BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Bobert
Date: 29 Oct 12 - 04:32 PM

We can't buy water here outside of Charlotte but given what's going on elsewhere I won't complain....

Trash cans are great for protecting plants from early frost... Just be sure to put something heavy on top to keep it from blowing over...

I've been out trying to insulate with plastic the garden house I built the P-Vine 'cause it's cold here and gonna get colder...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Oct 12 - 04:09 PM

Some of our gardeners may have a sloppy wet mess to clean up after the various storms collide and travel up the east cost. Stay dry and warm, all, and I hope the storm impact isn't significant.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Oct 12 - 01:18 AM

Interesting! Thanks.

The compost is piling higher as I pull out plants from the summer. I need to put in another batch of broccoli.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Janie
Date: 28 Oct 12 - 03:32 PM

I "inherited" (meaning they were already there) a number of polyantha roses, probably "Margo Koster." Polyanthas are noted for sporting and "Margo Koster" in particular. Had 2 of them to start with and propagated 6 more from cuttings. The same shrub would often have 3 or 4 different colors of blooms, and also variations in the number of petals. Some simply doubles and others very densely packed with petals. Colors could range from nearly downright orange to wine red.

I did note that the dominant wine red shrubs did not sport as prolifically and any sports were variations on pink coral. No orange or orange coral. Was pretty neat.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: maeve
Date: 28 Oct 12 - 02:15 PM

"Sport": "In botany, a sport or bud sport is a part of a plant (normally a woody plant, but sometimes in herbs as well) that shows morphological differences from the rest of the plant. Sports may differ by foliage shape or color, flowers, or branch structure.

Sports with desirable characteristics are often propagated vegetatively to form new cultivars that retain the characteristics of the new morphology. Such selections are often prone to "reversion", meaning that part or all of the plant reverts to its original form. An example of a bud sport is the nectarine, which developed from a bud sport from a peach." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_%28botany%29

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Oct 12 - 01:29 PM

How are you using "sports?" Does this mean coming up from the roots or something? I've never heard it.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Janie
Date: 28 Oct 12 - 05:55 AM

It's certainly possible they are sports. However, I've been growing these mums for a lot of years and never had them sport before. Also, they are separate plants, not variant blooms or branches appearing on a plant with typical single apricot blooms. On the other hand, they all appear in the same bed, fairly near one another and I am pretty sure there is something funky and imbalanced about the soil here, and especially in that bed (I really do need to get around to soil testing.) I suppose whatever the condition is could make mutation more likely, and these plants are close enough to typical plants that they could actually be arising from underground stems from the typical plants.

Whether sports or seedlings, none of them are particularly attractive or worth further propagation. Still, it is interesting to see.

Anybody need any earwigs? (grrrrrrrr!!!!!)

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 Oct 12 - 12:50 AM

Threat of frost tonight. Damn. My eggplants are in their prime and I haven't dug up basil yet (I was going to move some into the greenhouse.) We'll see what tomorrow brings - I've covered some key plants with tarps and sheets.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Oct 12 - 05:39 PM

Sports???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: MMario
Date: 27 Oct 12 - 09:45 AM

The other possibility is seedlings that never got a chance to take off and bloom until you divided the clumps.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Janie
Date: 27 Oct 12 - 09:42 AM

What! Chrysanthemum weirdness. The only mums I have, in theory, are single apricot mums. I brought a couple of large clumps with me from Hillsborough. Divided them 2 springs ago to spread them around more.

There are four scraggly mums blooming amongst them this year that ain't them but are all rayed like them. A yellow, a red, a white, and a very narrow petaled two-toned, yellow on top and rusty orange on the back side of the petals.

Self-sown seedlings of the apricot mums? Never had them self-sow before that I know of and the bed these are in is heavy clay and not a particularly friendly environment for seed germination., but I really can't think of any other explanation.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 17 Jul 12 - 10:41 AM

The tomatoes have about petered out, the eggplant, peppers, and okra are coming on strong.

I took a serving of baba ganoush to my next door neighbor. She is the one who got me started eating fried okra, it seemed time to introduce her properly to eggplant. I included a piece of warmed pita bread and a drizzle of good olive oil and she loved it. It's a start, considering they've always been shy of it!

