BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: GUEST,Partridge
Date: 27 May 05 - 11:52 AM

I've been trying to clear the dandilions and docks from my veggie garden.......dont think I'm winning.
But I have mananged to plant potatoes, red onions, shallots, garlic, cauliflower, carrots, sweetcorn, coriander, parsley, chives, broccoli and sprouts. Already established I have rhubarb, strawberries, blueberries, rasperries and black currants.

It quite a big garden and the cats in the area use it as a toilet. At the moment I'm harvesting winter cabbage and purple sprouting broccoli

Its hard work, but the rewards taste great!

Pat x

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 27 May 05 - 12:05 PM

Put my beans in last night (oo-er missus!) Six varieties: magpie, giant favas, canellini, carlins, soldier beans and 'gasless' jacob's cattle (which I hope are true to type as a certain member of my household and beans don't mix ...)

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 27 May 05 - 01:38 PM

I brought sweet onions and a couple of sweet banana peppers to work with me today and already had someone say "no, I don't need them, my mother is a gardener and gives us tons of stuff." This is way too early in the season to encounter surplus! I may have to set up a stand at the bottom of my driveway to get rid of some of this. :)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 27 May 05 - 01:55 PM

we aren't harvesting them - but we have a bumber crop of woodchucks this year - at least three momma 'chucks with a total of probably 8 wee-chucks.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: LadyJean
Date: 27 May 05 - 11:58 PM

My friend Karen's woodchucks eat plaintain and dandilions. So they are encouraged to stick around even Harry Potter, who also eats potted plants.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 May 05 - 02:46 PM

I was using the string trimmer in the front this morning and disturbed a bunny nest. Didn't hit the bunnies, and stopped trimming when I realized their domain was once again one of my front flower beds. This is the second crop of baby bunnies this year. We had at least three last year.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: mandoleer
Date: 28 May 05 - 06:35 PM

Reverting to flatworms, some years ago someone trained flatworms to run a maze. (How they got a grant for this is beyond me, but I like it...) Having done this, they ground some of them up and fed them to some untrained flatworms that had never seen a maze. Those fed on their trained colleagues (colleagues? we're talking flatworms here..) could follow the correct path in the maze almost immediately while the un-colleague-fed ones got lost until several runs had been made. Spooky or what? (Source for this was New Scientist not urban legend - can't remember the issue.)

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: LilyFestre
Date: 28 May 05 - 10:22 PM

Mmario,

   You aren't kidding! The woodchucks are EVERYWHERE this year! Lots and lots of baby bunnies too!

Michelle, who lives about an hour south of you!

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 May 05 - 11:27 PM

I have read or heard about that flatworm in the maze experiment. Pretty gruesome, when you think about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Kaleea
Date: 29 May 05 - 12:24 AM

Wild onion, wild garlic, wild parsley, some kind of purply-brown basil, mint.
Would you believe?!!-- volunteer trees came up this year: memosa, hackberry, white oak, cottonwood, elm, mulberry, ash, Redbud, & a little bitty evergreen at the base of a big pine tree-on top of the roots, no less! Many in the middle of bedding plants.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Metchosin
Date: 29 May 05 - 03:05 AM

The flatworm thing does make you think........mooooooooo!

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 12:36 PM

Squash, squash, and more squash. Peppers, this year mostly the yellow banana variety.

We've started giving some of this stuff away.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 01:05 PM

PFFFFFLLLLTTTTTT!

parsley. Mint. borage flowers.

The tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, eggplant and cukes are all flowering - so far only the tomatoes and peppers have set fruit. Primroses haven't quite died off yet, though a couple days of heat knocked out the azaleas, rhodies and most of the tree peonies.

Have some herbaceous peonies left - but again - if it get warm a day or so will lose them too.

Dogwood.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Sooz
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 01:24 PM

Wonderful early potatoes, salad leaves (especially rocket) and herbs. Broad beans soon and raspberries (blackbirds permitting).

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 01:32 PM

I forgot! wild strawberries!

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Janie
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 01:43 PM

Harvested my first squash and cukes today. The garlic is almost ready to dig. Pulled out the snow and sugar snap peas Sunday to make way for a 2nd crop of cukes and squash. Snap beans are almost ready to start harvesting. By the weekend I hope to have sown another crop of bush beans and to have started rooting a 2nd crop of tomatoes from suckers.

In the flower garden the first dahlias are starting to bloom. The larkspur is finishing, as are some of the yarrows. The poppies have gone to seed and I am racing the gold finches to save some to sow this fall. Stokes aster, butterfly weed, various lilies, monarda, gloriosa daisies, and Queen Anne's Lace are all at their peak. the hummingbirds and finches think they have died and gone to heaven.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 01:53 PM

UK- The lavatera is ten foot high and dripping with huge pinky/mauve blooms. The pale pink rose has climbed about twenty foot in the old pear tree. The plum tree (deceased) is hosting some exotic looking mushroom fungi. The lilac poppies just starting to bloom.

