Posted on 07/15/2016 3:20:00 PM PDT by greeneyes
Posted on 7/8/2016 3:32:57 PM 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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Knocked out the power to thousands of people to the north of us. Laid our corn down on the ground. I finally have a couple of green tomatoes about the size of a ping pong ball, and several blooms.
Got some green beans cooked and eaten, and some beets canned. Have a bunch of zukes and green beans to process as soon as possible. The deck corn is now about 3 inches tall. Cukes are not looking good - skins are scaly looking - very ugly, but the summer squash and zukes are doing well. Hubby hopes to get a cantaloupe.
Hope all is well with you and yours. Prayers up for all. Have a great weekend. God Bless.
Pinging the List.
Hi Everybody!
((((HUGS))))
My tomatoes are FINALLY growing! But we are presently in a drought, so I have to water them by hand.
A few tomatoes growing on Bush Early Girl - 10 now - 11th was rotting on bottom.
About 4 on Beefsteak (I think that name is wrong - it’s a different one - hybrid).
None have shown up on single Better Boy plant.
Got about 30-35 pepper plants going - 10 seedlings sprouting, too. Tallest about 10-12 inches. No veggies yet.
Counted about 40 seeds from regular store-bought tomato going. 3-6 inches tall. Will transplant soon.
Another 20 seeds of Bush Early Girl, about 20-25 red/yellow pepper, and 20-25 seeds of green pepper should sprout in about 2 weeks. Small indications from 2 already (10 days).
Sweet Basil going great guns - 3 plants - have already cooked from 2 harvests and dried a 3rd and sent to a friend along with pepper seeds.
My carrots and first tomato plants are weak - soil was lousy. Will try to transplant but very tender they are.
Hello, from KC, MO! Our garden is popping! Kids are eating the peas and blackberries as fast as they’re growing so there will be no canning or freezing from those two. I get to make pickles/relish this weekend and have been baking bread and casseroles and cakes with zucchini and yellow squash that are bigger than 2-liter bottles of soda! It’s crazy! Found a few watermelon that might survive. Oh, lots of spaghetti squash, too. I have NO IDEA what I’m going to do with those. Must have been crazy when I stuck those in the ground. Ha!
HOT! DRY! Groundhogs ate everything the weather didn’t kill! The only thing I have left from my little patch of cucumber is one plant. I have 5 volunteer tomato plants - one has two or three tiny fruits. Three volunteer green beans - scraggly. Lots of various pepper plants which are just sitting there.
My peach tree did not set a single blossom. Not even one. Same with my apple trees - but they have not done squat since planted, so just no surprise there.
Volunteer potato plants - we shall see what they do.
Herbs are good.
We got the first roll of chicken wire today - I need much more but have to buy a bit at a time. I have worked out an easier way to do my below the surface chicken wire, so we will try to put it all in this fall. Till then - well, I won’t cry over spilled milk. I think I had a few wheat plants pop up - which would be neat, but I am not sure that is what they are.
Hot dry, but no groundhogs. I have had better gardens in year’s last.
It’s the groundhogs that have done us in. We can deal with most of the other stuff - lose half our garden perhaps. But ONE ground hog can (and does) destroy a garden (30x45) in just two evenings.
We had it solved for awhile, but in the past two years our fence “solutions” took some damage - and if there is ANY breach at all, those little bas***** will find it fast.
At least the feral cats ate all the rabbits and most of the chipmonks. The deer we still have fenced out - for now.
Do you have any streams near you that you can get free water from?
I had a problem with raccoons one year,I ran a single electric fence wire about 4 inches off the ground on the perimeter of the garden.That kept them out.Should work on woodchucks too,I just shoot them here.
I’ve been sick with what I’ve self-diagnosed as eColi (which is better than my previous self-diagnosis of Ebola), so haven’t seen the garden in a week.
Luckily, it has rained so I don’t need to worry about wilting plants.
But I can feel all the weeds growing, the bugs eating, and the deer showing up.....
Last I saw, baby tomatoes were starting to form - that’s always exciting to see! Zucchini and cucumbers are proliferating, as are the green beans. I harvested 9 head of cabbage and about 15 beets the morning I got sick, so thank goodness I got those in the extra frig for storage just in time! The cabbages were starting to split, so I gather that means they were almost over done?
I’ll go hang on on the couch some more, I can only stay up for a few minutes at a time, but am doing much better overall.
I made a nice memorial garden for my two pets, my cat and my dog. Will post when completed. They died/were put down withing six months of each other. Both were in their late teens.
My dopey little in-between-until-I-have-a-REAL-garden-again-Garden is producing like a madwoman!
Lots of Zukes and Cukes. Lots of lettuces (still!) and in another week I’ll be swimming in green beans. Deciding what to plant for fall crops, but it will probably be beets and carrots and lettuces and spinach. The usual suspects. ;)
The weather has been WEIRD to say the least...we’ll go from days and days of hot and humid and WAY above normal temps...and then today, it’s mid-60’s and I’m in a sweatshirt! *Rolleyes*
Rain amounts have been OK so far, though and it is WONDERFUL to be able to open all the windows and BREATHE every 5 days or so, LOL!
Our Sweet Corn is AWESOME this year - loves the hot & humid. We have melons on (Cantelope and Water) as well as Butternut Squash and some Spaghetti Squash.
Tomorrow I am pruning back my tomato plants and yanking out (and using!) the kale that is smothering them. Lots of tomatoes on, but with hot and humid we get early blight. Boo! So, lower leaves OFF and organic copper spray ON.
No complaints. All in all, it’s been a good growing season in SE Wisconsin...I’m now about 30 miles from the Mississippi River, in the part of our state that the Glaciers didn’t smash to flat and boring, but good for crops.
Hilly, green, lush, tree-filled and GORGEOUS, Dahling!
Watering is such a pain, but we are usually doing that every day for July and August. So far, we’ve had quite a few days that we didn’t have to mess with it though. Hope you get some good rain soon.
Sounds like most are doing well.
The spaghetti squash are supposed to last quite a while IIRC.
My daughter likes to use it as substitute pasta. I like it with Alfredo sauce, and a side dish of meat and/or veggie.
The spaghetti squash are supposed to last quite a while IIRC.
My daughter likes to use it as substitute pasta. I like it with Alfredo sauce, and a side dish of meat and/or veggie.
LOL. Electric would be fun. The ground hogs burrow beneath the fencing though. About the only thing that we haven’t had trouble with is raccoons. I wonder why ... it is odd considering.
This was the first year our peach trees set fruit. Lousy squirrels picked almost all of them and carried them all over the place.
They are now pushing up daisies. Peaches are very hard to grow here, because a spring frost usually kills them. It was very disappointing to have a nice crop going, and then have the critters do them in, but that’s the way it goes.
Glad you are feeling better. Not sure about the cabbage - it’s not a plant that we have grown.
I’d bet the groundhogs are dumb enough to walk right into the wire.
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