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.
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Great use of space! Love it! :)
Great old photos! Priceless, actually!
LOL! Ny dogs ALWAYS blame the cats!
As much as I loathe the politics in that city, many neighborhoods in Madison have really nice sidewalk/median gardens that people put a lot of effort into.
No HOAs there, but just TRY putting up a Trump flag, LOL!
Beautiful. And when do you inherit it? ;)
The money didn’t go down our line. When they FINALLY settled 3rd great grandfather’s estate, the probate runs FOREVER and took decades to settle. They let me scan the whole thing. But great grandmother died before her mother, who inherited the property, and grandmother didn’t join in the lawsuit to try to get part of the estate since the will didn’t handle what happened to the children of deceased descendants. We’re the poor, but honest, branch.
I DID meet a cousin during my genealogical journey who was my 2nd great grandmother’s sister’s descendant. The money DID go down that line. I wondered why she didn’t give me a street number of her address and discovered it was because the house covered an entire block on the Newport RI main drag. I had her putting together the entire family tree on their main dining room table and reciting ancestors. Really loved that lady.
My family is the standard ‘Boring Immigrant from Europe’ story. No one went on to have huge success and most couples only produced ONE offspring. My sister and I are the last of the line...and that’s probably a Good Thing, Martha!
You’re lucky if you got Grandma’s old Roasting Pan and her bread recipe in my Family Tree. I got them both - no one else wanted them, LOL!
Whatever, Grandpa, LOL! But, I got a lot done today! Rose cuttings planted, 'Saychelles' green beans re-planted where needed. Lawn got mowed; Beau did the pre- weed whacking for me before he left to visit his wife and kids in Canada (JOKING!) Everything looks nice and neat.
The puppies spent the day chasing one another around and complaining LOUDLY when one had a toy that the other wanted - because it doesn't matter WHO has WHAT at any given time - the other one wants it. They also got some nose-to-the-ground training from Dolly (Beagle) in two separate bunny hunting treks through the woods.
Waiting to hear if any of my dogs did well at the Water Race, today. Shasta, Sioux and Mandan attended. All are very athletic and LOVE to swim and Shasta is nearly always a 'ringer.' She looks like an English Coon Hound, but is really just a mutt. Don't tell anyone; even Shasta doesn't know! This is exercise training for Bear Camp which starts after July 4th...and if they win a little BLING, so be it. :)
It was A Good Day all the way around. Rain tomorrow, so indoor activities - most likely making Pie Filling from the gazillion Blueberries my neighbor scored for us.
Immigrant from Europe can be quite exciting. The main problem, I find, is that you’re limited to great grandparents or so for information and that when you go down and deep in research, you find too many records in languages you can’t read or find the records have been destroyed in a war.
What got me interested in genealogy was that I came from a family of storytellers and was raised on my maternal grandparents’ laps. Our families on that side were usually 2 kids and not much interest in their ancestors.
But I’m a researcher so I have 4 newspaper subscriptions and periodically do scans of name variations of ancestors and do find wonderful newspaper stories, even of mother’s side.
Father’s side was rich and famous and brilliant. But as father wrote in one of his poems:
Outcast men of the world are we,
Sunk in the depths of iniquity
Detested by all and loved by none.
A blot on the face of the kindly sun.
Men of training and breeding and birth
Who knew full well what the game was worth
Who played their hands — and lost —
— and then
Lost themselves from the world of men.
We hid ourselves in the Island world
Where the flashing coils of the “Snake” are curled
We sought the depths to hide our shame.
The “thing” we had made of an honored name.
We swam the Bay in the early dawn
But the Shark came not, and we lived on.
We sought the end in the bolo’s steel
But hearts wounds live, while flesh wounds heal.
We went unarmed to the Moro’s “jil”
But they called us “mad” and they would not kill.
And the Padre came with his tale of Grace
But we knew better, and laughed in his face.
We twined our hearts in a woman’s hair
Then tried to forget in the din and glare
Of a “tienda down on the opal bay
Where many men come and some men stay.
We lost ourselves in the Army then,
Our identity merely “Enlisted Men”
But in the dusk, when the shadows start to crawl
In their weird, wild dance on the barracks wall
A ghastly pageant that comes to stir
Our memory again to what we were
And we bow our heads and stifle a cry
For we don’t know how and we’ll never know why.
Well, we were out camping (and nearly getting blown, as in wind-blown, into the next state), and I completely missed this one. (It was cloudy most of the day anyway.)
Occulations are “cool”, tho’. Thanks for posting!
I have “chips” that need to be used - maybe I should try that recipe!
NWS had predicted lots of rain for our location while we were gone camping, and instead we received, per the NWS precip. map, “under 0.01”. So, some of the plants in pots were hurting by the time we got back home, esp. an Ichiban eggplant that needs to go in a bigger pot anyway. This is one of the 2 I overwintered indoors, and now it’s 6’ tall and still growing - when it gets enough water, that is. I have watered plants B4 we left only moderately, as I didn’t want to drown them, expecting a couple inches of rain over a couple days. But... I should have known: With only one exception this Spring / Summer has a NWS forecast of lots of rain panned out for us, and that time, it almost all came down in under half an hour and most of it ran off.
