Weekly Garden Thread - January 16-22, 2021

January 16, 2021 | Diana in Wisconsin/Greeneyes

[Diana in Wisconsin]

You are making great progress!

“I am concerned about my rosemary plant. I had hoped to keep it alive until I could replant it outdoors. Part of it is turning brown.”

My rosemary plants are looking like they’re getting powdery mildew. I’m going to see if there’s a quick fix, because they are otherwise very healthy with lots of new growth.

Beau went to town to run some errands and pick up a package for me that was left at the top of the hill by FedEx (he was nervous about driving his big truck down here) and he’s going to get two lottery tickets for the $700 Million drawing tonight.

But, don’t worry. If I win, I WILL come back and say ‘Good Bye’ to everyone!

*SMIRK*

This says the browning is from watering practices:

Poor Watering Practices

“The second most common reason for an indoor rosemary dying is watering practices. Often, indoor rosemary plants are watered too little or too much. Make sure that the drainage on the container with the rosemary is excellent. Only water the soil when the top of the soil is dry to the touch. But, that being said, never let the soil dry out completely. In the winter, rosemary plants grow much more slowly and need much less water than they do in the summer. Watering too often will cause root rot, which will kill the plant. On the other side, if the soil of the rosemary plant is allowed to dry out completely, the roots will die back and the plant will not have enough roots to support itself.”

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/herbs/rosemary/grow-rosemary-indoors.htm

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“You mean the earth is not flat?”

If it was, my cats would’ve pushed everything off the edge by now! ;)

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

Same here in the Pacific Northwest.

I diagramed out my entire garden and left 2 rows for whatever ai may have forgotten

Went to the grocery store all proud of my diagram and plans and saw the seed display was up.

Of course ai looked at it and noticed I totally forgot string peas! Snatched up a packet of peas!

Down to 1 row not spoken for.

[virgil]

Well,I broke down today, and went to buy some seeds and starter mix. Felt good, anyway.

[MomwithHope]

True dat. The raccoons we see are darker looking and flat fur, greasy dirty buggers.

[greeneyes]

Thanks, I’ll have to do a double check on the soil. I have a moisture tester somewhere.

[LibWhacker]

Fiery tumbleweed "tornado" (4-min vid)

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

Oh man.....I got my order in just in time then....received it the other day.

[Pollard]

Only reason I found out is because in getting away from firefox, I installed another browser to replace it was going through my firefox tabs to close or move them to the new browser and rareseeds.com happened to be one of them.

[MomwithHope]

Ah yes I can see the boxer.she is a beauty.

[left that other site]

She’s my girl! :-)

[Liz]

Create a quick lime syrup in a nanosecond from sugar, water, and lime juice.
Kinda like Rose's but completely natural. Adding optional 1/2 tsp citric acid
makes the flavor pop (citric acid is found in almost every bottled soft drink)

Homemade Lime Cordial Syrup

METHOD Bring 1 1/2 cups water to a soft boil. Add cup sugar, 1/2 cup fresh lime juice, stir completely dissolve.
Cover/simmer 15 min. Cool offheat; then bottle. Store in fridge, use within a month if you don't include citric acid.

Uses for Lime Cordial Syrup
<><> pour 1-2 oz cordial over ice; top with club soda or ginger ale to taste.
<><> LIME TONIC mix 1-1 1/2 oz lime cordial syrup, 6 oz tonic water.
<><> CHELADA Add a shot to a light lager to get Mexican-style beer.
<><> add lime cordial syrup to make Key Lime Pie Martini.
<><> in drink recipes that call for lime juice or lime syrup, adjust amount of cordial syrup.

[Oshkalaboomboom]

These are the hills last Sunday above Maro, a town just West of ours. It is the first time I've seen snow this close since we moved here 5 years ago. Needless to say it's all gone now.

[sockmonkey]

*** Cut out the front/top ‘panel’ of the bags of soil and plant away. Each section cost about $10 for the bag of dirt and the storage container with lid, all from Walmart ***

What size bags of potting mix are those? I would really like to try that.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I believe it was the 25 quart size soil bag. I used Miracle Grow Potting Mix, so I didn’t need to fertilize at all. I wanted three small units versus one big one so I could grow various things, in sequence; lettuces, spinach and arugula. I grew some Red Orach, too, but it ended up not being appetizing to me. Fuzzy leaves? Nope! LOL!

