Can't get the garden beds ready, as they don't dry out. Every thing already planted is growing like weeds. Lawn is too, and the self propulsion on the mower has quit and can't be fixed. Our hillside is too steep to do with out this feature, so Hubby is getting a new mower for Father's Day.
We have a few small green tomatoes. Nothing ripe yet.
I know I am missing a couple of names that were supposed to be added to the list, but I can't find my notebook which I use to aid my memory. So if you didn't get a ping, please let me know and I'll set it up.
I have had a report from Kathy that Arrowhead has made some progress, so I'll try to link to that shortly. I have been praying for both Arrowhead and Johnny.
No update on Johnny, and he hasn't posted for a few days, so I am praying and praying for him.
Have a great weekend. Watch out for flash floods, if you happen to be in an area getting drenched. Stay safe. God Bless.
Pinging the list.
Too much rain, too many slugs. Luckily slugs are alcoholic, lol! Pans of beer seem to be working well.
The tobacco is beautiful. I really wish I had as much as I started with, but oh well. I'll go again next year, and start out later this time. I started far too early this year, and it stunted the growth of some of my stuff (I had Devil's Tongue chile plants that sprouted in February, and are still alive, but only about an inch and a half or so tall). I don't know that they are going to do anything or not. We'll see.
Event season has begun, so I'll be hitting some of the fairs and expo's we've got locally with my leather goods, and a new line of hand tied flies. Looking forward to that. On top of that, I'm organizing the Prepper Fest & Survival Expo here in town (facebook.com/prepandsurvive) on July 25th, so that's keeping me occupied at the moment.
I miss the rain already!!!! The hail can stay away, but I have been enjoying all the rain we've had over the past year!
I spent two hours in the garden with the weed whacker earlier this week. If it were to crack off sunny right now it would take a week to dry out enough to get the tiller out.
So in the meantime I’ve been picking peas. I’ve got about a gallon and a half of them shelled out now. Three more gallons yet to shell, and twenty feet of row left to pick after that. I’m so sick of shelling peas the rest of em might get fed to the chickens.
Yeh quite a dump of rain up there in Mo, Ok, Tx and elsewhere. Getting some tomatoes now in the 5 gal containers. Some have end blossom rot-—ughghghg— periods of real wet to real dry back to real wet will do that. I was gone for 12 days in early June a hot, dry period in N Tx until the recent rains. Mother is unconcerned with fairness and equality regarding the weather.
Prayers up for all our ailing FReeps in this imperfect world.
My tomatoes (krims) are loaded with HugE, HUGE maters. So much I’m having to tie the branches everyday. A bit of wilt setting in but another FReeper has put me on the path to remediation..
Fordhooks are starting to bloom.
Roma green beans have small fruit and popping with blooms.
Alabama Black Eye Butter beans have reached the top of their
(12 feet) poles and are blooming.
I’m pulling both crimson and Alabama Red okra.. (gunna fry up a batch tonight with my BBQ chicken and rice..)
Shishito peppers are rocking. Pulling them almost everyday.
My secondary planting of hybrid tomatoes are going to town, too.
Perilla is going to have to be thinned because it’s taking over everything..
I put some Korean white cukes (three) in the ground earlier this week and they got the memo..; grow, grow, grow... (I couldn’t get excited about growing cukes this year..sigh)
Putting more okra in the ground in the AM..
It’s going to be a good year here in Atlanta..!!
We *were* getting a few blueberries & raspberries; but the birds swooped in and made hogs of themselves, so no more blueberries. Snails ate on the strawberries; but we washed ‘em & ate around the snail bites. It’s too hot here to even go out and pick anything; so I send my husband, the resident organic gardener.
Tomatoes continue to be the big producer along with the corn which has done well even if a little beat up looking as it's in the path of a lot of run off.
A couple of tips with the warning I have no idea if they work, perhaps someone can verify.
Instructions with my new pump sprayer said to use vinegar to kill weeks.
Had a leak in the string trimmer fuel line that I couldn't figure out and told the counter guy at the repair place I'd ignore it but with the price of the canned gas I've been using I had a heart attack when I spilled a drop. One of the repair guys overheard and suggested aviation fuel. He said the lead wouldn't hurt a 2-cycle and it had a shelf live far longer than ethanol based stuff even if you use an additive. He said most small airports would gladly sell to the non-flying public.
