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BS: Gardening 2010
Related thread:
BS: Composting (38)
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Bobert Date: 21 Jun 10 - 11:09 PM Nice tip, Janie... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Janie Date: 21 Jun 10 - 10:22 PM I'm prone to food prejudices and am very particular about texture - have never got over the sliminess of okra in gumbo (which I do not eat for that reason) so can't bring myself to like fried okra (or Thai summer rolls with that cold, sticky-slimy rice paper.) Took me years get over the feel of cooked mushrooms, no matter how good they tasted. Stilly, you have had, and continue to have, a blistering spring and summer. I didn't know that tomatoes will not self-pollinate when the temps get and stay real high, even at night. Although diseases usually begin to take significant toll by late July or early August, my tomatoes have tended to continue to bear (though declining) right up until 1st frost. Thinking about it, though, I realize there are usually pauses during those times in late summer when night temps stay really high. I watered everything really, really deeply Thursday night, and watered again before I left Friday morning, and everything looked good when I got home tonight, in spite of the high temps. You may remember that I got a late start on planting this year. Even accounting for that, my tomatoes, basil, cukes and zukes look remarkably healthy. The only thing I have done other than fertilize regularly is hit the tomatoes with a hard spray early on to knock off flea beetls. I am realizing it is because this is a "virgin" crop. New raised beds with new topsoil hauled in that is not harboring pests or diseases from the crops of prior years. Regarding cutworms - I routinely cut collars from waxed paper cups (i.e. Dixie cups) for susceptible plants, and either sow within the collar or slip the rootball of the transplant through the collar before planting. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Alice Date: 21 Jun 10 - 01:39 PM anything can taste not too bad if it is breaded and fried ;-) Another cold, wet night last night, but the garden was covered in case of hail. I planted the sunflower seeds in time stages and different places in the yard. Four have sprouted. I have hope!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: MMario Date: 21 Jun 10 - 01:32 PM related to hollyhocks and rose of sharon.; Okra does have a pretty flower. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Stilly River Sage Date: 21 Jun 10 - 01:28 PM I never ate it, but I've lived in the South for a long time now, and breaded and fried it isn't too bad. I'm mostly interested in the gardening challenge. I think 2 plants won't produce enough to do much with. I'm told it really loves the hot weather. The flowers are lovely. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Alice Date: 21 Jun 10 - 11:51 AM Yuk. Okra. I've never met an okra dish that tasted good. We must not know how to cook it up north. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: MMario Date: 21 Jun 10 - 11:43 AM yes - okra has a bunch of small hairs/spines and many , even most, people are sensative to them. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Alice Date: 21 Jun 10 - 11:30 AM Yes, it went over a friend's house where I stayed a couple weeks ago. Her skylight was broken, but she is okay. It wiped out a business section, and the Metra Arena, which is the largest venue in Montana, where concerts and other events are held in the state. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Stilly River Sage Date: 21 Jun 10 - 11:23 AM Sorry, Alice. I live in Texas. That's kind of typical news around here. I'm afraid I hardly notice those things now-a-days, now that I've seen quite a few tornadoes myself. I kind of hold my breath and cross my fingers when the weather looks like they're headed this way. Do you know anyone who was in the path? Okay, gardeners, I made a huge discovery yesterday - handling okra hurts like hell. What's the story with this? Is this a result of just the juice from cutting the okras off the plant (that's when I got the zing), or does it come from touching the foliage, etc? Maybe this is why my hands have been so broken out this year? I usually check my plants all through the garden for pests, so I have been touching it. What do you do about it? My neighbor had trouble growing it last year, so I thought I'd give it a try, but I've only eaten it a couple of times and never been near the plants before. Advice, please! SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Alice Date: 21 Jun 10 - 11:16 AM gee... no one commented on my message about the tornado that destroyed part of Billings yesterday. