Posted on 06/05/2015 12:57:35 PM PDT 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.
No matter what, you wont be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isnt asked. It is impossible to hijack the Weekly 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!
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Yeah, that’s what I’ve been seeing - fencing is the only way to keep them out. I can’t do that this year so I’ll have to do other things & see if I can’t keep most of my crop intact. The beds are fairly small (4 x 8) so I can probably drape some netting over the one being raided. I have two beds and one does have some netting from last year, but of course, they aren’t bothering those plants. I can do some hoops to hold the netting up on the unprotected bed, but that will have to happen next week.
99% certain it’s deer. We’ve seen them in the same ‘field’ as the garden & they’re also eating other non-veggie garden plants that deer like - they’ve decimated the hostas in the yard. As for squirrels, we have a Red Shouldered Hawk nesting in some nearby trees which is always a squirrel deterrent, plus I had an aggressive squirrel trapping program last year and it was not catch & release. We had ZERO squirrels on our bird feeders this winter/spring and even I was surprised at that! It’s deer - even spotted one in the yard as recently as last night & we’re seeing them on a game cam at the end of the field.
No gardening for me this week. Left home with Mrs. Augie and #1 Marine Daughter Leah last Sunday, bound for Camp Pendleton.
Did a bit of touristing on the way. Spent a day wandering Petrified Forest National Park, then another day hiking the rim trail at the Grand Canyon.
Most of today was spent wandering Mrs. Augie’s old stomping grounds in Redondo Beach. Love the sea breeze out here.
We’re having a great time but I’m not looking forward to the weed patch that’s going to be waiting for me when I get home. lol
Hi Everybody!
((((HUGS))))
The maintenance man who used to take the bananas has moved on, and there are two new bunches ripening now.
Fried Plantains!
mmm mmm mmmm
Was it only last week I joined here?
My smart little beans plants have twisted their little tendrils all the way to the top of the post I gave them. (I have one special-needs one that is ignoring the post I gave it) As have the pea plants with the fencing.
It was all an intermediate-step, waiting for hubby to finally relocate HOME - and help me out. Ive send pics of the garden to him, and he cant believe I actually got things to grow! Its wonderful being OUT of the desert :)
I wanted to wait to harvest anything until hubby gets here, so we can have our first salad together. The lettuces and spinach and radishes are getting awfully bug though!
Wow. Beautiful!
Photos are beautiful.
Must buy some oriental poppies as your’s are splendid.
And your peonies are so upright. My lovely peonies are mostly laying on the ground even with two rings to hold them.
I can’t speak to where you are, but they sure do eat tomatoes here in MI.
Nasty things just take a bite or 2 out of each tomato.
I have found Mil-organite fertilizer to be quite effective at keeping them honest.
It’s available in farm and garden shops here in MI.
We live in the woods and it was near impossible to grow much of anything until I visited a friend who also lives in a wooded area and she had gorgeous flowers and I asked HOW she did it.
She said “MIl organite and now I have Hibiscus and other nice plants with out deer sampling.
Thanks for the colorful flowers ~
Please stop by the Bender Plantation in Benderville while you’re in Calif. We just a few hundred miles north of y’all ~
So look forward to this every week.
There is a FReeRepublic tread earlier that may be of interest to tomato growers:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/3297232/posts
To compensate for our cool weather I start the corn in the greenhouse and transplant to the garden and cover it with row covers to help it along ~
Picked about 2 gallons of Seascape Strawberries last Friday and a little less today ~
The tomatoes in the grow house look good but time will tell if I get a crop. Most of them are Celebrity as it does well in our pacific NW climate. There are a few peppers in here also ~
This is a rhododendron called Golden Gait ~
You make me weep. *sigh*
My husband is enjoying the beds he worked so hard to develop last year. Garlic and onions going great, some herbs, carrots, and teeny beets are up. Waiting on the rest.
My side is straight weed garden. I have had some sad things to deal with, so my motivation is crap right now. But I did put in three miniature and wretchedly scraggly tomato plants that my husband started. He told me yesterday that tomatoes were MY responsibility this year. On June 5th. :) But with our clime it’s only a week late really. Off to the nursery tomorrow to see if they have any respectable plants. They have been really good these past few years with anticipating folks like me.
My raspberry bush looks grand - it’s third full year and I think I will have good results.
Glub!
Last time I looked out the kitchen window, the garden is still there; I just don’t feel like schlupping through the mud to get there from here. We’ve been getting anywhere from a half inch to nearly 2 inches of rain a day most days this past week or so, including 1.75 yesterday, and more earlier today; and again now. One of the new gooseberries drowned. A few days go, I was able to check, and the potatoes were about ready for their first hilling, but that’s not going to happen for awhile.
A close lightning strike took out my modem & phones (but not the phone line) today. Joys of a co-op, I called it in around 4 PM, and techs on their way home from the office stopped & replaced the modem less than an hour later.
70 miles to our SW, a WY town and surrounding area got 6-11” the night before last; they’re getting more tonight. It’s washed out a 8 or 10 miles of tracks and a couple of bridges of the BNSF/UP mainline double tracks for the Powder River coal trains; as well as taken out all the highways in the area. U.S. 18, 20, & 85 are all closed in east-central WY; the upside is I don’t have truck traffic to fight when I go to work
The same night, a 40 mile long swathe 15 miles south of us got up to tennis ball sized hail. We were lucky, as it had been bearing NE, straight at us for over 70 miles, but the hills & Cheyenne River hooked it due east.
I’m 82 and my preference would be weeds at this time but Lady Bender browbeats me although she does let me take a nap every 20 or 30 minutes. For the second year my garlic is infested with rust again which stunts bulb formation and does a mental number on me.
What can be done about the rust? I think this will be only our second year of getting a garlic harvest - first two years we didn’t get the timing right.
I keep my lemon tree in a rather small container to keep it small enough for the area I have to keep it in. Every now and then it gets so many little pea size fruits, that I take them off, because I know it can’t really grow that many.
If I don’t, it usually drops some of them all by itself.
Oh that’s right. I had forgotten, and was wondering what was up. LOL
I haven’t been to the Grand Canyon and all those interesting Western places since I was a teenager. It’s beautiful and was a very memorable vacation for me.
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