Weekly Gardening Thread
Weekly Gardening Thread
I hope all of you will stop by.
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Good morning.
All the summer crops are in and I have tomatoes already. Squash is blooming in mine, but harvesting in the other beds for those that did not do Spring crops. Onions are almost done, tomatillos are forming and peppers are coming on strong.
Downside is the flea beetles attacking everyone’s eggplants and the rainy weather we have had is only encouraging funguses.
Headed there in a bit to prune the tomatoes into the cages.
Getting lots of salad and radishes, some kohlrabi will be done soon.
Like a dumbarse I didn’t check the weather earlier this week for rain and didn’t get out to garden on a dry day before the big storm. Now trying to do it today when it’s much wetter.
Anyone who is growing fava beans please let me know
Wednesday evening we had some severe thunderstorms rumble thru our area — mostly strong winds & lightning. After all was said & done with, we had 0.4” in the gauge.
The wind gusts twisted my squash plants all up and knocked off some of my tomatoes & stems. Despite having my tomatoes in cages, I guess them being about 5 ft tall caused some of them to tip over.
All in all, we came out okay.
The yellow & zucchini have probably peaked out since temps are hot now.
Our bush beans are peaking too.
Bell peppers & cukes are keeping us well supplied.
Tomatoes are just now starting to ripen.
I dug up one potato plant and it looks like they are ready to harvest, too.
Okra is the only thing we’re waiting on.
This is our first garden in Georgia after 25 years in Alaska. We are at least a month behind experienced gardeners but we are happy with first garden here. Our neighbor’s garden was wiped out three nights ago by deer. We had a deer visit one night, about a dozen prints and no damage. I hope and believe it was because of the 1/6th pieces of Dial soap we have all over. A Wisconsin study showed Dial was one of the best repellents. It is an experiment so we will see.
We also put in non-hybrid seeds to begin producing our own in case of a “Grid down” scenario. We didn’t plan ahead well to contain cross pollination. We manually pollinate some squash/melons, etc., close up the female flower and flag the fruit so we know which ones to use for seed.
Been here 8 months and already starting to say y’all.
I'm so disgusted with the plant selection of all the surrounding stores that carry nothing but Bonnie's Plants that I could spit. Besides being way overpriced and little selection beyond the basic hybrids, I'll be d@ng if I'm gonna spend $3 per plant for eggplant. I use to could find eggplant in 6 packs, but I've looked everywhere this Spring with no luck. Bonnie's Plants have essentially become a monopoly in my area as a vegetable plant source. Grrr!
What do you guys do with volunteers?
I have a bunch of squash and tomatoes that popped up in some soil/compost I moved to the middle of the lawn(because I’m too weak to turn it by hand/till and too cheap to hire someone or rent equipment)so I could grow a little bit of corn and beans and I ran out of space.
The next sound you hear will be Mr Bender ending it all by leaping off the tailgate of his pickup! Along about Wednesday evening I start looking forward the new Friday thread and the banter that goes with it and then the very first posts are about harvesting this and picking that and waist high over there and I look out the window at mud and weeds. This has been the wettest late spring that I can remember in my 56 years of living and gardening on the shores of Humboldt Bay. We had 3X normal May rain and we are already double our total June average in the first 4 days. It’s even worse between Eureka and the Ore border and into Southern Oregon.
The potatoes, corn, raspberries and blueberries are doing great. We are cutting lettuce and replanted the radishes, dug 2 types of garlic and have 6 types left to dig. I raked the mulch off of half of them before the rain drove me into the house but I fear the wrappers will rot and shorten the storage life of them. The slugs are in paradise in my wife’s flower beds she got planted...
I’m looking into wildcrafting as a possible side business, does anyone here know where to find a buyer in south-central Wisconsin? My google-fu doesn’t seem to be working.
It’s hot, hot , hot, and no rain but muggy. The things in containers need so much watering just to keep them alive. On top of that, I have a summer cold. You know, runny nose, stuffy head, scratchy throat, fever.
Oh yeah, going out in 90+ degrees with a fever to stand around in the muggy air and water plants. That’s how you know it’s true love.
