With luck I'm going to have a couple of pictures attached ... I've seen this plant before in faux settings but not the live plant.  It's in a "philodendron" (pothos) that I got left from my mother.


And on that note, on the same stand where that plant was (it's outside now) I have:

• a prayer plant  (Maranta leucoreura),
  
• a Mexican Ivy  (but it's not the Bell and saucer),
  
• a spider plant  (Chlorophytum comosum, airplane plant)
  
• a scheffelera  (Schefflera arboricola, dwarf[??] umbrella plant)
  
• a strawberry that's given me two small berries - and it badly needs to get transplanted.
  
• a green pothos (outside now)
  
• a varigated pothos ( ditto )
  

Since I'm talking about plants and gardening, in the garden I have:

• 4 Hokkaido Watermelons
  
• 4 cucumbers
  
• 1 green sweet pepper
  
• 1 yellow sweet pepper
  
• a row of green beans
  
• a row of radishes
  
• a row of peas
  
• a row of onions (uh, from seed ...??)
  
• a row of baby carrots (for the dogs, of course!)
  

There's got to be more and I'll be putting in more as I locate appropriate (heritage) seeds.

Try Fedco seeds - its a cooperative up in Maine - their prices are great, and their catalogue is a stitch to read.

I'm studying your picture - can't make it out yet.

I just got a catalog - "Seeds from Italy". Beautiful pictures, lots of Italian heirlooms, pricey.

Two years ago, I grew the most wonderful cucumbers - "Burpees Burpless" They almost never made it out of the garden (especially if Josh was around ) The seeds are hard to find - they are being discontinued, I think. I did pick up some, at Lowes, I think. A thin skin variety.

I try watermelons. Not enough heat and too much shade. Wayne wants to have a spot in the garden this year so when his stuff is thwarted by the shade, maybe then he will cut down those trees. One of them, I actually tried to kill - 12" wide girdle and roundup to the cut edges. Two years later the damn thing still puts out leaves in 1 quadrant A chain saw is one of the few things I won't mess with. Husband is the more careful, methodical sort so he's safe. Me? Somewhere between Calamity Jane and I Love Lucy. Good to know one's limits.

Al - you seemed to be familiar with the Horse rototiller - any hints? We are putting a bumper on it. One of my concerns is that our soil is very rocky - I have outlined 50' long, 3 ft wide beds - the outline is all the rocks I've pulled out in places. Will I kill the Horse with all the rocks?

I want to grow onions from seed - saw some pictures of Ailsa Craig. And, several years ago, looking at some lake property, the fellow had a row of onions along his garage. HUGE. Bigger than softballs. It's become a quest but every year, something derails my garden (Wayne's Mom terminally ill and dying, my neuro problems, my gut things, Josh's wedding...this year, it had better not be my damn knee.

What do you do for water down there?

More or less backwards:

18,000 gallons of rainwater - if I need it, we've had more rain so far this year than we've gotten all year long over the last couple.  (( I know Californian's are gonna hate on me for that ... ))  My garden plot sets over the septic tank and the outlet from the tank is only a few yards away so I should also get some water from the overflow.  (Much better than one fellow down here who doesn't have a septic tank and directs the outflow right onto his garden! )

I've grown onions from sets before, this is my first year to try them from seed. Gonna see what I end up with,  I much prefer the sweet onion to the hot variety and I'm not sure what these are ... oh well!

I've looked at the tiller you have and while I've used the old "beat you to death" kind (wheels in the rear) I haven't used one like the Horse.  My inclination would be that heavy rocks aren't going to do you or it any favours.  The ones I've used (NY,IL,CA desert) would end up stopping when they hit a big rock; I've seen a couple of bent cranks ... if I were in your shoes, I'd see if I could get a tractor with a plow / disk to go over it the first time you went to use it that way you could walk it and get most of the bigger rocks out.

Cucumbers - take a look at Burpees Burpless.  I've ordered from Burpee before but for some reason they seem high - - but I guess you get what you pay for.  I've been ordering from JohnySeed in Maine, mostly because that's where I can get the best price on the agra cloth.

My watermelons are a row over from the cukes - should make a good mess when it comes time to get one or the other out of the garden.  I'm hoping I can get enough of the Hokkaido Melons to sell.  At $199.00 a pop I could make a penny or three from them ((now who in their right mind is going to pay two hundred dollars for one watermelon??  It'd better be real good with a gold heart!! ))  At least I have the sunshine to grow them if I can keep them watered enough to grow.  When we lived on the desert out by Fontana, CA they grew watermelons and cantaloupe out there with no extra water, so I'm hoping I can do something with them here.

I've had a couple of groups on the net looking at that picture ... no one knows what it is!  It appears to be similar to a small bamboo but it's not hollow and prefers to be dry rather than overly wet....

Fedco ... gonna go look now; I could use a laugh ... after I go kill the mouse / rat who dug up my bean seeds!!  Wonder what I have left in there??

