Weekly Garden Thread - February 25 - March 3, 2023 [Gardening Quiz Edition]

February 25, 2023 | Diana in WI/Greeneyes in Memoriam

[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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[Diana in Wisconsin]

I get to start NEXT week! I’ll start peppers first. They take FOREVER to germinate for me, even with bottom heat.

*SHRUG*

[Sacajaweau]

i got 6 of 8

[Sacajaweau]

i did terrible on the flowers

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Zone 6B KS/MO Border Winter Gardening: Katlin Cabbage and Golden Beauty Chinese Cabbage picture taken on Feb 21, 2023.

We have wild swings in weather here, from spells of 0 degree weather up into the 60s, ice and snow. Depending on the temperature using one or two layers of Garden fabric and some pipe heating cables with thermostat at about 40 degrees F. When it gets in the 40s and is sunny I pull the covers off . I lay a metal stake on the top of my hoop low tunnel to keep it from blowing away. The piece of green drain pipe provides a support for the low tunnel.

Winter gardening notes...growing plants slow down in winter. You cannot rely on maturity dates. The size will not be as large as summer gardening. The Chinese cabbage is supposed to be about 50-60 days but were planted at the around the middle of September. The Kaitlin was 90-105 days and was also planted about the same time. Its head is still fairly loose. Perhaps it will get more dense as it warms up. You need to keep up with the watering, even in winter.

Biology still applies...even in winter the Golden Beauty wants to bolt. It is starting to produce little flowers which should stir fry nicely.

Possible to winter if you want to put in the effort. Easier to do in summer if you can deal with the insects and here, the heat.

[FamiliarFace]

The flowers were my strong suit. Obviously I need work on vegetables mostly.

[Sequoyah101]

Daffodils are late here this year the impatiens I just barely peeking out in the grow tent

I can’t say the spring either comes early or late here but I can say I am hardly ever ready for it so much to do

[FamiliarFace]

Very nice!

[TheConservativeParty]

Good Morning Sunflowers

This year I have seeds for 2 sunflower varieties : Italian White and ProCut Red.

🌻🌻🌻🌻🌻

[OftheOhio]

The lake bed has given me pawpaw seeds this winter. Guess who is going to try a container pawpaw tree, lol.

https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/fruits/pawpaw/container-grown-pawpaw-trees.htm

[FamiliarFace]

Oh that’s great! I’d love to try that, too! Too bad I don’t have pawpaw seeds!

[Pollard]

Yep, roller coaster weather and any warm or cool front that comes in, usually is preceded by rain or sleet or snow and wind, lotsa wind.

Mid 50s with calm wind today.

I was supposed to work but I’m home sick with a cold. Might get out for a little bit this afternoon and turn my first high tunnel hoop into a jig and be ready to weld up the rest on Tues or something. I do need to move all the pipe closer so I can do that too. I work tomorrow and Monday. I need to notch the other seven top center pipes but I don’t think I want to listen to a cutting wheel in steel today so I won’t get any hoops made.

I can mark out and start my holes too. I have the corners marked already.

Also got two half seed trays to put something in. Might as well get the rest of the trays all filled and ready to plant too. My little greenhouse is working good as an indoor grow tent. On cold nights, the temp stays up in the trays as long as I zip it shut.

Going to buy two more heat mats today because someone on ebay has them for $12/ea. I don’t know as I need them this Spring but will use them at some point. Might even get more in a week or three because that’s a good price. Need to do some ciphering to see what I might need to get the high tunnel filled each Spring.

Found some lights on amazon. Pack of 6 which will fill the rest of the tent for $45. Will grab those today.

[left that other site]

Good Morning!

Really COLD here in New England.

Brrrrrr

[Qiviut]

I would love to be outside working today, but it’s 41 & raining.

This past week, I was able to work outside Wed, Thursday & Friday. Temps have been mild (upper 60’s, low 70’s); however, Thursday was hot in the sun - record temperature for the month of 83 - last record was in 1926!

As of today (this moment), my veggie/flower garden is UNDER CONTROL! This is a big deal because last year, I was out of commission (broken kneecap) from March 7 until June and the garden was a total mess. It was a struggle to make it through the garden season - I had tomatoes & some herbs & that was about it.

This year, all the beds are weeded as of this past week & I am on “green patrol” .... anything green showing up in a bed is swiftly eliminated. I have old shingles down between many of the beds so there will be no weeds there! The shingles are covered either with old pine needles (removed from beds before weeding) or soon-to-be-hauled wood chips.

In between work in the garden, mom and I have been raking leaves from the maple in the front yard. Usually, we have them raked up while they’re still pretty fresh off the tree, but we had “other things” going on that were more important. The leaves are totally brown & crispy & some are plastered down from being rained on. I used the mower yesterday to round up some of them - hauled them away on a tarp. Today, all that is left are the leaves in the front azalea bushes - 1 or 2 tarp loads should get rid of them.

Speaking of the front bushes, they are azaleas & I figured out they are about 35 years old (I planted them back in the 1980’s). They’re looking a little ‘rough’ and mom just cannot resist “snipping” on them when they are setting blooms so the bushes are green most of the year. She wants them gone ... I concur. We are thinking some dwarf English boxwoods - we have English boxwoods from my uncle (he is now deceased - used to raise them) in another spot and they look great, grow slow - I think mom has pruned them once in the last 19 years since they were planted. This means I have to dig up the azaleas - ugh .... but it can’t be as bad as digging up the nandina bushes that were where the azaleas are now.

So lots of projects in the future. Btw - got a great battery maintainer gifted to me a couple of months ago & put it on my mower. It cranked yesterday first try .... hasn’t been used since last (early) November & we’ve had some pretty cold weather that is hard on batteries. I was a happy camper when it started right up. :-)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

[TheConservativeParty]

Love the “Welcome To Diana’s Place”

🌸🌼🌺🌹🌻🌷

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Both are SO pretty! I think I mentioned to you before that anything in that ‘ProCut’ series is awesome. :)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Nice!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Mom! Paw Paws! :) Post #29.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I predict, baring any other injuries, that this is going to be a GREAT gardening season for you. You deserve one! :)

[TheConservativeParty]

Yes, I remember. Will try more colors of ProCut next year.

The garden quizzes were fun. Went to the website and took all the quizzes.
😀

We still have a hard layer of ice over 3 inches of sleet, and added an inch of snow overnight (Green County). Glad it is warmer now. Maybe by tomorrow the ice will soften enough to make long walks through the fields safe again. Grateful we had no power outages, wasn’t enough ice and wind for that.