Posted on 06/08/2012 7:26:30 AM PDT by JustaDumbBlonde
Here in Austin we have a great resource, a fellow by the name of John Dromgoole who is big into organic gardening and he is the best local source for what to plant when for best results.
Since Dallas has a different climate from Austin, does anyone know of a Dallas-area counterpart to John for that kind of local gardening knowledge and guidance?
I bought some calla lily plants and their leaves are drooping and turning yellow. I put them in potting soil in containers. What am I doing wrong?
I’m losing my squashes to some sort of rot. I put Sevin dust on them 3 weeks ago to take care of the squash bugs. Then they started rotting at the stems and the fruits so sprayed them with a 3-fer fungicide/insecticide/something. I’ve read to add calcium but don’t know anything about that. They get watered every other day because of the heat. No, I don’t use mulch as that tends to add to the problems here. Any suggestions on how to save them?
I have no immediate solution but I would suggest a soil test right away. Calcium deficiency will surely cause blossom end rot. But it takes a while to get the calcium distributed throughout the soil and digestible for plants. I try to do organic gardening which means being pro-active for the next year. By adding the needed calcium for next years heavy feeders I eliminate blossom end rot. Just make sure you are not overwatering. I mulch about everything especially squash. I water less frequently and eliminate problems associated with overwatering. I manually squash the squash bugs and use homemade organic spray to deter them. Anyone else want to weigh in?
I always have that same squash problem. Sometimes I see those “come in the night, and poke a hole in the vine” bugs, and sometimes ants. Either that or powdery mildew get them.. I have no luck with squash.
Realized it was a snake, parked the mower & ran for the camera, hit the zoom button & started walking closer & closer & closer ..... surprisingly, the snake didn't move ... finally got this close:
When I touched his tail lightly, zzzzzziiipp .... off in the grass like a flash. I think this might be a Black Northern Racer. I saw him again later, hanging out under the pomegranate bush. Fortunately, the bluebird babies have recently fledged so if the plan for being in the area was to raid the bluebird box that was nearby, he would have found it empty.
This is the first year that I planted a Mandevilla vine. The red is so vibrant! I used a small trellis and planted it by the light post. It has taken off and you can see vine growth every morning. It truly is a beautiful vine!
I have a horrible garden story to share. My 4 year old pulled “weeds” in my garden while outside playing yesterday. When I went to water, all but two of my tomatoes were gone. I felt sick! After struggling to get them to grow from seeds, they were gone in a matter of minutes.
We put seeds directly into the ground yesterday afternoon. With any luck, I may have a few tomatoes before the first frost date. *sigh*
It’s already hit 100 a time or two in Texas so the garden needs the every other day or so watering. Everything else is happy with the watering. I’ve hand squished some of the squash bugs but haven’t seen any since the Sevin dust but now that I’ve said it they’ll be baaaack. I haven’t had too much trouble with any other plants getting chewed on - a few of the mustards and a little on a broccoli so that’s not bad (knock on wood). There had been lots of bees when the squashes (yellow crookneck, zuke, sweet dumpling and delicata) were blooming but only I saw one earlier this week so at one time it seemed they were happy.
BTW, we’re in the country so we get our water from our own well that’s fed from the aquifer up in the hills and from the river we’re on. There shouldn’t be much chemical fertilizer run-off since there’s only one small farm that just grows hay. All the other land is natural except for a half dozen houses up from us. I’m sure there is some mixture of underground water coming from the river but it has an “excellent” water rating even with the lawn chemicals and boating activity on it. Bottom line, the squash are getting about the best water they could wish for.
Weather in South East/Central Missouri has been unusually dry for May. Hope it doesn’t continue into June. We could probably get another batch of strawberries, but we don’t want to water them this early in the season, so unless it rains, the berries are done.
Male kiwi expired again, so females will have no fruit again this year. Orchard is coming along nicely. We are cutting oak trees to make way for additional fruit trees.
Wild blackberries are smaller this year probably due to sparse rain. Hubby has his gardens completed. I am still sowing my raised beds, planting in 2 week intervals, so the crop will be somewhat staggered.
Have a great weekend everyone. God Bless.
Oh, my, no. Sorry, about your tomatoes but I have to laugh because when lil’ miss was about that age she thought her job was to water mama’s flowers. She watered and she watered and she watered and she watered for hours every day with her little watering can and nearly drowned everything. It was too much fun watching her but I would have put my foot down if they’d been tomatoes. Don’t nobody mess with mama’s tomatoes!
We got 5" of rain last night, here 40 mi north of Houston. Though we have drip irrigation system on the gardens, our trees and grass needed it. We had been watering our trees for a couple of weeks; not looking forward to the water bill.
I often add banana peels and crushed eggshells for melons, tomatoes etc, and haven't really had any problems with BER when I do that. I assume it would work for squash.
I try to find organic solutions and cheap solutions (banana peels and egg shells) for my garden, as I want to avoid pesticides etc.
I know the feeling. Last year my young children helped me plant sunflower seeds along our privacy fence. When they were 4-5 inches tall my husband used the weedeater to “trim” the “weeds”. He didn’t notice the “weeds” were perfectly spaced, and happened to be the only weeds in the area. Ugg. He is no longer allowed to use the weedeater anywhere other than immediately adjancent to the grass.
Good morning, all. I’m in CA trying to take care of some of the needs of my mother who broke her hip. She’s 98 and in rehab.
But, gardens. Everything is very lush here in Central CA, but only because of irrigation. The ground is powder dry. Water restrictions are in place in the city — every other day, but you can only water before 7 AM or after 7 PMon your designated day. And not a drop of water had better fall on the sidewalk. This means my mom’s yard is brown.
I picked up a book to read at Mom’s — The King of California. It is all about how one family accumulated more than 200,000 acres of cotton land, etc. from 1906 until the present (plus 60,000 acres in Australia). I looked into the front cover and found the book dedicated to Mom from the author who happened to have been one of her students.
It is a fascinating tale (so far) of the Boswell family. I can’t believe how a dry tale (no pun intended) of cotton farming, water rights, and land acquisition could be so exciting. If my mom taught this Mark Arax (co-author) to write so well, I have to be proud of her.
One other observation: We drove south to the Central Valled from San Francisco. To do so we had to cross the South Bay on one of the Bridges. The San Francisco water was brown and grimy, whereas Lake Michigan is pristine, blue, and sparkling. I know the Bay is more shallow than Lake Michigan, but I think this is an example of the environmentalists who keep a dirty back yard and push their rules onto others.
Sometimes I think husbands do those things just so that they won’t be asked to keep doing them. (Mine pulled up all my chrysanthemums one time.)
The husband of a friend of mine sprayed deer repellent on all of her garden — especially the hostas. The “deer repellent” happened to be Round Up. Need I say more?
God love you! I love your tag line. :)
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