Posted on 05/27/2011 5:16:22 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good morning gardeners. I apologize to all Freepers for the flame skirmish that occurred on the thread last week. This thread is intended to give like minded Freepers a place to share their gardening experiences and knowledge - a respite from the everyday problems we all encounter without encountering more on a benign gardening thread. Please be civil to your fellow gardeners, Thank You.
Ok, back to gardening. Every one of my plants I started from seed are doing great! This includes two varieties of paste tomatoes and three varieties of winter squash and a few pepper plants. Unfortunately some of the beneficial flowers, I started in a small raised planter were raided by a digging Cashmere (Irish Setter) hiding her Milk Bones.
My garden received a nice drenching rain shower yesterday afternoon. It supplied a good soak for thirsty roots.
If you are a gardener or you are just starting out and are in need of advice or just encouragement please feel free to join in and enjoy the friendly discussion. Our Freeper community is full of gardeners, each with varying interests and skill levels from Master Gardener to novice.
This threw me behind on all the chores here. Plus a bunch of strawberries were ripe. Just finished about 20 lbs yesterday. Hubby just went out to harvest some more, so I can't linger too long today either.
Still haven't planted anything outside. With all the rain, cool temps, and tornadoes/high winds the past 2 weeks I just decided to wait till June.LOL.
Hubby did go ahead and plant a bunch of stuff yesterday. Still enjoying salad from the winter garden, and have a ripe tomato from the indoor pots which we will eat today or tomorrow. It's a nice day today, and the weekend is supposed to be nice, so I may be able to check out the perennials without sinking knee deep in mud.
Have a great weekend. God Bless.
ROFL!!!
My phone has ALWAYS been smarter than me - it's all I can do to even make a call most times. Anything beyond that, I call the kid :)
Just looked at your home page, how can you be a retired grandparent?
“Just looked at your home page, how can you be a retired grandparent?”
LOL. Good point. I am retired from a paying job, and am a grandparent, whose duties are never ending.
Never ending that I will agree with.
Still building my raised beds, they’re taking longer due to some bad advice from my dad, but I think I’m making progress. My poor seedlings are looking sickly though :(
The big maple tree that was shading the back yard was removed last week, and this week my parents gave me permission to grow mushrooms on the stump, so I ordered some oyster mushroom plugs. I’m mildly allergic to mushrooms, but mom and dad love them, and they’re fun to grow.
Still looking for a plant that thrives in deep shade. Not just partial shade, but full-time deep shade. Preferrably something tasty or pretty. Any ideas?
I can’t help you with shade plants. Your seedlings need to dig their feets into some real soil.
How big are you raised beds going to be? Are you making them out of those railroad ties or what ever you had stuck in the bed of your truck?
The beds are about 8’x4’, made from plastic landscaping timbers. Yes, the same ones that were stuck in the back of my truck for so long :p
The first bed is almost finished, the next 2 should go faster assuming the location doesn’t keep changing. I even figured out how to build the arbor connecting the ends of 2 beds together.
I’m doing my best for the seedlings, but I honestly expected these beds to be ready a month ago. I get a 3 day weekend, so hopefully I can at least get one finished.
Good luck with your weekend project!
Devil is right...it is the light. Speaking from experience...first time I grew it from seed; they came up, then fell over. Tried again with lights right down on top of them, and all of them made it. This year; I wanted to see if broccoli and cauliflower could be 'dense planted'. I planted 300 seeds in a standard 1020, shoved it under the lights, and they ALL came up. I now have 300 broccoli and cauliflower plants all over the yard, garage, driveway, etc...
OMG.
Windy—30 MPH gusts; 10-15 sustained—and a sweat popping (sarc!) 62F so far today...but DRY!
Supposedly mid 40s last night, but my youngest pepper seedlings curled up and turned black their first night moved from the utility room to inside the coop/hutch/pottingshed/greenhouse.
Haven’t decided whether to try replanting with the other half of the seeds, or not. Seems pretty late to try restarting them
The cotyledons of the cuke seedlings withered,also; but not their true leaves.
The summer squash and tomatoes were completely unaffected.
Our chicks arrived today, and are eating, drinking, and making happy-noises in their digs.
Potatoes are finally, after 2+ weeks, starting to break through the soil.
I have low expectations this year, as Spring is just beginning to arrive, and a Summer prior to September looks doubtful. We’re still getting our March winds, and April temps...but above normal rain. And thunderstorms. And more rain. And more rain coming.
I do have 3 more “Carmine Jewel” cherries on the way, which should do fine, judging by our first one that we planted two years ago.
I MAY be able to get the beans planted this weekend.
At least the peas, grains, onions, and garlic are doing great.
Oh, yes! My carrot tapes are a bust. Seems that the “water soluble” glue isn’t; at least not in the real world. I’ll try making more using a flour & water paste.
Fresh fried rabbit (the Other Chicken) for dinner tonight. I’ll be busy over the next few days putting its 8 siblings in the freezer. Meanwhile, the other doe has 6 growing gangbusters. In about a week, I’ll breed the first one again; the current litter of 6 should be 7 weeks old by the time she kindles. There shold be plenty of 2 & 4 legged chickens in the freezer, keeping the venison & turkeys company, by the time winter gets here.
Agree with the newspaper/mulch weed control. It’s cheaper (save your papers or have a relative/friend/neighbor do it) and bag your leaves and/or grass clippings or hay. We spread the newspaper and hay when we’re planting. Run a soaker hose down the row right next to the plants themselves. We leave about a 2-3” square around each plant unmulched.
If you’re anywhere that it might get dry this method saves big bucks on your watering bill, too. My parents had to water their entire garden 3-4 times a week down here last summer. We were once/week. In the fall, the broken down newspapers and grass/leaves/hay will be composted in your garden to improve the soil when you turn it all under.
We use cereal boxes and pasta boxes/etc around our blueberry plants and other outdoor things that get mulched with pinestraw as weed barrier. They *can* be used in the regular garden but break down more slowly. Depending on the length of your growing season they might not be broken down entirely by the fall.
YMMV.
5PM and 101 degrees in San Antonio. Forecast for tomorrow is a balmy 100.
Stepped outside and every plant had the droops. Just had to give em a drink.
You guys hogging all the rain, share a little, will ya? :-)
You are welcome to it-just come and get it.LOL. Hubby can not work construction when it rains.
I sure wish we had a way to share the bounty as well as save more of this for the hot July and August drought we have in Missouri. Rain barrels are insufficient by the time August arrives.
Brassicas more than any other vegetable need light as soon as the seed bust thru the surface and throughout the whole greenhouse process or they will get leggy and ultimately just curl up and die.
Thanks mom! I’m going to mulch them this weekend. Our soil is rather sandy, but this is in a bed. However, it is a pre-existing bed, so I’m not sure what kind of dirt is in it.
The whole dug up area is about 35 feet by 90 feet. I don’t think I will use the whole area this year, but next year watch out. I still have to come up with a method to keep the raccoons out, not sure what the plan is yet.
I think I might try that, thank you for the idea.
Can you grow mushrooms on a years old dead stump or does it have to be fresh dead? Or is that a silly question?
I think I might have to try this, I can get all the newspapers I want from a friend.
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