It was 38 degrees here in Massachusetts Wednesday night. Thank goodness we didn't lose anything. Here are some pics of our containers:
This is it uncovered:
Here are a few that are on the deck:
We will have to start watering the plants now it seems, and the swimming pool doesn't have enough water to make it all the way through growing season, since we had to drain it to repair a leak. Once again it's looking like we may have to pick and choose which crops to water.
We have our first batch of strawberries. I have some in the Refrigerator for eating plain, and am making syrup and fruit leather for grand daughter to eat this winter.
Just harvested around a pint of ripe cherry tomatoes from Mr. indoor tomato. Have some lettuce ready to eat in the patio container.
The seedlings are all out in the garden, and have a few more starting in the good seed starter. I am going to be making a sour dough starter this weekend, and start experimenting a bit more with baking some bread using my winter wheat.
Hope you are all doing well. Have a great weekend, and God Bless.
Here in Houston we have been unseasonably cold, so my jolokias and trinidad scorpion peppers are so small.
No fire in my belly yet this year.
Hi greeneyes! God Bless& good weekend wishes back to you! Things are heating up here. Greenie beans, okras & Valley Whatever-they-are are going great guns.
Everything but the pepper is. Not sure why. Last year, we had (I think) California Wonder & it was a wild man. Our little strawberry is so sweet, you don’t even need sugar. We’re only getting about 6 or 7 at a time.
No more leaf miners so far (fingers crossed).
Squash & corn are way late, but DH might get an assignment in Houston next week, so I’m wondering if I should plant. Squash/ cowpeas will be in a 3x6 bed. The others are containers so maybe we can farm them out with a neighbor.
Pinging the List.
I picked my first cherry tomato yesterday and it appears I’ll have at least a handfull by the first week of June.
I’ve gathered a few peppers and used them almost as quickly as they arrived.
Wife is showing our place in the Master Gardeners “garden walk” here at the lake June 7. Now if we can just keep the damned deer out...
Picked the first squash, beans and one tomato this week. Neighbor pulled up most of his onions and gave us a bag full.
Does anyone have a solution for bloom rot on tomatoes? I have several that have black spots where the flower fell off.
It was 38 degrees here in Massachusetts Wednesday night. Thank goodness we didn't lose anything. Here are some pics of our containers:
This is it uncovered:
Here are a few that are on the deck:
Later I'll have some tomatoes in hanging baskets in the same window.
It has been raining here the last couple of days and 80% chance for the next three or four days. I really needed a few more dry days to finish my garden. I have 35 tomato plants planted and they are loving the rain but my planned planting of a few other plants has stalled because of the rains.
Yesterday I finally had an appointment for my initial evaluation by my local VA Outpatient Clinic. Lots of questions about my health and blood samples taken. I told them about my hip problem and a couple of other issues. No questions about weapons I may own. The VA Clinic sent me across the street to a hospital to have my hip X-Rayed.
There were only 4 other patients in the Clinic’s waiting room when I first arrived, none when I left. I arrived at 10:30 and was home by 12:30 even with the time needed to get X-Rayed.
I thought everything went very smoothly and quicker than I expected. I have an another appointment for next week.
Hi all, everything is growing well here finally. Have most of the garden planted, tomatoes, peppers, cukes, broccoli, radishes (fingers crossed as usual), herbs, beans, asparagus still coming in, have carrots, beets, chard left to plant and then I will probably be out of room. In our woods the mayapples are plentiful this year and it could be a good crop if I can beat the raccoons to them. It’s on my bucket list to try mayapple jelly. I even found a dozen wide mouth pint canning jars brand new with the lids and rings at a garage sale for 3.00 so it must be meant to be this year. Fingers crossed on the radishes because most years they bolt and I don’t get any or just a few. I have tried most every variety I can find.
Lemon Balm was new to me when I saw it at the garden center. Plant it around seating areas in the yard and it will discourage mosquitoes. As a tea it has a lemon flavor and is good for stomach problems.
Best of all, once it is established it is almost indestructible, it comes back evey year.
Everything is coming up here. We still have our raised beds with hoops wrapped like burritos. It creates mining teen houses. Perfect for our area’s short growing season. The spinach planted last fall is ready. The radishes look about ready, too. The lettuce is still tiny.
Our tobacco is still in the small portable greenhouse. It goes out next month. I bought a roll of 9 gauge wire, then cut it into 63” lengths. Study them in the area the tobacco will go. That will be coveted by plastic to up the warmth and speed growth.
I would post a photo, but I cannot find anything on how to do so. My little netbook is failing and I am reading/posting from a tablet. sigh....
May everyone have a great weekend!
Hi all! Not many changes from last week. However, it appears I may need to be learning about how to grow onions and garlic next season... or at any rate, later! The garlic plant I bought a few weeks ago is still alive, but does not appear happy. Parts of its leaves have browned. Since we have had a lot of rain, I am deducing that it has been too wet for it.
The garlic sets I planted had started sprouts, but they have shriveled and not reappeared either.
The lone walking onion is still holding its own.
