Posted on 06/01/2012 8:06:36 AM PDT by JustaDumbBlonde
Good morning and happy June to my gardening FRiends and fellow gardeners!
You may have noticed that I titled last week's thread "Keywords", and then totally forgot to write the first word about the topic. That illustrates perfectly how frazzled my mind is these days. As I was getting ready to hit the post button, I kept thinking there was something I was forgetting, but finally convinced myself that it probably wasn't *that* important, and I posted the thread. I apologize.
There has been more than once that great information has been posted by one of our members, but I can't remember exactly which thread, or sometimes even who posted it. My idea is this: So that we can use a search engine such as Yahoo! or Google to find what we seek, let's actively use the keyword feature on each thread.
For example, if you post pictures of your garlic patch, add "garlic" to the keywords. If you are illustrating how to mulch a garlic patch, add the keyword "mulch" as well. You could go so far as to add the mulch material too, such as "ricehulls". (special mention for Mr. Bender!)
Both Red Devil_232 and I have used a search engine to find a particular comment by entering something like "Free Republic potato planting", and you will usually find several threads that way. If we use the keyword feature to document our threads, it will be even easier.
I'd love to be able to sit down and make a keyword list for the thread every week, but I simply don't have the time to do it. If each one of us will add a word or two, it should become ultra-easy to search our topics.
If you have any ideas to improve this method, please let us know. If you have a totally different idea that will work better, bring it on!!! We love good ideas!
Here in NE Louisiana, we got a storm line through yesterday and about an inch of extremely beneficial rain. We were beginning to get really dry due to the high temps of late, and on the farm we were turning on all of the wells. Would rather have rain any day! The high will be around 80 in the area today and we are pretty excited about that. It has been scorching hot lately.
Look forward to reading about your week and, as always, photos are appreciated.
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!
Any suggestions to keep raccoons out of corn. I put in about 18 corn plants a few weeks ago and just as they were really starting to take off, something has been going in there at night, pulling them up and shredding the root end.
For now, I’ve got them covered with some light plant cover fabric that I used with my early crops. Plan on keeping hem covered just long enough to discourage what ever is going after them. I have a low fence around the garden (raised bed made of cinderblocks), but it isn’t stopping this critter.
I’m pretty sure it’s a raccoon cause we’re caught pictures of a raccoon other years with my husband’s game camera. I’m in the ‘burbs of southern Connecticut, FWIW
Any cut worm advice out there?
There are a couple ways to get rid of the cabbage worms. The hardest is to go out ever day and pick up the leaves and squash any you see, I do this when looking at my garden each day. I also spray with BT, an organic pesticide that works great. Finally there are powders you can use, but then you can not pick them for a period of time, dont use them myself so cant tell you a lot about them.
Get a big German Shepherd! Easy to train to stay out of your garden, but chases off deer, rabbits and racoons. He also is very protective of my chickens which surprised me. I raised them from peeps and he has adopted my concern for them. Such a good doggie.
I am going to cut several shrubs off at the ground in an old bed where I cant get my truck in there to yank them out. My plan is to attack the roots and entire bed with my 6hp tiller. In the past my tiller has chewed up and spit out 3” roots, so I feel confidant that this will work for me. It may not be something that you can do, but I thought that I would throw it out there for you to consider.
Thanks. Some of the pesticides have such severe warnings. I’ll look up BT.
Your culprit may be a squash borer. The remedy is to cut a slit in the stem of the plant and remove the larvae. I’ve never done it, but my husband has.
Thanks. I searched squash borer and see that it is a nasty little critter.
I've done the squash "surgery," and my plants survived the operation and looked great for a few days. But they were immediately re-infested and dead a week after that. I pulled over a dozen larvae out of two plants when I took them out!
Keeping the plants under carefully sealed row covers from planting and throughout the season works, but you'll have to hand-pollinate. Weekly Bt sprays seem to be effective IF you keep up with them.
I also read recently that you can go out to the garden at night and shine a flashlight through the stems. They're translucent, so you can see where the borers are in the stems. Stab them with a sharp wire to kill them - it does less damage to the plant than slitting it open. You can also inject Bt into the stems to kill borers. The thing is, you have to keep checking every leaf stem in addition to the main stem.
SVBs are bad here, and I am tired of battling them. I am researching Curcurbita moschata varieties to plant next year - maybe Zucchino Rampicante for summer squash. They have solid stems so they resist the borers. But all the moschata squashes seem to make huge vining plants, so figuring out where to put them in my small yard will be tough.
The easiest way to prevent them laying eggs on your cabbage is using floating row covers .
Once they have laid their eggs you can either hand search for the eggs and remove them by hand and the little green caterpillars that hatch out or you can spray them with BT (bacillus thuringiensis)
It looks like our plants are pretty well gone. I dont have the physical ability to closely monitor ground level plants, so we might have to forget about growing squash.
Yes. Take a piece of a paper towel roll, a tin can with both ends removed, a 2" section of pvc of sufficient diameter, or anything similar to those things, and place them over the seedling you are trying to protect. That will effectively protect against destruction by cut worms.
I am so sorry, and don't have a clue how it happened, but you are on the list now and will receive the pings. Thank you for letting me know.
Sounds like your garden is going very well. My main vegetable garden will be in the Fall this year. I only have sweet corn, cowpeas and okra going now.
You are entirely too kind to me! Thank you very much.
Finally got all my trees planted, except for one. There was a delay on the witch hazel, so it hasn’t gotten here yet.
I’m starting to get buried in strawberries! For such a tiny patch, those plants sure pump out a lot of berries! I’m having trouble keeping up with them, especially with my bad shoulder. Yesterday I cooked a big pan full with some sugar and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice to make sort of a thin, chunky syrup. Mom likes to use it in yogurt, I like it on ice cream. After it was done I also used part of it to make strawberry cobbler, boy that was good! I had the cobbler cold for breakfast this morning :)
The liquidy part of the syrup also tastes really good in an iced tea.
The rest of the garden seems to be struggling. I’ve had to replant the tomatoes too many times, this last attempt was direct-seeded. If they don’t grow, I may just give up on tomatoes this year. Dad put some in his garden, so I won’t be going without. Still, it hurts when my plants won’t grow.
Yes you can. You can also do the same with other tomatoes, although they might end up thinner because the meat is less dense.
PS: Peel them first by dunking in boiling water for 30 seconds. The skins can sometimes get tough when dried.
Rampicantes are my favorite squash! If you have room for a trellis they can be trained to climb pretty easily, somewhere I have a picture of mine from last year covering an arbor.
They also make a great winter squash. Last year there was one that hid in the leaves near the ground until it was too big to use as a zucchinni. I let it ripen so I could save the seeds. After I harvested it, I also left it on the counter in an out of the way spot so I could get an idea firsthand about it’s keeping properties. It was still solid and fresh-looking 5 months later in February when I cut it open. What’s more, the flesh was so unbelievably sweet that at first I thought someone had dumped sugar in the blender with it when I wasn’t looking! If you use it in a recipe, use only half the sugar - or less - that the recipe calls for, or else it will be overly sweet. Even better, look for recipes that you can taste as you go so you can tailor the amount of sugar, since the sweetness of the squash might vary.
Oh, one more tip, when using rampicantes like zucchinni, peel before cooking. The skin has something in it that turns bitter when cooked. I learned that after ruining a whole batch of soup.
Thanks. At my age, I’m still learning. Bless you.
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