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.
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.
Good morning from Oregon. Thank you for your work, Diana. Got a surprise cucumber which we ate yesterday, already!
As someone who used to SELL Roses for a living, I certainly would NEVER encourage propagation of Roses. ;)
But, I am retired now, so here you go! :)
Rose propagation advice from Better Homes and Gardens:
https://www.bhg.com/gardening/flowers/roses/how-to-grow-roses-from-cuttings/
Also, I’m sorry for the loss of your Mom. I’m going to be a puddle of mush when I lose mine. :(
Keep your Cukes well watered! Also, a shot of fertilizer with extra Calcium will benefit them - Cukes can get Blossom End Rot just like tomatoes, peppers and summer squashes.
I have a few dozen Baby Cukes on and the plants are climbing and blooming like crazy-mad. I’m down to my last few jars of Pickle Relish and I need to make Bread and Butter Pickles this season, too. I only do Cukes every few years.
I have a question on lettuce. The first bunch of seeds I planted produced beautiful plants, and I’ve made many salads. What remains in the containers is tall, gangly, and bitter. It’s time to take those plants out and plant new seeds, isn’t it? I thought they would self-seed by now, but they haven’t.
Lists? I LOVE Lists and have a few of my own, just a few LOL.
We are heading into our hot season in SoCal and it's all about maintenance now - no planting, transplanting - nothing until fall.
Meanwhile:
Got these gladiola bulbs from a friend who was tossing them:
Plumeria are starting to bud and bloom.
Vinca, lantana and bougainvillea are some of the few plants that can take our high temps and hot winds:
Happy, Happy 4th to all!!
My cilantro is going, but I need to plant some more dill. It will probably have to wait until our kids are gone, next Sunday. They arrive this afternoon and then the FUN begins! Grandma gets to spoil her two grandsons, just a little bit, and show them how cool life in the Midwest is!
We have plans to go to the orchard for raspberry and flower picking tomorrow, the zoo on Thursday, the community pool either Friday or Saturday, the park several times, the doughnut shop, and the ice cream shop!! Bbq and fireworks on Friday. Oh, and s’mores by the firepit and watching lightning bugs flit around. Jam-packed but hopefully not over scheduled.
My brother’s tomatoes are going gangbusters this year. He’s picked 150 already & says the big ones haven’t come in yet - he picked 25 yesterday morning. He has a couple of small raised beds in his back yard - amazing what he gets out of them, definitely has a green thumb!
To help him out, I sent him a salsa recipe - I would post a link, but the SSL certificate is invalid so I am posting the text. I made this several years in a row with my fresh tomatoes & canned it, but you can freeze it, too. I used jalapenos rather than banana peppers. Here ‘tis (everything below title is from recipe, not my comments):
Wonderful Salsa
Adapted from https://farmbellrecipes.com/wonderful-salsa/
I started canning this several years ago and we like it so much that I haven’t bought any store bought salsa since I made the first batch. It is so good with store-bought canned tomatoes that I make it that way year round and use fresh tomatoes to can in other ways.
Servings: 7 to 8 pints
INGREDIENTS
8 cups tomatoes – can use three 28/29 oz. cans tomatoes, well drained (I buy petite diced when I can find them on sale)
2 ½ cups diced onion
1 ½ cup diced green bell pepper
1 cup diced hot peppers (I usually use all banana peppers)
6 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp. cumin
2 tsp. black pepper
1 Tbsp. canning salt
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup white vinegar
29 oz. can of tomato puree
1 ½ cups tomato sauce
1/4 cup bottled lime juice*
STEPS
1) Mix everything together in a large saucepan. Bring slowly to a boil; boil gently for ten minutes (or less – be sure the onions & peppers remain somewhat crisp).
2) NOTE: At this point you could cool & refrigerate & use without canning if desired.
3) Pour into hot jars, cap with hot rings & lids.
4) Process in boiling water bath for 15 minutes.
NOTES
I started adding the lime juice to increase the acidity when I was making this with fresh tomatoes. I’m adding that in – it’s terrific!
I succession plant. It seems they’re a short lived crop and that planting every few weeks helps ensure a supply.
I have heard that every two weeks is good, but i have found that to be too close together, so I do at least 3, up to four.
Watching some of these gardening videos, I’ve learned that stuff like cucumbers, zucchini, lettuce, beans, and some herbs are like that so it’s better to sow every few weeks for a consistent crop and once the older plants are spent, just pull them up and get rid of them.
I’m a big fan of burning the old plants instead of composting them because unless the composting is done right, it could spread disease and vermin.
Matter of fact, just the other day, I started a new seed cell of lettuce seeds for a fall crop.
And I started Brussel sprouts and zucchini (a variety that matures in 45 days, so I can hopefully avoid the squash vine borer issue.
Gotta do a bunch of running around and spend a bunch of money to get vehicles renewed. Proof of Personal Property tax being paid up is required to renew registrations. I call it the buy your stuff again tax. Insurance, inspection stickers, registrations. Stickers and insurance might have to do for a couple more weeks. I'm sick of seeing my whole paycheck go in two days.
Went to tractorsupply.com and evidently they have a new store closer to me. That could be dangerous, speaking of money.
A 330' roll of 48" goat fence is up to $400 now. Would fence in the tunnel with enough room for outdoor rows(tater time) and a few fruit trees.
Got my post set in concrete for the rain bucket. Got a piece of marine grade plywood to cut a circle from to mount on top of post to screw bucket to.
