The Garden Thread - August, 2025

August 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.

[Paul R.]

That last is good info.! Ie., if I want to “repeat” a tomato I really like, I should try hand pollinating some of it’s flowers, and then try to isolate them (the flowers) until the flower begins to set as a fruit. Correct?

A couple of the plants grown from seeds from (what I think were) Golden Jubilee plants last year have begun to set fruit. God knows how they’ll do in these hot temperatures, but, hope springs eternal..

[metmom]

I’ve heard that tomatoes mostly self pollinate and that if you tap the flowers when they are in bloom it will knock the pollen down and encourage pollination.

[Paul R.]

Speaking of hope, there are several t-storms to our west, but, NWS says there’s less than a 20% chance they’ll get here. Meanwhile, we are baking off last night’s 0.7” of rain.

[LilFarmer]

Love the idea of tomato cages from hog panels! I bet they are sturdy! My summer garden here in Georgia is about done. Starting some cold veggies from seed now to set out maybe October

[Augie]

But I do have a couple cannas I’d like to give a shot (with overwintering).

Mrs. Augie digs her cannas and elephant ears after they've been bitten by the first frost of fall, knocks the extra soil off the root balls, cuts the annual growth off, then tosses the roots in a feed sack and stores them in the bomb room over winter.

She replants them in early May. It's a little bit of work but it saves a ton of money not having to buy new ones every year - she usually puts out 25-30 cannas and a dozen-ish elephant ears.

[Augie]

What are the names of the other two dogs?

Booger is the Aussie. She'll be five in December.

Logan is #1 Marine Daughter's Doberman. I think she's seven now.

Those two get a lot of credit (or blame, depending on who you ask) for Howard getting to stay. By the end of his first weekend here (and the jury still being out on him getting sent to the pound or not) they had become playmates, which is high praise coming from Logan. She's not super social when it comes to other dogs but she likes Howard - as long as he's not being an obnoxious puppy. lol

[Augie]

If they aren’t loaded with seeds I wouldn’t worry about trying to remove the pith. I don’t even fight too hard to get rid of each and every seed. By the time you finish dehydrating and grind them up you won’t notice it’s in there.

[metmom]

OK. Thanks.

[MomwithHope]

“the bomb room” ???

[Pollard]

Haa haa; my $7.50 shipping from Menard's was an estimate and went to $36 during checkout. DELETE CART

UPS showed up at 10:30 so the new impact gun battery went on the charger. Was half charged. Thing is heavy and feels like it's got tons of torque. My 20 year old cordless drill likes the new lithium battery. Once it was charged I pulled a couple of lug nuts off the truck and put them back on. Works well.

Ended up being mostly a cleanup day. The place has been looking like a dump for way too long. Got my push mowing done down around the shop and shed. Then tossed all the trash off the truck bed trailer and brought it down there and filled it. Came up by the house and mounded it over, mostly with stuff from the neighbor's barn I cleaned out. I had tossed that stuff off up here to go through it and keep anything useful. Dumped the trailer load and parked it up by the house so I can fill it again with more stuff from that barn and some stuff in the house.

I've been working on vehicles up by the house but I should be doing it down by the shop/shed. With all the trash to look at down there and inability to cut grass for a long time, I did things up here. Nice to see it mowed and cleaned up and nice to get back to working down there.

Cleaned up the shed a little and pulled the seed rack out. It was blocking the back door that's been screwed in place with shims for a few years waiting for hinges. Stuff quickly got placed on the back wall and blocked it. Now I have flow through.

Over the next two days, I'll probably do a little more cleanup. Will give the truck a complete chassis/drivetrain inspection. Install the control arm on the car. Will unplug alternator and see about getting the female blade terminals crimped shut a little. Maybe the male blades are thinner on the new Chinese alternator and giving me the intermittent charging issue.

I have lights in the shed and a high bay light in the shop. Tomorrow when I wake up at 3 am, I can head out there at 4:30 am and do a little something. Need a little bit more light for the path to the travel trailer and can plug the trailer into power again and start moving stored stuff from shed and shop to trailer.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

The Heart wants what the Heart wants!

