Posted on 07/12/2013 1:19:48 PM PDT by greeneyes
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Ok. Thanks.
Something has hit my beautiful strawberry plants in the last 10 days and it looks like I may lose them all. My corn is tasseling and silk is showing on 4 or 5 plants, early picking of raspberries is done and just a few blueberries left to pick. I have dug all the garlic and the Rust has reduced the size of the bulbs to less then half the normal size. I talked to a couple of Organic Growers at the Farmers Market Thursday and they say it is becoming prevalent and speculation is it came in on some Chinese garlic? Eating a few new potatoes and I dug and gave away the spuds from the volunteers that came up early in the spring. Lady Bender’s annual flowers have never looked better and the drip irrigation is worth it’s weight in gold in keeping them growing and healthy...
Oh no any idea what is wrong with the strawberries? My garlic was a big disappointment this year too. Almost all were undersized. We aren’t getting much berries this year. I guess it’s the after effect of last years extreme drought.
I don’t get anywhere near 10 gallons/day here in drier NW KS, but I let all I get run into a plastic planter base to supply water for my birds. Helps keep them from drilling my tomatoes.
Yes, just 1 left.
In Oregon, we twice found large, black scorpions in the kitchen sink. Not native; and I had custom fitted & customised the cabinetry myself, after having built the house, so I don’t know where they came from, or how; but the garbage disposer ate them. We also found a third one on our bed upstairs. All we could figure was that some eggs got brought back in/on something we bought on a Caribbean cruise.
In So-Cal, we would periodically get a tarantula skittering across the floor.
But this is the first time anywhere we have had a snake—and a large one at that— in a house. OTOH, we do have a family of tiger salamanders living in the sub-basement, where the water tanks are.
Well, they do seem to be able get in somehow. Shame about the chicks. Are you going to get some more?
Wow! That’s great. I cannot figure it out.
I am heading out to Loews in a bit. So far I heard bone meal, phosphorous, potassium, egg shells, bananas, various composts.
Question, at what point are the plants beyond help as far as producing?
Have you dried tomatoes? Mine are kind of rubbery, with the dryer I have now, that’s why I’m thinking of another dryer. I’m getting ready to freeze some herbs in olive oil. I’m going to do both fresh and dried and freeze some mint ice cubes.
I am going to put Lady Bender to work researching Root Rot on Strawberries while I am out having breakfast with a couple of FRiends this morning...
/johnny
OH, ok. I have mine in plastic bags. I didn’t know how they were supposed to end up. I usually just freeze stuff, so the drying experiment is new. After reading about all the “dryers” from last season, I thought I’d try it out.
Thanks for the information.
It’s going to be quite awhile before I try hatching any more.
So far, 3 attempts have cost $80 for the incubator & automatic egg turner; 5 dozen of our fertile eggs; 9 or 10 weeks of 24 hour power to the incubator & turner, and more to the brooder lamp, for a grand total of 3 live chicks...plus, I got to clean and disinfect snake blood stains on the utility room floor.
I can buy live chicks one heck of a lot cheaper, and have rarely lost any once they’ve arrived.
Dear greeneyes and gardening FRiends,
First of all, congrats on your harvest, greeneyes! And thanks for the thread! I have some fun things (at least to me!) to report and several QUESTIONS!
Greeneyes, I have also had a harvest, of sorts! LOL! I am happy to report we have harvested so far 3 TOMATOES with a few more reddening up. Today I harvested my one yellow straight neck SQUASH and a handful of BLACKBERRIES that the Garden Fairies saved for me. At someone’s suggestion here, I’ve been letting my few BEAN/PEA pods dry on the vine for seeds. Over the past few days we’ve gotten about 3 OKRA pods. Darlin is teasing me about the gold plated high dollar harvest, much like one of our FRiends who recently told me about obtaining an egg from a new flock, which is now priced at $180!
I guess, at least in my case our investment is not a bad tuition price for the lessons I’ve been learning. Certainly the harvest we have been obtaining is NOT cheaper than the grocery store!
The BELL PEPPER plants (one green, one red) are showing a few peppers.
The CUCUMBER plants from Lowes are blooming like crazy and the bees are actually buzzing around it. I have located one possible cucumber forming. The cucumber plant I grew from seed is beautiful! It started putting out vine curlies, so I provided it with a tomato cage to climb on. It also showed its first bloom today.
The 5 ASPARAGUS sprouts are surviving, which I was happy to see. The roses, echinacia, tame purslane, marigolds, geraniums, and day lilies are gorgeous.
The SWEET POTATO is probably the happiest plant we have at this moment. It is just gorgeous.
The SCALLOP SQUASH looks happy, but no more blooms, and the blooms it did have never developed. QUESTIONS: Is it compost now, or do I need to just let it grow and see if it decides to do more later? Am I too late to try to start another one?
I’ve never seen OKRA plants up close before and mine are just bowling me over. I can’t believe how beautiful the okra flowers are! The developing pods are so cute. And the flavor is amazing!
The SUNFLOWERS are still happy, although there have been a few bug attacks on them, and one decapitation, which I’ve reported earlier! We have several at different stages of development. I was despairing of having some this year at one point. I’m sorry yours have had such a hard time this year, greeneyes.
Marcella, I was at the health food store the other day. They have a seed packet display, and I found and bought a packet of the short huge sunflowers (SUNSPOT?- that’s what these are-)you were telling us about recently. QUESTION: Do you happen to know if I still have time to grow some this season, or should I save them for next?
