It has been a great Sunny Morning here in Missouri. It's 56 degrees with a low tonight of only 45. Tomorrow will be 61 and low of 40. Woohoo! A Great Gettin' UP Gardening Weekend for sure.
If you didn't tune in last week, you missed a little dust-up flame, and responses unparallelled in my time on the Garden Thread, but apologies were given. Thanks to everyone for their support. I wasn't sure we had that many people left who were still reading the thread.LOL.
Anyhow, my newly planted Spinach and lettuce has begun to sprout. I still have fresh tomatoes to eat. Peppers are growing like gangbusters, and the lemon tree has 24 marble sized lemons on it. I think I might have to pinch off a few of the smaller ones.
Hope you are all doing well. Have a great weekend. God Bless.
Pinging the List. A few ideas were sent to me as noted below.
From Black Agnes:
I found a heat tolerant corn variety at southern exposure seed exchange:
http://www.southernexposure.com/corn-dent-flint-flour-corn-c-3_18_72.html
‘jellicorse twin’.
Just in case you want to try something this coming summer?
http://www.keydesignsolutions.com/cornculture/table1.htm
is a really good resource for the older OP field corn varieties.
From Free Vulcan:
If you wish, when you post the garden thread today, I have a number of old seeds that I’d love to give away. Many are old and don’t know how they’d germinate, but they’ve been in the freezer for a majority of the time. My garden plan is full and I’ll never plant them again, so I’d like for them to go to a good home.
My wish is for someone to take them all to save on postage, but if that turns into several people so be it. If anyone wants they can freepmail me, I will send them a list, and I’ll mail them out to them what they want.
Pinging the List. A few ideas were sent to me as noted below.
From Black Agnes:
I found a heat tolerant corn variety at southern exposure seed exchange:
http://www.southernexposure.com/corn-dent-flint-flour-corn-c-3_18_72.html
‘jellicorse twin’.
Just in case you want to try something this coming summer?
http://www.keydesignsolutions.com/cornculture/table1.htm
is a really good resource for the older OP field corn varieties.
From Free Vulcan:
If you wish, when you post the garden thread today, I have a number of old seeds that I’d love to give away. Many are old and don’t know how they’d germinate, but they’ve been in the freezer for a majority of the time. My garden plan is full and I’ll never plant them again, so I’d like for them to go to a good home.
My wish is for someone to take them all to save on postage, but if that turns into several people so be it. If anyone wants they can freepmail me, I will send them a list, and I’ll mail them out to them what they want.
I am jealous of your fresh tomatos. The only thing we have growing is the 3 ghost pepper seedlings. All my wifes container plants are inside of the back porch, with heavy plastic up to close it in with 2 4ft lights with grow bulbs connected to a timer for 16hrs per day. That kept them going pretty good last year so they had a head start in the spring when they moved back outside.
I hope that you are ready for Christmas :)
Merry Christmas to all, and remember what the occasion is really about, the birth of our Savior, Jesus Christ
We got the freezing weather Monday night so I was out right before it picking the garden clean. A neighbor stopped by so put her to work and gave her a couple buckets of stuff. Brought in mustard, spinach, lettuce, bell peppers, jalapenos, tomatoes and green beans. Of course, I’m saving seeds. A lot of the green beans had dried so after picking though and saving the largest seeds for next season, I was able to bag up the rest for dinners later. As the tomatoes are ripening, they’re going into the freezer. I’m not going to can them because most are cherries so peeling is out of the question. I’m going to make a green tomato pie today so will see how that goes. May also make a green salsa with some and of course fried green tomatoes.
Does anyone have a green tomato preserves recipe?
From Andre Viette - he gives this ‘stand’ formula on his radio show every year & the bough/tree spray is listed below that - good if you are decorating with greens:
Christmas Tree STAND Formula
This formula for your Christmas tree stand helps to prolong your tree and keep it fresh.
Ingredients:
1 gallon hot tap water
1 cup light Karo syrup
2 oz. Clorox
1/2 tsp. Epsom Salts
Directions:
1.Mix together well
2.Put tree in tree stand
3.Fill well of tree stand with the above mixture
4.Keep tree stand filled - 4 days of watering with this mixture will help keep the tree fresh but the tree will continue to take fluid up to 10 days or more so be sure to check the water level often and keep the tree stand full of fresh water while the tree is in the house.
Do not place the tree near a fireplace, radiator, wood stove, or other heat source that might dehydrate or ignite the tree. Be sure the tree lights do not have worn insulation or broken wiring.
Bough and Christmas Tree SPRAY
Be sure to protect your holiday greens and Christmas tree from drying out. Spray your boughs and Christmas tree with this unique formula to help fireproof and reduce needle drop through the holiday season. Tree and greens should be fresh and not dried out.
Ingredients:
14 oz. borax (20 Mule Team)
6 oz. Boric acid (from drugstore)
1/2 tsp. low sudsing detergent (granular)
1 gallon hot tap water
Directions:
1.Mix together well
2.Prop tree or greens upright outdoors
3.Using a good pressure sprayer, cover tree or greens completely
4.Let tree or greens dry fully before bringing indoors
Do not place the tree or greens near a fireplace, radiator, wood stove, or other heat source that might dehydrate or ignite the tree. Be sure the tree lights do not have worn insulation or broken wiring.
Pre-mixed sprays such as Bonide Wilt Stop can be found in your full service garden center.
Link to website: http://www.viette.com/v.php?pg=753
The sudden drop in temperature this past week motivated me to clean out part of the hoophouse and give it a rest for next years planting. We still have cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce, broccoli, kale, and catnip in there though.
Everything in the greenhhouse was nipped rather heavily despite being covered and having heat lamps set up. The pepper will be trimmed back, but most should survive through the winter.
Thanks for hosting this thread, greeneyes!
My Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalog came a couple of weeks ago and I got online right away and put in my order . It came yesterday .... I can’t wait to plant my pink bananas lol
Sure hoping at least one of the seeds sprouts for me .
I have to rave about the Seminole Pumpkin I ordered from them last year . I did not get it into the ground until very late in the season so I was not expecting much to come of it as most things just don’t survive our summer heat and rain . This thing survived triple digit temps and a massive caterpillar invasion . I harvested two pumpkins two months ago roughly three pounds each one of which has been sitting on my kitchen counter all this time and is still in perfect condition .That’s a big deal here because normally we have refrigerate our bread to keep it from spoiling.
As soon as the weather started to cool just a bit the vine went nuts (it’s huge )and now it has 15 pumpkins on it all in the 2 1/2 to 3 lb range .
I believe I will be ordering some seed this weekend. I expect heavy pressure on seed houses this year and want an early order to get the varieties I want.
Anyone ordered yet? If so, what are you getting this year that’s new?
Got the garlic, french shallots, potato onions, and topset onions planted today. Have waited and waited to find that that point where it’s not too warm or the ground frozen. Hoping it stays cold enough so they don’t sprout.
Felt like winter arrived this week. Had to put on a sweatshirt yesterday. Doesn't look like we'll see 80 degrees this week.
Got a few cauliflower so far.
My broccoli never seems to get much bigger than snack size, but if I hold the camera really close... 
Trying several varieties of tomato this year. Of course, I put them right next to each other so I think I'm seeing traits cross varieties (that or I mixed up the labels). The Amelias are the only ones that are producing a lot of decent sized tomatoes. 
And then of course, there are bananas. Everywhere. 
Good Morning Eveyone..It’s cool this a.m. in central Texas. It’s that time of year, when I trim my trees and remove little ones coming up, where they don’t belong.