Weekly Gardening Thread
Posted on 12/16/2011 5:47:03 AM PST by Red_Devil 232
Good morning gardeners. I hope all of you are doing well and wish you a Merry Christmas. Today’s thread will be the last one I post as the host of the gardening thread. Thankfully the thread will continue to be posted by Freeper JustaDumbBlonde. Not only is she is a very experienced gardener, she and her husband run a large acreage family farm growing corn, cotton, wheat, soybeans and various other crops. Her large kitchen garden is so successful she has set up a roadside stand to sell her produce. I am confident the Gardening Thread will be in very competent hands. She gardens and farms in Northeast Louisiana and has been a member of the gardening thread since Freepers gardengirl and Gabz started the original thread in January 2008.
It has been my great pleasure to host and post this thread every week for the last couple of years. I actually learned to garden from this thread and have enjoyed my garden and reading the posts and meeting new Friends on this thread every week. I will continue to read and post on the thread if I think I can add to the conversation. I hope all of you have very successful gardens next year.
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.
Weekly Gardening Thread
Thank you for everything you have done, Red Devil 232. I miss you already but Justadumbblonde is a wonderful person and can certainly take on a challenge! I hope your move is easy as pie and your wife loves her new job and location. The two of you will be in my thoughts and prayers. Bless you!
Once again, many thanks!!
Although I am a newcomer to gardening and this thread, I enjoy it very much! That you for your efforts. I wish you health, happiness and peace, and a very Merry Christmas, Chanukah, and New Year (I celebrate them all! LOL)
Thanks for operating the garden thread all this time. This thread has motivated me and taught me a lot about gardening. I had all but given up on gardening fresh veggies till I discovered this thread. I hope you do well in your move and your wife’s job works out well for both of you. I also hope that you can find time to chime in here when time allows. Good luck!
definitely want to stay on this thread! Although I don’t post a lot I sure would love to develop the art of gardening!
Thanks for all you have done RD. Look forward to seeing you back on this thread when you get settled. And a big thanks to JDB for picking up the list. One of the best threads on FR. Good luck and God Bless. Merry Christmas everyone.
ah ha...... so you are here too! LOL.
Polly waving good morning to LTOS!
You’ve made a good choice for your replacement. She will do a good job.
Please keep me on the ping list, as I need all the help I can get.
You will sell your home lickety brindle and find a fine home with acreage. I know you’re the kind of people who make lemonaid when given lemons. We’ll be awaiting your new found home and how your preparing your new garden site.
Please keep us informed.
I hate wild turkeys. We have a group of about 20+ coming to our garden every day for the corn my spouse tosses out for them. With pickings getting slim in the wild, the ate off all the leaves and growing points off the plants in my big sedum bed and are scratching the heck out of my hen and chicken theme garden. I don’t know if they’re eating them yet. Now, with snow on the ground and more difficult foraging, they’re scratching through the snow to the lawn. They’re also attacking some planted pots I have set high. We finally covered those with netting in the hope to discourage them. I wish turkey season was open. I’d be tempted to get a tag and also encourage 20 or so of my friends to do likewise.
By the way this Christmas Eve when my family comes over for dinner I'll be serving Fresh sliced vined ripened tomatoes.
This past summer I had several tomatoes planted in "Global" double 5 gallon buckets. one of them is a determinate Carolina Gold. I brought it in this fall and now it sits in front of a sliding glass door that faces South. It is doing great with several good tomatoes hanging on it with new ones setting on.
SOUTH FL PICTURE UPDATE:
the first picture is a triple bud super steak, It sure is ugly....
http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/6024/1000359f.jpg
http://img821.imageshack.us/img821/2529/1000360d.jpg
South FL Note on Picture:
The Triple Bud weights about 3 lbs!
Thank you for all your efforts the last few years. Everybody on this thread has taught me so much. Just because you are moving, I hope it won’t keep you away from this thread. Just because you don’t have an active garden at the moment doesn’t mean you can’t participate. After all, those of us in northern climes don’t have active gardens for much of the year.
JADB will do a magnificent job — just look at her pictures!
