The Garden Thread - May, 2025

May 1, 2025 | 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.

[FamiliarFace]

Thank you, Liz! I love that you provide recipes for us to try!

[FamiliarFace]

That sounds like the Springs we’ve had here the last couple of years. This one has been better. Still rain every couple of days, but enough of a break to get the mowing done.

[FamiliarFace]

Awww! That’s not fun at all!

[Liz]

y/v/w........

I usually gravitate to posting recipes when I’ve
expended all my “deathless prose” on the news threads.

[Qiviut]

Today is a “vacation” day - woo hoo!

After almost 2 weeks that started with planting the 4 boxwoods, hauling/shoveling 2 5x8 trailer loads of mulch, installing edging around the front beds, spraying the honeysuckle & brambles along the fenceline next to the driveway & culverts, & mowing/weed whacking the entire place, plus making lunch (casserole, slaw, cinnamon apples - 3-bean salad & pickled beets were purchased) for a SUV load of mom’s friends yesterday, then took mom to Urgent Care for a problem she had not told me about for 3 days, I am not working outside today or doing anything very physical.

Today, I have done 2 loads of laundry (I have on my last clean T-shirt), baked 2 lbs of bacon & made 2 pints of ghee - before 11:00.

It’s cloudy, 50% chance if rain. If not raining shortly after lunch, I am picking up load #3 of mulch & stashing it in the pole shed. This coming week ASAP I have got to get my herbs & jalapeños planted - a couple are starting to show signs of wanting to be out of their little pots. The sage was in a 2” pot & I did transplant it to a larger cup to give myself a couple more days to get it in a bed.

After hauling mulch, I am settling down in front of the TV to watch the Kentucky Derby & all the races/goings on before the big event. Years ago, I had a Thoroughbred show horse & when she retired, she was a brood mare - 3 foals. Her sire was a race horse in England - he was gray, loved running/winning in the mud. My mare was a bay & was bred to gray stallions - her foals were a gray, a bay, & a chestnut. Personally, I am partial to grays ... go Sandman (VT football team enters the stadium to Metallica’s “Enter Sandman”)!

Arkansas Derby win
https://www.horseracingnation.com/horse/Sandman

[Pollard]

Garden Planners, Programs, and Apps

Anything to add you say? Well now you've done it on this dreary, cool, rainy morning, sitting at the computer. :)

Tend & Seedtime are mentioned on No Till Growers forum as a couple that people have used.

It's kind of a different strokes for different folks thing. Some people want a 3D model of their yard/veggies/shrubs/trees/buildings and some people love using spreadsheets.

I tried one SAAS but it was trying to be something for everyone from backyard gardener to a large commodity grower with 10 farms across 3 states in the upper midwest with a total of 12,000 acres in corn/soy. There was no way to get rid of the large google map that showed up on every single page. Not too useful for the backyard gardener.

The one I'm working on won't be very visual as far as plotting. Beds will be columns in an html table which isn't much different than a spreadsheet. For the high tunnel, I'll just have 5 columns in an html table, one for each column in the tunnel. No rows, just a list of what's in what column from one end to the other. Could be rows with no columns if I wanted it turned 90 degrees.

When I start planting trees, which it's too late for this year, there will be no visual as they won't necessarily be in rows. Since trees are very long term, each will get an ID tag that goes on a stake in the ground and probably made of aluminum or maybe bronze depending on the price. They'll be homemade at any rate.

The tree thing is why I'm making my own app. Can't trust some free or even paid SAAS to be around and/or affordable in 10, 20 years.

Of course it can all be done the old fashioned way, on paper. Large blank sheets for drawing the yard/garden like architects once used. Accounting ledger booklet with rows and columns are the old version of a spreadsheet.

I like tech and can print whatever I want to have a hard copy. I took pics of last Fall's cabbage worms and have those saved in the app along with info copied from the web on how to battle them.

Another option is notekeeping software like Joplin, onenote, evernote etc. That's what I've been using so far but there's no mobile app and it's a desktop program so I have no good way of taking notes in the field with my phone, unless I feel like retyping everything when I get back inside. I made a 72 cell tray graphic for my garden journals to figure out what seeds to sow and keep track of what went where. (UPC label to the front and an updated graphic says so)

Front end posts (planting_1340) is the post ID and they never get duplicated so my tree IDs will be whatever wordpress comes up with for a Tree Planting - (tree_1494) etc
Doing this with the browser's mobile view which emulates phones, iPad etc else this post would be really long with desktop sized pics.

Backend is just wordpress but with Custom Posts for Plantings, Harvests, Field Notes etc. (Dashboard and Add Harvest page part 1 & 2)

All harvests

WordPress has taxonomies, Categories and Tags, that are tied to Posts. I created a custom taxonomy of the category type(can have hierarchy) for Plant Types.(Brassica is the parent of Cabbage, Chiji and Tatsoi)

Plant Type can be tied to most any Custom Post Type when creating a New Post. Equipment Settings, Inventory, Plantings, Plant Problems(pests/diseases), Field Notes, Harvests. In the pic above, Tatsoi is tied to 6 Posts.

