The word for my garden is forest

June 26, 2010 11:00 AM

I'm the recent proprietor of a small plot of land, and would like to grow something there. That concludes what I know of gardening.

It's proving much more difficult than I imagined to get an overview of my options with this small community garden I've been allotted. It's 46 m² which have been left fallow for a year or two, and except some raspberry bushes I can't identify a thing.

I got the suggestion to turn the whole soil with a shovel and return a couple of days later to remove all weeds and new sprouts, and start from scratch.

Before I do that though, I'd like to know if I should salvage any of the plants. If you could take a look at http://monocultured.com/greenish/ and let me know what I'm looking at, I'd appreciate it.

Two riders to that:

1) What book or website would you recommend for identifying plants; Especially for ascertaining their use in a garden setting. (I'm in Gothenburg, Sweden, @ 57.5N & 12E)

2) What do you wish someone would have told you as you began gardening?

posted by monocultured to home & garden (17 answers total)

This is an onion gone to seed. This is grass (rye I think). This is oxalis, it's also technically a weed. Well, at least it is where I live. It's a type of sorrel, so you theoretically plant it for ground cover or eating. I would have to see the leaves of this one but it's some type of daisy. I don't know what this is but it drives the farmers around here nuts. This is also a weed, related to dandelions and the like Although it could be lettuce or something that's bolted and gone to seed.
posted by fiercekitten at 11:43 AM on June 26, 2010

I'm probably wrong on some of these because I didn't recognize many of them except the oxalis (sorrel) and onion.
posted by fiercekitten at 11:43 AM on June 26, 2010

2 - Queen Anne's lace
6 - Chive (onion family)
9 - Oxalis
10 - Daisy
11- Cat tail variety
16 Amaranth
18 Sorrel
posted by JayRwv at 11:51 AM on June 26, 2010

Okay, #1 is raspberry canes, and #2 looks like Queen Anne's lace, a wild cousin to carrots (a weed). #10 is a common daisy. I think #12 and #7 are just grass.

Save the raspberry, it should be turning red any day now and will be very tasty.

Assuming you're starting your gardening in June and you're living in Sweden, you're not going to have time to grow many things from seed. I don't know what the growing season's length, but this information should be available from local sources. Here's a climate map. First autumn frost will kill a lot of your crops/flowers, so if you were hoping for vegetables and fruit you're going to have to buy pre-spouted plants to be able to get much this year. Garden supply stores and nurseries will often have whole tomato plants ready to go into the ground. You can also buy potted herbs, but beware of things like mint or catnip, as they are very invasive and will try to dominate. Keep invasives in planters. Your supplier or the packaging will tell you what will invade the whole garden and what'll stay in neat rows.

If you plant lettuce and no wild critter eats them, you will get tender baby leaves. There are some seasons of hardy spinach who are fall crops, also worth trying. Again, find a local nursery and ask them what's best, as I'm in Canada growing stuff on a balcony.

Certain things can be planted in the fall for early spring sprouting. Many bulbed plants like tulips, lilies or daffodils go into the ground at this time. If you're going to have a long relationship with your plot, they're worth getting into the ground later this year.

Pay attention to the shade/light requirements of plants, and of course the light condition of your turf. If you want to get really fancy you can buy home soil test kits and test the ph level. Then this can be adjusted with things like peat moss (you get it in big bags, and it's a fiber like brown stuff). Manure makes good fertilizer. In a shared, community style garden, avoid herbicides and pesticides. Some natural pest killers, like marigolds, can be a more community friendly option.

The most idiot proof thing I've ever grown is peas. You can sprout them between two damp pieces of paper towel if you want, they're hardy, my peas always produce early in the season and they just need a nice lattice or poles to grow on. They also make a good ornamental displays. Planted in March, my peas already have tasty, sweet pods you can just snap off and crunch in your mouth.
posted by Phalene at 12:21 PM on June 26, 2010

So it would seem that everything goes except the raspberries. Oh well…

We had a very cold spring with temperatures going above 10°C just the other week, so perhaps I'm given some leeway with the planting from seed (assuming, of course, that autumn isn't too cold) but I'm looking at the plot as a long-term project and am in no real hurry.

Thanks for the Marigold hint – those are the kinds of things I'd love to learn more about. It's a large community garden and I imagine that there are rules governing herb- & pesticides, so if mixed growing can be used I'm all for it even if it would cut into the yield.

Image 3 and 4 show the same plant btw, it's some kind of bush which I take to mean that it was planted there on purpose. Any takers?