Popsicles definitely help.
I started six peat pots of herbs this week. They will be transplanted to 6 and 8 inch pots out side to eventually bring inside later on to put in my kitchen window under a grow light. I will do the same thing with cherry tomatoes later on.
Last year we planted 3 lavender plants - 2 outside and 1 in a pot which I took in for the winter. The one in the pot lived and the 2 outside died, so I figured I could have some success with kitchen herbs. I am going to snip it to make it more shapely, and try to do some propagation to see what works. The rest I will make into sachet packs for the closet and drawers.
I just can not stand those grocery store tomatoes. There is nothing better than a good ripe tomato(unless it's maybe an ear of corn-LOL).
Fortunately, frozen corn is readily available, but there is just no substitute for home grown ripened on the vine tomatoes.
The Strawberry patch has slowed down, we should get a smaller batch later this year from the ever-bearing group.
I have a start of lemon thyme that I babied this winter indoors. It has grown enough that I am going to snip off some ends to root, and then I'll re-pot it and take it outside.
I picked up some begonias, impatience and johnny jump ups to fill out our front flower bed and welcome planter. I am going to make a topsy turvey out of a couple of 2 liter soda bottles and see if the flowers will do as well as the tomatoes LOL. If not, I'll just get some hanging baskets, and plant something else.
I tried to find celery seeds or plants everywhere this year. No luck in any stores or catalogs. Anyone know about celery - is it really hard to grow or something?
Well that's about it for this week. Hope we get some home grown tomatoes soon. Hubby has a patch of 30 plants that are well on the way.
Hello everyone. I am a fairly new gardner and tried growing white turnips. Things are looking good except a “stalk” has shot up about a foot and is putting forth flowers.
Is that normal?
An early, unexpected, freeze in late September broke the irrigation pump; the new one should be here next week. Meanwhile, it is a bunch of gallon jugs & a 5 gallon ‘gas’ can to fill & haul to the garden to hand water.
We have planted a butternut tree; two hazelnut saplings, a peach tree; and added a second Carmine Jewel bush sweet cherry, since the one put in last year did so well.
Also added some new fencing & gates to keep cattle out of where we want to do some serious planting next year.
Can't be all work and no play, however; tomorrow is a day off with friends to do the Crazy Horse Memorial 25th annual (and our first) Volksmarch. It is a 10K hike (round trip) up the mountain, to the arm in front of the face.
For scale, the head is 80' tall,; the heads at Mount Rushmore are 60'.
Here’s a ‘potatoes in containers’ problem for the gang...I planted fingerling potatoes in a number of 5 gallon buckets...I planted them about a third of the way up; leaving about 12 - 15 inches of growing space to the top of the bucket. The locals said “that’ll never work...too far down”. (New Englanders are compelled to criticize everything and anything regardless of topic...they are very annoying people...plus they are rude...but I digress...) So much for that...the potato plants, which we have been hilling right along, are now OVER the lip of the bucket, and it is only early June. Do any of the great minds here have an idea as to how I can ‘extend’ the buckets UPWARD so I can continue to ‘hill’ the plants without the soil just spilling over the edge onto the ground? Something in the shape of a cylinder? Locals are useless, and I am not a mechanical genius...
Last desperate hope, here...
A neighbor gave me a plant that he bought at WalMart, that came with no ‘planting instructions’ tag..
The name on the label is “Veron Roy Candles”, but that’s all the information I have...
“BING” search came up empty...
Anybody out there have any idea whether this is a ‘full-sun’ or ‘partial shade’ plant, and/or any other information that I might need (even if it’s annual or perennial), before I just stick the thing in the ground to watch it die??
This is part of my post tonight for a package - post of videos for the troops:
“The Wartime Kitchen & Garden” -Episode 8 (1/3)”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DSCNLl74F4
“The Wartime Kitchen & Garden - Episode 8 (2/3)”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7P3Dq1oCiSg
“The Wartime Kitchen & Garden - Episode 8 (3/3)”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioivXH5UTS0