T-Squash is getting bigger. Cucumbers are improbably blooming. Zucchini is getting size.
Sun Flowers are getting some size as are now finally the okra.
Some of the Amaranth are happy, but a different bunch are being chewed on something fierce.
The White Potatoes are really happy! One of them has started putting out some bloom buds. A couple of days ago Darlin took me to Lowes, and I bought some 1/4 inch wire mesh, 2 feet high. I used a string on the ground to determine how big a circumference I needed. I cut the mesh to match the length of the string, and wired it to a rebar pole. I dumped in some potting soil and compost and built up the dirt around it about 8-12”. I was very pleased at how it turned out, and I guess at some point I’ll dump some more dirt on it.
Sweet potatoes languishing in their vines and still need their dirt-dump.
Some of my legume plants have really started producing, which is a great shock to me! LOL!
We actually harvested a tomato! It was from the Beefsteak heirloom plant. The Purple Cherokee is VERY happy, with many blooms. There are blooms on the others as well, but not like the Cherokee. The atkins still are growing and not blooming yet.
Some of the red lilies we planted a number of years ago (and frankly, which we thought had died) have bloomed, with a few more buds getting ready too. They are BREATHTAKING!
Hope everyone else’s garden adventures are providing as much entertainment, knowledge, and exercise as mine are! I’m so grateful for everyone here. I always learn so much.
Almost forgot this. Link to ollas
http://urbanhomesteadsupply.com/garden-animals/tools-accessories/clay-pot-olla.html
Last year My fight aginst cancer took all my efforts. There was no time or energy for a veggie garden, so my 8 raised beds had the most FANTASTIC crop of weeds in history!
Then we had from Oct. thru April below normal temps here. It has only been in the last 2 weeks that it has started to warm up.
Well . . . I am feeling a bit stronger this year. Not by much, but enough to get the urge to garden again. I started a few flats of seeds back in March. About half of ‘em died, but the rest got stronger from the rough weather we had.
Today the plan is to start pulling the weeds and tall grass and hopefully find the raised beds. Then transplant the peppers I started and plant the seeds for the rest of the stuff I want to grow. I only plan to grow a few things that are real expensive or hard to find in the store.
My cucuzza is going outside today. It has 4 leaves and is getting close to 6 inches tall. Last week we had blistering temps in the 90’s and I had to put a row cover over one of the raised beds because the tender young plants were getting “cooked”. I thought it was too hot to put the cucuzza outside when it’s used to being inside in air conditioning. Today will be around 80 so I think it’s a good time - soil is moist from rain and I’ll put a gallon water jug over it to filter the direct sunlight for a couple of days. I hope it makes it since it’s the only seedling out of 6 seeds.
The two Trombetta di Albenga squash plants have been limping along, but in the last couple of days with cooler temps and soft rain, they have really taken off and are now starting to get those little “tendrils” that wrap around the fence and allow them to climb. They should be taking off. I might put a row cover over that bed as well - it’s surrounded on 3 sides by “cattle panel” for the plants to climb on so the cover will be high, but might help them a little. All my beds are in direct sun for the better part of the day and all the plants, with the exception of the tomatoes and peppers, appear to be suffering somewhat. Too hot, too cold - been a weird spring.
So how is it, when I went in today, there were 2 rolls with the wrong sticker again?
I asked Diana if it would be bad of me to take advantage of the same pricing error twice, and she said go ahead, so I again got 2 rolls at a nearly 75% discount. Somebody there either needs to learn to use a pricing gun, or else there's some hanky-panky going on.
I hope it gets straightened out. At the same time, I'm eternally grateful to Diana for letting me keep the discount. It was going to be October before I could afford to finish covering my garden. Now I'm almost there!
On the way home I stopped at a garage sale where I'd seen youth-sized recurve bows earlier that day. The bows were gone, but they had an auger-type post hole digger for $5. It should make planting trees and putting up fencing easier. Although it remains to be seen if my bad shoulder will put up with it. It's hard to predict sometimes what will or won't aggravate it.
Hoping to get out to the land tomorow. It's heating up around here, which makes it harder to work outside.
On the home front I'm about ready to replant 2 of my garden beds. AGAIN. The cucumbers and melons haven't sprouted at all, and only 2 of the 8 tomatoes are up.
The good news is, one of my nuna beans is growing! That one is going all for seed this year. Next year I'll cross it with a few things to see if I can get one better adapted to this climate, but for now I'm just glad something's there.
How to Make a Simple 5 Gallon Bucket Aeroponics System
The 5 gallon bucket aeroponic system is very simple to make and operate. It was designed to provide a compact and inexpensive way to grow food using 5 gallon food-grade buckets. The unit is only filled with less than 2 gallons of water, so it is much easier to transport than the popular 30 gallon tote aeroponics model.
Aeroponics is a really simple and worry-free way to grow and clone veggies and herbs. Aeroponics is growing vegetation without soil, but the roots are suspended and sprayed with water and/or nutrient solution. It is a worry-free way to clone most non-woody stemmed plants from cuttings. You can also grow plants to harvest in the system as well.
*************** This is an excerpt.More good info is at the source.