I chose the bags, then went over to the storage area to make sure the bag fit neatly on the cover/lid of the clear storage bin. I chose a clear bin with a black lid, thinking the black might keep the soil warmer. Also, these were kept INSIDE my unheated greenhouse, so I’ve never used these grow boxes outside....but I will start greens extra early this coming Spring!

This gal is a little wordy, but she walks you through the whole process in 15 minutes or so:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IXn2t8GLh0

[sockmonkey]

Thx for the info + link. I set my Fabric Smart Pots in the plastic bins, so they can wick moisture from them during hot TX summers. I am eager to try this.

I also save the styrofoam boxes that frozen foods ship in, punch holes in the bottom, and root tomato, herb cuttings in.
Sometimes the cuttings never make it out. I am picking tomatoes in my greenhouse from some cuttings I never transplanted out of the styrofoam.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Glad to help. I am SO looking forward to starting tomatoes...but that’s not until Mid-March for me. ;)

[sockmonkey]

I use the Miracle Gro potting mix in my container gardens. 900 lbs last year. I could only haul 3 50 lb bags at a time in my car trunk. That got old fast. 😾☹️😾

[Liz]

The British pastime of gardening is rooted in “racial injustice”, a professor who has been active in a BLM-style iconoclastic push in the National Trust has claimed.

In a book entitled the Green Unpleasant Land, the Professor of Post-Colonial Literature at the University of Leicester, Corinne Fowler, pronounced that the British “countryside is a terrain of inequalities”.

As a result of this, the left-wing professor declared that “it should not surprise us that it should be seen as a place of particular hostility to those who are seen as not to belong, principally black and Asian Britons,” the Daily Mail reported on Saturday.

Professor Fowler argued that because many British estates were financed in part from colonialism and slavery, “knowledge about gardens and plants, in particular botany, has had deep colonial resonances.”

“The scientific categorisation of plants has at times engaged in the same hierarchies of “race” that justified empire and slave and slavery,” she said adding that “inevitably, then, gardens are matters of class and privilege.”

In her book, the title of which is an inversion of British poet William Blake’s description of the British countryside as “green and pleasant land”, Fowler said that “Rural Britain” is “rarely peaceful”.

“The elderliness of the maids is incongruous with the many itinerant female East Europeans who, before Brexit, picked the fruit and vegetables that grace our tables,” she wrote.

Professor Fowler does admit in her book that she is guilty of benefitting from the British Empire, as her own family had connections to slavery on sugar plantations in the Caribbean.

“I make no claim to neutrality… Our relatives either profited from empire, or were impoverished by it,” she wrote.

BBC Countryfile Presenter: ‘The Countryside Is Racist’ https://t.co/PbGi21H78f

— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) October 16, 2020

In response to the latest attack on British identity, former Brexit Party MEP Martin Daubney wrote on social media: “Will this crap ever end? Or is this now our destiny: to forever bang our heads on tables at the sheer stupidity of humanity?”

London Assembly Member Peter Whittle added: “Like our other cultural institutions, the National Trust is now infested with the Britain-haters.”

“What chance of pushback from this ‘Conservative’ government?” Whittle wondered.

Professor Fowler was one of the co-authors of a review for the National Trust, Britain’s leading heritage body, entitled Connections between Colonialism and Properties now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links With Historic Slavery.

The paper, which was commissioned and published by the National Trust in September targetted 93 properties including Sir Winston Churchill’s former home — Chartwell in Kent, for their supposed ties to the British Empire.

Fowler is also part of the Colonial Countryside project, which recently came under fire after it was revealed that primary school-aged children were tasked with ‘reverse mentoring‘ National Trust staff on the alleged evils of the British Empire.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Hard to believe the British ruled 3/4 of the world at one time. *Rolleyes*

When EVERYTHING is racist, NOTHING is racist.