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Post by Txsteader on Jul 24, 2023 10:21:37 GMT
It's a lousy year. I did harvest quite a few snap beans earlier but not near as much as I should have. I never could get my tomato seedlings up thanks to damp off. Same with peppers - I've replanted countless times with no success. I ended up buying a few tomato plants which were doing pretty good until this heat settled in. Squirrels managed to get what few fruit were on the plants.
Having said that, I had a great asparagus harvest this Spring. And right now, the eggplants are producing well and okra is starting to bloom. So it's not been a total loss but when I can't even get pepper seedlings to grow, I consider it to be a lousy year overall.
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Post by woolybear on Jul 24, 2023 13:51:39 GMT
WHY WHY WHY does this happen? I ran the soaker hose last night in preparation of picking green beans this morning and there was a zucchini that wasn't quite big enough to pick. Went down this morning and that zuke turned into godzilla. Guess I'll shred him up and stuff into the freezer. Tomatoes are every so slowly starting to ripen - 1 here, 2 over there. Guess I'll stuff those into the freezer as I get them. I would like to make tomato cocktail this year.
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Post by themotherhen on Jul 24, 2023 22:11:43 GMT
It's 98° today, I forgot just how hot that really is. I guess the rest of the stuff that needs done in the garden will have to wait until later this evening.
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Post by Ozarks Tom on Jul 24, 2023 23:28:59 GMT
I'd mentioned the other day that I thought the grasshoppers were to blame for so much of our garden not producing. Well, Sweet Bride took a spray bottle of insecticide out there, and while spraying guess what she found? Crickets by the hundreds! Hardly a grasshopper to be found. I'd never heard of crickets spoiling a garden, but with so many out there it's got to be the reason we're not getting any green beans although they've flowered big time, and only one little cuke.
Hopefully they're dead now, and we'll start getting some production, but I sure wouldn't have ever thought of that.
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Post by woolybear on Jul 25, 2023 13:48:26 GMT
Did another picking of green beans this morning. I hopefully have enough to do 9 pints if not more. I'll give the beans another watering tomorrow evening, pick again Thursday morning and then run the canner. At the rate that the tomatoes are ripening and picking of one tomato today and one tomorrow I'll have to toss them into the freezer until I get enough to can. Last years potatoes that I tossed into the raised beds less than a week ago are starting to poke thru the ground. Here's to hoping for a good harvest.
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Post by laurazone5 on Jul 25, 2023 17:10:57 GMT
My front yard, south facing. Potatoes out. Planting collards, kale, zucchini, squash My passionflower is going nuts. Unfortunately, I had a whistle pig, rip the crap out of my roots. Note to self. THEY HATE mothballs. Yeah, it's kinda smelly in my front yard.........but he has not been back! My first year of doing sweet potatoes. Planted these jerks in mid May, and they are just not having it. They are on the south side of my house....full sun....whatever. My black strawberry cherry tomatoes showed up to play this year.... Same bed. Same water. Same sunlight, same EVERYTHING. I barely have flowers on these tomatoes...... Horseradish is hip high. I will pull it this year and preserve it. Mama's gonna make some KILLER Fire Cider this year.
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Post by Billy G on Jul 25, 2023 19:03:25 GMT
Seeded up a flat of hairy mountain mint to put in the yard later to attract Scoliid wasps. This family of wasps is also called Scarab Hunters and they prey on the larvae of Japanese beetles and June bugs. I have some of this growing in my pollinator plots and its not super aggressive like some mints can be, but I'd start any new to you mint in a pot if you have a small space and better soil than I have ! These are a non aggressive wasp by nature unless you go to actively messing with them, unlike say yellow jackets that sting for fun.
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Post by wildhorseluvr on Jul 25, 2023 19:12:29 GMT
laurazone5, your garden pictures are always a bright spot in my day.
