Weekly Gardening Thread – 2011 (Vol. 36) September 16

Free Republic | 09-16-2011 | Red_Devil 232

[Red_Devil 232]

Good morning gardeners. It has been another beautiful week here in East Central Mississippi we have had moderate daytime temperatures with cool nights. Perfect weather to get out and do some garden and yard clean up. My Fig trees have finished producing and it is time to winterize them with a thick layer of straw. All my of the pears have been picked and either canned or eaten. My vegetable garden is basically through producing except for a few Jalapenos that are still hanging on and still producing large peppers. My Beer brewing experiment is still progressing nicely with 6 gallons of a Canadian Blonde still aging in bottles and I have a six-gallon batch of Irish Stout fermenting and almost ready for bottling.

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.

[JDoutrider]

Hope that foot is getting better!

Did you get the hard freeze over there in WI that we had here in northern MN the last two nights? I got down to 27 here Wed. and 30 last night.

We tarped the tomatoes, watermelons and cantaloupes and are heading out to uncover them after we finish brekkie... hope they did ok!

Still waiting for the brussel sprouts to start fruiting. Everything else is doing well, even with this early Fall weather.

Judy is already charting next Springs garden... I think she got addicted to this stuff! LOL!

[Texas Fossil]

My father and his neighbor had raccoon problems, but they trapped 26 with live traps. They shot them as they caught them and dumped them along an old railroad siding. Nothing would eat them, not even the coyotes. Left a pretty big pile of raccoon bones.

They had made a real mess last year they were all over his roof at night, they were eating the persimmons of the tree outside his bedroom window. Such a waste of good fruit.

[Ladysforest]

You can be fairly successful with a whole lot of commitment to your fencing.

To aggressively head off groundhogs you’ll need to have a fence(of course)both above and below ground.

Here is what we do around here:

four foot tall open wire “lawn fencing” (green coated as it blends in better)around the entire garden, with a gate. Along the bottom you make a trench at least six inches ( but eight is better) deep and stick chicken wire down the trench, then attach the top edge of the chicken wire to your “yard fencing”. Backfill trench.

There is another way to do that which requires removing the sod from the yard fence “out” to about a foot away from the fence, and at least three inches deep. You lay the chicken wire down where the sod was lifted, working back to the yard fencing, and bend it up to fit against the fence. I use zip wires to secure. Then you replace the sod.

Once you do all of that, you think about the deer. We have gotten the six foot bamboo “stakes” from lowes, and secure them them halfway up the yard fence at regular intervals, again using zip ties. That gets us about eight feet up. Then we go round the contraption with black wildlife netting-zip ties to secure.

The deer will sometimes jump it anyway, but very rarely. During our short growing season they don’t want to take the risk and would rather eat from their natural menu.

We still have trouble with rabbits - I didn’t get that section of the fence addressed in time. But there is always next year.

Anyway, it doesn’t look an eyesore though you might expect from my description. The green coated fence blends in and the black wildlife netting is barely noticeable.

[Augie]

Have you ever tried stuffing them, then freezing for later use? Mrs. Augie just chops em up and freezes em that way.

Seems like stuffing then freezing would work.

[Free Vulcan]

We dropped to 37 last nite after being up near the 90's earlier in the week. Frost in the low areas but the garden seems to have survived thankfully because I got some late dry beans I'm hoping to get something out of.

Fall garden looks good, rain is still sparse but have watered it a few times to get a jump. Got lots of volunteers from my seed saving adventures. Getting some nice melons out of the patch.

