Posted on 06/21/2013 12:40:17 PM PDT by greeneyes
Wow! You are rocking it!
We had squash bugs and we went out every morning, manually killed the bugs and removed the bronze-colored eggs from the leaves and immersed them in water with added dish detergent. We then sprinkled food-grade diatomaceous earth under the plants to kill the crazy ants. Maybe you could ask your extension service about the tomato plant.
Our wild Texas peach grew tiny, wonderful tasting peaches. One year it was full of blooms, then we cold weather and then snow. Come summer our tree was so full of fruit and it was wonderful. Then we had a terrible wind storm and it blew off most of the peaches, we picked up as many as we could. We still had a lot on the ground, so hubby shoveled them up and composted them. Since then, the tree has given up the ghost. I’m using it now, to hold hanging plants and a bird feeder.
I want another one but this one, I’ll trellis and keep cropped.
That’s the way I love my scrambled eggs and when the young squash are tiny, I put them in too. Great breakfast with a cuppa. I sometimes leave off the eggs and turn the potatoes into Irish fries, just add celery. Yummy.
Thanks
We picked over a gallon of raspberries (giant ones, biggest we’ve ever gotten), over a gallon of blackberries (giant apache ones) and 2 gallons of ginormous blueberries. There are probably 10 or 15 gallons of blueberries, a couple gallons of raspberries and a couple more gallons of blackberries left on the bush/vine. If we get rain today they’ll be huge too.
Still picking strawberries. We’ve never picked them this late before. I have everbearing varieties that usually sull when temps get and stay above 90. So far this year the past 3 days are the longest it’s done that.
My rice that I’m using the SRI method with (modified with mulch) is getting just rampant. Some of the ones I transplanted last (and had learned how not to damage the little root system as much) already have 15 tillers. Next year I’ll know a little better what I’m doing with that. I also didn’t get them out at 10 or 12days post planting like I was supposed to. These were 3.5w seedlings.
Winter squash are running like crazy and some already have females on them. Tomatoes are liking the non-swelter we’ve had and the peppers are too. Sweet potatoes are running finally.
I had a big square of corn planted. Went out the next day and saw scratching around in the soil. Chipmunks. Ask me how many corn plants I got out of that :P So now it’s war with Alvin and friends at my house.
Fall tomatoes are getting their 2nd set of real tomato leaves and I have a whole flat of basil to transplant.
It’s all good so far. Well, except the chipmunks. Furry cute little thieves. I need to find some rat snakes and put them out.
I saw it on the shelf and grabbed it for my maters. Trying to lay the newspapers in that space was getting under my skin. Wind blowing, knees hurting, trying to lug around stones to hold the papers down. Nah, I figured I’d blow the money (I think it’s actually $10.) and try the roll of paper out. It was MUCH easier to use there than the newspapers. I’ll probably use newspapers between my rows of other vegs., because I think it will break down more quickly.
Our local paper SHRANK in size and went up in price, so for me - the roll is actually cheaper unless I can find a source of free newspapers. Our stores don’t even discount the day old newspapers here like they used to.
When we go to the grocery store or a big box store we pick up 1/2” of their circular or sale papers in the foyer on our way out. Ditto Walgreens, CVS or SuperD. We get relatives to save papers too. Someone usually leaves one in the break room at hubby’s office and he snags that on his way out if he remembers.
If you do this every time it adds up. We collect papers for mulching 52w of the year, ‘flat them’ and stack them in our shop. I sprinkle a perimeter of DE around them to keep bugs at bay. One stack for the larger ‘square’ sheets and another one for the narrow rectangular stuff.
YMMV.
In the evening I take a stack that we’ll be using the next day, lay it on the grass or driveway and wet it with the water hose really good. You might repeat this a time or two. Don’t get them too soggy but good and damp. I lay a trowel or hoe over them to keep them from blowing away and let them soak it up until they’re sort of damp. You might have to experiment to get just the right amount of ‘damp’.
When you’re laying them you have 5 or 10m before they get dry enough to actually blow which gives me enough time to get them covered with the hay. If they’ve dried out in the big stack before I can get to them I spritz them down with a hand sprayer as I’m working. If you have them already flatted and sorted for size it’s simple to just peel off 4 or 5 sheets at a time and lay them without worrying about the wind. I’ve found that around here, very early in the morning, around sunrise, is less windy than other times during the day. We try to mulch during that hour or two.
We also use the cardboard cereal/pasta/cracker boxes too. Those flat down nicely if you split them on the seam. I keep stacks of those in my shop too right next to the papers and sized 2 or 3 different ways. I use those in my strawberry bed and down foot paths for extra support against breakthrough if it rains a lot. They don’t blow around that much either.
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