WEEKLY GARDEN THREAD AUGUST 19, 2016

freerepublic | Aug 19, 2016 | greeneyes

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I’m using them for target practice, LOL!

No, I made pickles. Again. Probably more pickle relish, too. *Rolleyes*

[Ladysforest]

I envy you the pickles! Even if I don’t get many cucumbers, I usually get enough to put up pickles, but not this year. Not a pickle.

The solitary cucumber plant I saved from the groundhog decided to fail after producing only one fruit.

[Black Agnes]

Try green sand or azomite. They might need more than the calcium.

And something that’s got micro-organisms too if you can find it.

[NTHockey]

Too late for this year, but the new garden has been an absolute disaster. Except for my wife’s herbs, all I’m getting is weeds. Excuses abound - not level, too much sun, bad soil, bad choice of crops, too much water, not enough water. You get the picture.

I live in DE and this year, the spring was cold and wet and the summer has been hot and dry. My old garden , same orientation to the sun, is doing very well. Got one pickle that weighed 1 lb. 9 oz. Plenty of string beans and now tomatoes and peppers are coming in. Heck, I even planted asparagus and it’s doing fine.

Back to the new garden, I would appreciate any and all suggestions to prevent another disaster.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

A lot of people are suffering from a lack-o-cucumbers this season for some reason. It has been wet and hot enough for them around here, that’s for sure!

[Archie Bunker on steroids]

That is great advice Sparky...I will get right to it!

[Archie Bunker on steroids]

WIll check on that too..thank you ...will try anything. Looked like an incredible harvest...then, I turned the first one over and almost cried.

[Jumper]

I am in the process of collecting seeds. This weekend I came across a beautiful Red or Scarlet Cone flower. I already have several types of blue and purple, and a white, but this will make a nice addition to my garden.

I am going to take out all my perennials like the cone flowers and replant them after reworking the soil and landscaping.

Any recommendations for similar flowers to add to these and my daisy's.

[Augie]

It was a beautiful weekend, weather-wise, in Central Missouri, but the mood around my place was not a happy one. The vet came out and euthanized Mrs. Augie's 37yo Arabian mare Friday evening. Overall, the old girl was in quite good health, but she had a melanoma on her hind end that was beginning to cause a lot of discomfort. I rented an excavator so we could honor her life with a proper burial on the farm.

I also spent a couple hours with the excavator in the pond removing some dirt that I couldn't get to with Nanner. I was able to get all of that loose dirt hauled out on Saturday. Mowed the grass. Picked tomatoes. Mrs. Augie picked pumpkins. Picked more tomatoes. Washed graded and packed tomatoes. Green beans are ready to be picked. Butternut squash and Russian cucumbers are loaded. Okra is loaded. Pepper plants are loaded.

One of Mrs. Augie's friends spotted a baby chicken loose in the road last week. She stopped and picked it up. Now it lives at our house. It's a banty cochin and is the most affectionate baby chicken I've ever seen. This is where she sits while Mrs. Augie is working in her flower gardens.

Dobby the cat helped me seed ten flats of fall-crop broccoli on Saturday. Well, helped might be a bit of stretch. Mostly he just got in the middle of what I was trying to do and knocked stuff off the shelf.

[Black Agnes]

I discovered a youtube video on dehydrating blueberries. I tried doing this ONCE and vowed never again (looking at the comments I’m not alone in this). This lady freezes her blueberries whole before dehydrating. Just put on a tray full to try this. I’m thinking these would be great to add to pancakes or muffins after rehydrating in a little hot water beforehand. Would free up the several gallons of ziploc freezer bags worth of space in my freezer too.

Tomatoes have petered out. I need to get in there and tie up, feed and spray again but have been busy with other stuff like dehydrating 6 bushels of pear dices. We use those in muffins, pancakes and what have you and love them.

Probably a bushel of sweet peppers that need to be picked this afternoon and ‘something’ done with. Probably make dried pepper dices out of those.

My Fast Lady Northern Southern peas are hauling behind. Fastest blackeyed peas I’ve ever planted. We’ll see how they taste. Right now they’re covered in ants so I’ll have to take my DE down there and go on an ant rampage.

I wish for 26hrs in a day.

[greeneyes]

It can be good to be close to the river, in case there is a need for irrigation. LOL

[greeneyes]

Amen to the prayers. We continue to have more rain that usual. Too much for many of the plants. Gardens around here are not doing well with tomatoes.

Not sure my soil was fertile enough for the corn I planted. The stalks look healthy, but the ears look pretty thin. Hope they will fill out. Silks are starting to show.

[greeneyes]

The weeks are flying by too fast. I may need to take a couple of weeks off and just go camp out somewhere so that no one can find me to do stuff for them.

We did the same dumb thing. Coons got all the corn. First time though, because it usually is planted closer to the house, maybe.

I do have some deck corn that I planted later, which may yet yield something, though I probably need to side dress it with something to add some fertility to the soil.

I know the first year we gardened, I canned 48 pints of pickle relish and 36 pints of various kinds of pickles. Got so sick of them. I only planted one plant this year, and got 12 pints of kosher dills. The plant was doing great, but the wilt has hit, so the vines won’t last long.

[greeneyes]

I understand what you mean about the death of the coon. Hubby always asks me to make sure and remind him to check the traps, just in case.

Lately, he has just been shooting the squirrels though, so no traps.

I do understand the attitude. Been married 51 years myself. It’s like having a set of nice old shoes most of the time - comfortable, but patience runs out if the toes start to be pinched. LOL

[greeneyes]

The cherry tomatoes with clusters like grapes are the only tomatoes that are really producing this year, and the wire cage is getting overloaded with the growth.

I do have some beefsteak tomatoes that are trying to get ripe, but they are not producing much in the way of quantity.

[greeneyes]

We are talking about getting a sunroom style greenhouse from home depot. It would be about 8 x 12 ft. Our basement patio door would open into it, and it would be like a room addition.

The other option is an enclosed back porch style addition with lots of window and skylights, but that would be bigger, cost more, and take longer to put up.

I grow some stuff in front of the patio doors, now, and use a full spectrum sunlight at sundown, to extend the daylight to summer length. I get a bit down during the winter sometimes, and that helps me.

[greeneyes]

I understand your feeling, and believe me I sympathize. We have lousy soil and all kinds of bugs spreading stuff.

2010 is the only year we got any decent melons or cukes.

[greeneyes]

The weather can be brutal for gardens. I am hoping to get some fall and winter stuff going.

[greeneyes]

You didn’t give many specifics about fertilizer. Sometimes trace elements are needed for the plants to be able to take advantage of the calcium.

You may need to take a soil sample to determine what is going on. Best bet is to contact you county University Extension office for help with that - cheap way to go.

I have always used bone meal, Epsom Salts, along with ground up eggshells, to fight it in container plants.

[greeneyes]

Weeds grow in lousy soil. Best bet is probably to get a soil test. I would use the local University Extension Service.