Posted on 04/10/2021 6:03:07 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you.
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Hi, do you folks have morel mushrooms up there and have you ever gone hunting for them?
Thanks, yes: Bomgaar’s; Tractor Supply; Fleet-Farm; Runnings.
That’s in addition to Walmart & Lowe’s garden centers.
All geared to lawns, flowers, and veggie transplants: Tomatoes, peppers, squash, and other warm season stuff in 4-6” pots, 6-8 weeks before our last killing frost date.
I’ll chime in - west Michigan, yes Michigan has some great morel spots. We have 10 acres and have found them in several places but the trick is to beat the deer and other critters who eat them first.
When I was young, my whole family would go out into the woods of Michigan on Saturdays during the Spring to hunt for morels. By the end of the day .. on a good day .. each of us five boys, plus mom and dad, would come back to the car with a paper shopping bag full of morels ... seven bags of delicious morels to be pan fried in butter and generously salted ...
they are mouth watering delicious!
I have had the ame issues. I use a mix of label maker on plastic plant sticks and sharpie pen writing on popsicle sticks.
But what I find is no matter what I have to relabel the rows/plants by July.
So I have a sketch of garden and I label eqch plant by location just in case.
Dianna...great photos of the greenhouse! Your cinder block starts look like they are ready to move outdoors. 😃
Praxxus55712 initally talked about it a few people do it with pepper plants.
Pinch the little leaves in the middle of the tops of the tomato plant or just cut the top leaves off. you will see little shoot grow out of the arm pits of the lower leaves.
This creates entire new plants from these arm pits. all on the same stalk. Tomatos are vines and this process makes the plants fuller and not at viney. You can produce three or four whole plants on one stalk.
my old you tub peppers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6WqJiyZZf0
at about 5:30 shows me trimming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-6nHTc-8nE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UuFmGOGlkbk
at 6:56 better close up of cutting
i haven’t reviewed these videos in a while so i don’t remember all of the stuff i did.
Thx for effort. Will look at all video you linked in the morning.
We also have Golden Oyster mushrooms, which are really good, too. We have a large 'colony' of them on some fallen Elm trees, and also some harder to reach on still-living-but-fading Elms.
These are May Apples; a non-edible woodland plant, in case you didn't know what I meant:
Way too early to plant out, other than for lettuces and Sweet Pea flowers. I may have jumped the gun a little and they may require one more re-potting before I plant them out on May 15th or so.
I wait until after the chance of frost has passed; I’m not one for running out there in my jammies to cover things up on chilly nights. ;)
Diana here: I heard about this on ‘Science Friday’ a few weeks ago, and it sounded interesting.
Welcome to the Great Sunflower Project 2021
Identifying where Pollinators Need Help
We are the largest citizen science project focused on pollinators with over 100,000 members. To say thank you to our members for all you have done for pollinators, we have a present for you, Bee Identification Cards! You can download them by logging in and then clicking here. We hope you will use them in your garden this year!
Join our flagship Great Sunflower Project Program . Plant a Lemon Queen variety sunflower and help identify the effects of pesticides on pollinators.
Join our Pollinator Friendly Plants and Places program. Help identify the critical plants that support pollinators and regions where they thrive. Contribute a pollinator count from the plants in your yard or favorite green spaces.
Take the Great Pollinator Habitat Challenge. Learn to evaluate and improve habitat for pollinators.
Please join us now as pollinators are flying and we are hoping to get many 2021 counts! You can register here. Basic instructions can be found on a video here and the Quick start guide. Data sheets are under Downloads. If you are concerned about using neonicotinoid pesticides in your gardens, here is a link to a list of the products that you can buy in many garden shops that contain neonicotinoid pesticides.
As always, thanks for participating!
https://www.greatsunflower.org/
On the Bright Side, this is good 'Greens Growing' Weather, so we'll have plenty of lettuces and spinach to get this party started!
When Will Bonsall was growing up in Waterville in the 1950s and ’60s, his family lived modestly, and their grocery budgets were often tight. His folks weren’t much for gardening, and what fresh produce they brought home was rationed among him and his two brothers. His grandparents, however, lived on a small farm in nearby Belgrade, and whenever he and his family visited, the stockpiles of homegrown sweet corn and juicy beefsteak tomatoes seemed endless. There was no need to negotiate shares with his brothers. “To me,” Bonsall says, “that was the epitome of rich, gracious living.”
Today, Bonsall lives on a dirt road in Industry, in the western Maine foothills, in a farmhouse atop a terraced slope covered with apple trees and overlooking lush gardens. When I first visited him there, last May, the 70-year-old homesteader and author welcomed me warmly into his kitchen, sat me by his woodstove, and launched into a chitchatty, meandering discourse on potato scab, plant sex, and his dream of winning a MacArthur “genius grant.” Bonsall is a talker, and it was more than an hour before he offered to show me the space I had come to see, a second-floor room that he calls his office. “It’s a godawful mess,” he warned.
