Posted on 09/30/2011 5:02:33 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good morning gardeners. Fall is in the air here in East Central Mississippi on this last day of September. It has been beautiful weather for cleaning up outside and taking care of the yard. Our daytime temperatures have been in the 70s with an occasional bump up into the 80s and the overnight lows are ranging from the 40s to the 60s. While I am waiting for Spring to arrive I will be occupied by continuing to hone my skills at home brewing.
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 Summer gardens did well this year and your Fall gardens prosper.
Have you sampled the first batch yet? How is/was it?
You have to remember to keep your garage door closed when they are colonizing. They can build a nest in an afternoon, and then you can’t close the door again until the eggs are hatched and out of the nest. And the following year, the same birds come back and rebuild.
That was our problem when we first moved here. The previous owner used to leave here garage open. But, we love our barn swallows.
Same thing happened here a few years ago. All the lakes were low and a rain bomb hit Marble Falls. Over 25” of rain in 24 hours with 15” falling in a three hour period.
Yes I tasted/drank a bottle at one week intervals. The first week was a bomb - why my comment on green beer. The second week the carbonation was up but still had a slightly green flavor kind of like a green apple. The third week, this past Wed, the carbonation was really good - nice full head and lots of small rising bubbles and drinkable, finally tasted a like a beer. I think it needs at least one more week. I am brewing Ales so I expect them to taste like an Ale not a lager like a Bud. Ales are easier to home-brew than a Lager.
Two years ago I went to the Home Depot and bought myself a little “blackberry” bush to plant. Now the bush has overtaken my raspberries and is even threatening my horseradish crop. The bad part is the blackberry bush hasn’t produced one blackberry but produces thorns that even a leather glove can’t protect against. Does anyone have any ideas on why it isn’t producing? Do you have to have at least two different plants to cross pollinate?
Not an expert on Blackberries but it is my understanding that almost all varieties are self-fruitful, meaning that you need to plant only one type of plant. It can take up to 3 years before they produce fruit.
We sometimes get snow in November or December, but the really bad months are January and February, so I have to keep an eye on the weather. I planted cold tolerant lettuce(winter marvel and miners lettuce).
I had row covers that would give protection down to 28 degrees and let in 85% of the sun. The back of the raised beds has a retaining wall, and I painted milk jugs black and filled them with water both of these capture the sun heat during the day, and release it at night.
Water also releases heat when it freezes.
I had about 15” tall of cheap fence around 3 sides to keep the cover off the plants. As the weather got colder, I put straw on top of the cover. During nice spells, I would roll the cover back and let it sit on top of the milk jugs during the day and unroll the cover at night to protect the plants.
When hard freezing weather, snow and sleet came, I covered it with an old Styrofoam egg-crate mattress about 1/2 inch thick. It was covered for almost 2 months, before I removed the mattress.
We did have a few days during those months that were cold, but not freezing. We did have several weeks of snow on the ground that did not melt totally, but the patio next to the retaining wall does melt sometimes, if the sun is out.
Lettuce will germinate between 40-80 degrees, and will continue to grow (very slowly) at a minimum temperature of 35 degrees. So I had decent salads off and on during the winter-Lettuce and green onions from the outside winter garden, and tomatoes and spinach from pots inside the house.
Not much to report, most of the garden survived the frost. The green beans are going to seed, lots and lots of seed! It’s an heirloom variety so this is a good thing. The raspberries don’t seem to have noticed the change in seasons, they’re still producing nicely. My strawberries are covered in blossoms and unripe fruit, but haven’t been ripening. I think they’d make great greenhouse berries when I get my greenhouse built. The tomato cuttings I planted indoors seem to be rooting nicely, that’ll make next year’s planting a bit easier.
My health has taken a downturn, what I thought was larygitis is turning out to be a serious throat problem. I haven’t been able to talk for a month, and a week ago I wound up in the ER because my throat tried to swell shut on me! I’m on meds to keep the swelling down, but nobody seems to know what’s causing it to swell in the first place. Theories range from a viral infection to a pulled neck muscle to a pinched laryngeal nerve. God is keeping watch even with all of that, I found out yesterday that my supervisor put her own career on the line to defend her decision to keep me on her team, even though I haven’t been able to work for a month! She’s trying to find things I could do without needing to be on the phones, but those tasks can be hard to find in a call center.
It’ll be great in another 2 weeks
Patience, Grasshopper...LOL!
Yep! I think the only time she couldn’t see the idea was in the WINTER. Seems Mom could be fooled by the Spring through Fall beer indulging. He lost at “you have to build the beer up in your system during the Winter months, too” story. It was a definite “A” for effort moment but “F” for delivery!!!
I am definitely with you on the shot gun! Why get more close to it than necessary? Funny little story: I told you I cannot stand snakes. When I was about six months pregnant with my daughter, a six or seven foot snake crawled into the carport area. No one else was home and I just knew it would crawl behind the trash can and wait for me. So, I grabbed a shovel. Now... I’ve seen people whack those things in the movie, right? So, I gave it a fair chance to scoot and it was a’coming. Several cars actually stopped on the street to watch the huge prego woman whack some snake about thirty times with a shovel. (seems that a shovel doesn’t do the trick with one good whack). It was definitely one of those “Little House on the Prairie” type moments. LOL!
I am definitely going online and doing that research! I personally think the Martin houses on a tall type pole are a beautiful garden accent. It gives a homey type touch IMHO. Thanks!
I’ve always liked barn swallows. I guess they will only take up residence in a barn/outdoor structure of sorts with easy escape routes. I had to laugh with everything about the Purple Martin... seems like they have the humans trained real well. LOL! Fickle little things, aren’t they?
Oh no! I pray the Doctors can find out the problem and get you healthy before you lose your new job.
I would think that they will be OK until they start to forecast a freeze.
That is what I keep 'thinking'. This is the first time I have 'new' beans this late in the season. And my earlier beans barely produced enough to eat... no canning.
I pulled out all the sweet potato vines yesterday because some of the leaves were darkened by cool temperatures. I dug a couple of hills, but the ground is so hard and compacted by lack of rain it was difficult to lift the sweet potatoes out without them snapping.
I so want you to be correct. Thank you.
They are bad here in NC too.
If your soil is that hard you need to carefully dig those potatoes out not pull. Did you have good growth on the potatoes you harvested?
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