I just discovered something. Not only have the fonts changed on Freerepublic, but I’ve also discovered that now I seem to be unable to open two windows of FR at a time. I was in the middle of a post and needed to find a reference on another thread, and when I pulled it up, I discovered that my page with my post went poof. Just a heads up for others with swiss cheese memory like mine!
Congrats on your garden, Silentgypsy!
My garden is doing OK. I’d been wondering why things weren’t getting larger, and I had a couple of “DUH!” moments this past week.
My tomatoes and squash family plants, and peppers have all been experiencing blossom drop. Darlin said I needed to get some blossom drop hormone. It was difficult to find but we did finally get some. It does seem to help make the blossoms stronger, and now that I have some more tomato flowers, and we’ll see if it works!
I was in a side discussion about blossom drop with another thread participant when I found these links which I thought others might find helpful:
http://www.gardeners.com/buy/vegetable-blossom-set-spray/34-444.html
http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/tomato/msg0313545916543.html
http://www.planetnatural.com/product/tomato-blossom-set-spray/
The other DUH moment was when the lady with whom I shared some of my t-squash, okra, and sunflower seedlings was waxing about how wonderful her plants are developing, that she is so pleased with them, and appreciates my gift to her. [She is amazing... 80 years old, gardener/nurse/chef...] The T squash of hers was taking off and taking over the back fence. Mine is about a food high. I asked what she was doing. She looked at me with her little angelic face, and said, “oh I just put a little Miracle gro on it!”
I was GOBSMACKED! DUH!!!” with all the rain and distraction of some other projects, I had forgotten to feed them! Poor starving creatures! I guess I had shied away subconsciously from it because, as those who may recall my disaster from last year, I thought then if a little bit of fertilizer would be good, then a LOT would be better. To my sorrow I discovered this was not in any way true! So now this year you see me go to the other extreme!
So I fertilized a few days ago. The squash seems to be blooming, and we’re hoping they don’t drop. The cucumber plant has a tiny baby started. (Last year I had a lot of that, but the little ones didn’t always develop.) I had been wondering why the Asian trellis beans have beans longer than the plant was tall. Yesterday I found that it had finally put out some climbing tendrils. Sunflowers are as tall as me, okra and potatoes are green and thriving. Legumes are blossoming and podding. The emmer has not headed, but it may have been stressed with being in too small a pot.
I hope everyone’s garden is growing, fecund, and abundantly green!
My wife uses a granule type fert that work when they get rained on or watered, that could help you out some. We use MG on the veggies since we have landscape fabric over the garden.
We have weeds growing in places where the ground has been bare as a bone for years. Thanks for the links.
Just remember The G in garden is just like the G in Goldilocks. They both like stuff to be just right.LOL