Posted on 06/08/2012 7:26:30 AM PDT by JustaDumbBlonde
Good morning! Hope that all of my FRiends and fellow gardeners have had a good and productive week.
Began the Spring harvest in my apiary yesterday, which yielded 7 gallons of beautiful honey from 3 hives. Still have 3 hives from which to pull the honey boxes, and the remaining hives will not harvest until Fall because they are relatively new. Bit of trivia here ... a gallon of honey weighs 12 pounds.
The wheat harvest is over and the farm is buzzing with tractors getting cotton and soybeans planted on the wheat ground. The field corn has tassled and pollinated, and the wells are running almost continuously to keep it watered. It is very hot and dry here.
My local garden center has all of their plants 75% off, and I went crazy in the hibiscus department. I'm adding them all over the property ... even at the gates to the donkey pasture. I also purchased several mandevilla vines to plant with some hibiscus around the back porch. We are really going to enjoy a tropical view!
My earliest sweet corn has tassled and is pollinating. I am hoping to get several acres of cowpeas planted today. Wish me luck!
Please check in and let us all know how your gardening ventures are going. I get such inspiration from reading what you're doing, and I'm sure that others do as well.
The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you.
This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked.
It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread ... there is no telling where it will go and that is part of the fun and interest. Jump in and join us!
You are braver than I. I would have run for the house, phoned my husband, and demanded that he come home from work immediately. Then I would have refused to do any more mowing. Ever!
Thanks, I am a big Scott Walker fan. I would like to see him in the White Hut.
The only venomous snakes in this area are copperheads & this obviously wasn’t one of those .... so I wasn’t afraid of him .... nor was he overly concerned about me, either!
Did you read this this morning?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303753904577452793597495290.html#
Noon is right on a lot of stuff in this essay, except on Scott Walker. He is inspiring, he is a great campaigner, and we love him. I guess Noonen is just not used to politicians telling the truth and being straight forward.
Did you know that Scott was (is) a minister’s son? An Eagle Scout? and former President of the United States at Boys’ State? He’s been marked for greatness since he was a kid, but he is the most self effacing, sweetest guy you’d ever want to meet.
My wife is terrified of snakes also, but she took pictures of one that invaded on of her flower beds. I never would have thought that she would do that, go figure!
That’s the advantage of knowing the snakes where you live. Luckily, we have no venomous snakes in Wisconsin and very few snakes at all. The ones we have are shy, and I seldom see them. Sometimes the dog points them out, but they want nothing to do with me, nor I with them. I think you are brave to “touch his tail”. LOL
If he’d been coiled up and defensive, no way .... but his tail was 2-1/2 to 3 feet away from his head which was up like a little periscope so I got brave and did it. Instant reaction .... that fella’ could some kinda move ... guess that’s why they call them ‘racers’.
LOL! Oh, thank you for those stories! It brightens my day to know that others have the same kind of luck I’m having. Ha!
Did I mention that this is the same child that took his 2 year old brother to the garden beds with their diggers and dump trucks and took care of what would have been carrots. I’m going to try to find a spot for those in a container or something that they can’t get to.
It’s a good thing we’re looking at this first year as practice. I’m sure learning a few things! Like I really need to put up a gate that prevents the boys from getting in! :0)
I found out this week that those seeds that I assumed just weren’t growing, probably were growing, but something furry came and ate them. This time it took out all but one of my watermelon seedlings, and left a hole almost deep enough to qualify as a tunnel. I’m grating some soap out there to try and keep it away, and replanting one LAST last time. The soap is a handmade one that we got as a gift, but has so much essential oil in it that nobody can stand the smell! We had it sitting in the garage to keep the mice away. As for the seeds I’m replanting, I’m using every trick I know of to make them sprout fast. Hopefully they can catch up. It’s all summer veggies, no long-season stuff, so I should be able to get at least a little out of it.
The strawberries are starting to slow down, but I think it’s because they need rain, not because they’re done. The last few pickings were very tart. Great for cooking with, but not so much for fresh eating unless you enjoy reflux. Last night mom watered them for a while, she’d had a bad day at work and felt the need to shoot something, and decided that shooting water at the ground was probably her safest bet! I love my mom.
I got permission to add some “potato towers” to the backyard garden, and got the first one up ad planted. Like with everything, the work goes kind of slow due to my messed-up shoulders, but it gets done eventually.
