[greeneyes]

Greetings from Missouri. Oh what a beautiful day here on the little one acre ranch! Sun is shining and the temperature is a balmy 75 degrees in doors and outside!

My idea of perfect gardening weather. I got several of the seedlings transplanted and mulched this past week. Next up is to transplant the peanuts, and then I'll be direct sowing other veggies to fill up any remaining spaces.

I have 4 more cherry tomatoes ripe and ready to eat from Mr. Indoor Tomato. Lemons are still maturing. We had our first 2 ripe strawberries yesterday. Hubby has covered the beds with netting.

I have been doing some nutrition research lately, and finding some interesting new data relating to Vitamin K2, which is not found in green leafy veggies - that's K1 and they have very different purposes.

If you are worried about fragile bones, heart disease,overweight, or cancer to name just a few, get some K2 supplements (check the label for MK7 source). Food sources are goose liver pate, eggs from pastured chickens, hard cheeses like dutch gouda, and butter from grass fed cows. Most of which has disappeared from our diets thanks to current mass production methods. Lots of new and astounding research has been completed recently. The heart healthy diet rules haven't been modified yet, but it appears that they should be.

Hope all your gardens are doing well. Have a great holiday weekend. Drive safely if you are traveling. God Bless.

[greeneyes]

Pinging the list.

[Neoliberalnot]

Please add me to the list. I am a gardening fool from Missouri. I have a garden in central MO and one about 150 miles to the SW. Lettuce, radish, and onion crops have been perfect this year. The cold killed off the peach crop but the apples look great. Using different approach this year to keep the fungus from getting my tomatoes—newspaper, instead of forage mulch.

[tflabo]

“Goose liver pate”....ehehheeheh. Sounds so fu-fu. My friend she raises free range chickens so I guess those eggs have K2. Well just finished planting replacement ‘maters round 2. If these get diseased too I’ll have to wait until the new seedlings of Juliette’s hybrids need to grow up some more and then transplant early Sept here in N. Tx.

[Black Agnes]

MK7 is good but look into thorne’s drops or some other source of MK4 as well.

We try to eat lots of k2 in our diet. Especially the kiddos as it looks like it’s important to brain development as well.

[4everontheRight]

Hi all from the Upstate of SC. Our crops (a few rows of corn, green beans, carrots, squash, etc.) in the raised garden bed are being dug around (some dug up!) by chipmunks....anyone have a good way to ward them off? I hate to set traps as have dogs and cats and sure don't want anything to happen to the beloveds!

Our pots which we are growing hot peppers and tomatoes are slow to get started and we can't seem to get the hot peppers going.Two of our plants have already kicked the salsa jar!

[Starstruck]

Here in Kansas all of my seed started heirloom tomatoes are about 30” tall and loaded with blooms. The ornamental corn is starting to tassel. We are already eating radishes. Love the green house that allowed for the early start on the corn and maters. It’s working on the flowers now.

[Red_Devil 232]

Hello gardeners. I have not posted on the gardening thread in quite awhile, but I have read every thread each week and keep up with all the news from the gardeners.

For the past two years or so I have not had a garden. I am now back at my home in Meridian, Ms and I planted my first garden in two years last week and I am very happy. It took lots of work to restart my garden plot. I Took soil samples and had them analyzed by the county agent and Ms State. I only needed to add a little nitrogen and potassium. I also removed my old PVC drip system and replaced it with a commercial system from https://www.dripworks.com and added an Ez Flo automatic fertilizing system to the set up. Nice system.

I am a homegrown tomato lover and have planted something like 32 + tomato plants along with a few pepper plants and zukes. I have only planted half the garden space I have had in the past. Just not as spry and energetic as I was just a few years ago. I may venture into the other half of the garden with some watermelon and acorn squash if I get a little more adventurous in the next week or so. All my tomato plants are heirloom and include Marion, San Marzano, Red Beefsteak, Black Prince and Arkansas Traveler. I also planted some Pimento Pepper and a few hot peppers.

Wishing y’all great gardening this year.

[Black Agnes]

Put out 50+ sweet potato slips this week and papered/mulched around them. Peanuts get planted this coming Monday. Hopefully this summer is warm, like summer is supposed to be but heaven forbid we get one like 2011 again.

[Sarajevo]

We harvested our first Mammoth Jalapeno peppers yesterday, along with some Hot Banana peppers. Summer squash is coming along fine after I treated the plant with epsom salts.

I think (hope) that the stinking armadillo is gone because I'll have 11 new okra sprouts to transplant in a few days. The okra seem to prefer germinating in Miracle Grow potting soil better than composted manure in the garden or peat pots.

Oh yeah, lettuce - I am playing around with a bare bones hydroponic system and I grew some lettuce. The plants weren't doing so good in the hydroponics, so I transplanted them in the garden a couple weeks ago. Now, they're ready to harvest!
I think the hydroponics just needs more fish for a larger nutrient supply, but that's in the future.

The Roma and Cherry tomato plants that suffered the chicken attack are returning to normal. The birds ate all of the little green tomato's and parts of the plants, then they nested and laid eggs at the scene of the crime. If they weren't so productive, they would have been in the pot in no time.

The Mrs and I have been selling at a local Farmers Market. The market is only open for three hours on Thurdsay mornings, yet I sell on an average 7 dozen eggs, and she sells all her home-baked goods:

We're both hoping to have enough vegetable produce to sell there this summer.