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: maeve Date: 21 Jun 10 - 07:54 AM You're correct, Bobert. Cuttings will do it. We picked up a couple of Seven Sons with our FEDCO order this spring; replacing the lost nursery stock of fruit trees and ornamentals. Another one we like is ninebark- Diablo is the cultivar's name. We're growing some seedlings from our original specimen and may keep those with unusual color variations for propagation and naming. maeve |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Bobert Date: 21 Jun 10 - 07:21 AM Yeah, Bettynh, I was reading people comments at the site you provided and read where it will grow to 12 feet in 2 years... That is amazing... We'll definately get one and see how it looks as a possible addition to the plants that we use in our designs... I would imagine that, as fast as it grows, that it can be propagated from cuttings... Always exciting to find new plants... This year, it has been the buckthorn that I discovered at the Blandy (state ahboritum) Sale this past spring and now this fall bloomer... Love it, love it... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Bettynh Date: 21 Jun 10 - 07:00 AM Bobert, the bark is that nice in real life. I haven't pruned it much and it's grown into a multistemmed (about 8) shrub that grows quickly to about 15 feet then arches back down (I guess they call that vase-shaped). I prune it up and there's grass to within about a yard of the roots. We've had some pretty heavy ice storms which it weathered by simply drooping lower, but last March we had a heavy windstorm that took out a whole trunk (about 3 inch diameter) to the ground. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: maire-aine Date: 21 Jun 10 - 12:25 AM Hey, Bobert, that squeezy thing sounds great for the raspberries. But I don't have enough plants to give me a big crop, so I just eat 'em. If there are extras, I bag 'em and put them in the freezer. I'm in southeast Michigan, by the way, just north of Detroit. Maryanne |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Stilly River Sage Date: 20 Jun 10 - 10:47 PM Alice, I also meant to say, those strawberries sound wonderful! We have some pretty hardy ones here that can fruit in summer still. They're not big and the dry up fast, but they're such a nice surprise mixed in with the leaves! I go through the patch a couple of times a day to find them as they ripen, and try to beat the birds to them. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Stilly River Sage Date: 20 Jun 10 - 09:47 PM What a range of garden problems we have! I was looking through that link from Bettyhn to the snail page. Happy to say we're using all of the organic methods, though instead of a "poker" I just pick up snails and toss them to the concrete, and when I get out of the garden I step on them. And I use the beer trick. I've gotten upwards of 100 snails per bowl that way, especially in wet years when we have so many more. I like the idea of moistened wet dog food in the garden to attract them, but I think I'd attract too many other things, many on four feet, that way. And on the cutworm link, again, I simply skimmed, but there was an "ah-ha!" moment - my eggplants have been doing better this year, fewer lace bugs on the leaves. But then I realized that's because they're attacking the sunflowers instead. That page talks about planting sunflowers around the perimeter to attract cut worms, but it is also a more attractive plant for lace bugs, that is also great. Not lace-winged, just lace bug. Great stuff! Alice, for all sorts of organic recipes and up-to-date information about plant stuff (I need to try the Bio-Wash, also called Plant-Wash, the next category of insecticidal soaps, and Thrive, which helps with soil health and microrhizal fungi. You know, like the white strands that form in good compost.) http://www.DirtDoctor.com. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Alice Date: 20 Jun 10 - 09:47 PM VIDEO Billings tornado, taken from car near Metra Arena |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Alice Date: 20 Jun 10 - 09:33 PM Reading the website of the TV station in Billings - many business buildings demolished, power lines out, flooding downhill in the city. The Antiques Road Show was going to be held/filmed in Billings this coming weekend at the Metra. There is more than one building at that convention center/arena. I don't know if they will be able to go ahead with filming the program there. Alice |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: maeve Date: 20 Jun 10 - 08:59 PM Good luck, Alice. Do you need some row cover? maeve |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Alice Date: 20 Jun 10 - 08:46 PM Tornado just touched down in Billings. I called and talked to a friend there who rode it out in her basement. Power lines are down, several large buildings destroyed, flooding downtown from the rain, baseball sized hail on the ground. The only damage at her house she can see is a broken skylight. Still too early to get all the news details. I could feel the air temperature dropping while I was on the phone with her. Covered the garden again in case of hail here. A. