Posted on 05/12/2017 5:20:31 PM PDT by greeneyes
The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds.
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Had a '88 Low Rider and a '93 Dyna Wide Glide.
Loved those Evos!
Greetings from southern New Hampshire! Tuesday, I picked up our two new packages of honey bees and installed them in our two hives.
Sunday, I am going back home to get our raised beds ready for planting.
Bookmarked....
My 3 of 7 Dixie Hybrid Squash seem all dead.
BUT I got another squash $1.44 package, Straightneck Yellow Squash came with a LOT more seeds. Looks like 25-30. Got almost half in good dirt, let’s see what happens.
The Bush Early Girl seeds seem stuck the past 6-8 weeks (indoors). Just don’t get any bigger or stronger. I’m afraid to put them in the Sun since my carrots and other things didn’t seem to survive. 4 were like 36 cents.
Almost all the seeds I got from store-bought peppers are roaring. I’ll have to thin them and move them apart (where I don’t any idea). There have to be 150-200 plants at least, growing. They’re about 2-2.5 inches.
The Bush Early Girl PLANT has at least 14 tomatoes going on her right now. A couple-three good-sized (for the small amount of time) and a whole bunch of little fellers popping up. Always a good producer.
Have a new pepper plant - gotta check the name again, Rosemary plant (strong) and a Sweet Basil pot with 3 good plants. Plus a whole mess of other stuff. A pot of seeds for California Green Peppers is coming up good. Gonna have a mess of peppers.
Plus, seeds from the Sweet Snacking Pepper from last year (3 peppers total - bright orange) have about 12-15 plants going. Jalapeno peppers.
Plus I’ve taken seeds out of Roma, Grape and another fist-sized tomato. With the BEG, gonna have at least 4 types of tomato.
Nothing in the 3x6 bed yet. Was gonna do BEG seeds but I don’t think they’re strong enough yet. May put store peppers in there (another 40 or so growing). Some other carrots (forgot which) going but after early sprout seem to be weakening - don’t know if I’ll get carrots of any size this year.
I had planted Serrano Pepper seeds but nothing - they’re still incredibly cheap at the store. 4 were like 36 cents with tax.
wish I knew how to add pictures.
was in NJ recently and double white lilacs as well as usual lavender lilacs were beautiful, as was pink dogwood. It was a real treat to see them in bloom since I usually do’t get there this time of year. Also peonies were growing buds, sorry to miss their flowering.
my folks getting older and tired of ground hogs, ticks, deer etc but still wanting fresh grown veggies so they are readying to try a new gardening planter on the back deck. I don’t recall the name. they tend to get starter veggie plants.
I’m still hoping to get some outdoor potted plants or herbs where I am.
We had rain come in Thursday - still raining this morning & will probably end up with around 2 inches. The rain should finally clear out later today. It’s been very cool - 50’s during the day, down in the 40’s a couple of nights.
I decided to plant my regular raised beds Wednesday, before the rain. Two are being used in the traditional manner & I have a straw bale experiment in the other two. I bought 6 tomatoes & some pepper plants & have kept them tucked next to the straw bales (warm from decomposing) during the coldest nights & they came through fine. Everything I planted looks great, even in the cooler weather. Next week it will be in the 80’s & sunny so the plants should start to grow.
The straw bale garden is just about ready to plant in mid-week. It is now growing a bumper crop of mushrooms, which is normal and a good sign that decomp is happening so the plants will have something to grow in.
I’ve had big grass bins set up to warm water during the day for the straw bales & realized quite a few birds are coming to them for water. This means they’ll have to stay full to the top - do not want any birds leaning in too far, falling in & drowning.
Nice!
My old Sportster was an Evo too. It was an odd one...an 1100. I put a big tank on it and did a custom paint job, regeared it and put a Series E carb and drove 17 hours from Boston to the Appalachians. No rubber mounts on the engine, but that’s the way some of us gals like it...FEEL the Road.
