Posted on 04/01/2025 6:11:07 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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Tell me about it. But, actually, I always love mistakes that let you meet strangers. I enjoy wrong number phone calls.
‘Tis good to hear you are feeling better! I’m just very achy from all this ditch clearing - more stuff blew in* / into the ditch last night. :-(
*We got a scare last night: A tornadic storm had just passed slightly to our south, and I was looking out our back door at the heavy rain and lightning show, that direction, when suddenly a hard gust bent the buckeye tree out back way over toward the east - I almost expected it to snap or uproot - and then a few seconds later the wind reversed and the tree bent over maybe even a bit more, toward the west! Yikes! Crap was blowing all over the place too. But, a few more seconds, and then the wind slowed, reversed again, and was back from the west, but not as strong, then it gradually diminished to maybe 20 mph and we got, sort of oddly, just a few pieces of quarter size hail. Then that stopped and it just rained some more. Whew!
Thanks for the info. on the lettuce - if I run out of pots I could probably even make do for this experiment with used / cut down gallon milk jugs. :-)
The feeding makes sense, and I got lucky with picking up 2 extra boxes of Wally World knockoff “Miracle Grow” on clearance last fall - wifey thought I was nuts to buy 3 total, but now it looks like it was a good idea.
Regrowing the Romaine lettuce stumps seems like a good idea — Last year I had a head lettuce stump pop up out of the compost pile! I have two Baby Bok Choi stumps right now, to try that with, but in pots.
Oh, returning to the Muir lettuce - are those multiple stems in each section of the “4-pack” most likely individual plants from the vendor throwing 3-4 seeds into each section? (I’m showing my ignorance again, but every pic I found online of juvenile Muir lettuce plants showed single stems.)
Your post gave me a much needed smile! Congrats on your success!
Nice and I like good food photography. Looking at google images “charcuterie” pics is big fun.
I just grow a few lettuce varieties and romaine is one of them. I use a sharp scissors to cut the first head off, a few inches from the soil no more. It will regrow. I only do that once per plant.
Yes, each stem is an individual plant. Either snip the weaker ones and plant an individual plant, or plant them all together and see what happens. Or do some of both.
They would be more than happy in cut-down milk jugs - with drainage. Put the holes a few inches up from the bottom - of you put the holes on the bottom, and they’re sitting on a solid surface, they won’t drain properly.
That goes for bigger pots/planters, too. You don’t want plants getting water-logged. ;)
Ha! 😃
Live backed up to an open area (golf course), plenty of chickens with their baby chicks hang out. When granddaughters visit, wife throws out birdseed to entice the chicks to the patio... But this is the 1st time they have ever laid (or is it “layed”?) eggs in the garage!!
Thanks for the advice... Just a weird situation...
Hubby has a coworker that lives in Bardstown, KY, and all the rivers and creeks have overflowed, so the water level is quite high. He’s using a johnboat to get around in already, and the rain is still coming down. We’re saying our prayers for everyone’s safety. It’s a mess down there.
After things settle down, we will see if there’s a way we can help more directly.
Did you use “seed starter” soil, and if so, what type / brand? (You probably mentioned it previously and I missed it.)
So far, germinations (sounds like an invasion by the EU!) have generally been better for me this year too. I just checked and 12 out of 12 of the “Early Treat” tomatoes have germinated - my 1st 100% result when planting a dozen seeds or more! 10 of 12 of my “mystery orange tomatoes” seeds germinated too, but that’s 2x each (successful) in 5 of 6 sections of a re-used (emptied, cleaned, and sterilized) “six pack”, and then one section is void - which makes me think maybe I screwed up and didn’t put seeds in #6 on the end... (eye roll) The Thai peppers and Asian Squash* for my wife have been good, and the lemon cucumbers seem off to a good start too. Banana peppers too. The biggest failures have been the “Abe Lincoln” tomatoes (maybe I got a bad pack?) and only one Opo (sort of a big, thick “snake gourd”) has come up. But, the opo seeds were a bit old. My wife’s friend should have some from last fall — if I catch her husband a few trout, she’ll give me all sorts of interesting seeds...