Darlin and I have a huge stack of rocks in the back yard left over years ago from another project and have just been sitting there. Recently I started outlining my little garden plot which contains the okra, roses, and sunflowers. There are a few bulb flowers in that plot as well. Today I hauled some more rock from the stack and continued my circle around the bed.
I have a couple of QUESTIONS about ZUCCHINI. I did not try to raise any this year. However, I have a friend who has been providing us with it for several years. This past week, she gave us one that is fully two feet long and about 4-6 inches around. The peel is a thick rind. I had some trouble getting at it! Finally was able to separate the meat from the rind and stirred it together with onions and garlic. Only cooked up about 1/2, with the other 1/2 remaining in the fridge. (1)In the future, if/when I grow zucchini myself, would picking it earlier give me a thinner more edible peel, or is this a different variety? (2)Wondering what to do with it! Just one zuke is taking up about 16 square inches of refrigerator space! I like greeneyes’ suggestion to dry. I need to learn that process. We have a food drier, and should probably learn how to operate it.
QUESTION: The health food store also had a packet of STEVIA SEEDS which I also obtained. QUESTION: Does anyone out there have any pointers on raising it? Am I too late to start it this year? I would like to put it in a 10-12 inch pot. I was told by someone at a seed company (Fedco) that growing Stevia from seed is a challenge. Well, I like those, but would be most grateful for any pointers anyone might have!
SQUASH BUGS - I am busy cooking up a homemade recipe for warding off the squash bugs I saw this morning. This is the first sighting I’ve had of them since I treated with neem a few weeks ago. Not many in evidence, but did see one stink bug kind and a couple of the ones I call fake lady bugs. They are yellow with the black dots, not nearly as cute, but about the same size. Because I’ve been seeing bees, I do not want to spray until the evening. So far I’ve boiled up some eucalyptus leaves and plan to strain it and mix the tea into my squirt bottle with a little dish soap and neem. This is a total experiment, so I’ll report back on it later.
Finally, the EXPERIMENTS with ROOT HORMONE are continuing. The romaine which I planted and placed outside is gorgeous! The new romaine stump has started growing leaves from the center, but there are no rootlets showing yet, just as in the previous experiment. The celery stump remains green, and the rootlets are growing, but no center growth activity is in evidence yet. We have a geranium which Darlin rescued several years ago which is now fading, so I picked one of its last leaves several days ago and put it into the root hormone. Today I noticed some teeny tiny rootlets forming from it. QUESTION: Does anyone here know how they obtain this hormone from scratch?
QUESTION(S): In addition to the SUNSPOT and STEVIA seeds, I also bought a packet of ACORN SQUASH seeds. It is “Sweet Reba” variety. It emerges in 5-10 days per the packet, but does not say how long to harvest. Would I be ok to plant some now, or do I need to wait for next season? Isn’t planting now appropriate because it’s considered a winter crop?
I wish all of you and your gardens well this week! And thanks for any and all answers to the questions buzzing around between my ears!
Garlic (and onions) is a complete mystery to me. I know some of our FRiends here tried to educate me on garlic and onion propagation recently, but I’m finding that I am still not following the process.
I am most unclear about how to start it, then how and when to harvest. There are seeds, there are cloves, there are previously grown bulbs, and there are the things that are on the top of the plant, and I’m hazily thinking that any of these can be a source of propagation, but just not sure of the process, as I said.
I just did a search and found this:
http://www.ehow.com/how_317_grow-garlic.html
I seem to follow it pretty well, but would love it if anyone has anything to add!
Hope you are doing well! Much more important to take care of yourself, imho, than worry about a garden at this time. But it is true that you have not been idle - haven’t you have made plans which you have indicated previously? You and garden have been fallow, and now when the frost kills the weeds, you can come roaring back on all fronts in the spring!
Don’t have time for full reply now. I’ll try tonight. If I forget message me, because I probably will forget!
THanks for the information on the tromboncino rampicante! I’ve printed that out for my files!
THANK YOU! Looking forward to your reply!
Then, I peaked out the window this afternoon and saw the cucumbers suddenly shriveled up. I watered them this morning and they were fine. So here we go, again.
Yes, gardening is more of a learning experience with our harvests costing more than it's sometimes worth. But then a tomato off the vine is a million times better than those cardboard things in the grocery. Besides, with the way things are these days, this knowledge might come in more handy than we thought just 5 years ago.
Your garlic - the seeds can be planted but they'll take longer to develop into a plant. The cloves are easier but to each his own. You can plant the cloves at most any time of year depending on your climate. Many plant them in the fall to overwinter. Plant like any flower bulb with the root end down and the pointed end up. When the leaves (tall grass-like, like onions but thicker) start to dry out, it's time to dig them up. I used to have garlic that would reseed itself without me doing a thing... until hubby continually mowed them down so now I'm having to grow them inside the fenced garden. This year, I planted some beside the squash and the squash bugs ate them, too. Or maybe it was the invasion of biblical proportion of caterpillars that did it. Ate every last onion, too. Never knew anything ate garlic or onions. We used to have wild onions all over the yard (used them like chives) but they're gone this year, too. Those wild onions were here when I was a kid so it's all very strange. I don't know what I did to tick off Mother Nature but she's certainly upset. I bought some regular garlic and elephant garlic that needs to be planted tomorrow so may need to do a dance or perform some ritual for Ms. Nature.
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