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Good morning, FRiends and fellow gardeners! We finally have power again, some dog-gone big and vicious storms ran over us last night here in NE Louisiana. If anybody figures out how to get a solar system to work at night without spending $100k on batteries, please let me know!! lol Received anywhere between 2.5" and 5" of rain, depending on the field. The 2.5" we registered here at the house can't possibly be right ... the rain was blowing so sideways that I don't think half of it got in the gauge. It was sorely needed and I am...

Good morning everybody! I hope you've had a peaceful and productive week. Last week I posted photos of my cowpea patch and it has changed drastically since. Not only did they blossom, I have pea pods that are already 5" long! We will be picking before too long.Thanks to all who posted photos last week. It was a beautiful thread.Looking forward to reading your comments about what is happening in your neck o' the woods. The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are...

Apologies for the late posting of the thread ... I have been on the go since I woke up this morning, and didn't even think about it being Friday until we were 20 miles from the house.I harvested another 15 gallons of honey last Sunday ... boy am I rethinking how many bees I really want to have. Honey robbing in 105 degree heat is no fun, even with a camelback of cold drink under my suit. Got 3 new queens in the mail and installed one in a hive that I had split into 2 hives, and the...

Good morning, FRiends, fellow gardeners, and yet-to-be gardeners!Thanks go out to all that participated in the thread last week. Beautiful photos were posted, and info was shared that will make big differences in the gardening lives of our members.If you can ... please remember to add keywords that will make our threads more useful when searched. I think that I was the only one that added keywords as the thread progressed. My thoughts and prayers are with everyone that needs a good rain. Drought is an awful situation. I am off to the back end of the yard to...

Good morning and happy Friday (the 13th) to all of my FRiends and fellow gardeners! My special thanks go to Ellendra for posting the thread while I took a week to go to the mountains. I was hoping to find relief from the heat, only to find that it was in the 90's in SE Montana, not much cooler than here in Louisiana.I began the long process of becoming a fly fisherman, and I am hooked, so to speak. Just what I needed ... another hobby to compete for my limited time!Today is the first time I've seen the...

Anybody enjoying the heat???? Good morning, FRiends and fellow gardeners! My thanks to Red Devil_232 and his beautiful tomato plants for hosting last week's gardening thread. Here in NELA, we welcomed the first day of summer with temps in 3 digits ... at one time yesterday afternoon, our digital weather station had the temperature outside at 102.4! The remote unit that is transmitting the temp is on the north end of the house, tucked up under the eve and out of the sun. Whew!Lots going on here. We've been enjoying sweet corn (var. Serendipity) all week, and the harvest...

Good morning! Hope that all of my FRiends and fellow gardeners have had a good and productive week.Began the Spring harvest in my apiary yesterday, which yielded 7 gallons of beautiful honey from 3 hives. Still have 3 hives from which to pull the honey boxes, and the remaining hives will not harvest until Fall because they are relatively new. Bit of trivia here ... a gallon of honey weighs 12 pounds.The wheat harvest is over and the farm is buzzing with tractors getting cotton and soybeans planted on the wheat ground. The field corn has tassled and pollinated,...

Good morning and happy June to my gardening FRiends and fellow gardeners!You may have noticed that I titled last week's thread "Keywords", and then totally forgot to write the first word about the topic. That illustrates perfectly how frazzled my mind is these days. As I was getting ready to hit the post button, I kept thinking there was something I was forgetting, but finally convinced myself that it probably wasn't *that* important, and I posted the thread. I apologize.There has been more than once that great information has been posted by one of our members, but I can't...

Huge thanks to Red Devil_232 for posting the thread last week!!! It is absolutely crazy around the farm, with everybody going in different directions at the same time and trying to stay coordinated with one another.The wheat harvest is well underway, and the yields have been above our wildest dreams. The field corn has tasseled and is pollinating nicely. Several hundred acres of cotton have been planted and it is now being fertilized, sprayed for weeds, sprayed for bugs, etc. Still have about 900 acres of cotton left to plant behind the wheat.My sweet corn patches are looking good,...