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Bobert Date: 20 Jun 10 - 08:34 PM You must be way behind us, maire-aine... Ours are startin' to give out... We've had 'um on cereal, we've baked 'um into cobbler and we've put up about 5 pints of (seedless, thanks to our new Squeezo gizmo) jelly... We cooked down about a half a gallon today to run thru the "gizmo" for some more jelly... We'll put them in 1/2 pint jars for give aways... Real curious about the "Autumn Lilac" that Bettynh put a link to and we'll be looking for a direct source... If not, we'll go ahead and order one and maybe propagate off it... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: maire-aine Date: 20 Jun 10 - 06:17 PM I picked my first black raspberry this afternoon, and expect a few more to ripen by tomorrow. There's no rain in the forecast tonight, so I'll go out and put some water on them now. Maryanne |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: katlaughing Date: 20 Jun 10 - 04:05 PM Bettynh, thanks for catching that. I've changed it as I did mean cutworms. My friends in Casper, WY use little lids of beer to take care of slugs in their strawberries. It seems to work very well for them. Thanks, again, kat |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Bobert Date: 20 Jun 10 - 03:42 PM Bettynh, No, we don't have any "Autumn Lilac" but now that you have brought it to my attention I'll make a point of hunting one or two down... BTW, I ckicked on the picture of the bark and really like it... Reminds me of cedar... Thanks... Well, folks... Hotter than a 3 dollar pistol here but I had to replace a section of deer fence and just came in from that unpleasant job... Fortunately, the deer didn't get into the gardens but from the looks of the fence musta gotten a foot caught in it near the top and freeked out 'cause it was torn purdy bad... Hope that this story about tomatoes not likin' to set fruit in the hot ain't all that accurate 'cause we're in for 90 plus days as long as we can see... Gonna be a hot summer... Last summer we had 2 days over 90 and we've allready had 13 or 14 and, heck, summer is just barely here!!! Headin' up to Baker, WV tomorrow for Pine Fines and bagged mulch... We have trouble finding decent bagged "Pine Bark Mulch" around here... Pleanty of hardwood but folks don't sell the pine bark much... We like it on azaleas because it gets more acid to the plants then does the hardwoood... "Pine Fines" is a staple in mixing our planting soils... It is finely ground up pine bark, lots of acid, lots of nitrogen and holds moisture... We plant all our shrubs and trees with it... Great stuff.... Also not available... So it's off to Baker with truck and trailer tomorrow... Tuesday to Saunders Brothers Nursery between Lynchburg and Chalottesville... They primarially grow boxwoood and we incorporate alot of different boxwoods in our designs... The "Dee Runk" columnal is real nice... Low maintence... Deer resistent... Drought resistent... Well behaved... Saunders Brothers is a real treat... The propagate and sell every concievable boxwood known to mankind and have a couple hundred acres of just boxwoods... But they have lots of other shrubs, too... Not too many trees or perenials but shrubs, shrubs and more shrubs... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Alice Date: 20 Jun 10 - 03:18 PM The 5 little strawberry plants I got yesterday are called Fort Laramie - variety info here. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Bettynh Date: 20 Jun 10 - 02:59 PM Bobert, do you use Seven Sons shrubs? I planted one from a Mass. Hort. Society sale about 10 years ago, not knowing it would be a 15 foot monster. It's the center of my backyard now, and when it blooms in September it collects Monarch butterflies heading south. But it rarely gets to the bright-red stage before frost cuts the show short. I've often thought it'd be happier further south. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Bettynh Date: 20 Jun 10 - 02:17 PM Alice, another strange fact - cities in the latitudes 41 to 42 degrees North include Cheyenne, WY; Boston, MA; Barcelona, Spain; and Rome, Italy. It's a funny old world. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: gnu Date: 20 Jun 10 - 01:56 PM MMario |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: MMario Date: 20 Jun 10 - 01:33 PM According to the studies I was reading if it goes over 95 degrees they won't set fruit period, sterile or not. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: gnu Date: 20 Jun 10 - 01:27 PM Scuse my last post... I did not know tomatoes are self-pollinating. My old man, who taught me, said all fruits require it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Alice Date: 20 Jun 10 - 01:10 PM I was struck this morning by the extremes in our Mudcat Gardening... too cold to germinate or too hot to pollinate |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Stilly River Sage Date: 20 Jun 10 - 01:05 PM Leo, I go out and pollinate by hand this time of year. It's the only way to get fruits. Usually if it stays at 80o or higher overnight, they won't pollinate. So I go around with my cotton swab and squirt on some of the blossom setting stuff you can buy, and I get sterile tomatoes. It's this way every year. But before it got this hot, they just didn't set as much fruit as usual. I found lace bugs on the underside of the sunflowers. They've all but killed a small one. They usually get in the eggplant, but I guess they like the sunflower even better. Now to get them off of the sunflowers without moving over en masse to the eggplant. Working some more on my keyhole garden today. I've built it up so it actually is beginning to look interesting. But this hasn't been a one-day project, I'm pacing myself and may be able to plant one part of it soon. I'm filling it with stuff I'm digging from the front bed (the new one) so I know it will end up full of Bermuda for a while. The diggings are going in the very bottom layer, but Bermuda is amazing, in how deep it can go. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Bettynh Date: 20 Jun 10 - 12:26 PM Kat, cutworms and slugs are different critters. I've always just wrapped a piece of paper around tomato stems at ground level for the same effect. That said, I've rarely seen cutworm damage to unprotected seedlings. Cutworms Slugs are different and I do have a problem with those critters. The worst, I think is in my houseplant pots that I put out for the summer. They'll be hiding out in the drainage holes, 2 inches long, but the end of the summer. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Bobert Date: 20 Jun 10 - 10:02 AM Hey, Alice... That's my secret coleslaw recipe that you've just announced to the world... Geeze... B;~) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: MMario Date: 20 Jun 10 - 08:10 AM Stilly - did you see my note re: tomatoes and temperatures? You are not going to get much fruit set with temperatures going into the 90's; especially the higher 90's |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Alice Date: 20 Jun 10 - 12:15 AM some natural repellent & pesticide recipes |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Alice Date: 20 Jun 10 - 12:02 AM My sinuses have been cleared by the concoction I made this afternoon in the blender. I don't have a fence, and I'm tired of stepping in the doggy doo from the dogs that neighbors allow to wander. So... into the blender went jalapeno peppers, horseradish, garlic, wasabi, and mint extract. I sprayed the solution all around the perimeter of the lawn and garden. A. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Bobert Date: 19 Jun 10 - 11:12 PM That, Kat, is bizarre!!! B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: katlaughing Date: 19 Jun 10 - 11:09 PM Wow, that's great, Bobert! I'd love to see some reasonable retail prices. I cannot believe what they want for Blue Spruce and Quaking Aspens around here. It's not as though they are endangered or anything; they are all over the forests here. Anyway, I just thought the following might be of interest in regards to At http://www.backyardnature.net/n/10/100613co.jpg you can see one way I put an end to that. Our guests leave behind many plastic bottles that once held purified water, so from those bottles I've been cutting "collars" to put around the seedlings. In the picture the blue thing is the collar. It forms a wall that keeps out cutworms roaming across the ground looking for juicy stems to cut. Another cutworm-fighting technique sounds almost too simple to be true, but I tried it during my hermiting days in Mississippi and it really works. Just stick a toothpick next to a seedling's stem. To do its work, a cutworm must encircle a stem with its body. Apparently a toothpick rising flush with the stem's surface confuses the worm, or messes up its cutting technique. Whatever happens, toothpicks work. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Bobert Date: 19 Jun 10 - 08:51 PM Its amazin', maeve, but most retailers mark their plants up anywhere from 300%-400% of cost... At least yer big ones do... That's a lot of profit... We just double the price but that includes our time to go fetch 'um and the gasoline to run the truck... Ain't gettin' rich but, hey... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: maeve Date: 19 Jun 10 - 08:12 PM Boy howdy, Bobert, I want to go wholesale plant buying with you two! maeve |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Bobert Date: 19 Jun 10 - 07:49 PM Big dfay at Coleville Nursery... Times are slow so on Saturday they only have a smallish staff working... Maybe 8 people... We got the head of trees & shrubs and he was great... We'd find somethin' we liked and he'd ask, "What would you like to pay for it???"... Never been treated like that.... We bought two "Catawba" Crepe Myrtles whioch should have been $185 wholesale for $65 each... I mean, nice 8 foot plus plants just fixing to bloom and we got to pick form 20!!! 6 foot b&b Dragon Lady Holley costs us $85... It was in the wholesale book for $140... Anyway, we filled the trailer and the truck... 