Posted on 05/22/2015 1:05:17 PM PDT by greeneyes
The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks.
No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no telling where it will go and... that is part of the fun and interest. Jump in and join us!
NOTE: This is a once a week ping list. We do post to the thread during the week. Links to related articles and discussions which might be of interest are welcomed, so feel free to post them at any time.
After a week of cool days in the 40s and 50s with nights in the low 40s we finally have a day with sunshine and a temperature of 68 degrees. Days and nights will be warming up going forward for the next 10 days.
The rain barrels and swimming pool are full-May is usually our wettest month, and gardening activities will resume this weekend. First up is to transplant tomatoes into beds and buckets.
Then preparation and planting of one variety of corn. Starting some new lettuce and spinach. Harvest the last of the current Spinach and freeze.
Thinking about planting some peanuts and sorghum sometime next week or first week in June.
Hope all is well with you and yours. Have a great Holiday weekend! God Bless.
We’re muddling along here.
Lots of tomatoes fruit and blossoms.. All the asian pear and apples look to doing pretty , considering the drought and chemtrails and all. :-)
The peppers are OK, snails wreaked havoc on one plant, the rest look OK.
As for honey bees or such,, not a lot of them around yet.. Temps have been on the cool side lately..
Bump for Our Active Duty Service Members on the Memorial Day weekend! God Bless.
Pinging the list.
From Mrs. Don-O we have a link regarding mini farming:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3291237/posts
From AFTR, we have an article on the Sweetest Watermelon:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3291594/posts
Thanks to everyone who participates and helps to make this thread interesting, fun, and informative every week. Keep those pictures coming, it makes me feel great to see your successes and a picture is worth a thousand words. LOL
Rabbits have decimated my veggies. I put some netting up but they still managed to get through. I went out and got some pellets that are supposed to keep rabbits out. I told my wife “we are really stupid paying $16 for pellets to protect about the same cost amount of veggies when for about 50 cents worth of .22 rounds I could take care of the problem and have some meat in the pot. She vetoed that idea.
I have several blooms and some pea size fruit on my tomato plants that are waiting for final transplant to garden. I didn’t want to plant them until the cool weather was over.
We have actually had some snow in May before way long time ago and highly unusual, but why take a chance?
We had loads of honey bees earlier when our mystery tree bloomed almost all at once. It had the prettiest white flowers. Looked like those ornamental trees. Hope we get some fruit this year so we can figure out what it is. LOL
Inch worms are eating everything in sight!
The word for today is HAIL - hail, hail and more hail, and I don’t mean to the chief. I swear, I’ve never seen so much hail in this area! I can’t even remember the last time it hailed, and now we’ve had 3 hail storms in as many weeks. I’ve got new tobacco sprouts, new tomato sprouts and more. Luckily, they were all inside during the last 2 rounds of hail. Anything remaining after the 1st storm has now been entirely obliterated. That’s likely going to be the last time I plant so early! Lesson learned!
We have trouble with rabbits, but the squirrels are worse. They have also wised up to the live traps too. There is a stray cat that catches rabbits and squirrels and hauls them off to her wherever her brood is hidden.
I guess that’s also one good thing about the neighbor’s letting there dogs out to roam the neighbor hood and poop in the yard, they help scare away the big rats and hoppers.
We usually don’t loose that much to the critters, but that summer where we had an unusually dry streak, they sucked everything they could just to get moisture, I think.
Oh no! I’ve never seen any inch worms here. What zone are you in?
Tomatoes haven’t changed over last 2 weeks. Constant rain and little sunshine. Today is first day without rain. Cucumbers are taking off and have taken over one of my 4x4’s. Already picked some string beans which were blanched then sauteed in garlic and sprinkled with bread crumbs and parmesan. Couple of zucchini coming up.
Picked what looked like a weed and pulled up 3 potatoes. Figure they got there from composting since I didn’t plant them. My peppers haven’t done anything. Plants are growing but that’s about it. Think it’s the weather. Been spraying all the flowers with hormone so veggies can take off. Have beautiful zucchini blossoms so I might just use them and stuff them instead of seeing if they produce any fruit.
In Texas, coming up on June. What should be planted?
Have a great weekend and here’s to our heroes!!!
Hubby and I have decided that we are going to get that little greenhouse/sunroom that was posted on the Gardening thread, and are saving money to get it.
If his mother’s house is sold soon and the estate is settled, he’s going to use part of that to get the green house and a wood chipper.
Then, we’ll be having much of our early stuff in there away from some of the damage of storms and such. Also a couple of more lemon trees and expanded indoor winter garden.
there=their
We used to have outdoor cats to take care of things. Problem is we would get attached to them and the coyotes would get them. Since we live in a lake area where housing is pretty tight (with no lease laws) I don't want to have an outdoor dog since I object to the ones the neighbors have running free.
Some folks are going to get a freeze tonight!
Late-Season Freeze to Threaten Northeast Friday Night
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3292571/posts
I planted my second batch of tomatoes today, after making room in the raised beds by harvesting the last of the kale, kohlrabi and all but 14 of my 40 onions. We had 1/2 inch of rain yesterday .... looks like we’re in for some hot and dry weather coming up after the weekend.
The grass is growing like crazy and of course, the mower broke - belt came off the deck. After “much ado”, we have the belt back on .... the test will be either tonight or tomorrow as to whether it was a fluke that it came off or is there something broken that allowed it to come off. We didn’t see anything wrong when we got the belt back on, so fingers crossed all will be ok (did a quick test patch & the mower worked, could adjust the height, etc.).
Found what looks like a good kale salad recipe - will be trying it out tomorrow. (Link: http://freethemom.com/2013/02/08/the-best-kale-salad-ever-ever-ever/ PDF if you don’t want to read all the blog stuff: https://freethemom.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/freethemom-kale-salad-recipe1.pdf)
I understand about the free range dogs! It’s most annoying, and a violation of one of the subdivision “rules”.
Dogs are supposed to be in a pen, in the house, or on a leash. Originally, we had no problem, except for dogs that were dumped which usually got adopted or taken to a shelter.
Most of the original owners of the houses have retired and sold their homes to young people, and apparently failed to disclose the “rules”.
We have a fenced area we built for our kids, and used for our dog. As does our neighbor immediately uphill. The neighbor immediately below us has an electrical invisible boundary.
The people across the street, and for several houses up just let their dogs out and they go every where but their own yard. One of these days, I think I’ll get some chickens and rabbits to grow for food, and I better not hear anything about any stinkin rules!
can you add me, please?
Thanks for the warning and recipe! Keeping my fingers crossed that your mower continues to work. Now if I could just get my mower operator to get going. The grass has been growing like gangbusters here.
This rain in Texas is really getting me down. The ground is like a wet sponge. Leaves on tomato plants are turning yellow from too much rain and no sun. Full of green tomatoes though. I did pick the first batch of green beans and 3 good size zucchini. Peppers have blossoms but no fruit. Eggplants are really filling out nicely so now it is just a matter of waiting for the sun to return. Hoping for next week but weather guys are saying we are stuck in this rainy weather pattern.
I'm 68 years old and have never been bitten by a dog even though I will chase big dogs out of my yard. I've had them come at me barking and I go at them aggressively. They have always backed down. One of these days my alpha male façade is going to fail. I hope I have a 2x4 handy when that happens.
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