Posted on 06/29/2012 10:18:09 AM PDT by Ellendra
Our regular gardening threadmasters seem to be busy, so I'm posting one to start us off with. If anybody has the ping list, please use it!
My raspberries are in full swing. They're in a low spot in the yard, and every few days we turn the hose on them and give them a good soak. Still, the berries are looking a little shriveled compared to previous years.
My nephew and I picked some crab apples yesterday. There's a variety that the city planted just around the corner from my parent's house, in a median strip on a quiet road. This variety has apples that are almost as big and sweet as Red Delicious, and since no one picks them except me and the raccoons, they're free for the taking. They looked red enough to be ripe when I was driving past, so I thought that, like most fruits this year, they might have ripened early due to the early spring. I could tell the moment I touched one that they weren’t ready, though. Unfortunately I have no voice, and my nephew does this stream-of-conciousness thing where he talks non-stop about anything that passes through his head, and he was very enthusiastic about picking apples. As a result of those factors, it took me long enough to grab ahold of him and get his attention that, by the time I got him to stop picking, he had stripped 3 branches already! He's going to be great help when they actually are ripe! I didn't like the idea of wasting food, so I cooked them up as a pie filling and canned them. We got 2 quarts out of it. With enough molasses, brown sugar, and cinnamon, even green apples can be pretty good!
Pinging some of our gardening regulars. If anyone has the official ping list, could you send it to me, please? Thank you.
That’s beautifull!! I love those.
OH MY GOODNESS!! Those are beautiful! Do they have any scent?
But here is something to get all the gardeners started. I sent it to JADB, but she didn't answer.
The Peterson Brothers made the video (a parody) because they hated the rap song, "I'm sexy and I show it". They were featured on Fox & Friends this AM. All dressed up in starched shirts and ties they were really cute and charming. They said their 11 year old sister did the filming.
I check RD232’s home page too — no list.
Pinging all the names I could remember off of the top of my head. The list seems to be lost, so ping around.
The Angel Wing has pads the size of a platter. I've seen some of mine that were 18" across.
107° yesterday here in Central Missouri. The highest temp ever officially recorded for the month of June. 2” of rain since May 5. In spite of that my garden is thriving (thanks to copious irrigation). Sweet corn is coming in, blackberries are coming in, nectarines are done, peaches getting close, summer squash coming in, tomatoes just around the corner.
Does anyone have a good antidote for fighting off flea beetles on my green bean and tomato plants?
Our native sunflowers are blooming early, and at only 6-18” tall! Never seen them do that before this year.
It hit 106 a few days ago.
Yesterday, used grass clippings & shredded paper to do the final ‘hilling’ on about half of the potatoes. I’ll be getting another trailer load of clippings, as soon as they’re available, to do the rest; I get them from the State Veterans Home in town. 600’ of Yukon Gold, and they are already starting to bloom. There is NO straw, which is what I had planned on using, available within 50 miles; everyone is totally out & can’t get any.
I also hand weeded between the stalks of 6-25’ rows of Serendipity corn; then ran the tiller between the rows. Today, I’ll give them, as well as the okra, a side dressing of 10-10-10.
The broccoli, Brussels sprouts, tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, and onions all got a shot of manure tea.
The owner of the restaurant that saves me all her coffee grounds has also retaken over a coffee stand she built then sold a few years ago, and I’m now getting those grounds, too.
The heat is starting to do in the peas; the coriander is blooming, so we’ll be getting the seed soon.
The surviving strawberries, especially the 2 that were least affected, are putting out runners like crazy, and appear to be healthy; best guess is they were hit by verticillium. The daughter plants should have better resistance, according to Mr. Darwin.
Winter wheat is starting to ripen.
Does anyone have an antidote for getting rid of flea beetles on our green bean and tomato plants?
What are flea beatles?
The heat...105+ degree weather is killing almost eveything even though I have camoflage netting for shade.
Last evening I found green beatles that look like squash bugs on everything...even my tomatoes.
I’m wondering about my tomatoe plants purchased from Lowe’s.
I only have three. #1 is supposed to cherry tomatoes. The plant is huge, the tomatoes are tiny and not worth eating.
#2. In spite of my intensive care, the standard size tomatoe never bloomed, stayed puny yellow green and now is dead. #3 Is a Roma tomatoe. It puts out beautiful green folage, few tomatoes..and they rot.
