What's in the Garden?

[taxlady]

We forage. We collect high bush cranberries, wild grapes (and the leaves), maple sap, asparagus, wild blueberries. My dad collects the same, as well as morel mushrooms (when the weather cooperates). Last year wasn't a good year for morels where he lives. And, milkweed.

When I lived in the country, we foraged too, but we were beginners. Got some wild 'shrooms - had a book to identify them and lots of white and black paper to see what colour the spores were.

I had forgotten about milkweed. The buds were surprising tasty.

 

[CraigC]

When I lived in the country, we foraged too, but we were beginners. Got some wild 'shrooms - had a book to identify them and lots of white and black paper to see what colour the spores were.

I had forgotten about milkweed. The buds were surprising tasty.

Ever have battered and fried elderberry flowers? How about cat-tail tubers and fiddleheads in your stew? When I taught Hunter Safety, there was a reserve FWC officer that everyone swore you could drop her in the middle of the Everglades naked, with just a knife and she would walk out fully clothed and 10 lbs heavier.

 

[CWS4322]

Ever have battered and fried elderberry flowers? How about cat-tail tubers and fiddleheads in your stew? When I taught Hunter Safety, there was a reserve FWC officer that everyone swore you could drop her in the middle of the Everglades naked, with just a knife and she would walk out fully clothed and 10 lbs heavier.

Done the cat-tail tubers and fiddleheads (I went to grad school in NB, fiddleheads were abundant and a bunch of us went out each spring to collect them). I'll have to check the back forty for fiddleheads this year...

 

[CWS4322]

When I lived in the country, we foraged too, but we were beginners. Got some wild 'shrooms - had a book to identify them and lots of white and black paper to see what colour the spores were.

I had forgotten about milkweed. The buds were surprising tasty.

I really like milkweed and collect it in the fields every May-June.

 

[kadesma]

I have a son in law who comes here every week end and we plant and water he has put in so much for me all I have to do is say I like something and boom it's planted. So far we have 2 fig trees, a pomagranite.nectarine, peach (2) orange,tangarine, 2 apple Fujii and Gala, onions, shallots, red garlic, celery, beans, zuchini, gladiolas, daphne ahhh the smell, camillas, roses, next comes heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers, cubanell peppers, which are sweet, the jalapenos for friends, lilly of the valley, strawberries for the kids and the big kids, some yellow banana peppers, Poppies, more to come .
kades

 

[taxlady]

Ever have battered and fried elderberry flowers? How about cat-tail tubers and fiddleheads in your stew? When I taught Hunter Safety, there was a reserve FWC officer that everyone swore you could drop her in the middle of the Everglades naked, with just a knife and she would walk out fully clothed and 10 lbs heavier.

I did that with elderberry flowers last year.

I could never find any fiddleheads. I don't remember why we didn't do anything with cat tail tubers. Maybe it was the quantity of skeeters in our "swamp". If I get bitten by enough skeeters I have a reaction and puff up. It's very unpleasant. It's happened twice.

 

[CraigC]

I did that with elderberry flowers last year.

I could never find any fiddleheads. I don't remember why we didn't do anything with cat tail tubers. Maybe it was the quantity of skeeters in our "swamp". If I get bitten by enough skeeters I have a reaction and puff up. It's very unpleasant. It's happened twice.

The Miccosukee learned a long time ago that tobacco smoke, especially cigar smoke and citronella repel skeeters.

 

[GLC]

The Miccosukee learned a long time ago that tobacco smoke, especially cigar smoke and citronella repel skeeters.

The Karakawa Indians (Texas coast) had a sure fire mosquito repellent. They killed an alligator and let it "ripen" in the sun for a week. Then they split it (if it hadn't already) and rubbed the contents all over them. It worked. But they were not at all popular folks and didn't get invited to many get togethers. (The fact that any covered dish they brought might well contain members of the next tribe over didn't help much.)

 

[taxlady]

The Miccosukee learned a long time ago that tobacco smoke, especially cigar smoke and citronella repel skeeters.

Not enough for me. Until I walked in the woods with my current DH, I had never met anyone who attracted skeeters as much as me. People want to walk next to me in the woods, 'cause I am tastier and other people get bitten less.

 

[Bolas De Fraile]

The Miccosukee learned a long time ago that tobacco smoke, especially cigar smoke and citronella repel skeeters.

Craig never mind the skeeters the Miccosukee know how to wrestle alligators and give speeding tickets

 

[Bolas De Fraile]

The pics are of the garlic I planted in the autumn and the left over seed pots that I kept from last yrs crop.
The garlic is interesting because it is 50% of the proper expensive cloves that I bought from the garden center, 25% of cloves that I grew and 25% of ordinary garlic cloves from the veg counter in tesco.They all look the same to me.

I stored about 150lbs of pots from last yrs crop, we sorted out all the little pots and put them in a hessian sack, low and behold they chitted. We had so many we gave loads away and planted about 200.Clic on pic to expand.

 

[FluffyAngel]

When do you harvest garlic? Asking for a friend who planted garlic last year & doesn't know when to pull it.

 

[taxlady]

What does it mean that the potatoes "chitted"?

 

[Bolas De Fraile]

When do you harvest garlic? Asking for a friend who planted garlic last year & doesn't know when to pull it.

Fluffy, end of may beginning of june if the weather stays good.

 

[Bolas De Fraile]

What does it mean that the potatoes "chitted"?

Tax, the little eyelets start growing. This allow you to plant the seed pot earlier as you have given it a kick start.When the soil has warmed up in May you can plant non chitted pots from the supermarket and get a crop after 13 weeks.

 

[Claire]

OK, before I go MIA, I'm going to tell a couple of odd stories of gardening things that can happen.

A friend of mine, as most people in Galena, lives on a hill. She planted seeds for baby bok choi in her vegetable garden, about 2 years ago. WE had a huge storm, and her bok choi never came up. In the fall,she looked down her lawn and saw weird leaves growing out of her lawn.

Yes, bok choi. The seeds had drifted during a storm and taken root in her lawn. Yes, I was lucky enough to benefit!

One time, I swear, I was at wit's end. I couldn't get cilantro to live, come hell or high water, where we lived in Florida.

My husband, one day, was mowing our (way too much) lawn, and said, Isn't this some herb? Cilantro ... growing in the middle of our lawn,when I coudln't get it to grow in my lovely square foot garden. For a whole season, he'd get ready to mow the lawn, and I'd go out and clip the cilantro. It came back, and back and back again. I lived there for six years, and never could get it to grow in my garden without bolting immediately. But that one stupid plant lived that whole season (about a year), in the middle of the lawn.

Go figger.

 

[Leolady]

Finally got the collards, swiss chard, mustard, mesculan lettuce, spinach, radishes, and carrots in yesterday. There is still a little room, so we may be putting in a few extra things.

And hooray! Asparagus is up and doing well. I put composted manure in their bed yesterday after we finished planting 25 Nanking Bush Cherry bushes.

The beets, turnips, and kale we planted last week are up. Some of the sweet onions are up also. My perennial onion bed is doing wonderfully. The grape vines we planted a couple of weeks ago are doing good also.

The tiny crabapple and pear trees we planted a couple of weeks ago are doing fine, but the plum trees look dead.

We will be starting to transplant irises to make way for the cucumber, yellow squash, and zucchini bed next week.

Bugs are nibbling on my cabbage plants so I had to hit them with a little Sevin dust.

Moles are not yet in my raised beds, but they are reeking havoc in my lawn!

 

[Addie]

I really use to try to not use chemicals when I had a garden. So did some research and found that bugs do not like certain plants. Like Marigolds. So I used to plant them throughout the garden in the middle of a row. A lot of plants give off an unpleasant odor, thus repelling the bugs.

 

[Leolady]

I try not to use poisons either, but sometimes it is them or me. In this case my cabbage plants would not have had a chance if I hadn't.

 

[Dawgluver]

Goodness, Leolady! You've been busy!

I've been using Pyola spray from Gardens Alive, an organic company, for years. It's a combo of pyrithrins and canola oil, and works like magic on all sorts of critters. Takes care of the sawfly larvae, Mexican bean beetles, rose slugs, flea beetles, aphids, you name it.

They used to offer $25 coupons, and I got my Pyola for free for years. Felt kinda bad about that. Now they give you $25 off when you purchase $50 worth of stuff, which is still a good deal.

My apple tree and blueberries are blooming like crazy. Hope we don't get a hard freeze. Will have to work on blueberry protection, something got all but 5 blueberries last year!