https://farmwp.com/pollard/seed-calculators/
I'll stick a link on my profile page too.
Will be doing another calculator so that people can figure out how many feet of bed a packet of seeds will do.
Posted on 07/01/2025 5:32:22 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.
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We’re in that same weather pattern up here, though they’re getting even more rain north of us. If that holds, it will be a VERY snowy winter and a lot of businesses can recoup losses from last year’s winter drought.
Rain starting here again at 2pm. We got a full inch day before yesterday. This one looks like a soaker, too. :( I got the lawn mowed yesterday, so there’s that. :)
Two little boys were here Thursday evening and were absolutely FASCINATED with the rain barrel and how it worked, so I ‘Tom Sawyered’ them into filling up a dozen milk jugs for me. They had a blast.
When we get Japanese beetles I put out the (Japanese beetles) traps. One year, we collected gallon jugs full...
I freeze them a few hours, then add them to the compost. Unfortunately, they don’t make good fishing bait!
I heard the eggs can still stay viable.
I prefer to burn garden waste and pest collections. That way NOTHING makes it.
For the 4th, appropriately(?), I got my new, hot pepper plants separated & repotted individually into 4” pots & watered in with a bit of root hormone. The roots were REALLY grown together: Despite trying to be ultra-careful, I lost quite a bit of roots on some plants, esp. on the Serranos. Hopefully they will recover ok. If yes, then they move to 8” pots in maybe 10 days.
Plus we went to watch the July 4 fireworks. There was a major paucity of food vendors - boo/hiss! I wonder why so few?
I hope they recover.
I bought some gorgeous peppers in a pot that, it turned out, were meant to stay potted.
But I split them and transplanted them and that really et them back.
But I was not familiar with container gardening in those days.
Next year, I’m going to try those Chinese 5 Color peppers in a couple large pots and see how they do.
I guess they don’t get too big and are considered ornamentals anyways.
But they have a really short days to maturity so I can start them early on the porch and plant some later as succession planting.
FWIW, I’ve had much better success with pepper plants in pots than in our (dubious) ground. It may be the roots are particularly needful of good drainage? They (pepper plant roots) always seem “fragile” to me, too, and then slow to recover. But... in this case the plants must have germinated from seeds stuck together. So, I did the best I could with the strongest plant, and “we’ll see” about the weaker ones, I guess. The other option would have been to just chop the weaker ones @ “ground level”, but then there’s even more dead root material intertwined with the best plant’s roots. I don’t know if that’s problematic or not, but, it seems like a recipe for disease and rot.
Pepper plants do better for me in “partial sun” than full sun, too.
However, I’m beginnning to wonder if a problem with potted plants is that the soil / potting mix in the pots gets too hot on sunny summer days here. I’ve already started shading spots in the ground and pots of tomato plants not shaded by the plant itself. It seems to help.
I have seen several you tube videos recently that say that, yes, while tomatoes and peppers are WARM weather crops, they are not HOT weather crops.
The recommendation now is during the hottest part of summer, to use shade cloth.
I’m learning a bunch about container gardening and am more comfortable with trying it next year because I have done OK some summers with peppers, never a great crop. We just don’t have the growing season length for them.
Yes, we are Zone 7a, so, definitely not “Deep South”, but it seems to get too hot for many plants like tomatoes and many types of peppers, in our summers, anyway. That’s likely why I’m having some success in the old spots on the north side of the house that we used to use for impatiens and so on.
Heatwave II tomatoes have done well for us, out in the garden, but, they are very bland tasting. :-(
I just walked out to check the garden and the peppers, including the Serrano Peppers, are so far “ok”. A few tomato plants in pots were beginning to wilt, so, I gave most everything in pots a good watering.
I also discovered a Colorado potato beetle laying eggs on one of those Ichiban Eggplants that has been doing well. More eggs were on those 2 struggling Opo plants’ leaves. I turned the Colorado Beetle into a “squash(ed) beetle”, rubbed off what eggs I could find, and gave everything potentially vulnerable a good spraying with Sevin.
