Posted on 08/24/2019 6:00:41 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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What sort of flowers will you be growing?
My zone isn’t too terribly different from yours. Just wondering what would be happy here.
I’m scared to try perennials, they’re spendy and I’m afraid I’d just kill them with heat/humidity/idiocy.
The meat chickens are getting big enough that I’m thinking of harvesting a few earlier than anticipated. So now dad has decided he wants me to find homes for them instead.
*facepalm*
Winter comes, I have fried tomatoes, onions with a slice of cheese.
Since I planted 9 cherry tomato plants, I have tomatoes all over the place. Pick about 60 a day.
Oh my!!
Wide assortment. All sun-loving (trees gone) for zone 9. Hibiscus, impatiens, Blue Carpet Catmint, Yellow Asclepias, Phlox, . . .
I got very good w/annual zinnias, but they were direct sow.
Firearms.
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I laughed out loud .... it is the FINAL/ULTIMATE solution!
My mom has hostas and the deer treat it like a gourmet salad bar. They also LOVE daylily buds & will eat rose leaves, young sunflowers, etc. too.
The only thing we found that works for sure is to put plastic netting over/around things. I use plastic netting with pvc frames to make fences for my raised bed garden. They could lean over & munch the plant tops around the edge, but it’s ‘tight’ enough they do not jump in. I have had no deer (or bunny) problems since using the fencing.
The other thing that, from our personal experience, is somewhat effective is “Milorganite” fertilizer. I’ll give you a link below. From the website: Milorganite is composed of heat-dried microbes that have digested the organic material in wastewater. It’s manufactured by the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, which captures waste water from the metropolitan Milwaukee area and uses naturally occurring microbes to digest the nutrients. After the organic matter has been consumed, the cleaned water is returned to Lake Michigan and the resulting material is dried and marketed as Milorganite.
From my personal experience, Milorganite has a slightly ‘funny’, maybe musty smell and the deer do not like it. When we sprinkle it around our plants, the plants like it & thrive and as long as we keep things “smelly”, the deer tend to stay away. I have used this stuff for years in the garden as a fertilizer & it’s a really good one IMO (doesn’t burn, slow release). Mom uses it around her hostas & it appears to help keep the deer (mostly) at bay.
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Deer info - links from Milorganite site. Milorganite® fertilizer makes no claims regarding its use as a deer repellent.
https://www.milorganite.com/application/files/4014/7267/4233/Univ_of_GA_food_plot.pdf
Conclusion: We concluded that Milorganite®, when broadcast over newly emerging soybeans, is an effective temporary deer repellent, which reduces negative effects of deer browsing and benefits wildlife food plot establishment. However, the repellent does not eliminate deer damage, and efficacy varies by location.
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https://www.milorganite.com/application/files/8714/7267/4463/Univ_of_GA_ornamental_plantings.pdf
Conclusion: From these results, we concluded that Milorganite has potential as a deer repellent for ornamental plants. Though the repellent did not eliminate deer damage, it reduced the overall impact. The effectiveness of a repellent is highly dependent on climatic conditions, deer density & resource availability. High deer densities and low resource availability may reduce the efficacy of Milorganite as a repellent. Reduction of plant damage may further be improved if Milorganite is reapplied when deer damage is initially observed. Further research involving application rates and different plant varieties will prove useful in determining the deer’s tolerance level to Milorganite.
So you cut the cherry tomatoes in half, put them in a plastic baggy and then make them lay flat to freeze?
Trying to understand here. We’ve got cherry tomatoes and that might be good to use in sauce or other stuff this winter. Anything that doesn’t involve generating heat in my kitchen right now is appreciated.
I’ve thought about starting the more hardy hibiscus from seed. I’m going to try to remember to order some seed this winter & do that. We’ve got several really sunny spots that might be good for those.
The rest sound really pretty.
I baby sit a bunch of old men at a Dennys on Saturday mornings but will be back here later. As I reported last week a flock of Raccoons devastated our 2019 corn crop. The local weather has been phenomenal this summer due to “Gorebal” sWarming.
Okay, thanks for all the info. I will check it out.
I think there are places in Israel where they do. I remember seeing a youtube video of a large-scale indoor tomato farm that looked like it used hydroponics.
If you widen it to aquaponics, there are people who’ve been able to grow an astonishing amount of food that way. But it definitely works better with continual-harvest crops. Some things just grow better in the ground.
Some sites say put them on a cookie sheet, freeze and then put in big bag or whatever. I just like my One Serving method for my needs.
Hi Everybody!
((((HUGS))))
It’s “Farmers Market Season” in Massachusetts!
Well, my 7-foot (whatever it is) snapped off about 7-10 days ago so it’s about 4-feet tall. It’s not a vegetable plant anyways.
The other big one is putting out yellow flowers - it’s tall - big leaves - I’ve seen this grow before. It also must infect that store-bought soil. Little round blooms, about the size of 4-5 stacked nickels and then a flower pops out.
New tomatoes started - I’m wondering if somehow those are Sweet Million though I can’t imagine how the seeds would have gotten there. More likely small tomatoes like Roma but they never achieve that shape. Just small and round but some get bigger than cherry tomatoes.
The other tomato plants and pepper plants, the few that have survived, are looking good. Except I put them in too late. We’ll see if there’s time for them to be harvested of anything. Sept / Oct should be good weather, usually. If the weather doesn’t go bad, I may need those first two weeks of November. We’ll see.
Ah! Like I do with my blueberries for baking.
Thanks.
Blood meal?
From the university study, that Milorganite appears fairly effective, and as a bonus is a fertilizer promoted for lawns. Very good.
I’ve searched online and found some products, but was wondering if any Freepers have actual first-hand experience.
Setting up frames w/netting isn’t practical.
[ blueberries ]
Jim, I know they’re blue berries. I’m saying they may not be blueberries. Now while all blueberries are blue, all blue berries are not blueberries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_bEXeTwrC8
(actually I think they’re purple but it made for a great scene)
Not quite vertical farming but this guy can get a LOT of tomatoes off of one plant in a high tunnel using a trellising system to hang the plants by. This video is queued up to where he shows how long one vine is.
https://youtu.be/J8L_x42RieA?t=336
20-25 foot
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