Posted on 08/16/2013 12:42:15 PM PDT by greeneyes
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It was Celeste that I kept trying to grow in Mobile. I believe they are softer and mushier than Br. Turkey and is what was so popular then. I finally gave up trying to grow figs.
We had a great afternoon.
The meager harvest, so far, of the two figs from my Celeste fig were very ripe, soft and very, very tasty. They were ripe when yellow. There are maybe 20 more waiting to ripen. I was expecting a little more of a purple color to them.
My wife takes the pups for a walk each morning checking on fig and pear tree progress then reports back. The pups then follow me when I go to pick the figs knowing I will cut one of the very ripe ones in half and share it with them. If I happen to drop one on the grass a scrum and then a chase erupts around the yard. They are fast little things. The chase includes tackles and wrestling matches and then up again for a chase. Fun to watch!
I managed to work on my land for a while today. My incisions didn’t hurt this time, hurray!!!!
Something has been messing with my corn, I found a few stalks that had been broken off, but not eaten, so I picked the ears off for baby corn. They were about that size. It was probably the deer, there are deer lays just a few feet from my garden. Hoping I can hunt this fall and get some of that food-value back :)
I think I’ll need to buy more seeds of that corn variety. Pollination was spotty, probably because there were so few seeds in the packet that I couldn’t plant enough for a decent sized patch. There were a few ears that are getting fat, but most of them were way too skinny.
Whatever was breaking the stalks obviously didn’t like walking through squash vines, the end of the corn patch that they were growing through had been left alone. And, both bugs and critters were giving my popping chickpeas a wide berth. I think I’ll use that to form a perimeter next year. Along with putting more fencing up, if I can.
Speaking of squash, there were beautiful little squashes forming all over the vines! I might even be able to add those to the list of seeds I can sell this year.
During a particularly bad day at work, I wrote up a business plan for a seeds business, and calculated that I might possibly be able to make a living off of that by as early as next winter. I’ll be testing the market this winter, with a few things I’m growing now.
In the backyard garden, I missed a few days of cucumber pickings, and decided to just let them keep ripening, since they were so big already. So, I should have lots of Dragon Egg cucumber seeds to sell. And, my slicing tomatoes are starting to ripen, they’re an heirloom too. My paste tomato has tiny baby fruits forming, but I’m not going to count on many of them ripening. The grape tomato is still just ripening a few at a time, although that might be because something’s stealing them, I keep finding little red tomato scraps nearby.
I’m still trying to figure out if one neighbor is really building an apartment building, or just a really friggin huge farmhouse. It would be an idiotic location for an apartment, we’re talking the back road off the back road off of the back road, here! The only spot flat enough to park on is the one-lane dirt track you drive in on, and there’s no possible way the building could meet code for a multi-family dwelling out there. But at the same time, it sure does look like an apartment building . . .
Cross-pollinating to create new varieties?
Tonights dinner consisted of leftover Game Hen in gravy and from the garden was smashed tators, sliced cukes in oil & vinegar and corn on the cob washed down with a small glass of really cheap wine.
Did I miss the chapter on the new Pups RD 232?
Yep. I have a grape tomato that was a volunteer, no idea what variety it is, but it ripens early and shows resistance to both drought and disease. On the other hand, the paste tomato varieties I’ve tried all needed lots of babying and a longer growing season, so I’m crossing them to try and get the best of both. I’m also hoping to breed the drought-resistance into my slicing tomato.
Thanks for relaying your “DUH” moment. I believe if I pull some of my guys up too, I’ll find the same thing.....Makes a lot of sense.....duh
This is not the time, normally, to grow squash. However, I figured since my grow season can last until December most of the time, I would plant it and see what happens. It's supposed to be resistant to moths/borers and other pests like that, and that's what killed my regular squash plants planted in the ground.
I'll have to be aware of the blast of the sun here and use the dolly rightly_dividing made, to roll it in the sun for the first part of the day, then roll it into shade.
I have surely found that gardening is individual to the exact location you are and what is happening in your individual space.
My sweet potatoes in the 10 gallon grow bag had something eating holes in the leaves weeks ago, and I sprayed it with organic Garden Safe Fungicide 3, which is also insecticide, and miticide. I did that maybe three days on top of and under all the leaves and on the limbs down to the dirt. The leaf eating stopped and it grew much bunches of leaves and looks fine.
When I planted the sweet potatoes, it wasn't the right time to plant those, either, but again, I'm hoping the long grow season will allow them to produce potatoes. I think if they were planted in the ground instead of a container, they would be dead. I can control what happens in a container including good potting soil mix that feeds them, but I can't physically dig ground up and do all that fertilizing crap, and besides there are critters in the ground that eat what I plant in the ground and I can't control the larger critters, squirrels and birds, that murder my seeds and eat small plants. A pox on ground dirt.
