The Garden Thread - July, 2024

July 1, 2024 | Diana in WI/Greeneyes in Memoriam

[FamiliarFace]

Sorry to hear about the drought conditions. We seem to get rain at least once a week here. It’s been sufficient for the trees and shrubs.

I love antiques and antique shopping. Hubby says that it’s like going to a museum where you can buy things if you want to take them home. :)

The year we remodeled our kitchen, we were looking for a kitchen style hutch cupboard. We needed it to be pretty tall, and most cupboards were Hoosier cabinets. Then on one trip, we stopped in on the spur of the moment. Down one aisle was this most splendid hutch, perfect in every way. We made an offer on it, which was accepted, and it is the main focal point in our kitchen. If we ever move, this piece is going with us. It looks like a family heirloom, and for me, it is too special to part with.

It’ll be great when you don’t have to go back and forth so much. How’s your Mama doing?

[MomwithHope]

Yes, blistered on the grill is great. Somewhere Chef Ramsey has a video on blistered Shishido’s with sliced thin flank steak over a bed of greens. It is delicious.

[MomwithHope]

I don’t remember seeing that recipe before will have to try that one too. Thanks for posting.

[MomwithHope]

To buy shishitos up here in Michigan, they are expensive. Only a few people at the biggest farmers market around here sell them, very pricey. That’s how we first found them.

[Pollard]

Not big on corn so I hadn’t planned on it and then ended up forgetting the baby bellas so I’ll grab some tomorrow for other meals and salads. Another store has pork tenderloin on sale which goes good with pepper/onion/mushroom. Finely chopped veggies with a little water/cornstarch and a spice or two could make it saucy.

The Shishitos have actually been giving me a little heartburn. I had an iron stomach my whole life but things change as you get older I guess.

[FamiliarFace]

They are pricy by the pound, but boy do they please the senses!

Certain things are more expensive, like saffron. A little goes a long way, and I only cook with it once in a while.

I imagine that next summer I will be looking for the Bonnie shishito plants to grow here. For this year, buying them at the grocery will have to do.

I do hope to find them again. For now, we are enjoying having the change from bell peppers.

[FamiliarFace]

Heartburn is why I can’t have very hot peppers. It eats my insides up.

[Pollard]

I think I’m growing Datil next year. Comparable heat to habanero but “more complex, sweeter, and more fruity”. Quite a variety of reviews on rareseeds.

4-5 foot tall to short and stocky. Gallons of peppers to a couple of dozen. Wouldn’t produce through heat to produced well in 100 temps.

I do like my crazy heirlooms. Sounds like a good front yard garden experiment like the 2 cherry tomatoes last year that had 200+ green tomatoes that wouldn’t ripen due to the heat and then came all at once on the cool down.

Good clean entertainment LOL

[Pollard]

I need to cook more. I’m an old blue collar craftsman guy but took to cooking back when I was single and sick of fast food.

I haven’t made Hollandaise sauce in forever. I can’t imagine anything it wouldn’t go good on.

Fresh herbs and spices are on my long term to do list. Guess it’s a bucket list at this point. LOL

[MomwithHope]

After eating healthier food you’ll never stomach fast food again.

[Qiviut]

The local news this morning is that the West Virginia governor just declared an emergency covering the entire state due to drought conditions ranging from moderate to severe. I would not be surprised if that didn’t happen soon for the western part of our state (bordering WVA). We had a good spring with lots of grass & the farmers were able to make a lot of hay (round bales everywhere), but since then, very little rain. Fields are brown, trees & bushes dying, river levels dropping. In some localities, water use restrictions are already in place. We are on a well so no governmental restrictions, but we don’t waste water.

[Augie]

When you say that you “gave the sweet corn a shot of urea,” does that mean you tinkled on them?

I have been known to do that, but in this case it was granular 46-0-0 from a bag. lol

[FamiliarFace]

That’s how we are. It is hard to remember the last time we had fast food. It was probably on a road trip.

