Posted on 12/09/2016 7:58:30 PM PST 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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Not much doing with the garden, but I did get in two nice seed catalogs. Southern Exposure and Baker's Creek. Still eating a handful of cherry tomatoes from the vines I stuck in dirt and brought in before our first freeze.
I really should have put some straw on the garlic and on top of the row covers on the lettuce and greens, but I just didn't want to brave the cold. I did make a quick trip over to do my strength training, but that's the first time I went anywhere this week.
Prayer's up for all. Have a great weekend. God Bless.
It’s really cold here too...and I never finished raking all the leaves.
Oh Well.
Pinging the List.
LOL. We didn’t even get started raking the leaves really. I just swept them off the patio on one side.
Hubby was busy using the chipper to make wood chips. The electric company came through and trimmed a bunch of trees in the neighborhood, and they gave them to him.
We still have a huge pile of very large chips that he has been putting into his chipper to make much smaller chips that we can use as mulch.
The dry season is starting here. I separated Aloe Vera this week and moved the small plants to a new bed
I’m in the San Fran bay Area (Marin County). We have a lot of Walnut Trees planted here. Many up and down neighborhood streets. Walnut trees tend to grow only so high, then no higher. They have beautiful purple blossoms in the spring. The blossoms look a lot like Wisteria for a few weeks.
The Walnuts will also do a lot of color shifting in late autumn as in right now. I see several Walnut Trees ablaze in scarlet, yellow ochre and tangerine. For a deeper red, there is always one version of the Japanese Maple to rely on. The Maple foliage becomes the color of Merlot wine and stays that way for months.
What type of walnut trees do you have? We have black walnuts and butternut trees. They are native and were here when we bought the lots.
We tried to plant various others in the front yard, but none of them were ever able to survive - the front yard’s soil is particularly bad.
Friend (at the gas station!) gave me a couple Rosemary branches a couple days ago - dried in oven after washing. 175 F for 2 hours.
Not a lot of spice but should be enough for 2-3 dishes if I’m careful.
I don’t personally own any Walnut trees, but many nearby property owners include them in landscaping. I’m not sure what kind of Walnut they are. Whatever the species, they all seem to be quite similar in the springtime. I rarely get to see any actual nut harvest, as they will be quickly plucked away by either property owners , raccoons or by grey squirrels.
The cold came in last night ..... pretty nippy around here. There’s a possibility of an ice storm next weekend - ugh, but at least our generator situation is all up to snuff as of Wednesday.
Today, I took hot banana pepper mush I froze toward the end of the growing season & turned it into 8 pints of hot pepper butter for Christmas gifts. It’s the first time I’ve made this recipe & it’s very tasty. I had to use clear gel for thickening - first time I’ve used that, too. The finished product is a solid medium on “heat”, maybe creeping towards the upper end of medium - I like it, but some folks in the family will need something milder.
That leaves me two more projects before Christmas & they’ll likely happen this weekend - apple chutney & wine jelly. I already have salsa, jalapeno pepper jelly & now the hot pepper butter so I can mix and match to suit who is getting what. My nephew, who isn’t into hot/spicy or much of anything else ‘canned’ will be getting a batch of crockpot meatballs ... I’m fairly certain he’ll like them & since he doesn’t cook, it will give him something besides Chik-Fil-A to eat for a day, maybe two.
I love canning. Now that I’ve collected the equipment over the summer, had some success and built a bit of confidence, I can’t wait until next year’s garden when the produce starts coming in. :-)
Such an odd start to winter....2 weeks ago here in NE Ohio it was 60* out and now finally 10 days into December we have signs of snow (after Chicago getting nearly 1/4-1/3 of their annual snow in one day last week).
Wife finally decided that the late Okra she brought in from outside wasn’t going to do anything else despite the buds on top...all the leaves had dropped weeks ago.
I’m thinking we are in for a hard and long winter starting in late January through mid April. Bits about Farmer’s almanac and just the feeling in the bones....Almost feel like a repeat of ‘78 in the midwest to me and I was just 10/11 then....course no one really knows what it’ll be, so just wait and see.
I’m reluctant to start things indoors this year as I’m out of a job and looking...likely will need to move...such a pain when it comes to th green...wife will want to take most of what we’ve planted over the past 10 years if it comes to that....(NOT a selling point...LOL)
I sometimes freeze it. Next year I am going to make a tincture.
Hubby gathers ours up, cracks and freezes the nutmeats. I can eat the butternuts, but I don’t like the black walnuts. I prefer the English walnuts.
I just found this and will post something tomorrow ever if it’s just a photo of the mud...
I have been asking hubby to check out the generator for weeks. Hope all is ok, cause if the electric goes out, the basement family room will have zero heat.
I too really like canning. This is the time of year I like it the most - I buy up about 10 or 15 lbs of whatever meat is on sale, and can it. Makes a very tasty, tender and quick meal when needed.
I may try making some beef vegetable soup this year for hubby, since he likes to just heat and eat various soups.
how can I force my amaryllis and paper whites so they’ll be ready for Christmas?.....I potted them at Thanksgiving....
There has been a lot of weird weather reported this past week in the USA and other countries. I ran a cross a you tube video saying that lots of retired navy and intelligence people settle in Southwest Missouri and Northern Arkansas.
Supposedly due a significant elevation above sea level. However, it’s also subject to lots of tornado, storms, and electrical outages, and the winter can sometimes be pretty bad.
I think I heard that Joe Bastardi was predicting this summer a repeat of 70s type of weather-much worse than some of the recent ones.
I recall the early 80s the most, because I had just started to commute 75 miles to St. Louis. There was an overnight snowfall of 21 inches overnight. When I tried to call in, the phone rang and rang, until a security guard finally answered and told me that no one was going anywhere and to not worry about staying home.
Two days later, I got caught in a blizzard on the way home that added a huge amount of the white stuff on top of the first batch. I missed the first turnoff the interstate to go home, just couldn’t see it till I was on the overpass. Had to stop and clean off the windshield every 15 or 20 minutes. Took forever to get home.
That year, there was only 1 day of school for January and February. Very memorable winter. 1978 was not so hard for me, as I was teaching, and only had to drive 3 miles to school, and got to stay home on really bad days. Plus we had a wood stove in the basement, and 2 fireplaces upstairs and lots of firewood gathered from the National Forest.
I look forward to seeing your pics.
It would be nice to see some mud................
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