Posted on 11/25/2011 5:10:38 AM PST by Red_Devil 232
Good morning gardeners. I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday. My day was nice, quiet and lazy. Mrs. RD had to go to work at one pm and did not get off until two this morning, so we will be having our Thanksgiving feast this afternoon. We are having a roasted Turkey breast with the typical side dishes. We usually have a Ham but Mrs. RD wanted Turkey this year so Turkey it is.
It is forecast to be in the low 70s today so I may get out and gather up some leaves for the compost and some pine needles for mulching.
If you are a gardener or you are just starting out and are in need of advice or just encouragement please feel free to join in and enjoy the friendly discussion. Our Freeper community is full of gardeners, each with varying interests and skill levels from Master Gardener to novice.
It seems that all of our older hens are now laying as we got 11 chicken eggs and three duck eggs...a maximum effort! The five Maran pullets are now integrated into the flock, and while not exactly bosom buddies, are accepted. Barb cleaned the kitchen and took down the crate and we are no longer infested with "house chickens"!
Having a four-day weekend is nice. Now to wrap up the outside chores while the weather holds.
Only a few things left in the garden, all my cole crops. I was thrilled to have Brussels sprouts fresh off the stalk with our thanksgiving dinner. They were a bit leafy as opposed to heads, but tasted wonderful when roasted. I have a couple heads of red cabbage out there, the bunnies ate all the green cabbage. Little bit of broccoli, too. Otherwise, we’re done. Not a bad year.
Dear #40 and gardening freepers,
I’m a long-time FReeper, (short and lousy-time gardener).
Got a great fence to keep deer out, raised beds with brand new soil, showed me where the food comes from off the plants. The next year weaker soil and then huge drought and extreme heat wave. No harvest this year in Central Texas.
Found out about Aquaponics and have given that a try, had the beds, fish & tank set up and as soon as the heat wave got below 100 degrees (in October) the plants started growing.
The leaves are HUGH & series. (Freeper talk from long ago)
Just waiting for cooler weather to give me tighter sprouts, lettuce etc. But for the LOUSY gardener, the Aquaponics WORKS!!!
>>But for the LOUSY gardener, the Aquaponics WORKS!!!
Ah, that’s good to hear. I’m building a small experimental solar greenhouse and am using water as thermal mass to store heat.
Aquaponics sounds like a good way to put the water to multiple uses.
What kind of fish you using in your system?
Better put your beebers on stune for those hugh leaves ;-}
=Bill
Don’t eat fish so went with goldfish not Talipia. I do like Talipia of any fish and might change to that next spring. but for now learning on 0.27 cent goldfish. Alot died till I learned things. Goldfish are great for pooing and peeing. The plants are growing well.
From a neighbor.....Florida avocado Lula variety. Better than Hass. Plus small red finger banana. That banana stalk was full of red bananas but a lot got eaten
Bananas in my yard. Maybe ready in 4-6 weeks
We had a nice long Thanksgiving weekend here in Central Missouri. Hauled two 16x7 trailer loads of stall sweepings from the horse college before the rains came on Saturday. One load went on the compost heap and the other went to re-mulch my orchard trees.
What is that grass the Avocados are laying on? Must be in Florida...
Anyone have any info. I'm ready to build it now.
Great pics, and I am so envious! I’e been trying to grow citrus, banana, and mango in Central Texas for years. If the drought doesn’t get them, it’s the sudden freezing weather or the high pH soil. I kept them potted and brought them all inside this year.
The pepper plants in my greenhouse are still producing well, as is the crazy papaya. Hopefully, I'll get some good fruit off of it this year.
Yup green grass here.... St Augustine grass
sent you freepmail
We pretty much dodged the bullet.
Sunday morning the overnight forecast called for freezing temperatures over four hours down to 27 degrees. I thought my earlier post about picking garden tomatoes at Christmas had jinxed the weather.
But by the early afternoon the forecast changed again to a low of 32 for about an hour. So, I decided to risk it. I saturated the garden and containers with water and waited.
Taking the risk paid off . . . this time. But when after dark the wind which had been forecast to be 5 to 6 mph went to zero, I worried . . . a lot.
I’m particularly impressed with the baby cucino cucumber plants. The other three varieties have stopped producing and what they produced in cool weather have been half the size they should be. Skins were tough and some were bitter. But, the cucinos were the right size and ever so tasty.
Ten day forecast predicts overnight temperatures well above freezing. If that doesn’t change, I probably won’t get new tomatoes but I’ll probably get to see the ones I have ripen on the vine. Some of the big cherries will be ready to pick today.
This year, both in the Spring and the Fall, I had terrible luck with beans (Blue Lake and Kentucky Wonder pole beans). Can’t understand it. They just never produced. But snow peas and sugar snaps are full of pods.
Sweet and hot peppers seem to be holding on quite well. And of course, collards and cabbage are loving the cool weather as are the leaf lettuces and spinach.
SOUTH FL GARDEN PICTURE UPDATE:
ENJOY:
http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/487/1000307qj.jpg
http://img17.imageshack.us/img17/7868/1000305a.jpg
http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/240/1000303g.jpg
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http://img52.imageshack.us/img52/3089/1000299f.jpg
It has stuck in my mind that you have said before that you were with electric service for 2 weeks after Katrina. I dont know if you have an all electric home or if you have gas, but if you have gas, this is an interesting link that I post here. If you are electric, please disregard.
http://www.propane-generators.com/
The beauty of converting a generator to LP is not having to get in those lines to fill a bunch of gas cans every day or two, or having them sitting around as a fire hazard. Tap into a gas line, run a flex line and presto!
Just a thought.
We are all electric.
Your garden is still looking good!
Interesting. I checked out the web site. They don’t have any information on run time after conversion from gas to propane. Do you have any expertise in this area?
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