The ladies mantle is spilling out of every crack in the paving. The mexican orange blossom is perfume personified. The campanula is a sea of bluey purple. The apple tree blossom just showing pinky white now. The castor oil plant is heavy with black berries.

The geraniums are basking in the heat. The petunias are wilting at a rate of knots in the heat. The marigolds are lunch for the snails.

The jasmine is filling the midsummers air. The ivy is rampant as ever. The ageratum is dried and shrivelled, something went wrong there.

The rosemary is full of flower and sniffable. The lavender is gorgeous and darkest blue. The curry plant is exotic and makes me sneeze. The thyme is invincible. The mint is barely contained, the pineapple mint is abundant and the morrocan mint is catching up fast.

The squirrels are burying nuts in all my pots and digging up the crocus bulbs. The wood pigeons are feasting on the huge cherry tree down the way.

All is well in paradise.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 01:56 PM

Cherries are ripe and the apple is just blossoming? that doesn't sound right for ANY location!

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 02:08 PM

It's right for southern England. They are cookers and very late! They will also be full of codling moths because I was lacksidasical with my waxy things.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 02:19 PM

Who is that GUEST UK gardener? A regular sans cookie? Sounds like a great yard!

I forgot about the garlic. I dug it up a couple of weeks ago. I have stuff all over the house and the garage drying. Onions in a box in the corner.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: gnu
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 02:31 PM

Maple seeds. Billions and billions of maple seeds. I have developed an excellent method for gathering them. Just paint the concrete foundation of the house and every one of the little bastards will stick to it.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: GUEST,UK gardener
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 02:51 PM

Thanks stilly but it isn't great, just cram packed. I didn't mention the dandelions in the lawn and the brambles tunneling under the fence and the berberis that had me in casualty last year.

There's also a pretty good sized bamboo swaying about. Bridal wreath hanging over the path and slowly browning, but it looked good a couple of weeks back. A gorgeous bronze cordyline aiming for heaven with two 'babies' coming out of the root.

Wild geranium everywhere, a bluey mauve, where there isn't something else. That all started from a cutting from an old lady who died this year, she would like to know it is still going strong.

A twisted willow in a pot that snaps off in high winds. A big green fleshy clump of oriental poppy that is going to burst forth magnificently later. A buzz bomb lily that only opened today, reddy orange, kind of sunset colours.

A white deutzia that is in full bloom now, next to a pale pink spirea ( i think). A massive butterly bush that will be honey scented and awash with dark purple flower later (black knight).

And honeysuckle that has gone crinkly at the edges and looks like it is giving up the ghost any time now. Oh and a fuschia that survived the winter against all odds, but isn't doing a great deal at the moment.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: GUEST,translator
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 03:31 PM

cordyline

possibly? the buzz bomb lily referred to?

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: GUEST,UK gardener
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 03:41 PM

Yep the cordyline australis, the one top left of the picture. Mine is about ten years old and in an old wooden barrel, it's about eight foot tall now with the babies shooting up from the bottom, never changed the soil, just top dress and feed it. It would be far better in the open , but too late for that now.

And that is the buzz bomb lily , think it begins with an 'h'? Very short flowering period, but worth it, I love it.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 03:43 PM

hemerocallis/daylily the flowers last but a single day - though a flower scape may have 20-50 blossoms and there may be several scapes on a plant. they have varieties out now that re-bloom as well.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 04:52 PM

I have some of those multi-blooming perennial daylillies in the yard. They are such great colors.

I forgot to mention the ongoing bunny factory that has established itself beneath the salvia greggi in my front yard. I think we're up to three batches of bunnies now. They have a tunnel under the bushes by the front porch, out of sigth of the hawks that inhabit the woods across the road.

I also have some huge tarantulas this year. They're wonderful! (I think they're eating the Mediterranian house geckos and getting fat).

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: LilyFestre
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 04:59 PM

Lettuce is up and ready....chives are loving the cooler weather and I've been picking lots of daisies and little yellow flowers...not sure what they are other than pretty! :)

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 06:09 PM

I'm harvesting spiders and snails now.....

and some really evil spicy rocket!

LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Janie
Date: 21 Jun 05 - 06:39 PM

UK Gardener, Sounds like in your climate, as is true on parts of our Pacific coast, many fruits and flowers appear simultaneously that on the East USA coast bloom or ripen at different times. I'm guessing your climate is rather mild, without huge extremes in temperature and humidity?