Anyone with first hand experience with either?
Hi everyone! My offering will be a little shorter in length today. Since the prof gave his lecture in the dark with a lot of slides of insects and insect damage, I don’t have as many notes with words! I sought to write down what I could, and then in my notes for you, I did searches in some cases to see if I could find other pictures illustrating what the prof was explaining.
I hope all your gardens are doing well!
I actually planted something this week! We had a sack of potatoes that had sprouted, so I picked out a handful, cut them up and stuck em in the ground just to see if they would grow. I had had a volunteer potato plant and was pleased with myself that I could recognize sucking damage now when I see it! I had to pull up two of them but one was left. I treated it with insecticide soap, and so far, I think it is holding on.
Have a great week now that we are at the Summer Solstice time!
START INSTALLMENT THREE – BUGS
He showed us slides illustrating different kinds of insect injury.
Leaf miners’ “tracks” show a “serpentine” kind of damage, which actually is a sort of pretty kind of filigree-looking thing on a leaf. I did a quick check and found a link illustrating this:
http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/serpentine_mines_in_columbine_leaves_caused_by_a_leafminer
Fly larvae of the apple maggots show a sort of ookie area of squishiness and some dimpling where they are boring.
http://jenny.tfrec.wsu.edu/opm/displaySpecies.php?pn=140
He also showed gall insect damage. The feeding or egg laying activities cause the plant to make structures to protect the insect.
He also showed a picture of a cross section of what wood borer damage looks like, with the worm in it.
There was a leaf with a stippling pattern on it. Stippling damage is a common pattern left by insects who feed by sucking rather than chewing. When assessing damage, always remember to look for the SIGNS such as frass (bug poop) honeydew, and the insect itself. I found a link from Arizona illustrating this:
There was a picture with a leaf hopper. They are vectors for plant disease. Their mode of feeding is also sucking. Just looked up a link to these fascinating creatures that we never want to see!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leafhopper
Sometimes when encountering sucking damage from any of the sucking feeders, you might see a leaf which has been stunted because the nitrogen has been cut off because of the feeding by the insect.
If you encounter a splotchy white area in the middle of a leaf you could at first think it is a bird dropping, but he showed us an instance where a concentrated pattern of stipple feeding points have coalesced into one large drained area. The leaf example he showed was, he stated, likely to have been done by thrips. Found this link:
http://www.naturescontrol.com/thrip.html
Then he showed us some pictures of spider mite damage. I did a quick search and found this link:
http://www.wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Spider-Mites
END INSTALLMENT THREE BUGS
been real busy expanding our aquaculture set up. have tomatoes, eggplant, bush beans and a pepper being watered / fertilized from our small fish pond. so far so good. wife busy planting other summer crops. Finally our fruit trees have gone bonkers and we are dealing with a bumper crop of plums, peaches, apricots and nectarines. this is way too early - all because of the early heat here in california.
The remnants of tropical storm Bill blew threw last night. We got 1.04 inches of rain in about 2 hours, maybe less. This morning, there are a few small limbs down and I had to straighten up some things around the garden, but the overall result is some very happy plants! Everything looks green and wonderful with all of that rain.
Also today, I noticed I have my first ripe tomatoes - they are the Sugar Sweet cherry size tomatoes and they are orange rather than red and amidst the green foliage, they’re like little globes of sunshine. I ate two straight off the vine and the other two will be picked later today. My new current issue is the murder of crows that hang out around the garden in the morning - they got the largest Black Krim tomato. It was still very green so I didn’t think they’d be going after the tomatoes this early - live and learn. The temporary netting I took down just Wednesday is going back up in a different configuration to keeps the crows off of the tomatoes .... there’s always “something” going on around here with the wildlife!
Wonder of wonders...an absolutely PERFECT day for the garden here in soviet Red Hampshire...the passage of TD Bill has left us with a ‘greenhouse’ day in its wake...cloudy with diffused sunlight, a light wind under 5 MPH, seventy degrees, with high humidity of 80%. Stunning array of tomato, corn, pole bean and pepper plants...as nice as I have ever seen...loads of stocky volunteer tomatoes coming up, as well...now the game is to see what we get.
My first attempt at growing tomatoes. I have two Better Bush tomatoes. Each has it’s own barrel container. I am getting blossom end rot and have been having to remove green tomatoes rotted out on the bottom. How do I combat this?