This AM we had frost on the roof tops, had to cover tomatoes last night, and bring in a bunch of my seedlings. This is unprecidented in my memory. I have never before experienced frost after Mother's Day, but it does demonstrate why I figure on June 1 as the "real planting date".
Thanks to Rightly for posting the thread last weekend. The drive to Kirksville was great - such pretty country and farmland. We got to see our daughter for the first time since she moved to Kansas. So proud to see our Granddaughter graduate from Truman State. She worked so hard and got full scholarships so that she doesn't have any college debt, and has a job starting in two weeks.
I was asked for a pickle recipe, and I'll post that after the ping on this thread. Hope that all of you are doing well, and your gardens are lush and productive. Have a great weekend. God Bless.
Pinging the List.
Our mini heat wave gave the tomatoes the jolt they needed.. The fruit trees aren’t as full of baby fruit as desired, we had bees so, hopefully the squirrels and birds will go easy and eat more peanuts from a local feeder.
Been kind of a crap week, really cold and wet, almost cold enough to snow.
Had a funnel cloud pass by a couple of miles south last weekend. Plants were outside and sustained over 10 minutes of pea/marble sized hail and torrential downpour. Tore things up pretty good.
Got German tomatoes growing wild, just got my order of hops seeds so I can start my “beer garden” and will be innoculating a few logs with shiitake plugs this weekend! Gotta love spring!
Tomato leafs so green they're almost blue. Limes and Oranges already the size of your thumb.
Picked my first cherries last night.
It’s 65 degrees here in Massachusetts today, but the recent warm temperatures have moved us much further into typical spring weather, and our trees and bushes are very close to being in full leaf. Our seedlings are doing better, and my husband harvested some lettuce for dinner tonight.
Crazy weather we’ve had in Central Missouri this spring.
No frost at my place last night, but there’s another chance of it tonight.
Still pumping out the pond from all of the rain we got earlier in the week. I noticed this morning that it was just about empty so it ought to be done by the time I get home today. Need a couple days of sunshine and wind before I’ll be able to get back in there with Nanner.
Haven’t done any work in the garden since last Saturday, but it’s growing like crazy. Lettuce is now big enough to pick on, snap peas are about a foot high, kentucky wonder beans are sprouting, sweet corn has started to spike, and the best part - next to no weeds coming up. What few do make it through that thick layer of horse poo I just cut with a shovel and they’re done!
I still have quite a bit of free space out there but I haven’t decided what all I want to plant. Cilantro for sure, some dill, and maybe some odd varieties of salad greens, but that still will leave free space. What to do, what to do...
Hey greeneyes & all! Enjoy it while it lasts! We got a cool front this week (bonus heavy rains) & it’s sure been nice. It was HOT before that.
We had Mia, our little Eskie girl up at A&M last week (mixed bag- good news & scary news that’s still ongoing- no answers yet. Scary because she has been seen by the best), so some of my stuff (squash, cowpeas, & corn) is going to be late. Everything else is up & running (turnips, beets, carrots, okra + herbs). We’re getting strawberries one by one from the little hanging basket, but they are sweet & delicious!
There is something weird on the leaves of my Valley Cat tomatoes. It looks like the image (lighter than the leaf itself) of a long thin worm that’s kind of curling around. I need to figure out how to post pictures. I don’t know what this is.
But they’re blooming, so hoping for tomatoes.
Adding my wishes for everyone’s health & prosperity. And God Bless you, too.
sockmonkey, I think I found you some trees. The place doesn’t have a sign that I can tell (maybe attached to a little restaurant next door?), but it’s on the way to my vet in Somerset, so I’ll be back over there & soon. It’s on 1604 between I35 South & Old Pearsall Road. I’ll holler.
Reminder to self—never again try using seeds from store bought tomatoes as just about every one of the small transplants have succumbed to disease and died off. Have bought a few various variety backup ones to be transplanted next week.
The peppers and cukes are slow but the recent rains picked them up just a bit and now sunny, warmer weather should give them another jolt. Cruddy N. Tx clay soil doesn’t help matters although I mulched it good over the winter and add in compost to the planting holes. Can’t blame ya one bit Greeneyes for doing the raised beds at your place.
For 10 years I’ve stored some of my perennials in containers. This year, thanks to global warming, err, I mean climate chaos catastrophe disruption, a record cold spell killed everything. I’m just about starting from scratch this year. Any more of this global warming and I’m going to have to start raising reindeer.
4.6 inches of rain last night, NoVa....
Lots of heavy rain all night ... 3-4” of rain in surrounding areas - I think we got an inch minimum. If it hadn’t stopped raining when it did, I was thinking the tomatoes would need water wings. All seeds have now sprouted in the garden .... progress!
Here outside of Shitcago it was 80 degrees last Monday.
Today it SNOWED!
Anyone here do a seed exchange or anything of the sort?
