I agree soil is very important. We use horse poo in the gardens. It works fabulously! . . .

I missed the time frame for garlic. Why not try putting some in the frozen ground now?

Welp, it's starting. I killed my first caterpillar last night. Not looking forward to finding more of those nasty squishy buggers.

No idea why...but caterpillars kinda freak me out...maybe bc they're so squishy...?

Well I finally got a bloom on my passiflora! Whoopee!!!! I cannot tell you how happy I am. We got these two vines last year with flowers and fruit. They never flowered again since then until now. All the flower buds were coming up empty.

And I bought a bag of Christopher Ranch garlic at the market and a few cloves were sprouting. I put about 10 of them in the garden and at least 4 of them are growing with the greens about 2-3" high now. I thought I missed the timing for garlic but guess not!

Also finally got two tiny tomatoes coming in. One about a small pearl, the other about a golf ball.

The winds are really bad here now though. Shis**to and eggplant are ripped to shreds and I put clear covers on them. The eggplant started to come back but now stopped. Also the winds ripped up my long beans, so I will try to germinate some more indoors.

I flipping HATE caterpillars! I don't even get plants that say "attracts butterflies" bc I don't want them coming here and laying their eggs. I totally hate how when they see you coming they totally stop and freeze like "Don't move and she won't see us!"

I love Passiflora/Passion Flower vine, and they are quite popular here. Show us a pic of yours. The blossoms are so exotic and look like an intricate fake plastic flower. Too bad the blossoms don't last long. My fav is the purple passion/non-fruit one, although my big one finally died last year. I used to have these in Arizona too. I used to love a Snail Vine in AZ too, and can't get that here.

My current Spring blossoms are shell ginger, pink and red ginger, rostrata heliconia, hibiscus magenta and fiesta orange, and coming soon giant red Caribe heliconia, and my Plumeria trees are getting leaves and blossoms back after 4 months of being naked. Then I have a long planter on the patio full of bedding plants that are more common flowers you would recognize. Oh and best of all, my avocado tree is absolutely loaded with lil babies. It's going to be a great avo season by late August through December. Can't wait! Love avos and hate to pay for them when I have more than I can use or give away for half the year.

We should all share pics of what's growing in our neck of the woods.:D

My biggest pest prob here is slugs and giant snails. I really don't like to use slug killer, even the kind that says it is safe around pets.

Mine is the white "halo" and purple middle. The one bloom I got is on the very tip, which has grown on top of our patio now. The only way to see it is thru the window that doesn't open. And it's dirty from rain. I don't know how we are going to clean that window. LOL. Hopefully I'll get more blooms and then I can share pics.

I got a hunk of ginger starting to sprout so I will plant that one as a houseplant.

Just found out about the tacca flower or black bat flower. I love it! I have emailed a grower to ask if it would do well as a houseplant here. I know outside it would be much to dry. I love the black and the white one.

We have snail vines here also. Bf thought about getting a few but we are having luck with cat's claw and Boston ivy so we stuck with those.

Oh yeah and my Meyer lemon bush is finally starting to get in lemons! The blooms fell off weeks ago but the didn't start swelling into fruit till now. My lime bush hasn't started fruiting yet. It also lost it flowers a few weeks ago.

Dude what gives? My passiflora bloom was open for two days and last night it closed back up. I thought maybe it closed at night, or bc it was so windy, but today it's still closed. Not all the way but enough so I can't see it anymore.

Yep, that's about it. They go away quickly :(

The blooms that were on it last year lasted for weeks and then developed into fruit. :(

I need some gardening help, peeps.

I'm doing some container flowers (some annuals/some perennials) and have never really done much of that before. I have some hibiscus, bougainvillea...and then for annuals I have some salvia, petunias etcetera.

How do you know when to "dead head" the annual flowers?

How often do you fertilize your container perennial flowers (like hibiscus and bougainvillea) and what do you use/recommend? I just bought this .

Realizing every climate/area is different....how often do you water your annual flowers and container perennials....especially for those of you in a very dry climate like me (Phoenix, AZ...the desert)...?

Since I live in a climate similar to you, I'll share what we do. We have been having great success with our non edibles. My garden is surprisingly doing well this year. Last year was terrible. Once it gets really hot, we water every morning. We have a drip system. Now we are still doing every other day.

Annuals I don't really do anything, since they are going to die at the end of the season anyway. Once they get really big I will cut some to bring indoors and put in a vase.

Any fertilizer that is specifically for that kind of plant will work. I had just used up my generic Miracle Grow and it was fine. I'm sure you could look up what type of soil ph those plants like. I don't have hibiscus or bouganvilla here.

The plants that are doing really well for us here are cat claw vine, boston ivy, silk tree, chilean mesquite, desert museum, fire bells, pink chitalpa. These have exploded the last few weeks. The ones that are kind of hanging in there and fighting a good fight are purple wisteria and queen's wreath. The mesquite and desert museum grow like weeds and are great big shade trees.

How fun that your garden is doing so awesome this year! I love seeing flourishing plants around me....just feels good somehow.

Do you fertilize on a regular basis...if so, how often?

I grew some salvia / celosia and it's looking like utter crap and I don't know why. They're in pots...I must be over-or-under-watering or something. Darn it.