The Victory Garden Thread - September, 2026

September 1, 2026 | Diana in WI/Greeneyes in Memoriam

[Diana in Wisconsin]

The MONTHLY Victory Garden 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 Victory Garden 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.]

I know THAT feeling. Can’t keep up...

[Diana in Wisconsin]

So, have her committed, LOL!

My Mom makes me CrAzY at times too, but I don’t have to live with her. Yet. ;)

[Qiviut]

Back at home, feet up in the recliner with a glass of wine & a bowl of homemade lentil soup. Whew!

The head organizer at the Community Center gave us a wonderful location - room for a 6’ clothes rack & a 6’ table. We’re all set up with room for everything & after tomorrow, assuming we sell some stuff, we might be able to bring a few more things.

Doors open at 8 for breakfast (community center makes a lot of money on food)! The head lady will keep track of anything that sells before we get there - she’ll be there at 6:30 because some folks still have to set up. I want to be there around 7 so will have to leave at 6:30. I’d like to eat breakfast there, but almost everything will have dairy in it (cheese, sausage gravy, etc.) - bummer!!

I cannot believe how much ‘junk’ people are selling, but someone’s junk is another person’s treasure :-) Getting a space at the Community Center is definitely the way to go as opposed to having a yard sale here at the house.

[MomwithHope]

Best wishes for your yard sale. I had a ban sale on the 29th a one day sale. It was successful but exhausting and I had help.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I hope you unload a lot of treasures!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Beau and Adam made it back to semi-civilization yesterday. No mention of a moose. (Yay!)

They are in Willow.

He’ll be flying back on Saturday night into Sunday. Anchorage to Minneapolis to Madison. I’m sure he’s had quite the adventure, even without a moose. He got to see Denali for the second time, now. ;)

[Qiviut]

$3.00 so far at 9:00. We don’t have very interesting stuff. The lady next to us is selling bags of buttons, pins, old costume jewelry, etc. She’s probably 100+. Another lady has Halloween stuff & doing pretty well. Two guys drove up from NC & were peeling bills off a wad of money for sports memorabilia. This is not a wealthy area & I’m surprised at the money being spent. I’m anti-clutter & surrounded by it here so it’s making me a little nuts :-)

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

I get emails from a site called EarthSky. In today's email there was a link to to this:

International Cloud Appreciation Day is September 11

"Today is Cloud Appreciation Day! The Cloud Appreciation Society, with more than 60,000 members in 120 countries, organizes this international online event. And their Memory Cloud Atlas website went live today, Friday, September 11, at one minute after midnight your local time. It’s a place where anyone around the world can upload an image of their sky on Cloud Appreciation Day."

memorycloudatlas

I looked at a few of the pictures and wondered if was done to diminish the 9-11 remembrance, but thought about it and decided it wasn't. A picture of clouds might be both coping for posters and viewers and a rememberance of people whose remains were never recovered in the attack. The FR Garden thread seemed the appropriate place to post this.

Sky Picture of Port Angeles, Clallam County, Washington, United States

David Fox

"Striated cirrus raked across a deep blue, gold-lit from the low sun rest upon calm stratocumulus in the distance. A summer day draws to a close, quiet, still, a little wistful, yet exalted."

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Qiviut! Good luck with your “Garage” sale! We have a several Donate/Resale places here that we “contribute” to!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Very pretty!

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Thanks! There are more at the link! (And of course your amazing Wisconsin Sky pictures back down the thread!)

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Why your tomatoes stopped producing in the heat

Paul; The writer gives a bit different explanation about Tomato pollination and heat. See what you think and go with that!

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

I set out 12 Belstar broccoli Wednesday in the after noon and later we had a good amount of rain. I have not grown them before, but they are supposed to be short which should allow me to keep them in a low tunnel with an insect barrier. In addition, my small fall patch of beans is now flowering so we should have beans later next week!

One of my 2ndary butternut squash vines (a sucker within a foot of the original planting) has put out 5 Female Fruit which are pollinated. I do not know if the pollination will take or if the plant will self prune them and wither them. (A sixth one did.) I think I will hit it with a dilute watering can full of Alaskan Fish emulsion fertilizer and see if I can encourage it to keep growing until mid october. I have leaves dying along the length of the vines. I have put earth under the vine to encourage additional rooting, but I do not see any frass from the vine borer. I did have borers with the Red Kuri, which I removed and dispatched before pulling up and disposing of the vine. (Of the 5 I set out there is only one vine left.)

Sweet potatoes have picked up considerably with the recent rains. I have started tipping the ends to encourage them to form tubers in their plastic bag homes. I have no idea what i will find when I empty the bags. Watermelons vines are pretty, but no melons, a bust. Lots of heavy hitter Okra which goes in to soups and things.

[Qiviut]

Day 1 - we sold 2 bib overalls at the last minute before the Center was closing. I spotted a large guy in overalls & approached him with “I don’t know what size you are, but we have 2 pairs of overalls, new & like new for a very good price!” They were not his favorite brand, but still had a pocket on the bib where he liked a pocket. He took both pairs .... yay!!! This sale paid for our spot at the sale both days. Mom might have sold $10 worth of additional items - we had a VERY boring table.

