Yep most of the garden plants are in full bloom and producing
in our area on the east coast. We’ve had tomatoes for over a
month now.
Zuc’s and Cuc’s are producing this week.
Lots of bush beans.
Awaiting the tomato to set more fruit.
Sunflowers have buds and are over 5 feet tall.
Good Morning! :-)
It was another hot week here in Central Missouri. Yesterday morning a front blasted through and we got a little bit of rain. There was another one on its tail that hit this morning. Heavy rain and lots of lightning for a couple hours then it was gone.
Green beans are producing nicely now. Beets are ready. Okra, collards, turnip, and rutabaga that were planted last week are out of the ground and looking good. I’m getting a few tomatoes from the three plants that survived the June monsoon. Summer squash is still rocking. Cucumbers are about ready to fold from the heat.
I love little kids in overalls - gave my great-nephew a pair (baby shower gift) & can’t wait to see him wearing them. He’s definitely going to be a little “country” boy.
Tomatoes out the wazoo - not enough to can, but too many to take care of by eating. I left a 2nd box at the nearby fire station along with a gallon bag of cherry tomatoes .... snuck in a few cucumbers, too.
The cuke vines are dying - a relief, actually. I planted a morning glory in the same area as the cukes & that is starting up the trellis, so maybe I’ll have some flowers once I cut the cuke vines off.
All the flowers except the morning glories are blooming - sunflowers (Giant ones are huge. Teddy Bears are so cute!), cosmos, zinnias, tithonia (about a dozen flowers now - larger butterflies are showing up), cardinal climbing vines, marigolds (French & Giant) ... thyme is still blooming. No morning glories yet but the vines are lush - can’t wait to see what colors they’ll be. Yesterday, for the first time, I cut spent zinnia blooms to dry for next year’s seeds.
We have some ‘volunteer’ sunflowers under the bird feeders. The squirrels have found them and are cutting off the seed heads - their antics trying to get to the seed heads are pretty funny to watch. It won’t be so funny when they start getting into the raised beds.
If hummingbirds had landing lights, it would look like Chicago O’Hare Airport with lights lined up into the distance as far as you can see. The feeders are super busy - birds waiting in nearby trees to come in and feed. There is no doubt the nectar is being consumed by hummingbirds (no bats). They’re fun to watch - had a courting pair night before last - he was doing some major “swooping” and seemed to have her attention - he even shared the feeder with her.
Mild temps (80’s) this weekend and next week - need rain badly - grass is brown & crunchy. The garden/flowers are taking a lot of water to keep them going. Showers in the forecast for tonight & a few days next week - hope we get them without any ‘severe’ weather along with the rain.
I have a single “Sweet 100” cherry tomato. Indeterminate.
It has at least 500 ripe fruits in clusters of 10-15. Another 500 ready to turn. It’s a healthy plant in good soil, good weather but maybe a little hotter than perfect.
What the heck does a person do with 500 or a thousand cherry tomatoes? Is there a practical way to preserve them?
I think my only option is to load them up in grocery bags and give them to the neighbors.
Thoughts?
(This resource area is posted in the July 3-6 Gardening thread beginning after post 112!)
(Sorry about the double post above. Computer froze up for a second there.)
Here’s an article on that mysterious songbird illness that has been afflicting several states - I haven’t noticed anything around here ... then again, we don’t have cicadas, either.
Cornell experts not overly alarmed by mysterious songbird sickness
https://www.ithaca.com/news/ithaca/cornell-experts-not-overly-alarmed-by-mysterious-songbird-sickness/article_ae73fa12-efc6-11eb-9a3f-ef82b40e923f.html
This sudden decline lends support to the tentative hypothesis regarding a cause of the outbreak. The most recent working theory is that the outbreak is related to the emergence of the cicadas this year — the geographic distribution and the timing of the undetermined songbird illness directly coincides with the arrival of the cicadas.
The cicadas emerged in Washington, DC and eleven other states: Delaware, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, Florida, and Kentucky in mid May. Birds in these states started showing the unusual symptoms about a week later.
“The distribution of states where this spontaneously popped up was an exact match for the cicada emergence map, and it is a very strange distribution of states for this kind of outbreak,” Bunton said. “It was Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and then it moved over to Tennessee, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana but it completely skipped New York and the rest of New England. That is an exact replica of the cicada map.”
Researchers such as Bunton believe that the ingestion of the cicadas could have had toxic effects on the birds. It is possible that individuals sprayed the cicadas with pesticides, which have chemicals that affect the brains of birds and could have caused the neurological symptoms. Cicadas also carry fungi that can produce toxins when ingested which could have also produced the illness in the birds.
The decline in cases corresponds with the retreat of the cicadas. Although researchers will continue to monitor the situation, Bunton expressed that the outbreak should not be a cause of alarm. The diminishing outbreak does not pose any safety threats to humans, nor does it threaten the stability of the various songbird species.
It has been a tough year growing things. Mostly flowers doing very well. The one surviving tomato plant is covered with blooms; so I’m hoping for a great crop of fall tomatoes! Had to sow parsley seeds about 3 times and finally have a nice planter full of seedlings putting forth third and fourth leaves. One or two tubers of caladium have produced leaves but remain on the tiny side. The only tuberous begonias doing well are the ones indoors. Looks like buds are forming. I can hardly wait for them to bloom.
Just saw something reeeeeaaly cool in my garden.
1st if all the number of different bee specials in what is essentially a small vegetable garden is astounding. The borage that grows adjacent to my tomatoes really brings in the bees.
But I was watering my cucumbers and have some bamboo poles holding up the old fencing material I use to trellis the plants.
A long black wasp flew by with a translucent green grasshopper looking g bug in it’s clutches. It hovered over a bamboo pole then flew down inside the open top.
I could not get a photo.....even after tapping and shaking the pole to try and get it to fly back out.
So I dribbled water in the opening until it filled up (about 16 inches deep by 3/8ths diameter......when was totally full I only had to wait 5 or 6 seconds and the wasp flew back out sans grasshopper.
Still no photo because he flew away rapido.
An internet search seems to 8ndicate it is called a “Great Black Wasp”
Hoping to get a photo of this thing someday with another insect in his clutches.