I traded it for the FXR in 93, but I have been told that the old Sporty is still chugging around in VA somewhere! LOL
Good Morning from North Fort Worth where temps are in the 80’s. Garden is really looking good but that is only because we haven’t reached the scorching summer temps yet. Had a little bit of a shock the other day when I realized the package of broccoli seeds I planted 2 months ago turned out to be cabbages. I have a dozen cabbages growing now that I didn’t really want and no broccoli. May try to go to Home Depot this weekend to see if they have any plants since it is too late for seeds.
Oooh. Can I pick your brain on chickens? I’m hoping to set up a flock this year, but I desperately need birds that can’t fly worth crap. :D Our fence is four feet high and while I can reinforce the garden, I’d rather not do it for the acre and a half we have fenced.
Very pleasant in SoCal this week and I spent part of the morning propagating a few of my succulents. Love the colors and the way they keep having “babies” so I don’t have to spend money to add to my garden.
My brother works in concrete. He told me of a neat trick for keeping mobile home incoming water systems from freezing. Wrap a concrete insulation blanket around the pressure reducing valve and associated piping, that with some heat tape on the piping within the blanket should keep everything from freezing.
Great idea, Thanks! I have the heat tape, now I should just insulate it.
I went to the local Amish gardening center. I’m like a kid in a candy store happy, lol. Re-potted my two big cactus plants, a Blue Agave and Century plant. I won’t be able to lift these pots if they get much bigger. One of my two enormous tree planter pots got various peppers. The one in front got Ornamental Indian corn, Crown of Thorns gourds, and some mini (Red Ruffled Eggplant) Pumpkin on a Stick seeds. I’m hoping for some fall color. One of my friends gave me an ear of Goliath Silo Filler corn. I’m thinking of growing a very small row of these between two landscape timbers. I’m not sure I can handle a plant 25 foot tall though, very windy here at times.
Chickens are the ONLY thing around here that will eat the adult Japanese Beetles - the copper & green ones, not the ones that look like lady bugs - NO ONE eats them, or Box Elder Bugs. YUCK!
I had a Jung’s customer who helped us out greatly in the Nursery Yard - she wasn’t the least bit squeamish, and she’d pick off Japanese Beetles as she found them (Yes, we had a few, despite traps and all that) and she’d take them home and give them to her chickens.
While I KNOW what goes into a chicken and comes out an egg - there are some things I DON’T want to know, LOL!
ALSO - the Plum Preserves you gave me last summer for my Birthday? We ate half of it, but then the Orioles showed up and I had no grape jelly, so I gave them some of the plum and they are really enjoying it. They’re pretty demanding, already, the Freeloaders! :)
Butting in:
Beau planted Sweet Corn in APRIL this year - which is super-DUPER early for The Frozen Tundra. He got about 12 to germinate, amazingly...then they got nipped by frost, but are still hanging in there! We got the rest of the Sweet Corn in last week - we did, ‘Honey Select’ and two Jung varieties - ‘Extra Sweet’ and ‘Extra Early’ I think?
We also planted two short rows of ‘Puffy Pop’ popcorn. We are really liking growing our own Popcorn; we’re both Popcorn Junkies...much to our Dentist’s delight! ;)
WOW! That’s SO pretty! I love those ‘California Poppies!’ Our blood-red ‘Potter’s Field’ Poppies will be blooming a few days ahead of their usual Memorial Day, this year. We’re ahead on heat for a change. :)
What’s the darker purple perennial? I KNOW I know it, but it’s escaping me. I see either a Salvia or a Lavender near the road to the right?
I sold a zillion of those pouches at Jung’s. People really love them, though they DO require some maintenance and are easy to kill off.
That ‘Al’ that invented those pouches really hit the Gold Mine with that idea!
The garden is 100% ready to receive. I pretty much know who is going where right now and there is a RUMOR of two more raised beds in my near future for flowers. Happy, Happy!
A mish-mash of lettuces and leftover tulips and daffs with Alium soon to bloom.
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