She brought some pesto over the other day when I gave her some okra - commenting that she hadn't bought much basil this time so it was a small batch. I suggested we step over to my garden for a moment and pointed out that I grow basil by the bushel and that she shouldn't consider buying it any more when she can grab a handful here and it will never be missed. I really do love these little exchanges through the neighborhood - building bonds with food and our gardens. It's an elemental form of communication!

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Songwronger
Date: 13 Jul 12 - 10:03 PM

Excellent. Orange oil it is. Thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 13 Jul 12 - 11:00 AM

Orange oil, at the rate of 2 ounces (4 Tablespoons) per gallon, mixed with a little compost tea and a good organic liquid fertilizer (fish will work, but I'd suggest put it on in advance of bringing it in the house so the fish smell dissipates) when sprayed on as foliar feeding and pest control will fertilize the plant and kill most pests resident on it.

Except for the fact that Bobert has had an unusual but serious reaction to BT (I don't know how it happened, but I'll take his word for it that it did) you could also mix a teaspoon or two of BT into that water also and it will take care of any caterpillars that might be on the plants.

Orange oil (D-limonene) is a solvent so should be used in the dilute form - I tend to use it a little weaker than the the rate I just listed. While it can be sprayed in a dilute mix in the house (floors, etc) to kill some bugs, you need to be careful around painted and finished surfaces (test it somewhere first) because at higher levels it can peel paint. A mix of more orange oil with 10% (pickling) vinegar (no water to dilute) is used as an herbicide.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Songwronger
Date: 12 Jul 12 - 07:01 PM

I have a question, about winterizing plants.

We have several large pots of herbs and mints we want to bring in over the winter. But we want to bring them into the living place. Normally we store plants elsewhere, with a bulb to turn on in cold weather, but this year we want to bring some pots in where we live.

Insects.

We don't want bugs and pests to be an issue inside. And we don't want toxic pesticides inside. So is there a way to prep big pots to bring inside like this? Bugs haven't been a big problem with these, but the pots could have ants, beetles, no telling what else. We don't want those crawling around the house.

All we can think of to do right now is use a little diatomecaeous earth on the earth in the pots, in case anything hatches out during the winter. Maybe the DE would stop anything that came out of the ground. Anything else to recommend?

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Jul 12 - 12:24 AM

You can use a Q-tip and pollinate them Janie, I do it off and on depending on conditions. Or you can use that blossom set spay (someone told me it's just epsom salts, but I'm not sure about that). You get tomatoes with no seeds with that stuff.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Janie
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 11:23 PM

My two little cherry tomatoes were just starting to bear and ripen their first clusters when the heat wave hit, and of course are not pollinating with the high temps we have had. Basil, but no tomatoes to go with it.

Sigh.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 08:44 PM

We have a forecast of rain Tuesday & Wednesday... Hope so... Even the grass crackles under our feet... Pond down 2 1/2 feet and startin' to stink...

Need rain...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 04:48 PM

I have a few small sprinklers I use in spots, but I still mostly hand water. Have to do it again this evening since it's an even date and my house number is even.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Jul 12 - 11:26 AM

Well, we are in a purdy severe drought... 1.3 inches of rain in the last 30 days and 1.1 of it fell way too fast so...

...it's water this, water that every day... Some can be done with the oscillator but most a wand... Labor intensive...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Janie
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 09:57 PM

Yep.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 09:05 PM

Yuck... I miss the mountains and my hillbilly friends...

Hot 'n sticky here... No shine, either...

B;~(

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Janie
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 08:30 PM

Might be the BT or might be the filler, Bobert. Either way, sounds like you have figured out that you can't mess with the stuff.

BTW, welcome to the the non-Appalachian South.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Bobert
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 08:15 PM

Yo, Magz...

I got bacterial phenomena from BT... Used mask, gloves and long sleeve shirt but still got sick...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 07:52 PM

I'm canning tomatoes in small batches two and three times a week. I have a couple of programs I enjoy on television tonight so I'll turn on the kitchen set and blanch and dice tomatoes.

Flea beetles have overwhelmed some plants, I'm fighting back with a neem drench in the soil, hoping to take out some of the next generations.

My water bill is going to be high again also, probably higher than the electric bill.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Janie
Date: 07 Jul 12 - 07:44 PM

I'm gonna hate to see my next water bill from this long stretch of heat and no rain.

And I ain't got that much to water.

North Carolina, very briefly just before this long heat wave, had finally made it to the place for the first time in a very long time no counties were classified as in drought or abnormally dry conditions. Lasted less than a week.

