Posted on 03/16/2012 7:55:02 AM PDT by JustaDumbBlonde
Good morning FRiends and gardeners! During the rain this past week, I've had a chance to do some reading and found some articles that may be of interest to you. So this week I am sharing links, and I hope you enjoy them and find some useful information. I also hope that you'll check in and let us know how your garden/garden planning is coming along.
In Kitchen Garden Creation, you'll learn about growing culinary and visual delights in the same place.
The following links are for those interested in improving the structure of their soil. If you have rocks or clay, or otherwise good soil that has been compacted, you will find excellent information on planting cover crops and the benefits of no-till planting.
Improve Your Soil With Cover Crops
Cover crops: blanket your idle vegetable plot this winter with a soil-building cover crop
Plant Cover Crops is an entire website dedicated to improving your soil through cover cropping and drawing earthworms. Second column from the right is an extensive list of categories covered. This is a must bookmark for any gardener.
Grow Spectacular Spuds is a great guide to growing taters. Seems that lots of folks on our garden list are interested in growing potatoes.
Plant Pollination: A Bounty to Buzz About explains the art of attracting nature’s best pollinators to your garden.
And, speaking of pollinators, I found some of my girls working over the holly hedge that runs along my front sidewalk, but oddly enough they won't touch the wisteria, that is loaded with an assortment of large bees, including carpenters and bumblebees:
The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you.
This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked.
It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread ... there is no telling where it will go and that is part of the fun and interest. Jump in and join us!
The Jefferson Memorial is one of my three top sites in DC the Marine Corps Memorial and the Wall are my other two.
Earlier this morning, my wife emailed me a picture from a co-worker, of a tornado over Humble, NE Houston.
It looks like a long rainy day ahead for you.
It gives you a chance to unpack some more boxes! lol (We still have some boxes)
Thanks, she did stay home. She fought me at first until I showed her some radar.
Lake is rising nicely since we don’t have to over-irrigate the Wharton Co. farmers anymore.
What God tooketh away, he’s givething back!
I heard the lake may come up several feet, maybe as much as 8 - 10 within the next week or so.
It wasn’t really a storm here, just a steady rain that amounted to a little over two inches at my house. North and south of here was a different story though.
We had some heavy rains 35 NW miles of downtown Austin during the night. I had to go to LOWES in Cedar Park today and noticed the streams are still running just inside their banks. We had just over 3” here and really needed it for Lake Travis.
Hope y'all made it through without damage. Right now I'm glad I don't have anything in the garden ... it would have been blown flat by now.
We were down south on the small tail of the big system so we got a pass.
I believe this system it is still heading your way. It is still developing out in the gulf and streaming north and sliding east. I am still getting rain and may be out of it in about an hour. I was right about an all day rain here in Marshall when I posted this morning. It has not stopped all day. Winds were blowing before the rain hit here this morning. Turned out to be just a big all day rain event here. When I got up this morning the temp was in the low 70’s and dropped into the mid 50’s when the front went through.
I'm glad that the rain isn't hard so far, as the pond has time to go over the spillway without raising the pond very much. We have several goose nests in progress and we lost a couple to fast rising water last year. Broke my heart, even though I don't need a single additional goose. 32 is a lot to feed. I now have a strange little duck that has taken a liking to me. He is snow white, with the exception of a dark gray beak and black tail feathers. Cute as a button, and I have no idea from where he came.
Guess I'll put some tomato and pepper seeds in newspaper pots today since I can't get outside. I also have 50 or so pieces of woodenware to assemble and/or paint for my beeyard, but I don't know if I'll get that industrious. :)
Great news!!
I’ve been watching the Lower Colorado River Authority site and this was posted as of today. Travis was below 630 msl earlier this year.
***The level of Lake Travis has risen more than 5 feet since Sunday, now at 637.91 ft msl which is about 33.3 feet below its historic March average of 671.22 ft msl. Lake Travis will continue to rise to near elevation 639 - 641 ft msl.***
We are UNNATURALLY warm here in upstate NY. It’s not uncommon for this weather for a couple of days here and there - but for nearly two weeks it’s almost unnerving, LOL.
I was out trying to clean up the garden prior to prepping for planting, and saw that our onions and garlic are going nuts! Hubby put them in fall 2010, and we got nuthin’ out of them at harvest. He left them in, and with this mild winter, and super warm spring - they are taking off! Spreading out all over. Problem is that they are where we had planned to put the tomatoes this year, and they are spreading into the walking paths.
We have to rethink the tomato bed, and decide on the fate of the stragglers, but we are looking to have enough garlic to support my husbands enormous garlic habit. There are times (several times a week in fact) that I can’t even enter the kitchen because the garlic fumes sting my eyes so badly.
Going to take a risk and put in mixed lettuce, spinach, and snow peas this week. Those should be OK even if we have sharp drops in temp. And we almost certainly will.
Eighty-five degrees in the People’s Republic of Red Hampshire today...with tomorrow expected to be the same; that will be SIX days over eighty in March...love it! No snow, no ‘mud season’...raised beds are already looking good.
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