Posted on 07/24/2015 1:28:56 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.
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Speaking of Tomatoes, while the volunteers are doing better than the others, as they ripen they too are suffering with some soft places and very much less flavor than prior years-too much water.
I read somewhere that the way to get the best flavor was to let the tomatoes suffer a little dryness, and that too much water would dilute the flavor.
The best tasting tomato I have had so far was a Chaddwick Cherry tomato that I grew indoors in a pot that is too small. So I'm going to go ahead and get some tomatoes going indoors.
Some of the container tomatoes, I have stripped the leaves off the bottom stem, and buried it in a larger pot, in better soil. We'll see if I can get a few better ones going with those, and I'm going to sow some new ones with shorter maturity dates to maybe get a better crop going for fall.
Have been canning beans every night this week. Done with those, the rest are going to be left to make dried beans. A second patch will come along soon, and those will be pickled. Tonight, I'll be moving along to freezing the corn.
From now till the first week in August is the planting time for most of fall crops in Missouri, and I think those will be going into the patch where we just harvested the corn. Lots to get done this time of the year.
Updates from last week's thread regarding Arrowhead and Johnny sounded like there was some improvement. Sill praying daily for these guys.
Hope everyone is doing well. Have a great weekend, and God Bless.
Pinging the List. Computer is really slow today. Don’t know if it’s my machine, the server, or FR. Most likely our service provider though.
I have a question......all of a sudden my cucumbers are wilting, getting brown spots and turning yellow to brown.it started at on end of the row and is moving it’s way to the other....what do I do?
I seem to have a brown thumb; but my husband has an organic garden. We’re old & don’t raise a whole lot of anything. The squash is beginning to come in; we have had blackberries, blueberries, strawberries - all we could eat.
I freeze a little bit of stuff, but not a whole lot. - Going overboard raising things tends to create a stress that we don’t need at our age.
Wow!
After a sort bout of laziness and then a short bout with a totally unremarkable health problem I’m now 3 weeks behind on weeding the garden and it cannot be seen for the weeds!
LOL!
Seriously, the hot and wet weather here has inspired these weeds.
Cleaning it up this weekend. The nice part is I won’t even have to bend over to pull weeds..
Doesn’t seem to have hurt any of it but some broccoli though.
Mrs. Texan is back in the hospital for the third surgery on her leg this time to treat an infection. Prayers are most appreciated.
Canning .. Oh yeah.. Mason jars lined up from here to the clothes line and back.. Pickles. For starters. :-)
Memories of my yout’ and earlier.
Jams jellies .. Chickens..
Yummmmy.
Tomaties are near the end of surge one.. Need to prune and clean em up, pep em up, make a homegrown pot full of chili and peppers by NFL kickoff ,
I may actually get more than one pepper this year. Teeny but.. :-)
Here’s some info on Cukes and their problems. I must admit that I have trouble growing all the corcubits. I think it has to do with a soil disease, and so far nothing I have tried has worked.
http://www.harvesttotable.com/2009/05/cucumbers_growing_problems_tro/
“We’re old & don’t raise a whole lot of anything. Going overboard raising things tends to create a stress that we don’t need at our age.”
It is 103 degrees outside here and I am 81. There is no way I could spend time in that heat growing food. I can do it if I start in the early spring and have done it about a year ago, growing food plants from seed. I had to prove to myself I could do that, and I did after trial and error the year before that one.
I think I will buy plants next spring, not grow them from seed, but then I think about the ones I did grow from seed, and think I should do it that way, just not as many.
Anyway, I understand your comment about age, it does make a difference.
Hubby and I are senior citizens too. While we are still pretty active and able, we are getting things like fruit trees and berry bushes and things that basically don’t have to be planted every year, since we know that eventually we’ll be wanting/needing to slow down a bit.
Whatever we do grow has got to be better for us than what’s at the grocery. We like to think of our gardens as the cheapest source of “organic” produce. LOL
Don’t feel bad; I seem to have had a similar malady. Bout of laziness, flu, hubby’s emergency surgery, and the weeds just totally took over and are so intertwined with veggies, that I’m kinda afraid to pull them.
