Who likes to garden? What do you grow? What resources do you use? Any useful tips?

I let my yard go wild last year, but this year and looking to actually do some landscaping and gardening!

I have a 20 foot by 30 foot garden patch in the backyard, which already has some mature asparagus and a grape vine on it. So I'm thinking I'll grow some more veggies and maybe fruits back there. Definitely lots of herbs!

And then I have a volunteer sunburst maple growing near my porch which I want to move to a spot in my front yard!

And I have a bed in the middle of my backyard which is too crowded with 3 rose bushes and a bunch of lillies, so I want to move the roses and probably get rid of the lillies. And also maybe get rid of my peonies because of ants. I also want to plant some shrub-type things. Maybe more hostas.

What are you growing or doing this year?

I need to decide if I want to till up the yard for a garden patch, but I'll very likely be doing some veggies in pots on the balcony! Right now I'd like to do tomatoes, green beans, peppers, maybe some herbs, fodder for my bunny, and possibly zucchini.

I gave it my first attempt last year with tomatoes, broccoli, cucumbers and zucchini. I only had my plants in square planters on the deck but they did pretty well. You definitely can't water the cucumbers enough haha. This year I'd like to do some herbs in the mix. I thought about watermelon and strawberries but I'll have to see if I have enough room. Watermelon need a sandier soil too so that would take up a whole planter alone. 

We have some tulips that are starting to come up and they're really pretty as the first colors of spring. I put some in a vase for inside and it's neat to watch them grow. Still have no idea what colors I'll have since we had a bag of mixed colors haha.

I also maintained some hanging and potted plants around the house, we had a mixture of different plants based on their sun/shade exposure. Geraniums are a favorite of my mom's and we had quite a few marigolds, some from last year since they're perennials. We also had impatiens, snapdragons, hydrangea and a rose bush. I'm going to attempt to take better care of the rose bush this year since it's been pretty neglected. It's all new to me though so I'm learning as I go haha.

I was outside for a while today and realized I probably shouldn't do pots on the balcony. There's a dead or dying tree not far from the house that is constantly dropping huge sticks alllll over, including on the balcony. I think I'm going to have Jimmy build a raised bed to put in an area of the yard that doesn't get any fallen sticks in it.

I can't do outdoor gardening since I live in a rented apartment, but.... I do have plans for a carnivorous plant terrarium and am tending to my African violets. Does that count? XD

I've got an African Violet in my room too that I forgot about. My sister got it for me a year ago I think and I've managed to keep it alive.

Love African Violets! I have one at my grandma's because she is the official caretaker of all of my plants that didn't (or barely) survived my house. She also still has my aloe plant which is thriving at her house.

I had a 10 X 15 or so plot last year at a community garden and will have it again this year. Last year I had lots of tomatos cause you can never have too many, patty pan squash, bell peppers, habaneros, poblano, jalepeno, spaghetti squash, zuchhini, cucumbers, eggplant and lettuce.

I quickly learned that two zuchhini plants would be more than sufficent for two people unless you LOVE zuchhini, like want to eat it every day. We had 4 and I just about gave up on them. Patty pans are similar to the zuchini in that they produce a lot so if I repeat it would only be with 1 or 2 plants. I will have roughly the same number of tomato plants again but with 1 less cherry sized one because even if I can't eat them all I can always make sauce which was fabulous frozen over the winter. I won't repeat eggplant, they're a little finicky and need really hot summers which ours just wasn't last year so I only ended up with 1 under developed fruit from 4 plants. The spaghetti squash was great, will likely repeat. They store well so had several nice squash dinners throughout the fall and early winter. Peppers were all good, used the habaneros to make a hot sauce and the rest got used in various recipes, might add more pepper plants cause the bells didn't give as much as I would've liked. Not sure about repeating the cucumbers cause there just wasn't enough ways for me to use them and I only like them sparingly like in a salad....

The lettuce was nice but they're pretty much a spring veggie unless you're harvesting frequently so they don't bolt and go bitter. We didn't eat quite enough salad to justify 6 heads but they were very tasty while they were still good.

At home is where I grow most of my herbs like chive, rosemary, thmye, basil, etc. but this year I'm thinking in place of say the eggplant doing a whole row of basil and harvesting all at once to make a giant batch of freezer pesto.