Gardeners are God's special (tenth of) 1%!
Posted on 05/01/2025 6:15:12 AM PDT by 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.
What a colorful description! Sounds positively edenic!
Bon says it’s back up!
Yes, my bad, the replacement post WITH A LINK this time!.................
So glad your gardens survived all the smoke and ash you had to deal with this winter as LA burned. :( ‘Ebb Tide’ is a classic. Jung’s has sold that for years in their ‘Edmund’s Roses’ catalog.
I’m seeing signs of life on most of my roses, but I think I lost one of my ‘Blush’ Meidiland Roses. I am currently on the lookout for a, ‘New Dawn’ climbing rose - have a perfect spot for it in one of my raised beds that has a trellis that is too tall to be useful to 5’ 1” me!
Rain today - and I’ve still got a lot to do in the garden - - but things don’t really get hopping until the end of the month around here. We can still have a freeze in the middle of May. Year before last we had 4” of snow at the end of April; the Robins were NOT amused and neither was I!
Strawberries are easy to grow, but they need a lot of water.
Like melons.
I have honey dew’s, cantaloupes, cilantro, banana peppers, green onions, tomatos, strawberries and blackberries.
Thanks for posting this FAScinating video!!! Just wonderful his dedication to his avocation. Love the dog elevator, and how it fit into his special world. What a gorgeous house inside, too, and nature preserve outside.
Gardeners are God's special (tenth of) 1%!
I started re-doubling my efforts in 2008 when Barky was foisted upon us.
We’ve now added chickens to the mix, and we are raising our 5th grass-fed steer this 18 month cycle.
We still hunt, fish, can, cook from scratch, grow a huge garden, have fruit trees and berries & grapes, forage in the wild (Mushrooms, Blackberries, medicinal plants), etc. Had an issue with our well this week (now fixed; pressure gauge), so I’m glad I had 10 gallons of clean water stashed for a, ‘flush, brush and a Bird Bath,’ LOL! I am now upping that to 20+ gallons of water on hand at any given time.
Everyone should do at least a little SOMETHING to improve their self-sufficiency. Learn to bake bread from scratch. Grow a tomato plant or some green beans. Basic ‘lost arts’ like sewing and crochet or knitting come in handy for lots of things. Get a few chickens! Mother Government is NOT your friend and never will be. I think my tagline says it all... :)
I have heard that, warm weather plants that they are, tomatoes and peppers do not like direct, hot summer sun.
This guy’s older videos are better, when he was not being so dramatic, but he does have good information. His most recent ones are the worst. This one is not bad.
I guess someone told him people wanted to see lively, enthusiastic, etc. Not really. Just tell me what I want to know.
5 Mistakes You Must NEVER Make When Growing Tomatoes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5jkvZGzTfQ
24 mins, but the part on the sunlight is point #5, at the 18:30 mark.
WOW!
That’s quite the compliment.
Now we know you’ve arrived.
Beautiful I will there was smellivision.
Love those images.
I’m probably even in a smaller percentage because I hang my laundry outside yet every opportunity I can get, even in the winter, if that works.
It doesn’t always get stuff completely dry, but certainly close enough that a few minutes in the drier takes care of them.
It saves a LOT of money, especially if you hang out heavy items like towels and jeans. Be warned though, the clothes can feel less soft completely line dried. But if you get them 90% there, the 10 or so minutes in the drier softens them up.
Mending clothes is great skill if you lose a button, or a seam rips out a little.
Nice update and I loved that video. Long but beautiful and worth it.
I n\thoroughly enjoyed it, too.
We have some hummingbirds around here and I need to be more diligent about planting hummingbird attracting flowers.
Rain, rain, and more rain here in the Middle of Misery this past week. Need to mow the grass but I don’t want to make a big mess and/or get the Kubota stuck, so for now I’m just watching it grow an inch every day. Not ideal, but it beats hell out of everything being buried in snow and ice.
My tomato plants are going nuts in the greenhouse. Two weeks ago they were <6” tall. The Brandywines are 2’ tall now and the others are trying to catch them.
I had intended to re-pot the pepper plants I bought last weekend but my supply of 1-gallon nursery pots has been depleted. I didn’t really want to do it, but I need some pots and I need em now, so I shelled out $17 for 60 of them from Amazon. They should be here tomorrow so with any kind of good luck I’ll at least get something worthwhile accomplished in the garden this weekend in spite of the rain and mud.
I’ve got a jug of aquatic-rated surfactant on the way too. Running the weed whacker in the rip-rap stone on my pond dam isn’t my idea of a good time so I’m going to attempt chemical control this summer and see how that works out.
Just like clockwork, the orioles arrived at my feeder today. Three out of the past four years they arrived on May 1st, last year it was on May 2nd. (They must have encountered lots of construction traffic)
Planting in a muddy mess...The radar shows showers around Columbia right now. Would be better if we got rain spread out over the summer rather than all at once! (Watch it switch to a 90 F heatwave next week!)
I’ve had pretty good luck with those Celebrity tomatoes. They don’t seem to require a lot of care, and hold up well. Production for me has been fair. Taste is ok, but nothing like better varieties. Early Girls fade early for me (no surprise) and are bland, similar to most store-bought tomatoes.
For taste, of what you are most likely to easily find, I like Best Boy tomatoes (determinate, but grew tall like crazy for me last year, so I still had to cage or stake them), and Better Boys (indeterminant) a close second with longer production.
IF you are lucky and can find them locally, taste-wise, for me, what I think were Golden Jubilees are best: Sweet and tangy, but still not overly acidic. However, they are a bit harder to find. Menards did have them from Bonnies, in 4” pots this year. I bought a couple pots, so I should be able to confirm if what I was enjoying last year really were Golden Jubilees.
For me, since we usually have more than enough tomatoes, it’s more about taste than production. :-)
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