I have a little sugar baby watermelon about the size of a big black olive on the vine that is growing up the cattle panel type netting. My cukes are growing up the lines and flowering well should be getting some little cukes starting.
Corn is starting to silk. Last year's indoor peppers that I transplanted a few weeks ago are full of tiny pea sized peppers. Tomatoes are flowering. Hubby has green tomatoes still, but finally got 1 nice red one about 2 inches in diameter.
I can't believe it, but I still have little gem romaine and black simpson leaf lettuce doing well. Sunflowers, I am thinking that I could have climbing cut worms. One of the survivors that put on new leaves has had some damage, and another stem that is cut in half.
I wasn't aware that there was a cut worm that operated higher up on the plant. I think I need to investigate late at night when it's dark to see.
I put up a lot of pickles and green beans this week. I now have almost 2 cases of green beans, and 3 cases of pickled cukes, zukes, and summer squash. All of these are 100% pesticide free-such a good feeling to eat your own home grown healthy food.
Hope you are all doing well. Have a great weekend, and God Bless.
Good harvesting. Hot peppers, beets, zukes, patty pan, green beans, potatoes, white eggplant, cukes.
Hi Garden FRiends!
Today has been fun. Got gloriously dirty.
We’ve had quite a bit of rain in the past couple of days. The local papers say our county’s harvest has been a record breaker for wheat, which is a real blessing.
I mixed up some soil today and potted the two rooting experiments. Both romaine stumps which have grown rootlets from the dusting of root hormone are doing well. I also potted the celery stump which has also grown lots of roots. Since much of the old outer stalks were beginning to rot, while the inner part stayed green, Darlin’ gave me the ultimatum that it HAD to be removed from the kitchen counter!
While I potted it, I had no idea what to expect, if anything. I did a search just a little while ago, and found a couple of articles where people have a practice of planting their celery stumps. Both articles have some pretty cool pictures as well! I don’t feel as though I’m feeling my way in the dark as much. The experiment still may or may not work out, but it is good to know what possible result there may be! One of the articles says you should allow for 3” of stalks left on the stump. I’ve only allowed about 1 to 1 1/2. That could be my problem right there if the thing doesn’t take off.
http://www.deeprootsathome.com/re-growing-celery-from-cuttings/
http://www.thekitchn.com/re-growing-celery-grow-a-new-bunch-indoors-or-outdoors-169801
I have a neighbor with some absolutely stunning hibiscus. She has promised me seeds and even a plant start when it’s time to divide them!
I planted some seeds today:
Carrots
Garden Beans (Landstar Bush)
Snow Peas
Chamomile
Cherry Tomatoes
Squash (Early White Bush Scallop)
Dill
Acorn Squash
Still learning, and never tried a 2nd season, so us’ll see!
Went to Indiana for three nights of USAC sprint car racing over the weekend. Came home to ripe sweet corn. And weeds. Lots of really tall weeds.
I’m alive! Just in case anyone was wondering.
The operation went well, but the recovery is going slowly. It hurts to walk, or even to sit in a regular chair. You wouldn’t think sitting uses your stomach muscles that much, but it does! Which means I haven’t been able to tolerate sitting at my computer for more than a few minutes. I’m using a borrowed laptop now, after 2 weeks without internet I was going stir-crazy! Every book I read gave me more stuff I wanted to look up :)
On my short walks I’ve been trying to make it to the back garden. My runner beans have little baby bean pods on them, and my snap peas are producing. 2 of my tomato plants are covered in green tomatoes. The paste tomatoes are still way behind, but one of them has the beginnings of flower buds on it.
One of the books I got to read while I recover is about vegetable breeding. Too many ideas there! I’m thinking I might try it with my tomatoes by crossing all 3 varieties in pairs and seeing what happens. I want a paste, a grape, and a slicer, but I want them all to have fast growth, vigor, resilience, dense growth, disease resistance, and high yields. Right now they all have disease resistance, but my grape has fast growth, vigor, and resilience; my slicer has such dense growth that it smothers the weeds for me, but it’s slow the first 2 months, and my paste is being downright lazy.
So far I’ve attempted crossing the grape and the slicer. The grape requires minor surgery to cross-pollinate it. The stamen is completely encased by the anthers, which is a great feature if you’re trying to preserve an existing variety. Not so great when trying to start a new one. The slicer doesn’t have that feature, so it’s easier.
Anyway, enough rambling, now to read through 2 weeks worth of gardening threads!
In San Antonio Caliche amended soil . . . just planted Chayo (Spinach Tree), a mango tree (which will probably not survive anywhere close to a frost) an Edwards Lemon tree,and in the middle of our backyard a one foot loquot tree.
Prognosis? Anyone on the thread wanting to see how they thrive or die? I’ll provide pictures.
Also planted two chayote plants . . . which started out well, but have stopped growing . . . maybe till cooler weather. During the Spring, chayote reached the roof of my patio.
Chayote is supposed to be an every year plant. Your experiences are? If my plants die on the vine, will they come back next season?