I have a couple of patches that did not get planted, though, so those can be weeded and used for fall plantings, if Lazy Daisy doesn’t show up again. LOL
I have been awol for a while. Still flower gardening and got my tomatoes in a little late, but they are putting out fruit (nothing has ripened yet). I’ll have to watch the over watering. I see some wilting leaves and grab the waterhose right away.
My flowers are doing well and everything is green and growing. I have been able to keep up with the weeding okay.
I started to work the volunteer hotline at the County Extension office a couple of times a month. I enjoy that although my lack of knowledge is a little unnerving at times. But the people who call in are so thankful that someone answers the phone and helps them with their problems. There are several people in the office with great wisdom and experience and they help me out when I get stuck.
I’ve got to run. I hope everyone has a beautiful weekend!
Johnny:
Johnny went to cancer doc yesterday and was told the MRIs just taken showed his brain tumor is no larger and may, in fact, be getting smaller. He said the doc was non-specific about the liver and lungs.
He goes to his GP doctor at VA today. I doubt she will know anything more about the cancer, but if she does, I’ll post it if it is good news.
My observation is, he is much better than he was a month ago. He can walk well and cook and think; I say think because it’s difficult to think when you have a bad headache and that seems to be better. He is re-doing his house, throwing away what he doesn’t like and buying new stuff and that includes a new twin bed which he loves. He is on a mission to make his house the way he wants it.
I know he hasn’t been posting on FR, and I think he is concentrating on his health and his house. When you have just so much strength/stamina, you use it dealing with your present surroundings. He is sitting in the middle of his world right now.
HOUSEHOLD TIPS:
This was sent to me today, with pictures. I put it in a Word document, without pictures, and thought all of you might be able to use some of these tips - I can.
1. Keep brown sugar soft by storing with a couple of marshmallows.
2. Install a regular coat rack low down the wall to store shoes safely off the floor.
3. Create a thrifty watering can by puncturing holes in the top of a used milk bottle.
4. Remove pet hair from furniture and carpets with a squeegee.
5. Flip a toaster on its side to make grill cheese.
6. Water straight from the tap becomes cloudy when frozen. To make ice cubes crystal clear, allow a kettle of boiled water to cool slightly and use this to fill your ice cube trays.
7. Use a large muffin tin to cook stuffed peppers in the oven - it will help keep them upright.
8. To prevent potatoes budding, add an apple in the bag.
9. Add half a teaspoon of baking soda to the water when hard-boiling eggs to make the shells incredibly easy to peel off.
10. WD40 can be used to remove crayon marks from any surface.
11. To tell if eggs are fresh, immerse them in a bowl of water. Fresh eggs will lie on the bottom, while stale eggs will float to the surface.
12. To clean a wooden chopping board, sprinkle on a handful of Kosher salt
and rub with half a lemon. Rinse with clean water and dry to ensure it is clean and germ-free.
13. Use ice-cubes to lift out indentations made by furniture on your carpets.
14. Prevent soil from escaping through the holes in the base of flowerpots by lining with large coffee filters.
15. To sharpen scissors, simply cut through sandpaper.
16. Use rubber bands to help open a jar easily: place one around the jar lid and another around the middle of the glass. The rubber provides friction to prevent your hands from slipping.
17. To prevent your eyes watering while chopping onions, wipe the chopping board with white vinegar (which won’t affect the taste of the onions).
18. Store bed sheets inside their pillowcases for easy storage and access.
19. Drop a couple of denture cleaning tablets into the toilet bowl at night to clean off stubborn stains.
20. Use cupcake cases to cover drinks glasses in the summer and prevent flies from dropping in.
21. Use egg boxes to store delicate Christmas tree decorations.
22. Use a hand can opener to open those endlessly annoying blister packs and avoid cutting yourself.
23. Use a cut potato to easily remove a broken light bulb.
24. Use chalk to remove grease stains from clothes. Simply rub white chalk on the affected area and wash as normal - the chalk will absorb the grease and be washed away in the cycle.