I'll have some traveling onion and strawberry plants coming and will have too many for my space, so I'm going to take some of both to rightly_dividing. Rightly lives in a rural area and if I hadn't had my GPS guy to tell me where to make the numerous turns, I wouldn't have made it there. I also had directions Rightly sent so I was using both to make sure the GPS guy knew what he was doing. GPS also led me back out. After I've been there a few times, I'll know where those turns are.
Here's one-third of our mater take just in these last three days. We've eaten the other third, and given away the other. Sadly, however, our butternut squash take is one and only one (from two plants). *sighs* Maybe next year... But the maters are delicious (Brandywine Pinks, some standard ones, and Cherokee Purples)...
The Italian squash is planted. I put the potting soil in there in the house, and the dolly Rightly made was perfect to roll it out of the house and up the ramp onto the upper deck. That dolly will make rolling it in the sun and then in shade very easy.
I checked the other squash seed again while out there and there is still not a hint of green coming up.
Female Black and white Named Fidelis (Fi) Male on right is named Semper
So when I call them it is Semper Fi!
When my wife told Semper he better get packed for the move he settled down in my soft sided bag.
And he promptly took a nap
I have to re-enforce the bottoms of my chain link fence around my property. Semper and Fi seem to be able to find small gaps that they can get under.
Too sweet. May they bring you as much Love and Enjoyment as the previous two...
Your new puppies are adorable.
I went out to plant some seeds and some seed tape in the garden awhile ago..Of course, my cats were flopped all over the places I wanted to plant seeds..Places I waan’t going to plant..no cats.
Go Figure.
First, a mystery was solved today.
We have several small stands, about 50 plants in total, that have sprouted up in various places around & in the garden, that looked like our Painted Hill corn. It & the P.H. corn (normal size for it) are now both about half the height of our other planted corn. Both have multiple tillers; but the mystery plants are stouter, and the leaves broader, without any red in them. Today, they started putting out “heads” rather than tassels: it is grain sorghum (milo)! IOW, it is essentially escaped birdseed from the feeders. Considering where the various stands are at, I’m going to guess that some was deposited after passing through the wild turkeys.
A second discovery was made yesterday, right under our noses. Just up-slope, and a little past the end of the rhubarb patch, I saw small yellow apples on a tree I knew was there, so decided to check them out. Those apples are pears! There is another one a bit further upslope, but back towards the opposite end of the rhubarb. That gives us 3 known pear trees now.
That area has apple & crab apple trees in it, but I never paid it much attention, as others were closer to the house, and were the first to be pruned back into shape. We can only do so much at once, but now I have an excuse to start in on them this winter.
When I planted it, I covered part of the stem like we do usually when transplanting small tomato plants. I don't know if it was wrong to plant part of the squash stem but as I said, it looks good today. Please tell me if I should not have put some of the stem under the soil.
I think two more leaves are coming out in the middle of the first two and if that is true, they should be out by tomorrow as fast as this thing grows. Still nothing happening in the other four cups with a squash seed in each.
All 8 of the Mortgage Lifter tomato plants look good - 5 of those were transplanted to grow bags within the last few days and it doesn't appear to have hurt them. If they would all grow and produce tomatoes, I would love to give tomatoes to three people in these townhouses. I'd be ready for a master grower citation if I could do that. Remember, I had never grown anything until this year and certainly never got a seed to sprout.
The Sesame flower plant is going really fast, must be a foot+ tall now with two strong looking round stems coming out of the soil - it is in a large pot.
ApplegateRanch and greeneyes and Johnny, I'll never be as good a gardener as you people are, but at least I will be able to grow “something” which is better than I was.
The grow light and stand should come in this week and I'll immediately start seeds of various fall plants. I have seeds divided into a bag of “fall seeds” and bag of “spring seeds”. You don't know how great it will be not to have to protect seeds outside from critters and move them in and out of the sun.
Also expect strawberry plants and Egypt Walking Onions to come in this week.
I went looking for Tromboncino seed today, but didn’t find any. Guess it has to be ordered.
I did buy some herbs, and two squash plants, one of which I broke the stem off before even getting it in the ground.
One of the herbs I bought was Patchouli. It looks kinda like an impatiens, but smells like the ‘60’s.. I’d never seen it before. It says it’s a perennial.
I also bought some profusion zinnias in fall colors, and planted those.Oh, and I bought catnip, which usually only lasts in the ground one day before being eaten, and rolled on by furry felines, after which I hear the sounds of cats beating each other up.
Get the Tromboncino squash here:
http://www.bountifulgardens.org/prodinfo.asp?number=VSQ-5469#.UhLFZYwo5jq
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