Posted on 11/28/2014 12:33:45 PM PST by greeneyes
The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly 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. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks.
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Lilacs - yes my favorite fragrant flowers.
We have a lilac bush that was made from cutting from a plant my great grandmother had.
My grandmother planted root cutting from it in 1946, when they built a new home.
They are incredibly hardy and amazingly drought resistant.
That is so great. My Mom loved roses, and Dad liked them too, so they had roses everywhere. I wish that I had taken some cuttings or something from there to plant at my house.
I hope you all enjoyed our weather this weekend. We were at 71 degrees here. I got outside and did a little piddling in the garden and patio clean up. Temps are now falling fast.
Almost 70 at noon.
38 now.
Yow !
We are just at about 49 degrees here. I’ve been able to walk around in my sandals all weekend, and short sleeve T shirt. Gonna have to get out the socks and tennis shoes, and long sleeves soon.
We got a whole bunch of fruit trees set out in the nice balmy weather this weekend. 3 plum trees, 1 pear, 1 peach, 1 apple. We’ve got 3 figs and a persimmon in pots waiting for more landscaping soil and 8 knockout rosebushes and 24 bramble vines (Kiowa and PrimeArk blackberries, loganberries and boysenberries) in their little pots waiting for another batch of bull panels from the co-op in a few weeks when we can arrange the use of a trailer to get them. I’ve got 50 or so strawberry plants that runnered and those need to be set out too. Busy busy busy at my house!
Oh, and my hazlnut shrubs have little catkins on them for the first time this winter. Yay! Hopefully I’ll get a few hazlenuts next year.
Mr. Mole got my Chinese cabbages and snow peas. Hubby is gonna go nuclear on him before we try to set out spring greens in a couple months. Next raised bed we build will have chickenwire in the bottom!
Garlic looks fabulous. Much better than it did last year. We set it out about 3 weeks later last year and it didn’t have as much time for topgrowth before it got cold for good. This year I’ll have to worry about protecting the top growth if it gets really cold again. Still have those tunnel wire thingies in my cart at Johnny’s waiting for me to remember to order them.
And my late corn experiment yielded a little over a pound of seed corn. Small kernels so it’s a lotta seeds in there. I planted out the whole pack IIRc, 70 seeds. Crows got about 1/3 of it when it came up because I wasn’t diligent to protect it. We ate about 1/3 of the ears and this is the remaining ears, shelled. I was totally happy. Next spring I’ll plant another couple packets to maximize the number of parents in my saved seed stash and hopefully get another couple pounds. We’ll see.
I’ve found seeds for a really short season white dent corn that I’ll plant first thing next spring. It’s supposed to be somewhere between 2’ and 3’ so I might try to sneak it into a front flower bed, densely (8”, square), just for kicks. no HOA here in the country but hubby might not like the idea so I’ll have to run it by him first.
Will you have to cover up those fruit trees when it gets cold again? Have you ever tried to use dent corn for popcorn?
Won’t have to cover the up the fruit trees, they were bare root and I bought for 3 zones colder for maximum cold tolerance.
I have not tried to pop dent corn. I’m wondering how masa harina made from flint corn would make tortillas. I guess I need to find a ‘corn how to’ book on amazon or something.
I’ve added this book to my amazon wishlist:
Maybe Santa will bring me a copy!
And I finally found answer. Either dent or flint corn will work for tortillas:
http://www.lonestartaconyc.com/2013/02/how-to-make-corn-tortillas.php
I also have honeysuckle that was from great great grandmother’s plant.
But bear in mind, my family has lived/owned/operated farms in this county since 1889.
This week I pealed and hung to dry about 60 hachiya persimmons from a 50 year old tree we have. They are drying on a rack inside my sun room. Not a big crop (last time I dried 250), but we just went through a 3 year drought. No one living in Texas has seen such a drought. Have to go back to 1895 to find a similar pattern.
We also have a couple of pear trees that are 60-70 years old. Very reliable producers. Most of my orchard is much younger.
That looks very interesting. Also the one about resilient farms and homesteads. I may buy one or the other in February. Too many other things demanding dollars right now.
Micro wave, coffee pot, dish washer, washing machine, property taxes and Insurance, daughter’s tuition, and the list goes on. sigh
Good plan regarding the trees. Should work great.
I love corn, popcorn, and corn bread. Corn tortillas not so much.LOL
That’s terrific. We haven’t had much luck with our orchard we planted it in 2010. I think its because the trees are all to close to the walnut tree.
What little fruit we got was teeny not even as big around as a pencil lead.
Walnut trees don't like other trees.
If you can't move the walnut tree, move the orchard.
I can recommend that book very highly, as well as the author’s other book “Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties”.
You may want to read Resilient Gardening before choosing your corn varieties for next year. She goes into a lot of detail about the differences between varieties and which is better for what. Not just “flint vs. dent”, but everything! Even which colors taste better cooked in certain ways!
I can’t help with the taxes, tuition, or insurance, but I’ve found good appliances for less at shopgoodwill.com.
We are watching the weather, hoping the ice stays below I-44, and it looks like it will.
I stepped out briefly at 7:45 pm. Holy cow; the wind !
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