The Garden Thread - September, 2024

September 1, 2024 | Diana in WI/Greeneyes in Memoriam

[Diana in Wisconsin]

The MONTHLY Gardening Thread is a 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.

If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located.

This thread is a non-political respite. 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 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! Send a Private Message to Diana in Wisconsin if you'd like to be added to/removed from our New & Improved Ping List.

NOTE: This is a once a MONTH Ping List, but we DO post to the thread all throughout the month. Links to related articles and discussions which might be of interest to Gardeners are welcomed any time!

[metmom]

I also find that the pole beans produce more.

[metmom]

LOL!

I have heard, and I’m not sure of this, but that if there are no ashes around, they go after other hardwoods. So I’m not sure if we shouldn’t keep a couple around for them to go to and treat them or risk them spreading to the maples, oaks, etc.....

We have some ash that’s OK yet and I’ve heard that a good soil drench of systemic insecticide can deal with them. We need to look into doing what we can.

[Qiviut]

My cousin gave me a “tip”* on preventing blossom end rot years ago & I just don’t have the issue any more. It’s dried milk! Evidently the calcium in the dried milk is in a form the plants can readily take up.

My cousin scratched a couple tablespoons in the dirt (top dressing) when planting, then watered it in. When I plant tomatoes, I take the dirt from the hole, put it in a 5-gallon bucket, add my amendments (dried milk, Tomato Tone, some organic fertilizer), mix it up & use the mix to refill the hole around the tomato plants, then water in. You can also mix up the milk with water & water the plants with it if the plants are already in the ground.

* At the local country store, my cousin ran into an elderly country farmer, known for his beautiful tomatoes. When asked how he avoided blossom end rot, he explained his use of dried milk. After successfully using dried milk, my cousin passed the tip on to me when he visited during tomato growing season.

[Pollard]

See? All it takes is time and money, LOL!

Doesn't everything?

[AFB-XYZ]

FReepers are the best! So many great ideas, all of which I’ve copied-and-printed, and all of which I’ll be using come spring. I honestly didn’t know about calcium previously. I thought it was because of this summer’s Okla. heat, then after the heat finally broke, the ground had such heavy dew and the baby melons sat in the wet grass overnight.

Heh. There are people who are “green thumbs”, and then there’s me, who is “ALL thumbs”. :-)

[Liz]

Glazed Blueberry Coffee Cake
Perfect breakfast or snack; wonderfully moist and rich with cinnamon and fresh blueberries.

Ingredients STREUSEL 1/2 cup (65g) all purpose flour 1/2 cup (112g) packed brown sugar 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon 1/4 cup (56g) unsalted butter, melted Pinch of salt

COFFEE CAKE 1 cup flour 1 1/4 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt 1/2 cup sugar 6 tbsp unsalted butter, room temp 1/4 cup sour cream 1/4 cup milk 1 large egg 1 tsp vanilla 1 1/4 cups blueberries

GLAZE 3/4 cup powdered sugar 1–2 tbsp milk 1/4 tsp vanilla

Instructions Parchment bottom of 9" cake pan; grease sides. To prepare the streusel, add flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, melted butter and salt and mix with a fork til incorporated and crumbly. Set aside.

Cake: combine flour, b/powder and salt and set aside. Add sugar and butter to a large mixer bowl and beat together until light in color and fluffy, about 3-4 min. Do not skimp on the creaming time. Add sour cream and mix just until well combined.Add milk and mix just until well combined. Add egg and vanilla and mix just til well combined. Add dry ing and mix til well combined.

Spread half of the cake batter into the bottom of the cake pan. The batter will be thick and the layer will be thin. Sprinkle about half of the streusel mixture evenly over the cake batter, then half of the blueberries. Drop spoonfuls of the remaining cake batter over the streusel and blueberries and carefully spread evenly. Again, it’ll be a thin layer of batter. Sprinkle rest streusel and blueberries on top. Bake 350 deg 32-38 min, pick comes out w/ a few crumbs.

Remove and allow to cool in pan for about 20 minutes, then remove to cooling rack to finish cooling. To make the glaze, combine the powdered sugar, milk and vanilla; whisk until smooth. Add a little more milk or sugar, if needed. Drizzle over the cake and sprinkle a few more blueberries over top, then serve.

[Paul R.]

Well... TWO ‘possums trapped, dispatched, gutted (intestines and musk gland), boiled and fed to the chickens — and I go out this morning and there’s more damage to the Opo plants, and now the Japanese cuke plant too. Jeez. And I’d spread around some repellent too, near the trap. (the active ingredients are Cinnamon Oil and Thyme Oil.

[Qiviut]

Critters .... the only effective deterrent (other than a totally electrified fence) I know of is a dog. My SIL has no ‘critter’, deer or crow problems because they have a dog. The previous dog, a Brittany Spaniel, would actually kill possums & skunks he found in the yard. The current dog, a mild-mannered Collie, ‘barks & bounces’ & chases other animals away. Since the dogs were & are not outside in the yard all the time, I think the smell of dog keeps critters away. No such luck with the chicken coop which was away from the yard & inside the wood line ... possums, coons & foxes all raided.

Super aggravating to put in a lot of work on plants, veggies, chickens, etc. & then find them chewed on, damaged or destroyed. :-(

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"I’m still feeling shortchanged on my BLT quota for the summer."

You sound like T.S. Eliot, except in BLTs. ;)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I’m sure those beans are very happy. My favorite green pole bean is ‘Saychelles.’ Give it a try!

