Weekly Gardening Thread
Posted on 09/23/2011 7:28:24 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good morning gardeners. I am getting a late start posting the thread this morning. Cleaned up my garden plot and will be tilling in some of my compost and wheat straw when the soil dries out a little more. I put a bail of straw around the base of my Fig trees in the hopes the straw will help them through the winter.
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I hope all your gardens did well this year.
Weekly Gardening Thread
I hope all of you will stop by.
This is typically a low volume ping list. Once a week for the thread and every once in a while for other FR threads posted that might be of interest.
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Anyone have any experience with the “Lead Tree”?
(leucaena leucocephala)
It’s a legume nitrogen fixer that makes for good forage material.
Just wondering if anyone here has some growing about.
Irene took my garden out. Just as the corn was starting to mature. I have a few tomatoes still producing, but my pole beans didn’t produce much. I’ll leave them in till Spring. From what I understand they release nitrogen back into the soil only after the plant dies.
Two poor years in a row for my garden. Last summer had too much rain at all the wrong times, then this year the tropical storm whipped my plants to pieces.
We still are deep into the harvest phase of gardening here in teh PNW. Tomatoes and corn are going strong, pears and peaches and late raspberries are ripening nicely.
Garden cleanup in the flowerbeds will begin soon. I do have one bed that won’t be a problem. It’s my own form of maintaining my sanity in the garden. I smile whenever I visit this bed. I invite you to take a peek too and if you have further suggestions, I’d appreciate them.
http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/album/580822259BmprZp
This Tuesday evening, I built a six-nest box for the chicken coop. I moved it in on Wednesday evening and the chickens were all over it, trying to decide if I had moved too much of their cheese. I posted a picture of it on my facebood accout, in the Chicken Codo album.
Our five Maran chicks are growing like weeds and Barb has moved them from the brooder to a large cage. I cut a couple of branches for perches and they are happily playing chicken astronaut.
I am finishing up my plans for the deck and roof between the kitchen door and the carport and for the Quonset shelter platform. I need to get them under construction and completed before the snow flies.
The leaves are starting to turn and I believe that today is the first day of Autumn.
Very creative!!
Thanks for a chuckle.
This afternoon we’ll be pickling 9 pints of sweet peppers (pepperoncinis), and a couple quarts of bell chunks w. garlic. So far the squash/pumpkin patch has yielded about 500lbs of goodness with about 300lbs still on the vine. Bambi got 50-75lbs so there will be a *penalty* for that consumption come deer season. Bad Bambi!
Still having to water although not as much since it’s cooled off some. Pepper plants are still loaded and producing like gangbusters. Tomatoes are hit and miss with that. Okra is still trying to put out and hopefully I’ll get around to seed saving on that some this week. We grew ‘Vidrine’s midget/dwarf cowhorn’ (baker creek) this year and were very pleased. Prepping to plant some fall stuff come the 27th.
We are also still producing tomatoes, squash, peppers and herbs in noth Idaho. Our heirloom tomatoes got a late start, but are coming on strong now. Out of six plants, my wife counted over 100 fruit....can hardly wait!
My okra took a hit when I went out of town and it needed water. I think I have brought it back by cutting the tops off, encouraging side shoots. I hope so, as I had not yet frozen any. Green beans which looked awesome all summer but never produced seem to be doing so now. Not sure why, but I suspect it was my husband putting lawn fertilizer on it after I planted it.
Just planted some black-eyed peas which are coming up in the greenhouse. Also two squash plants which I started from seed in my bay window. Tomato plants that produced well in the spring in the greenhouse are starting to have new tomatoes on them again. They got really awful looking in the summer, due to mites and heat, but I cut them way back a month ago and got new growth on them. An experiment. The whole greenhouse thing is an experiment; I’m new to it & don’t have alot of time to spend on it. Am very curious to see what the temps will be in there in the dead of winter.
Mimosa are so plentiful around here that they are considered 'trash trees'. In Florida, they are considered an invasive species that displaces the native vegetation. They are difficult to get rid of once established, but not impossible.
I placed my bee hives not far from a group of mimosa trees that line a creek. The bees love them, although they have now gone to seed for a final time.
Much in spite of the objections of my DH, I will be planting a group of 3 mimosa on the edge of our backyard pond. They grow extremely fast and make a nice, fragrant place to fish in some shade.
I had six plants like that...unfortunately; I had another one hundred or so that produced like that, as well. They're still coming.
Anyone want some tomatoes? :-)
(Production like that in NORTH Idaho? Really? Hmmm...)
God decided to toy with me this year, I had a nice patch of corn, beans and pumpkins planted. One morning I heard cawing and when I wandered out later those flying monkeys called crows had pulled up half my garden for amusement. No worries, this was my relaxation not my survival so I tended what was left lovingly. About the time the corn matured the raccoons came and visited, it is really amazing how much they like sweet corn. Then the beetles found the pumpkins but at that point I was just happy I didn’t come down with boils like some character in the Bible. Oh well there is next year!
I planted too late.
I did discover the Farmer’s Almanac on line yesterday. Wow, what a wealth of information.
It’s my birthday today (56), but I don’t know what I will do, yet.
Fall garden is my favorite garden time of the year. Great weather, not alot going on in the garden but enough to keep you busy.
Got greens and roots coming on to put up or go into the root cellar. Getting ready to plant some rye and wheat for overwinter and get the greens planted for the hoop tunnel.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Have a great day, some great food, and hoping you have a birthday cake.
Thank you. Right now I’m thinking about going out and getting a cup of coffee. Maybe a pumpkin spice latte. MMMM!
Since we had a little over an inch of rain, I tilled up part of my garden and started my fall crops. I have black seed, Buttercrunch lettuce, spinach seeds planted. I also got a few broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower seedlings in the ground.
I have onion seed coming up in pots for later planting. My shallots are already coming up. The garlic bulbs are in the ground too. I am trying one tomato plant and see if we get any fruit late fall. I’ll be tilling the rest this weekend.
Yeh, really. We put them on the east side of the home so they get morning sun and afternoon shade....good manure for fertilizer.....drip sprinklers set for 30 minutes a day....they are all about 6 feet tall at this point...
My neighbor planted 18 or 20 okra plants last spring. He had never raised it before, and had no idea how fast it grows. I warned him, and he is now supplying the neighborhood and many of the school teachers with okra. He freezes it on a cookie sheet and then vacuum packs it when frozen. He is cutting okra twice a day.
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