My day lilies (buzz bombs? never heard'em called that before.) are blooming heavily now, but the wild geraniums, azaleas, and all fruit trees finished blooming 6 to 8, even 12weeks ago. I envy you your campanulas. I try to grow them here, but they barely hang on--too hot and humid in the summer. When I see photos of English gardens with all the delphiniums and campanulas, I gasp with pleasure.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: maire-aine
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 01:44 PM

My black raspberries have started to ripen, right on schedule. They usually come in over 4th of July weekend, but I was afraid they'd be late, because it's been awfully dry this year. I picked the first ones yesterday.

I don't even bother taking a dish with me-- I just pick 'em & eat 'em right off the plants. They're sooo sweet. I love this time of year.

The only problem is that they only bear fruit once a year-- no second crop in the fall.

Maryanne

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 01:56 PM

My garden looks downright miserable this summer. A combination of not enough rain and bad air, I think. The tomatoes are very small (thought they still taste good). Squash are coming up big time, and the garlic and onions are dry and being put to good use.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Gorgeous Gary
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 04:18 PM

We're about to gain a small backyard garden and a couple of decorative concrete planters with the townhouse we just bought. So methinks we're going to have to learn how to garden.

That or extend the brick patio to cover the whole backyard...

-- Gary

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: dianavan
Date: 03 Jul 05 - 11:46 PM

I have to admit that this is the first year in over 30 years that my motivation to get out in the garden is at an all time low. Maybe its because the weather is cold and cloudy. Maybe its because work is so demanding. Maybe its because I'm still taking these blood thinners. Whatever, I am not very interested this year. Maybe its because I'm afraid of cutting or scratching myself.

I did manage to bake a rhubarb crumble. Isn't it amazing how dear those homemade desserts become to your children once they have left home? My strawberries didn't really produce much of anything. The cauliflower has bugs. The Mizuna was tasty. The lettuce looks a little tough. The beans were doing fine and then they just keeled over. Guess I'll plant some more. The tomatoes and the cucumbers look like they are worth saving. All in all, a disappointing year for me. I even divorced my houseplants and let them die. Some I had for twenty years.

I did manage to plant a few of Bobert's climbing hyacinth beans. They have sprouted and look quite healthy. I'm anxious to see the blooms.

Oh yes, the flowers and herbs. No matter what I do, they seem to bloom. The wallflowers were so pretty! I also love my little fox gloves (not the tall, wild ones) but a short variety for the garden. For some reason I also love the delicate Columbines.

Exactly at this moment, there is only lettuce, rhubarb and herbs to eat. Everything else is waiting for sun and TLC.

I'm beginning to wonder if a vegetable garden is too much work for me. I wonder if I should just convert it all to flowers and shrubs. I think I'll wait until I retire to make that decision. Once I retire I might have more time.

Maybe if I just get my butt out there, I will regain some energy.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: GUEST,harp missy
Date: 04 Jul 05 - 02:37 AM

My harp is about to burst into bloom again! :)

Last year a woman came into the music shop where I work with a harp that had been badly damaged--the bottom of the pillar was fractured. We assessed it and had to give her the bad news that the cost of repairing it would be higher than the price of the harp. :( It was truly tragic. She asked if we would take it and dispose of it for her, because she didn't feel emotionally able to just throw it away.

I took it home (I wish it had occurred to me to suggest this to her) and routed four holes in the soundboard. Then I filled the harp with earth and planted morning glories in it :) It was really cool--they twined all up the strings and curled around the tuning pins and the levers. Then all of a sudden, one day I looked out the window and about eight huge purple flowers had come out simultaneously! It was quite a beautiful sight.

This year I planted clematis, and a few buds are just beginning to form. Any day now...

M

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Sooz
Date: 04 Jul 05 - 02:45 AM

Raspberries, potatoes, beetroot and broad beans which we eat "mange tout". Oh, and some very pretty sweet peas.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Jul 05 - 11:25 PM

This evening the ex came over for dinner with the kids and me. I don't barbecue the country style pork ribs very often but I usually do something for the fourth of July. So for a couple of days I've been contemplating the menu. Yesterday I was in the garden and found several squash ready to pick, but decided to leave them there for one more day.

Why? Because I had company coming, and it's fun to sometimes send someone else out to have the pleasure of hunting for and returning with the goodies from the garden. I had this task in mind for my son (he's 13) and I sent him out with his dad as company. It's not like they've never done this before, but the garden is pretty much my domain. I have to make myself stop and think about it and share the pleasure. Dylan beamed when he showed me one red tomato and several Italian squash (zuchini). I cut up a couple of squash to saute with olive oil, garlic, and tomato sauce to go with the rest of dinner.