Rain gauge requires a Digital Input and I only have two controllers with that and one is that big controller which I'll need out there eventually anyway. The other one is up here at the house and staying here. Looked at big electrical enclosures and it's either $100 for china junk or $400+ for brand name.
Little antique fridge is getting moved to the tunnel in the next couple of days to house automation stuff, tools and supplies. I'll rig a piece of metal roofing over it for now until I get some universal fridge gasket for it. Will shade it too.
Gotta start thinking about how I'm going to frame in the tunnel end walls and what kind of doors I want. I've seen 36" entry doors up to full width roll up and everything in between. Sliding doors are popular but limit you to half the width of the tunnel.
I also want a lean to shed on the NW end so that has to be taken into consideration.
Commercial roll up door 
Not so commercial version 
Now that I look at those and thinking of my frame, same deal. Full width would be too short and sliding doors would be less than half the tunnel width.
Anyway, 10am and still in the 70s so I'm going to wonder and ponder and move that fridge shell. See if that new batch of direct sow seeds germinated yet in cooler soil temps.
Thank you so much for this information, Diana in Wisconsin! I’m going to follow instructions and pray I can get a rose bush out of the little cutting. Also thank you for the thoughts about the loss of my mom. It came only 8 weeks after losing my dad and was very unexpected even though she was 92. I have struggled with these losses more than I can say. Last year at this time they were both at home and doing really well. On July 3 last year, my dad fell and it was a fairly quick downhill slide. My mom fell 8 weeks after we said goodbye to my dad...a very bad fall..and was gone in 6 days. I pray your mom gives you many more years of enjoyment.
I’ll be very interested to hear how your brussel sprouts turn out. Keep all of us posted on those, will ya? :-)
July... Will we cook or will we float? (Chances of being blown away are reduced but not zero.) ;-)
We'll likely travel to Paducah for the fireworks @ the Riverfront. Maybe we can get there early and have a picnic supper, maybe toss this goodie around a bit in an open area once most people have headed for their cars.
Might as well do that and wait for traffic to clear out: In times past when we've watched the J4 fireworks there (Paducah), the traffic afterward is a doozy. And, this is on a Friday night!
The armbands may have some emergency uses too: They supposedly have up to 20 hours of armband light, and they have 3 lighting modes: Rapid flashing, steady flashing, and constant. Yep. Another Menards deal...
Hi All! Greetings from southern New Hampshire!
Barb ordered a pair of the large, 15” tall Birdee Beds from Epic. These were to replace two of our first wooden one that I made from pallet wood. Despite an oil finish and lining of plastic, they had deteriorated.
So far, I have replaced one and have the second bed emptied and am laying down hardware coth and landscape fabric. It is labor-intensive as while emptying the bed, I am separating out the weed roots, mostly quackgrass. Worth the effort.
The one that is filled is really impressive. We plan to replace the wooden raised beds as Epic offers discounts. At 78, the bull work is good for me, but I don’t have the stamina I used to have.
The new raised bed where the bee hives used to rest is planted with cucumbers, bush and climing and one red cabbage.
Speaking of bees, the swarm trap on our back deck was occupied a couple of days ago. Hopefully they will take up residence.
Sure. I tried them a couple years ago and got a fair crop.
Last year, the cabbage loopers got them. Decimated the crop.
I’m trying again with something called Spinosad that’s supposed to work like BT and kill the worms.
Back to squash vine borers: Apparently, on occasion the borer larvae can be located and either the vine stem carefully cut in to in the direction of the vine, to kill the borer, or the larvae can be punctured with a needle or Exacto knife, the latter again oriented “with” the vine. But, how to locate the larvae?
This might be worthwhile when just a few plants are involved, esp. a particularly valuable plant like my last Opo.
I live next to a woods. The deer correctly believe that this housing development stole their land, so they walk up and down the sidewalks and deck stairs, munching.
I’ve had them pull entire plants out of the ground, and also those flimsy green wire garden fences — they pull them out with their teeth. And they leave distinctive pyramids of poop pellets in the yard. On the plus side, in winter when it snows, you can clearly see tracks of where they’ve been the night before.
Best thing to do is resign yourself to a constant and ongoing battle. If you are trying to grow produce in the ground, you will need fencing, and sometimes double fencing — one fence a few feet outside the other one in case they leap the first one. Then you will have the issue of trapped or impaled deer. Just sayin’.
As for ornamentals, work with your county extension and local nurseries to find those few plants they won’t eat. I’ve spent thousands over the years replacing items.
My short list of what they love to eat:
Arbor vitae
Tomatoes
Hostas
Liriope
Zinnias
Any type of lily
Sunfowers
Tulips
English holly
Impatiens
Geraniums
Azaleas
Hydrangeas
Crysanthemums, if desperate
I’ve had better luck with marigolds, garlic, junipers, Japanese hollies, maples, forsythia, itea, ornamental tall grass (some, but not all), catnip, catmint, clematis, daffodils, phlox, lavender., sage, oregano, and bugleweed—they have survived.
Another smell-repellent thing that works but needs constant replacing is that they dislike the strong perfumey smell of fabric softener, so you can cut dryer sheets in strips and tie them all around the edges of fences. I can’t, because HOA; but maybe you can. Some people have luck with grating Irish Spring bar soap around or even on some of the foliage, but of course that needs replacing frequently. I have had some success with sprinkling coffed grounds on the azaleas.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.