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Good morning gardeners. There is not much garden news to report from East Central Mississippi this morning. I am just trying to keep everything watered and alive and picking a couple of peppers and a zucchini every once in awhile. 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. I hope all your gardens are flourishing.

Good morning gardeners. I transplanted 10 young paste tomato plants into my garden last Friday and wouldn’t you it, the heat gets turned up again. The area of my garden where I planted them gets shade from about 3pm on but I am having to supplying them shade from late morning until then. So far they are doing ok. I hope they survive. My pepper plants are doing well and producing nicely and I may get another round of zuke production. I got a very nice hard rain yesterday evening. Probably about 1/2 inch. If you are a gardener or...

Anyone ever compost tomato plants to use in the next tomato garden? Or is that too 'in-bred'?

Good morning gardeners. This past week here in East Central Mississippi has been great, weather wise. There have been numerous and very beneficial pop-up T-storms almost every day, which have helped keep the temperatures down and my garden watered. I hope TS Don will give some relief to those of you in drought stricken Texas. Forecasts are for it to dissipate in about 36 to 48 hours after landfall. 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....

Related Links Click here for PDF version Click here for Signing Locations  BE IT ORDAINED BY STEVENS COUNTY:  That the people of the State of Washington, domiciled on Stevens county, have unalienable and fundamental rights and among those rights are the rights to choose the local foods they produce; process or prepare; sell, purchase, or distribute; preserve and store for extended periods of time; and consume, for food or drink, for people or other life forms.BE IT FURTHERED ORDAINED BY STEVENS COUNTY:  That the purpose of this ordinance is to: 1.  Protect the unalienable and fundamental rights of individuals,...

Good morning gardeners. I canned all the tomatoes I had picked the previous week this past Wednesday. Sadly it did not take very long to do the canning. I also roasted (chared and peeled) about half of the Jalapenos I had picked and froze the other half. I also cut up and froze some green Bell Peppers and zucchini squash. On Wednesday I had a pop up T-storm visit the garden and then yesterday it was cloudy all morning and around 11 am a very nice, lazy, soaking rain started falling and it lasted for about two and a half...

The power to edit genes is as revolutionary, immediately useful, and unlimited in its potential as was Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press. And like Gutenberg’s invention, most DNA editing tools are slow, expensive, and hard to use — a brilliant technology in its infancy. Now, Harvard researchers developing genome-scale editing tools as fast and easy as word processing have rewritten the genome of living cells using the genetic equivalent of search and replace — and combined those rewrites in novel cell strains, strikingly different from their forebears. “The payoff doesn’t really come from making a copy of something that already exists,”...

Bats, as scary as they are to some, are one of the more useful mammals in creation. The diets of those species common in Pennsylvania consist of mosquitoes and other insect pests including the ones that damage crops. A colony of 100 brown bats can consume of a quarter-million insects in a single night. Science magazine has estimated the pest control service provided by bats can save farmers about $74 per acre. Well, the unattractive wind turbines built at the hectoring of the nature worshipers who've managed to convince most that they are the arbiters of all dogma scientific are...

Thought I would share a Wild White Fl Orcid.. http://img801.imageshack.us/img801/6411/94516050.jpg

Contrary to recent media reports, the malicious prosecution of Julie Bass of Oak Park, Michigan has not ended. Authorities have also charged her with having unlicensed dogs, though they never escaped or threatened anyone. Here’s the unedited scoop straight from her own blog, Oak Park Hates Veggies: Home-grown: Julie Bass has fallen foul of local authorities by growing vegetables in her front yardHome-grown: Julie Bass has fallen foul of local authorities by growing vegetables in her front yard 1- the charges against us were not actually “dropped”. they were dismissed by some judge we have never heard of or seen....

Good morning gardeners. It has been another week of hot humid weather. My little garden got its small share of a 60% chance of rain yesterday afternoon. A nice pop up T-storm spent about half an hour dropping a nice steady rain on my garden. There is a 70% chance of rain today. If the percentage for rain is not above 50 the pop up T-storms seem to pass me by. I did get to harvest about a dozen ripe tomatoes this past week but they are on the small side. My replacement paste tomato plants are coming along just...