*Ok, me too on the Asian Squash - it’s become my favorite for an acorn type squash for taste and texture. It’s very good in soups, and the fruits grow much bigger than acorn squash.
Now, if it would just quit raining...!!
Eeeeyowww!
Check out the rain recorded by radar in the pink swath (10-15”) per this cool interactive page / precip map from NOAA / NWS:
Ground truth (measured in a gauge) is almost 15” a bit north of Mayfield, KY. We’ve been “lucky” and by my “can gauge” estimate are at a bit over 9” here.
The good news is that the severe stuff finally underperformed around here, this afternoon and evening.
That NOAA page is very useful for checking the liquid precip. equivalent over most any recent time period you want to dial in.
Noted & thanks! I might try separating a couple to see what happens - I usually get away with that with tomatoes when I buy those 6-packs and get maybe 10 plants instead!
(For tomatoes I separate, repot, let ‘em recover and grow several days, then do the transfer to a partially shaded outdoor spot for a few days, then finally plant ‘em in the garden.)
To not get the lettuce cooked after mid-May, I’ll try putting the lettuce “pots” on the north side of our house. I’ll have to put up a little wire fencing to keep the chickens out of that spot! I “might” also try again in our basement, but that didn’t go well last year. I do have a stronger light there now though (9k lumens).
Check FReepmail.
We had 6.25” this week. Got to the point at times where the yard was more puddle than not. Might go down and check out the creeks later. I’m sure they’re not cross-able.
Have had a Pileated Woodpecker hanging around here for about a week. Those are the big ones with bright red head that Woody Woodpecker was based on. He bounces from tree to tree, lands on the window sills and looks in. Been landing on my truck and re-aiming my side view mirror. Spring Fever.
Was planning on pulling a 24’ travel trailer up from out back but that won’t be happening for a while on this jello-like clayey soil.
Bought some 1 gal size tea bags a while back for sweet tea. Pulled them and a big pot out last night and realized I don’t own a pitcher. I pulled out a box of clean canning jars and filled those and now have single serving size sweet tea in the fridge which is kinda handy. Going to just keep doing that. Need to adjust the recipe a little. Too sweet and need to steep longer.
I have a lot of canning jars in the original flats, all are dusty, some with content, some with rusty lids and rings. Half a dozen that had no lids and were open end up. I’m going through all of them this morning to clean them up, dump some contents.
The four with contents are seven year old zucchini pickles that none of us liked all that much. Some guy at the parts store gave me a huge zucchini, 6” across, 15” long, so I found a canning recipe for zucchini pickles. Might try some before I toss it. Might have improved with age.
I have one jar with some sort of seed pods. I think I know what they are. A native that looks like a pre-historic Iris. The foyer isn’t much warmer/colder than outdoors so they should be stratified. Good time to stick them in the ground since it’s nice and wet.
Regular canning lids fit in a Pringles container just right. I save the old ones for uses other than true canning or if the seal looks good, will can some things with them. Basically anything that’s acidic enough for water bath is fair game imho.
Need to go through my empty boxes and see if I have anything for jars. Either that or figure out a good lid for the flats they came in.
Thanks! Reply sent.
Glad you’re feeling better.
It was another week of typical springtime weather here in Central Missouri. Warm, windy, cold, wet, frost last night, yada yada...
We got a few things done around the yard during the evenings last week. It rained all day Saturday so I elected to be a slug. Yesterday started off wet but conditions improved as the day went on. I elected to be a slug all day anyway. It did feel good to rest up a bit.
Greenhouse lettuce is starting to take off. Still waiting on the greenhouse spinach to get going. I noticed a few sprigs popping up when I watered in there yesterday but it doesn’t seem to be in a hurry.
The frost was light last night so hopefully it didn’t do much damage to the blossoms on my orchard trees.
The rhubarb plants I bought last weekend are very happy in the greenhouse after their repotting. No sign of transplant shock at all.
I had intentions of hitting the woods in search of morels over the weekend. Wandering around getting soaked to the skin isn’t my idea of a fun time so I skipped on that. I intend to check one of my early spots after I’m done in the salt mine today. Folks have been finding a few small greys over the past week so it’s time to get serious about looking.
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