Anyone else have this Easter Bunny instinct, to share the hunt in the garden fun with visitors? (This is also part of the reason I have tomatoes and peppers growing in my front yard. They're a great conversation starter and sometimes to reach down and pick a something you grew and give it to someone is the greatest sociable gift.)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Nancy King
Date: 04 Jul 05 - 11:38 PM

Did some badly-needed weeding this afternoon and discovered a perfect little zucchini -- the first one of the season! Yay! I'd already found a cucumber that had grown WAY too big, and a couple of nice moderate ones. Those peas that bothered to germinate mostly came ripe when I was out of town for a couple of weeks(timing is everything...), but I did get a few. Ripped out the sad-looking vines today, ready to put in some bush beans, beets, and who-knows-what-else. The asparagus was great this year, as was the lettuce and spinach, but those are all just memories now! Tomatoes are still bright green, but showing good size, and there are a couple of nice green peppers coming along.

All in all, not too bad -- and not too much animal damage so far. Now that I've actually said that and put it in writing, of course....

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Jul 05 - 12:18 AM

Gads. I LOVE your gardens, one and all.

The only fresh thing I've gotten is some Alaska King Crab that a friend brought me yesterday, already ccoked and cracked and briny. King is sweeter than the Dungeness and of course, MUCH bigger. You wouldn't believe this one chunk of a honker- tightly packed pink and white flesh, about six inches long by 1 inch diameter. Good though. *G*

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: LilyFestre
Date: 05 Jul 05 - 01:23 AM

I'm not sure if you'd call this harvesting but in a 10 mile stretch of road, I counted 38 ground hogs....you could harvest them and make a mighty fine batch of stew....freeze the leftovers for winter use. They are EVERYWHERE!

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: dianavan
Date: 05 Jul 05 - 03:01 AM

Alaska King Crab???????? You can have all my rasperries for just one big leg! I'll even throw in some rhubarb, kale, swiss chard and mizuma.

My uncle used to return from the season with his boat loaded with crab. We would fill the tubs with ice and beer and melt lots of butter and garlic and just feast to our hearts content.

My mouth is watering!

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 01:20 AM

I'll have a heaping plate of crab legs, but I think I'll pass on the groundhog stew. It's a little too gamey for my taste (and is probably so gamey from eating in someone's garden!)

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: GUEST,MMario
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 08:25 AM

Black Raspberries and sweet cherries - the sour cherries are ripe too. But none of those are "planted" - have some almost ripe cherry tomatoes, the cucumbers are setting and so are the peppers and eggplant. Whether or not I manage to coax any through to harvest is a mystery.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 02:02 PM

dianavan ... what's mizuma?

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Nancy King
Date: 06 Jul 05 - 07:42 PM

I KNEW IT! I should never have said anything about "not much animal damage..." Sure enough, the deer ambled by last night and defoliated a bunch of cukes and pole beans. Sheesh!

Anybody know Jon Campbell's song "When Bambi Got the Vote" (or "Since Bambi Got the Vote," or something like that)? My Ex got custody of the tape with that song, and I think I need it again. Anybody?

Nancy

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: dianavan
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 03:21 AM

Mizuma is a Japenese green that grows easily. Its leafy and something between a lettuce and a brassica. When young, the delicate leaves can be used in salads. Its really great in Miso soup, too. When it gets bigger, you chop it 1" pieces and steam it or it can be cooked like collards.

If you let it go to seed, you may get some volunteer. Its very hardy and I always keep a patch in my garden.

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Flash Company
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 11:12 AM

Picked about 8lbs of Raspberries since arriving home on Saturday.

FC

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 07 Jul 05 - 01:04 PM

I'm finally getting handfuls of little grape tomatoes. I now have about six cups this year. . .

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Janie
Date: 22 Aug 05 - 01:26 PM

Don't know about the rest of you, but our summer has been abnormally hot, and it has kept me out of the garden--especially the flower garden. We have had day after day of mid to upper ninties with high humidity. It doesn't cool down much in the evenings. The weeds and grasses are taking over. Normally the dahlia's would be stunning by now, but I haven't kept them dead-headed.

In the veggie garden, I haven't fertilized like I usually do--fish emulsion/kelp sprays, monthly additions of bat guano. The tomatoes and snap beans have done OK anyway, but the cukes, zukes and squash are not producing well.

Maybe just getting too old to manage the extent of gard beds that I have.

I just ordered seeds for the fall garden. Assuming it cools down a little like its supposed to, I'll be direct seeding kale and turnips soon, and will start lettuce indoors at my office where the AC will keep the soil cool. Garlic and onion sets are on their way, but I'll hold off a bit on planting them.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Janie
Date: 22 Aug 05 - 01:36 PM

One pleasant success this year has been ginger lilies. A friend gave me a 'start' two years ago. I was afraid I had not planted them in a good spot, but they have really taken off this year. The color and fragrance are wonderful, and they seem like they are going to spread.

Janie

Subject: RE: BS: Gardening: What are you harvesting?
From: Rumncoke
Date: 22 Aug 05 - 01:59 PM

The Victoria plums are ripe.

For me it is the taste of English Summer.

Bliss

Anne