Posted on 08/30/2013 1:16:25 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.
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Tonight, it was 5 pints of pickled carrots with radishes. Last one just finally went PING! and sealed.
Tomorrow, dilly beans.
Our garden was a disaster this year. We have all raised beds because of two huge black walnut trees next door. Need to make sure we get lots of nutrients in those beds before planting next year. I think they’re depleted of nutrients.
Deer ate our hostas, pole beans and some tomatoes. We added height to our fence and stopped them from getting in. They even found the lone volunteer sqash we found growing in our compost pile! We defeated the bunny by adding rabbit fencing. Then, a groundhog found its way in and ate the brussels sprouts - first time growing them and they were really doing well. It ate the tops off of our carrots, our bush beans and ate all the leaves off of the sweet potatoes and pumpkins.
At least we got enough tomatoes to get several quarts put back. No caggabe either, so I finally packed it in and bought 50 lbs of cabbage to make sauerkraut.
I won’t give up. This is war!
I think I need to take a gardening class. I need to grow a green thumb. I sure as heck don’t have one now!
I tried some seed tape with some carrots this year. (Had not tried carrots before) and I really like the ease of planting.
I think I’ll be getting more seed tapes too.
This morning, there are two tiny bits of green growing in one of the baby carrot cups.
The bush bean plants spurted up more last night and they are about three inches tall now. I need those cheap grow bags to get here as these beans are fast outgrowing those two cups. I have five gallon and ten gallon sacks coming and they have been shipped.
Why don't local stores carry what we need? Maybe it's just here in the south that none of what I need is local to buy. I always check stores on line here and they never have what I need and that is not just gardening stuff - it's prepper stuff, too. In my opinion, go above the Mason Dixon line and that's where stuff is.
When people came to this country on the east coast, as more came they needed glassware. Glassware companies came here and built plants on the east coast and that is still where most glassware is made today. One of those companies is Westmoreland and I have a number of glassware they made back then. My house is full of glassware/china/porcelain from all over the world and I have several books on the subject.
I guess in the south, cotton was king and that's what the south did for a living. At any rate, it's hard to find what I need here to buy locally.
The deer, rabbits and groundhog destroyed your food plants. A gardening class isn’t going to fix that and your thumb didn’t have a chance to be green.
It is war and I defeated the plant murderers by growing in containers on my deck and sprouting seeds under the grow lamp as earlier this year all the seeds were murdered by the invaders.
If you keep the raised beds, use row cover and/or net to keep the invaders out. For easy fertilizer I have a stack of Job’s stakes to put into the soil to feed the plants on a continual basis as the stakes slowly feed the plant.
I can’t do heavy manual work and can’t take much heat, so I cheat every way I can to make it easier.
I’m learning how to can. You say you put up 5 pints of pickled carrots with radishes. Because they were pickled, were you able to use the water bath to can them and not the pressure cooker canner?
When I went out to check this morning, there was a bird in one of the two big oaks behind my fence and he/she was chirping very loudly. It was saying it hated me for covering the flower seed and the walking onions. I said to it, “Go to hell you murdering piece of s-—”.
You are sooo funny. I call them stinking rat bastids. I put out soaker hose in my garden this am..Next time I will do it before there are plants, and tomato cages everywhere..
Oh, and one of my cabbages has a little "head" on it..I just planted it (six pack from the nursery) last week. Oh, and yesterday, I bought several different brands of iron phosphate, sluggo, and I forget the others to battle the snails in my flowers.
Also, Home Depot had their pentas in 1.5 gallon decorative containers on sale 4 for 10 bucks..They had been $14.98 each the day before..I tried to resist, but failed, and bought four. I have no idea where to put them..right now, they're setting on the front porch where I unloaded them yesterday.
Hello, Everybody!
Tomatoes are doing well. I’m so glad I didn’t give up! At last count, we have 16 baby ‘maters on the vine.
I was amazed to see that the green bell pepper plant is taking off and starting to bloom again...lots of blooms! After I picked my about 1/2 dozen several weeks ago, I was almost going to pull it up, but since it seemed alive and happy, I decided to just keep watering it and see how the plant developed. Good decision! LOL!
The sunflower which was partially truncated at the bottom and repaired with a splint, has continued to thrive as best as it can, and has even bloomed. The flower is about 4-5 inches, petals and all, so looks like a regular sized wild sunflower. I’m so amazed it has survived and is actually bloomimg, bless its little sunflower heart! The other sunflowers seem to be thriving. A couple days ago I was in the garden and a neighbor drove by and asked what variety I had planted. “Mammoth,” I replied, and he said he had been enjoying watching ours the past two years and wants to grow some himself next year.
Okra is amazing. I missed one of the pods and saw it the other day and it is HUGE. I’ve decided to leave it on for seed. Darlin said if I wanted the plant to produce more, I should pick it. I know that is correct because it does take a lot of energy to produce seed, but I decided that I’m not trying to maximize the harvest this time, but to see what a plant actually does.
Amaranth is continuing to grow. It is putting out new growth and some of the plants have started seed heads. I noticed yesterday that this variety has TINY little yellow flowers.
The cucumbers are producing well, and taking up a lot of room in the refrigerator. I think I’m getting to the point where it may be time to share some of the “overs” with some friends.
The snow peas are thriving and climbing and seem pretty happy. No blooms yet. The other legumes are also producing, but I’m letting them all grow and harden into seed.
The new squash plants are growing. The acorn squash isn’t growing very fast, but the scallop squash is racing.
We’ve been fighting grasshoppers here. I killed a huge one the other day which had been munching down on one of my mammoth sunflowers. We also killed a huge borer bug by immobilizing it with neem, then stomping it.
I have been learning so much by working with plants this year, and that process has been helped along tremendously by what I’ve learned on this thread! Thanks to all of you for your input and encouragement! But there’s still so much to learn, and I’m grateful that I can turn to all of you for advice as we continue our efforts to become better gardeners.
I cut back Mr. Stevia like you said. It still looks bad except new leaves have come out at the end of some of the branches since yesterday. The branches are so thin and delicate, I’m almost afraid to touch them.
Yay for your maters and peppers, and thank you for sharing your information!
Yay for the bees!
Wow! Thanks for the seed tape info!
A doe and her baby showed up in our side yard a few nights ago while we did a burn. The sun hadn’t even set yet. Crowbar just froze and pointed, but I got up and started jumping around and waving my arms. The deer just looked at me calmly. This does not bode well. P.S. Our closest neighbors can’t see us—forest on four sides—thank heaven lol!
Beautiful! Thanks for posting!
We have nice wasps, too. When we first planted the corn, Mr. Sg noticed little ants around the roots when the corn looked unhealthy. There’s supposed to be an invasion of “crazy ants” in the humid southeast US. They don’t follow behavior patterns of normal ants, and they reportedly eat electronics. Needless to say, we put food-grade diatomaceous earth all over the place and the little devils disappeared. Do you think those could be the problem?
I can’t wait to hear about the tromboncini!
Thanks for the link!
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