Posted on 06/29/2018 6:57:26 PM PDT 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.
This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked.
It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no telling where it will go and... that is part of the fun and interest. Jump in and join us!
NOTE: This is a once a week ping list. We do post to the thread during the week. Links to related articles and discussions which might be of interest are welcomed any time-and don't have to be about gardening.
Thanks. Tubebender. I really appreciate it. So I noodled around with my flip phone and figured out how to send my photos to email-sort of. Not all went through.
Anyway the top photo is a view taken inside the greenhouse looking out at the retaining wall which hubby just painted that icky red but it’s an improvement. LOL
On the other side of the wall is some of my raised beds. About 24 feet along the wall. Table and a couple of chairs for morning coffee in the winter time from Granny’s house.
The bottom picture is of the volunteer squash that started right next to the compost bin that is to the right rear of the photo. On the left and behind the squash is the volunteer tomato that came up in the other raised bed.
Both of these raised beds will have additional logs added to them next year and additional better dirt/compost. The tomato is in the bed that is totally the old clay dirt with very little added to it-the top 2 inches of sod from the added patio area made of the red pavers and to the left of the bed with the tomato in it.
those things are huge!!!
There is a you tube video that I saw from the extension center @ a Florida University. She used a styrofoam cooler - very easy and inexpensive, IIRC. I didn’t save the link though.
So, your carrots grew: congratulations!
We’ll get a good crop of them again this year. Peas are ready to start picking; time is the problem, since Mrs AR has been in the hospital all week; that’s a 40 mile drive each way every day, after work.
Been into the 90s most of the week, and dry until today: 3/4 inch fell, so the crops are saved.Wouldn’t be such a problem, if the irritation pump was working. It’s 220V, and I only have power on one leg at the outlet. That means filling jugs, hauling them to the garden, then either filling wells, or using the watering can, depending. IF(big IF) I’m lucky, it’ll just be a bad circuit breaker or outlet.
Needless to say, that does not work for potatoes. For them, I have to fill the transfer tank in town, then put the faucet adapter on the 2” outlet line, connect a garden hose, and let gravity do its job. That is a real time eater.
Hubby’s carrots. I’m going to try some in a pot later for the fall extended season.
I hope your get your garden watering system fixed without big expense. I know that hauling water and using cans is the pits.
My 70-75 onions were a bust. Not much growth over 3-4 months. The tops were 3 feet to 4 feet long. But very little production. The seemingly soft topsoil turned very hard - I don’t know if they could have grown in that or not.
Meanwhile, several tomato plants combined in a big pot (church sale). Pepper plants doing well. Nothing on either yet but one set of tomato plants has the yellow bells or whatever they’re called. That’s where the tomatoes will be. About a dozen of those started.
I started some pepper seeds. I should have 4 months easy to get them matured. We’ll see.
sorry about the onions. Not sure what caused it. Maybe hard soil or maybe nutrient deficiency?
Egg shells, Miracle-Grow, good loose dirt but watered multiple times and no worms = concrete.
I barely chopped one normal size onion, in total, out of ALL of it. There are 3 less-than-golfball size rinsing out with a 4th smaller one.
Oh well! I still have 20 bulbs or so but I’m gonna try my other stuff. Maybe I’ll pull out those Marconi pepper seeds and take another shot with 2 or 3 watermelon seeds.
NOW to HIJACK the thread if ANY OF YOU have a coupon subscription and you see AUTOZONE or O’REILLY ONLINE CODES I’ve got to order parts for someone else’s car.
Supposedly there’s a $25 off and a $25 gift card at Autozone and maybe a discount at O’Reilly. If any of you can share those codes for June or July, well, I can only offer thanks for a good deed.
O.K., off to go catch up on some TV. Night all. Just watered all my plants since it’s still almost 90 degrees.
I’d wager they’re chipmunk holes.
You’ll need to get a trap small enough for them.
Bait the trap with black oil sunflower seeds.
If it’s rats I’d set out a poison station.
But the rats *might* not take the bait with BBs at hand unless they get tired of raiding your BBs.
Hi Everybody!
(((HUGS)))
We have a glass stove top. I have done hot water bath canning, but it takes a long time for the water to heat up which is very annoying, plus I’m afraid of cracking the top with the weight of the canner.
Doing some research, I saw an article on using indoor butane burners - they were safe for indoor use and worked really well. I was trying to find that article, but couldn’t find the exact one. Here is another article and I excerpted what it says about the butane burners below - this statement looks like it came from the original article I can’t find at the moment. Anyway, another option to consider!
Indoor butane burner for cannning
Some people recommend for indoor use a butane burner on Amazon called “Iwatani ZA-3HP Portable Butane Stove Burner” (affiliate link.) It is relatively inexpensive, and certified safe by the manufacturer for indoor use. A full, brand new cartridge will handle the time required (including getting up to pressure) for a 90 minute pressure canning processing session.
“A Master Food Preserver writes to Healthy Canning, “Recommend butane burners to those with glass top stoves or insufficient clearance to fit an All American. One can of butane will handle one whole processing, although I don’t think it will do two, so we save used cans for jams and pickles with short processing times. We regularly use these butane burners in classes, with pressure canners as big as All Americans and they perform beautifully.”6
Link: https://www.healthycanning.com/canning-on-hot-plates-or-portable-burners/
The Ball Blue Book has some good recipes that can be canned with a water bath if you run out of freezer space.
Our power is dodgy in bad weather so I prefer things that don’t need electricity to store when I can manage it.
One of our neighbors cans gallons worth of pint jars of tomato soup every summer. They practically live on ‘tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwich’ in the winter.
To be sure, too many tomatoes is a better problem to have than none at all *grin*
I’ve used my cook-top stove to wb can. No issues!
However, I use a boiler that holds only 4 quart jars.
I much prefer using my propane cooker outdoors to wb can.
Doesn’t heat up the kitchen!
Thanks for the tip.
Thanks for the ping.
Smoke bomb? Run a hose into the holes and flush them out with water?
Great idea about the water bath canner! I’m going to go find one.
Last year I did oven canning, which turned out really well. Granted, it heats up the kitchen, but it was a lot less messy than water bath canning.
Only lost ONE jar that obviously didin’t seal properly and ‘blew up’ in the pantry, leaving a nice mess.
Maybe I didn’t come out ahead? LOL!
Ball Electric Canner. My birthday is in July. Guess what Beau is ‘buying’ for me? LOL!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.