Posted on 08/15/2014 12:26:58 PM PDT by greeneyes
The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks.
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I like your list as it is simple and easy to remember.
I prefer KISS = Keep It Simple , Stupid !
Every year I try to play and experiment with a previously unknown crop to me.
Last year it was Thai Basil ; but I found it too 'peppery' for my taste.
This year it is 'Datura Sativa', which flowers similarly to an up-flowering Easter lily, but has certain medicinal properties.
I intend to harvest seed from this years crop.
Continue to play and experiment in your garden, and grow plants outside your known 'comfort zone'
I found a way to end that problem. On tomatoes, beans, basil, watermelon, green peppers, cucumber, and anything else that gets it. I have a fertilizer sprayer that you put on the water hose (mine is made by mirical grow) but I put baking soda in it and thorouly wash the entire plant with it. That stopped the blight. The plants that had it are now growing and setting new fruit and the plants that didn' never got it. New plants I set out don't get it. I now wash the entire garden once a week and have no blight.
I tried cascadia peas, left over potatoes, Walmart potato bucket, pimento pepper, and patio tomato this year for the new stuff. All except the peas and Walmart bucket, have done well.
I still have some potatoes to dig. Two of the beds were from potatoes that I saved for seed from last year, and that was also a firt. Only had a few, but they produced fairly well.
Hi greeneyes and everyone!
POTATOES
Since you started with potatoes, greeneyes, so will I. I’m glad that you have a lovely harvest happening. I had not realized it WAS harvest time! Maybe I may learn from this that my bad news may actually be good news!
For most of the time, my white store boughten potato plants which I cut up and planted had lovely green foliage. Now it looks like the Irish Potato Famine hit us! Very little green is left, and I had surrendered the idea that I have no harvest. But if you are harvesting, well, maybe I should just go with it, dig, and investigate!
Sweet potatoes continue to vine all over everywhere.
That’s the good news. Bad news is I’ve surrendered to the grasshoppers. I’ll get what I get! They have apparently left enough for the plant to still be thriving, so I do still have expectations of some kind of a harvest!
Amaranth:
Good news: GORGEOUS red seed heads!
Bad news: Darn grasshoppers have punched holes in every leaf!
Tomatoes:
Mostly good news here. The Atkins is very abundantly producing. The other varieties are producing well also. I guess the bad news would be that due to my skittishness about possible overuse of fertilizer, I did not feed them adequately, so they are probably smaller than they should be. But how would I know? I’m still a novice at tomato growing! They have all put out lots of vines and branches which escaped the cage. I’ve lifted them, heavy with fruits, to get them off the ground, and tied them to the cage with string, being careful that they have adequate support.
The Atkins are just a little bit larger than cherry tomatoes. Can anyone tell me, is this the usual size or are the poor things stunted from inadequate groceries?
Legumes:
Good news: All have produced very well, and some are even continuing to bloom and form. The Asian Trellis beans are my “goodest” news! They are AWESOME! Long trailing pods, and DEFINITELY require a trellis. As I mentioned previously, While I could have picked them green, I chose to let them all go to seed.
Bad news: The darn grasshoppers! LOL!
Cucumbers:
I had one tiny cuc to harvest yesterday.
Good news: several others are starting, but bad news, others have shriveled.
SQUASH
Bad news: Have had troubles with low production. While my zucchini plant produced one baby, it was trailing low to the ground and succumbed to poor conditions there and rotted. In fact the entire plant died. Since I added it as an afterthought to the pot, it just could not compete with its T Squash neighbor.
Good news: I even HAVE squash! The white bush squash produced 2 babies, which I harvested. The T Squash produced two, but bad news, one shriveled, and the other is still on the vine and growing. All surviving squash continue to bloom.
Peppers:
Several other peppers are reddening up. Maybe one day I’ll be brave enough to assess the heat factor!
Okra:
Good news all around. I love the 3 varieties I planted: Orange Jing, Eagle Pass, and Clemson Spineless.
Sunflowers:
Forming their seeds! They all appear to be good news, but but there may be bad news in the end, as early one, they were invaded by boring beasties. I tried to treat them, but we’ll see.
Those are the high points!
Darlin ran across this link on Yahoo this morning and suggested I should share it with all of you! There is a garden use!
Surprising uses for ASPIRIN
https://www.yahoo.com/health/5-surprising-uses-for-aspirin-94741099878.html
Thanks for the link. Love to check it out. Bastardi rocks!
Armadillos seem pretty unaware of what goes on around em. I have shot numerous ones out in the open, often walking within 20 feet of them before they even get startled. They don’t seem to hear or see very well.
Thanks for the link. My Doc just made an observation that Aspirin is an underutilized and appreciated less than it should be remedy for so many things.
When potatoes bloom, is a good time to steal a few new potatoes if you want. Once the green dyes out it’s a good bet digging up time is here.
Sounds like overall there’s more good news than bad. Celebrate. If you would like to batter and fry any of that stuff, I have a tip for something quick and lite.