“Everything you need to know to build an aquaponic Fish farm in your back yard. Facebook: http://on.fb.me/theUFGs Web: http://bit.ly/jy9MFn The Urban Farming Guys are putting aquaponic technology into your hands. The freshest vegetables and fish to your plate on the planet”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfR9nDsvBk8&feature=share
I’m gonna try this. Need more thermal mass in the greenhouse anyhow. ;-)
Good luck with the move RD.
Thanks RD for posting this thread. It’s a fun little stop on the FR road every week. Hope your new digs allow you to have a garden.
All - I swear you learn something new all the time gardening. We had a low of 7 degrees one morning last week. Some snow on the ground, but I still figured the greens would be dead. They aren’t. Beat down some but still kicking. Even got some lettuce still.
Looks like maybe salad for Christmas.
Thanks so much Red for all the threads, and thanks JADB for keeping the tradition going. I look forward all week to Friday because of this thread.
We have warmed up to 34 degrees today, so I’ll be harvesting some lettuce from the winter garden. I have a lemon indoors nearly ready to pick, and 5 buds starting. A new batch of spinach is coming along. Still eating end of season tomatoes wrapped in paper to ripen.
Have a great weekend. God Bless.
Thanks for the seed link!
Thank you for your kind words.
There are many sources for heirlooms-do a search and see what you find. The two sides to getting several catalogs- it is such fun to go through to see what is out there. The flip side is making decisions about what to actually plant. So many choices.
One thing- this catalog explains about this bean or that tomato- a different catalog has a different write up on the same plant- by the time you have read several, you really have a better idea about the seeds you are buying.
Years ago I sort of got disillusioned with Baker’s- they were pretty left leaning. Perhaps they have changed, or at least not so obvious about their political leanings.
Meanwhile snow is on the ground, gardens are slumbering at least where I live, and there are sugar plum dreams about the next growing season that is coming.
Good luck Red Devil and thanks JADB.
Mornin!
While I am looking forwrad to hosting the thread, at the same time I am sad that you will not be doing so. This thread is the first thing I go to on Friday mornings with my first cup of coffee.
I wish you, your lovely wife and your furry children the very best of life in your new home!
Planted Bantam for a number of years. Heirloom corn is not as easy to grow as they make it. The soil needs to be rich and you can’t plant them closer than 6”, and 8 or 9” is best. I’ve even taken to hilling my rows to give them more dirt. Any heirloom corn is going to follow that rule. I put lots of grass, compost, and manure in my corn patch to get good yields. Some work but worth it IMO.
Bantam is about the only heirloom yellow corn out there. Shumway’s does carry some yellow sweet corn that isn’t heirloom but is open pollinated: http://www.rhshumway.com/dc.asp?c=168 as does Fedco http://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds.htm but I have not planted any of those.
If you’re into white there are alot more choices: Stowell’s Evergreen, Country Gentleman, Howling Mob, Boone County White, among others. I’ve planted Country Gentleman and it’s productive, and got seed for Boone and Stowell’s to plant this year to see what it does.
Forgot to answer on the canteloupe - Old Time Tennessee is my absolute favorite, and I love Jenny Lind and Ananas Amerique too.
I kind of figured they where left leaning,but they don’t wear it on their sleeves at least in their catalog.
Hi Polly! Fancy meeting you here!
I know you will really enjoy hosting this thread there so many good and helpful FReepers that will help out and respond to others that you can’t get to if you don’t have the time. I have always enjoyed reading and watching how the thread just evolves on its own and going places you will never expect a gardening thread to go. A FReeper will mention something that inspires or jogs the memory of another FReeper to remember something about an Opera House or Steam Engines or Beer or Wine or a Recipe or just anything. The thread can wander and it is absolutely fun.
Have a good time! Oh, and do let me know when the thread reaches the 500 mark. I think it is close to being one of the largest ping lists on FR.
Thanks for hosting the garden thread Just. Red, best luck with the move and all. Not much to report, but we did get more rain this past week and some ig getting into our hurting lakes.