So, we are changing things up for tomorrow based on some observations. Mom is taking her costume jewelry she never wears. People seem to be crazy for beads & jewelry they can break down into beads. The lady next to us sold 28 sandwich size bags of beads for $1 each right off the bat! I bought a lot of beads for jewelry making when AC Moore went out of business at either half price, buy one get one, or buy 2 get one. I never got into making jewelry so it would be nice to sell the beads. I’m also taking some rather intricate doilies I made for fun, a handknit lapghan, & yarn I’ll never use. One of the ladies at church told me she sold a lot of her ‘extra’ yarn at the sale a while back. I think our table will get a lot more interest - at a church yard sale, people made a beeline for any table with jewelry!

As for me, I am $8 in the hole as of today. I spotted a really nice side table that will make a gorgeous plant stand - $10, but without my asking, she reduced it to $8. It was being sold by the head Church Food Angel so I think that’s why she gave me a discount right away. I have my eye on 2 other items - if they are still there at the end of the sale tomorrow, I’ll make a low offer & see what happens :-)

We have been told that tomorrow, being Saturday, will be a lot busier.

[MomwithHope]

I had zero clothes at my sale. And lots of vintage. I bet you are one person who has heard of vaseline glass. We had a set in a box for 40+ years. Belonged to hubbys grandmother so it was old. Pre 1900 old. The set was in the sale and a lady came in with her daughter ad said she was a collector. Then she wanted to check it with a blacklight. Well doggone it, It lit up a luminescent yellow/green. I did some more research and my price should have been 4 times and it would still be a deal. The rest did not sell and I was glad. I have a buyer on FB marketplace who wants it. 325 for 12 pieces. I also sold vintage I knew was priced very low but I did want some cash at the end of the day. Netted over 300. And I still have about 1/3 left in the barn I will probably have a sale next spring. Our local charity gets all clothes and normal household stuff. I have a beautiful set of china from the 60’s, service for 8 with all the platters serving bowls etc in all the original boxes. Never been used. Paid 300 to a friend for it who was elderly and really needed the money. Thinking I could sell it for her. Wound up giving her 300 and now I don’t have many people interested in fine china. Someone will come along. I did a FB ad and posted to groups in three other surrounding towns. Had probably 80+ people up until noon. I had a lot of pictures of the tables. Thats how most people di it around here and that way they only come out if they see something they like. It took weeks to set up and now just a few day to pack up and leave in the barn til spring.

[Paul R.]

Hi, Pete - that all seems to fit, esp. the part about mulching and partial shade. Likely I need to use thicker mulch.

One of my Mortgage Lifters’ scant fruits has developed a black blotch on the bottom - likely blossom end rot, but I thought the plant was surely getting enough calcium, and my watering has been pretty consistent. Possibly the plant is getting too much nitrogen, and possibly it’s just the last few weeks’ temperatures. The plant itself looks fine, tho’ none of the ML’s are growing as fast as last year’s.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Great tip on the jewelry. I have a TON of jewelry making stuff that appealed to me for a while, but no longer. I HATE that about Crafting! Grrr!

I’ve been so good about yarn since I inherited that HUGE stash a few years ago. I have NONE left from that stash: most went to pet mats for ‘Comfort for Critters’ which sends them to local Humane Societies and other no-kill shelters. Everyone adopted gets to take their ‘Blankie’ to their Fur-Ever Home. :)

https://www.comfortforcritters.org/

Anyhow, I have little yarn to part with, but I hope you can clean out your stash!

Think how much you’re learning this first round; you’ll be a ‘Treasure Recycling Pro’ in no time! :)

[Qiviut]

We were told clothes don’t do well at the yard sale .... and they don’t. Mom didn’t want to give dad’s clothes away to some place like Goodwill to sell so this was her attempt to sell them. His jeans size & shoe size(s) are pretty specific so the right person had to come along. We got lucky with the overalls. Mom did sell 2 pairs of her sandals for $3 each. One of the ladies from church that mom really likes came by - she is a widow & could not sell her husband’s clothes. Her neighbor works at a homeless men’s shelter across the mountain & I think that’s where dad’s clothes & shoes will go. There are 3 items I want to hang on to for another sale, but his jeans, shirts & shoes can all go & she can feel good about helping people less fortunate.

Based on what we’re taking tomorrow, our table will have a totally different look & hopefully more action! I found a super cute Webkinz lamb, code intact, that I got really cheap & had stashed away. The low end on eBay is $10 & I suspect it will sell quickly so that alone should put me on the plus side after that table I bought :-)

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

I did not get a lot of tomatoes this year which is not a bad thing. I selected Anannas Noire, Trifele, Black Krim and went for taste. Enough for bruschetta and caprisi salad.

[Qiviut]

If someone wants the jewelry beads, they’ll be getting a great deal. I looked up the ones with no price on the card & they were running $12 for 9 beads. Since I bought everything on sale, discounting 50-75% on the regular price, I come out even with what I originally paid, which is ok with me! I bought a kit with tools for making jewelry & I’m keeping it - the small tools come in very handy at times.