[heylady]

This past week was spent figuring out the best place for my plants. Moved the tomatoes from the raised beds that get full sun, all day, to pots on the porch where they get about 6 hours of direct sunlight. They are doing so much better and all have little baby tomatoes. Had to make a shade for my squash and beans that I moved to the raised bed because their tender new leaves were burning up. By the end of the week the plants had grown enough that I didn’t need the shade. Lettuce is on the covered porch and looking pretty good ( only gets early morning sun). Squash has blossoms but still no babies.

[rightly_dividing]

Great to hear that you have good weather and have been actively gardening outdoors.

It’s been low 90’s here, but beautiful sunny days.

[goodwithagun]

The taters need hilled and the seeds and seedlings need planted. Other than that the garden’s great lol!

[rights with responsibilities]

Here in Southern NH the lettuce and peas have been in for two weeks. Tomatoes ( trying single stem on a few this year to preserve garden space ) go in tomorrow. Other plantings will also happen. Sunday, church, then we’ll hit a town parade and visit some of the family grave sites. Monday, fly fishing in the morning and back in the garden all afternoon. Each day topped off with some icy cold local brew.

I’ve been looking forward to this weekend for a long time.

[left that other site]

Good Afternoon, and blessings from Florida!

:-)

[tubebender]

I wish Jim Robinson would install a LIKE button on FR as there is so much survival information on these threads that deserves at least a click...

[Free Vulcan]

Things are growing, greens nearly ready to pick, putting summer stuff in this weekend.

[OneVike]

I love this thread, and I'm glad I joined the ping list.

I have been planting a garden every year since we moved into our new home in 2008. In California I need to make garden boxes that are lined with galvanized wire to keep out the gophers, moles, and voles however. Eventually I will have to put up low fences to keep out the squirrels and pets, along with tall fences around anything the dear like. I tried all kinds of potions and things, so far only a fence works.

I began with one I recklessly put together that was 6X4 feet. Since then I've have come up with a good design, and put together three more. Row of them are 8X4 feet, and one is 8x8 feet. My wife is beginning to worry that I may fill the whole 3/4 acre behind our home with garden boxes.

Interestingly the first one I built is falling apart due to the poor quality of materials used. So after this Summer it will be retired to the burn pile. So I will be replacing it, but in a better location that has more hours of sunshine.

This was the first year I actually planted a Spring garden. The vegetables in the pictures are some of what I harvested from it. I also had Broccoli. The Brussels Sprouts and Cauliflower I planted failed to grow. Not sure why yet, but I'll try again next Spring. Right now I have all 4 boxes with my Summer veggies;

Box # (1) Bell peppers, strawberries, yellow onions, and Indian corn.
...........(When the Indian corn reaches about 6 inches I will plant green beans next to them so that the corn stalks will serve as a trellis for the bean plants to climb.)

Box # (2) Green Onions (in pic at top in bowl), Watermelon, both traditional red melons, and orange or green melons.
...........(unsure which seeds on the colored melons I got in pack)

Box # (3) Sweet Peas (in pic at top in my hand), String Beans (multicolored), Straight 8 Cucumbers,

Box # (4)Cherry Tomatoes, Beefsteak Tomatoes, Sweet yellow Corn.
...........(I have room to plant more corn at two week intervals so we will have corn through the Summer this year. At least that is the plan)

Later in August I plan on planting a Fall garden also. I hope to plant more potatoes, some Winter corn, Broccoli, Cauliflower, carrots, beets, and radishes.

The good thing of living in Ca, is the four growing seasons. Sadly, I can see the politics of this state forcing my wife and I to leave when I retire for another state that is not nearly as blessed for growing gardens as California is.

[stefanbatory]

well, the family and I returned from visiting my in-laws last night...and most of the maters are still alive in the hoophouse. I don’t think they have grown a bit, though. I think more water will be required...

[Silentgypsy]

We have two tiny tomatoes and one teeny eggplant.

[Ellendra]

I just got done getting my first good sunburn of the season. I got another roll of landscaping fabric laid out, and some wild plum cuttings planted, along with 5 okra seeds. I've never eaten okra, but several people have described the way it grows, so I'm testing it as a temporary fence/windbreak. If it does half as well as some people have described, I might plant it all around the perimeter of the garden next year.

My corn was growing! Some of it was almost 2 inches tall already! Given how goofy our weather has been, that's amazing. I think I'm the only one in that valley whose corn is up already, but then the variety I planted is more tolerant of cold and damp than most. Well, that and I didn't have to wait until the ground dried out enough to drive a tractor on.

On the other hand, my tomatoes, cucumbers, and melons are being slow. Of all the tomato seeds I planted only 2 plants have come up, and there isn't a single sprout in the cucumber/melon patch, unless you count the weeds.

The legume patch is a mixed bag. My peas are growing well, my chickpeas are tentative but still there, and my nunas have yet to show their faces. I just recently got the potatoes planted, so they haven't had a chance to show yet. I put off planting the potatoes because when I pulled the mulch away there were sprouts of something all over the place. It was where I had planted runner beans last year, so I got all excited thinking they'd survived and would come back. (Runner beans are a perennial if protected from frost.) But, a few days after they were free from the mulch, those sprouts opened up and revealed themselves to be violet leaves. As weeds go, at least violets are useful, but they're getting to be tenacious here. Violets are even crowding out the grass in the lawn now.

If anyone is looking for cool gadgets, try shopgoodwill.com. I've seen things like spinning wheels, weaving looms, treadle sewing machines, and grain mills listed there. This week I picked up a new/used meat grinder that I'm hoping will make pickle relish easier to make. If it doesn't, I'll see how it does with meats. Prices are getting higher, and after seeing the ginormous deer that hang out on my land, I'm thinking of getting more serious about my hunting next fall.