Take whatever cheap white wine you may have on hand, and combine it with flour to the desired consistancy. Roll the veggie in the batter and fry. (you can also dip it in seasoned flour after the batter, if you want).
This is a very light and great tasting crunchy coating to what ever you are cooking. (Secrets of a restaurant chef)
We need to point Marcella in the direction of your grasshoppers and let her loose—they’ll never know what hit them!
This year’s garden was pretty pathetic. We canned one small batch of tomatoes and have had enough for daily use. Got one zucchini, one usable eggplant and three bell peppers. The puppy, however, was five months old on August 4th, so we grew one thing properly this year.
Thanks for posting the link!
Speaking of feeling like fall, our tree leaves are changing color!?! Weird.
Very interesting article your husband recommended. Thank you.
Marcella is AWOL so far this week. Hope she checks in soon. Without her and JRF, the thread is kinda quiet. They bring lots of entertainment value to be sure. At least JFR posted a quick line or two this week.
Puppies are so sweet, but then they turn into DOGS.LOL
Give them aspirins, uncoated.
I don’t know what I do to my tomatoes, They have wonderful limbs, loads of flowers but few tomatoes. I grow them in pots. Next year I’ll give them aspirins and baking soda, in new soil. Grrr. All of the pepper plants that I got all mixed up, have had some peppers, but due to the weather in central Texas...
Thanks, I’ll try that.
Thanks for posting those pics. Looking good. Our plants are not nearly so loaded as that, and are trickling in a few at a time.
They are mostly blind or extremely near sighted. They appear to hear well, though.
I set a cage trap and use a pair of 2 X 6 boards to funnel them in. We’ve nailed four this year.
I went to my house this past Wednesday, had plumber at the house Thursday to check/clear air conditioner drain and backup drain and put new hoses on washer/dryer and turn them off, put water heater on “vacation” setting, then turn off water to house. Came back to new home on Thursday, leaving old house about 4 pm. I won't worry about water pipes now.
When we got there Wednesday, went out to garden and couldn't believe it - it was a jungle on the actual dirt portion across the back. I have never seen such tall growth in that garden area. There is a stump up against the back wall and that stump had put out “trees”, long branches five feet tall growing everywhere.
There had to be significant rain in the two months since I've been there for that jungle to grow. Weeds were two feet tall everywhere. Bob used my machete to cut a path to get to that stump and then used shears to cut the limbs off. I pulled those tall weeds that were everywhere, the net house was full of these tall weeds. Most of that went into the large composter.
I had red tomatoes under the netting and two types red hot peppers and one cucumber. I had tobacco plants still alive and one was about to bloom. The Deck Corn plants were dead.
From my 135 containers back there, I know I can grow food in containers. All the tomato varieties I grew made tomatoes and no plant got sick - I can grow tomatoes in containers. You people who grow in dirt are just wrong, wrong, wrong - :o)
I think when I left a few months ago, the squirrels and birds quit caring about the garden - guess it was no fun if they couldn't tear it up and enjoy my angst - trying to save my food from them.
We packed that SUV until there was no more room in it. I had not taken many clothes the first trip and forgot most of my shoes. This time, got rest of summer clothes plus got the fall/winter clothes and coats and shoes and gobs of other stuff I didn't get the first time.
Don't ever move. I lifted boxes I should not have lifted and now I'm paying for that in muscle pain. Haven't been anywhere since I got back Thursday evening. He is in better shape than I am after we carried all that and loaded the car.
Plus, it's hell to change your address - think insurance policies for car, house, personal insurance (medical, etc.), social security, car registration, new driver's license, every single company or bank with which you deal.
I've decided too many people have to know where I live. When did it become that all these entities have to know where to find you? Seems to me, years ago, I could move without the world having to know about it.
Greeneyes, I brought the book, “Food for the Future, NOW”, put out by Bountiful Gardens, to finally read it. Remember, it's the January, 2014, edition.
Blueberries:
About five years ago, Bob had the beginning of bladder cancer. He went though the treatment for that but he also began to eat gobs of blueberries - the doctor were amazed at the swift destruction of the cancer cells which was much faster than people not eating them. He recovered fast and it's been over five years since that happened.
I knew about the blueberries and blackberries having high levels of antioxidants and that is why I was going to grow blackberries. Now, with this new info. Bob brings to my thinking, I am going to grow blueberries instead of blackberries. I don't yet know which variety of blueberries to grow. I have to do more research, however, the town of Tyler, Texas, is now known for growing blueberries.
In my growing up period, Tyler was the rose capital with a rose parade every year. I was in our high school band at White Oak, Texas, and we made the Tyler Rose Parade every time.
I need to know which type of blueberries are grown there now. If any of you know about the Tyler blueberries, please post about that. And, if you know varieties of blueberries that grow well in north Texas, please post that.
It’s great to hear from you, Marcella! It seems that many of your plants survived fairly well in the two months that you were gone, and that’s amazing to me.
Sorry about your deck corn. We thought that ours was going to be strictly ornamental, but it appears to be growing some ears. We shall see. :)
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