A welcome thread...among the craziness. Thank you! We finally got sun this past week!!!! After probably wettest Spring in 80 years.
After my husband tore out the lawns in front and back, our water bill went from Tier 2-3 to Tier 1 and has stayed there ever since. I garden in containers now on mulch-covered former lawns.
My neighbor's wife won't let him tear out his lawns and he's fighting - and losing - to stay out of Tier 3.
I'm trying my best to plant water -wise plants, but have to have roses...
New rock garden that replaced a grassy area (it's about 1/2 done here):
These plants that do OK with intense heat and limited watering:
Crown of Thorns - that gets a direct blast of heat and intense sun every day:
I moved this begonia to a more shaded area and it seems a lot happier:
These cockscombs seem to be doing OK too:
And my helpers, helping as usual - staying inside with the air conditioning! (and who can blame them?):
I put potatoes in grow bags this May, and some of the plants are 4 feet tall and beginning to bloom. I have a combination of Miracle Gro Raised Bed Mix, composted cow manure, top soil, and Better Homes and Gardens Raise Bed Mix— just opened this and that bag of stuff as I needed to add to the grow bags. The plants are super healthy, not a pest in sight—hoping it’s not all just leafy growth and that there are spuds in there!
Beautiful! There really is beauty in all the ugliness around us.
Here in Delaware, asparagus is done; not a good crop. Lettuce and spinach done until fall. Picked my first string beans yesterday. Has all the earmarks of a good crop. Squash, zucchini, pickles, tomatoes and cakes all have buds.
Only one garden, instead of three last year. Had to give my son the garden on the hillside; can’t climb up there. Lost a 2nd bed to poison ivy. Am trying a stand up planter for first time.
the tomato’s cant come soon enough!!!
My garden is in great shape so far.
The asparagus didn’t do as well as I had hoped, but I did notice something very interesting.
I planted some oregano near the asparagus and the plant has spread immensely. I am drying a lot of oregano at the moment. But the thing I have found most interesting is that the asparagus plants that are surrounded by oregano are by far and away, the biggest, healthiest, and most productive ones I have.
I know that asparagus doesn’t like competition from weeds, but I’m wondering that sine asparagus has deep roots and the oregano doesn’t from the looks of it, if the oregano is actually helping. There is certainly noting else growing up though the oregano. It has completely suppressed any weeds that I am finding in other ares of the garden.
I did start a few more oregano plants this year and transplanted them today near a few other asparagus plants further down the row that have not been doing so well. It should be interesting to see how they do in the next couple years.
My potatoes are doing well as I’ve been keeping up with hand exterminating the Colorado potato beetles.
I am curious whether anyone here has tried to grow Galia melon. I bought one at costco, and loved it so much I planted some seeds, but they are VERY slow.
Two of the seeds sprouted, but they seem to have stalled at the cotyleden stage, the first pair expanding slowly with no stem coming up. This is week 3, and the first pair are only 3/4” long each.
Or am I just being impatient?
Good Morning! :-)
Just waiting on the maters
I planted a flower box full of radishes but all I’ve gotten is just green leaves and long, skinny roots. No radish bulbs.
Is this a beautiful owl, or what? (Best viewed full-screen)
Dr. Antoniou is not someone who can easily be dismissed as ignorant of genetics or unfamiliar with the technology involved.
As he explains in the interview, he is a career-long molecular geneticist who has studied the structure and functions of genes for decades.
And, as part of that research, he has long used “all manner of genetic engineering technologies,” including gene editing.
In fact, it is his deep familiarity with gene editing that makes him so concerned about the way it is being used in agriculture, as he explained in a recent edition of the BBC’s popular Countryfile program.
Gene-Edited Crops Endanger Human and Planetary Health
https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/gene-edited-crops-glyphosate-roundup/
More specifically, it’s why he rejects all those claims about gene editing’s supposed precision. He told the interviewer:
“The gene-editing tools in question here invariably produce unintended DNA damage [and that can] end up changing the biochemistry and the composition of the crop and that could include the production of novel toxins and allergens.”
This is why Dr. Antoniou is critical of the tendency of pro-GM scientists, the U.K. government and a compliant media to mislead people about the level of complexity and risk involved in gene editing, never mind attempts to pretend it is not even a form of genetic modification.