The good news is most everything appears to be recovering, even that badly wilted eggplant. :-)
A few tomato fruits are showing “almost blush”. (A very, VERY slight hint of yellow.) NWS is forecasting our high temperatures weather the next several days to be in the low to mids 80’s (F), so, I “should” be able to pick a few fruits in a few more days. Supposedly, storing them in a paper bag @ temperatures averaging ~80 deg. F will ripen them quicker than just setting out - so, I’ll give that a try. I sure would like to have garden tomatoes to eat by the end of June. :-)
Curiously, it looks like either the better of the Golden Jubilee or the Patio Tomatoes may beat the “Early Girls”. The EG’s had a few small fruits early, but they have been developing slowly, as have the plants themselves.
Other than that windy(!) day I mentioned, most of our camping trip went fairly well. Except... we’d gone to a “SRA” (State Recreation Area) in IL, said SRA being only ~22 minutes away from a lake in which the IDNR stocks “saugeye”. I really wanted to take a crack at Saugeye, esp. as they are supposed to be as good as walleye as table fare. The lake is a nice and quite clean “city lake” (if 5000 inhabitants can be called a “city”). It has well maintained fishing piers and, essential for my wife, even tho’ clouds came and went, some shade trees here and there, near the water.
And... The saugeye were a bust. But, fishing for Saugeye, I did catch just about as “handsome” a 7 lb. channel catfish as you’d ever hope to see. (I say “handsome” even tho’ it was a female. Wifey said it looked like a shark. In a way... yes, quite so.) “Was” because now Ms. Catfish is cleaned and on ice in the fridge, for frying tomorrow. I can live with it. :-)
Wifey got some great sunset photos — if she’ll send me a few, I’ll try to post one.
Cookies turned out! I rarely make cookies so not a confident baker & I was nervous, but they look decent & taste great. I have them layered in a container with wax paper between the layers so if she wants to freeze them & take one out for a treat now & then, the cookies won’t stick to each other. I’ll take them to church in a cooler so they don’t melt in the car before I can give them to her after the service.
That poem is right up there with, ‘In Flanders Fields!’
Plans today include, but are not limited to: watering houseplants, tending to any and all needs of pets, hunting dogs and puppies (cats are out hunting), a few garden chores; mainly sucker pruning on my fruit trees, picking whatever cherries are ripe and waiting on the rain this afternoon. When it rains I'll do the other 'inside stuff' on my list. Nice morning, so far.
As far as the Water Race went, Sioux & Ruby both refused to swim for some reason (it happens) but Mandan took First Place for the Males and Shasta took Second Place for the females! :) Beau and his fishing crew got settled at the resort yesterday but it rained all day so they didn't get any fishing in.
It’s dumping rain again today here in the Middle of Misery.
I’ve never seen my tomato plants so miserable.
Never knew the man. Mother took me away when I was six weeks old. Took me decades to find his book of poetry. It was only after researching Night Before Christmas with a Vassar prof that I succeeded. His name was misspelled. Recently discovered that the book is in the Harvard Special Collection.
https://iment.com/maida/family/father/oldsoldiersdrums/frontcover.htm
Outcasts is from the poetry he published in his college poetry column in our University of Chicago newspaper. Went through all the late 20’s microfilm to find them and discovered father courting mother through poetry and mother replying in poetry.
Father’s Day is a good day to think about him. I went to his grave in a military cemetery back in the 80’s and introduced myself.
Mother met father in the shadow of time
Cast by permanent stones of cathedral and bells.
The building they met in was wood, thin and cheap.
I know this because I walked in that place
Thirty years from a soldier’s chance meeting with fate.
So, I guess, in some sense, I’m a child of them all
Of mother, of father, of the Humanities hall.
She was a journalist trying to find
In the day’s small events
Some explaining of why
She was her,
Who she was,
A girl in the prime
Of her green salad days
Seen through sea-green young eyes.
He was a poet explaining himself
In the words of a soldier
To any and all
Who could hear with deaf ears
What it was to be young
To be strong and alive
And in love with a lady
Who saw through your eyes.
6 Trees You Should Never Plant in Your Yard, According to the Experts
They’re notoriously high-maintenance and headache-inducing.
Outfitting your yard with beautiful flowers, shrubs, and trees comes down to far more than aesthetics alone. Often, the best choices are low-maintenance plants that are native to the environment, thrive brilliantly on their own, and (as a nice bonus) show off with some pretty foliage.
This is true of anything you add to your landscaping, but trees require an extra level of scrutiny to ensure they pass the backyard vibe check. Once established, they’re far more difficult to remove, and their larger canopies can lead to a lot more maintenance compared to, say, a knee-high shrub.
We spoke with arborists and landscapers about which trees are bad choices for your yard so you can spare yourself the headache.
Tree of Heaven (Replants itself everywhere via suckers AND seeds)
Colorado Blue Spruce (Struggles and has disease issues outside of it’s native habitat)
False Acacia (Black Locust! NO! These are the trees you see blooming white along cultivated crop fields. They reproduce like crazy via underground runners. Supposedly the wood is very good for fence posts, but again - NO! Not a good house yard tree in any way)
Bradford Pear Tree (Flowers beautifully; does not produce fruit. A very weak-wooded tree - the first to split or fall on your house)
Leyland Cypress (Planted for hedges as it grows quickly, but you’re lucky to get 10 years out of it and then have to replace your hedge)
Diana here: We do have Colorado Blue Spruce mixed in with our Norway Spruce and White Pine as a western and northern wind break and they seem happy. No disease issues; the trees are easily 30 years old and just massive. Beau brought most of them home from job sites where they were just going to be cut down, anyway.
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