Weekly Gardening Thread -- It's ALMOST April!

Garden Girl | 3/27/08 | Garden Girl

[gardengirl]

I’d be hard pressed to name my favorite. They’re all so cool. Some of my earliest memories are of following my gma around her yard, helping her weed and plant and prune and collect seeds. She labeled them carefully and kept them in baby food jars. One of my favorites to collect was something my gma called touch me nots. I think the correct name is balsam. They must be in the impatines family because the seed pods look the same and they explode when you touch them, then the pods curl up like a spring that’s been stretched too far.

Have fun with saving your seeds! Not sure how far away from each other they have to be—the gourds and squash will cross pollinate if you’re not careful. We planted gourds one year and had a bumper crop—so many we quit picking. They only do here every so often because of teh humidity. The next year, they came up everywhere—except tehy were all shaped like crook neck squash and they had warts all over them.

I’m getting really tired—I’m going to go to bed before I type something that gets me in trouble! LOL

[trisham]

Can you imagine sticking your hand into a potatoe bank and drawing it back covered in fireants? Sheesh!

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Ouch! I was bitten by one fire-ant last year. The amount of pain from a single bite was surprising.

[hoe_cake]

Thanks for the ping. I usually don’t respond because of my work load, but today I am because I’m planting my garden this weekend...the usual tomatoes, bell pepper (which I’m not having luck with), eggplant, carrots.

But I’m giving up on planting yellow squash and zucini because the squash borers have more time on their hand than I do. I’ve never been able to get rid of the critters, and they frustrated me to no end last year.

If anyone has a tried and true remedy for squash borers, I’d love to hear it.

[Arrowhead1952]

Can you imagine sticking your hand into a potatoe bank and drawing it back covered in fireants? Sheesh!

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Ouch! I was bitten by one fire-ant last year. The amount of pain from a single bite was surprising.

We've dealt with fireants for many years in central Texas. They are NOT native and kill other helpful insects. I stepped onto a nest several years ago and got bitten eight or ten times on the top of my right foot. I couldn't wear shoes for a week.

The best thing to kill those is Ortho® Orthene® Fire Ant Killer. It starts killing within minutes and kills the entire mound. Stand UPWIND when applying this powder. It STINKS.

[trisham]

I’ll send your link to my sister in Florida. Her yard is full of nests, which is where I received my bite.

[Arrowhead1952]

Tell her she doesn’t need to put much powder on the nests. I use a nail and poke holes into the top seal of the cannister and use it like a big salt / pepper shaker. Just put enough on the top to have a light white coating.

[gardengirl]

The trick with squash vine borers is to start dusting the stems of your plants as soon as they emerge from the ground. Keep them dusted. Rotenone works well if you can still get it. The borers are eggs laid by a small moth. The moths are worse around a full moon, so if you can get your plants up and growing and get the stems hardened off some, that will help too.

Orthene, or acephate, is a godsend against fireants. Smells like rotten cabbage. I use the shaker method as well. Doesn’t take a whole lot.

[hoe_cake]

Also cut worms get my blossoms..I dust, it rains, teh cut worms do their magic before I can get to my garden to dust again.

[trisham]

I will. Thanks!

[Free Vulcan]

Managed to get two rows of peas in. Still not trusting the weather at this point to put much else in.

[trisham]

I guess stabbing the squash borer in the vine can work if done early enough. My husband used this method, but I believe it can be rather repulsive.

[chickpundit]

I read your article about the squash and gourds mixing, but for some reason, it didn’t register, lol. I’ll need to do some more research to see if what I’m wanting to do will work.

I thought saving hollyhock and poppy seeds were fun. The poppy seeds pour out like a salt shaker.

[gardengirl]

Wow! Never had that prob before!

[gardengirl]

I’m a very tactile person anyway and seeds are so much fun to play with! I love the shapes and textures and some seeds sven smell good—herbs, for instance.

[nw_arizona_granny]

I need a new Barn Cat or two.<<<

I can donate all you want, I live in the middle of a feral cat colony.

Couldn’t be the fact that they eat well at the feeder, no, not my fault, it is that I can’t stand seeing an empty cat dish.

[Red_Devil 232]

YEA! Two of my fig trees are showing buds this morning!

[gardengirl]

Yea is right! I’m glad. Ours in the greenhouse have leafed out and we had to evict them. I’m out of room. :)

80 here Fri and now its 50, with a nor’easter howling. Sposed to be in the 60’s/70’s all week and then another cold weekend.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Oh, boy. You’re more kind hearted than I am. With a flock of laying hens providing my “pin money” feral cats aren’t welcome ‘round here. My house cats are lucky if I remember to fill their auto-feeder once a month, LOL!

It’s nearly time for them to get outside and return to earning their keep around here. ;)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“...and some seeds even smell good—herbs, for instance.”

I find chewing on a caraway or fennel seed sweetens the breath in a pinch. :)

[gardengirl]

I hear you on the cats. One house cat is ok. Here, they have no natural enemies, the weather doesn’t get cold enough to hurt them, and they can breed like 3 times a year. You don’t have to be a math genius to figure out that the cat population can explode overnight. With the abundance of fish and critters here along the coast, ferals are a damned nuisance. Don’te even get me started on the diseases and parasites they carry. Sheesh!

I have some chocolate mint that “escaped” in the greenhouse. It’s right tasty, too! I read something one time—something about weeding out gentlemen callers in a previous century—if their breath smelled of carraway (?) to steer clear because they probably had bad teeth. LOL