Weekly Gardening Thread Vol. 24, June 15, 2012

Free Republic | Red_Devil 232

[Red_Devil 232]

Weekly Gardening Thread

Good morning gardeners. JustaDumbBlonde has been very busy lately and asked me to post this weeks thread for her. She felt bad about not being able to respond to posts on last weeks thread.

I hope all of your gardens are doing well. My little 6 x 6 raised bed tomato patch is coming along fine. It has benefited from a couple of good rain showers in the last couple of weeks.

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This picture was taken at about 3:30 pm yesterday. The shade starts moving on to the tomato patch at about 3 pm and it gets full sun, 8 hours, up until then. I think the shade will be beneficial as the summer heats up.

Come on over and visit me at Beer Thirty (5:30 CDT) on the Homebrewing thread.

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.

Weekly Gardening Thread

Good morning gardeners. JustaDumbBlonde has been very busy lately and asked me to post this weeks thread for her. She felt bad about not being able to respond to posts on last weeks thread.

I hope all of your gardens are doing well. My little 6 x 6 raised bed tomato patch is coming along fine. It has benefited from a couple of good rain showers in the last couple of weeks.

">

This picture was taken at about 3:30 pm yesterday. The shade starts moving on to the tomato patch at about 3 pm and it gets full sun, 8 hours, up until then. I think the shade will be beneficial as the summer heats up.

Come on over and visit me at Beer Thirty (5:30 CDT) on the Homebrewing thread.

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.

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[rightly_dividing]

The pits and skins yielded 6 half pints of peach butter and 7 half pints of jelly.

I have never heard of using pits and skins to make anything. Peach butter sounds really good. I wonder if the same could be done with mangos since HEB has ripe mangos right now.

[Melian]

Thanks so much from CA.

What’s going well: the new vines I planted and my Australian tree ferns.

What’s going poorly: my palm trees, stephanotis, and roses.

Rabbits are burrowing everywhere and stripping many of my plants. They come in from the common area and undeveloped areas near my place.

[Red_Devil 232]

I think everybody is watching that fire. Is it moving away from your location?

[texas_mrs]

Finally picking plenty of green beans and pinto beans. We had ANOTHER rain recently & it has all but killed one of 3 tomato plants and several of the bell peppers. The anastazi beans are coming along, but not sure they will do as well as the pintos. Should be picking black-eyed peas in another 7-10 days and they are loaded. My favorite vegetable in the garden. Still getting massive quantities of squash, zucchini, and now cucumbers. I haven’t had a real problem with any pests so far, and I’m convinced it is all the toads in the garden. I know there are at least 4 grown ones and who knows how many babies. Found out they eat squash bugs and that’s just fine by me! There is also a HUGE wolf spider (named him Wolfie) in the cowpeas that I think will earn his keep as well.

[bgill]

I wouldn’t use mango skins. Mangos are cousins to poison ivy and the poison is in the skin. I found out the hard way. But any other fruit like apples and plums would be fine. Don’t use apricot pits because they have a poisonous substance inside but the skins are fine (most fruit pits/seeds have various levels of this substance but apricot is at the top of the list, ymmv).

Anyway, there is lots of fruit pulp and juice in the skins and pits/seeds after peeling so why waste it? Put all that in a pot with some water to get it going and cook it a while to get it mushy. Dump it into a colander or cheese cloth and let it drip into a bowl/pot for several hours. The clear juice won’t be as crystal clear as jelly made from the meat of the fruit but still clear enough for jelly. Then, discard the pits/seeds and mush the skins around the colander (aluminum sieve with pestle). This will give you the pulp to use for butter. Discard the used up skins. Use the same recipe for the butter as you used for the jelly except add some cinnamon, nutmeg and/or allspice.

[Racehorse]

“I have harvested all my garlic, and plan to plant more this fall.”

Most of my garlic from last Fall’s planting simply disappeared. Maybe as I dig up the ground I’ll find more cloves.

There are some really promising garlic to be harvested. But, don’t think I’ll be growing it again.

Really odd are two side by side tomotilla plants in 15 gallon pots. One drops lots of fruit.
The other produces nothing.

[Racehorse]

“I have harvested all my garlic, and plan to plant more this fall.”

Most of my garlic from last Fall’s planting simply disappeared. Maybe as I dig up the ground I’ll find more cloves.

There are some really promising garlic to be harvested. But, don’t think I’ll be growing it again.

Really odd are two side by side tomotilla plants in 15 gallon pots. One drops lots of fruit.
The other produces nothing.

[rightly_dividing]

Wow, thanks for all that info. My wife makes jelly sometimes. We could make mango butter if we toss the skins and used the meat and pits, I suppose. Hmmm.....you have me thinking now.

[MtnClimber]

I am south of the fire by about 40 miles so not very close. The winds have been shifting so it has been moving all over the place.

[bgill]

Knocking on wood and fingers crossed that the fire stays away from you.

[Red_Devil 232]

Here is a link you might find helpful in making mango butter. it is from the web site PickYourOwn.org

http://www.pickyourown.org/peachbutter.htm

[rightly_dividing]

Thanks. I have a couple of cases of new jars, so I may just do that.

[Red_Devil 232]

Thanks the wood is pine and 2” x 12” x 12’ cut in half. Should last quite awhile. they were < $14ea at Lowe’s

[who knows what evil?]

Woo-hoo!!! Thanks to the usurper; we now have an EXTRA 800,000 illegals to help us harvest those Freeper gardens this year! Pop the champagne!

[MtnClimber]

Thanks. Lots of thunderstorms around today. Lots of lightning, but not much rain. Lightning is how they think the fire up north was started.

[goodwithagun]

I have two tomato plants that I didn’t separate because I wanted to see which would be stronger. Now they both look great and it breaks my heart to snap one off. If I pinch off the suckers, could I keep them both side by side?

[Red_Devil 232]

How big are your plants? You could select the best looking plant to keep and try to root the one you cut off.

[texas_mrs]

I’ve never planted any garlic, but plan on it. Why do you say you won’t grow it again?

[Darth Reardon]

Once when I was canning some peaches I almost made peach honey, but watching the mutt eat the peach skins was too much fun.

[Red_Devil 232]

Nice T-storm rolling through. Lots of thunder and lightening and some rain, wont last long. A/C off and the attic fan is on pulling some nice cool air into the house.