Weekly Gardening Thread
Posted on 02/12/2010 5:43:19 AM PST by Red_Devil 232
Good morning gardeners! It is snowing here in Central Mississippi. I have an inch and a half right now and it is still coming down steadily. I may get another inch or two. Temperatures are hovering around 32. Streets are clear so far but wet. This is a good day to make some homemade chicken vegetable soup. Hurry up Spring!
Weekly Gardening Thread
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This time last year - I already had lettuce in the ground. Very different year from the last. Every winter is different, 2 years ago (or 3?) huge ice storm.
I’ve got a bunch of seeds started in my sunroom. Still got 6 inches of snow/ice on the ground, expecting another 6 inches or more on Monday. I agree, “Hurry up spring!”
Snow on the ground but there’s enough sun for my canna lillies to start sprouting on the porch.
Good morning. Clear and sunny here, but there’s a foot & a half of snow on the ground still. My husband had to bite the bullet yesterday and purchase (and install) a NEW PTO for the tractor and the snowblower. Not only was the price high, it involved another evening of lying on the cold garage floor to install it. Brrrrr. But we have to get in and out of this place for work.
Next week we travel to S Carolina (Aiken) for our 11th grandchild’s “Dedication” (Christening). What is the weather outlook for our trip? I’m not so worried about SC, it’s just all the states in between. That is not an easy trip from Milwaukee in good weather. We generally go down through Louisville.
I never thought I would see the day when the Temperature in Eureka Ca would be warmer then Daytona Beach Florida during Speed Weeks. Looks like we will have continuing rain here while we still have to dig and divide 45 Dahlias. Yuk...
All my seeds are still sitting in their file box. I purchased Cosmos seeds for your not-patented-yet scare the bugs away seed mix, but I didn’t have my list with me and I got the wrong color. Instead of orange, I got something called “Gazebo Mix” which appears to be red, hot pink, and white.
Should I plant them elsewhere and go back for orange?
Hi All!
QVC home shopping has started their gardening shows already and it really gave me the bug. I’m digging around on the internet for pink lacecap hydrangeas. Saw one last year at Lowes and didn’t get it but now I’ve decided I can’t live without one. :) Can’t wait till it gets warmer!!!
Count your blessings. At least you can dig. Our ground is frozen.
Morning. Planning weekend this weekend. We are going to start seeds in our aquariums this weekend. I am going to do succession gardening this year and grow my lettuce and radishes and a few green while the seedling for summer crops sprout and harden up.
Edelweiss from The Sound of Music
Rodgers And Hammerstein
CAPTAIN:
Edelweiss, Edelweiss
Every morning you greet me
Small and white clean and bright
You look happy to meet me
Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow
Bloom and grow forever
Edelweiss,Edelweiss
Bless my homeland forever.
CAPTAIN, MARIA, THE CHILDREN AND CHORUS:
Small and white clean and bright
You look happy to meet me
Blossom of snow may you bloom and grow
Bloom and grow forever
Edelweiss,Edelweiss
Bless my homeland forever
Well, the orange color is what attracts them, but they’ll like other colored cosmos, as well. Do you have any tall, orange marigold seed in your stash? ‘Cracker Jack’ is a good one.
Throw some marigold seed in there for orange color if you do, or just increase the amount of calendula in your mix. :)
Those suggestions sound good. I love tall marigolds and calendulas.
He doesn’t really look very happy. :)
Doesn’t even look like we’re going to see the ground until March. Long range forecast is not encouraging temperature wise.
At least I have my seeds....
I can’t believe that picture is from Mississippi! My aunt lived in MS during WWII while her husband was in the Army. I do remember her telling about one winter where they kept the butter in the refrigerator to keep it from freezing on the table. I guess the house where she was staying was not insulated at all.
My dog loves the snow. He takes snow baths every day. It seems to be good for his skin which is bothered by grass allergies in the summer. He has no problems in the winter, but spring and fall are miserable for him.
We had 12 inches of snow here yesterday in the DFW area. Most on record for a single day.
Ready to travel from NY to Colorado today. Have meetings till about noon then fly back with a connection in Atlanta where it may be snowing. Spring still seems a long way off!
We have three feet of snow - six-foot drifts in some places - I doubt I’ll be planting anything here until July :-(
I did use the time indoors to plan my gardens for the spring. I love how the catalogs show lovely, big, bushy plants (but a twig arrives in the mail.) I have had good luck with mail-order plants, after they have been in the ground a while. I suppose I have to learn patinece somehow!