None of the "widely scattered showers" over the past 2 weeks scattered to my little neck of the woods, though I witnessed wonderfully dark clouds and heard the thunder roll several times in all directions around me. Very nice, long shower while visiting Dani last night, 10 miles from me. (And she really needed it also.) When I got home, we had received a few sprinkles to accompany the downed tree limbs from the peripheral wind from the storms.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 08:55 PM

I think you guys have been reading this when you're high - or we're not talking about the same products. This isn't Ortho. If BT goes bad in the bottle after a year (it doesn't if you put it in the fridge) then it isn't also going to stay live in the environment in the way you suggest. And it does get the big ones also. It works because when they eat foliage with BT on it, it gets in their gut and shuts them down. That's it. They digest it and they can't eat any more. I've been using this for 10 years now. I don't broadcast it, I use it on plants that caterpillar worms attack, on the tobacco family (potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, but usually just on the tomatoes) and I spray it on the foliage of the cannas because worms get those fairly often.

It doesn't require a mask and gloves, I'm usually wearing shorts, a t-shirt, a ballcap and sandals. I put a couple of teaspoons in the sprayer (with a gallon of water) and add some compost tea, molasses, and maybe some liquid seaweed or other fertilizer, and I do my normal foliar feeding. This is part of an accepted organic gardening program. I'm not sure where you are getting the horror stories.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 07:28 PM

Yeah, I'm with pdq on this one...

Might have to stick to manual extraction... But they are so hard to find...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: pdq
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 06:25 PM

Even if you keep Bascillus turingiensis localized in the initial spraying, it will spread far and wide and kill an almost infinite number of moth and butterfly larvae for years to come.

What happens is the infected caterpillar becomes a shell filled with bacterial spores. The case ruptures and billions of spores escape and are carried away by the wind. They will re-infect other caterpillars forever.

The BT developed in labs is so much more virulent that the original strains that were found in nature that the moths and butterflies don't have a chance.

The US moth and butterfly population has been almost destroyed by BT, not by habitat destruction or chemical pesticides as some people say. The number of butterflies is down to about 1% of what we had in the middle of last century, mostly due to the use of Bascillus turingiensis.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 05:36 PM

I'm scared to death of BT... I used it, as directed with mask, gloves, long sleeves, etc. a few year ago and got bacterial phenomena...

Any other ideas, Magz???

Sorry about the moths... One worm will destroy an entire plant... We only grow 18 plants... Last year we picked off at least a dozen... I'm not willing to sacrifice my entire tomato crop to worms... Sorry...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Bettynh
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 11:48 AM

I have to confess to a weakness for hummingbird moths and usually sacrifice a single tomato (or flowering tobacco, datura, potato, or even petunia) plant to them. I only see a few grow to full size before they're parasitized, and the feeding of parasites is one kind of control. BT (Thuricide, Dipel) is a bacteria that'll kill off any little caterpillars. It won't work on the big ones, and is you have to buy a new supply of BT every year (the bacteria can die off), so it's really only good for big gardens and committed gardeners (who spray at the right time).

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 11:27 AM

BT. Bacillus thuringiensus. If you broadcast it you'll kill the butterflies in your yard, but if you mix water with a few teaspoons in a 1 to 2 gallon backpack sprayer, along with some organic fertilizer or compost tea and maybe add a little molasses and spray it on the plants you'll make the plants happy and give the hornworms a meal that they can't digest and they stop eating and die. If you do this now before they're big then you probably won't spot the little ones when they are there and then die. If you do it when there are big ones working then you'll sometimes see them in place, then slowly loose their grip and kind of dangle from the limb before they shrivel and drop off. If you do it every week or 10 days you should keep most of them away. I'm patrolling for them now, because this is when they start turning up.

Thuricide is a brand, and Green Light has it also. Keep it in the fridge once you open it, but don't let it freeze. You can get granular mixes, I think, but for this purpose, you want it on the leaves that they're going to munch, so spray it.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Bobert
Date: 27 Jun 12 - 11:03 AM

I'm sure we've had this discussion before but if so I have forgotten the answer...

Tomato horn worms???

Other than pickin' them off the plant is there anything that we can use to keep them off our plants???

Thanks ahead of time...

