Posted on 06/01/2026 6:10:43 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
The MONTHLY Victory Garden 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 Victory Garden 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.
Congrats on your anniversary! Nice to hear from you.
Baked ribs sure save time and trouble.....the oven does all the work.
I started yesterday and will continue on with weeding, today! Trust me, it is more than a one-day job!
I like BBQ ribs in the oven, too.
BUT - you’ve got to be using Bob’s Bitchin’ BBQ Sauce. Made in Wisconsin, of course. (First ‘big’ town next to us. A whole 4K in population.) Eight varieties from mild to WILD! My favorite is the Mango Red Pepper.
https://www.bobsbitchinbbq.com/
We eat at their restaurant a few times a year. It’s SO good!
They ship! :)
Wisconsin and BBQ?......who knew?
This monsoon season is getting on my nerves. 2/10” Thursday, 2/10” Friday, and another .75” yesterday.
I harvested beets Friday from one of the raised beds. I pickled seven quarts of root slices/chunks and five quarts of tops from a 30sq/ft planting. Not a bad yield from that amount of space, I think.
The seal in my pressure cooker didn’t want to, so the jars of greens will have to go into the refrigerator. I was able to find replacement seals on amazon and ordered a two pack.
With all of the rain the weeds/grass are growing like crazy in the big garden and I haven’t been able to keep up with pulling them. It’s starting to look more like a hayfield than a garden patch. I’ll try to get out there and lay down some weed mat today.
The heat has finished my snap peas that turned out to be snow peas so those are going to get yanked today. Lettuce is starting to get bitter, so it needs to come out. The basils I started are ready to transplant. Think I’ll put it in the pots where the lettuce is now.
The first planting of sweet corn is trying to do something but I don’t think it will amount to anything. Some of the stalks are making an ear but most of them are barren. Sweet corn likes water but only to a point.
Although I almost put her on Amazon marketplace last week!
In 1999 we had a big family pig roast. It was half a hog and the butcher supplied the towable roaster. We called it P2K instead of Y2K. We found about 10 different and unusual kinds of BBQ sauce to let people pick their own for their plates. Hubby roasted the pig to perfection. The one sauce no one had much of was called Devil’s Spit.
We have a lot of steers for Brisket’ It took me until I was 65, but I’ve finally mastered The Brisket, plain or BBQ. ;)
You sound like you’re having the rainy season I had last year. This one has been close, but it looks like we may be past the worst of the rains for now.
What I need up here now now is dry and HOT, Baby! Dry and HOT! :)
That is beautiful! :)
For those of you who have Rural King stores nearby, our closest RK store has a lot of “nursery” stuff on 50% clearance, including some plants. Maybe yours does too?
They also had some starter plants, mostly tomatoes, from some brand called “Tasty Garden”, in little singles pots that couldn’t be much more than 10 oz. Yet, most of these plants, most of which were 12” tall at most, and mostly a bit “scrawny” looking, had one or two fruits 1/2” to 1” diameter on them. Some of the the “Sweet 100’s” were even to the point of “blushing” fruits.
I can guess that the vendor must have hit these with lots of phosphate to force blooming / fruiting, at the expense of the plant being big enough and healthy enough to support fruiting in the 1st place?
A small sign indicated these plants were on clearance for either 50 cents or a dollar, and “as marked”, but only a couple were marked... at 50 cents. A couple RK employees walked up and I asked about the price: One employee tried to pull a plant up by its bar code, and got $1.74. He shook his head and said I should go in and talk to a cashier.
So, I did just that, and the cashier allowed that she could sell the plants for 50 cents each. I figured what the heck - it would be interesting to see what I could get out of them, and bought 3. :-)
Has anyone heard of marigolds that don’t bloom until they’re nearly two foot tall? I planted these from seeds and they’re incredible.
I’ve seen them in bloom, a few years ago, but don’t know anything about them, except they were gorgeous!
Much the same here. Rain plus heat = “tropical” growth. I have a couple Sweet 100 tomato plants that think they are Victor Wembanyama. I may need to hit them with some Super Phosphate so they’ll bloom: Unlike all the other tomato plants that seemed to get both a growth and a “bloom boost” from the Expert Gardener Tomato Food, these Sweet 100’s didn’t flower much in response, but, they sure did grow. At this rate I’ll need Victor, or a step ladder, to harvest fruits when they show up...
That said, at present, we are having a delightful cooldown with low humidity*, after what WAS supposed to be 2 days of hefty rain. We got sprinkles, barely, and everything significant stayed to the north or south of us. We actually could have used it - despite the rain last week, we are still in drought overall.
*I should have scheduled our camping trip for NOW. As it is, we might get one decent day, but then heat, humidity, and chances of rain go up. Unfortunately, NWS keeps increasing all those, even somewhat on our 1st day. That may be good for fishing, esp. saugeye** fishing, if I can work it in between t-storms. But... The cabins @ the location wifey picked out apparently do not have AC, and swimming got banned at the lake the cabins are at, so if we get high temps & humidity, it may not be much fun. :-(
**A walleye-sauger sterile hybrid that evidently behave much like walleye. They supposedly taste as good as walleye - we shall see, IF I get lucky.
We are sort of lucky — our well water, despite the high particulates (that mostly seem to be some sort of plant fibers that show up particularly after heavy rains) is about 90+ percent of the time not really high in iron or sodium or anything else. Much like the well we had in Kansas when I was a grasshopper, those levels are moderate and all seem to balance out very nicely, taste-wise. (So far as I can recall, we didn’t have significant particulates problems back then, but, then again, I was a “grasshopper” and may not have known - I just knew our water tasted quite a bit better than all but a couple close neighbor’s water, and Mom and Dad thought so too, rating it better than their hometowns’ water. (Our grandparents water was not too great.)
BTW, I should not complain about the heavy rains: I’d rather have our “minor” well problems and essentially unlimited supply, than the problems of not enough supply that many people in the Western US, and around the world, have!
Not me. Marigold were my moms favorite, always short. Can you post a picture?
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