So glad your dogs are good judges of character! Howard had an up-hill battle being both an ‘orphan/foundling’ and a Hound...I know that SOME Hounds are VERY hard to love - after raising dozens of them myself.

I have had a number of ‘blended’ dog AND cat families through the years. It either works, or there’s a funeral, LOL!

Looks like things are working out for your pack! :)

[Albion Wilde]

What on earth do you cut with a 14 foot chain saw, unless a California red wood tree?

The chain saw part is branch trimming size, around a foot and a half or so. The battery-electrified pole that holds it up is 14 feet, so you can trim small ornamental trees without a cherry picker. I have a couple of 20-ft and 25-ft trees that I like to keep in that range. I cut some branches from the ground, some from a step ladder, and some from out of an upstairs window.

This is not the exact one I have, but it's similar:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/718F8kgG%2BhL._SL1500_.jpg

[Pollard]

New food ad day and I’d love to head to the grocery store now and be back right at full daylight but I know the meat chests will be slim pickin’s and probably won’t even have this week’s sale meats out there until mid day. You would think they’d have the butchers come in at 3am but nope, not at this country grocery store. They work 8-4 or so.

Woke up late myself, after 4am. Just made my third cup and about to head out to beat the skeeters for a bit. Nice cool 68 degrees this morning - 100% humidity of course. Will work in the shed until it’s light enough to work on vehicles.

When it gets hot, 2pm or so, I’ll head to town.

New addition the the To Get list is some of those grey steel 12” shelf brackets. That will get a few 1x12” boards off the shed floor and up on the shed wall for seed trays. Hopefully the hardware/lumber store will also have 6” versions I can hang lights from. All six trays and all six lights will fit end to end. Will be a lot more convenient than that 2x2’ mini greenhouse with stacked shelves and the lights hanging from the next shelf up and tangled mess of cords for six lights and four heat mats. All the cords can be strung up out of the way across the brackets that the lights will hang from.

[Liz]

CREAM CHEESE POUND CAKE
Makes a lot of batter.....use a large Bundt cake pan.....or halve the recipe.

ING 3 sticks butter 8 oz cr/cheese 3 c sugar 6 eggs 2 tsp b/pwder 3 c flour pinch salt 1-2 tsp vanilla

Method---Cream butter. Add cream cheese and sugar. Continue to cream mixture. Add eggs, one at a time. Sift baking powder,flour, salt. Add to creamed mixture. Add vanilla. Flour and grease large Bundt pan. Bake at 300 deg 1 hour and 15 min........maybe longer depending on your oven. Cool. Garnish and serve.

[FamiliarFace]

If we don’t have one of those already, we need to get one. If we have it, we need to use it.

[Pollard]

Bad habit of mine is to save boxes for way too long. Made some room in the travel trailer. I have more boxes in the house to get rid of too.

Not a bad little trailer really.

Need to get it pulled out from under the trees before one falls on it and wash the mildew off.

More Oster Kitchen Center stuff, including more in the boxes.

That foam will go outside on the cardboard boxes I tossed and all will be burned here shortly. Then I gotta work on the car, something I used to almost enjoy but hate now.

[bert]

Boxes are for burning

[FamiliarFace]

Turns out we do have one, but the lowest branches are now too high. We won’t use it while on a ladder, because that part of the yard is very sloped. Think sledding hill. When we had our trees taken down, I should’ve asked for a quote to include trimming some of the branches from other trees. Alas, that will wait for another time.

[FamiliarFace]

We take ours to the recycling center, along with glass, aluminum, and plastics that they sort through.

[Albion Wilde]

Trees are so lovely — up to a point. We have townhome hell, where developers buy a train carload of burlapped saplings and stick them in the ground without regard to where the cable or water and sewer pipes run to the house or where the water meters sit near the sidewalk. Within a couple of years, they are ginormous and you have roots tearing up sidewalks, pushing underground pipes until they spring a leak and dumping massive amounts of leaves in the yards and especially rain gutters because they looked nice planted too near the houses when they were little. HOA won’t let you remove them without replacing them with something equally threatening. To quote Scarlett O’Hara, “As God is my witness, I’ll nevah buy in an HOA again!”