B;~)

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Jun 12 - 11:00 PM

I'm still weeding gardens - having bought both a mattock and a pair of steel toed boots lets me make much shorter work of some of this, even in tight spaces. I cleared between the asparagus and the basil tonight, and tomorrow I'll put in a composted mulch and transplant some of the little basils. I have a next door neighbor who makes a mighty fine pesto - think we can work something out?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jun 12 - 06:11 PM

We've had 90s and dew point in the high 60s... That makes it feel like about 110... Today the dew point dropped a little so I was able to work most of the day... Tomorrow... High of 82 and dry... Yea!!! Saturday??? 100... Boo!!!

Went up to Hendersonville yesterday for an azalea cutting exchange with a NC chapter and brought home, oh geeze, at least 10 plants and 20 cuttings...

Been working on our "prop room" (propagation)... Have three walls all framed (2 with doors) and ready for siding... Dug the footer for the 4th wall this afternoon and will frame and pour footer by tomorrow night... It's gonna be purdy nice... Maybe by the time it's finished I'll know how to post a pic???

Nah... LOL...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Jun 12 - 01:10 PM

Wow. 104^o predicted today. Must shift into "preserve the garden" mode and be ready for hot dogs sprawled on the floor tile.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Jun 12 - 01:20 AM

I know about hornworms - I had one plant out front last year and hadn't paid much attention to it (it didn't produce, probably because I forgot to water it.) I found a dozen hornworms on it in the fall - quite astonishing - there was barely any foliage left. I usually patrol for them but they're so hard to see until they get big. I think they might fluoresce in black light, Bobert, if you want to try that at night.

Canned today and then turned to salsa. There's an account of it in the declutter thread - it came out rather like Chipotle sauce (as I was hoping it would) but it's based upon the Zesty salsa recipe in the Blue Book. I simply modified it a little, and put the stick blender in the pot and chopped it a lot smaller than the original recipe calls for (it isn't pureed, but it's very fine bits of veggies now).

Temps hit 100 today. There may not be many more fruits set for now, but there is still a lot in the garden. These tomatoes aren't finished yet! Okra is starting to bloom.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jun 12 - 09:36 PM

Horn worm will completely destroy a tomato plant in 48 hours... Fish bait... They ain't cute to me... Maybe they'd be cuter if they ate weeds???

Here in steamy NC we're within a dozen plants of being planted!!! Lost count at 300... Now, without rain, it's moving the oscillator every 2 hours...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 23 Jun 12 - 09:12 PM

The garden is producing like gangbusters right now, a bucket or two of large "super fantastic" tomatoes a day and at least a pint of cherry tomatoes a day. Peppers, zucchini, herbs, other squash, and the okra is starting to bloom. I'm having to fight to keep the eggplant going, the flea beetles have been merciless and the lace bugs are going full tilt. A mix of compost tea and spinosad today, something I don't use out there much. I stay away from most flowering plants with that because it kills bees. Next time I'll use orange oil in the mix.

I'm doing a lot of canning and cooking right now, though it is a busy weekend indoors and out. Today I picked a lot of the ingredients to make salsa for canning.

How's it going everywhere else?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 12 Jun 12 - 12:17 AM

My daughter came down this evening and we had our annual BLTs. This is a superior crop of tomatoes.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Jun 12 - 01:16 AM

Tobacco hornworm photo is one I posted in a blog entry a while back.

How can anything so big and obnoxious be cute? Hard to say, but they are very interesting, and the odd thing is, that when my son (a local recipient of the Hispanic Scholar Award Program, 2010, on a par with the National Merit Scholarship) got tons of mail from Ivy League colleges to ask him to apply, one I noticed included a writeup of the current science stuff they were doing - it was a program at Tufts that studied how Tobacco Hornworms moved, in order to build a robot. The information has been used in several places. (My son ended up at the University of Arizona, full ride, at a Tier 1 university. U New Mexico offered a full scholarship also, but they're about 3rd tier at this point.) My son is a wiz at computers and knows his mother knows a lot about the bugs in her garden. For now, that is as much as I can hope for. :)

The point is, we learn a lot from our garden pests, though some of them might gross people out at first glance. The leaf-legged bug (in the stink bug family) is odd, can be aggressive, but if you watch them for a while, you figure out how to kill them off without destroying the garden (they're stupid and brittle - I use a couple of 1-gallon paint stir sticks from Home Depot to swat them or squash them, and they're history.)

