Head size: Man vs. Cane Corso
Not in the mood to share
Posted on 05/14/2022 4:44:23 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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*** The bluebirds nesting nearby have made my big trellis in the garden a favorite high spot to perch - the males are in breeding plumage & super blue, just gorgeous.***
I have a pair of bluebirds that have begun nesting in one of the 4 houses I have. They had a clutch earlier, but none of those ever hatched. It got pretty cold here right after they were laid, for several weeks. So they built a new home, and have laid 5 more. I sure hope these ones hatch, but I won’t know for a few weeks.
I love bougainvillea and have 2 small plants that I hope to one day have them grow into a small shrub in a container. Only 2 of the 4 starters I planted made it through the indoor wintering, but I’m not giving up! Will repot to give them extra room this year. Maybe they will decide to like me as much as I like them. Fingers crossed.
Hollyhocks are another of my favorites, but where I planted one, they never came up again. Of course, very few things in that area of my garden survive. There’s a hickory tree right over the area, and the nuts must be like poison to the soil. I’ll have to find another spot, because I do love them.
“He Is Risen! He Is Risen, Indeed!” :)
That is quite the story! Nature always finds a way, doesn’t she?
Impressive asparagus!
On another note, last year I planted some teeny tiny baby shallots late in the season (probably June). They didn’t amount to much so I just let them overwinter in the hopes that they would be more robust. Well, they are beginning to look like normal small shallots. I think the container they are in holds too much moisture, so I want to put them into something else or else figure out how to improve the drainage on this planter. The soil seems wet a lot of the time. I’m looking for any advice on shallots. I don’t want to give up, but I have a lot to learn. Ideas or suggestions are welcome. Because of my HOA, I have to have these in a container that I can move somewhere if I ever get a note from the neighborhood watchdogs.
If ‘Rosella’ is an heirloom tomato from Rare Seeds (Baker Creek), I would err on the side of it being INDETERMINATE and give it plenty of room.
My SIL’s collie has discovered the “joys” of chasing squirrels LOL!
She’s visited a couple of times lately and she’s not on the front porch long before she spots a squirrel somewhere & is off and running. If you say “squirrel” or “deer” in an excited voice, she knows what is going on. For “deer”, she’s checking the fields .... for “squirrel”, she’s looking in the yard.
Last summer, when I was dog sitting, I didn’t see her nearby & started looking. Through the gate into the back fields, there is a slight rise ... she was lying down on that rise where she had a good view & alertly looking at the back fields, waiting for deer to appear near dusk. She figured out that when it was time for shutting the chicken coop door, etc. then deer were likely ... she did that several times when I was doing evening chores.
On the bluebirds watch out for wrens. They love to destroy bluebird nests and take over.
Long Chinese beans are our absolute favorite. We no longer plant green beans. Just getting seed in the ground as if yesterday. We have them run up a tall pole.
Not in the mood to share
Thx. Will do. So far the wrens have their own houses and stick to them. I watch out for House Sparrows more than the wrens. They are plentiful here, but so far are keeping to their own spots. All 4 of the bluebird houses are within view of my sunroom windows. (My backyard is on a hill, so I my sunroom is above these, almost like a tree house, but not really, just an elevated view of the back.)
Yeah I decided to put the peppers back there since spacing on those is 14-18” as compared to all the maters being 24” and maters being vines. Checked my companion planting literature and didn’t see any issue with pepper+peas+lettuce. Pepper plants are still tiny and peas/lettuce will be done in a month.
https://www.ruralsprout.com/incompatible-companion-plants/
16. Peppers
Pretty cool site. Same one that has the weed teas.
Got weeding done, several peppers and two maters in. Gotta put 4-5 more mater plants in and two pair of two types of marigolds. Got some chard that are pretty tiny but I think they can go in. I’ll just need to mark them, maybe with collars.
Pulled three ticks off of me already. Time to treat the perimeter with Sevin granules and/or permethrin spray. Perimeter is mostly gravel driveway plus my walking path to the shop. Does the trick and none goes near food plants.
I can start clipping salads any time now. Got 2-3 leaf lettuces, komatsuna, two kinds of mustard and collards. Could do some cooked greens soon too. Brocolli and cabbage looking good. Kohlrabi’s coming along nicely. Never had it before but I don’t think I’ve ever found a veggie I don’t like. I’m also trying to expand my autist son’s palate. He loves sci-fi so I’ll jokingly tell him it’s alien food.
He ate some shrimp the other day. He’d had the tiny breaded ones before but not cocktail type shrimp. Didn’t have any cocktail sauce so I sauteed them in butter but he ended up dipping in bbq sauce so I guess I’ll get or make cocktail sauce next time and steam them. Bought some beef liver. Better start that early enough in the day to where he can escape the cooking smell. I don’t like the cooking smell but love liver and onions.
They did a slide to:
https://www.ruralsprout.com/eat-carrot-tops/
I never thought about cooking carrot tops before.
Last year, I bought 6 Glaskin's Perpetual Rhubarb roots, and put them into well prepared soil, with a full sack of composted steer manure each. 3 survived, and are doing well now. I've tried to order replacements, but everyone was sold out of roots.
Glaskins Perpetual as it will produce rhubarb late in the season when other varieties are not good to eat. The stems are striped pink and soft green colour and are sweeter than most other varieties. I personally think this is the best all round rhubarb which though it doesn't have the big bright pink stems of other varieties it more than makes up for it in flavour and long picking time. The reason one needs to be careful eating rhubarb at the end of the season is the oxalic acid levels in the plants can become quite high. Oxalic acid is what gives late beetroot an unpleasant sour aftertaste and Glaskins Perpetual is particularly low in this regard. You will be familiar with the taste if you grow leaf beets like Swiss chard or perpetual spinach as the same oxalic acid is found in their leaves.
https://www.rhubarbinfo.com/p/rhubarb-informational-pages.html
The Rhubarb Compendium, a comprehensive site for all thing rhubarb.
I am lucky I am not fighting gophers - as a lot of my friends and neighbors are. I dread them finding my garden. I've seen them fell huge rose bushes in one night by eating all of the roots. They are impossible to get rid of.
I am trying to collect all of the colors of bougainvillea - I have yellow/gold, white/green/pink, red, pink/cream/red, purple and orange. This is the yellow one, called "gold rush" - I've seen it as "California gold rush" too: 
This is "Thai Delight.": 
This is "sea foam" (sorry it's turned): 
LOL! I should have scrolled down before just posting that link myself!
I used to eat rhubarb raw out of the neighbor’s garden when I was a kid. He’d yell at me that it was poisonous but I had already eaten plenty of stalks by then. Never ate the leaves.
It looks like poor kitty's missing his lower fangs, too! Compare below:
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