Posted on 10/01/2024 6:10:14 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
The MONTHLY Gardening Thread is a 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.
If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located.
This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked.
It is impossible to hijack the Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table Recipes, Preserving, Good Living - there is no telling where it will go - and that is part of the fun and interest. Jump in and join us! Send a Private Message to Diana in Wisconsin if you'd like to be added to/removed from our New & Improved Ping List.
NOTE: This is a once a MONTH Ping List, but we DO post to the thread all throughout the month. Links to related articles and discussions which might be of interest to Gardeners are welcomed any time!
Has or does anyone plant store bought garlic?
I see the usual warnings.
It may have been treated to not sprout. All the taters, onions and garlic I’ve ever bought will sprout if I don’t use it fast enough.
It may be diseased. Farmers wouldn’t be in business very long if their veggies had diseases.
Almanac says it could be grown in a warmer climate and not do well where you are. Valid I guess.
I figure if I’m overwintering onions, I might as well try some garlic. Gotta do some grocery shopping anyway so for a few bucks, I can experiment.
Yes things are dicey now. We don’t have a root cellar so we set up 2 large coolers with thermometers in the garage and loaded them up.
Our garage is currently our makeshift root cellar.
It’s under the house and partially in the side of a hill. We’re built on a slope, so it’s ALWAYS cool. But when winter hits it rarely gets above 40 or below freezing.
Glad you have a harvest and place to store it! I have a basement, but it really does not get cold enough. (Well...the freezer does!) Old farmhouses used to have north facing pantries and dark basement storage, but not so much in modern tract housing.
I do have a few beets, and may have some turnips in a few weeks, so was looking for more info on storing beets and found an interesting video by a large Family in Alberta Candada who do serious gardening and long term storage.
They have a large turf covered root cellar that they cool in the summer and store their beets and other root crop in plastic bins using peat moss. They have some pretty big beets (Lutz tall top ?) They demonstrate how they harvest and store root vegetables. Video is short, about 8 min long.
How To Store Beets for up to TWO YEARS (also Carrots, Parsnips, Rutabagas, Horseradish & Turnips!)
(If you do not want to watch, the short answer is in peat moss and not touching each other, in plastic bins in the dark and cold, lid ajar to allow moisture to escape.)
Glad you have a harvest and place to store it! I have a basement, but it really does not get cold enough. (Well...the freezer does!) Old farmhouses used to have north facing pantries and dark basement storage, but not so much in modern tract housing.
I do have a few beets, and may have some turnips in a few weeks, so was looking for more info on storing beets and found an interesting video by a large Family in Alberta Candada who do serious gardening and long term storage.
They have a large turf covered root cellar that they cool in the summer and store their beets and other root crop in plastic bins using peat moss. They have some pretty big beets (Lutz tall top ?) They demonstrate how they harvest and store root vegetables. Video is short, about 8 min long.
How To Store Beets for up to TWO YEARS (also Carrots, Parsnips, Rutabagas, Horseradish & Turnips!)
(If you do not want to watch, the short answer is in peat moss and not touching each other, in plastic bins in the dark and cold, lid ajar to allow moisture to escape.)
We have an orchard less than 3 miles from my house. Besides the apples, they have several other crops that they grow: strawberries, all sorts of peppers, tomatoes, green beans, cabbage, pumpkins, every kind of squash, the best russet potatoes, baby red potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, cucumbers, okra, lots of different lettuces, and corn. I always do my produce shopping there first. It was often picked that day or the day before. Like you said, the difference between an orchard apple and a store apple is night and day different.
Right now I have some Johnagolds, Braeburn, and another one new to me, called Pixie Crunch. I always mix a few different ones in whatever I’m making. A tip given to me by the head baker at the orchard (their baked goods are AMAZING).
I love that I can get farm fresh produce 6 days a week (they’re closed on Sundays - I love that).
Today we had beautiful weather. My focus was getting our Halloween costumes ready for a party tonight. It’s a pretty low key event with great friends and their family, and a handful of their other light-hearted friends, about 20 people in all. A small amount of imbibing (beer and wine) but not over the top. Live music and the guests can sing if they feel like it. Everyone brings something to eat, so this time, instead of making food (which I always do) I gave myself a break and brought sub sandwiches from Jimmy John’s cut into smaller pieces. They were vanquished by the time we left, so I guess that’s a win.
The party was good clean fun. My favorite group costumes were the folks dressed as all the players from Gilligan’s Island. They were all there! Gilligan, the Skipper, Thurston Howell III, Lovey, Ginger, the Professor, and Mary Ann. So much fun.
I was Princess Leia, and hubby was Han Solo. We won a prize, which was nice. I do a lot of shopping at Goodwill and transform my finds into costumes. I don’t like spending money on pre-made things. One lady was the tooth fairy and that was pretty cool. Another lady was a monarch butterfly and had on the most beautiful “cape” that was the wings. I’ve never seen anything like that. People are so clever at Halloween.
THANK YOU!!!
My turnips are gorgeous this year.
The beet generally do ok.
According to THIS caterpillar Winter begins harsh, then ends mild.
Look for more and you’ll probably get slightly differing ‘opinions.’ ;)
My Dad put that ‘Chinese Five Spice’ in EVERYTHING - whether it called for it or not!
When he was still able, he LOVED to cook, but trust me - he could NOT cook!
On evenings when he made us supper I had to bribe the kids into eating at least a little - then there would be a pizza in it for them when we got home, LOL!
I usually wait until all of mine is ready to be cut, then I do it all at once. If the stalk is yellow, it’s gone dormant so if you feel the need to cut those back, feel free.