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Post by wildhorseluvr on Jul 25, 2023 19:22:41 GMT
It's 98° today, I forgot just how hot that really is. I guess the rest of the stuff that needs done in the garden will have to wait until later this evening. We’ve had up to 105 or so recently, today down to 95-96. Will be back up to 100 or so soon. I stay inside during the day so it doesn’t affect me much. I’d be in a world of hurt if I were still on the farm and had outside chores to do.
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Post by laurazone5 on Jul 27, 2023 16:01:22 GMT
20 bulls blood, 20 cylindra, and 60 golden beets in the ground today!! Cosmos Sweet Basil Collards Rainbow CHard Early Girl Cukes Rone Di Nice Squash SweetNut Acorn squash Zucchini Crook Neck Squash. Dill Did alot of research, and gonna try my hand at 'midseason planting" Seed I started in cells: 8 Nero Di Toscana Cabbage 16 Cour De Bue Cabbage 16 Brunswick Cabbage 16 Rober Cauliflower 8 Ragged Jack Kale 8 Blue curly scotch Kale 8 DeCicco Broccoli. With the exception of the broccoli, all of the seeds came from Bakers Creek....https://www.rareseeds.com/ We shall see........ Not sure if I have already said this, but I think the straw I had on my beds were leaching pesticides. GRRRRRRRR So I stripped the straw off, and used my Jadom stink water www.youtube.com/channel/UC1f18IrkEXkP_QmJVUbcThg to give the soil back all the goodness.
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Post by woolybear on Jul 28, 2023 13:26:34 GMT
laurazone5, yeah I'd be afraid to use any straw from an unknown source also. This year I've finally been able to mulch the garden with old hay from my own field and grass clippings that I caught from the yard. I need to hop to it and get some seeds started of cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower. I pulled the dry hulls off of the snow peas and shelled those this morning. I want to grow some more of those this fall (100* sure makes one wish for fall). Also need to get myself to the garden center and get more bagged container soil. I have a lot of fabric pots that I need to fill. The cauliflower that I grew in a couple of fabric pots last year did amazing. I could move the pots around the yard or into the greenhouse as I needed.
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Post by woolybear on Jul 31, 2023 13:25:12 GMT
Went down to the garden yesterday morning and 1/2 of my very tall corn was bent over at the half mark. I think the stalks got too tall for their britches and fell, they had to be 7 foot tall. So I set up some posts with pvc pipe over them to make them taller and set about tying string in front of the stalks to help support them. Hope it works and they can make some ears.
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Post by Billy G on Aug 6, 2023 11:17:02 GMT
Too wet to do much outside so I'll grab a cup of coffee and head down to drill out some native bee houses. Usually this activity is reserved for the winter boredom stretch but I noticed they'd almost filled up the ones I have on the front porch. Native bees aren't aggressive and are a nice backup to the honeybees, plus they're neat to watch when you get a small 'town' built up.
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Post by mzgarden on Aug 6, 2023 21:03:14 GMT
Picked a basket of tomatoes and basil, trimmed the tomatoes to ensure air circulates, pulled out a volunteer squash that turned out to be those tiny decorative pumpkins. Tried to eat one just to make sure - blech, the plant came out and the chickens are enjoying the squash. Watered (again). My 3rd replacement planting of cucumbers are about 12" tall and sitting. The previous 2 got eaten by a pest, these are just sitting. The winter squash have gone wild, asparagus is busy going to seed and feeding their roots for next year. Peppers are finally coming along, now that it's gotten hot. Watering, trimming, composting - story of my garden life right now :-)
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Post by FeralFerret on Aug 7, 2023 1:22:04 GMT
"My 3rd replacement planting of cucumbers are about 12" tall and sitting. The previous 2 got eaten by a pest, these are just sitting."
Mzgarden, the pests got our cucumbers two years in a row. Rather than replant, we are going to plant fall greens in that area.
The deer got all of my cantaloupe last year as they started to ripen. I put up a fence around them this year to keep them out of reach of the deer. It's working so far. This years vines are volunteers from the ones the deer got last year.
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