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Weekly Gardening Thread – 2009 Vol.2 – May 22
FreeRepublic | 5-22-2009 | Red_Devil 232

Posted on 05/22/2009 4:17:16 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232

This is the second edition of the 2009 Weekly Gardening Thread. If you are a gardener or an aspiring gardener please stop in from time to time during the next week and share your experiences. Last weeks thread was a great success. Thanks to all who participated!


TOPICS: Agriculture; Food; Gardening; Outdoors
KEYWORDS: garden; gardening; weekly
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To: Tarheel

>>>Since you grow eggplant any insight you can offer me w/b appreciated. Do they need staking?<<<

Expect your eggplant to be a lot like zucchini or yellow squash in growth. Just about as easy to grow too.

Zone 7b


101 posted on 05/22/2009 2:01:04 PM PDT by DelaWhere ("Without power over our own food, any notion of democracy is empty." - Frances Moore Lappe)
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To: Tarheel
Eggplant is easy to grow. I can even do it! Mine needed to be staked last year. Depending on the variety and when you harvest it can get to be heavy vegetable.
102 posted on 05/22/2009 2:27:53 PM PDT by Red_Devil 232 (VietVet - USMC All Ready On The Right? All Ready On The Left? All Ready On The Firing Line!)
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To: Tarheel

The eggplant plants I have growing this year are almost as big as the ones I had growing all last summer. Flowers but no vegetable growth yet.


103 posted on 05/22/2009 2:33:43 PM PDT by Red_Devil 232 (VietVet - USMC All Ready On The Right? All Ready On The Left? All Ready On The Firing Line!)
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To: Gabz
"The one really has me intrigued, it’s called Mr. Stripey."

Mr. Stripey is fun; it also goes by the name 'Tigerella' which I think describes it better. A yellow tomato striped with red, inside and out. Beefsteak-like, but some strains are a bit 'gnarly.' A nice slicer, but I've found it a little wet & sloppy for BLTs.

For BLTs I prefer a Seed Savers variety called 'Golden Sunray.' Nice & meaty and not too wet.

104 posted on 05/22/2009 4:41:11 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
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To: kacres

I’ve grown them for several years. Not that hard really, grow like tomatoes except they don’t need a cage. Have had no pest issues but I’m up north.

Pick when the berries are completely purple, should come off the plant easily. Makes great pies.


105 posted on 05/22/2009 4:42:42 PM PDT by Free Vulcan (No prisoners. No mercy. 2010 awaits.....)
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To: DC Packfan

Diatmataceous earth. It kills all bugs and worms.


106 posted on 05/22/2009 4:44:47 PM PDT by Free Vulcan (No prisoners. No mercy. 2010 awaits.....)
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To: Red_Devil 232

Sure looks like a fig tree to me! If the tree was ‘own root’ and not grafted, that shoot should be the same tree you originally planted.

You would not believe the number of people that have come in this past week demanding refunds for plants that they’ve dug up...THAT ARE STILL ALIVE and just haven’t come up yet!

Butterfly Bush, St. John’s Wort (Hypericum), mid-summer to fall blooming perennials and a few other slow starters. Good Lord, People! Everything has it’s season. Leave your yards alone, LOL!

BTW, I DON’T give them a refund. I tell them to take their LIVE PLANT back home, replant it, give it some water and a shot of nutrition and READ A BOOK about the plants they have in their yards that THEY are responsible for.

Of course, I do this in a nice way, but really. Get a clue, LOL!


107 posted on 05/22/2009 4:46:03 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
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To: HiramQuick

“Speckled Roman is incredible in taste.”

Agreed. I’ve grown it for years. One of my Top Ten favorites (it’s a paste tomato) which is also great for fresh salsa.

I worked for The Seed Savers Exchange for seven of the happiest years of my life. :)

http://www.seedsavers.org


108 posted on 05/22/2009 4:51:09 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

It is a great place. I want to get up to my sisters in Waverly this summer and take a day trip to see it in full bloom.