I transplanted 4 Celebrity tomatoes into pots in the old greenhouse Also have 2 Brandywine ready to go in.…
"Yukon Gold potatoes showing some growth…
I started the garden last weekend. First time I ever planted tomatoes, peppers and eggplant first. Shows how weird this spring has been. Too cold and wet, and then 80+ degrees. We’ll see what I get out of the normal spring crops that normally would have been in the ground 3-4 weeks ago. Everything is soaking wet this morning.
You were up in my neck of the woods! I live a little south of Kirksville. My plants have been in the ground for a month, some of my tomatoes are not faring well, but my peppers, onions, brassicas are all doing terrific.
I’ve had most everything under row cover this year because the rabbits are horrible. Now to catch up with the weeding.
Congrats to your daughter!
Hi greeneyes and everyone! Sorry for the length of the following, but I wanted to give myself as well as all of you a documentation of where I am right now.
Our weather has been amazing, and so everything mostly seems happy.
I just got in from outside. I have finally put into the ground (or pots!) all of my seedlings! I hope everyone is having as much fun as I am!
I have now in the dirt:
3 different kinds of OKRA
SUNFLOWERS - which are now getting some size!
AMARANTH - the red kind. Supposedly they develop into fairly large plants. I have put some into a window box kind of pot, and I may have to replant them later. Some of them I placed at the edge of the OKRA/SUNFLOWER bed.
The BLACKBERRY bushes we planted some time ago are blooming.
Flowers
And while they are not food (except for maybe the rose hips), the blaze ROSES and our lone pink ROSE are blooming and just gorgeous, as are the IRISES. We seem to have lost one ROSE bush, but the rest are leafing out nicely. The CLEMATIS and WISTERIA are also leafing out.
The ECHINACEA which has been established are growing rather large. The place where I put my Echinacea seedlings have a lot of little sprouts. Most of them, I believe to be MAPLE or ELM seedlings. I know that at least one of the sprouts is Echinacea, but I hesitate to weed them until they are a little further developed. I don’t think the CHAMOMILE survived the last freeze.
The two decorative plants which Darlin selected recently are in their pots and thriving.
The SUGAR SNAP peas seem to be doing ok and are in the shade in their pot and starting to climb a bit.
I planted a few FLAX seeds, a STRAWBERRY SPINACH plant, and a couple of PLANTAIN seeds in a pot, and they seem to be thriving.
I have two STRAWBERRIES reddening up from the flat we bought a couple of weeks ago which are in a large pot together.
The PARSLEY and CILANTRO are doing well. As are the returning THYME and OREGANO. My CUMIN seedlings did not survive.
The DAIKON RADISHES are continuing to live, and I’m eager to see how they turn out!
The EMMER grass is green and growing.
I have a several different kinds of bean plants. The ASIAN TRELLIS BEANS, BUSH BEANS, BLACK BEANS, and CRANBERRY BEANS
all seem to be thriving.
I have several TROMBONE SQUASH plants in a large pot with a trellis behind them. The one WHITE BUSH SQUASH is in a pot by itself, and I have great hopes for it and the T SQUASH. Last year I had such trouble with squash, especially the white bush squash, so we’ll see! I planted a single ZUCCHINI seed today, and see if it does anything.
The CUCUMBER seedling is doing well, and I noticed the other day that one of my ATKINS TOMATO seeds took up its abode in the same little cup and is nestled in with the cucumber. I have a tomato cage around them in their pot. They both seem so happy, and I didn’t want to weed out the tomato for fear of damage.
I have four TOMATO plant pots besides my surprise ATKINS. One is a pot of ATKINS, another is the PURPLE CHEROKEE, the other is a hybrid of some kind, and the other is another heirloom (which name I don’t recall at this moment.) Except for the ATKINS which a grew from seed, they have developing tomatoes on them.
I selected a mildly HOT PEPPER plant recently when we bought the decorative plants and the strawberries. It has a little white flower on it.
The SWEET POTATO pot shows a happy green vine. The grocery store WHITE POTATOs are showing their leaves and are green and healthy looking! They are in the bed with the OKRA and SUNFLOWERS...and now the red AMARANTH.
Onions/Garlic
I have one lone surviving WALKING ONION, and today placed a few sprouting GARLIC cloves in the pot with it.
The only things left to plant are some garlic cloves and onion starts. Darlin just told me my new larger plastic pots are drilled! :-D I can now put my (grocery store) onion starts and the rest of my garlic cloves into dirt!
OR I might decide to open up a little bit more of a ground plot now that the big shade tree is no longer as big!
OR Darlin suggests perhaps putting at least some of them among the OKRA. Baby steps. I’ll ponder that for tomorrow or the next day! Who knows, maybe I’ll try all three and see what they like best!
I have not as yet tried to do anymore GREAT WHITE NORTHERN seedlings. Nor have I started any CARROTS, as I had hoped to do this year. I am thinking that at this point, I probably have enough to try to keep alive and will just leave it at that! LOL! But who knows....I might get crazy and just do it!