Good morning FRiends and fellow gardeners!! Here's wishing all mothers and grandmothers a very joyous and beautiful Mother's Day. We rock! It has been a very busy couple of weeks in my yard. Lots of projects going on and I was able to finish a few of them in between serious dumpings of rain. My rain gauge has registered just over 4" since Monday. We have a 50% chance of more by the first part of next week. Need to be harvesting wheat, but can't really be upset with the rain after the drought we experienced last year.A look...

Good morning FRiends and fellow gardeners! I really enjoyed all of you that participated in last week's thread. I've been so busy that I didn't have time to respond to each and every comment, but I think about what y'all write and the photos that you post while I'm out working on my own projects. You truly inspire me!Looking forward to reading your updates this week. We welcomed 2 new members to the ping list last week, bringing us to 525 members. That is fantastic, and we are on track to add 100 members this year.In my own little...

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Good morning everyone! I'm looking forward to hearing your gardening challenges and successes today. Please check in and let us know how it's going.This morning I've put together a little pictorial of how Mark and I cut a honey bee hive out of a wall or similar place. This is a medium-sized cutout that we did back in March. The hive was located in an old shed that the owner wanted to tear down, but they were trying to reclaim windows and the old boards and the bees weren't having any of that. So, the owner got her building...

Good morning to my FRiends, fellow gardeners, future gardeners, and lurkers! It is beautiful and sunny today here in NELA. We received 2-1/2 inches of rain earlier in the week and it is still very wet in the yard and garden. I've been keeping busy with my bee yard ... I got called about a swarm day-before-yesterday, about 25 miles south of my house. I still had all of my bee catching equipment in my truck from doing a hive cutout last weekend, so off I went. Below is a photo of the swarm when I got there, and...

The Wizard of OzThe Treasure of Sierra MadreThe Three StoogesThe GodfatherIt's a Wonderful LifeGone With the WindBonnie & ClydeEnough of movies ... here is some reality:

Happy Friday the 13th, and good morning fellow gardeners and FRiends! I hope that you are enjoying weather as beautiful as what we are experiencing here in NE Louisiana. Nights and mornings are cool and breezy, and the days very warm.I've planted 1.6 acres of bi-color sweet corn. We checked the seed the next day and it had already sprouted, and was pegged the following day. Perfect conditions!Looking forward to hearing what's going on in your neck o' the woods. The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds....

Good morning, FRiends and fellow gardeners! The weather has cooled-down a bit, the sun is shining and my grandgirls have been here all week. I am one happy blonde today.It rained again 2 and 3 days ago, so I haven't even disked up the garden spot yet, but that will get done Monday.All of the fruit trees and bushes that I've planted are doing very well and the regular rains have been perfect to keep them moist and off to a great start! Some of the raspberries that I planted were established plants, and some were bare-root canes. Many...

Good evening, FRiends and gardeners! I deeply apologize for the delay in posting this week's thread ... this is an extremely busy time here on our farm, and when you've got just a handful of folks farming 3,000 acres, there are times when it is all hands on deck all night long. The rain has been spaced exactly right to be wrong, and we were down to the wire getting our corn crop planted.With that out of the way, how in the world is everybody doing with their gardens and plans for gardens? We have so many members with...

Good morning, FRiends and fellow gardeners! Hopefully everyone has received beneficial rain this past week. We've had an additional 2 inches, which was a blessing because just to the south and southwest of us as much as 10 inches fell. While the area needed the rain, it didn't need it all at one time.Looking forward to reading what you're doing with your gardens and plans this week. Photos will earn you bonus points! :^) It is too wet for me to do anything in the garden, but I do have lots of raspberry bushes to get planted. Then, the...

Good morning FRiends and gardeners! During the rain this past week, I've had a chance to do some reading and found some articles that may be of interest to you. So this week I am sharing links, and I hope you enjoy them and find some useful information. I also hope that you'll check in and let us know how your garden/garden planning is coming along.In Kitchen Garden Creation, you'll learn about growing culinary and visual delights in the same place.The following links are for those interested in improving the structure of their soil. If you have rocks or...