I just wait and do it all as one ‘chore’ and then I mulch the bed with straw. I only have a 4x 8’ asparagus bed.
My strawberries are starting to go dormant, and while some people ‘mow’ their patch, mine is in a raised bed so I just mulch heavily with straw and call it a season. So far, they have returned with a vengeance each Spring. They’re basically an invasive WEED, LOL!
Ahhh, thank you!
My asparagus bed is 4 x 16, plus I have some leveling to do. I planted new ones this spring and have gradually been filling them in. In our soil it’s the only practical way to get them deep enough. Anyways, I have a lot of amending to do and figure I can take it in chunks.
About half are yellow. However, that does answer my question.
Thanks.
LOVED ‘Longmire’ and Katee Sackhoff is so good in this role! I’ve had a crush on Lou Diamond Philips *SWOON* since I was a teen, but fell in love with Henry Standing Bear FOR REALS when I first read this series of books. The first one really gets you hooked!
Things sound as if they’re progressing nicely! Which gardening video person held you son’s interest? Just curious.
Never hurts to try with store-bought garlic. Usually any marked ‘organic’ will have not been sprayed with anything. There are so many things you can re-grow from veggie ‘scraps.’ I always feel GUILTY when I toss the root-end of anything into the compost bucket. ;)
Your winters might not get cold enough for the over-winter FREEZE you need for garlic. I THINK that’s probably what the Almanac is talking about.
I spent a LOT of time cleaning garlic for Seed Savers. It’s beautiful stuff! :)
Chuckle.....that’s funny.
Farmer Jesse of No Till Growers.
I doubt my son will become an avid gardener but it doesn't hurt to have some knowledge of it.
If I make sure next year's potato bed is really well prepped and he later digs up buckets and buckets of potatoes, that might give him an appreciation of it.
Green beans are easy enough and he likes those too.
"" Garlic does best if it can experience a “dormancy” period of colder weather—at least 40˚F (4°C)—that lasts 4 to 8 weeks. By planting garlic bulbs in the fall, they have time to develop healthy roots before temperatures drop and/or the ground freezes, but not enough time for the garlic to form top growth. ""
That's a hit or miss for us. It will either work or it won't.
Grabbed the heaviest one I could find. There was one bigger but not as heavy. Not marked organic but as I said, everything that can sprout has for me when not used fast enough.
I now have the simple pleasures of being able to cook again & have easy access to my little 7 cu. ft freezer. Instead of being in a shed where I have to ‘hike’ through the yard to get to it, it’s in the garage, a couple of feet away from the back/kitchen door.
Friday, after the new fridge arrived, I pulled a meat chicken out of that little freezer to thaw in the fridge. My niece raised & processed it. As we were saying yesterday .... no comparison with store bought. Her meat chickens are delicious! It went in the crockpot before church & at 2:00, the meat is falling off the bones.
I will be making your Tuscan Chicken recipe with the meat. I shopped for ingredients last night & to my surprise, I found everything. I also got the old fashioned oats to make apple crisp topping - that will be for dessert.
This coming week, I want to can a couple of batches of Apple Maple Jam. No jalapeños this year so Apple Maple will be my ‘go to’ for little presents when folks visit or I visit them.
Adventure for the Day (I hope): got home & opened the garage door ... when I went to close it, something dropped from above & hit my hand on the way down. When I looked to see what it was, it was a small snake, probably a garter snake. Mom was NOT happy, now worried about snakes getting in the basement.
Second spectacular Fall day in a row!
*** If I make sure next year’s potato bed is really well prepped and he later digs up buckets and buckets of potatoes, that might give him an appreciation of it.***
I had a funny dream last night. In it I was doing yard cleanup, and found a stack of wooden crates that I had set out in an area near my potting bench, where I do the work of my containers before moving them to their various positions around my house. I was taking a closer look at the crates, and forgot that I had tossed in some scraps of baby potatoes in the springtime. There was layer after layer of potatoes growing inside those crates, with sprouts everywhere and I hadn’t tended them at all! So many potatoes and where did they all come from? They had magically multiplied in those crates. It was like finding a gold mine.
The funny part of this is that nothing else in my dream was about gardening or yard work. This was just something I randomly stumbled in to doing in my dream. I remember there was an odd house with an unusual layout in it. Lots of doors and passageways and easy to get lost in. Dreams are weird. At least, my dreams are weird.
I’m glad you are getting back to the simple pleasures! I’m sure it must be a great relief that you no longer have to go back and forth. Now you can really begin to settle in and get comfortable.
I am loving my 7 cu ft freezer that we purchased at the end of August. I finally don’t have to dig around, and I can readily see what I’m running out of, so that I can keep my eye out for sales on those items.
Snakes! I hope it was just a garter snake! Have I ever mentioned how much I hate snakes?!
It’s another beautiful fall day here, too. Life is good! Even though sometimes it’s hard, it’s still good!
Did a search for Linux software for youtube for the HTPC and found a privacy based desktop app for watching youtube. https://freetubeapp.io/
It’s available for Win/MAC too.
You can subscribe to channels without being signed into youtube/google. I guess the app just repurposes/replaces youtube’s subscribe button. No ads, very fast and along with the full screen button, has a full window button in case you don’t want a video taking over your entire screen but want to see the video and nothing else in the window, whatever size window. Maximized or smaller but still with title bar.
They say it’s in Beta but it’s got 200 reviews in my software application and is rated 5 stars. That was the final piece of the puzzle for the HTPC and I’ll also be using it on my laptop.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.