Weekly Gardening Thread Oct. 10, 2014

Free Republic | 10/10/2014 | greeneyes

[greeneyes]

The weekly gardening thread........

[tob2]

I’’m happy to report the eggplants are hanging in there and getting larger. Hoping the weather will stay warm enough for them to mature. Slowly removing spent summer plants and replacing them with pansies. Surprised to see some rose buds on one mini-rosebush while on the other the first signs of black spot all year.

[Arrowhead1952]

My fall garden usually consists of turnips, lettuce, spinach, onions, garlic, cabbage, broccoli and some shallots. I planted some bell pepper as well. It does better in fall than spring.

[JRandomFreeper]

I have NEVER seen peanuts go this long. They still aren't ready to harvest.

/johnny

[greeneyes]

I haven’t dug mine yet either. Mostly because the vines for the mystery melon are intertwined.

[greeneyes]

I’m still covering stuff and hoping to eek out a few more weeks of growth too.

[greeneyes]

Thanks. I am glad that you enjoy it.

[greeneyes]

Thanks for trying. It’s the thought that counts.

[greeneyes]

These pictures are great. Nice looking mushrooms.

[greeneyes]

In my case it seems to be jumbled signals from the brain. The letters are there, but all jumbled up - not just a simple typo transposition.

[Augie]

My canned chili peppers turned out right tasty. A perfect combination of smoke, sweetness and heat that starts out slowly then smacks you in the back of the head.

Aside from continuing to harvest herbs, there was no garden work accomplished at my house over the weekend.

We’ve had a ridiculous amount of rainfall this month. I have two pumps running in the pond and just about the time I can see the bottom again it rains and fills it back up. If I wasn’t so dang stubborn I’d just say heck with it til next summer.

[tob2]

Daytime temperatures in the high 70’s but cover up the plants at night. If the weather report is correct, won’t have to do that this week.

[greeneyes]

For the first time ever, the swimming pool is totally full.

We are draining some into the dryer areas of the yard to keep it from going all over the place.

[greeneyes]

We are stuck at about 60 degrees daytime and 50s at night. Not so good for growth, but not needing cover either.

[tillacum]

My bell peppers and jalapenos are putting out flowers and fruit. I’m leaving them where they are. I’m going to plant some carrots, beets, 2/3 colors, mustard greens (3 colors) collards, heat lettuces, garlic. I’m going to see what happens to the tomatoe plants I’v cut back. See if they’ll put out something in the coming months.

[Arrowhead1952]

I also cut back some tomatoes to see if they would come back. As for now, they are doing well.

[Aliska]

Can anybody id these (first two photos)? The globe flower is somewhat reminiscent of my purple dome asters but I don't know how that could have morphed into this? I'm going to go out and get some more and tie them upsidedown to dry. I think they would be pretty in a winter flower arrangement but I don't have anything else to go with it. I should have cut some of my gypsophilia, what florists use and dried that but didn't think of it and don't have that much.

For a long time, I had my own web space and had it really nice but I dropped it because it cost as much per month as my ISP does now. Plus I had tons of unused space. Now I use flickr which I'm not crazy about but it is fairly easy to copy and paste the html code. It generates a long string of code but it works.

Now this next one may be a weed. I have no idea where it came from but it has seeded itself like crazy where it didn't get whacked. In a way it's kind of pretty, I wanted some Queen Anne's Lace but my yard guys whacked a volunteer. This is very invasive self seeds over almost anything, grows in full sun or very shady, and crowds out most other stuff. If it has those cocklebur thingies on it (I had a bunch last year but didn't see those plants until they were dead) I will be major sorry I let it grow.

Full height both plants grow to my waist or higher and I'm 5'7". The white one is a runt because the tall ones have almost all gone to seed.

I ordered some wildflower seeds from Prairie Moon in MN and ended up with all kinds of odd stuff that got mixed in, some devilish nutgrass. One I intended I have wanted for years, Virginia bluebells, well I got a few and they come back every year.

Here are the bluebells:

And my beloved Sparky, he adopted me in 2006 lol. The white rose is Hettie, a Paul Barden rose, Pat Austin, an Austin rose and my Rooguchi clematis which is so easy to grow. I love the bell shaped flowers. Mine has clinging tendrils (some say it doesn't) but there's nothing for it to grow on because I had a beautiful arbor which this guy didn't set right and somebody or the wind knocked it over. Been in the garage ever since.

Those front lance shaped leaves are lycoris squagimera, supposed to be the one mainly pink with sky blue tips (looks like a lily) but it has never bloomed for me. You have all seen the pink variety, the leaves come up in the spring, stay awhile, then die back, then in the fall out of nowhere it shoots up a flower stalk with the prettiest flowers on it. It's also called Magic Lily, Resurrection Lily and Naked Ladies.

[greeneyes]

Nice pictures. Thanks. I don’t know diddly about flowers, but maybe someone else will.

[Hot Tabasco]

Back around mid August a friend of mine’s wife gave me 8 monarch caterpillars and 3 black swallowtail caterpillars

All the monarchs eventually pupated and hatched and were released. The swallowtail caterpillars did spin their coccoons but since they never hatched, I thought they were dead.

Fortunately I never threw them out and kept the butterfly cage on the dining room table. Well believe it or not, one of them hatched last night.......

I now have a dilemma. I live in Michigan, it's currently 25 degrees and there's 3 inches of snow on the ground. I don't think the butterfly would want me to release it outside..........LOL!

[greeneyes]

They certainly would prefer the warmth of the house, I’m betting.

[Hot Tabasco]

I called a local landscaping nursery this morning that hosts a butterfly house throughout the summer. The girl I talked to said the butterfly will likely die but that I should put the cage with the remaining two coccoons out in the cold garage where they will winter over and in the spring when the weather warms, they will probably hatch..........Evidently that’s what they do.