The volunteers from last falls late palnting…
Another example of the effectiveness of drip irrigation on our soil type…
I have run out of room for some of the peppers and tomatoes that I wanted to plant. Other than that, I have finally transplanted everything. This week, I will be starting some older seeds to stick into any spaces in the beds where things have not sprouted successfully.
I am still enjoying a salad a day from the romaine, spinach, and leaf lettuce. Pulled the garlic yesterday, and am letting it dry outside a bit before bringing it in. Haven't decided yet what I will plant there - maybe peppers or tomatoes-ha.
So far, the only dill I have is growing in a pot-no sprouts in the garden patch. Hope everyone is doing well and having lots of gardening fun and success.
Have a great weekend. God Bless.
Pinging the list.
It’s hot in Texas. Been in the 90s and 100 a day or two.
Ok, so who wants to be on my jury? Hubby got happy with his lawn mower AGAIN. Mowed down my okra. Same exact place where he mowed down my beets last year. Asked him why he couldn’t understand where the garden was when there is a cement curb around it that he’d have to lift the lawnmower over into it. His reply was he didn’t have to lift it over as it was easy to push over and hey, he stopped at the tomato plant so what’s the problem.
He re-tilled.
I have okra seeds soaking and will get them re-planted tomorrow. Between him, Mother Nature and poisonous seeds from Ferry Morse.... I dunnoooooo.....
I just wanted to share an experiment: I used several layers of newspaper (free) covered with grass clippings (free) as a weed barrier. So far I’m loving the results! It’s a little slick after it rains, but it has successfully eliminated the need to weed. As I’m 27 weeks pregnant this is a very good thing! This is the second year I’ve used neem oil as well, and I’m extremely pleased with the results. I spray it on everything! It prevents cabbage worms, aphids, tomato worms, and I’ve even stopped tomato blight with it. It’s the only thing I’ll use from now on.
One of the tobacco plants that I didn't top has bloomed, and it has the prettiest pinkish/purplish flowers (said the colorblind guy). I'll have seed for next year.
Tonight, I'll be having stuffed zucchini and fried green tomatoes and asparagus out of the garden. This is a good time of year.
/johnny
The first zucchini and the first crookneck came out of the garden last night. They didn’t last long - in a frying pan with olive oil/butter, salt, pepper and onions. I ate the whole pan.
Anyway, soon we will have way too many zucchini .... probably will be ok on the crooknecks. I have a good zucchini bread recipe, but that gets tiresome after a while. My SIL will have extra zucchini, too so I was looking for ways to preserve them. I didn’t think they would freeze due to the high water content, but evidently they do (yay!). I have a dehydrator somewhere that I need to find. Also, I found some good looking zucchini chip recipes ... oven-fried, for-real fried, and dehydrator .... you can also make zucchini fries in the oven. The there is zucchini relish and bread and butter pickles. Now comes the hard part - do I have enough energy to actually DO all of this and stay ahead of the zucchini? I guess I’ll find out! :-)
Got a counter top full of fresh tomatoes. A few cucumbers this week as well. Dug my garlic and the rest of the onions to use later during the year.
Today WAS beautiful. However, this has been the worst time in gardening history for me. Nothing but rain and solidly clay soil. I have had nothing but oatmeal or playdough since the end of winter. Many of my plantings that should have been in by May 15 are going in this weekend come hell or high water. All hope and plans are off.
Still, I’m alive. God loves me. My family is well. The chickens are doing well and slated for slaughter next weekend.
Even so, nothing but magnificent tomatoes last year and miserable dwarves this year . . .
I weep.
I do have apples coming, though.
Hi all. Greetings from the fine state of Tennessee. Weather was more summer like this week. Almost everything is planted. Stuff is growing, even the potato slips a friend gave me last march. I didn’t think they would be viable after sitting in a paper bag in the garage for 3 months. But lo and behold the are growing like crazy. Go figger.
