Back from the windy city. Attended lots of training sessions from 8am to 6pm,then came supper, and a walk over to my hotel to get in before dark. No strolling around dowtown Chicago after dark, for this gal-I have better sense than that. So tired I would go immediately asleep, then wake up about 3 hours wide awake. So I'd drink a little herbal tea, review conference materials, make notes and action plans. Finally I would wind down a bit and go back to sleep about 3am, and then up at 6pm. Eat breakfast, clean up and stroll over to the conference site by 8am to do it again.
Someone asked me if I was having fun. LOL I didn't go there to have fun, and I didn't really have any. I had great suppers, and learned a lot of sutff, that will translate into lots of work to do for my volunteer work. I would say the conference was necessary, informative, and useful, but FUN-I'd rather be almost anywhere else for fun. LOL
Sorry I did not get to answer all your posts from last weeks thread. There was an issue with truncation, so I answere the ones I had. I promise I wasn't ignoring anyone.LOL
Garden did not do so well while I was gone. It was pretty droopy, and needed some immediate watering. Some of the perennials may not come back they got so dry.
Cukes and cantaloupes have succumbed to some sort of wilt. They will have to be pulled and taken to the burn pile. I'll have to do some research to see what happened to them, and whether there is anything I can do for next year.
I may have to just grow them in containers with new potting mix next few years, since I have a feeling the soil is now infected with spores or something.
Almond Tree produced some fruit. It looks just like a peach. There is a pit inside that looks like a peach. Cracked the pit, and there was a beautiful almond. The fruit wasn't quite ripe. Now I'm thinking phewy on youey peaches. I got me some almonds, and the fruit is just peachy enough to be a great peach substitute, and I get almonds, a great source of vitamnin E, to boot.
Just maybe this is a superior tree for our limited acre fruits and nuts from the same tree.LOL
Hope you are all doing well, Have a great weekend, and God Bless.
You might have had vine borers in your cukes and cantaloupes.
Not unheard of. One of our neighbors lost every cucumber to vine borers one year.
Oh, what variety almond/peach is that? I’ve seen one at Starks but have been too chicken to order it.
Pinging the List.
I got busy this year and only planted potatoes. They seem to be doing well. I need to start digging up some and using them.
It all started innocently... I burned myself in the kitchen and gritched to my daughter that I needed an Aloe Vera, since my last ones had died in the nuclear summer of '11.
So she got one from her grandmother (my ex-mother-in-law) and brought it to me.
It had little ones, so I transplanted them to pots. And then there were more little ones, and I transplanted them to pots.
These things are reproducing like tribbles.
/johnny
A doe ate most of one of the walnut trees I planted this spring. It was doing every well, with a mate nearby. The leaves were vacuumed off. Just damn !
The subject: salvia officianalis. The story: raised in largish pot, grew very well, trimmed top leaves and, at 5-6 inches in height, was bushing out nicely on the lower stem.
Transplanted it to about 30" away from my best salvia plant. VERY carefully -- I'd be shocked to find that the roots were damaged in the process (although my x-ray vision is on the fritz...). Saw to it being well-watered for about a week (longer is dubious here, see below), with a bit of 12-24-12.
Temps are 65-80 F., occasionally a little warmer, no 90s (we're up at 2900 feet alt.) Roughly half-sun, half-shade, just as the other plant...and it is now losing its smaller leaves and drooping. No leaf damage from insects. Not dying (yet), but not healthy at all, still making new leaves, though more slowly than before.
The locale: El Valle de Anton, Cocle province, Panama. No frost concerns, ever. June-November is the rainy season here, and it is a typical one; very little add-on watering required in the garden.
Its plant mate (er, so to speak) is just chugging along, very healthy, and should end up being a fine sage plant.
The only garden pests of note are ants and wasps (very benign ones; you leave them alone, they leave you alone). I have not heard of ants chewing on sage roots, but I suppose anything is possible.
Thoughts? Ideas? Outright laughter? All notions appreciated, with the exception that I prefer NOT to use organophosphates for any reason.
Many TIA, gardeners!
Report of marvelous results so far, thanks to four foot long grow lamp.
