Weekly Gardening Thread
Posted on 09/30/2011 5:02:33 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good morning gardeners. Fall is in the air here in East Central Mississippi on this last day of September. It has been beautiful weather for cleaning up outside and taking care of the yard. Our daytime temperatures have been in the 70s with an occasional bump up into the 80s and the overnight lows are ranging from the 40s to the 60s. While I am waiting for Spring to arrive I will be occupied by continuing to hone my skills at home brewing.
If you are a gardener or you are just starting out and are in need of advice or just encouragement please feel free to join in and enjoy the friendly discussion. Our Freeper community is full of gardeners, each with varying interests and skill levels from Master Gardener to novice.
I hope all your Summer gardens did well this year and your Fall gardens prosper.
Weekly Gardening Thread
I hope all of you will stop by.
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I have got to tell you that the mosquitos in Maryland this year are beyond stupid. I can get six or seven bites by simply going to the mailbox or walking into the carport to get into the car. Needless to say, my gardening aspirations are taking a backseat. Even before our wet late Summer/early Fall rains, the mosquitos were thick. To tell you how bad they are... I spray mosquito spray on my youngest each morning before school. Poor little girl looks has bumps upon bumps due to outdoor recess. I am actually hoping for an early hard FROST to kill these things off. Anyone else experiencing such a problem?
The mosquitoes here in my part of Mississippi have not been a problem at all.
I haven’t had six or seven bites for the whole season. We are getting cold here now, and except for during Indian Summer, we are unlikely to see mosquitoes again till next June.
Years ago when we went to New Hampshire for a vacation, my husband was nearly engulfed by the things. He was COVERED in bites in the time it took him to walk from the car to the door. I don’t think I was even bitten. Something in my chemistry. I have never been bothered much by mosquitoes.
Wow! Y’all will have to set up some massive desalination plants all along your coast if this happens.
No chicken eggs yet, but the ducks continue to lay, but only a couple have been full sized.
Our five Maran pullet chicks are growing like weeds. I believe I told you last week that Barb moved them to a large pen in the dining room. She had them out on the deck one day this week. Once she took the dark cover off of the pen, they seemed to enjoy it, but they are wild and we haven't handled them enough. The way they are growing, we will be able to move them adjacent to the flock and start to aclimate them.
The garden is about kaput for the year. I am going to mow down the old garden, get the tiller running and till it up, ammend the soil heavily and plant part of it for bearded irises and other bulb plants. Got a couple packs of rizones at Sam's Club last Friday and a pack of 100 Crocus bulbs.
I also need to position that third raised bed and fill it with soil. Also, I need to make a few more raised beds, position them and then have another load of garden soil dropped off. If Jugears is re-elected next year, we will be on a subsisence economy by 2014.
It must be a maryland issue right now. I have even searched the outside of the house for any sort of standing water. The neighbors are all complaining about it as well so it isn’t something just around our place. I have never seen swarms like this during the day! (This is the only year thus far that I have hoped for really COLD weather so soon!)
That’s just awful. And here we just had that major flood. I drove around a nearby town the other day and it was sad to see. The water line was so high, I could tell many cars had to have been completely submerged.
They say that there is now a housing shortage around here because so many homes have been made uninhabitable.
Our particular little town wasn’t quite as hard hit. A few of our neighbors have piles of flood debris (basement stuff) in front of their homes - no one has any idea when it will be hauled away. Good thing we are into colder weather with all the mounds of debris everywhere, pests will love those mounds. We were very lucky in that we didn’t have a drop enter our home.
And you poor folks don’t have any water. I wish there were a way to “even up”.
As to my garden. Esssshh. I think there are some potatoes hidden in the tall weeds, and I know I have some carrots left to pull. They take forever here. I think there are some herbs left also.
I didn’t get a single head of cabbage. Just as I solved the rabbit problem, the white butterflies took over. No sauerkraut for me this year.