We are supposed to have a dry weekend. Here’s hoping I can get after the weeds and get to mulching everything. I can tell it is going to be a daconil kind of summer with the rain we re getting every three days. Ugh
Love hearing everyone’s gardening stories and suggestions. They are much appreciated-even JRandomFreepers grumblings about roses. :)
The volunteers from last falls late palnting…
Another example of the effectiveness of drip irrigation on our soil type…
Maybe one of you pros can help me identify a plant in my neighbors flower bed . (They don’t know what it is) The plant grows up like a candle obra, has longer /slender leaves, gets a yellow hollyhock like flower which turns into a dandelion like ball about the size of a baseball. Sorry to break into the thread. Thanks.
Picking lots of Swiss Chard. Planted petunias recently. Because the temperatures have been on the cool side, pansies still blooming nicely. They will have to be pulled soon as some of them are looking a little heat beat.
bttt
Not much to report. I canned my first quart of strawberries in syrup, to be used as pie filling later. My snap peas are sprouting, as are my onions. The potatoes I saved from last year must be great keepers, they’re taking forever to sprout. There’s life in them, but it’s just being slow to wake up. They’ll probably do great in a root cellar when I have one.
Dad’s doing his thing again. He’s suddenly got it in his head that the soil in the front garden is poisoned, because his tomatoes and rhubarb aren’t doing well. Of course, they’re planted right up next to a birch tree, I’m not suprized they aren’t thriving, but he’s raising a fuss about how we shouldn’t eat any of the strawberries because they’re toxic. The rest of the garden is doing fine. I’d be tempted to take him seriously if not for the fact that he does this kind of thing so often! Every month he works himself into a panic over something new. Can’t wait until my house is done so I can move OUT....
Sorry, that was a rant.
Oh, I replanted my zucchinni this week, going back to some older seed. I think maybe last year’s didn’t get pollinated very well, because they were way too thin and weren’t sprouting at all.
Hi everyone...checking in late!
My amaranth, (a grain variety, presumably since I sprouted it from grain I bought from the health food store) is growing like Topsy.
Some cucumber seeds I planted a week ago sprouted and seem very happy.
My lettuce and several stems of tomatoes had some kind of critter chew on them pretty severely. It turned out to have been caused by a little green caterpillar, which we promptly dispatched.
I spoke with a neighbor and she made me feel better about the Bibb lettuce not doing so well here. She is a longtime gardener and said that she has trouble with that kind because it is so fragile and yummy for the critters to get. She said she has had very good luck with romaine. I know this is true, because a few years ago she shared some with us and it was wonderful! So Darlin and I went and got some romaine seeds, and when the rain lets up I will plant some!
Still have some Bibb lettuce growing, so we’ll let it go and see how it makes out despite the depradations.
Spinach is doing well, and I’m very pleased to watch it.
I located a small patch of wild purslane in our yard which I have pointed out to Darlin’ in hopes that the wild streak will be contained while operating the weed whacker! I’m hoping the patch will grow enough so I can transplant some of it into a corner of our small kitchen plot.
I bought a new book on wild edibles which has lovely pictures and text which help with identification at different stages and how to use the plant in culinary settings. It is “Edible Wild Plants - Wild Foods from Dirt to Plate” by John Kallas, PhD. It is apparently part of a series, and I will be on the lookout for others of the series!
While it does not cover a wide variety of plants, the ones covered are mostly ones that cover most of North America and could be a good resource for someone just wanting to learn about some of the basic plants. There are some plants in there that I know are in our area, but I have yet to find and identify them! - so I’m pleased to have this reference now.
http://www.amazon.com/Edible-Wild-Plants-Adventure-Series/dp/1423601505
We have been having fun out here on the Oklahoma Plain!
We got a little over an inch of rain over the weekend. Good timing as I got my 2nd planting of sweet corn in the ground Thursday evening.
Went boat riding out on the Missouri River Saturday afternoon. Found a creek that was just lousy with those crazy bighead carp. We filled both livewells. Butchered half a dozen of them to find out for ourselves if the Conservation Dept. is fibbing about them being good to eat, and buried the rest in the garden. And they are quite tasty, but loaded with little Y bones. We’re going to get some more and try some different methods of filleting them.
Hauled about a ton of composted horse manure in to the compost pile this weekend. Will use some for sidedressing, but get another three or four tons and then till it in this fall. Life is good in the garden this year.