Equipment Setting (Jang Seeder X-24 Roller for pelleted brassica etc)
Field Note (including one called Cabbage Worms)
Planting (Fall tatsoi)
Harvest (Fall Tatsoi
Inventory (seeds)

That Cabbage Worm Field Note should be tied to a Plant Problem as well. Will have to work on that and make a drop down menu on New Field Note form to choose an existing Plant Problem with the option to add one on the fly. "Some kind of worm" would work and could be edited later once we know what kind of worm it is.

(I went with rows) Unless I can come up with something slicker, my tunnel beds, and the plant names can be a link to something, like Tatsoi to the Fall Tatsoi Planting post.

I seem to have a thing for Tatsoi but I actually like Chijisimai a little better. Tatsoi is way easier to type though.

I ended up buying farmwp.com domain name last year but need to get hosting. I have the above on our family tree website which I host from home but can't get WordPress set up as a Multisite where there's a main site and as many subsites as you want. I've done it on web hosting a few times but this home hosting is a bit different. That way I can have farmwp.com/pollard/ for a subsite and another could be farmwp.com/yourfarmnamehere/. Each subsite is it's own website and separate from the rest. They can be public or fully private or mixed.

[Qiviut]

For notes, try Diarium. Basic version is free - I use free for Journaling. You can add tags, one pic per post (more if using paid version), etc. You can see a month view or daily. Search function is pretty good.

https://diariumapp.com/

[metmom]

We live way out in the country. Walking along the roadside is about the best we can do. Snow free helps.

When we lived in a small town in NYS, I got out more in the winter.

[metmom]

The Pioneer Woman has some good looking recipes using puff pastries.

I think one was for some kind of turnover.

[FamiliarFace]

We live in a neighborhood with roughly a hundred homes. There are lots of dogs in this neighborhood. One of the rules of the HOA if you have a dog is to have an invisible fence or a permanent metal one. When we walk, there are often dog in front yards. Sometimes they’re friendly, sometimes they bark like crazy. One of them is a pit bull mix.

We have learned that one way to keep the doggies as friends instead of threats is to bring dog bone treats with us. We toss them to them so they run away from us, and not near their *fence*. Now even the pitbull has stopped barking at us. They wag their tails and lick their chops waiting for that little treat. It’s a small gesture, but it keeps everyone happy, the dogs, their owners, and us. It’s been a great activity for us.

If we can, we do it at the end of the work day so my husband can transition from work to home, like you might on a commute. He could work all day if I let him, and because he’s remote, sometimes he does more at night if something is pressing. It’s always been a challenge for him to take time off. So I’m very happy that we have sidewalks throughout the neighborhood, and when we want to hike a little, there’s a beautiful park owned by the town now that is just across the main road. It’s excellent for hiking and picnics and such. Which reminds me, we need to go over there soon and change the routine up. The last time we hiked over there was last Fall.

[metmom]

Sounds like our little town in Upstate NY.

There are some things I miss about NY, but the government, the taxes, and the pervasive overcast from the Great Lakes, and the lake effect snow are not them.

[metmom]

What I love here in NH is the woods and the wildlife, deer, turkeys, owls hooting at night.

It’s nice and quiet and pretty safe in our locale.

And NH has no income or sales tax and is a Constitutional carry state, which largely accounts for the safe. Someone would have to be a real idiot to try something here.

[FamiliarFace]

I think NH and IN might be similar. We have friends where the husband is from NH and they visit there every summer, and he says there are a lot of things about IN that remind him of his home state. They’re on the same side of the neighborhood as we are, where we both back up to woods, creek, more woods, and then a farm. I’m guessing we share the same type of wildlife as you do.

There’s a Barred owl couple that call back and forth every day. Sometimes I can see one when he’s in a certain tree on our property, but it’s easier to see him in the winter when everything is bare. It’s very peaceful. Looks like any regular suburban neighborhood in the front, but the back is a wooded paradise, like the park across the main road. We don’t have quite 2 acres, but it’s more than I’ve had in my adult life. Hubby likes to say that it’s the best of both worlds.

[metmom]

Our owls are barred owls as well.

The thing I think I miss the most about Upstate NY, is the agriculture. The soil we had in our Finger Lakes town was like garden show soil with some rocks, but not a lot.

Here we have either sand and rock or clay and rocks. We’re not The Granite State for nothing.

[FamiliarFace]

Pulling for your Sandman, since I’m very unfamiliar with the rest of the horses!

[Qiviut]

Not a good race for Sandman, finished 7th :-( Great race for the winner Sovreignty, favorite Journalism was 2nd, Baeza flying at the end, but was 3rd. Sloppy track - horses & jockeys were covered in mud.

[Qiviut]

Sovereignty.... misspelled it in previous post.

[MomwithHope]

Just for you.....

https://truthsocial.com/@CitizenFreePress/posts/114446211100250461

[FamiliarFace]

No worries. Don’t beat yourself up. I think some of us at FR are from a different generation, which cared about this a long time ago. I try not to make spelling or grammar errors. However, when I do, I feel the pain of the red slash through my work. For some, that meant giving up. For me, it meant I was supposed to try harder. These are mistakes, not crazy big poor decisions. It sometime shows that we are human.

[FamiliarFace]

It was probably the sloppiest track I’ve ever seen, at least in a number of years.

Hubby’s coworker, who’s a big Kentucky boy, was pulling for Sandman, too.