BOISE, Idaho — Gardening is one of the most popular pastimes in the country, especially this year, when so many of us have been spending more time at home due to quarantines and pandemic restrictions. And one of the best things about growing a garden is sharing your success stories, pictures, and tips with other gardeners.
That’s why KTVB started the ‘You Can Grow It’ group page on Facebook. So today garden master Jim Duthie is sharing some pictures that Idaho gardeners like you have been posting on the group page, in hopes that more of you will share your gardening successes, too.
Last November, we launched the 'You Can Grow It' group page on Facebook. Since then, more than 4,300 of you have joined in, sharing pictures of your gardens, asking questions, and giving advice to your fellow gardeners. And more and more of you are joining each week. So here are a few recent posts from gardeners just like you, sharing some of their garden successes that might inspire you to have some gardening successes of your own.
Nancy Wood of Eagle grows an amazing garden, filled with a huge assortment of vegetable plants in a very orderly and attractive setting. Just take a look at this massive harvest of buttercup squash. She freezes enough for her and her husband Rhea to enjoy throughout the winter. But that’s not all. Nancy collects a wheelbarrow full of produce almost every day, including melons, tomatoes, peppers, squash, cucumbers and corn.
If your garden isn’t as big as Nancy’s, you can still get a big harvest of various vegetables. Here’s what Kelly Branigan-Curran posted from her harvest one day – zucchini, spaghetti squash, peppers, beans, tomatoes and lettuce.
Rob Fredericksen also showed us his great morning harvest of purple pole beans, pattypan squash, banana peppers, onions, and other varieties of tomatoes, peppers and squash from his garden.
If onions are your thing, Salvador Chip Madrid can show you how to grow big red onions. He even cures them by braiding them, or tying them in bunches, and hanging them from a dead tree to dry.
Shari Kuzman produced quite of crop of yellow and red onions, along with Idaho’s best known vegetable, russet potatoes.
Sarah Keck says her gardening goal this year was to grow a cauliflower as big as her head. I think she succeeded with that beauty!
And no Idaho garden would be complete without America’s number one most popular plants – tomatoes. Marcela Laird grows a lot of them, and they’ve even outgrown her! Her secret – she fertilizes them with compost tea. She grows a huge variety of heirloom tomatoes, including brandywines, pink jazz, green giants, Cherokee purples and Japanese oxhearts. Tomatoes are technically a fruit, since they contain seeds, and these pretty vernissage tomatoes look sweet enough to eat. And speaking of fruit, how about these black cherry tomatoes?
If flowers are more your thing, you’ll be impressed with these beautiful dahlias grown by Alan Sweeney. He calls them Baron’s beauties, but they’re also known as Baron Katie dahlias. They can grow over five feet tall with brilliant blooms up to six inches across.
Meredith Lamb Lynch grew over a hundred dahlias in her garden, including these colorful beauties of all shapes, colors, and sizes….. Like this brilliant pink dinner-plate dahlia, and these unique blossoms with catchy names, like poodle skirt, and gitty up.
Gardens are meant to be enjoyed at any time of the day or night. Debby Geer shared this video of her evening primrose opening to greet the cooler evening shade of her garden.
Honeybees love Randy Woods’ beautiful flower garden, with a variety of colorful scented blossoms including lilies, Shasta daisies, and black-eyed susans.
One of the rewards of growing a flower garden is attracting birds and butterflies. This yellow swallowtail butterfly is enjoying the colorful blooms in Heidi Nietzel’s garden. Did you notice the blue dots on the bottom wings? They’re meant to look like eyes to fool would-be predators.
Finally, enjoy this video posted by Carol Neal Lofsvold, of hummingbirds paying a visit to her garden to drink in the sweet nectar of her agastache plants, better known as hummingbird mint. And whether you’re an experienced gardener, or just starting to grow a green thumb, gardening can be a wonderful and rewarding pastime.
There are now more than 4,300 members on the ‘You Can Grow It' Facebook group, posting their gardening pictures, sharing tips, and asking questions. We’ve made it easy for you to join, too.
Just text the word ‘grow’ to 208-321-5614, and we’ll send you a link to join, and you, too, can become part of Idaho’s fastest growing online garden club.
Watch more You Can Grow It:
See them all in our YouTube playlist here: