Gardening: (2016– )

[HungryChris]

1 hour ago, chromedome said:

Hmm. I did that when I bought my house in the 90s. By the end of the second summer it had extended to the neighbour's yard, and had colonized most of the lower part of mine. Admittedly, I'd been incautious enough to plant it in a place where the soil stayed damp because of the hillside's natural drainage. If you're in a dry climate (I don't remember your location) you might get away with it. 

I planted mint next to my house, when I first bought it, because I like mint in my ice tea. I quickly learned that mint is best kept in a container, because mint likes to be in everything! I read somewhere that mint can be thwarted with repeated application of wood ashes. Since I heated the house primarily with wood, I was able to get it under control, but even though I now have mint in a container, most of my iced tea is supplied by mint from renegade control. Here is some mint gathered from a recent reconnaissance.

HC

[djyee100]

I am warned. I recently bought a small plant of Moroccan Mint, and I was thinking of planting it in the ground. Guess not. It goes into a pot.

[Smithy]

We keep our mint under control with the lawn mower, but it quite definitely would spread out from around the deck posts otherwise. I made the mistake of planting some around a thriving, healthy clump of chives a few years ago.  Can't find the chives any more, and had to establish a new bunch elsewhere.

[HungryChris]

Fresh 'pickage' this morning consists entirely of black seeded simpson lettuce. I am happy to have it and happy to know that more produce is on the way! It was a long winter!

HC

Edited June 15, 2017 by HungryChris (log)

[kayb]

Pickage!

 

Cherry tomatoes, a couple of Romas, an Arkansas traveler or two, a banana pepper and cucumbers. Headed out of town so will take them as a hostess gift.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

I had my first blueberry of the season last night.  No picture this year.

 

[dcarch]

Interesting science! Home grown tomatoes and veggies taste much better if your "farm" has a nicer entrance. 

Almost done.

 

dcarch

[Jacksoup]

This morning's pickage.  Had to get out there before the high of 107F today.  Some of the squash got very large but they're really growing fast in this warm weather.  Also a lot of things don't get picked until I get here for the weekend.

[kayb]

Been gone for a week. There were a few small cukes when I left, too small to pick. I got back to The Cucumbers That Ate The Back Yard, a dozen of them as long as my forearm and about that big around. They were firm and a good color, though, so I went on and brought them in, along with a half-dozen more reasonably sized ones, and made pickles (see preserving thread). Also on the pickage list today: a couple of small zucchini, one large yellow squash, and a few tomatoes.

 

Killer cucumbers.

 

Tomatoes and squash. These Sungold yellow/orange cherry tomatoes are the sweetest, best things I've ever tasted. I eat them like candy.

 

[Okanagancook]

Nice produce everyone.

I have the cookbook Gran Cocina Latina by Maricel Presilla.  Won a IACP cookbook and a James Beard Award.  BUT, one needs Amarillo peppers for most of the recipes.  We can't get these here and they are used mostly fresh.  So, I found a website that sold the seeds, which I bought and duly grew up into seedlings.  This growing season has been very cold so my poor little South American peppers are beside themselves.   They are half the size of our usual North American pepper plants.  So I am paying loads of attention to them, watering, fertilizing, weeding, talking to, anything I can think of to get them to grow.  Here is a picture.  They are the ones on the left of my Jalapeño plants.  I also have some panca peppers.  They were very difficult to get to germinate.  Two tries before I was successful.

 

[Okanagancook]

The garlic on the other hand is great.  I have stopped watering and will harvest in a couple of weeks.

 

[Shelby]

Everyone's stuff looks so good!!!  

 

I'm not counting my chicks before they hatch, but the garden here looks so much better than last year.  I really really hope the tomatoes keep on keepin' on.  You can't tell the scale by this picture, but some of the 'maters are almost baseball sized already.  I can't wait for red ones!

 

 

Just a quick snap of half of the tomatoes.  

 

[HungryChris]

Aside from lettuce and a few snow peas, I don't have much produce, only the promise held out by blossoms.

HC

[ElainaA]

I really love where I live but at this time of year I get really jealous of all you in warmer growing zones. Here the only things ready for harvest are garlic scapes (no pictures), some radishes and salad greens.

 

The rest of the garden is doing fairly well. All the rain has encouraged the flea beetles so the arugula, mizuna and mustard greens are pretty much inedible. And they are starting on the eggplants.   I plant my lettuce very thickly as I like to use it as baby greens. That works well most years - as I pick I thin it out enough so I get good sized plants - but this year has been so wet that the lettuce is rotting. Today i pulled about half of it out (for the compost, sadly, not for use) and hope the rest will do better. Soon the flea beetle gnawed arugula and mizuna come out and get re-planted. I put in flea beetle traps that seem to have help. I need to make another set. 

I put in 48 basil plants but it has been so cool and wet that they really haven't taken off - they are sort of just sitting there - not dead but not really growing either. 

Edited June 29, 2017 by ElainaA (log)

[Shelby]

12 minutes ago, ElainaA said:

I really love where I live but at this time of year I get really jealous of all you in warmer growing zones. Here the only things ready for harvest are garlic scapes (no pictures), some radishes and salad greens.

