I have teeny tiny beans on my Bush 274.
Greetings from southern New Hampshire, and Happy Fourth of July!
Our four “New Hires” have integrated into the flock. The little one who was apparently trampled by the flock in a panic, finally crossed over the Rainbow Bridge, last week. It never recovered from the incident.
Anyway, I need to do a bill-count, but I believe we are at 28, now!
I need to start the tillers and see about clearing some beds. I will need to whack the weeds, first.
No ripe tomatoes by the 4th of july but my wife’s widely dispersed garden is yielding lots of zukes and kukes.
When they start to come in, it will be tomatoes three meals a day.
(She doesn’t preserve)
I am starting to think more like a gardner now.
We have had a few cool days here along the coast south of Boston, and in my new 4x4 garden I planted some radishes and the seed package said spring and fall planting but I think the cooler weather will help them out. -Tom
Oh, my. A local garden center has hand painted their garden gnomes a “dark skin color”, smh. I should call to ask if they have any Asian or Hispanic gnomes.
Has anyone else in the S.E. noticed the paucity of insects this year? By this time any other year we are battling the Mexican Bean Beetles in addition to the usual deer and rabbits. But this year, knock on wood, has been insect free except for a few caterpillars on the young okra.
We did have ALOT of rain this winter, which may have been a blessing in hindsight. It probably also flooded the local coyote den, because the evenings have been unusually quite,
Cameron in Alpharetta, Ga.
It was another week of heat and humidity here in Central Missouri. We got a couple or three tenths of rain, which was nice. Have needed to do very little watering in the garden this summer.
I dug two rows of garlic and got that bundled and hung in the potting shed to cure. Three more rows remain to be harvested.
Tomato plants are starting to look like they want to do something. I’m not sure what their deal is this year. They just haven’t taken off like they normally do. Could be they’re telling me I need to add a few tons of stall waste to the garden. It’s been a few years since I last did that. It might be time to mix up a batch of fish emulsion and do some foliar feeding on them.
Mrs. Augie harvested the cabbage, but forgot to put it in the refrigerator overnight and it spoiled that fast. The chickens wouldn’t even eat it. lol
Kale and collards need to be weeded, but otherwise are thriving. Cucumber plants look great and are making baby cukes. None of the pole beans came up. Not even one. Either that or the bunny rabbits got them as soon as they sprouted. It’s not too late so I may replant. Haven’t decided. The heat is a serious demotivator for me.
The bait pond is about half full of water, and I’ve started stocking it with minnows, small bluegills, and crayfish. The water is still really muddy, but they seem to be getting along alright. I toss a couple handfuls of pellet food every other day for the fish, and the crays are getting the carcasses that have resulted from a couple successful fishing trips. If we don’t get a good rain soon I’m probably going to have to toss the trash pump into the creek to supplement the water level. That’s a lot of work so I’m going to wait a couple weeks and see if Mother Nature will help me out.
Ok, here’s a weird question - not really about gardening, but, where else to ask?
This Black Lab that adopted us has developed mange. The vet is a tough option — we’ve already spent more vet $$ than we have to spend on this boy, unless it is life critical. If we take him to a shelter, they are all jammed full, so he’ll likely get put down.*
We have tried treating him, and it helps a little, but not much because he just licks most of the treatment off before it has a chance to work. You’d think the stuff would taste too bad, but, this dog was a stray and judging by his behavior (scavenging most anything digestible, and some probably not!), there are few things that taste bad enough to deter him.
I thought of a muzzle for temporary use, say, an hour at a time, but all I’ve found so far allow the dog to drink, eat small pieces of food, lick, etc. I do recall seeing a medication of some sort, somewhere (not for mange, IIRC), that was made to taste very bitter to deter licking.
So... I’m wondering what might taste bad enough to deter the licking, but be harmless if consumed? Add that to the treatment...
*We’d hate to see this boy put down - he’s turned out to be a good, sweet dog except for being an egg robber (have to keep him away from the hen house!). He definitely deters varmints and, speaking of those, we feel safer with him here when our teenage daughter is home alone for a couple hours.
Thanks in advance!
And, a real garden question:
I still have some plants left in pots to transfer outdoors, and, of those, suddenly most of the sweet banana peppers lost all their leaves in a day. The other plants mostly look ok, although the bell & hot peppers look a little stressed - almost like they got root rot, but they have not. (I checked a couple of all types of the pepper plants roots.) Soil moisture looks good. They were not in direct sunlight. The Opo, cucumbers, and remaining tomatoes are all fine.
My guess is, because that spot (upstairs in house, no AC there) can get darn hot, is that it got too hot for the peppers, esp. the banana peppers, but not the other plants. Does this seem likely?
What air temperature maximum can sweet banana peppers survive well?
I moved the surviving peppers outside, and will put a thermometer upstairs to see how hot it really gets up there.
Thanks, All!