pō″poo͝-rē′
noun
A combination of incongruous things.
A miscellaneous anthology or collection.
A mixture of dried flower petals and spices used to scent the air.
Posted on 08/05/2023 6:43:11 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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pō″poo͝-rē′
noun
A combination of incongruous things.
A miscellaneous anthology or collection.
A mixture of dried flower petals and spices used to scent the air.
Good Morning to You! :-)
Interesting year for the veggie garden.
It started out dry and then we have since had LOTS (too much) rain.
Some crops have done great, like the lettuce and snow peas.
Others, like the garlic did fine.
But the onions???? As great a crop as I had last year, this year is bad. The ones in the wettest part of the garden are no bigger than golf balls and the tops are starting to fall over already.
The ones in the drier part are doing better. They are bigger but still not like last year.
I had a devil of a time digging up the garlic, even the ones in the raised bed. some of the bulbs actually rotted in the ground and a few of the plants, when I loosened the soil, and pulled on the stalk, the stalk just pulled off.
The ground was not as dry as it should have been for harvesting them, but it was harvest them or lose the entire crop.
And again the garlic in the drier part of the garden did much better.
My Brussel sprouts are mixed. Some really big plants and some lagging. But nothing to harvest yet.
Good Saturday morning...I was hoping for rain this past week and last night, this a.m. we got some. Yay.
Good morning! Looks like that could be a sunrise/sunset over Niagara Falls. At least in my imagination.
We haven’t had much rain this week, so I was out watering a couple of days ago. Looks like we’re in store for some most of the day today, though it hasn’t started quite yet. The plants will welcome it, as will I.
Gardening, like growing older, ain’t for sissies! ;)
The shallots I planted seem to be doing the same as your garlic. I think I got nothing but maybe one little one. I think it’s still too early to harvest, but yeah, a big disappointment.
My herbs however are doing nicely. The tarragon, oregano, rosemary, and thyme look like they’re doing especially well this year. The chervil had been beautiful, but then got either stem or root rot a few weeks ago. So that’s completely gone now.
We are getting caught up on rain, which is nice, but they’re predicting some bad storms for us tomorrow. Figures! The peaches are just about ready to pick, so some hail is in order! *Rolleyes*
Yesterday was rather chaotic as the elder Beagle decided to take the younger Beagle and my oldest puppy on a seven hour Volksmarch across the countryside!
Thanks to FB I was able to find the puppy after the other two came home. I also got to see the newest home in our little enclave. The owner was nice enough to keep Arikara in her garage with a blanket, food and water until the owner could be found.
So, we’re changing things up around here and the troublemakers are no longer allowed to roam freely, corrupting my youngster, LOL!
I have the BEST batch of peppers I’ve ever grown. 15 plants, all red bells. Tomatoes are slow to ripen and the newest variety I tried (’Carrie’) is crazy-prone to Blossom End Rot. I treat ALL of my tomatoes the same with the eggshells and bone meal to prevent this and no other variety is suffering, so ‘Carrie’ is not being asked back! The rest are ripening in stages so I’ve been picking, chopping and freezing them every few days for later use.
Beans are on, but too small to pick. Tons of zucchini, but we love the stuff. Plenty of Kale. :) Those broccoli plants keep producing side shoots, so I’m keeping them in until they poop out of their own free will. Will replace them with purple broccoli for the Fall season.
Since we’re having The Calm Before the Storm, I am mowing, today. Light breeze, low 70’s, no humidity, no dew. Perfect conditions. Later! :)
My oregano is taking over the garden. I harvested and dried a LOT this spring.
The thyme and sage are doing well, too.
In the 2nd image the yellow leaves are from plants in front that were not yet pruned. But am picking rip cherry toms now, and glory to God for the fruit of labor, and for being able to do the latter!
I’m actually glad I didn’t plant tomatoes this year. They would have succumbed to the blight for sure, and I also don’t have the time.
We have a lot of other things to do to get ready for this winter, one of which is split and stack more wood and clean the wood stove and chimney.