 

The rest of the garden is doing fairly well. All the rain has encouraged the flea beetles so the arugula, mizuna and mustard greens are pretty much inedible. And they are starting on the eggplants.   I plant my lettuce very thickly as I like to use it as baby greens. That works well most years - as I pick I thin it out enough so I get good sized plants - but this year has been so wet that the lettuce is rotting. Today i pulled about half of it out (for the compost, sadly, not for use) and hope the rest will do better. Soon the flea beetle gnawed arugula and mizuna come out and get re-planted. I put in flea beetle traps that seem to have help. I need to make another set. 

I put in 48 basil plants but it has been so cool and wet that they really haven't taken off - they are sort of just sitting there - not dead but not really growing either. 

 

Oh Elaina, I know how hard it is some years.  Have you tried to dust with Sevin for the flea beetles?  

[ElainaA]

On 6/9/2017 at 10:47 AM, kayb said:

The garden is progressing apace, as is the grass within it (the straw didn't work as well as I'd hoped to keep grass down), due to the amount of rain we've had. Despite the face it needs a good hoeing, the veggies appear to be coming along nicely.

 

I decided against using the landscape fabric to keep weeds and grass down. I will definitely use it next year. The straw, which I thought would work wonderfully, isn't; it's hard to walk on, and it doesn't really keep the weeds down, either. 

 

 

I sometimes use straw over layered newspaper for garden mulch. It always turns into a hay field. It seems like such a good idea - a natural mulch that can just be tilled into the garden next spring - but in July when I am pulling hay by the hand full, I always regret it. I usually use black plastic and feel guilty because it isn't ecological so about every 3-4 years iI go back to straw and paper. . Right now I am living with the guilt and not pulling up so much hay.

Be careful with landscape fabric. Weeds will grow through it  if the seeds land on top of it and it is almost impossible to pull up once they do. Both Pine Tree Gardens and Johnny's Selected Seeds sell biodegradable paper mulches, Only good for a year then you till them in.  I'm thinking of using that next year.  But the black plastic is easy and cheap so i might stay with that. I but the 10 x 25 foot rolls sold in the paint department. My husband drills 1/4" holes every 3" before I unroll it so that rain water gets through. It works.

[ElainaA]

5 minutes ago, Shelby said:

Oh Elaina, I know how hard it is some years.  Have you tried to dust with Sevin for the flea beetles?  

As far as i know no insecticide is very effective for these little beasts. They are horrible survivors of almost everything. The traps do work - bright yellow cardboard stapled to popsicle sticks and coated with 'tanglefoot" - the stuff you use on fruit trees to catch gypsy moth caterpillars.   I do use insecticides but not on greens that I will be eating immediately. 

[chromedome]

26 minutes ago, ElainaA said:

I really love where I live but at this time of year I get really jealous of all you in warmer growing zones. Here the only things ready for harvest are garlic scapes (no pictures), some radishes and salad greens.

 

If it makes you feel any better, you're 3-4 weeks ahead of me.

[dcarch]

Flea beetles, and other bugs ---

I don't know if this has anything to do with bug problems. I don't seem to have that problem in my garden, I have a solar fountain / bird bath in the yard, and that invites a lot birds. Birds of different feathers are alway hanging around picking on things. I think they probably like to snack on bugs after taking a refreshing bath.

 

dcarch

 

 

[JoNorvelleWalker]

1 hour ago, dcarch said:

Flea beetles, and other bugs ---

I don't know if this has anything to do with bug problems. I don't seem to have that problem in my garden, I have a solar fountain / bird bath in the yard, and that invites a lot birds. Birds of different feathers are alway hanging around picking on things. I think they probably like to snack on bugs after taking a refreshing bath.

 

dcarch

 

 

 

The birds here only eat my blueberries.  Well, actually, sometimes my strawberries.

 

 

[Thanks for the Crepes]

I got Japanese beetles here one year and they are the most destructive little %$&@!s I have ever encountered. I did buy some traps much like the ones ElainaA describes, but everything I was trying to grow that year that I didn't take inside was pretty much toast anyway. The good news is that the next year there were only a few which the traps were able to control, and after that, for about a decade, I have not seen one since, and if I ever do it will be way too soon. The wiki article says they aren't too destructive in Japan because of natural predators, but here they are much harder to control because we don't have those same predators.

[dcarch]

Mother Nature can take care herself, given time, and left alone.

 

Remember gypsy moth problem many years ago? Everyone was predicting the world will end.

 

Yeah, it was raining big caterpillars!

 

dcarch

 

[Shelby]

Our sandhill plum bushes are LOADED this year.  I have never seen them like this before.  I still have jelly from like 2 years ago but dang, I hate to not use these for something......

 

[rotuts]

chutney , w a little kick.

[kayb]

1 hour ago, Shelby said:

Our sandhill plum bushes are LOADED this year.  I have never seen them like this before.  I still have jelly from like 2 years ago but dang, I hate to not use these for something......

 

 

Do you have the Deep Run Roots cookbook? I bet you could use plums in place of blueberries in her blueberry barbecue sauce, which is about the best thing ever to hit a chicken or pork chop. It's just equal parts sugar and vinegar and fruit, some salt, a cinnamon stick and some red pepper flakes. Simmer, puree in blender, strain, cook some more to thicken. I've used plum sauces with chicken and pork with some success before; made up a chipotle plum sauce that was pretty fine on tenderloin. With vinegar in it, would be easy to can.