What's going on in your garden (2018-2022)?

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Herbaceous said:
We’re expecting frost pretty much any day now, so husband (at my behest) pulled up all the tomato plants from the garden and put away the tomato cages. He put away the hoses, drained the outside water line, etc. There’s still plenty of work to do to get the garden ready for winter but it’s a start.

My dad came by earlier this week and planted some milkweed and russian sage in my useless front yard dirt patch; hope they survive the winter and we get milkweed next summer for the monarch butterflies!
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Um, what is milkweed in Canada. In Texas it is an invasive weed that we try hard to prevent from growing in our yards.

CD
 
caseydog said:
Um, what is milkweed in Canada. In Texas it is an invasive weed that we try hard to prevent from growing in our yards.

CD
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We have it here for the monarchs. It was nearly wiped out, so they (the butterfly people) asked people to start planting it again. I have a bunch in my back yard. They’ll even send you the seed for free if you want it.

You do have to control it, though. You have a dozen or so one year, and the next year, that stuff is popping up all over the place.
 
TastyReuben said:
We have it here for the monarchs. It was nearly wiped out, so they (the butterfly people) asked people to start planting it again. I have a bunch in my back yard. They’ll even send you the seed for free if you want it.

You do have to control it, though. You have a dozen or so one year, and the next year, that stuff is popping up all over the place.
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We don't plant it, here. It just grows out of the ground, and it will grow ANYWHERE. It even grows from the expansion joints in the driveway.

I did an internet image search on milkweed, and what I found doesn't look like what we call milkweed here. Half of the images had butterflies in them, too. I'll have to see if I can find some in my yard, and take a picture of it.

BTW, it is called milkweed here because when you cut or tear it, a milky white liquid comes out.

CD
 
caseydog said:
I did an internet image search on milkweed, and what I found doesn't look like what we call milkweed here. Half of the images had butterflies in them, too. I'll have to see if I can find some in my yard, and take a picture of it.
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Milkweed isn't a specific plant, it is a classification of plants, so there are many types of milkweed, just add there are many types of orchids for example.

Twelve Native Milkweeds for Monarchs • The National Wildlife Federation Blog
Milkweed for Monarchs
 
Milkweed from today's walk in the park:

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Milkweed is a group of plants. They used to be thought of as a weed (hence the name), but now we are being encouraged to grow it.

Milkweeds are native here (Ontario, Canada) so while they can be prolific, they aren’t invasive. Common milkweed is the host plant for monarch butterflies. It is the only plant that the caterpillars eat. Monarchs have recently been declared endangered so I want to help out by providing them a bit of habitat.

I also planted some butterfly milkweed in my garden this year in the spring- it has beautiful orange flowers. I’m trying to gradually turn my yard into a pollinator- friendly native plant paradise!
 
Yesterday we had glorious sunshine, today rain and blustery wind, it blew so hard the trees lost a lot of their leaves in 1 gust.
 
With lots of red berries in my veg plot I needed to get the fencing sorted out. I had previously had shade cloth over the veg plot because the UV is often very high especially in summer and ever early morning can hit UV 10 or more. But the shade cloth had failed during the freak thunderstorm we had on boxing day last Christmas buckling under the weight of the hail which hadn't still melted by the following day!
And I needed to fully enclose the veg plot in a manner that allowed me to stand up rather than crawl on hands and knees...

A poly tunnel would be the ideal solution but would get too hot in summer and you can't leave things open because native wildlife (possums, kangaroo, wombats, cockatoo, Rosellas, galahs etc) all really enjoy a munch on the veg & fruit. So after losing almost the entire seasons garlic and leeks, I took matters into my own hands and constructed this. I had the fencing already, and the shade cloth & the bird netting...

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The bird netting end faces east so only gets the early morning sun. By the time the sun gets up and hot, it has moved far enough round that the shade cloth shades the stuff under the bird netting, so protecting it. There is great ventilation and only the small (useful) birds can get in to the veg plot to eat caterpillars and the likes.

I've had my first snow peas and strawberries already. The sorrell is taking over and a few heads of garlic that survived the cockatoo invasion earlier in the spring are ripening nicely. Hopefully I'll get a good courgette and squash crop before long .

I'll be doing the 2 fruit trees in a similar manner in the next few days, weather permitting.
 
^^I also love broccoli and could eat it every day. I’ve never tried to grow it, though. Maybe I’ll give it a try next year.
 
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