Once the sun gets down behind the trees, the rain gauge is going on it’s post and being connected to the system.
Most electrical enclosures have a panel you can buy for them that stands off the back on the inside so you can screw things to it as opposed to making holes in the enclosure. I have an 18x36” shelf from a heavy duty shelving unit I can use in the old fridge for that. Then I’ll have something to screw DIN rail to which is what the controllers snap on to and can also screw shelf brackets on it to add 2-3 shelves for whatever.
All that’s not happening tonight. For now, I’m just setting the big controller in there. I can only have one controller out there for now — only one network cable. That’ll change someday but the big controller will do everything I need for a while.
Aww geez, just got windy and dark like it’s gonna rain. Might not get the rain gauge up after all. LOL - A few little blobs in the radar including one headed right for us. Cooling off nicely already.
This guy is in your growing zone, I believe.
The Millennial Gardener
https://www.youtube.com/c/themillennialgardener
(on my iPad so getting decent links is difficult)
If anyone is so inclined, this little boy is the grandson of a good friend. She is battling cancer now and the grandson’s father passed from covid when Noah was a preemie and just home from the hospital. It costs nothing to vote and could make a huge difference in this boys and his mom’s life. Voting still open and prize is 20,000 and featured in the magazine.
https://jr-ranger.org/2025/noah-f18e?sfnsn=mo&fbclid=IwY2xjawLVADZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETF0TFlpSVZlaExtTkZ6S2VxAR5NwqznCR-j7oMtR3zPmNVz7olqT_ni9YyGtnrRY4IXpEsJ-He3W2D7hE1P6g_aem_7RSooMW2_gef1tbHjGXIEA
Rain came through this afternoon and the temp has dropped from 85 to 70! Loving it!
I monitor my greenhouse with an indoor/outdoor thermometer I bought at Walmart for ten bucks.
Just sayin’...I’ll never be as technically advanced as you! ;)
https://jr-ranger.org/2025/noah-f18e
First question mark and everything after can be removed. The rest is FB tracking and sends FB a ping back to let them know the link was used and also what site it was used on, in this case FR.
Pet peeve of mine. Long fugly links.
How sweet! Voted. :)
Thank you!
Oh I’ve got a big tube with mercury in it on the outside of the house. Thermometer I grabbed from phone company - freebie customer gift. It’s about 18 inches tall.
Closed the windows in the truck and put the mower undercover so the rain passed us by. Got the rain gauge up and connected. That ought to change the forecast.
https://farmwp.com/pollard/seed-calculators/
I'll stick a link on my profile page too.
Will be doing another calculator so that people can figure out how many feet of bed a packet of seeds will do.
Plenty of Vitamin D on board after a day of mowing yesterday. I got the culverts & ditch on the sides of the driveway trimmed, plus another steep spot I can’t mow - these are the worst spots & they wear me out. Trimming around the trees & some spots near the front landscaping will be today.
After moving all my ‘construction’ supplies to the lean-to, I can now get to my shingles. I have one whole pack left. For sure, I have enough to use between the barn & the metal beds, about a foot distance. Hopefully, I will have enough to go around my raised beds at least once. This is my next project starting tomorrow.
Tomorrow will be paving day. We won’t be able to use the main driveway for 24 - 36 hours & the front door loop for 3 - 4 days. I have a potential emergency escape route planned out using the truck. We have enough groceries on hand for a couple of days.
I won’t be able to get a load of mulch until the end of the week. I need to mulch around my herb/jalapeño beds, add mulch to the front landscaping & in a few more places.
Speaking of jalapeños, I am making a batch of poppers today. I love the ones wrapped in bacon, but I am trying a recipe with the bacon in the filling ... less labor intensive. I will find out the heat level of my Jalafuegos :-)
Recipe if you’re interested:
https://natashaskitchen.com/jalapeno-poppers-with-bacon/
I have whole Jalapenos in the freezer from last season, cream cheese, cheddar and bacon on hand!
I already told you of my plans for the week, so I’ll add making Poppers to the list. Thanks for the inspiration. :)
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