Your dogs are beautiful. Ours like the snow while it is falling and still soft. They prefer heat and sun. :)
I noticed last week at Sam’s Club that they are featuring compost makers and raised garden bed kits and roof rain water catchers in their garden shop this year in their “brick and mortar” stores. Previously those items were just offered on their website. This gives you the chance to examine the item in person before ordering. THe prices seemed good. In fact, if I had seen those raised bed kits before I made mine, I would have gone that route and saved $$$.
It’s possible that Walmart might have these items too, for those not near a Sam’s Club.
Last year was a banner year for my deck planting. It looked like a jungle at the end of year. Must do some better planning this year. 15 foot X 24 foot deck.
I actually have a plan. You know, put circles and squares on paper.
One last point before I trudge. Why such success last year? I think it was fertilizer. A product called Milorganite. Doesn't burn anything. Tough to get around here.
Bill in Hershey
Wayside Garden has some pink hydrangeas that look like they might be what you want:
They aren’t the cheapest catalogue, but carry some neat specialty items and everything I have gotten from them has been sturdy.
Yikes - patinece = patience.
D’oh!
That pic is amazing...you have more snow on the ground than we do in central New England. That is because we have NONE.
If anyone wants to know the secret in growing monster size “agripanthas”? RSVP...
I have lived here for 56 years and in that time we have had snow 5 times but we have had about 20 significant earthquakes in the same time...
Is it a sin for me to covet your gardens? Although I’m 40 miles from the coast, Hurricane Rita brought in enough salt in the wind and rain that plants would burn in my garden when planted. I leveled the garden that summer and have not attempted gardening since then even though rain over the past few years has been sufficient to leach the salt out the soil. With all the rain this winter alone, I could start raising crawfish in the backyard.
Had an interesting speaker at the M-Gardner meeting last night: WInter interest in the garden.
One think I’m going to do when it warms up is take the old log chain and hang it from the roof of the cabin for a rain chain....Really COOL when it freezes in the winter.
Last year this time I had lettuce and onions sprouting and had peas planted.
I will be covering my raised vegetable planters tomorrow night! Central Florida supposed to get close to freezing and since we’re rural it probably will hit that mark. I love the cold weather and happy to see that we’re getting more than our usual “one week winter”. Makes it so much nicer for training the dogs for upland hunting too!
Freep mail the secret to me.
This stuff is not going to melt away anytime today. High today will only reach 36 or so. When the temps fall this evening the roads around here will be very treacherous!
We (Miss) have no means of removing it (plows and such). The MDOT does sand bridges and over passes but that is about the extent of it!
Two words...container gardening.
Your advantage is that you can ‘wait it out’...it will be gone in short order. Up here (spit); if it snows in October; then there is a strong possibility you will watching the same snow melting in May. This year, thank G-d; is an exception. Snowmobilers and cross-country skiers are p*ssed.
Same here. Had arugula, spinach and some lettuce in the ground already, even though they had to be covered up with heavy plastic. This year, however, nothing is started except Sweet Alyssum, which is in the house under a grow light.
Buried under snow as is most of the country.. dreaming about my flowers & veggies for the year.. I love weeding! (weird huh?)..
thanks for ping . always a great thread
I get so much fruit in the summer, but so much also goes on the ground. Prefer drying the fruit instead of canning which takes too much sugar. Favorite thing for pears is to make pear leather. It stays good and fresh for a year.
In October when all what we did not use was on the ground, 4 black bears climbed over the 7 foot fence and chowed down for a couple of days, bear scat everywhere!!!
My Wife left for work at 6:45 this morning and the roads were just wet. She is not scheduled to get off work until 8 pm tonight. Problem is, she has 35 miles to drive to get home and the temps are going to start falling - down to 22 tonight. I called her just a few min. ago and told her she and her other managers need to be thinking about her leaving work before things get dangerous for her drive home.
Yes...there is NOTHING worse than trying to navigate on ice; especially if you are not used to it. Once you start sliding; there is very little you can do outside of bracing yourself for the inevitable collision with a stationary object.
My Grey hound / Dalmatian has a similar problem, besides constant baths, corn starch rubbed on her does wonders.
How do you make your pear leather?
My male Irish Setter, Aladdin, has skin problems also. Flaking, itching and scratching especially during the summer. Grass allergies? Hmmmmmm could be what he has. Corn starch is very soothing and helps.
Sugar gets inflamed on her underside,corn starch stops it, allows it to heal, but be ready to vacuum, that stuff can get every where:)
I figure why not plant them rather than toss them out, we did the same thing at christmas, with the tree,anyway when and how should they be planted?
My son tells me that 1-20 is the division line between the South and the Deep South. LOL! He lives a few miles south of 1-20 in South Carolina (Aiken).
You need to send the picture of your dog and your location to Oklahoma U. There is a student there who is trying to collect snow pictures from all 50 states. There is a thread about it elsewhere on FR.
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