Posted on 08/26/2011 10:14:53 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good afternoon gardeners. I hope all of you in the path of Irene heed the warnings and please stay safe! Not much gong on garden wise here in East Central Mississippi. I am just waiting to see how a few paste tomatoes do. And while I am waiting I decided to use some of my pears to make preserves. I am using the recipe I posted on last weeks thread, which calls for a little activity and a lot of waiting. I will be doing the final canning step this morning. This recipe may be way to sweet for my taste. So with all this waiting time I had, I needed to fill the time some how so I ordered a Beer making kit, which I understand includes a lot of waiting also. Now I am just waiting for FR to come back up so I can post this week’s thread. I have been doing a lot of waiting and it is tiring.
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.
I hope all your gardens are flourishing.
Eeeviiil squash bugs are sucking the life-blood out of my acron squash and pumpkins ... just like Ovomitnomic bugs suck the life-blood out of our economy.
He He! My orchard is one tree producing and one that just grows leaves.
yeah, I have had a great growing summer here too. Excessive heat and humidity to the point that most plants quit, to a huge bumper crop of green tomato caterpillars that was the final blow.
I trimmed all the dead leaves/branches from any surviving tomato plants, killed the green demons, and am hoping that with a late frost, the plants may give me something later.
Get some hot peppers and put them in the blender with some water. Either strain that through a coffee filter and put it in a spray bottle and spray in on the squash and pumpin or just pour it over the squash making sure to wet the entire thing.
Looks like those of us on the east coast could send you some rain. Right now, if we could we’d be glad to.
I see this thread and just want to cry! I live in Texas and my garden is dead. DEAD, I tell you!!!
Yellow cucumbers! We planted some old seeds (envelope said “Cucumbers 1999”) and they went to town growing and sending seeker vines everywhere at the free for all end of the garden! I harvested a bag full of these yellow beauties and they are just sweeter than honey. Juicy too!
I have never heard of, or seen yellow cukes before! Anyone know what they might be?
Irene just passed through our area, with minimal damage to the garden.
Prayers up for my Northern Neighbors!
How's it doing other than that? Put down the gun...I was just kidding...
There were a few showers the past two afternoons in N & E Texas, but we hardly got more than the smell of rain in Austin.
Same here. If it doesn't rain soon, some reservoirs and small lakes will be dry too.
Zukes and yellow squash doing well in my garden. Last night I canned a batch of onion,garlic, yellow squash, zucchini, tomato, and Italian spices. I sliced and heated thoroughly, then pressure canned it. I wasn’t sure how long, so basing it on a soup recipe, I let it go for 1 hour for pint jars. I’m wondering if it was too long. I’m new to canning and couldn’t quite figure out how long to cook it. Any suggestions for next time?
That looks yummy.
My only remaining morning glory which just put out the first purple trumpet, died later in the day probably due to rabbit predation.
My four foot tall gone to seed leaf lettuce plant is now ready for seed harvest.
Squirrels have left me five European plums, which I picked before they disappeared. I failed to net the tree.
My netted apple tree suffered from bad buds in the spring. Very late very wet very cold. I have three apples under the net still attached to limbs.
Four ash trees began to exhibit extreme stress all at the same time. A crash program of water stick, below ground watering was begun and they appear much improved. Other than that gardening is over for the year.
Yeah but you can nail the squash bugs by going to the garden store- the other mess is going to take some real effort to even marginally succeed.
Does your extension office have information on how to avoid squash bugs next year? If you go to the University of Nebraska NebGuides, they have one that is good.
Summer squash are coming along to the tune of friends & neighbors getting tired of being recipients, though the food bank is happy for all we take in.
The "squashkins" are coming along fine, starting to ripen, as are the melons. Almost time for another batch of pickles, too.
Peppers and tomatoes are beginning to ripen decently finally. Last of the garlic was harvested this week.
Starting to get the ground ready for a winter wheat crop in about a fourth or so of the garden. That gets planted around mid September.
The okra transplanted in June is now a whopping 8-10 INCHES tall! :-(
The late planting of carrots was a bust: the straw over the seed smothered the emerging seedlings if I left it in place; but they burned up (temps, with drying winds to make it worse, have hit up to 106) if I partially removed it.
The new strawberries planted in May did establish well, and should produce well next year. They seem to love the acid mulch made chiefly of pine cones run through the chipper/shredder.
Not the best year by any means, but far from the worst.
A farmer is NEVER happy: if it doesn't rain, bad; if it rains too much or at the wrong time, bad; if it freezes too early, or get a late frost, bad; if it's too hot, bad; if it's too cool, bad; if it's just right he gets a bumper crop, but the bottom falls out of the market: HORRIBLE! *<];-')
Oh, yeah; last weekend, ONE DAY before the "guest cows" were scheduled by their owner to be moved off our property to a neighbor's, they forced the front gate open by bending (YOU HEAR THAT, TUBEBENDER?) the cyclone fence stirrup-latch 45 degrees, and twisting it badly, as well. Trampled down all of the iris, (it'll come back fine, but...) stripped all the leaves and blooms off the sunflowers, as well as most of the bedded flowers; and broke branches off of our small elm. The yard is now a nearly barren wasteland.
Naturally, they also left deposits all over the place, too. Knocked down a couple of stacks of firewood, and chewed up (they LOVE plastic!) the tarps covering them. They also broke some of our solar lights along the walk from the gate to the house.
Never a dull moment; gotta love country life!
If it is any consolation, most of us if not all, feel badly about the drought in Texas. A few years ago here in Nebraska we had severe to extreme drought for seven years, and that was bad. But we did not have the extreme heat through all the summers. We can have, and sometimes do have but not like Texas this year.
OMG — I can’t imagine such heat!
“beer making kit”
If you need any advice let me know - my husband makes beer! Pretty darn fine stuff it is too.
He started out with barely the basics, then got hooked, and now we have lots of equipment and even a specially modified small refrigerator that holds two (soda) canisters of beer and has cool taps. He modified the thing himself, but it looks perfect - like a custom made (which technically it is). Because he’s not really a handy guy I was surprised how perfectly the thing turned out.
When he cooks the beer though-I can’t be in the house, it SMELLS, and lingers.
He also does wine. Very nice wine. We have cases of it in the cellar.
OMG — I can’t imagine such a drought. I’ve been complaining about drought, & I live adjacent to that yellow A on the southern border of Wisconsin. I’ll shut up now. Pray for a nice, gentle rain for TX. No flash floods.
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