I planted these seeds last Sunday. Grow lamp stays on until I go to bed, then turn it on when I get up the next day. I planted two paper cups of each variety of seed with several seeds in each cup. If the seed was so small it was almost microscopic, I just put “some” in each one. The seeds that have sprouted and ones that haven’t yet:
Sprouted:
Giant Zinnia – both cups (these Zinnia seeds were sent free to me by a seed company when I bought other stuff from them)
Green Beans – both cups
Lettuce – both cups
Brussels Sprouts – both cups
Cucumber – both cups
Turnips – both cups
Not sprouted yet:
Baby carrots – none
Regular onion – none
Regular squash – none
The Egyptian Walking Onions are now planted in a long planter in the dirt garden. I took out a good part of the regular dirt in the planter and replaced it with fresh potting soil mix. Placed the onions about a foot apart in there, watered it, put row cover over all of it, used metal spikes to secure the cover to the ground up and down the planter so the squirrels can’t remove it.
While I was out there, I opened the envelope of mixed flowers that attract hummingbirds and butterflies, and sprinkled them along the ground in a spot about three feet long, put a dab of dirt on top, watered it and put row cover over that, using the stakes again to secure that one. Those damned squirrels and birds are NOT going to murder what I just did. This is absolute war between them and me and I aim to win, blast their murdering hides.
I have to have more grow bags for these new developing plants, and ordered some cheap ones and they should be here by next week.
The “T” Italian squash in the barrel is about a foot and a half tall, swell looking. The sesame flower plant is over two feet tall. Tomatoes in tomato planter with trellis are fine as well as five others in 5 gal. grow bags. I have another large tomato planter with trellis and I can transplant some of those five if I buy more potting soil which I have to do anyway. Sweet potato plants (3) in 10 gallon grow bag have beautiful lush green leaves just growing every where. I think they would be dead by now if they were in the dirt garden for murdering insects would have already destroyed them. A pox on garden dirt insects.
Strawberry plants in little pots still haven’t come – need to contact that company.
That’s all from Marcella’s Food Plant Container Farm :o)
Cyanide smells like almonds for a reason.
“Real” almonds have a tough, thick-skinned, very thin-meated fruit surrounding the nut. Not sure what you have.
Any stone fruit pit can be cracked, and the seed used as an “almond”...
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http://bravetart.com/blog/ThePits
The knee-jerk omg cyanide reaction seemingly everyone responds with isn’t entirely unfounded. Noyaux contain a substance called amygdalin, which breaks down during digestion to become sinister hydro-cyanic acid. Given the chance, a hundred grams of raw stone fruit kernels would produce about 160 milligrams of cyanide. Probably the most over-hyped, shrug-worthy food risk on the planet when you consider a hundred grams of black beans would produce 400 milligrams of cyanide (thanks, dusty copy of Food and Nutritional Toxicology). As with those deadly black beans, cooking the pits causes a breakdown of the harmful substances and renders them safe for consumption, ...
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PEACH PIT JELLY recipes & discussion. http://mrssurvival.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=28879
Has anyone ever grown quinoa? I put some in on a lark and its doing quite well. Looks like I'll have to figure out how to harvest it.
Yesterday's tomato & green been harvest. Picked about the same one Monday.
Caterpillars are munching their way through my planters. Butterflies will be here soon.
After making a trial quart the night before and tasting them the next day, we made & processed 4 more quarts of sweet-hot dill pickles last night.
Dill (DUH!) brown mustard seed, celery seed, fennel seed, coriander seed, alum, some whole dried Serrano peppers, Egyptian top-onions, and garlic in each jar. Pickle is 6 cups sugar, 4 cups white vinegar, and 4 cups water. We used spears cut from our 5 “Muncher” slicing cuke plants that are producing beyond all reason. The seeds were a ‘free bonus’ included in our jung’s order.
Amazingly,our “Green Arrow” peas are still limping along, and I’m babying them, and keeping them picked, hoping to get a second crop when cool (hit 98 today! been ~15 or so above average for over a week) Fall weather returns.Speaking of weather, yet another tornado reported ‘on the ground’ today, in Custer County; not even remotely near us.
So far, about a half dozen black oilseed sunflowers have been harvested. That alone has returned several times more seed than I planted.
Our garden was a disaster this year. We have all raised beds because of two huge black walnut trees next door. Need to make sure we get lots of nutrients in those beds before planting next year. I think they’re depleted of nutrients.
Deer ate our hostas, pole beans and some tomatoes. We added height to our fence and stopped them from getting in. They even found the lone volunteer sqash we found growing in our compost pile! We defeated the bunny by adding rabbit fencing. Then, a groundhog found its way in and ate the brussels sprouts - first time growing them and they were really doing well. It ate the tops off of our carrots, our bush beans and ate all the leaves off of the sweet potatoes and pumpkins.