In earlier years Baker’s would have little inserts here and there very much leftist. I finally decided there are so many good nurseries out there- so many options for quality seeds/plants and heirlooms I could do without them. Others might be also but I guess if I don’t know, I can support them. At least if they are, they keep their opinions out of their catalogs.
Our farm chemical rep just dropped off 5 lbs. of cracked pecans and 25 lbs. of satsumas. Just when I think that I'm done canning for the year, it is satsuma marmalade time! And a fresh pecan pie tomorrow.
I stirred-up a question in my own head last night. Prepared a big pot of curried butternut squash bisque and was putting away the leftovers, and I wondered if I could pressure can the bisque since it is a labor-intensive meal. Normally, this would not present a question, but I prepared the bisque from some butternut squash that I had canned last fall.
Bottom line: is it okay to can a soup made from a vegetable that was canned? I don't see why not, but I look forward to finding the answer.
RD 232, thank you for hosting the thread. It has helped me with my gardening. Hope you continue to check in!
Heirloom sweet corn is touchy about when it’s harvested, and how long it sits before eating. From what I’ve read, you pretty much have to have the water boiling before you go out to pick it, and you have to pick it the day it ripens.
I should probably mention that it’s been a while since I grew sweet corn. The last corn I grew was baby corn, and the squirrels were the ones that planted it.
I have thoroughly enjoyed these get togethers with you every week Red and you have never missed a deadline on posting them. I look at my life as a book with thousands of chapters and as this one ends so begins another with my favorite Farmer/Gardener/Hunter/Jane of all things JADB. I do hope you are not abandoning us or gardening and that you check in at least once a week when you get situated down yonder...
The NW is experiencing some most unusual weather with only one night of rain in several weeks and brilliant sunshine as the Redwood trees allow. I spend a couple of hours in the garden or yard most every day plus I cut up some pumpkins for Lady Bender to steam and freeze for pies and nut breads plus I did one for our daughter’s MiL. Today I cut back a bed of Bearded Iris, cleaned up 2 beds of Lucifer ________ and annual flower beds and we usually do that during the false spring we get in February. Attending a company Christmas dinner and 50th anniversary party tonight.
They still do, sometimes their catalogs can get pretty preachy. And their prices are rather high.
I’m still building my collection of heirlooms, so I’m still ordering from them when there’s a variety I want that I can’t find elsewhere, but I’m saving seeds so I’ll only have to order each variety once.
My butternut squash bisque is pureed in the blender, so mushy isn’t a problem. The onion, carrot and apple in the recipe are fresh. I think I will try it and see what happens. Thanks!
God Bless you and your wife on your next adventure in to this wonder life.
You are so kind to the dumb blonde :)
I have Cherokee Black heirlooms in a global bucket that I moved into the greenhouse. The fruit that set late will be ripening very soon. It’s actually a larger crop than I had in the summer!
Gotta love those global buckets. Especially since for me they were free from local bakeries!
I would like to thank all of you who have wished my Wife and myself good luck in our move and new endeavors.
I do not intend to abandon gardening or posting to this thread. We are going to have to rent or lease at first and a real garden may not be in my near future. Will have to see what happens.
I don’t think we will make a complete move until late March, a lot will depend on our $. Rent $ has not been in our current budgeting. Peggy will be staying with one of her sisters and using her time off to locate a house. One of her brother’s wife is a real estate agent in Longview, Tx and will try to help out in locating a house in the Marshall, Tx area, which would be about 20 miles (location dependent) from her new store.
I don’t intend to sell our current house at first, because it is paid for and a good fall back position if TSHTF. I will have to make periodic trips back here to maintain the house and property.
Again, A very Heartfelt Thanks to all of you for your Best Wishes and kind words.
William, the Red_Devil
Da Nang tower, Da Nang Tower, Whiskey Tango Zero One on a radio check, how copy? Over. Click.
Whiskey Tango Zero One - 10 by 10.
Click. Da Nang Tower, Whiskey Tango Zero One, Read you same - Thanks. Out. Click.
My mother taught me to never kick Little Puppies or _______Blondes
My God Bless and Thank you for your service for our Country RD...
Why don’t you post your pretty photos in the thread?
I tried 3 or 4 times, I could not get it right so I just post the link!
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