Pics! (click on the pic for a bigger version)

This is a wild prairie aster I saw growing in pasture. A rare sight around here. Not a big flower guy but I like the wild ones.	Al Baby watermelon. Planted the last of the seed and can't get it anymore. Stepped on the first melon but now have another chance to save seed.
Half ripe Rugosa Butternut squash. Best squash I've ever ate.	Sweet Dumpling squash. First year I've planted it.
Garden burnet. Tastes pretty close to cucumber.	One of only a couple of sage plants that came up.
Litchi tomato. Cousin of the tomato. About an inch in diamter, has more of a cherry-like flavor.	Jerusalem artichokes in bloom. Flowers smell like malted milk balls. Bees love 'em.
Cinnamon basil in flower. Going to save the seeds for sprouting.	Cowpeas that desperately need weeded.
Some volunteer Red Russian Kale from seed saving.	Nice stand of winter radishes in the fall garden.
Jenny Lind muskmelon, or as I call it 'liquid sugar'. Unbelievably sweet but not much bigger than the palm of your hand.	Got a shot of honeybees swarming the goldenrod and boneset at the bottom of the garden. There were thousands all thru the pasture.

[WestwardHo]

“They had made a real mess last year they were all over his roof at night, they were eating the persimmons of the tree outside his bedroom window. Such a waste of good fruit.”

Being stupid, we started putting out snacks for an invading raccoon (he was so cute!). Our wonderful, placcid neighbor went berserk when he found out what we were doing. The raccoons had been on his roof tearing off tiles to get into his attic. Fortunately, for us, our friendly raccoon got run over in the road..... I hope you are getting rain? We are. First, good rains since last October. Mountain lion tracks in the dry creek bed.

[Texas Fossil]

We had a slight shower yesterday. Temps are down and that is nice.

Since last October we have had 2 measurable rains. Last October we had a 1” rain and about a month ago we had between 1.5-1.9” rain. That is all we have had for almost a year. Our average annual rainfall is about 25” per year. So we are at about 10% of our normal rainfall.

This is the worst drought seen by any living human in Texas. It may have had a comparable in 1895, but counties do not have good records that far back. There are state rainfall records back to 1895, but I am not sure where they measured those. (Texas is a big state, hee hee hee)

I put out a lot of fruit trees; blackberry, blueberry and strawberry plants this year. It has been a constant struggle to water enough to keep them alive. I lost 9 of the 29 fruit trees that I planted to the extreme heat, dry wind and sun exposure. I have a large garden too, had to water that every other day during hottest of the summer. But most of the plants are doing well. Only one of the blueberry plants is still alive, but they are really not suited for this area.

I am still getting a lot of okra, squash, cucumbers and some black-eyed peas. I think this cooler weather is going to allow my tomatoes and jalapeno peppers to finally set fruit.

[Ellendra]

Check the fur-trapping laws in your state.

[tubebender]

The moving and storage guys are here packing us up for our trip to Chaos for the next 2 weeks while we have our hardwood floors refinished. This is not fun for folks our age.

Our garden is still producing Corn, salad cucumbers, potatoes and a few Blueberries. We are going to have 8 pumpkins for pulp for pies plus a Jack 0 Lantern or two. The variety is Cinderella and two of them are extra large this year. We will start shredding flowers and corn stalks soon if I can get the shredder started as I sprained my right wrist.

FR is giving me fits with upload speeds...

[goodnesswins]

Oregon here....cooling down after a brief summer....MY question....I got ONE spaghetti squash, ONE green pepper, ONE scallop squash, ONE butternut squash....and ONE ancho pepper....lots of tomatoes, some zucchini....IS it that the bees don’t like to pollinate these things?

[Ellendra]

The gardener’s enemy, FROST!!!! The last 2 nights Mom and I have been spreading sheets over the garden in the hope that it will survive until it warms up in a day or two.

I also took a cutting from each variety of tomato and planted them inside. This way I can take cuttings from the indoor plants in the spring and use them to plant my garden with. I seem to have lousy luck with seeds lately, but cuttings do well.

I also picked the one zucchini I’d let go to seed. The shell is nice and hard, but I’m letting it cure for a bit. This variety is supposed to make a good winter squash if allowed to ripen. We’ll see.

My raspberries are still producing, and my strawberries are still covered in blossoms. I think I want to take some of both to my land when I move!