Turns out our “cantaloupe” were really muskmelon, and stupid us thought they went bad because of their color. LOL. But we only wound up with three anyway. Tomatoes struggled, but we managed a couple of bushels. Barely. So on and so forth. A few tiny pumpkins too.
Our state legislative reps are trying to get the Lower Colorado River Authority (LCRA) to quit releasing water for the rice farmers down near the coast. They grow two crops per year and need water for the second crop. The LCRA sells the water to them, since they helped build the lakes.
Lake Travis is at 36% or 37% of capacity. It may get lower than it has ever been since it was built. There are places we haven’t seen since the mid to late 90s. All public boat ramps are closed.
South FL Update, Got to agree with you Red. I got up this morning and it’s cool outside for the first time this fall. The A/C is not running. WOOOO HOOOOOO.... The garden will love the cooler weather and will stop wilting in the late afternoon. The plants survive but to not thrive when it get’s above 95!
It’s been raining for the better part of 2 weeks here in Wisconsin. My husband had to go back to the plant last night to finish up some work. When he came home about 11 pm, there was a tree down in our driveway. He had to hike to the house to pick up his chainsaw and attack the tree in order to get the car in. I slept through it all. I hope tomorrow is dry and a little warmer so that we can finish up the tree and other garden tasks.
My garden is done for the year. I have 2 beds emptied and 2 to go. The last of my tomatoes rotted before I could do anything with them, except give the best ones away. In fact, I gave away most of my produce this year. I’m going to cut back on what I plant next year. 10 tomato plants, rather than 14.
It’s 48 degrees and cloudy this AM.
We have had some really nice fall days here in Missouri. I have been working on garden, yard, and patio cleanup. Getting ready to plant the winter gardens.
Wheat will be planted after frost. I am setting up the raised bed for lettuce, onions, garlic, and carrots which will grow all winter under cover. Last year I had fresh lettuce all winter and spring from this.
Some of the raised beds will get a cover crop, but I have not decided which. Maybe clover or rye. Now that the heat is over, we have quite a few green tomatoes and new flowers, so I will probably be cutting off branches to bring inside sometime in the next 2 weeks.
Not the best gardening year. Mostly due to the cool rainy spring delay in planting, followed by the very hot and dry summer, but we still had a successful green bean yield and it looks like the corn will be pretty good if the weather holds. I had 1 ripe persimmon this week, so I just picked it and ate it.
Have a great weekend. God Bless.
Do you get Purple Martins up there? I grew up in a town that the local grade school Principal started a project of putting Purple Martin houses in many places around town. The farmers all got involved and also put them up. Within a few years the problem with many of the insects was eradicated.
My immediate response? "Yes! Indeed!" :-)
They are slowing down, but we are still picking tomatoes; all sweet peppers are FINALLY turning color; hot pepper plants; such as fatali, caribbean red bonnets, and mustard habaneros are LOADED!
Just scored a load of Honey Crisp apples from a local orchard, as well...they are the BEST; all other apple trees can be chopped down to make more room for Honey Crisp.
Yes. Here in New England (spit); my wife flees indoors as the sun goes down...too many skeeters. They don't bother me...I'm 'fair skinned', so they might think I'm not very healthy, or something...
Silver lining? :-)
I would take such forecasts with a grain of salt...they can't get the five-day forecast right with any degree of certainty. If they are calling for drought; I am buying life jackets and a boat.
I’m in Hampron Roads, VA and we are experiencing the same thing. Worse, we’ve had a “hatching” of little tree? frogs that have been hopping around, getting under foot. So yesterday, I was cleaning some porch chairs on our gravel driveway; I looked down to my right, casually, and had two copper heads, one after the other, slinking by...scared the c**p outta me! One was axed but the other got away (I think the frogs attracted them)...am still shaking and was when I posted on FR abt it yesterday PM...got some VERY interesting comments, many were helpful. Am off to buy “Snake Away” this PM...ah, life in the country!
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