Their front yard was torn up after replacing a sewer line, so instead of replacing the dirt with grass, one Oak Park woman put in a vegetable garden and now the city is seeing green. The list goes on: fresh basil, cabbage, carrots, tomatoes, cumbers and more all filling five large planter boxes that fill the Bass family’s front yard. Julie Bass says, “We thought we’re minding our own business, doing something not ostentatious and certainly not obnoxious or nothing that is a blight on the neighborhood, so we didn’t think people would care very much.” But some cared very...

The Country Mouse vs The City Mouse I have seen several debates on various websites and blogs as of late, sometimes quite heated. The topic of these opinions and debates were what is better urban or rural from a survival standpoint. Some are adamant that no one can survive a TEOTWAWKI event if they are East of the big muddy and in particular if they are not on a very remote retreat.. others are of the opinion that remote rural retreats invite gangs of home invading thugs, and that resources are easier found in a urban situation given any situation...

Good morning gardeners. I have been planting 2 zucchini plants every year I have had a garden and this year is the first year they have produced more than my wife and I can use. I think their production is due to the four-foot spacing between plants I gave them. I may be able to participate in the annual “leave a zucchini on your neighbor’s porch day” this year. It is on August 8th. I should be getting some ripe tomatoes soon; a few are developing a slight blush. Some netting will have to put up to protect them from...

It's got beautiful flowers as big as umbrellas -- and sap that causes blindness and third-degree burns -- and it could be coming soon to a city park near you. Giant Hogweed, a monster plant that looks like Queen Anne's Lace -- but is more akin to the man-eating-plant Audrey II from "Little Shop of Horrors" -- is spreading in New York state, with dozens more confirmed sightings since last year, experts said yesterday. The botanical beast is so rampant that the state Department of Environmental Conservation has even set up a special Giant Hogweed Hotline -- and ordered a...

BRUSSELS — The European Union says it is temporarily banning the import of certain seeds from Egypt after some were linked to a deadly outbreak of the E. coli in Germany and France. The EU said Tuesday member states also have to ensure that all "seeds imported from one Egyptian exporter between 2009 and 2011 are withdrawn from the market, sampled and destroyed." The bloc's Safety Authority said earlier Tuesday that the fenugreek seeds blamed for the recent outbreak are still on the market and were shipped to more countries than was previously believed, including Austria, Britain and Spain. ........snip...more...

Good morning gardeners. I hope your gardens are doing well. Mine is doing so-so as far as my tomatoes are concerned. A couple of tomatoes that I thought I would lose due to the heat have revived a bit and will survive because of the shade I have been providing in the afternoons. My new tomato seedlings are coming along great and need repotting very soon. I received a very nice quantity of Texas A&M yellow Jalapeno seed from Freeper Texas Fossil and plan to plant a couple today and see how they do. If you are a gardener or...

Double Red Alert Posted by Ann Barnhardt - June 24, AD 2011 9:01 AM MST Two HUGE intel leads in my email box this morning from way-back contacts that I've had for years, that are actually somewhat connected concepts. 1. File this one under "Now It All Makes Sense". A Missouri farming and ranching contact just got off a conference call wherein he was informed that the federal government is sending out letters to all of the flooded out farmers in the Missouri River flood plain and bottoms notifying them that the Army Corps of Engineers will offer to BUY...

Good morning gardeners. Well this past week brought a respite from the sunny hot weather here in Mississippi. We received two days of beneficial rains, which helped to revive my garden. Watching the radar it looked like a good portion of south-central Texas from San Antonio to the northeast corner received some rain also. I hope it was helpful to our gardeners over that way. My winter squash are growing like mad and my hot and sweet peppers are doing great. What is left of my tomatoes seem to have revived a bit during these rainy and cloudy days. I...

Good morning gardeners. My tomato plants are struggling to survive these hot brutal sunny days. Their leaves are all curled up trying to save water. Temperatures are consistently in the mid to high 90s. My winter and summer squash along with all of my hot and sweet pepper plants are doing great. It does not look like any of my Opailka or Viva Italia paste tomatoes will make it through so I have restarted some more seeds in the hopes I can get them transplanted in time for a late harvest. I have about 4 Marion tomato plants that are...