2023 experiments

So every year I like to try my hand at a few experiments in the garden

Early on, that meant expanding into varieties of flowers known to be great cut flowers, that I hadn’t yet grown. Like the Queen Lime or Zinderella varieties of zinnia.

And some years it’s growing a variety in a new way — like my dahlias in feed sacks that I shared with you last month.

Probably the most interesting (at least so far) is growing a plant variety that is not known to be a great cut flower or one I’ve never seen/heard of being used for floral design — like I did with sesame and shisho.

I love knowing that with each new year, with every cutting season in the garden, I’m able to tinker around and expand my growing skills. And since I spend a lot of time out there on my own, I like growing a few odd ball things just for me to marvel at. It’s like growing my own little personal friends in the garden (does that sound weird?).

Honestly, my annual “experiments” are veering away from being cut flower trials and more ‘just because I can and I want to’ trials.

So what do I have on tap for the 2023 growing season? I’m glad you asked ;-)

Squashes.

In particular, decorative pumpkins and gourds. I’ve grown a few of the mini pumpkins with moderate success back in ((that one year that shall remain nameless)). I say moderate because they went largely ignored because they went gangbusters as squash vines will do. And the horrid, ugly and surprisingly stinky squash bugs found them and built a colony.

So this year, I’m planning to start them in the greenhouse and then transplant them out…into the farm…and not the garden!

We have a long driveway at the entrance to the farm. It has two 6-foot-ish strips of “grass” on either side of the drive. Which means it’s mostly weeds come high summer. It’s also what I call my greyhounds “Poop Alley” if you catch my drift.

I’ve wanted to do a perennial planting of shrubs or roses but I’m still working on convincing Mike about that.

Since the drive is 50 ish feet or longer, that should be more than ample place for the vines to scramble down and smother out the weeds. And since pumpkins are an annual, I can just whack em at the end of the year.

Snail vine.

Full disclosure, I tried this last year and didn’t get a single one to germinate. So I’m trying again. I’ve got an old crummy looking perimeter fence around the garden that I’m hoping this vine will spruce up. And then the cool snail-like shells they produce can be used for a craft project that I won’t undertake for about 15 years ;-)

Lastly (for now), I’m going to do a big planting of…

Decorative corn.

I grew glass gemstone corn last year and it was just too cool for words. And where I actually grew it was a happy accident.

As I mentioned in the dahlia feed sack blog, I put them in front of the sacks simply because I hadn’t planned better and that just happened to be the only place left. Well, as it turned out, they grew nice and tall and acted as a wind block! So now I’m going to plant them on the western side of the garden fence to hopefully absorb some of the prevailing wind. I’m going to plant them kinda close too.

I have a feeling this idea might mean the garden view from my farmhouse porch will be obscured. But that’s the beauty of an annual experiment. If it’s a flop, then I won’t do it next year. And if it’s that bad looking, I can just rip em out, the seed packets were incredibly inexpensive and they’ll be direct sown — so what if it’s a flop.

Gosh, I just love growing. And I really like seeing things unfold over the season. You know I’ll share the results with you. Let me know if you have any experiments up your sleeve.