My kids may be too busy with their lives right now to pay a lot of attention to my garden, but they know it is here, they know I'm aware of the pests, and I am willing to stake their good health on it that one of these days they will also decide to start growing their own healthy food, and remember some of what I modeled for them over the years.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Jun 12 - 08:18 PM

We have tomato horn worms here... Very nasty little critters with a needle sharp horn... They blend in with tomato plants and hard to find but can do a lot of damage... They will be here soon and we will be feeding them to whatever wants to eat 'um in the pond...

***************************NEWS FLASH*********************************

Took the P-Vine out today to get away from the work and she didn't ask to stop at any garden centers!!!!

*************************Details at Eleven***************************

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 10 Jun 12 - 02:26 PM

Love the names of those pests, SRS! Seems almost a shame to kill them, they sound so exotic and strange!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Jun 12 - 02:22 PM

I'm hand watering this year and that helps me keep a better eye on the pests that can turn up, before they become numerous. Leaf-legged bugs, stink bugs, tobacco hornworms, etc.

Tomatoes are coming along, as are peppers and squash. I'm going to be canning tomatoes one of these days soon, much of the rest is going in the freezer.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 10 Jun 12 - 04:09 AM

Nasty old wind, rain and cold. Hanging baskets ripped to bits, now recuperating in the greenhouse. My gorgeous Phacelia tanacetifolia (scorpion flower) were in full bloom and perfume, helping some chilly bees to nectar, but they're flat on the ground, snapped off and ruined. Rhubarb gone mad and gigantic with all the rain. I do pity the poor folk in West Wales who have suffered terrible floods. But it's sad to see the early promise of some lovely plants come to nothing.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Janie
Date: 09 Jun 12 - 11:29 PM

Good to hear you are faring better, Mary, and that your garden is growing!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Maryrrf
Date: 09 Jun 12 - 09:19 AM

Yes I do live near Richmond. There seems to be almost no point in time where there are no greens in the garden - maybe late January or February. They go to seed and as soon as it starts warming up - March or so, the greens just start appearing. I love them - chop them up and add to rice, pasta, soups, etc. They are so hardy, I can see why greens were a traditional food for poor folks.

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Jun 12 - 08:49 AM

Don't you live in the Richmond area, Mary???

If so, I am amazed that your greens hang thru the winters... Do you mulch them with straw???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Maryrrf
Date: 09 Jun 12 - 08:46 AM

Haven't posted much on Mudcat lately due to various distractions, but thought I'd give a garden update. I wasn't even sure I'd have a garden this year what with the kidney stone issues and it seemed like it took forever for me to get back my old energy level, but round about April I went out and dug up the patch - should move it to another spot but maybe next year.   It's smaller now but more manageable. I've got two tomato plants that yield the large variety - one is starting to produce now (I've had 2 yummy tomato sandwiches) and the other was smaller when I planted it - so hopefully will yield later in the summer. Also one cherry tomato plant and one grape tomato plant and they both are beginning to bear fruit. The zucchini is doing great - I've had my first batch of fried zucchini which I love even though it adds calories to a very healthy vegetable - next time I'll stuff it and bake. The yellow squash and cucumbers got off to a rough start and I wasn't sure they would make it but after looking very spindly and frail shortly after being planted they recuperated and it looks like they'll do fine - I've got some small cukes and little yellow squash coming along. The green peppers are starting to yield, and when the eggplant started coming in I realized I'd gotten the wrong variety. I thought it was "Black Beauty" but these turned out to be Chinese eggplant. Last night I cooked something heavenly out of the eggplant and peppers - sauteed two small eggplants, two green peppers, an onion and some garlic. Added a generous amount of curry powder, 1/2 cup of salsa and a cup of coconut milk. Delicious! The okra is doing so so, I planted three and one plant died but I'll have enough.

Greens - kale, Swiss chard and collards seem to be indestructable. They grow all year round, but in the summer the bugs get them. I'm going to harvest what I have now and freeze so I can make room for more herbs.

There will be some good eating this summer!

Subject: RE: BS: Mudcat Gardeners 2012
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Jun 12 - 08:16 AM

Wow!!!

Just got around to reading/looking thru the latest "Horticulture" magazine and there is a letter in there asking the same question... Says that fertilizing with a balance fertilizer often is the trick as the fertilizers tend run out the bottom of the pot... Make sense... I have chicken manure (3-2-3) but I'm going to see if I can find something with more phosphate...

Of course, watering every day is part of the deal...

B~