I’ve never had these problems before. Is it me? The weather?
Is anyone else having similar problems with store bought plants?
The jalapenos are doing fine but they are HOOOOOOTTTTTT!!!! My hands burn for days when I chop one or two and you can't eat them. I haven't had a habanero that hot. I tried roasting a couple but that ran us out of the house coughing. Those seeds are going in the trash. It's ridiculous. I'd hoped to put up salsa but with no tomatoes and these peppers off the scoville chart, oh well.
Tomatoes are temperature fussy.
IIRC, Above about 85-90 during the day; or below about 55 at night, they don’t set fruit even if they bloom. Too far out of those ranges, and the buds don’t even open, but fall off. It can also affect any that are set, if they are immature.
Our tomatos are coming in great now, both the Big Boys and Grape tomatos, we have an eggplant that is growing, lots of banana peppers about 6" long. Our second garden, the okra patch that is way out back is growing well, being only one month old. Im not sure how long till it matures and produces.
My wifes flower beds are all doing great now; all of this year's plants have taken hold and are thriving.
Our plants of all descriptions, and in all areas are doing well in this Texas heat largely due to having drip irrigation on timers watering everything automatically.
Does anyone have an antidote for getting rid of flea beetles on our green bean and tomato plants?
Flea Beetles Management By Vern Grubinger Vegetable and Berry Specialist University of Vermont Extension for full article.
See also Google flea beetles control
I love pie season.. and miss it too.. My yout’ was spent in Minniesoda,, we had all kinds of pies to feast on when harvest time came around. I never ate so good or worked so hard in my life.. I never tried making jams and preserves and such.. I had 4 sisters to do that.. now’s its the kids doing it. bon appetit!
The tomaties are doing OK , the pear and apple crop will be light as is so I’m seriesly keeping an eye on squirrels.. so far they are eating over at the neighbor’s fruit. slingshots is at the standby. ;-]
Thanks for the thread!
You are starving them for water. I saved some seeds from my hottest jalapeno pepper last year for our friend. She is like me, and keeps them well watered. She said they are too mild. Ours are the same.
Thanks Elendra for starting a thread, I was here earlier, but didn’t find the garden thread, and had to get some things done outdoors before the heat got too bad.
We are hot and dry here in eastern south-central Missouri. Yesterday and today was 105 degrees. Rainfall is practically nonexistent since April. We used the last of the rain barrel water last week.
Walnut trees are dropping their fruit, and blackberries are shriveling up without ripening. We did get 7 pints of berries and some juice earlier.
We get 5 gallons of water from the air conditioner, some times a little more, and some 2-4 gallons of water from rinsing veggies etc which I catch in the dishpan. It goes for the perennials.
We can’t risk running the well dry. Fireworks displays are canceled for here and surrounding towns. St. Louis is on no lawn watering alert.
Praying for rain. Have a great weekend. God Bless.
Thank you, I’ll read up more. This is very helpful - Good Day to You : )
I water them every other day. Ok, maybe more water.
I think our high temp has been 74 here in Benderville this year. Our amended soil retains moisture well and everything is lush and green. Kohlrabi is coming on and I have suddenly run out of FRiends to give it to. We now return you to Nascar qualifying at Kentucky Speedway...
Ok, twice a day waterings! Water puts out fire. They are happy little plants and not the least wilted. Watered them last night and watered in some fertilizer this morning. I like them with just a little kick.
Hubby just said I need to flood them like a rice field, lol.
Just make sure they are not wilted in the AM or PM. Also, I noticed you added fertilizer today. They don’t need more than one application per year in our area.
It’s been near 100 all week with no rain in sight. The lawns look like Fresno — worse actually because we have no way to water them. We depend upon God around here. No sprinkler systems.
I’m so glad that I planted NOTHING this year, as I have not been available to tend it. I have a glorious crop of weeds. I have a burdock so big at the “plant” that I’m thining of entering it into the Fair as the “tallest” plant. ;^)
Well at least the weeds won’t set seeds because they know how you are struggling...
Thanks for the ping. Sorry for the delay; I was here for a couple of hours looking around, then had to go get some stuff done before it got too hot.
Came back and started reading and posting.
Then hubby and granddaughter came in with imperatives so that I had to quit and take care of their stuff, just as I was getting ready to post to you.