I’m making progress on my house designs, figuring out where all the screws and bolts are going. It’s going to be a microhouse, but I made it so it can be easily expanded when I get the permits for a bigger one.

The bad news is, I’m on an unpaid leave of absence from work. My job requires talking on the phone all day, and I lost my voice 2 weeks ago and haven’t gotten it back. I have some savings as a buffer, but I really need my voice back soon! My supervisor keeps trying to find something I could do that wouldn’t require talking, but there’s isn’t much of that right now.

[tubebender]

Great photos BV! I forgot to mention that my blight stricken Siberian tomato is fighting back and 4 small ones are turning color so there is Hope and Change but it’s confined to my garden...

[Ellendra]

The main danger is blight. Make sure you clean out every trace of the old plants so that nothing can overwinter and infect your plants next year.

Other than that, some calcium and manure ought to do it.

[randita]

They will dig pretty deep. We considered getting some lengths of rebar (2-3 feet) or something similar and pounding them in around the foundation at 4” intervals, but that seemed like a huge amount of work and not guaranteed to work. Groundhogs are pretty strong and would probably find a way to move the spikes or even dig under them.

The problem we had was that there were litters of them born beneath our porch that were imprinted with the “smell of home”, so as soon as we dealt with one, we’d get a sibling taking over. You got to deal with all the generations that think your home is theirs. That can take a while, but in two years we haven’t had trouble.

BTW, we are in a housing development - not rural - so you can have problems anywhere.

[Red_Devil 232]

Most varieties of peppers are self pollinating just like tomatoes. You can help them along by giving the stem the flower is on a flick with your finger or a genital tapping with a small stick. If you don’t think your squash are being pollinated by bees or other insects you can hand pollinate by using a small artists brush. Gather pollen from the male flower with the brush and brush it on the female flower. Bees were constantly visiting my squash plants in the early morning hrs.

[WHATNEXT?]

Hey goodnesswins....a fellow Oregonian... I know what you mean about, brief, short, stunted summer. I have been getting some tomatoes and cukes. My spinach just doesn’t seem to do well. I usually plant in Spring so I’ve planted some in Aug. and they are coming along...I’ll see.

Last gardening thread, I was asking about a white bug (new to my garden) that was on our new grape plants. I did a little research and think they must have been Leafhoppers. But, none were exactly like mine. My research said to spray with Sevin, did it and they were gone! Got to check again today to see if it they are truly gone.

I also have a plant that I’m not sure what it is. I let it grow and then pulled most out (convinced it was Baneberry.) Left a few to see what the bloom was and the fruit/berry. Looked today and the berry is small, round, shiny black. The leaves are heart shaped with rounded scallops on part of the edge. Any suggestions...I’m going to do some research (still think it might be a variety of Baneberry or....?)

I have Amaryllis in abundance. Anybody locally want any? They are not a new fancy type. Orange and white bloom but they sure bloomed like crazy.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

I’ve frozen uncut green peppers in plastic bags and used them for chili a few months later. Usually, I stuff them first and then freeze em.

[JustaDumbBlonde]

May I suggest a Mathews Solocam with carbon arrows and fixed broadheads??? Bow is silent and deer are tasty. I can help.

[JustaDumbBlonde]

You really need to do a soil test for the best results. Compost is almost always a good thing. If you tell the extension office or testing company what you intend to grow, they can give you very specific applications. The results will amaze.

If you have any questions or concerns on how to go about getting a reliable test done, let me know. We are forever testing fields and I've learned a lot.

After I got the results for my garden last fall, I discovered that I couldn't go to our farm chemical dealer because they only handle things in tons. So I took my test results with me to Lowes and spent almost 2 hours in the fert section with a calculator, gathering bags of different things.

When it was all said and done, I was delighted with how the plants did and our crop consultant/entomologist got tickled at how I came about getting the right amount of everything.

[Free Vulcan]

Thanks. We get the blight too but by now you’re almost glad for it because you’re drowning in tomatoes by the time it starts seriously affecting the plant.

Siberians are good tomatoes.