Posted on 08/10/2012 8:41:20 AM PDT by JustaDumbBlonde
Good morning, FRiends and fellow gardeners! We finally have power again, some dog-gone big and vicious storms ran over us last night here in NE Louisiana. If anybody figures out how to get a solar system to work at night without spending $100k on batteries, please let me know!! lol
Received anywhere between 2.5" and 5" of rain, depending on the field. The 2.5" we registered here at the house can't possibly be right ... the rain was blowing so sideways that I don't think half of it got in the gauge. It was sorely needed and I am thankful for every drop. There are branches and limbs down all over the homestead. It is a mess and will take a day or two to clean up. All of the beehives came through fine. Those bees really glue everything together well with propolis.
We are going to start picking scarlet cowpeas tomorrow or Sunday. They are loaded and beautiful. Also preparing to plant (and try) a late summer crop of sweet corn. We have a few rows at the edge of a cotton field that didn't get planted for some reason, but the rows are devoid of grass and weeds, under a pivot, and the cotton will be kept pest-free, so that should help with the corn. With as much seed as we have, hard to go wrong with a try.
Got a couple of articles that might interest y'all: The first is something I came across about drought and tasty fruits/veggies. Rightly_dividing and I actually discussed this a couple of weeks ago. Here is the link:
US Produce May Pack More Punch
Here is a link to an article posted on FR yesterday about Scott's Miracle Gro donating to the Romney campaign. I realize that there are some members of our group that don't like Scott's, but our ping list is 532 people, not all of whom are 'anti'. So, for what it is worth:
Scotts Miracle-Gro goes out on a limb with political donation
My heart goes out to those of you that are still in the grips of the heat and drought. My husband and I know just how that is and how helpless and hopeless you can feel when the heat won't relent and the air takes your breath away when you go outdoors. It is my hope and prayer that you get a break in the weather very soon.
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You can plant vidalias up north but they won't be the giants you get from Georgia. You can plant the little italian cippolinis in the deep deep south but they'll be really tasty 'green' onions that never really make a bulb. I'd like to grow the 'ailsa craig' onions but don't dare to waste the money on seed.
If you go to johnny's and look at the ailsa craig:
It will tell you what latitudes they're optimal for. *most* but not all seed catalogs will tell you if one is long or short day. Some like Johnnys will even tell you the specific latitudes they're suited for.
Up north, onions might not be hardy through the entire winter so they're started very early in spring and transplanted out as soon as the ground is workable. They bulb/make in mid/late summer IIRC. Down south onions are started in september and transplanted out in october/nov to overwinter and make in early summer.
Hope this helps and hope I'm right! I've found most of this out the hard way. Planted the entirely wrong variety in late spring and they never ever bulbed. Made beautiful green onions though, if expensive ones.
I got most of this info from various state run ag sites. ixquick is your friend.
Take one gallon of water, exactly. Add one cup (8oz) exactly of plain clorox bleach. (not store brand, not splashless, not scented, etc...plain clorox bleach. It's a formulation issue) Put this mixture into a regular pump sprayer. Spray plants entirely (affected and not affected parts) until it's dripping. From both sides and be sure to get the spray underneath the leaves and in the middle of the plant if you have it staked. Stand UPWIND! Do this AFTER SUNSET. When all the bees have gone home and the plants won't be exposed to strong sunlight for several hours. I don't bother pruning off affected parts. They will die anyway and IMHO that just spreads the blight around. They will look like hammered heck for a week or two but if the disease wasn't too bad will recover. I usually feed mine somethingorother the day after I spray them.
I came THIS close to pulling all mine this year due to blight. Copper wasn't doing a thing and I was worried about it building up in the soil. The bleach kills the blight(s) and then oxidizes within an hour or two and is gone...It's not organic but it's not something that will hang around as an endocrine disruptor.
Next year I'll be sure to plant a variety that's resistant to lots of stuff. BUT, I looooove the little drying tomatos I planted this year as they are certain to set really well even in the heat we have down here.
BTW, I’ve started spraying my roses with this stuff every 2-3 weeks. No black spots! And it’s WAY cheaper than the bought stuff for black spot. I dilute it a bit more, 6oz to a gallon.
Oh, to add to the onion post, we planted the granex onion variety that ‘vidalias’ are IIRC last year. Our were just as sweet and possibly sweeter than the vidalias we got from the store for comparison. It’s apparently a soil dependent thing. We’ll definitely be doing that again this year.
Nutrient Deficiency symptoms and their remedies in Okra (Ladies finger)
How old are your plants?
The solar garden/path lights do well in the house when the electricity goes out.
Very interesting.
My goodness! Thanks for both of your very helpful and informative replies! I’d had no idea about the onions at all. The bleach solution sounds quite useful as well.
Just saw your comment on use of the bleach solution for roses with the spotting. Some of our roses have that. Where do you get the bleach for this solution? All the stuff in the grocery stores around here have additives.
I use plain clorox bleach. Usually from WalMart.
I looked at the link, plus I have searched other sites, but haven't found any okry disease pages with pictures. I can't often ID problems from just a verbal description. Thats why I posted some pictures on here for others to see.
Our plants are about 8 or 9 weeks old.
Thanks! That’s what we’ve been using. The label says the active ingredients are 6.0% “Sodium Hypochlorite,” and “Other Ingredients” 94%.
The “Other Ingredients” threw me.
Why pick? Can’t you just wait until they hatch?
hhsssssssss
We actually got about 1/2 inch of rain this week and a welcome break in the temperature. My perrenials have done well, in spite of the heat this year. I harvested some Stevia this week, and will harvest some French Tarragon this weekend.