Really having some record breaking heat these days 106 and 107 degrees. Less humidity which helps humans survive, but does nothing for the plants. Also means that air conditioner makes less water.
I think I am going to dig up some of them and put them in pots and bring them indoors where it is cooler, and the soil won’t dry out so fast.
This is the first application of fertilizer they’ve had. They’ve never come close to wilting and they’re under a tree for shade. I’ll keep pouring the water to them. We don’t have a treatment system on our well so the water they get is a combo from the hills and river so they should be happy.
Yeah, thought the same but they look like every other jalapeno I've ever had. These are from those cheap-o Walmart packets which may be a case of you get what you paid for. So, I already have some seeds from some different jalapenoes saved for next year. The banana and bell peppers get the same amount of light and water and are mighty tasty.
I started using seeds from mild peppers we bought during the year. A few years ago, I bought two four packs of banana peppers and one batch turned out to be jalapeno. They were too close together and the banana peppers were as hot as the jalapenos.
We survived our second ‘derecho’ in a week here last night. A derecho is “a widespread and long-lived, violent convectively induced straight-line windstorm that is associated with a fast-moving band of severe thunderstorms in the form of a squall line usually taking the form of a bow echo. Derechos blow in the direction of movement of their associated storms, similar to a gust front, except that the wind is sustained and generally increases in strength behind the “gust” front.” The storm last night was moving at 55 mph with winds clocked as high as 80+. The one Monday was the most ferocious storm I’ve ever been in (including two hurricanes).
No power for two days after the Monday storm. We kept our power last night. A million folks are without power in the DC area, over 100K near us. We were part of a 140K outage around town on Monday. The only ‘good’ thing is that we have gotten rain Monday & last night. It has saved a lot of watering (garden, new lilacs & camellias, newly divided irises, etc.). My sister-in-law’s garden got knocked down pretty badly .... she got most of it propped up again. The triple digit heat is here so it is basically sucking the moisture and life out of all the plants. Ah well, that is ‘good old’ summer time.
Those pics are fantastic. I tried to grow bog plants in my pond, but the ducks decided that the plants are edible......
Are your plants in pots or in the ground? I have found that potted tomatoes need more water, and the roots need to be kept cool.
Are your plants in pots or in the ground?
I have a small raised garden. The plants are in the ground.
Our soil is so poor that I treat my garden like a compost pile. Everything goes into it...kitchen stuff, I brought grass clippings from our previous residence, a bail of alfalfa, ashes, sand, potting soil, manure, tomatoe fertilizer... The plants improved this spring...90+ degrees in March...when I mulched with straw.
Again, it’s shaded with camoflage netting.
When I pulled out my dead tomatoe the ground was moist.
I guess it’s just too blooming hot!
Hopefully, these two plants will survive until cooler weather, and get a late crop.
So much for living off the land...
I read that tumble weed is edible...
Frustrating to see everything get a good start and then just go into survival mode!
Here is how they start out. Sorry about all the pictures but I explain the setup better that way.
Here is how they look with the lattice support.
They are sprawling all over the place now and are covered up with good tomatoes. Here they are today. My Jack Russell Terriers have been swimming in the pond so some of my rocks have been moved. Frogs under them don't you know? The pond normally looks much better than this but with 105 degree days I don't have the heart to keep the JRT's out. LOL
I have several tomato plants in pots. I keep the pots shaded and the plants are well watered keep them from growing long and leggy.
That’s a neat setup you have there!
I mean, really, who can’t grow tomatoes?
We’ll just wait for cooler weather!
Sure enjoy these threads, don’t you!
I forget all about the “news” when I’m out pulling weeds!
Don't mind the pictures, this thread is usually a picture intensive thread most weeks.
Thanks! I used to call mine hydroponics but I read that if it’s hydroponics the plants are usually hanging with water flowing over the roots. Aquaponics is when the plants are planted in pots in water, or bare root, and actually submerged with water flowing over them. Both work great with tomatoes since they naturally like water. I put the lattice over them to keep the plants out of the water as they grow. Both ways are same in principle.
Aquaponics is on my list of things to experiment with after my house is built. I like your set-up, thanks for sharing it :)
Thanks for the ping AFTR.
Thanks, fanfan—what would I do without you?!?
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