Weekly Gardening Thread Vol. 23, June 8, 2012

June 8, 2012 | JustaDumbBlonde

[Darth Reardon]

On and off (mostly on) light rain this week around Tampa. It’s gotten very green, very fast.

If anyone has a recipe for salsa that cans well and wants to share, I would appreciate it. It’s time to put up some tomatoes, probably the last until fall, and I’ve got cilantro that’s about to be coriander.

Made a lasagne this week with zucchini slices instead of pasta noodles. It was really good. Going to try to see if I can freeze some “noodles”. First try failed miserably, as the slices were too thin and they just fell apart after blanching. Plenty more where that came from.

[txhurl]

Does anybody know how to make a good fly trap? For flies already in the house somehow? Some days I enjoy the flyswatter rampage, some days I just really don’t.

[JRandomFreeper]

I have no luck with squash.

People around here lock their cars for the first time in a year when the squash harvest comes in. They are afraid of winding up with (yet another) bag of zuchinni in the passenger seat. ;)

/johnny

[onedoug]

Be careful though. Wear protective clothing. A man from our daughter’s church on the SC/NC border got stung to death a few months ago by at least one of his several hives. He’d been at it for some time too.

[rightly_dividing]

My wife is world class with the swatter.

If I remember right, a mason jar with sugar water an inch deep or so with a small hole in the cap for them to enter. The flys are not smart enough to fly upwards toward the hole to excape.

[Petruchio]

I just plug in the bug zapper and set it on a table.

FYI - - - Moths smoke a lot! LOL!

[txhurl]

I’m handy with a flyswatter, too, and it’s as good as a tennis workout, but today I just don’t have the necessary reserve of rage and hate to start swatting. I put a cup of vinegar, orange juice and dish soap and filled with water to bubble it up - someone on yahoo help recommended this - and they’re entirely avoiding it.

Bug zapper sound like a good idea - flies really like them? I was thinking about using the shop-vac on them, too.

They just show up out of nowhere this time of year. No horse stables, turkey farms, anything that might explain their sudden everywhereness.

[Sarajevo]

Can you post a picture of the affected fruits so we can ge a better idea of what you're looking at?

If it's blossom end rot, you can spray the plants with epsom salts in the evening and spread some on the soil around the plants prior to a deep watering. That should take care calcium deficiency problems.

[Sarajevo]

Give your 4 y.o. a hug. The child meant well.

[tubebender]

Yeahbut... Michigan is full of liberals!!!

[Sarajevo]

My second experience in gardening, do not us fresh horse manure as fertilizer.

Oh my starz! Are you kidding? That is all that I plant in. My beds are nothing but horse manure; 1ft deep. With the high pH levels I have to contend with, fresh horse manure is one of the few things I can use to amend the soil. A hoe takes care of the volunteer plants.

[WorkingClassFilth]

You might have the Eastern Diamond back Rattler in SW WS. We have them in the esker country in SE MN.

[txhurl]

Well! this was quick.

I made one of these:

using a clear bottle, taped around the top with duct tape, and put the wrapper from a 1lb chub of ground sirloin (fresh with meat bits as I just got back from the store), microwaved the whole unit for 30 seconds, and I already have 5 trapped flies in 10 minutes and all the rest plotting their course down the bottle neck to the meat.

[ApplegateRanch]

Corn sprouted; about 1” tall today. Peas are blooming like crazy.

We have 2 Cherokee Purple tomatoes, but at the same time. The one we put into a Topsy-Turvy is about 4 times the size of the one that went into the garden; and it is covered with blossoms, unlike the other one.

1/2 inch of rain yesterday afternoon, when a sudden thunderstorm blew in, thanks to having just lit the charcoal to smoke another slab of pastrami.

Pole Beans are in. Cowpeas (Thanks, JADB), 3 more types of corn; pumpkins, cocozelle, and a couple of other odds & ends get planted over the next couple of days...but not tomorrow.

Saturday is a special day at the annual 4-day Lakota Veterans Pow-wow at Pine Ridge. They have 7,000 Veterans in the tribe, with over 4,000 on the Pine Ridge Reservation. They have invited everyone, especially veterans & their families, in our county, which neighbors them, to take part as a ‘thank you’ for the mutual support in working with them to keep the Hot Springs VA facility open. We’ll be there, rather than in the garden.

[Engraved-on-His-hands]

Blueberries are starting to come in:



As far as the garden, I have a small to medium-sized garden--about 40 feet by 50 feet. I am growing purple hull peas, Kentucky wonder green beans, silver queen corn, baby lima beans, squash, okra, potatoes, two types of tomatoes, three types of peppers, butter peas, cantelope, watermelon, cucumbers, giant sunflowers, asparagus, sweet potatoes, and (still in peat pots) giant pumpkins. (I will probably plant the pumpkins in the corn to save space.)

In the past I have very well with purple hull peas and green beans, but reasonably well with most of the rest. I gave up on leafy vegetables, mostly because of bugs (cabbage) or bitterness (lettuce). Turnips and collards did fair. I no longer grow things that were interesting, but nobody liked (parsnip and salsify). I haven't done all that well with peanuts in the past, but will probably try them again some day.

I have tried fruit trees in the past, but diseases and insects wreaked havoc on most of them. I decided to try again, but, to be honest, I have yet to take time to give them decent care. In addition to the blueberries, I have peach, apricot, nectarine, apple, cherry, plum, and pear. I have done well with the blueberries, and have gotten a small bit of usable fruit from the pear and cherry. I have had the most trouble with peaches, apricots, and nectarines.

One item that I have added to my arsenal this year is pre-merge herbicide. I like it--a lot.

I had to do some replanting this year with the corn. Crows kept digging up the little seedlings. I finally installed some string and aluminum pie plates.

The butter peas (no, not butterbeans) are a little more difficult item to find nowadays and are somewhat of a heritage item from my grandparents garden. My grandparents died about 45 years ago. We still use the same line of seed.

The garden is looking decent. Potatoes will probably be the first thing ready to harvest (except for the asparagus).

Thanks for the thread.

Gardening is good for the soul.

[bgill]

I think I’m just going to pull up those affected and continue to treat the others.

I’ll go read up on epsom salt, thanks.

[Titan Magroyne]

bmfl

[greeneyes]

We have lots of snakes here in Missouri. Some are poisonous and some not. A few years ago, the dog was having a fit trying to crawl under the desk next to my computer in the basement.

I made her go to her bed in the corner. A few days later, I
pulled the desk out from the wall to run the vaccum and found a snake skin. Now that was not very comforting to say the least.

We never could figure out where the snake entered.

[greeneyes]

We have lots of snakes here in Missouri. Some are poisonous and some not. A few years ago, the dog was having a fit trying to crawl under the desk next to my computer in the basement.

I made her go to her bed in the corner. A few days later, I
pulled the desk out from the wall to run the vaccum and found a snake skin. Now that was not very comforting to say the least.

We never could figure out where the snake entered.

[Engraved-on-His-hands]

Your comment about “furry” things reminded me: Last year I planted about 20 sweet potato plants. Rabbits promptly got all but two. Oddly they didn’t bother anything but the sweet potatoes.

We’ve had some minor trouble with crows eating the corn seedlings this year, but no rabbit trouble yet.