Corn, even with regular watering is lousy. The ears so far have that gray-white fungus stuff all over them. This was an early variety hybrid-won't be using it again. In fact, I have just been clearing them out and plan to burn everything.
My country gentleman corn is doing well so far, and just beginning to tassel. I had a couple of really nice green tomatoes growing on the cherokee purple, so I picked one, washed it with warm water, wrapped it in paper, and will see if it ripens.
The other one was gone 2 days later. I assume the squirrels were desperate for water and picked it. Last year they left them alone till they had a lot of pink color, and lack of water is the thing that comes to my mind.
We have not been able to trap any this year. They get the bait, but don't spring the trap. We have ordered an above ground swimming pool which we plan to use to catch rainwater next spring, and route the water from the roof.
It will hold about 4000 gallons, and our rain barrels hold about 400, so we hope that we will not have to haul water next year, should the drought be similar to what happened this year.
We have 43 fruit and nut trees, vine and bushes that we hauled water for this year, but we just let the garden die except for a couple of my raised beds, and the perennial bed. We didn't even water the strawberry bed after June.
Have a great weekend. God Bless.
We are still getting some tomatos, banana peppers, and our okry is surviving. We are getting some rain every few days, though. We discovered that the cheapo soaker hoses had splits in them and were not watering our okry patch properly. We now using a lawn sprinkler on them. That okry plot was just a last minute, thrown together plot on a sunny area in our far-back yard. No soil test or anything. Next year we will get a soil test and put in drip irrigation like our main garden plot.
Wow. You are blessed with so many fruit and nut trees. We don’t have the space for that many and a decent sized garden at our current home. We’ve got 6 apple trees, 3 crab apples (that don’t make, just for show), a pecan tree or two, 2 pear trees, and 5 hazlenuts that are kind of sulling so far. I’d like to have room for more big fruiting sort of trees and we may look into some dwarf varieties next spring.
What we do have space for are blueberry bushes. I landscape with those like most people do with plain old shrubs. We’ve probably got 30-40 of those counting shoots they sent up this year.
8 apache blackberries to start and I found 3 more shoots this week that we’ll be transplanting those later this fall.
Hubby got me 3 Dorman Red raspberries last year for mothers day that have gone completely nuts. Supposedly they were bred to be happy in the heat and humidity we have down here. They’re not ‘fresh’ eating ones but they make great jam and spread. I got seventeen new plants from those original 3 this spring from where the original canes tip layered. We put the 3 mother plants up in old tomato cages to confine them and dang if they didn’t ‘escape’ and tip layer some more. I’ve probably got 10 more baby plants this fall. We’ve given a lot away from the spring batch and hubby and I will probably extend our raspberry bed this fall to include the strays we can’t give away.
I wish I could grow French Tarragon. I’ve killed 2 plants so far. I think it might be the heat but if you’ve managed to keep a plant this summer it might just be ME killing them *chuckle*. My goal this fall when it cools off is to start an herb bed somewhere in my yard. And plant a bunch of tansy and pennyroyal around my doors.
My blighty tomatoes are still hanging in there. We had a couple cool nights this week and they’ve set a whole bunch of new baby tomatoes.
Monday we’ll plant some fall zucchini, cucumbers and maybe a last batch of basil. I’ve got a bunch of zucchini seeds that make in 50 days or less so we’ll see. Hopefully we’re past the vine borer stage. I plan to make zucchini powder, maybe some pickles and cucumber powder. Around labor day I’ll plant some cabbages, broccoli, peas, broad beans and other fall stuff. IF the bad old bunny rabbits predate, they WILL end up as Hassenpfeffer! Ditto Bambis! My kids loooove bambi cooked in the crock pot.
I may start a flat or two of leeks this week too. I’ve got the seeds and we love the leeks. They’re something else I’ve seen dehydrated successfully.
We’ve had the rain a lot of people have been missing this summer. Since early July it’s been VERY unusually damp and rainy down here. We haven’t had enough to drown the garden in about a month but we get rain nearly every other day. Which is it’s own set of problems...
Peppers, beans, summer peas and sweet potatoes are a bust. Sweet potatoes were completely defoliated with an accompanying pile or two of rabbit pellets. Grrrrr...
And my strawberry beds really NEEEED to be reset and cardboard/mulched too. If only I had a tribe of garden fairies to help!
Well, that number includes our blueberry bushes, black berry etc. We bought two half acre lots when we built our house, so we do have quite a bit of space.
We have zero luck with raspberries, but a bunch of wild black berries. I managed to get several cobblers and canned 7 pints before the heat zapped them. The walnut, butternut, and persimmon trees have dropped all the fruit.
We did plant an orchard of dwarf fruit trees in 2010, and we are happy with their progress. We hope to get some fruit next year, if the heat isn’t so bad.
I planted my tarragon in a raised bed with mels mix where it gets afternoon shade. So far so good. I also water it daily, since this mix dries out quicker than regular soil.
The back of our Van holds 9 buckets. It takes 5 trips to haul in enough water for everything, then we have to carry the buckets in a wheelbarrow and yard cart to the plants that need the water the most.
Eventually, I think Hubby will put in some sort of drip irrigation. He is also seriously considering building a cistern.
We live beyond the city limits in a county that has little rules re: zoning etc. So as long as federal and state laws are ok we could do it.
We know that we are allowed to have a swimming pool, so that is a cheap stop-gap measure we will try.
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