Yep, we went from hot and dry to warm and humid with inches of rain every week. Had a mushroom pop up in the garden overnight. Quite a weird Summer as far as weather. Normally July and August is nothing but mid to high 90s and humid with no rain. Highs will be in the low 80s this Mon/Tues with a good chance of rain on either end.
I should have picked all the maters that were starting to change color the day before yesterday but didn't until yesterday and 1/3 of them were split by then. Got enough to maters in total need a container to carry them in.
I should have been getting maters a month ago but the little dry heat wave slowed everything down except for the length of the vines. One Chadwick Cherry vine is pushing 20 foot long.
It's looking like the early girl will be the last to produce ripe fruit. LOL. It was a late purchase along with a few other varieties but was the runt of the litter so to speak.
Suckers coming straight off the side of the main stalk instead of the armpit of a branch. I have a problem cutting/pinching them off once they have maters forming. Guess I'm a sucker for suckers.
Phone decided to focus on stuff in the background instead of what was front and center. There was no branch armpit so I thought this was a branch on the right. Started out looking like a fruit cluster. Then it grew leaves/branches, more fruit, more leaves/branches, more fruit etc and now this thing is 12 foot long. 
Double suckers where the tip just splits into four or five.
Center stem looks like a fruit cluster and has not a single leaf. Also the thinnest. So is it the main stem? This is on my longest vine so I need to do something with it.
Guess I'll just hope the center cluster looking thing is just that, cut one sucker and let the other become the main stem?
Tips just going into a Y for two main stalks.
Double sucker Y thing that I decided to let go because neither was stronger/bigger/better looking than the other.
The plant was smaller than most so I figured two main stems will allow it to catch up production-wise.
It's a Tappy's Heritage mater and they don't get tall/long like a cherry vine so I should be able to manage two main stems without much hassle.
Got another plant that just went into a Y, two stems with no other branches/clusters involved. Both sides of the Y were equal in size and both growing almost straight up, nearly parallel. It's a determinate so I let it go.
I'm thinking this has to do with the mini heat wave and having had plenty of water and 40% shade cloth. Too hot for fruit production so they had nothing better to do than grow like wild. Very wild.
Went out to do a quick count. Grabbed three to bring in that I missed yesterday and counted 228 green on the vine. I'm about to be buried in tomatoes.
I have a fellow gardener at work but don't know who it is yet. Keep forgetting to ask around. Someone brought in some surplus zucchini a few weeks ago and some tomatoes and jalapenos a few days ago. The maters were fairly knarly looking. One had an elongated shallow spot chewed in it by some sort of bug. Not something I would give away.
With 200+ fruit on the vines, I'll definitely be bringing some surplus maters into work soon and so far, all of them have been purty globes, except for yesterday's split ones. Ate some of them this morning and just cut around the splits. The Cherokee Purple and Brandywine are beefsteak types that will have ribbing but will hopefully be clean in the grooves. Tappy's Heritage aka Tappy's Finest can come out either globe or beefsteak shaped.
Those two plus Black Cherry are all varieties I've tried but failed to grow each kind once at some point so I'm looking forward to finally being able to try them. Got three Black Cherries finish ripening indoors right now.
Generally happy about this year's mater fest even if with the weird growth and late production. Still need to hone my seed starting skills but I did better than last year and know a few things I need to do next year. Start even earlier and earlier than any charts/calculators say. Start fertilizing as soon as I have true leaves. Start maters in 18 cell trays and toss the 72 cell trays in the trash. I think 32/36 cell trays are as small as I'll go even for leaf lettuce and the like.
I've had zero issues with bugs or disease. The bug thing was probably due to the mini heat wave and dryness. I think the disease thing is in part due to low pH soil and partly me spacing plants out. With this rain, we now have skeeters and I better watch for tomato hornworms.
Weeds have not been an issue due to a 3-4 inch layer of compost as mulch. I have some grass/weeds that creep in from the sides but it's quick to rip out/off.
Definitely thinking I should go with hybrids for the high tunnel to get less wildness and more consistency. Heritage tend to not do all that well under plastic anyway.
Still got my mole but it's not damaging the plants. He/she is just my little underground rototiller. LOL As soon as I mulched with compost, using the stabby trap was out the window. Prior to that, the soil was too dry and hard for it since I'm drip watering.