We almost don’t even eat out, but every now and again, neither of us wants to cook. So sometimes that means Chinese take out and other times it means pizza.

We use fresh herbs as often as possible, and most I grow here. I’m addicted to cooking with fresh herbs, and fresh ingredients. Everything just tastes better that way.

[FamiliarFace]

We have actually been blessed around here. Mostly we see corn and soybeans, and the baling will come after the crops are finished. I hope your drought situation will end soon.

[Augie]

This past one was another goofy weather week here in Central Missouri. Cool and dry, hot and swampy, some high winds, scattered showers and thunderstorms, etc. It’s been raining enough to keep the grass growing to the point of weekly mowing, but not enough to skip watering things that we’d like to eat.

Mrs. Augie took mowed the house yard and I mowed most of the hinterlands over the weekend. I got the loppers out and pruned Mrs. Augie’s red flowering crabapple trees. They were getting scraggly and hanging too low to get under with the Kubota. I spent a bit of quality time with the weed whacker in the garden patch yesterday. Used up the string that was on the spool and called it good for the day.

Mrs. Augie has been getting a few cucumbers every day now. I’ve been wondering why I haven’t started to get tomatoes and Saturday morning I figured it out. I was headed to the garden with the weed whacker and saw something moving around out there. It was a big fat whistle pig sitting on his haunches chowing down on one of my tomatoes. I trotted back to the house, grabbed my Ruger 10-22, went back outside and gave the varmint a bad case of lead poisoning. I’m sure there’s at least one more in the raiding party so I’ll start setting a live trap out there and see what I can catch.

I watered the chestnut trees yesterday. Three more of them have grown tall enough that the grow tubes need to be removed and replaced with wire cages. I’m out of 6’ tall welded wire so I’ll need to make a trip to the hardware store to pick up another roll.

There are no signs of potato vines around the edge of the compost heap where I put my seed spuds back in the spring. If it’s not raining after work today I’ll try to get out there with the broadfork and see if they made a crop.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“...a big fat whistle pig...”

That’s a Groundhog, Right? If so, I have no problem with your dispatching them to Groundhog Heaven! Same goes for Rabbits, Raccoon and Squirrels!

After me WHINING all JUNE about too much rain, July has been a little drier and we got a nice 1/4” soaker this morning so I didn’t have to water, today. But MAN is it HOT. And HUMID. Ugh!

But it’s not slowing the puppies down any. D@mn Youngsters! ;)

Meant to tell ya, I’m making ‘Himalayan Possum’ for supper. ‘Cuz I found him-a-layin’ in the road!

*Rimshot* :)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

2012 will live in my memory FOREVER! We had a drought that just would not stop - try running a Garden Center in your FIRST YEAR as Manager in drought conditions! Ugh! It was BRUTAL.

Beau planted 400 seedling trees that year in his ‘Wildlife Enhancement Acres.’ On July 4th, 2012 we hauled 800 gallons of water to those trees. Only half of them survived, but he was pleased with that result, considering the weather!

It was 104 degrees that day! But, it wasn’t HUMID - which is today’s weather. Also, Ugh!

[Pollard]

I gotta say, Bootstrap Farmer really does put thought into their products. Probably because they're actual market gardeners.

They were one of the first to come out with thick 1012 trays that last for years instead of a year or two.

Nice looking aluminum extrusion for the track and I dealt with aluminum extrusion for 25 years in the sign business so I know good from bad.

The wiggle wire is not only plastic coated the full length but they put an extra coating on the ends where it could poke through the plastic, plus they make it red for high visibility which helps the human aspect of dealing with it. (you'll put your eye out kid)

Now I need to check the budget again to see if I can buy top plastic tonight or the 3rd of September.

[FamiliarFace]

Sounds like something Daisy May Moses “Granny” would make for dinner guests! ;)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I remember you talking about the 1020 trays. It all looks good! :)