Weekly Gardening Thread
FIREWORKS FLOWER WORKS
Weekly Gardening Thread
FIREWORKS FLOWER WORKS
I hope all of you will stop by.
This is typically a low volume ping list. Once a week for the thread and every once in a while for other FR threads posted that might be of interest.
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My cucumbers are almost ready, I got 3 this week. And a few cherry tomatoes.
Summer has arrived!
We’ve been deluged with tomatoes the last week or so. Only in the last 2 days have they started to slow down.
Okra continues to pick.
Jalapenos & bell peppers are maintaining.
Everything else is going into the dormant stage due to the high temps.
However, over the past 4 days we’ve accumulated 1.4” of rain, mostly due to Alex. We were long overdue for some nice showers.
So nice to read how people are actually harvesting crops.
As you may remember, had to replant tomatoes as all were killed by early hail storm. New plants are now protected somewhat by the house, and are blooming. Six plants 30 blooms no tomatoes.
Last week we had another hailstorm that would have again taken out the tomatoes, but due to their protected location under the eave and on the good side of the two story part of the house, we were spared.
Pepper plants also replanted after hail, and they are out in full sun, but were small enough that they didn’t get hit with the fifty cent size hail this time around. Lots of blooms, no peppers yet.
Both the plum tree (European) and apple tree have been netted which we didn’t do last year. Squirrels took all the fruit last year when they weren’t netted.
That’s about it, my baby oak tree, grown from acorn is still in the house and growing fine. Oh, and my neighbor who has two chestnut trees that lose most of their nuts to squirrels, have actually regenerated themselves as we have found six small Chestnut trees sprouting up from squirrel buried nuts. In the past, I have buried them and come up with nothing to show for it. Who would have guessed, squirrels with green thumbs?
I have a yellow plum tree that has produced one good crop.
This year it was covered with plums but they have almost all fallen off before ripening.
What is the matter with it? HELP!
Love the pictures.
My garden is doing better than I’ve ever seen. Everything is coming in early and we’ve had perfect growing weather.
Question about tomatoes, though. I’ve heard that you’re supposed to pinch off the sucker shoots. How do you identify them and why pinch them off?
Hola!
We are in Cozumel on vacation - I can only pray that my daughter is watering my plants while I’m gone :)
We are surrounded by jungle here and the gardens on the grounds are absolutely beautiful. Lots of hibiscus and bromeliads and all the varieties of palms you can imagine.
We are staying at the Iberostar and just loving it. Jim is diving almost every day and I’m relaxing and reading.
Happy Fourth of July!
Thanks for the great pictures. I wish everybody has a safe and happy Fourth of July! I will be happily munching on cherry tomatoes, Jericho lettuce, and enough basil to make my first batch of pesto! The cucumbers continue to be tiny and non flowering. Several gardeners in the neighborhood said they are having similar problems. Must be something going around inhibiting cucumbers
Why do my Fireworks photos never look that good?
I was informed early this morning that I have single handedly killed or stunted 80% of my life mate’s flowers on the deck. She has accused me of overdoing the Slug Bait in the pots and it looks like I could be on bread and wine for the rest of the year...
I have okra and squash in. Been picking them for the last couple of weeks. Corn may be ready as soon as next week. I picked an ear this week to check for pests. Luckily, it was free of critters. I went ahead and cooked it even though it was young. It was still good, just not a lot of it. Nothing like the taste of fresh corn. Zucchini plant died, though.
My sweet peas are starting their second flush, I got 3 pods today. And my cucumbers have flowers on them. The tomatoes are taking their sweet time growing, but they are growing, so hopefully this won’t be another dud year. Haven’t been out to the land this week, hopefully tomorrow.
I’ve been experimenting with soda-bottle planters for a while, and I think I figured out why they weren’t working. There’s so little airflow that the soil starts fermenting, like an anaerobic digester. Smells like swamp gas. I cut some larger drainage holes into the sides of the bottles, the smell is already gone. Now to try planting in them again.
I’ve gotten a couple of books on medicinal herbs as a cash crop, so this summer I’ll be pinning down more landscape fabric to carve out lots more planting beds. I’m thinking german chamomile, pyrethrum, and red clover. My goal is to grow enough that the land pays at least its own property taxes, although I wouldn’t object if it made more than that!
On a side note, I’m getting the hang of this tailoring thing, made mom a new shirt that fits her perfectly and looks good besides. People keep telling me I should start my own tailor shop full-time. Might try that, but for now the ren faire will be starting soon, and there are costumes to make.
I picked another 5 or so that had started to turn red, but were still quite green. They sat inside for two days and are now fully red. I think I'll go this route from now on.
Still picking cucumbers. The last batch of 3 were sliced and put in an empty jar of pickle juice. I've pickled and canned 3 batches now, a total of 9 or 10 jars. I gave 2 away to neighbors.
I've picked several red serrano peppers, and another 4 or so about ready to pick. And several cayenne peppers looking really nice, but still green. No jalapeno ready to pick just yet.
Sweet potatoes are looking great, and you guys tell me my regular potatoes that are falling over are supposed to do that, so I guess they are doing well too.
And finally, the pineapple crowns I planted are growing, so I must be doing something right with them as well. I need to come up with a plan to bring them inside this fall, i.e., I have nowhere inside to put them at the moment.
Do dead worms make good fertilizer? I walk around the neighborhood for exercise and I see them plastered to the sidewalk, they die and the sun dries them out. The last time I walked I picked a dozen or so up, broke them into pieces, put them in the pot my Ghost Chile is in and covered them with some potting soil. I figured it couldn’t hurt but will it help?
Spent most of the week clearing out the jungle from over a foot of rain that fell in about 5 days.
Bump and linked it to the frugal thread.
Pinging me!