Posted on 08/22/2020 5:25:42 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
We are making the most of the late-arriving tomatoes by foundering on BLTs at every opportunity. Mrs. Augie is still making fermented dill pickles, but that is soon to end as her cucumber vines are running out of steam.
I spent most of the weekend replacing the old wire fence on the south side of the dry lot with a proper white oak board fence. Feeling my age this morning, but the result was definitely worth the effort.
I did as you suggested and you are right. Checked with Wikipedia. It is the black swallowtail! Parsley is one of their favorite meals. All the pictures they had of the black swallowtail match exactly what I have been seeing these many years. I think I’ll plant even more parsley next year.
Nice work! Will you paint it or leave natural and how durable is the lumber?
I’ll stain it with TWP, then spray with diesel fuel every other year. Unless there’s some sapwood on the planks they will last 40 years or more. Sapwood is usually toast by the 10th year, even when treated regularly. The posts are good for 30+. Chances are good this fence will outlast me.
With this new section I’ve got close to 700 lineal feet of this type fence here. I keep a good spares stock of planks and posts stored in one of the barns. Every now and then a horse scuffle will damage a plank. Winter before last some dummy slid his wife’s RAV4 off the icy driveway and ran it into the fence. It took $25 worth of material to fix the fence and just shy of $10k to fix the RAV4.
One other observation: The cucumber plants planted right beside some of the Opo, and basically in an identical situation so far as I could provide (I’ve not worked that ground over a foot down) are flowering normally so far as I can tell. A few small cucumbers are forming. (All got a late start.) Maybe cucumbers just need less potassium to flower?
All I could find on hand in the way of liquid or liquefiable fertilizer is “general purpose”, so, it looks like a trip to Wally World for bloom booster is in order.
It should solve your problems - I hope there’s enough growing season left where you live! That Bloom Booster will say it’s for FLOWERS, but I use it on just about every fruiting or flowering vegetable.
Re: Cucumbers. They are weird critters! I usually plant the newer varieties of Gynoecious cucumbers that put out many more female (fruiting) flowers than male flowers.
Cukes like regular watering (they’re like 99.999% water!) and a LOW nitrogen, higher potassium content in the fertilizer (NPK, again!) the ‘K’ (last number) is potassium. A 2-3-6 is a good formula.
For future reference, cucumber varieties I always grow are ‘Summer Dance’ for a nice, long, thin-skinned, ‘burpless’ cucumber and also ‘Diva’ cucumber which makes perfect Dill Pickle spears, and is one with mostly female flowers for good production.
Summer Dance: https://www.jungseed.com/product/J02159/522
Diva: https://www.jungseed.com/product/J02108/522
That is a fine looking fence! Well done!
So happy to report I got my 1st look at my surgical wound today.
Toe looks good, using pain meds at half the rate as I was Thursday, & I GOT A SHOWER TODAY!!
4 days no shower bites! It didn’t help the household that my home plumbing completely backed up FRIDAY NIGHT after biz close.
Plumber came today and cleared the clog in my sewer outlet pipe which will need replacing or a lining.
There ia more horror to the weekend events but I will spare you all of that.
Garden looks great! Eggplants finally setting fruit and had a nice crop of cherry and plplum cherry toma ready this am.
My baby boy choy which I direct seeded last Wednesday has sprouted as has some winter sqaush.
The tree stump wood chip mulch i put in around my plants has really made a difference. Everything is looking even more healthy than before.
A guy was clearing fir trees on his property and had prpbly 1000 yard of stump grinding for free. I took 2 pickup truck loads and that was just enough for the planting beds.
And free is a great price!
I took the day off and took my pickup through the car wash for some R&R...
Haha - well, actually, I was STILL confusing Potassium & Phosphorous in my comments — the Phosphorous content of the litter / guano is probably a bit over 1% compared to 4% for the nitrogen, so, the Phosphorous is indeed rather low.
But, either way, the general purpose liquid or mix to liquid fertilizers I have here are probably not going to cut it for the Opo.
Since the total number of tomatoes being produced is fine, the plants are just big & I have to keep adding support for them (now about maxed out), I won’t worry about them too much. But, we are in the north part of Zone 7 by most hardiness maps, so, I may have to cross my fingers with the Opo...
Nice job on the fence! :)
Plant garlic 6-8” deep - BUT - if you’re putting a lot of straw on top (which they like!) or a pile of compost, compensate for that depth, too. If you plant it too deep, including the mulch, it won’t produce as well. IMHO, anyway.
Same goes for tulip and daff bulbs. You’ll get leaves but no flowers if planted too deeply.
thanks!
We average 45 in of precipitation annually in central CT.
MAY-JUNE-JUL-AUG ... less than half normal rain this year.
Severe drought in SE Massachusetts.
It never rains on Cape Cod.
I have 1/2 acre, so my garden hoses are fighting off death.
Glyphosate season has begun:
Ailanthus Altissima
Knotweed
This is not about tomatoes but about the black swallowtail caterpillars. I checked the parsley situation this morning. Just a few stalks left with a few stragglers. Watered the container the parsley was in and had the most wonderful thing happen. As I was watering, a black swallowtail butterfly flew over and rested on my arm for just a second, then flew off to the cannas. It is moments like this which make me very happy to be a gardner. Have a great day everybody!
I love it when that happens, too!
They say when a butterfly lands on you, it’s a loved one that has passed, saying, ‘Hello!’
Oh! There are a lot of recent passings. Maybe they grouped together and came to say hi? Interesting thought.
Diana;
Linking the gardening thread over to this FR post:
“10 pioneer-era apple varieties, thought extinct, found in Pacific Northwest”
https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3835443/posts?q=1&;page=1
Cucumbers, thanks for the information!
I have limited space and I have been using cucumber Dar. The cucumbers are not enormous, but they are big enough to put in a salad for two.
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.