109 posted on 05/22/2009 4:58:27 PM PDT by Free Vulcan (No prisoners. No mercy. 2010 awaits.....)
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To: Free Vulcan

If you visit the gift shop, let me know how it’s looking. I helped set it up a number of years ago. It’s a BEAUTIFUL Amish-built building, so I hope they are continuing to do it justice. :)

We closed the Madison, WI store when we got the big bucks to build the gift shop/visitor’s center at the farm in IA from Amy Goldman’s Mom’s estate. (Lillian Goldman.)

Yep. THOSE ‘Goldmans’ of ‘Goldman-Sachs.’

Eh. It’s money. It’s fungible, LOL!

I chose not to move to Iowa with the job; some days I regret it, though I really love the job I have now, working for Jung’s.

http://www.jungseed.com

If you run into Diane or Aaron, tell them Diana says, “Hi!” and that I still send customers their way at every opportunity. :)


110 posted on 05/22/2009 5:03:55 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin; gardengirl
The fig pictured is a Black Jack. My Celeste and the one Gardengirl sent me are growing exactly like the Black Jack. I know the one gardengirl gave me is from a cutting. The other two I am assuming are also from cuttings and on their own roots.

I was dissapointed when I decided to check why they had not budded out and the old wood just snapped like tooth picks. No green anywhere even when I scratched the base. I decided just to leave them alone and try again with new figs next year!

111 posted on 05/22/2009 5:06:58 PM PDT by Red_Devil 232 (VietVet - USMC All Ready On The Right? All Ready On The Left? All Ready On The Firing Line!)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
I posted this reply on last weeks thread late the other evening. There is a link to a article in our paper on the difficulty of growing tomatoes in the Fog Belt on the NW coast coast of Calif...

Tomatoes in the Fog

112 posted on 05/22/2009 5:08:32 PM PDT by tubebender (Don't argue with an idiot; people watching may not be able to tell the difference.)
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To: tubebender

I can’t even imagine the disease problems with all of that fog and damp!

But, that first ripe tomato in August makes up for all of the snow and ice I suffer through. :)


113 posted on 05/22/2009 5:13:19 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

Will do. Yeah have seen the building but it was a cold wet spring when I was up there. They’re a little behind us here down in the Florida of Iowa and I should have waited a month to go. Will let them know you said hi if I gut up there.

Jung is a good company. Some things you can’t get anywhere else and often cheaper than their sister co. Shumway.


114 posted on 05/22/2009 5:15:41 PM PDT by Free Vulcan (No prisoners. No mercy. 2010 awaits.....)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

Oh and if you ever have had their Wapsipinicon Peach tomato, it is in a league by itself.


115 posted on 05/22/2009 5:18:11 PM PDT by Free Vulcan (No prisoners. No mercy. 2010 awaits.....)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin

I weeded the blueberries this afternoon and repaired the bird netting. First Wife mowed the lawn, grass and weeds this morning while I visited our son at his business. All the nurseries we visit are reporting increased sales of Veggies...


116 posted on 05/22/2009 5:27:35 PM PDT by tubebender (Don't argue with an idiot; people watching may not be able to tell the difference.)
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To: Free Vulcan

You betcha! I had to sell it, and I had to practice saying it every day for a WEEK before it rolled off my tongue, LOL!

I have never grown that ‘fuzzy’ tomato myself. Some foodstuffs are just plain weird, heirloom or not. One wonders how something like that survived through the centuries. You never used to have the luxury of growing unique foods when feeding your family was your number one job! ;)


117 posted on 05/22/2009 5:42:23 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin (Save The Earth. It's The Only Planet With Chocolate.)
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To: Gabz
Our tiller is still on the fritz, so I’m doing all the “tilling” by hand...

Oooh.

Ouch.

118 posted on 05/22/2009 5:54:04 PM PDT by Petronski (In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
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To: Diana in Wisconsin
No doubt much of your garden is supported by the activities of honeybees.

Sevin kills honeybees.

Let me rephrase that: Sevin kills honeybee colonies.

119 posted on 05/22/2009 6:01:46 PM PDT by Petronski (In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
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To: P8riot

Thanks for the chicken tractor link. Cyborg and I are getting four or five Barred Rock chicks in early June and I have been tasked with tractor construction.

After that, a buck and two does will be starting our rabbitry.

Mmmmm. Meat.


120 posted on 05/22/2009 6:06:10 PM PDT by Petronski (In Germany they came first for the Communists, And I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist...)
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