25. Freeze grapes to chill white wine without watering it down.
26. Use a rubber band to rescue a stripped screw.
27. Wrap rubber bands around the ends of a coat hanger to prevent dresses from slipping off.
Prayers up for the Mrs. Good to hear that the figs are doing well. Hubby just came in and said that the Almond tree is loaded, but the squirrels are picking them green, taking a bite, and throwing them down.
Gonna have to cover them up. Reminds me, I still have peaches to go over and pick, if there are any left.
Thank you so much for the continuing updates. We will continue to pray for his recovery. Wanting to do stuff is a really GOOD sign!
Wow. Just the topic I was going to bring up this week. Disease.
I’ve had problems with powdery mildew and late season blight for years.
This is the first year I’ve actually got some squash & cukes that look like we’ll be able to actually eat some. (Frying up squash blossoms right now - yum!), but some of the plants are showing signs of powdery mildew. Been spraying everyday with Serenade. Seems to be slowing the problems down at least.
Late season blight just seems to be everywhere here in southern CT. I’ve noticed it in trees and weeds even. I just keep my tomatoes pruned and remove any part of the plant that shows signs of it. Seems to go after the potatoes too, but doesn’t seem to effect the tubers the way it effects the tomatoes.
What does everyone else do to deal with these problems?
Chili-that sounds good, I haven’t had any for a good while. May just grab a homemade chili block and throw it in the crock pot and have a chili dog of chili burger.
I just finished canning 20 lbs of chicken that I got on sale for 39 cents per lb. earlier this week. Stuck the bones in the freezer. Will be making some bone broth later on and freezing it or canning it.
Would love to find some beef bones to do the same, but there are none available except for t bones and porterhouse steaks at 15 bucks a lb. Hoping to get some soup bones next time we go to another town.
Thanks so much for the update. That’s great that you all have such a hotline. You’ll be learning a lot and helping others at the same time!
I’m fixing to order some sugar beets and mangels to grow this fall for my chickens. Shumway’s has them in bulk, so yay. We’ll see if they work out.
No rain for nearly a month here and ~95+ every day has taken its toll on the garden. Keeping stuff watered is time consuming. Thank goodness for soaker hoses though. I’ve had one on the apple trees today.
Got a bunch of fig trees from various places last fall and this spring and some of them even have little figs on them already. Hubby loves fig preserves so maybe we’ll have enough to make a few jars of that.
We’ve planted a 10X50ft section of Painted Mountain corn (Johnny’s and Southern Exposure) and a 10X15ft section of Red Mesilla peanuts (touted to make a crop in 90 days) from this guy:
http://jandlgardens.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=70
We’ve had a sprinkler and soaker hoses on those to keep them damp and look to have ~100% germ on the peanuts and about 85% on the corn. Which isn’t bad I guess given the heat and likely bird predation on the corn. Should be able to harvest both sometime in mid/late October.
I’ve found a 75 day pumpkin at Adaptive Seeds that I’m going to order this afternoon. Still enough time for that to make here before frost and might even avoid the vine borer problem altogether since it’s already so late in the year. Will try their Saskatoon white corn too, planted in mid August to avoid crossing with the painted mountain. Plus, they appear to have some open pollinated SE and SH2 corn varieties so I’ll have to get those too for next year.
Been eating cucumbers like mad and patty pan squash as those are the only things that don’t have their panties in a bunch with the hot weather. There’s something trancendantal about cucumber slices dipped in Italian dressing. Should have planted some Asparagus Beans but just didn’t get around to it drat drat drat.
Still need to plant some cowpeas and will try to do that this afternoon late. Zipper Cream should have time to make. And some more bush string beans along with some bush limas. Trying to sort out varieties and which garden plot so I can possibly save seeds from all that and not have any inadvertent crosses.
Ordered garlic from Forever Yong too. Have had really great luck with them in the past. They carry varieties that do well in warmer winter areas.
Haven’t posted much lately, been busy busy busy. I’ve taken up crochet. Everyone in the family and some extended family are getting afghans for Christmas :P
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