46 plants in all... And all pre-sold... Even got home and found an extra "Catawba" Crepe Myrtle in a 5 gal. pot that somehow got into the trailer and we weren't billed for... But one of our customers wants it so we'll let him have it and mail the nursery a check fir it... Right now??? Dogged tired... Long drive and 2 hot hours at the nursery... B~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Stilly River Sage Date: 19 Jun 10 - 06:53 PM Joe, post some photos! Sounds lovely! There is a Mudcat Gardener's group, though we haven't posted there much lately. Mudcat Gardeners on Google Groups. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Alice Date: 19 Jun 10 - 06:49 PM I now have 5 little everbearing strawberry plants in the largest container in the garden. A couple have buds on them... I wonder if I'll have to wait until next year to see strawberries? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Joe Offer Date: 19 Jun 10 - 04:11 PM My wife Christina is an amazing gardener, and our yard is ablaze with color just now. Our neighbors' dog ate our rain gauge, so I don't know how much rainfall we got this year. We usually get 40 inches, and we seemed to get a lot more than usual this year. The garden hit peak about the last week of May - usually it's a couple of weeks earlier, but we had a fair amount of chilly weather this spring. I think we had our last good rainstorm during the last week of May. We might get another, but probably not until November. So, now we depend on irrigation. I suppose we could use well water, but we're afraid of pumping the well dry. So, we pay almost a hundred bucks a month for a "miner's inch" of ditch water from the Boardman Canal. The canal dates back to Gold Rush days, and it's an open ditch for much of its length with a nice hiking trail alongside. We pump water from the ditch up a steep hill, so our water costs a fair amount in electricity, too - and it involves a lot of maintenance work. This year, we had to muck out the concrete tank where our pump is located, and that was quite a project - eight inches of sticky mud at the bottom of a 4' by 8' tank, and that's a heck of a lot of muck. I was covered with mud by the time I got done. And then the pump made a horrible noise and didn't work. Turns out that we had to prime the pump, because our cleanup job had drained all the water from the pump. I'm not sure all this is worth it, but our garden IS beautiful. Christina has lots more irrigation work planned for me.... -Joe- |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: maire-aine Date: 19 Jun 10 - 03:24 PM I'm so jealous of all of you folks who can eat strawberries. It's been about 5 years since the terrible Memorial-Day-Strawberry-Fiasco. I ate a lot all at once and broke out into a terrible rash, over a holiday week-end, naturally. Ended up with shots & pills to take for a week, and everything. I asked my doctor a few months ago whether I could try some again, and he advised against it. "Nevermore!" Arrgh! Maryanne |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Alice Date: 19 Jun 10 - 03:10 PM Thanks for the link - he has a great setup there! Yup, it can snow any time of the year here. It's a challenge! I think it will make anything I harvest even more satisfying that it survived to ripen! A. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Bettynh Date: 19 Jun 10 - 02:59 PM Geez, Alice, it's a wonder you carry on. Have you read Elliott Coleman? He thinks he has harsh weather on the Maine coast. His site shows his setup - tunnel greenhouses with black plastic mulch and fabric rowcovers in his coldest season. Sometimes he doubles up the tunnels, too, I think. But on the coast of Maine, moderated by ocean temps, he'll never see the extremes you put up with. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Alice Date: 19 Jun 10 - 02:27 PM Turned over the compost pile - a great way to work out frustration! Today is the second sunny day in a row, so finally the garden can grow a little faster today. Had to stake up the delphinium, as high winds came up last night. Thunderstorms forecast for this afternoon and tomorrow, but in the meantime, the garden and I are enjoying warmth and blue skies! A couple of bush beans sprouted. They've been in the ground so long I thought they never would. A couple of the sunflowers sprouted, but the pounding rain and hail sliced and diced them. Alice |
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Subject: RE: BS: Gardening 2010 From: Stilly River Sage Date: 19 Jun 10 - 12:10 PM Okay, I'll leave those out there for a little while longer. But there is nothing, just flowers, no fruits. I have one bowl of tomatoes in the fridge, and none ripening on the window sill right now. Last summer we had a bumper crop. I've been eating strawberries every day. We seem to have a new burst of activity, and I get just enough to go in a bowl of cereal or yogurt for breakfast. Mmmmm! SRS |