Hi and thanks for the ping. I used to have a large garden, inheiritated from the woman who we bought our first house from. The soil was incredibly fertile and anything I plant grew fabulously! My first learning experience in gardening, do not plant 6 hills of cucumbers! My second experience in gardening, do not us fresh horse manure as fertilizer. You get a very nice crop of grass, alfalfa and field corn.
Anyway, I haven’t been much of a gardener since we built our ‘new’ house in ‘88. I’ve mainly grown raspberries (easy) herbs (easy) and tomatoes, easy now that I got some great advice from Diana in Wisconsin about hour to fertilize and prevent fungus. Thank you Diana! I’ve shared your advice with more people than I can count.
I had a smallish perennial garden which became overgrown. My dear husband dug it all up for me this spring and I am back to gardening, although at a much smaller scale then most of you,
I planted one hill of cukes, one hill of pickling cukes, pole beans, spinnach, radishes, 3 peppers, 3 okra that a friend gave me and a row of brussel sprouts because I love the plants.
I will be paying much nore attention to these threads now and probably asking a lot more questions.
First question. What is the best method for fertilizing? I have rather sandy soil.
The tomatoes are in a separate area in a raised bed with different soil and dear Diana helped me handle that.
Thanks guys! I love these threads.
Still hot and dry here in Central Missouri. I stopped at Lowe’s on the way home from work yesterday and bought a new tripod sprinkler. Set it up in the middle of the garden after I got home and let it run for a couple hours. It covers everything but the outer fence and is going to be a wonderful time saver for me. The tomato plants are the only thing that I’ll have to drag hose to water.
I figured out the nectarine problem. It is a bug of some sort. Every one of the bad ones has a little worm ~.25” long inside. I guess next year I’ll have to spray the tree if I want good fruit. It looks like I’m going to get half a bushel or so in spite of the infestation. Not bad for a tree that’s only been in the ground four years.
Need some advice on something: one of the neighbors apparently hired a lawn service, and among other things they sprayed something on the fence line, probably Roundup but we’re not sure. All we do know for sure is that there is suddenly a 3-foot wide strip of dead grass on BOTH sides of the fence. Dad says that because the runoff from that area with go near my raspberry patch, the entire patch should be either moved or destroyed because it’s now pure poison.
This is the same dad who picks and eats soybeans out of a freshly sprayed field, and makes fun of me for expressing concern. He has also been trying to convince mom and I that the raspberry patch needs to be moved or destroyed, starting exactly 2 weeks after he decided to put it where it currently is. Maybe I’m biased or maybe I’m too close to the problem, but his logic doesn’t seem to track. Is anyone familiar enough with herbicides to tell me if my raspberries are about to turn poisonous because the neighbors sprayed something uphill from them?
(The patch itself is big enough that I seriously doubt that it would kill many of the plants themselves.)
Corn on the cob via microwave video
(corn on the cob via microwave video)
I have lost count of the times we have had this for supper, so easy and so good...a little melted butter and salt. I've no idea where our fresh corn is coming from here in Tucson, but our greengrocer man loves this way of fixing ContheC, and finds us the freshest he has...good marketing! Enjoy!
Great video. Thanks.
We went to a Bible conferance in Baton Rouge last weekend and I met a gentleman that I had a number of common interest with. For one, he is a beginner bee keeper. We talked at length about his experiances starting out. I guess I may put in a hive sometime and see how it goes.
As I wrote in earlier threads, I did a lot to improve the soil in the raised beds this year. I am starting to see the results.
* The Cucumbers are about a foot tall and learning how to hang on the the chain link fencing.
* The Kohlrabi is growing gangbusters.
* Sweet Peppers are about 10” high and growing nicely.
* Summer Squash is starting to put out flowers
* Yellow Beets are about 2” high and look healthy. They are now big enough I can tell the difference between Beet sprouts and weeds.
Speaking of weeds . . . The weeds are doing FANTASTIC! I think I have the best weed crop in the County! I think a neighborhood prankster snuck (sneaked?) into my garden at night and over-seeded everything with 5lbs. of weed seeds.
[grumble - grumble - grumble]
Why do weeds seem to grow 3X better than veggies???
We went to a Bible conferance in Baton Rouge last weekend and I met a gentleman that I had a number of common interest with. For one, he is a beginner bee keeper. We talked at length about his experiances starting out. I guess I may put in a hive sometime and see how it goes.
Love your tagline!
I forgot to add a detail: part of the reason his logic doesn’t seem to track is that the place where he wants to move my raspberries is about a foot from the fence that got sprayed. Which means, they would have taken the herbicide directly instead of getting it through the runoff.
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