At least we got enough tomatoes to get several quarts put back. No caggabe either, so I finally packed it in and bought 50 lbs of cabbage to make sauerkraut.
I won’t give up. This is war!
I think I need to take a gardening class. I need to grow a green thumb. I sure as heck don’t have one now!
Hello, Everybody!
Tomatoes are doing well. I’m so glad I didn’t give up! At last count, we have 16 baby ‘maters on the vine.
I was amazed to see that the green bell pepper plant is taking off and starting to bloom again...lots of blooms! After I picked my about 1/2 dozen several weeks ago, I was almost going to pull it up, but since it seemed alive and happy, I decided to just keep watering it and see how the plant developed. Good decision! LOL!
The sunflower which was partially truncated at the bottom and repaired with a splint, has continued to thrive as best as it can, and has even bloomed. The flower is about 4-5 inches, petals and all, so looks like a regular sized wild sunflower. I’m so amazed it has survived and is actually bloomimg, bless its little sunflower heart! The other sunflowers seem to be thriving. A couple days ago I was in the garden and a neighbor drove by and asked what variety I had planted. “Mammoth,” I replied, and he said he had been enjoying watching ours the past two years and wants to grow some himself next year.
Okra is amazing. I missed one of the pods and saw it the other day and it is HUGE. I’ve decided to leave it on for seed. Darlin said if I wanted the plant to produce more, I should pick it. I know that is correct because it does take a lot of energy to produce seed, but I decided that I’m not trying to maximize the harvest this time, but to see what a plant actually does.
Amaranth is continuing to grow. It is putting out new growth and some of the plants have started seed heads. I noticed yesterday that this variety has TINY little yellow flowers.
The cucumbers are producing well, and taking up a lot of room in the refrigerator. I think I’m getting to the point where it may be time to share some of the “overs” with some friends.
The snow peas are thriving and climbing and seem pretty happy. No blooms yet. The other legumes are also producing, but I’m letting them all grow and harden into seed.
The new squash plants are growing. The acorn squash isn’t growing very fast, but the scallop squash is racing.
We’ve been fighting grasshoppers here. I killed a huge one the other day which had been munching down on one of my mammoth sunflowers. We also killed a huge borer bug by immobilizing it with neem, then stomping it.
I have been learning so much by working with plants this year, and that process has been helped along tremendously by what I’ve learned on this thread! Thanks to all of you for your input and encouragement! But there’s still so much to learn, and I’m grateful that I can turn to all of you for advice as we continue our efforts to become better gardeners.
There's just something satisfying about running your fingers through a pile of seeds that you grew yourself. You can't buy a feeling like that.
Today I have one more tomato ready to chop up for seed, along with 2 big cucumbers. And, one of the tomatoes that I cross-pollinated is almost ripe. I'll have to be careful what I pick from now on, because most of the tags I used to mark my crosses got blown off! Fortunately, I also pinched off all the other buds in the cluster every time I made a cross, so as long as I'm careful I should be able to tell which is which.
My bean tipi keeps falling over and leaning on the fence. I thought it was the wind, but yesterday I went out there and scared a squirrel out of it, so I think the wind is getting help. Another reason to pick the bean pods the moment they turn yellow.
I counted kernels on one of the ears of corn I have drying. If it had been pollinated properly, each ear would have over 260 kernels of corn on it. I was expecting them to be a lot smaller than that. I might be able to plant a good patch next year after all! I thought it would take at least 2 or 3 years to expand my seed supply before I could grow enough to eat from.
Oh, and good news, my strawberry patch is outstripping the rabbits! I've started getting berries again, even though they still keep snitching.
Okay; tonight I reneged on the dilly-beans.
Instead, we did 3 pints each of green beans and carrots. Carrots got a dash—yes; I have a set of those spoons—of caraway seeds in each jar. Just waiting for the canner to finish purging, so I can put the weight on it, and start building pressure.
Today, I got a few more oilseed sunflowers harvested; that makes about 20 in all so far; and it also gave us nearly 2.5 pounds of black oilseeds. That’s a lot of seeds/seed planted.
The surviving chick from the snake attack is 100% totally, certifiably, psychotically insane. Since it is now somewhat larger than a large game hen, we’re going to use some of the leeks in the garden, and invite it to a cocky-leeky dinner next week...an offer he can’t refuse.
I dug the last of my potatoes yesterday. Got 20 gallons from a 50’ row. Fried some for supper last night. Yum