Gene-edited plants are about to be used extensively in vertical and other high tech farming and the US has no intention of regulating it because it's been framed as something other than GMO.
As of now, I've only read of one gene-edited plant in use and most vertical farms are simply growing leaf lettuce and baby greens that fit their systems. However, they're working on other plants such as that weird tomato with no main stem. Kroger is already big on sourcing from vertical farms so before too long, Kroger will likely have gene-edited veggies.
Could be harmless but we do have an issue with regulatory capture and safety these days. Just look at Big Pharma and their collusion with the FDA with these covid jabs for babies. Before that, it was Monsanto with their seed patenting and lawsuits that ruined a lot of farmers. Speaking of Monsanto, the SC recently ruled that lawsuits against Monsanto and roundup can go forward and Bayer who now owns Monsanto, has set aside $15 billion to pay out settlements. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/bayer-supreme-court-roundup-lawsuit-cancer/
While a <40 day cherry tomato plant is tempting, I think I'll stick with heritage, open pollinated.
Tomatoes continue to look good. Garlic is a week or so from harvest. Peppers are doing well. Squashes are going insane, except for the Turk's Turban that all croaked. Not sure what happened. There was no indication of vine borer or cutbug activity. Potato vines are starting to die back. Basil is ready for harvest again.
Pole beans, butternut and spaghetti squash are looking happy on the panel arbor. Gardener needs to get busy pulling weeds. The japanese beetles showed up in small numbers a few days ago. After work today I'm going to set up a pheromone trap on the pond dock that will drop the vermin straight into the water.
Late to the thread, but “circumstances” kept me out of the garden this weekend.
Today I had to go and buy two jalapeno plants after all my little seedlings, which were way too small, died after I planted them. I want enough jalapenos for some poppers and also to make jalapeno pepper jelly in the fall so buying plants was a necessity. Next year, I will start months earlier with seedlings to give them time to get bigger; however this year with the knee injury and surgery, I was about 3 months late getting in the garden!
So I was at the Garden Center early enough that the doors weren’t open and the plant selection wasn’t great with maybe eight plants left, but I got the two that I was willing to pay money for - then I had to walk all the way around to the main entrance to pay for them which was annoying (I went before I had any coffee so a bit grumpy - I was still nice to the cashier who was so new, he messed up a cash transaction & needed help!). The jalapenos are now in the garden and hopefully they will grow although one is not looking too happy already. The day should be cloudy with rain showers this afternoon so hopefully Mr. Unhappy Jalapeno will perk up.
After planting the jalapenos, I went and weeded the sunflower bed which only has one volunteer sunflower in it that is now blooming. It’s pretty tall so I need to stake it up to make sure it won’t blow over in a thunderstorm. I planted three rows of giant sunflower seeds and watered them in, so hopefully they will germinate. Once they start coming up I am sure I’m going to have to protect them somehow because we have a million squirrels and the deer are looking for anything they can eat and they love baby sunflowers.
I still have some fencing to put up however I am red as a beet, sweaty, and slightly nauseous from being out for 2+ hours in the horrible humidity that we have today and this is with some cloud cover too. So I am drinking pickle juice, iced tea, and sitting in front of a fan right now to cool off before I go back outside to get the fencing straight. We have an 80% chance of rain this afternoon and I am hoping that we get it.
By the way, who needs PT when you have a garden? LOTS of knee bending opportunities!
My one remaining survivalist hen left after the hawk massacre a couple of years ago has always been somewhat broody but after the hawks, I let her free range 24/7/365.
She hung out with the goats and LGDs or up by the house a lot for safety, would dash across open areas and would still lay eggs in the open coop that had a high opening to get in and out and I wasn’t feeding her.
Locked her in the coop recently so I could have a garden and was also hoping she’d go full broody. That was March and I think she finally has. Last few days, she’s been setting on the eggs most all the time and doing that flattening of the body they do to make sure they have all the eggs covered.
I really want this hen to hatch out eggs and raise the chicks because she’s a survivor and laid eggs with zero feed for two years so I think she’d raise her chicks to be the same, at least some of them.
Fingers crossed.
