lovely I so wish I had the time for this!!!!

oh lol. not going to share photos this time of year when everything is winding down! Still waiting for the Brussels sprouts to look more like Brussels :) I read that they prefer cold weather and can tolerate a little snow, so perhaps that's when I will be harvesting? Must check and see if the leeks are ready. planted them too close but I had no room. I am taking seeds from my patio plants to see if I can propagate next spring.

@mousemaker do you do planting boxes or are you planting straight in the ground?

in the ground, but the patio has containers of flowers.

Every spring I keep telling myself I'm going to put in boxes and then I forget until it's too late. I've planted in the ground before, which worked just fine in the limited space I had, but I felt like the boxes would make it look a bit more organized? I might be dreaming. :)

one year I thought it would be easier for me to plant in buckets so I tried tomatoes in buckets :) but I had to give up on that and actually plant them. the roots were too long and needed more space. I think plants are better in the ground...kind of the natural environment :)

here's my bike planter, but it's late in the season..

Love it!

That's so creative! Love the way it looks. :)

thank you both :)

I have carrots, corn, green peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers (that didn't work so great - forgot to trellis them until it was too late), watermelons (we shall see if they ripen - supposed to get chilly in the next few days), and pumpkins. Everything's pretty out of control right now as I'm hoping to do some harvesting in the next few days.

Here's a few shots of my garden in the summer. Looking forward to autumn when my 68 young japanese maple collection will hopefully dazzle me with their fall colors. I hope houzzers will like it.
Susan

This year I invested in mulch throughout the garden...front and back and a 14-14-14 osmocote as fertilizer. Here's a few more shots. Sorry guys, can't stop talking when it comes to my garden.

Very beautiful susannarav4.

Oops, meant susanrav4

We established a garden with carrots, lettuce, green onions, tomatoes, et al. Worked it for 2 years. The bugs were horrible ("natural" pesticides are useless) and the water to keep them healthy was astronomical. Used to joke about our $5.00 carrots. When it stopped being "funny", the garden was re-purposed. Only good wishes for those who enjoy it...never again for me.

Here's my version of Mel Bartholomew's square foot garden. Never in the mud and deer proof too!

I planted my first ever veggie garden this year. Look at these cukes I found hiding under the big leaves. I was watching the little yellow flowers and wondering when they'd turn into cucumbers. Then one afternoon I saw some big cucumbers on the ground under the leaves. I started picking them and ended up with 3 three times as many as you see in the photo. And they're HUGE. I gave away a lot of cucumbers and made sweet refrigerator pickles (another first for me) with most of the rest. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks? I'm 71 and still learning!!

My cherry tomatoes should be in next week. I let the cilantro go too long and it turned into seeds. Next year I'll keep a closer eye on it. Some other crops (like the green beans I really wanted) never grew because I seriously underestimated how much space the cukes would need and they took over most of the garden.

Next year I'll know a little more about how to grow veggies. And I'll start earlier.

Containers! Aside from a crape myrtle and a potato tree, everything in my yard is in pots which I can rotate as the seasons change so it always looks fresh and colorful.

kateteacher: love your garden! I like that you mulched the areas between the plant boxes. Looks like you won't get muddy shoes that way.

I planted those for my birthday party last Friday - all 100 of them and it took a while to tie them all to paper bags with apples inside for extra weight :).

Jboncaro,,,this was my first serious year and I got started late too. Was fun figuring out different things. My cukes have just been coming in the last couple of weeks and just yesterday I found a huge armenian hiding way underneath. I have just added on to the raised beds and have fall crops coming up from seed now. I had to put these in the front yard as I had too much shade in the back yard. My landscaper is coming very soon to extend the rock from the south retaining wall on around the rest of the yard and to extend the flower bed out into the yard to kind of camouflage the raised beds.

Forgot to say, the guys will also be trimming the evergreens back drastically. My back can't handle that job anymore and they are way over due for a trim. My giant sunflower finally opened up this week. Didn't have any luck with zucchini,,,will plant way more beans next year, and need to work on a better climbing technique for the squash. Some of the vines split. One 4x4 is full of beets, one sweet potatoes, 2 gretel eggplants are still going, some cherry tomatoes coming, rest pretty well done. Newly planted, lots of lettuce, spinach, kale, collards, swiss chard, brussel sprouts, and watermelon. Someone suggested sticking rose cuttings in a potato to get a new rose started. I did this and put them in a pot on the deck. Wow,,,,they're growing like crazy, but no thorns. lolol I'm growing potatoes. The neighborhood raccoon has visited that pot a couple of times, so am going to have to put a fence around it. Have a table top pepper and eggplant on the deck that I got two years ago and will bring into the sunroom for the winter again. The little eggplants are the size of an egg. Just right for a single person. :)) Put together 3 pots for strawberries and will add a second setup in the spring. Put it on wheels and will see if I can keep it alive in the garage over the winter. I may have to remove the top pot and get a larger bottom pot to get this to work. Have a shelf with grow lights ready to go in the sunroom for getting an early start on seeds in late winter for spring planting. May try to keep some lettuce going over the winter under the grow lights. The attached picture shows the strawberry setup and my temporary "nursery" that I started seeds in until the new beds were added last week. Decided to leave some of the seedlings in them too. Need to thin them out or spread them out. Kind of waiting to make sure everything comes up in the beds. It's all wonderful therapy. Had to leave town a couple of weeks ago and everyone was gone, so the garden didn't get watered on one of our hottest days, but survived. But I've now started looking into a drip system on a timer. Twill see what I figure out, or not.

High planting boxes save your back....

True, smunsing. I haven't had a problem bending over, it's when I have to hold something out in front of me like the trimmers that really does me in. Gotta do those back exercises!! :))

Mousemaker: they say that brusselsprouts , just like Kale need a frost to taste their best before being harvested...

Right now I am growing Kale, lettuce, blackberries and will be planting garlic soon. I will be bringing in my rosemary bush and parsley for the winter. They seem to do well on my back porch where the temperatures get cold but not freezing. Plus I harvest the leaves as I need them during the winter. I am growing a lemon tree as a houseplant and should have ripe lemons soon. I did not realize that the lemons can take months to ripen but the smell of the blossoms is wonderful. I enjoy watching the birds eat the sunflower seeds and the purple coneflowers attract goldfinches.

thank you 60112thave :) I read that too, but the problem is there aren't any stalks yet..just leaves :)

Good on you apoxyroxy. your produce looks gorgeous. Here is Auckland NZ the weather can't really make up its mind swinging from 7 degrees C to 20 degrees during the day. I think it is spring. Anyway all that rain/sun combo allows us to grow very lush tropical gardens. Veges do well but my asian vege shop always does better than I ever could. Hope you enjoy our spring colours.

@apoxyroxy: May I go grocery shopping in your garden? :P

I have a magnolia too! it's beautiful in the spring but the flowers never last long enough..

here's a new question that has nothing to do with this thread :) Should I rip out all of my hard work in the front yard and do it all over? :)

HI - sorry didn't put all the right pics up. Anyway to your question "what grows in our gardens here" Magnolias do really well, all the different varieties of broms, huge agaves all along the pool, camellias do well and I have alot of nz natives - Kauri, rerenga lilies, golden totara, flax, karaka, kowhai and of course all the ferns - hen & chicken, ponga. All the palm varieties thrive too. The coprosma foliage is really beautiful. I used to plant alot of salad greens, and most other veges but the shop down the road is awesome and much cheaper actually so I just keep a few silverbeet and rubarb now. It is very cool to see gardens from other parts of the world. thanks for the opportunity.

The gardens pretty

Here is a great top ten list.