In Tijuana, geraniums can become woody and five feet tall.
I started my tomatoes from seed in March, as usual. @May 15 they go in the ground when night time temps don’t go too low. I need mulch to keep the weeds down and didn’t want to buy several bales of $11/bale straw. So I used last falls leaves I had composting.I don’t know if that’s a good thing or bad. I used semi=wet leaves for mulch and then topped it off with one bale spread out over the lot of them. If I’ve used leaves in the past for mulch, I don’t remember it because my memory ain’t all that.
The plants do not know what to do!
All that ash fallout I had from the fires in January seems to have fertilized the soil well - all kinds of rare bloomers that rarely bloom are blooming this spring:
Cactus:
A desert rose that has never bloomed before:
Amarylis went crazy this year:
Roses too:
Taking a break after chasing squirrels out of the bird feeders:
Keeping the yard free of fruit-stealing tree rats (which she drags into the house):
Here’s a question: How do you get more color in red onions?
We planted some red onion sets this spring but the ones that we’ve harvested are really pale compared to store-bought. We grew them in earth boxes with a mixture of new and recycled potting soil, no idea what the pH was, and used a couple of doses of Shake & Feed and some Ironite. We cut off any stalks that tried to bolt. They all made pretty good bulbs for once.
Hi Everybody!
(((HUGS)))
This is a little bit adjacent to the main gist of our gardening thread, but the florals and colors delighted me so much I thought I'd share! It's a girl's school with a 100-year tradition of floral decor and apparel. Check out the many photos at the link. Here is one:
I'm still behind on the kitchen garden thanks to the wet weather during April, but I think maybe I'm gaining on it. The bunny rabbits mowed my row of pole beans down a few nights ago. I guess I'll replant and see if I can come up with a deterrent of some sort to prevent that from happening again. None of the cucumber seed I planted a couple weeks ago germinated. I used the seed I had on hand (packed for sale by Dec of '22 lol) so no surprise there really. I bought more seed last week and replanted yesterday. Tomatoes/peppers/eggplants are over their transplant shock and starting to look halfway decent. The new rhubarb plants are looking really good.
The spaghetti squash I planted is out of the ground and looking happy. I spent some time yesterday weeding the new asparagus bed. Got about 1/3 of it done and hope to finish that by the weekend. Sowed two hills of zucchini on Saturday. A buddy of mine saved some seed from those little sweet peppers that Aldi's sells and germinated a bunch of them this spring. He had more than he needed so he gave eight of them to me last week. I don't know if those are heirloom or hybrid but I found a spot for them in the garden. I guess they'll either make something or they won't.
I built another raised bed, set it in place, and mostly filled it with dirt yesterday. I built the first one in-place, which made it a bit more difficult than necessary. This one I built in my workshop and moved it to the garden with the tractor. I filled it about halfway up with nothing special dirt, gave it a good soaking, then brought it up to 3/4 full with semi-rotted horse poo and soaked it again. I'll finish filling it with topsoil today, soak it one more time, then figure out what to plant in it. I've got five varieties of basil that are ready to transplant so that's probably what will wind up going in.
#1 Marine Daughter helped me get stray dog Howard to the vet Saturday morning for a chip and wellness check. He didn't have a chip so I had one installed, got his shots up to date, and made an appointment for this Thursday to have him neutered. So far he seems to be quite happy with his new situation, at least until Thursday anyway. lol
Now that he's settled in a bit his personality is starting to be revealed and I've got a feeling that he's going to be quite a character. He's super curious about things and is quite the little sneak thief. So far he's pilfered a pair of gardening gloves, a sweatshirt, and a beer coozy off of Mrs. Augie's golf cart, a chair cushion from the front porch, a broom and dustpan from the garage, and probably some other stuff that we haven't yet noticed.
He even helped me roll up the tow straps that I used to move the planter bed.
WOW! That is one GORGEOUS Salanova! I picked leaves from ‘Buttercrunch’ this morning for me and the chickens. Plenty to go around. ;)
The chewing looks like flea beetles, since the holes go all the way through. But they’re usually pretty easy to spot and hang around the underside of the leaves when they’re not feeding. Maybe they’ve moved off to lay eggs? Those would be on the underside of the leaves though, too. Slugs, maybe?
Meh. Soapy water kills just about everything, or put out a shallow saucer of beer and see if you attract any slugs.
I just noticed my neighbors are growing peppers and tomatoes. I’m spreading the disease... or cure!
That is one cool fridge! I remember when I was a kid and the neighbor’s fridge had that same cool-looking handle.
Both Beau and I have ‘left the water running’ a time or two around here. Like OVERNIGHT! Ugh! I have a STRICT method I use now when I need to run water for a while for the mule to flush out his water tank. I start it, then do the dog chores and chicken chores, and the mule chores are LAST so I get back to him and remember to TURN OFF THE @#$%^&*! WATER when Ithaca gets his apple or carrot.
So, your easiest solution is... to get a Mule, LOL!
I heard somewhere they're good for diabetics (like my wife) who I cook for several times a week. I found some at a health food store near me and we love these potatoes. I made some sweet potato chips last night, just fried in olive oil. No salt, nothing added, really sweet.
I want to try growing some but my source doesn't have any eyes and the few online seed places I've found are all out for the season.