Posted on 07/27/2012 6:36:15 PM PDT by JustaDumbBlonde
Apologies for the late posting of the thread ... I have been on the go since I woke up this morning, and didn't even think about it being Friday until we were 20 miles from the house.
I harvested another 15 gallons of honey last Sunday ... boy am I rethinking how many bees I really want to have. Honey robbing in 105 degree heat is no fun, even with a camelback of cold drink under my suit. Got 3 new queens in the mail and installed one in a hive that I had split into 2 hives, and the other two are in nucs (nuclear hives - half the size of a typical 10-frame brood box.
My cowpeas are beautiful and have started vining. Blooms won't be far behind.
Muscadines are getting ripe, both the wild ones in the woods and the cultivated vines in the yard. It is a great year for them ... the taste is exceptional and the fruit are huge.
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. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked.
It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread ... there is no telling where it will go and that is part of the fun and interest. Jump in and join us!
Those muscadines are cultivated. We do have a cultivated vine that produces very, very small fruit and they are a pain to do anything with other than pop them in your mouth. The wild ones are nowhere near as large as the ones in the photo.
The carrots were nantes coreless. I bought the seeds because it said “Guaranteed to grow” on the package. :-)
I am so thankful that y'all are okay after the fires. Hope they stay away from you.
The heat was miserable in the Bozeman area. People up there just aren't used to that kind of heat and most don't have central air to deal with it. It was only cooling to the high 50's at night. Strange.
Gardening tip of the day:
Where did all of my green bean plants go to?
Answer: The groundhog. Fixed with 50 yard head shot with .17 cal Hornady Ballistic tip.
Tomorrow: Rabbit control.
Good shot!
I love how Muscadines slip right out of their skin when you squeeze them. Mississippi State used to have a winery and they made some really potent Muscadine wine. I think they only use their Muscadines to make a juice drink now. So sad.
That offer for the honey sounds good. I might take you up on that offer in August when my wife and I head back to the old homestead in Mississippi to pick up a few things we left behind.
We are just back from another trip to CA to take care of some of my mother’s business. She suffered a broken leg in mid May and has been in rehab ever since. We’ll be going back in about 3-4 weeks.
I planted nothing this year — didn’t even complete weeding my beds. It’s lucky that I did that because the drought here has been terrible. Nothing would have survived because nobody would have been here to water, and there has been no rain.
But, it RAINED today. And a little bit Wed. night. And a little bit Thurs. morn. I’ll just be planning new plantings for when I have the time and the weather is more cooperative.
I have been in Fresno, CA, and the weather there was dreadful — triple digits every day. Our car registered 113 one day.
There was a study group of Southeastern Cotton Farmers in our hotel one morning, and I thought of you. They were there to study how Fresno farms cotton. I dunno — Fresno irrigates. In the past they have depended on a chain of man made lakes and dams to make the water last throughout the dry season which lasts from April to October. I don’t know what folks from other parts of the country are going to learn from that — folks who depend on rain and who have unexpected floods. Especially since the government now wants to take the water away from the California farmers.
By the way, we drove by the CA State University Ag farm every day we were there, and there was a flourishing apricot orchard there. The trees were laden with fruit, and the ground was yellow with fallen fruit. Nobody was picking. I don’t know why. It just broke my heart wondering why all that fruit was going to waste? At first I thought that maybe there were waiting for more to ripen and they would come through with machines and pick it all at once. But, we drove by every day for 2 weeks and nothing happened, except more fruit falling on the ground.
Do you have any insight as to why they would do this? (Normally, the college makes jams, etc. out of the fruit that they grow and sell them in their farm to market store.)
Thank you very much. I’m definitely going to try this. I’ve wanted raised beds as bending gets old and I love the way hay bales look too, In fact, I just got done mulching with a bunch, so keeping the bales intact will take care of both a raised bed and mulch!
You are welcome. Just water them a lot and they work great.
Oregon water war... http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2911403/posts?page=1
At what stage will those Cowpeas be harvested and how?
Yes, please! I’d like to be on the list! I’ve done a bit of plinking at gardening over the years, but I consider myself a newby.
How to Plant Seeds Using Eggshells
Many of you know that I plant my seeds in little newspaper pots that I make with a form, but I am gonna try this idea. For tomatoes and peppers, you are planting some calcium along with your plant, which helps prevent blossom end rot.
I don’t prune at all, and I don’t pinch suckers...I have a relatively short season here in PRNH (New England)...I grow ALL tomatoes in containers...all plants (150-200...kind of lost count) are LOADED...best-tasting Goose Creeks ever...Kosovos the size of softballs...Ovita and Orange Oxheart plants so big I can’t get thru the aisles to water them...beautiful Indigo Rose tomatoes everywhere...so many tomatoes on ‘dwarf plants’ that I had to stake them due to the weight of the fruit.
That’s a lot of extra work plus she will had egg shells in her yolks. I like your paper pots much better.
Is that a deer stand at the end of your bean field?
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