Posted on 07/27/2019 7:18:06 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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My squash, melons, and cucumbers are starting to catch up. A lot of them have blossoms already! I was really glad to see the watermelons are doing well. The melon I took the seeds from wasn’t quite entirely ripe, but I took a chance.
I can’t tell for sure if my eggplants even sprouted yet. There’s a weed that looks exactly like them at this stage. I either have a good crop of eggplants, or a good crop of black nightshade. Have to wait until they bloom to be sure. The eggplants are one of my cash crops, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed. It doesn’t help that all the other weeds got ahead of me and are taller than the plants! I’m hacking through them as carefully as I can, trying to catch up.
My corn and beans are way behind, but they’re both fast growers. We’ll see how they do.
The deer and rabbits are fat, though.
“Watermelon juice is the best!”
THAT I agree with - as long as *I* don’t have to do the juicing. I was on a Carrot Juice kick for a while there - Bolthouse Farms makes a really good one.
But then, I got on with my life, LOL! It was an expensive habit! ;)
OK. You may have converted me with the Watermelon Margaritas! :)
Wow! That is SOME temperature difference! In SE Wisconsin, we are heading back into a few days of high humidity and high heat. I am hustlin’ this morning to get some outside chores accomplished because I have a feeling I won’t be moving much for the next few days.
New furnace and A/C are being installed in August! Yay! :)
Great maps! I’m adjusting my entire ‘gardening game plan’ to the Solar Minimum that we’re going to be going through for quite a number of years to come.
Shorter-day and Determinate Tomatoes, and planting more ‘spring’ crops again in the fall months. My greenhouse is going to come in handy for extending the season on either end, too.
In, Around, Under, or Through in Gardening as it is in all aspects of life! :)
That would be interesting as a sugar substitute. It would probably take a lot more melons than sugar beets to make, though?
My sister in Maine has a Walking Coon Hound/Lab who can climb trees! LOL! :-)
WOW. I love chili peppers. I’ve never seen any of orange spice, Jalapeno lemon spice or the pumpkin spice. I’ll have to ask HEB, here in TX where I can find them, maybe Krogers. Golly those would be fun. I LOVE Jalapenos, when eating “Mexican” in a restaurant, I always ask for a WHOLE Raw pepper. Sometimes the waiter looks a little strange at me. I LOVE Them.
Have you ever tried growing them?
Now dont go chug-a-lugging them down.
They taste real good....but in the end the alcohol content will put you away.....LOL.
I have found a new insect in my garden and am wondering if anyone has some information or can answer a question.
It is called a “Banded Longhorn Beetle” and looks like a beetle wearing a yellow jacket type colors.
I am 100% positive in the ide notification of this beetle.
Insectidentifier says it lays larvae in tree bark and likes to crawl around flowering plants and eat pollen in gardens.
I found it on a green bean leaf.
I want to know if it pollinates as it moves around the flowers or I’d it is just snacking on my green bean flowers and screwing me over.
I cannot seem to find an answer to this question.
Nevermind... haha.
As soon as I posted my question I found an alternate name for the same beetle with an answer to my question.
A banded longhorn beetle is also called a “flower longhorn beetle” and IS a pollinator.
Bad news in my greenhouse. Cucumber plant are getting hammered by powdery mildew.
Some plants may completely die while 65-75% look as if they will survive.
Grrrr....
Fighting it with a spray of water, dish soap, and sodium bicarbonate, but I get a VERY late start fighting it because AI did not recognize it at the start.
My wife would normally spend a month in England anyway so on one of her trips she booked an extra 2 weeks in Almunecar, a Spanish resort about 75km from Malaga airport. Technically any resort in Spain is a Spanish resort but Almunecar is a town where mostly Spanish citizens go to vacation so you rarely hear any other languages being spoken. Anyway, she had several appointments with real estate agents and visited homes both East and west of Almunecar but didn't fall in love with anything. Then one afternoon on her free time while she was exploring the town she saw an ad that looked promising in the window of a local real estate company. She asked for an appointment to view and liked what she saw, enough for us to make an offer and buy it before she left Spain. It was 600 meters from the seafront but 90 meters above sea level so we have a lovely view, not only of the Mediterranean but also of the town and the mountains. We even have a castle in front of us. There are 3 rocks that jut out into the sea that we can see from our terrace ad our bedroom window. On top of the rock closest to land is a large cross that is lit up at night. That cross marks the spot where the Moors were driven out of Spain after 750 years of rule (coincidentally the ruler Al-Andaluz landed at that same spot to establish his kingdom. That is why the region is referred to as Andalucia. It's also why there is a castle there. This was an important seaport since Phonecian times.) Ferdinand and Isabella took over the Moorish fortress the Alhambra in Granada and made it their own. It was there that they decided to bankroll the expedition of Christopher Columbus, and the rest is history. So I can see a connection to America from my terrace :-)
We moved here in 2016 and have done extensive renovations to put our own stamp on the home. For purposes of the gardening thread our house is in an equivalent of growing zone 10B so we can keep our plants outside year round. We are a short walk from the beach but it gets very crowded in the summertime so we have a fallback:
As for the Camino de Santiago that is in Northern Spain. I walked from Sarria to Santiago, about 125km, last year and this year we flew to Santiago to see the grand reopening of the Portico of Glory at the Cathedral. It only costs about 25 Euros each way to fly to Santiago so I may walk it again in the fall. You're thinking of Cape Finisterre, which was considered the end of the Earth before Columbus. That is a side trip many people do after the pass through Santiago. I didn't go there because I didn't think it would be much different from what I can already see out the window.
I went to New Mexico for work training a few years ago....even the fast food restaurants have chili peppers on the menu.
Ooooh....good idea!
Wow Wow Wow, thanks for sharing and the pictures. Quite a journey. Looks like you have a gorgeous set up. As far as the Camino de Santiago, I know a couple of people who have done the walk, watched the movie The Way maybe a ten times. I would love to try and do it but I was in better shape about 10 years ago. It would be iffy now. Such beautiful countryside! Thanks again for sharing.
We need just a running thread from you with recipes please.....then just link to it in these gardening threads.
Because I LOVE your recipes but am now no longer keeping recipes on paper.....:(
Pretty please???
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