My green bean pole also gets afternoon shade, and they are still producing and still blooming, too! I noticed that there were enough for another picking when I was rooting around out there yesterday, helping Mom glean more tomatoes. I will do that later today after this round of GLORIOUS rain has passed. The rain barrel is full to the brim after being only 1/3 full, and that ALWAYS makes me happy! :)

Mom: My own Mom was really interested in the ‘Sabre’ tomato; she enjoyed the ‘weird’ shape of it, but she’s always just in it for the slicers for BLTs. I told her of our sharing seed and she was impressed. I showed her how I have THREE 1/2 paper towels-worth of the Sabre seeds saved. ;)

[metmom]

I think that’s the kind I have.

I’ll look when I get home.

The plants are a good 10 feet tall and when the tops hit the top of the porch they just started drooping over.

[MomwithHope]

Give your mom a hug from me. You are so fortunate to still have a mom. Still have 5 green sabres on two vines still alive. I keep my seeds separate, have 6 or 7 envelopes with paper towel pieces with seeds. All dated so I use up the older first. As far as pole beans we are sold on the chinese long beans. We might finally get some decent rain this afternoon.

[MomwithHope]

Last year for the first time I raked up all the fallen Paw paw leaves and put them on the compost pike. I had read how nutritious they are. This year we bought a 9X12 clear painting tarp at Menards. 3 mil thick, we can reuse it. A few leaves have already fallen. Tomorrow we’ll lay it out and use 4 metal tent stakes to keep it in place. Later gather up the ends and move it.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

We made it! Happy Autumnal Equinox, Everyone!

When is the first day of fall in 2024?

A carefully worded answer is that on Sunday, Sept. 22, at 8:44 a.m. Eastern daylight time (5:44 a.m. Pacific daylight time) autumn begins astronomically in the Northern Hemisphere, and spring in the Southern. At that moment, the sun would be shining directly overhead as seen from a point in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean, 461 miles (743 km) south-southwest of Monrovia, Liberia.

This date (like last March 20) is called an equinox, from the Latin for "equal night," alluding to the fact that day and night are then of equal length worldwide. But this is not necessarily so.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

https://www.space.com/autumn-equinox-2024

[Qiviut]

I was telling mom last night that I need to figure out a compost pile ... it’s more a ‘location’ issue than anything else.

When I started using raised beds, the dirt was from an old brush pile in the back field - when the bulldozer pushed the debris into a pile, it got a lot of fairly rich topsoil pushed in as well. As the brush pile decayed, the dirt improved even more. The issue with it is that it is ‘heavy’ & compacts.

For years, I bought bags of Leaf Gro every spring & added it to the beds. The soil got ‘lighter’ & stopped compacting into a hard ‘crust’ on top - as of last year, it was ‘beautiful’ soil due to Leaf Gro & ‘home’ compost. I started a leaf compost pile 3 years ago because Leaf Gro went over $5 a bag & I just didn’t want to spend that kind of money when our trees were dropping massive amounts of leaves every fall.

I have cow neighbors now (poultry, too but I can’t stand the smell) so I might add some cow manure to the soon-to-be compost heap - not a lot, but I think it would be a nice addition. One issue I see are the oak leaves we now have which are big, ‘thick’ & don’t break down easily. I took a couple of bags mom raked off the new house porch & put them in my old homestead compost bin (all maple) - the oak haven’t broken down much at all. I think the remedy will be to mow over piles collected before going into a compost pile.

Looking forward to some ‘rich’ soil in the raised beds in a year or two - it will take some work.

[MomwithHope]

We had 25 years of goat manure and oat straw bedding plus veggie scraps. Now we just have veggie scraps and every now and then a layer of straw. Our garden soil is epic, when freshly tilled looks like black cake flour.

[MomwithHope]

Oak leaves are very acidic so we don’t use them. That’s mostly what we have.

[spankalib]

I grow old...I grow old

...I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers

rolled ;)

[Pollard]

Sat here drinking coffee for three hours waiting for it to get light outside which doesn't happen until almost 7 now. Ended up looking at lighting options for both outdoors and the tunnel which I'm still doing even though it's noon now. Hey it's Sunday.

Going with ETi brand. Got a 5 year warranty at half the price of Lithonia. Every other brand is 90 days or 1 year.

ETi is the only brand that lists recommended mounting height. What I'm looking at are considered a High Bay light. Most all of the reviews with pics of this style light have people mounting them on the ceiling of their garage or workshop, all 7-8 foot high, and some complain that it's got a narrow beam like a flashlight. Dummies. The product pics even show them mounted high up in warehouses, gymnasiums etc(high bay), 15 foot and up.

Just ordered a UFO style high bay light with a 12-20 foot mounting height. Supposed to be a suitable replacement for a 500 watt HID bulb. Last one they had so I set up for email notification if they get more. Somehow I think it's a closeout deal though because the only other ones in the same price range are chinajunk. They have what's probably the replacement model but it's mounting height is 20-45 feet with much higher lumens.

If it works this good up that high, it ought to be really bright at 13-14 foot that I have. Everything's so hyped now though so we'll see.

This brand also has rectangular models with adjustable wattage/lumens with a range of mounting heights I can get later. I need some lights in my shop too and it's about 17-18 foot tall.

I'll be sticking a four foot LED shop light in the tunnel today to get some kind of light in there until the UFO light gets here. That way if I feel like piddling around at 5am, I can.

Bought poly film for the end walls and pipe brackets for end wall bracing last night. Ordered a solar charge controller Tues but they had my old non existent debit card as default so I had to go in and remove that one and make my current card default so that order's on the way now.

70% chance of rain today, mostly in the morning but here it is noon and not a drop. Need rain bad so I can dig some post holes. Fence around the tunnel/garden, solar panel pole, rain bucket post, wind sensor post, more earthwork around the tunnel and garden area for drainage.