I found this site http://suomi.luontoportti.5dvision.ee/index.phtml?lang=en to help with identification. It's a rather useful "select your criteria" tool.
posted by monocultured at 2:21 PM on June 26, 2010

2 - Queen Anne's Lace
6 - chives
7 - some kind of pasture grass
8 - lamb's ear
10 - daisy
11 - fennel or dill
12 - Timothy grass
15 - possibly from the campanula group?
18 - lettuce

By the way, my grandmother says you need to take several pictures for plants you want identified in the future... flower, leaves, and an overall of the shape/size of the plant.
posted by anaelith at 2:22 PM on June 26, 2010

Oh, and 3/4... does it have a smell if you rub your fingers on it? I'd swear I've seen it somewhere before, but no luck remembering where.
posted by anaelith at 2:23 PM on June 26, 2010

anaelith: Yep, a very strong and pleasant smell which I couldn't really place.

Thank your grandmother for the advice. She wouldn't know of a field guide or almenac or somesuch she'd like to recommend which has those kinds of advice?
posted by monocultured at 2:38 PM on June 26, 2010

#18 is ≈40-50cm high, and lettuce is usually closer to the ground, no? The perspective might be deceptive.
posted by monocultured at 2:44 PM on June 26, 2010

#14 is a marigold!

#18 could still be a lettuce even at that height, or maybe it's some kind of spinach? If it's a lettuce it's bolted, flowered, and got ridiculously tall. That happened to all my sister's cauliflowers last year, instead of a small football near the ground, they ended up more like a small tennis ball on a tree trunk. That is about the limit of my gardening knowledge.
posted by Lebannen at 3:27 PM on June 26, 2010

Technically, that "marigold" is a pot marigold, more commonly known as calendula. A very nice beneficial insect plant with edible petals (colourful in salad) that self seeds easily. You can also collect the curly seeds and plant them wherever else you want.

18 looks like a lettuce going to seed. So, it would taste bitter now. You could let it go to seed, see if the seeds look like lettuce seeds, and then you will have well adapted lettuce growing in that area pretty much forever if you like.
posted by Listener at 4:14 PM on June 26, 2010 [1 favorite]

The worst weed you have is the grass #18. Try to get as much of the thick white roots as you can, ideally all of them. It's worth the effort now, or you will be pulling that grass out constantly and forever. The first one is, as you suggest, raspberry. #5 looks like the new canes that will have flowers and raspberries next year. The #1 canes will die after harvest and need cutting down in fall or next spring.
posted by Listener at 4:19 PM on June 26, 2010

Further additions from my mum: that raspberry might not be a raspberry, it might actually be a tayberry or lingonberry or anything else like that, that grows where you live. Either way it probably tastes nice.

#2 and #11 might be the same thing, or not - one flowering and one gone to seed, and could be pretty much any umbellifer, some of which you might want and some you might not (except probably not alexanders or giant hogweed, I think I'd recognise them from all the ones I've taken out of our garden; they have large taproots and will come back if you don't dig them out, so probably other umbellifers do too).

#8 could be all sorts of things, is there one that's still flowering?

Are #13 and #15 the same thing?

#16 looks like a weed, one that might or might not be called henbane; #17 is loosestrife, which is also a weed here.

As for books on plant identification / gardening, it probably makes more sense for you to ask locally, because the books sold where you are will have the plants that grow there. I'm answering your question from a place where it doesn't even snow every year! Good luck!
posted by Lebannen at 2:49 AM on June 27, 2010

have a look through the forums at allotments4all.co.uk, also follow the detailed blog of allaboutliverpool member on that forum for ideas on transforming a patch of land into an incredibly versatile crop-rotation friendly design from the beginning.

there will probably be the equivalents local to you for much more accurate planting advice.

it's not too late to put down some salad leaves (in a shady spot), radishes, brassicas, autumn carrots, buy some courgettes about 8 inches tall, put in some winter squashes again if they are already started, if you have a patch ready to plant. If not, get a few grow bags and just go for salad leaves, & herbs for the momenbt.
posted by Wilder at 12:43 AM on June 28, 2010

Thanks for all your help.

I've started digging up the lot, and am saving the raspberries and some flowers (I think they're flowers). Prolly try to get me some heritage potatoes and unions for next spring, and nursing what I can from the bushes this summer.

There's a timelapse video with annoying sound here: http://vimeo.com/12968059
posted by monocultured at 11:39 PM on June 29, 2010

Also, I'm keeping the smelling bush in picture 3 & 4 — it was half-dead so trying to resurrect it.
posted by monocultured at 11:41 PM on June 29, 2010

I just thought of something - 3/4 could be fennel. The feathery leaves in 4 look sort of like it.
posted by fiercekitten at 10:14 PM on July 7, 2010