Bonsall led me upstairs, his white ponytail swinging behind him, and into a small room filled with boxes and bags overflowing with dried plant stalks and stems. “Some of the mess is mice,” he said, looking at the floor. Dusty sunlight fell through a window onto a wall of shelves, each one lined with rows of wooden cases the size of shoeboxes. Inside the cases were envelopes, many of them brown with age, and inside the envelopes were seeds — tens of thousands of them, the core of what was once among the country’s most prolific private seed collections.
Full article at link, below:
Well, well .... FINALLY some gardening success! My beds are growing some very tiny little green weeds. If you let them go, they pretty much become a ‘ground cover’ sort of plant and are the PITS to get out of the garden. I’ve been hoeing the beds about once a week which disturbs the roots & keeps them from taking off; however, there are too many to pick out by hand. I’ve been dealing with these little weeds every spring for years.
Maybe it’s old age, but I just don’t want to get down and weed any more. So, growing more desperate by the day, I decided to try ONE LAST TIME the old vinegar-to-kill-weeds method. I’ve tried it several times before & never had any luck. I cannot use chemicals in the veggie beds & can’t use them in the flower beds because for anything long lasting, seeds won’t germinate.
Looked up yet another article on the vinegar method & this one said to use ACV - works better than white. OK - I had a big jug left over from last year’s canning. I had enough Epsom salts, I keep Dawn on hand anyway, and I just happened to have a quart spray bottle that actually works. So far, so good.
As I completed spraying the first bed in bright sunshine, banks of big dark clouds rolled in and stayed for the remainder of the day. It was downright depressing, but I sprayed all the beds once, then went back and sprayed the worst one a 2nd time. Due to the clouds, I did not expect much, if any, success.
Just went out and checked - NO little green weeds in the bed I sprayed twice! There are a very few in the other beds, but either one spray wasn’t enough, or perhaps I either missed them or they came up overnight (which these buggers do - grow like .... weeds!!). I cannot believe that I finally had some success! I have a 2-gallon sprayer that I really like, but it’s just so big - I’m going to go buy a one-gallon sprayer of the same brand & use it for mixing up the vinegar solution. The sprayer should give me better coverage than a bottle sprayer and I can quickly go over the beds twice & spray between growing veggies, etc. It should also help me keep my walkways weed free without using something more toxic. I cannot tell you how excited I am to see all those little brown, dead weeds this morning. :-)
I love May Apples .... they are a sign of spring along the AT (where I did 16 years of trail maintenance & about 20 years of hiking). The floor in the woods is covered with them in places. The bloom then ‘apple’ underneath the green ‘umbrellas’ is always a pleasant surprise when you peep underneath.
There’s a book on wildflowers that I love (unfortunately, packed up somewhere in a storage box) & I thought there was some medicinal value, so I looked it up online.
There is “medicinal value”, but it’s not something very many folks want to experience:
Common name: Mayapple, American mandrake, wild mandrake, ground lemon, and raccoonberry.
Medicinal Uses: The mandrake rhizome is used in multiple applications, mostly as a gastrointestinal irritate that proves itself useful as a purgative, or laxative. In large doses can produce nausea and vomiting and has been known to be fatal. In more modern applications, two of Podophyllum’s derivatives are being investigated in the treatment of some malignant neoplasms.
Folklore: Native Americans have even used the resin from dried mandrake root as an antihelminthic (anti-parasitic) and as an insecticide. Additionally, Native Americans and early settlers found use for the extract as a topical ointment for skin diseases and wart. Native Americans also used this plant to commit suicide.
The powdered root is used in powerful protective magic. Mayapple is extremely irritating to the eyes and Mayapple root is used in spells to keep things (like diaries, books of shadows, etc.) hidden from prying eyes.
https://medicinalgardens.web.unc.edu/mayapple/
Very informative on the May Apples! We have some HUGE patches of them in our woods, but other than admiring them, I never have looked up their uses. If I can get all of my dogs to roll in it, then I can skip the flea and tick treatments? (Not!) But, as an Added Bonus, I can cast spells!*
It’s a Win/Win! ;)
*Mainly on Beau, who just informed me today that we’re getting yet another PUPPY in three weeks! In his defense, he has recently sold two fully trained dogs for decent money. ;)
However - I am currently ‘babysitting’ two more Beagles and a Plott Hound, bringing the Dinnertime Total to FIFTEEN! NINETEEN with the Steer, the Mule and our two pet Raccoon, ‘George Cooney’ and ‘Jennifer Cooniston.’
No wonder I’m friggin’ TIRED at the end of the day! I may as well be raising GOATS, LOL! :)
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