Posted on 05/18/2012 5:59:55 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good morning gardeners. JustaDumbBlonde asked me to post the thread this morning because she and her Husband are out in the fields harvesting their wheat. Looks like they will have good weather.
I hope all of your gardens are doing well. My gardening efforts have been scaled back this year to a 6x6 raised bed planted with eight of my three favorite tomato varieties. I am also continuing to pursue my Homebrewing hobby and will be brewing up a Honey Bee Ale later this afternoon and also bottling a Cranberry Mead that I started last November with a cork popping planed for this up coming Thanksgiving.
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.
Weekly Gardening Thread
Pleas forgive me if I missed pinging any new FReepers to the Gardening Thread.
I got my Zuchinni, cukes, and squash out of the greenhouse and into the ground yesterday ahead of the rain ;-)
I also planted sunflowers along one fenceline with sweet-peas as an enticement for bees.
Now Grow!
Talk your friends into planting barley instead of wheat and you can combine hobbies.
I put out my peppers and zucchini and some insect is chomping on them. Got all the zucchini so I started more and will put them out when they’re much bigger.
We had a light frost last night but I covered everything I needed to and everybody made it.
Long time no post, RD!! Were your ears ringing yesterday?!!! My littlest one asked me to bake her a Red Devil Zucchini bread....
All my stuff is in except my corn. Will do that this weekend. I plant seed in the ground, I never start seedlings indoors. I never had luck with them so I simplify.
I transpalnted the peppers in the flats into pots and left them outside to harden and grow until this weekend. I hope to get them in the ground, along with the zucchini, eggplant and some other odds and ends. Next weekend comes the tomatos and the rest of the cold sensitive crops. I'll probably go tomorrow and buy tomatos. I'm growing cukes by seed. Already had the 1st strawberry harvested the other day. Wifey got that one!
Been having a running battle with squirrels devouring my suet feeders. I've offed a number and rehung the feeders with 1/8th in steel rods. I came home two consecutive days and found these feeders with bars twisted around into the crabapple tree that I have them hung in. It occured to me that it can't be squirrels because of the strength necessary to twist them around like that. Also, I didn't have this trouble in recent years. It had to be raccoons!That's why it happens over night! I bought a fence charger and am going to wire the tree and steel rods holding the feeders. That should do the trick and possibly provide some comic relief...
Mike
I haven't been out to the garden yet today, but yesterday we had numerous new tomato babies. The bigger ones are about the size of plums right now, but growing fast. It won't be long now! A pepper is growing pretty big, but the others are just starting to bare.
Our weekend project is to plant okry and run water out to it. This is a new garden bed in the far outback of the property where there is a sunny spot. We also will be doing some work in the flower beds.
Good morning!
Still nursing my sore knee. Life further complicated by my 98 yo mother who fell in CA and broke her leg. She had surgery last night and is in a lot of pain this AM. Trying to keep tabs on her by phone. Hard to do because her hearing is really bad.
Had planned to clean out garden beds and plant this weekend. Now, undecided. If I plant, I’ll most likely be called to CA imminently, and everything will die from lack of water. Might just skip the garden this year.
I am in need of advice, especially those who live in SE Texas where I live. I would like to garden and in the past have attempted to have tomatoes and a few other things in pots. I can never seem to actually grow anything. Our house is situated so that we get morning sun in the front of the house, but a large tree shades most of it, and the back of the house bakes in the afternoon sun. In the past the sun has cooked any plants I have back there, or bugs/birds invade them. How do you garden in hot climates? Right now I have a tomato plant in a pot in the front of my house to see if it does better there. So far it looks good but it doesn’t get a lot of sun, but it does get some. I would like to grow other things but am frustrated with the weather problems I am having and not knowing what to do about it. We can buy vegetable plants in February and get started before the heat of spring and summer, but I don’t want to invest in a raised garden till I can find a place to put it. HELP!!
We had two days of rain this past week which totaled a little over an inch. Our rainfall total this year is about normal. That’s a big deal here in the Texas panhandle. Last year we had drought and wildfires. This year has been very nice.
Our winter squash, green beans and cucumber popped up out of the ground this past week. Life is good!
I found a summer-blooming Lilac at the nursery and bought it for my better half for Mother’s Day. I didn’t know such a thing existed. It should be nice having Lilacs during the summer and fall. Hoping the hot sun and high-plains winds don’t beat it to death. LOL!
I recently purchased kamut and spelt (non-genetically modified grains) from www.waltonfeed.com to eat.
If I had land, I would try planting some.
Our ancestors lived off a grain diet for a long time.
Best thing would be get in touch with your country extension service and show them photos of your property and get their advice, they're pros!
Ouch. Best of luck with your knee and your mom’s leg. I’m still creaking around on mine, too.
Woohoo, Texas has had several days of rain!!! So, just got out to the garden yesterday. Noticed new weeds from the rain - of course. A few of the baby squash may rot due to sitting in puddles. Still slightly too muddy to do anything but threw out some flower seeds yesterday on the strip by where hubby is now parking (grrr) just to have something there. The corn is just starting to make. Need to get out there later and take some lettuce and asparagus to a friend.
Also need to start moving a pile of dirt down to fill in a hole left from a tree that fell a few years ago. Though with my knee, it’s going to be little bit by little bit.
The birds are lining up for the feeders like it’s McDonald’s, lol. On one side, the line forms along the fence and on the other it forms on a tree limb. The hummingbirds are even sitting quietly on the fence until a spot opens up on their feeder.
Ha, between rain showers, I went out to check on things and sweep away pecan catkins to divert water from the door. Hiding under one pile was a big frog. No matter what I did, he wouldn’t move so left the pile for him. After a few hours, he was still there so called hubby to warn him not to walk there before checking on the frog. He finally moved on that evening.
Thanks for your kind thoughts. What happened to your knee?
Welcome Home RD232. I’ll get back to the thread later...
Sun won’t hurt your plants, as long as you keep them watered. If you are growing things that might actually sun burn, you can make a hoop house with flexible tubing and shade cloth and alligator clips (like you would use in an office). This works great with a raised bed garden because the tubes (polyurethane water pipe) just bend down and are secured by the edges of the bed. Easy to put up and easy to remove. Looks like a Conestoga wagon when you have it all set up.
I did this a few years ago when I had to leave town shortly after planting my garden. I set up a sprinkler on a timer and a shade house. When I got back a week later, everything was great. I have some pictures, but they are on my other computer. I’ll post them later when I find them.
In your situation (TX — drought) I would recommend a raised bed with a drip watering system on a timer. Consult tubebender for instructions on a drip watering system.
I live in Wisconsin, but I lived in TX for nearly 10 years in the Houston area. It took nearly 10 years for us to get the trees up enough for me to open my drapes. That sun can be brutal. The finish on my piano is still crazed from the sun it took between the time we moved in and the drapes were deliviered.
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