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.
If you would like to be added to or removed from the list please let me know by FreepMail or by posting to me.
Mark for later! Gotta pick tomatoes while it’s still cool.
Last week was cold and rainy, so I pulled all the tender ornamentals from the shade garden. Calidium and elephant ear bulbs are drying in the sun room.
Been finding a bunch of praying mantis and their nests in the backyard. If those things grew six more inches, I'd be very afraid. Found a youtube video of one eating a snake alive! Yikes!
I think my gardening is over for the year. It snowed yesterday and got down to 28F last night. It will be colder tonight and more snow today and Saturday.
Question for you all - my best tomato plants had some late summer blight (I’m assuming - black spots that seemed to kill half of these really productive plants almost overnight, was horrible to see) and I have read that if you aren’t careful, it can over-winter and affect the next year. Any advice on treating the area now to avoid that? I really want to put tomatoes there again because it’s easily my most productive spot for several years now. Thanks.
Boy oh boy! Did San Antonio get rain last night! A real storm and follow-on showers lasting through the morning! On the down side, the storm spawned a short-lived tornado which caused some property damage but thankfully took no lives.
Tomatoes, hot peppers, cucumbers, beans, looseleaf lettuce, collards and Waltham squash survived like troopers. Crookneck squash and cabbage go in the ground tomorrow.
For the most part, Sweet Bell Peppers survived quite well. But one branch laden with six tiny peppers plus flowers was snapped clean by the wind. Stuck it in the pepper patch as far down as it would go, then further drenched the area with rain water from my filled-to-the-brim rain barrells.
Will pepper cuttings grow? From what I’ve found online, the answer is yes. One lady stuck a small branch with three peppers in a glass jar filled with water. It rooted and the peppers matured from green to orange.
Will this work for me? Don’t know. From what I’ve read online I’m encouraged.
I’ve always treated bell peppers not just as annuals but as seasonal. When they’re done in the Spring I pulled them up and planted anew in the Fall. This year I left them in the ground. They survived the gawd-awful heat and drought and are laden with young peppers. From now on, I’ll nurse my plants through “hot season” to harvest a fresh crop in the Fall.
And, this year I’ll treat them as the perennials they are. Though we do not have many frost days, we do get them. Not sure how to keep four to five foot pepper plants safe from freezing temperatures. Some home gardners take cuttings and plant them in the Spring.
Reporting on my HEB Big Bell Pepper experiment. For those that don’t remember or know, in the spring I grew seeds taken from the biggest red bell pepper found in the local grocery store. They produced really nice, really big bell peppers until the heat and drought stopped every kind of plant from producing. They are now laden with even more young peppers than I got in the Spring. Fingers crossed.
A Mexican (Key) Lime tree I thought killed by last year’s frost has rejuvenated, revived and is set to produce loads of limes. The enemy now are birds and squirrels.
That’s the happy news from San Antonio.
R.