Montana Gardener's Lets Thread - Part Deux

Starting from top of page: dahlianut, horses will eat anything with lots of sugar. I knew a guy who had one horse that would steal drinks if cowboys left them on the pasture or arena fence posts (and he filtered the ice with his teeth so cowboys got blamed!), and have seen for myself several horses in a melee competition for raw onions.
Kylaluaz, my mom is the same way with her lovely crystalline companions :)
pajaritomt, I think you just ID'd another slew of my year's worth of photos (rapidly approaching 30,000 images) because it sure looks like those "giant silvery sage-looking trees" in so many of my photos are Russian olive. Thankee for the help, accidental as it may be!
I'm not much of a gardener; snakes like me way more than plants do and living in an upstairs apartment with unusually destructive cats (sounds like an oxymoron, but I can tell ya stories that'll curl or straighten your hair, depending on what you started with) isn't going to help. I would love to find out if there are any cooking herbs or small edible plants that will grow on my computer desk, which is in front of a five-foot-wide (maybe more) north-facing (I know, sucks) window in Hamilton, MT. The photo attached is my very favorite "local" formation, an outcropping of green and purple shale just west of Alberton, MT on Hwy 90.

Hello Everyone! A new gardening year is upon us. I held a Gardening Goddesses (a God showed up unexpectedly but we were happy to have him) meeting at the library last Saturday and we had a blast. We shared our plans for this year's garden, challenges from last year, swapped seeds and went in on seed orders to save money and split bulk orders. What are your plans for this year? And have you started on them yet?

Photo of last summer's vegetable garden out at Rocky Creek Farm in Bozeman, MT.

Been ordering seeds and slowly preparing the hoop house so I can get the insulated section of it going and start my tomato seeds.

I think you must be another member of Women of the Dirt? Nice looking veggie garden...

Yep, sure am. Are you going to the upcoming gathering? At least I think there's one coming up. Probably better check on that. Who do you get your seeds from? I'm using Seed Trust, Botanical Interests and will be order from High Mowing Seed for the first time. Others I've talked to speak highly of it.

http://www.highmowingseeds.com/

I don't get to the gatherings very often due to our art gallery, plus I have been quite ill and am still recovering, so I likely will not make this next one.

I am not ordering many seeds as I have plenty left from other years for my purposes at the moment. I don't want to start too many seedlings this year as I have too much remedial work to the gardens since I got so sick. I have two town lots mostly full of flowers and a 20' x 40' hoop house. That has a 16' x 8 insulated section with double pane windows in the top of it and a big hot frame for starting seeds. I fill about half the hoop house with tomato plants as I am berserk about them.

So I ordered a few tomato seeds, I forget who from. Totally Tomatoes or maybe TomatoBobs.

I think the WOTD toured your farm one year, didn't they? Or maybe it was the garden club. In any event I missed it but remember it sounded like something I wanted to do.

I am just starting to hear about High Mowing Seeds myself. Let us know what you think of them after you try it.

I have started several delphs, foxglove, and am rooting witchhazel for another attempt at surviving our winters.

Sounds like fun, sofer.

How soon do you start your tomatoes? I have started sweet 100 and it is probably too early so I will start the rest later.

I will be starting them in a few days as I need them sprouted and in four inch pots before I head to Mexico for a wedding. Tomato plants in four inch pots may survive my DH's earnest but not too dialed in care while I am gone, but germinating seedlings would not.

I keep potting them up, burying most of the stem repeatedly to make big root balls before planting them in the ground. These plants will be very large and awkward to handle by then, so you might want to hold off a bit yet.

Cross fingers that I do not have excessive tomato calamities in my absence and I will try to bring you a couple of them if I can make it to the round up at your place in June.

Thank you. I am fortunate that my DW is very good at caring for my codyledons.