I live south of Tampa in Florida.
I moved two citrus trees I planted in full sun to partial shade yesterday.
It was clear from dead branchs and trunk dryness that full sun was too much for the clementine and grapefruit trees.
Pulled up my vegie plants and shut it down. It's pretty cool already
Planted 25 daffodil bulbs and will do 25 more if it gets to 60. First time for our community garden.
Another heat wave in California with temps over 100 degrees for several days. Just as my roses were starting to recover from the last heat wave. All I can do is keep them watered. They’ll survive, but they don’t like it.
The critters are starting to get into my pomegranate crop so the tree will have to be netted if I expect to get any pomegranates this year. Figs are done and grapes ripened too fast.
There’s always next year and I learn a little after each years crop.
The garden is pretty much a flower garden at this point with the zinnia patch in full bloom. I saw a Monarch butterfly on it a couple of days ago - first one I’ve seen this year.
The peppers are still coming. I now have enough red jalapenos for 2-3 more batches of jelly, but since I’ve got 4 batches already, what to do? I’m going to try an experiment - prepare the peppers through the step where you put them in a food processor with a cup of vinegar & make ‘bits’ of peppers (so pretty in the jelly). Then, the experiment: I’m going to freeze a batch or two at this stage in a quart mason jar (suitable for freezing). Sometime late winter, early spring, I’ll thaw out a batch & see how it works for jelly.
I bought a big (1.5L) bottle of Oak Leaf Merlot (Walmart cheapie) yesterday. This is what I get for making Blackberry Merlot Jelly .... but the way things are going, I’m not going to have any left for jelly .... it’s being used for “medicinal” purposes at the present time.
Have a great weekend/week, everybody! ~Q
I’m not much of a gardener, but decided this year to try growing bell peppers in containers. Started them from seed. They were slow to take off, but now have good foliage and are loaded with little tiny “pepper embryos”.
Thing is, although we haven’t yet had a freeze in OK, the overnight lows are cold enough to nip the leaves fairly badly. I took the containers into the house yesterday, and have them sitting in front of the east window (it has wonderful light for the first half of the day).
Guess my question is, are the plants likely to survive? Sure would hate to lose all those tiny little peppers. They’re the multi-colored kind. Anything special I need to do aside from watering them and keeping them out from under the heater vent?
SE Wisconsin. We still have a few carrots out in the boxes, and there’s more than a few nice sized green tomatoes out there. But I’m not sure they’ll get a chance to ripen with the frost coming. The green peppers and jalapenos are still blooming. Very pleased with the raised beds approach. Hope it’s as good next year.
My big news is the pawpaws. Have had the trees 4 of them - for about 12 years. They are 3 different varieties. They are huge - a couple over 10 feet tall. Last year I had my first blossoms, hand pollenated with a paint brush, got tiny fruit clusters and the birds got them all. This year I got blossoms, hung bird repellent reflective streamers and same thing happened. Then in July when our foster daughter from Belarus was here with her husband she was looking deep inside the tree grouping and up high found a cluster of 4 fruit. I was overjoyed. I had Sergei hang a crocheted net bag under the cluster so if any fell they would be caught. They continued to grow even through September and I am check them now every day - they are still as hard as newly dug potatoes. It is pretty exciting as I have been working on this for many years. I have been feeding the trees with Jobe's fruit tree spikes every year. Next year I will be using Chicken Soup for the Soil on everything including the trees. I also learned last week that it is flies that pollinate not bees. Some growers put horse manure under their trees to draw the flies and one guy mixes a small amount of maple syrup in water and sprays the blossoms so I will try that next year. The trees are too big for netting and the streamers did not work too well so this winter I will be looking at designing some net type bags to go around the tiny fruit clusters.
I got in the last of the green tomatoes because frost was expected last night.
So, the final outcome of the new raised beds ... tomatoes did great, best we’ve ever had. Jalapenos and anaheims as well.
Onions kinda small.
Bell peppers (California Wonder, started from seed) didn’t produce very well.
Sweet corn did not recover from when the cows got out and topped all the stalks. Probably also injured the squash planted in same area.
Last cutting of hay made and in the barn.
Before the last cutting the alfalfa bloomed and the field swarmed with butterflies, including Monarchs everywhere. Wishing them Godspeed on their flight to Mexico.
Right now my eggplant has produced heavy eggplants that have toppled the bush over on its side, but the eggplants are still growing.
I am on the east coast of Mass. and our first frost is expected anytime from October 11 to October 20th.
My five tomato plants did better than most people around me this year. -Tom
Had too many street taco sized tortillas in the fridge so I broke out countertop deep fryer.
Made a big bowl of fresh tortilla chips.
Since I had the little devil out and heated up I picked a dozen hot peppers from the garden....stuffed them with cream cheese and fried them up for 1.5 minutes.
They were DELICIOUS!
The cheese wanted to work its’ way out however even without taking the tops all the way off.
Anyone have any tips for getting the cream chips in the peppers without removing the top?
I was leaning towards getting some cake decorating/confectionary gear.
God a question about bird identification.
I saw a bird that I’ve never seen before.
It almost looked like a mourning dove, about the same size and similar color except it was more tan and on the back of its head it had an orange patch that was shaped like an arrow, so to speak.
Trying to look up bird identification online with those criteria is about useless.
Anyone know what that is? It was in NH, if that helps.
RATS!!!
No, not Dems (a different kind of trouble), not rodents (trouble too, but they don’t zap the whole garden)...
NWS issued a frost advisory for us, as of about an hour ago, with the “kicker” being that after that, the next couple weeks look nice and warm. So, I’ll try to figure out some way to protect these huge Opo plants, as, wouldn’t you know it, several new fruits have started in the last few days. I weighed the one I harvested yesterday: The gourd weighed 6 lbs. 11 oz. The very 1st one is considerably larger, but, it’s seed for next year. We’ll be busy shortly moving my wife’s tropical plants in, the lemon grass will survive ok for now (it takes a freeze to hurt it), I will try to cover the better pepper plants, and the tomatoes are just gonna have to be on their own, except a couple in pots: I’ll trim them back (which they may or may not survive) and bring ‘em in. The cucs are near dead anyway, so, no great loss.
I was doing auto maint. work already - Sunday afternoon just got even busier ...
That picture is so sparkly! Good morning back to you. I have been spending time pulling up dead plants; tomatoes are almost gone. Had a great crop of patio tomaatoes this year.
Basil did pretty good too. Now I have room for cold weather crops. Basil is gone as well, except for one branch which shows no signs of cold weather damage.
Here you go Diana! Edgerton, apples, and seed savers in one article!