Finally picked up a couple of 275 gallon IBC totes and the guy has a regular supply since he uses the Soy Lecithin oil as an ingredient for something. Not sure what kind of food product he's making. They're brand new and have the desirable camlock quick connect fitting for the outlet. I'll be using one for the house and one for the little garden and will get four more for the high tunnel to collect rain water off the roof. Some years, I'll probably have to fill them with spring water in late July and all of August but this year, the rain would have done it.
The two does had kids. One had two but one of them died before I even knew she kidded. The other doe had the usual single. By the timing, I'd say the big buck is the dad. He up and died a month after when they would have copulated. The young buck is getting big so he'll be taking over that job.
Getting ready to build them a nice shed. Now that they have babies, evidently my shop is too nasty for them, even though they're the ones who made it nasty. Guess I need to get an IBC tote for them and collect water off of their shed roof. The shed will be up on concrete piers because it's going in a rocky area. I'm going to try and design a floor that will let manure fall through and devise a way to collect it. Saw a youtube video of some goat farmers in the Middle East that had a metal mesh floor with collection trays that pulled out like drawers. Seems expensive so I'm still thinking on it.
Neighbor stopped by and blamed me for his cat having kittens because I had a male unfixed cat here. Few days later, we suddenly had two kittens here. My son found one around bed time. I got home the next day and he had a sad look on his face. I said what's up? and he said one of the kittens died. I guess he discovered a second one. He set the dead kitten on my bed. Gotta love autism. My bedroom's closer to the front door and he loves kittens and wanted a nice soft bed to lay it on.
I managed to get a hold of the other kitten and brought it inside, grabbed the dead one, bagged it and tossed it in the trunk of the car so I could pitch it somewhere. Had to leave for work at 5am the next morning and when I got off of work and got into the car, I remembered the kitten in the trunk because it was quite ripe by then.
I don't know if the neighbor dropped the kittens off or if our adult male went and grabbed them. Probably the former. The adult male was around for two days after the kittens showed up but hasn't been seen in two weeks now, though he's been known to go on a walkabout. Usually comes back all beat up. Glad to know he finally got him some after all those beatings by bigger males while trying. If he doesn't come back, oh well. I'll get this one fixed so we can have a mellow cat with no battle scars.
My Celebrity tomatoes are the most beautiful I’ve ever grown. They are extra large this year with some almost softball size. I have not had a single tomato with blossom end rot! The fire department up the road got three boxes last night and those were perfect & the largest ones. I had a countertop full left over so I just canned those up and got six quarts! Five of my jars have sealed and I’m waiting for number six which should happen anytime. I love the sound the jars make when they’re sealing: “canner’s music”!
Headed to the garden to pick red jalapeños. I think I have enough for at least 1 batch of Jalapeño Pepper Jelly and fingers crossed I have 2. Another batch or 2 later on would be great - there is high demand for the jelly in the family & it makes great gifts.
We got 3/4” of rain Thursday/Friday so at least the grass is no longer ‘crunchy’.
Our local orchard is in a coop situation for items not in season here. We love the jalapeño pepper jelly we get from there. A huge hit with our families. Everyone asks for it at Christmas, so we happily oblige.
We’ve also enjoyed the Vidalia onion sweet pepper vinaigrette they sell. Marinate flat iron steak for at least 1/2 hour, dry off, then generously sprinkle on Brazilian steak seasoning, and throw on the smoker. The flavor is so great!
Of course, the apple butter that they make is to die for, too. None better!
I do not know what the GIF maker was on, but it appears his day was interesting!
However we also had a lot of large tomatoes this year.
It was a warm spring so they managed to set early before the heat came. Then there were some pretty good rains.
My brother was so desperate for Jalapeño Pepper Jelly a couple of years ago, he went on Ebay & bought me a case of jars! Jelly jars were very hard to find at that time. If I have the peppers, he always gets a ‘batch’ which is 6 jars.
My dad is from the Shenandoah Valley and they make apple butter in copper kettles - lots of stirring with big wooden paddles. My cousin always brought us a couple of jars made locally - just delicious.
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