Posted on 08/18/2017 11:47:23 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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Hops...I’d like to kill the hops my husband planted - they’re worse than morning glory (small backyard).
Actually got no plan other than consuming which could get - interesting.
I need to learn how to can. Obviously it cannot be that difficult since our parents and grandparents were doing it all across the nation for a long, long time.
I mean I get it about the jars, heating and sealing - just haven’t actually DONE it. I may have to cut up some tomatoes, dice and freeze them, as imperfect as that may be. I can still use them in some things.
She’s got 4 or 5 pretty good-sized splits. I placed it in warm water last night. Guess I’ll wrap it in a paper towel. There would still be some good parts - IF it ripens.
I put eggshells into every area of soil - sometimes a couple months before planting. I thought, “Why not?”
Thanks - grabbed all that text.
That’s a bummer.
I think I said cherry tomatoes but I think they are actually small Roma tomatoes.
I can at least tell an ear of corn! LOL
Had some fun grilling ears of corn a couple weeks ago. Soaked ‘em for at least 45 minutes but I let them run long. At one point I was turning them and about 4 or 5 caught on fire (the husks). That was fun. I just went and got the big bowl of water, dunked them one by one and then back on the grill.
It was all still great stuff with butter, salt and pepper. That’s all I ate one day - 3 ears.
Hi greeneyes!
One surprise this past week has been the amazing growth of the sprouted turmeric root I planted as an experiment a few weeks ago.
It had sprouted and I was entranced to see a couple of nice leaves emerge Then a third, and after the thing seemed well on its way, another root I planted, several inches in the pot away from the one already sprouting, also sprouted! Our temperate zone is too cold for it to survive winter, which is why I chose to plant it in a pot.
I honestly did not expect the silly thing to grow! - and certainly not the one which had not been treated in rooting compound! (That may be why it was tardy.)
Another thing we are pleased with is the happiness of our stevia plant, which also is potted because it must also be brought in during the winter.
Thanks for the report! Sorry to hear of your interrupted sleep. That is the pits. FWIW, if you and/or our thread participants are not aware of this, I was able to get off of my prescription sleep med by changing to the combination of GABA, Theanine, 5HTP, Melatonin, Benfotiamine, B6, and Niacin. I encourage anyone interested should do some research and see if it seems right for your own body.
One 5g. melatonin is just the ticket for me, really helps me to fall asleep.
I was watching Turn Washington Spies the other night and the main character went back to his farm after his part in the Revolution had concluded. He made the comment that his previous crop of cabbages had been ruined by slugs so he was planting later in the season hoping to avoid the problem. I had to laugh because over 200 years later I have the same problem and planted some cabbages later in the season. He was right .......no slugs. YEA!
Everything but my carrots and peas did WELL. Husbands squash crowded out my carrots. Woodchuck ate my peas.
Tomatoes look best in five years! YEA! Crossing my fingers that we have no hail or late blight. Six heirloom varietals. Only San Maranzio (?) redding up now. Every thing else still green. We have about 3 weeks left for them to finish up.
Tons of squash, great onions and garlic, cucumbers are FAB, horseradish are good, lettuce DONE, peppers still going, radish DONE, beets maybe, greenbeans coming on now, potatoes were decent and yummmy, peaches - got enough to do a decent batch of GREAT yam, but tree won’t recover, herbs good, raspberries look fab for fall - should do great in spite of Japanese beetles, carrot a dissapoinment as my husbands squash grew into their box and took the sun, lots a random flowers and a random scraggly cabbage. Some few other things.
The sweet corn I planted in buckets is looking good, but the truth will be known when I pick them and see if the kernels got fertilized. They are barely 4 feet tall including the 5-gallon buckets they are standing in, but they are dense! A friend gave me some seeds of Dakota Black Popcorn, so I planted some of them. The tassels on those had me puzzled since they didn't look like the sweet corn tassels at all. When does the pollen come out? They reminded me of elongated pine cones. I figured nature can deal with those, but -meh- apparently not. Stalks look nice, but the cobs I pulled off so far show only a handful of actual fertilized kernels on the cobs. Pooey.
Saw a video of someone hand fertilizing his corn by shaking off the dust from the tassels into a cup, trimming the silks like one gets a haircut - pull them all up, then cut them straight across like the hairdresser does, then dab a soft bristle artist's paintbrush into the dust and gently dab the dust onto the cut ends of the silks. Each silk is attached to one kernel of corn, and cutting the silks to the same length and dusting them all at once seems to be a good idea to get them all fertilized. Fine if you have five corn stalks; not so fine if you have an acre or more of them.
