Posted on 05/03/2013 1:37:50 PM PDT by greeneyes
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 wont be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isnt 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!
Most of the seed catalogues sell the row covers. Most of them are 5 ft wide and come in varing lengths. A 5x25 ft row cover would cost about 10 bucks and will last several seasons if you let it dry and then fold it and put it up.
I so hope you are correct.
Still gloomy and rainy here too. We had a short break and Hubby took a walk around the yard. He reports lots of cherry blossums and peaches, so it looks like they survived the frost.
I'm getting a medley of perennial flowers that attract hummingbirds and butterflies and some of those flowers are Jumping Jack Marigolds. I'll plant these along the front border of the dirt part of the garden.
In the large pot planter in the middle part of the dirt garden, I'll plant Black Seed Sesame flowers (and send Johnny some of the seed so he can grow these and have sesame seeds to eat every year as he won't plant anything he can't eat):
“Black Seed Sesame was first domesticated in India, cultivated at Harappa in the Indus Valley between 2250 and 1750 BC.
Single stem with oval leaves and tubular flowers are yellow to blue or purple. Grown for its edible seeds in long pods that burst open when ripe. Seeds are dry roasted and used whole in cooking or ground and used as a paste for flavor. Used extensively in Asian, East Indian and Mediterranean cuisines. Black varieties are prized in the Far East, which have a rich earthy, nutty flavor and have high amounts of protein, phosphorous, iron and magnesium.”
Sounds good.
Don't get a lot of Monarchs here in SW Arizona.
Oh wow! Thanks for the info! I’ll take a look and see what I can find in my catalogs!
I love the title, “EXTREME GARDENERS” too. It’s pretty extreme for me to even be DOING it at all! Do I qualify? LOL!
“I told you I keep notes every day, and have a calander I mark. Memory isn’t reliable.”
THANKS A LOT, JOHNNY!!! I’m already a compulsive note taker, and now I see I need to start yet another notebook!!!
LOL!
(I’m complaining, but I can see the value in what you are advocating!)
“squirrels were stripping off even the tiniest and really green tomatoes”
We have LOTS of squirrels around here. Since we did not have tomatoes last year, they didn’t steal them. But this year I’m hoping to have some.
Another concern is we think we have a pet armadillo or some such critter. We went outside yesterday and someone has rooted around our elm tree, various places in the yard, and around our bulb bed. Divots are about 2” to 3” big, and about that deep.
Darlin looked up a bunch of armadillo repellant strategies which we printed out, but to us they are untried. Does anyone here have experience with squirrel, armadillo, and etc thwarting? To our knowledge, we have no deer in our yard.
Please see my post 170. We’ve been experiencing critter rooting too.
“Opera”
My mom used to have the radio tuned to the Metropolitan Opera every Saturday as I was growing up. It was unavoidable, as my folks had the house wired for sound and we had speakers on even the outside!
We all teased her about it, (and complained) but now I’m rather glad she did that. IMHO you are NOT schizoid! You have a deep breadth of music appreciation!
our exp with our dad was he loved marching music...we lived north of the border from Montrose Pa....they had a radio station that played marching music like at 6am in the morning on saturdays...dad would crank that thing up and there is no way we could sleep in....LOL....love the memories..
That’ll get the juices going! LOL! What wonderful memories!
We had a long hallway with a hard wood floor. My dad would get up very early and would clomp up and down the hall very loudly EVERY morning....and holler out “time to get up!!” each pass.
Mom loved cool weather. It would be 40 degrees outside and the windows would be wide open. We’d get up and complain about how cold it was and she would look at us serenely and blissfully say, “Doesn’t it feel GOOD???”
How I miss them! LOL!
I have no experience or knowledge about Armadillos. Red Devil had some method that involved a bucket of water, bait at the end of some wood that dumped the squirrel into the bucket for a long and tiring swim. Don’t know if would work for armadillo.LOL
That was a Chipmunk pool. Uses water in a five gallon bucket with sunflower seeds floating on top with a small slat baited with the seeds to lead them to the top where they could see the seeds on the water. Doubt it would work with an Armadillo.
LOL. Thanks RD.
Ping to Texokie.
My orchard trees all dodged the frost this time. I’m looking forward to a bumper crop of peaches and plums. Sparse bloom on the pears for the third year in a row. I’m beginning to think the Ayers variety that I have isn’t well suited to the clay soil here.
Thanks! No, probably wouldn’t work on armadillo! LOL!
I guess I'll just have to sit by the hoophouse with a shotgun and wait for the little bugger.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.