How do you know when onions are ready to be pulled up? Mine are in the ground for like 2 years now, lol. They have pretty blooms so I leave them there

I can't tell what that plant is but...I love your Jeep!!! I want one

It's really odd Jimmy, but if you wait to see the flowers - well, you're too late! You're right though, they do have a pretty flower - and some tiny little seeds!!

uh, ya can't have the Jeep!! I seldom go off road - but living where I do, most of you all would say that I seldom do on road!! For most of the year we're hot and dry and the roads are solid; for the other couple of months it's rain and the roads literally become like rivers! I've yet to take the Jeep out when the water's up, but I have taken it mudding a couple of times ....

Lol Al, that's what I thought ...it's cool though because I like them as a plant too. I havnt seen anything sprout from any seeds it may have dropped though, I must need to harvest them? I'm like you in that I don't like the hot onions, I think these are the Vidalia white onions but to be honest, I'm not sure...it's been a couple years

Haha, my neighbor has one pretty much identical to yours...red with the tan colored hard top, I keep waiting for him to put a for sale sign on it, haha. But now his son is of driving age so I don't think its gonna happen. . The muddling sounds awesome!

Ugh...onions. They will take over if you let them. I've been trying to eradicate mine. Kinda depends on the breed as to when to pull them but my mom usually waits until they look a little droopy and you can see light color around the base and then yank them. I'm more the pull-one-and-see type.

TwisterII wrote:

Ugh...onions. They will take over if you let them. I've been trying to eradicate mine. Kinda depends on the breed as to when to pull them but my mom usually waits until they look a little droopy and you can see light color around the base and then yank them. I'm more the pull-one-and-see type.

I like the little surprise volunteers - I snack on them when I find them. Which is why, when I first started having my gut problems my first thought was F*#@ - I got worms from the garden...

And the flowers from onions - Al is correct. The garlic put out flower stems - scapes, too - you're supposed to cut them off so all the energy goes into the bulb. But I find them magnificent - and it is so exciting - they start out straight, then they curl a couple of times and one morning...BAM! They've all stood up straight and they are over my head! The bonus is, you can replant these and 2-3 years later get full size garlic out of them. Or 4-5 years if your soil/sun is suboptimal,

Al - thanks for the tips on the tiller.  I don't think realistically, we can get a plow back there at this point.  I have some permanent beds with rhubarb, blueberries, raspberries and a grape vine.  Plus the overwinter garlic.  Not to mention the big ole stupid ash tree I'm trying to kill right smack in the middle of the whole thing Plus - the rocks are numerous but mostly smaller broken pieces of shale.

What kind of watermelons get that kind of money   SOunds like 18K to me.

I like Johnny's seeds, too. And their catalog is stuffed with good growing info! The Burpee cucumber seeds I originally picked up from either Tractor Supply or Walmart so they were marked down compared to their catalog.

The Italian seed co is available on line growitalian.com

So if the onion blooms, the onion goes bad or something? I realize mine will be since they're a couple years old, lol, but in general the blooms come up and...it rots the onion?

the onion becomes really soft, not exactly rot. Are you sure yours is culinary onion? There are tons of ornamental alliums...

Ami, considering that you probably have quite a few folks up there who have snowblowers on their "garden tractors" and I know they make a small 2 / 3 gang plow for the "garden Kubota", isn't there anyone who would have one to make a pass through there?  
Picturing what you have in place already, a garden tractor would seem a good first pass over something up there that hasn't been worked for a few years (or more).  In the other hand, if you're talking about rocks that are, let's say, roughly fist sized the tiller should handle them, you might hear it kick them up / out (watch your knees).  When someone up there say "rocks" I think in terms of something that weighs in at 300 - 500 pounds, not 20.

Up home we have houses and fences and barns made from the "rocks" that were pulled out of the "fields". The original name of Plessis (my home town) was "Flat Rock" if that gives you any idea of what I'm talking about. Aren't you at the lower edge of where the Ice Age ice caps dropped a lot of its load??

Yup, right between Seneca and Keuka. At the top of the plateau (which is why we are always colder than anyone else around. And why, when our ground is covered in snow and freezing, I go downtown with snow boots, mittens, hat, neck gaiter, winter jacket...and everyone else is looking at daffodils in bloom and dressed in light fleece jackets and look at me as if I'm from outer space ) And yes - our lakes were formed by the galciers. And are still that cold!

Most of the rocks are fist-sized or smaller. There is one I blithely thought I could get out with my fork (now irrevocably bent) and proved to be...bigger than a breadbox. Much bigger. I gave up and moved that bed 4 ft south of where I had planned. After I worked on it for days, I dragged hubby and son up there. Their response? No f*#@ way. They have no vision...

Husband is cleaning, waxing, oiling etc the tiller. Now he wants new instruction decals for it. This better not be another thing I won't use because he makes it a museum piece

amymeme wrote:

the onion becomes really soft, not exactly rot.  Are you sure yours is culinary onion?  There are tons of ornamental alliums...

Pretty sure it's not an ornamental Am you, I remember buying it in the vegetable section along with some tomato plants. Could be chives or green onions though...I remember buying Vidalia but I also remember finding them dug up so if that's the case, they would have been in the backyard and the ones I'm talking about are in the front along a dry stream/river that I put there. I eat onions with practically everything so I thought it'd be cool to grow my own, I just have to pay more attention to them I guess. I think the tag said a maturity at 80 days or something like that, I'll just keep track of the days with the next ones I buy. These ones though look cool where they are so ill just leave them not like I can eat them anymore anyways, lol