Anyhow, the one I hand dusted turned out full and delicious! The others that I did not dust are still growing; I'll see soon enough if doing that hand dusting is worth the bother. The pollen seems to be done, so if they didn't get dusted naturally, maybe the manual dusting is worth it while the pollen is available, assuming of course that I don't have an acre of cornstalks to mess with.
Next year I hope to have some sort of green house up.
I’m glad you have found something that work for you!
Something to consider: it is my understanding that our bodies can shut down our own production of hormones if we over-supplement them. I have been trying to take a lesser dose whenever possible.
The GABA is good for monkey mind or mind milling.
Just food for thought
I usually fall asleep while in prayer, shuts down those thoughts .
I have decided to grow additional garlic this year-wish I could remember what I ordered several years ago - it has done great and gives me very nice big cloves-kinda looking to see if I can find it - I keep a file of internet orders for each year-so If I filed it, I should have it.
I remember I ordered 2 different kinds. One did poorly and one did great.
I’m going to plant a couple of tomatoes that I collected last year and some that I just received for next year’s planting and see which ones do the best indoors this winter.
Since I chickened out on planting the corn this late - 55 days to maturity, I am going just use the bed I had prepared for the corn for the extra garlic.
I also need to start getting the winter wheat beds prepped. One of the only things that I have successfully grown in the space that is too close to the Walnut tree.
It apparently doesn’t get too bothered by the toxin, and gets enough sun since the leaves fall off and don’t return too early in Spring.
One of those beds is currently being used for compost, so I just won’t plant that till spring. Maybe a quick crop that matures quickly and is cold tolerant- Will have to think about it and refresh my memory on what I can plant that doesn’t succumb to walnut toxicity.
Roma’s are hard to beat. Hubby got the best crop he’s had for a while using 5 gallon buckets, after he added bone meal and Epsom salts to take care of blossom end rot.
This year he planted two other varieties - not much produced and they almost all have mushy spots etc.
JRandomFreeper always just planted Romas period.
Using egg shells regularly is an great thing to do. I make it a point to save some of the shells separate from the other compost.
After they dry, I put them in one of my old blender containers and grind them to a fine powder, when I’m lazy, I just smash them by hand. Sometimes I add in bone meal and Epsom salts. Makes a fine additive for the tomatoes.
So far, I’ve never had blossom end rot. Some people put a tum anti-acid tablet in the pot for a quick boost. IIRC, Diana rinses milk jugs and waters the tomato plants with that.
I have some old instant milk that I forgot about and it’s way past expiration, so I’m thinking about using it next year.
I’m glad fall is coming, because the summer garden has been such a fizzle. LOL The spring stuff did great, and the garlic I planted last fall was good too.
Hubby has two medium size zukes and a few cukes and squashes - not enough for processing in the canner. He only had enough tomatoes for one batch.
So I’m going to make a quart of frig cukes and onions - no cooking. Just vinegar, water, spices, and sugar. I usually can some pickled sweet and spicy zukes, but don’t know if I’ll ever get enough to do that this year.
If not, I’ll dehydrate for zuke chocolate cake - Diana posted a link for a recipe.
I bought a bunch of frozen blueberries to dehydrate for my pantry - I think it’s probably cheaper than buying them. I want to try out a pemmican recipe in Fallon’s Cookbook.
Thanks. I have found that I prefer to grow the cherry tomatoes, and I have better luck with those. Chives and basil seem to be the herbs that I can do.
Parsley and carrots - same family don’t do well for some reason. Dill either doesn’t come up or dies. Rosemary and Lemon Balm just hang on and exist - don’t seem to grow a bit and then die when frost comes around.
But cherry tomatoes, basil, garlic, chives, lettuce, endive, and spinach are the main things I got this year, and that’s a good combo.
Those stink bugs - I used diatomaceous earth last year sprinkled some on the soil and mixed it up and sprayed on and under the leaves.
Hornworms don’t strike till around this time, and usually only one or two so I pick them off and cut them in two with the trimmers.
I have also squashed the stink bugs, but they give me the creeps, so I really don’t like to do that.
I think that the homemade pepper spray would work on them, but I was too lazy to make a batch.
Just take some garlic and smash it, chop up an onion never mind about peeling off the husks and put them in a quart jar, put in some cayenne pepper and fill with boiling water. I put a metal spoon in the jar so that it won’t crack. Put a lid or dish on to cover and let it sit 24 hrs.
Then strain through a dish cloth into the srayer. A drop of dish washing liquid or oil, shake it up and you are good to go. Don’t spray when the bees are out. It is lethal.
The first batch I made, a bug ran across the basement, and I squirted him. He immediately rolled over on his back and 30 seconds later ceased all movement - dead as a doornail. I couldn’t believe it. No more insecticides needed here. LOL
Sounds like a plan.
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