chocolate habanero plant years ago and it got to be about 3' and produced a lot of fruits - way more than we needed actually, since they're so dang hot. IMPE, chiles and heirloom types of peppers can get pretty big and need lots of room for their roots. I grew them in recycled 18" nursery pots and larger.

Sadly, I haven't had any luck with any types of peppers for a number of years now because of chili thrips ☹️

I really miss growing peppers and chiles - one of my faves was pasillas. They have the chocolate color, but not as much heat as habs.

It sounds like you got lucky with your plants.

Here is one of my from December 2016:

Thrips can be very problematic, and I know people who have had them in the San Francisco area, but fortunately I have not. It takes some strong chemicals to kill them, I think. You don't want them on your orchids.

I buy pasilla chilies in the grocery store - they are easy to find here, especially at Cárdenas Market, which specializes in Mexican grocery items. If they were expensive, I might try to grow them myself.

Chocolate Habanero chilies are a bit hotter than regular Habanero chilies, but I grill/smoke them with red bell pepper (and garlic) to thin them out a bit. Still, I like not having to use very much of the sauce at a time.

I wonder if anyone has grown the Japanese Wasabi Radish [Rhaphanus sativus]. I'm not even sure that it is real wasabi. The packet says that it matures in 60 days, is frost hardy (don't care about that), and the ideal temperature is 50-75°, which will be fine for my house in L.A. but too cold for Cathedral City, which is where I am now. I hope the seeds won't get too hot here, as I put them in the same tray as the chilies, which need a lot of heat to germinate. I doubt these radishes will really taste like wasabi, but it's worth a try. I like daikon radishes okay, but certainly not enough to grow them. I think I should be growing these in the winter.

Oh hey - forgot to mention that I tried growing pink celery one year and it had thin, very strong tasting, kind of tough stalks, which may have been due to growing conditions here.

I was so not going to bother, again, this year that I made myself get motivated. I invited two people I work with (who have been here for years and we've talked gardens for years) over in May for a garden party. I don't do parties. I don't invite coworkers to my home. I want to make sure I am making it beautiful. If I don't start now, I won't have annuals. Again. I want to, so that's how I am doing it this year!

;)

thanks for the swift kick in my rear, truly.

I wish there was something I am excited to grow this year, but the truth is, I'm totally demoralized by rabbits eating so many things regardless of fences and repellents, it is hard to get in the spirit. Last year chipmonks dug up seedbeds after planting which didn't give the rabbits much to look forward to.

I hope to grow romanesco again this year. Last year the chipmonks dug up the seedlings and ruined them. The year before the plants grew really well but didn't make heads.

I've got two boxes of seeds too- I use 10 pound tomato totes :) And 4 popcorn boxes as well! The totes are for eating seeds, the popcorn boxes for flower seeds. I sort the flower seeds into weeks to start, so this week I get to start working on the 12-10 week box. The longest maturing pepper, some onions, and some greens for early coldframe eating will get started in the next week or so too. I've cut back on the microgreens boxes to start making space for the seeds to come :)

I've grown pink celery in the past. It's an interesting celery, but more of a novelty. I've done other celery that was better. I grow lovage and am trying cutting celery this year.

I've grown wasabi radish- and no, it's not true wasabi. Radishes and wasabi are different plants. It is a nice radish- it's not as close to wasabi as the horseradish often used in the states to make wasabi paste. But it has more of that profile than many other radishes do, and it does grate up beautifully to get that true wasabi root texture instead of the paste. I grow a few different radishes that we like. I phased out helios and rat-tail, and put in the wasabi and an easter egg mix :) I also grow daikon and a german beer radish, but this year no big stuff like that.

This year I'm trying to keep the gardens smaller. I'm putting in new raised beds (wattle hugelkultur) and building an apiary yard and enclosing an old riding rink junkpole style out back this year. I've got a lot of willow for grooming that starts in a week or so once the snow gows down enough that I can get out and start cutting.