Garden 2024

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What growing zone are you in now, @dragnlaw? Is it colder than 4? French Tarragon and most sage varieties are considered resistant to zone 4.

North Texas used to be in zone 7, but now we are in zone 8. It's that global thing that many Texans refer to as a myth... or fake news... whatever.

CD
 
Canada uses a different scale to the U.S. Toronto/Hamilton is considered a Zone 6. (I think that is the equivalent to your Zone 5 (?)). Although it is considered both 5 & 6.

My farm was considered Zone 5, which I guess is your 4?
This is where I got my first fig tree from- he had a pretty large backyard full of them. The small ones he would put in the garage for winters.

Hamilton/Waterdown gets the 'lake effect' with the snow during the winter. Usually pretty mild where as the farm would get a ton of snow and hitting 40 below (same in C & F) was not unknown. Nurseries stopped selling peach trees but would sell cherry, pear, plums.
Like a lot of places, hasn't been as cold in recent years.
 
Canada uses a different scale to the U.S. Toronto/Hamilton is considered a Zone 6. (I think that is the equivalent to your Zone 5 (?)). Although it is considered both 5 & 6.

I thought the US and Canada unified their zones a long time ago. (????)

CD
 
I planted seeds for shellie beans and cucumbers today. So far, tomatoes and okra. Peppers and 1 eggplant. I have onion sets. Do I try again since my onions were decimated along with the garlic? Yes, I am miffy about that. OH....and my "farm" has been officially designated with a name! (I may need to get "estate stationery" made at this point. LOL)

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You can try Silkies! Cutest darn chickens you've ever seen. They have black skin under all those feathers - and black bones as well. Of course, being mini's they also lay small eggs. Better get at least 3.

Edit: and love the name too!
 
I would love that, @dragnlaw! However, I am already pushing my HOA's limit. The HOA would lay solid gold eggs if I got a chicken....or three.....or even a super cute (and trendy) mini-cow or goat!

Those are some very cute chickens!
 
HOA would have it solved if they could lay Solid Gold Eggs! What on earth could they ever complain about then?
So yeah, Wow! I would move there in a flash! :mrgreen:
 
Our neighbors on the acre behind us put out corn for the sandhill cranes. Today they caught on camera a white deer. It had a pink nose and eyes, an albino deer. It was probably a yearling. The pictures were small and fuzzy or I'd post them. There is a herd or bunch of white deer in the area but I hadn't seen any in our yard yet. Maybe we will!
 
The Juliet has gotten the largest tomatoes so far, but this doesn't mean that it will be first to ripen, but it does seem to have the most leaves and fruits, so far. The Bronze Torch hybrid is slightly taller, and the Napa Rose still a little taller, but not as many leaves. The last tomato to flower, and set fruit, was the Primary Colors Angora - a fuzzy variety, which was something my friend that I gave my extra tomatoes to, had never seen, and asked me if it had some disease, or something that gave it that! Reasonable question, given all the plants than get powdery mildew, and similar things, but I told her not to worry - just something strange about this variety, and some others. And I have never seen as many flowers and buds on any plants as I'm seeing on those Zluta Golds! I still don't know exactly what the term refers to, but I see why they call it a Multiflora, and that it will have a larger number of tomatoes, compared to most.

Here's one of those first Juliets, though only about half size, to far.
The largest Juliet so far, about 1 1/4", 5-31 by pepperhead212, on Flickr
 
When the deer ate my tomato plants I replaced them with a different kind. But I don't think they're growing at all. I also found some cherry tomato seeds and planted those, even though it's late in the season. Of course, they're not growing either. So I guess cherry tomatoes are off the menu this year.

Meantime the Seascape strawberries are going crazy. Looks like I'm going to have those to enjoy. The Eversweet, which were eaten by the deer, are coming back but not very robustly. Is that a word?

The climbing rose has over two dozen blossoms on it. Yay! And I might get five blueberries this season. *sigh*

I finally got the flower bed in front of the trailer weeded (first time in two years) and some seeds planted. I had gotten those rolls of flower seed - you know, unroll, water, and they grow. Well, they don't actually, unless you cover them with dirt, so that's what I did. I have far more of those seeded rolls than I needed, so tomorrow I'm going to cut them up into 6" squares, take them to the back 40, and plant them.

The grass is coming up, but there's a lot of bare patches, so a lot of the yard will need to be reseeded. The contractor dumped two more loads of soil in the yard so that has to be spread. I think the meadow grass in the back is just now coming up, but I think I may have way overwatered everything. I let everything sort of dry out because we're supposed to get between 1.5" and 3" of rain tomorrow and Monday. Time to get the canoes out again!
 
When the deer ate my tomato plants I replaced them with a different kind. But I don't think they're growing at all. I also found some cherry tomato seeds and planted those, even though it's late in the season. Of course, they're not growing either. So I guess cherry tomatoes are off the menu this year.

Meantime the Seascape strawberries are going crazy. Looks like I'm going to have those to enjoy. The Eversweet, which were eaten by the deer, are coming back but not very robustly. Is that a word?

The climbing rose has over two dozen blossoms on it. Yay! And I might get five blueberries this season. *sigh*

I finally got the flower bed in front of the trailer weeded (first time in two years) and some seeds planted. I had gotten those rolls of flower seed - you know, unroll, water, and they grow. Well, they don't actually, unless you cover them with dirt, so that's what I did. I have far more of those seeded rolls than I needed, so tomorrow I'm going to cut them up into 6" squares, take them to the back 40, and plant them.

The grass is coming up, but there's a lot of bare patches, so a lot of the yard will need to be reseeded. The contractor dumped two more loads of soil in the yard so that has to be spread. I think the meadow grass in the back is just now coming up, but I think I may have way overwatered everything. I let everything sort of dry out because we're supposed to get between 1.5" and 3" of rain tomorrow and Monday. Time to get the canoes out again!
Do you harvest the rose hips? I love rose hip tea. Yes, roses actually have a fruit.
 
Rain in Texas has been ridiculous this year, too. My sister's tomatoes are struggling. Seems tomatoes are not meant to be grown in swamps. Perhaps that's why Cajun foods don't use tomatoes. :ROFLMAO:

CD
 
Just got the energy to take photos of today's garden. I got knocked flat with Covid on May 8th then got Covid Rebound. Fatigue and brain fog are main symptoms. Photos are of strawberries, spinach and lettuce, plantlets ready to be planted, garlic, peas flowering, onion plants and more spinach, raspberries, and a few tomato plants.
 

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Great day in the garden today - the sun has been shining all day - wondrous after weeks of rain! First of all, (and rather ironically I suppose), I fixed my little water feature. (It stopped working and I was pretty sure it was a blockage in the tube, so I ran a flexible piece of wire through it and wiggled it about a few times - out came a load of black sludge! Fixed!) Then I replanted some lettuce plants that had been knocked off my "herbarium" by the wind. Then I planted up the rest of my hanging baskets. And then I cut down an Ash tree! (It self-seeded and my garden is far too small for a tree of that size, so it is sad, but it had to go.) Here's a pic of the "herbarium" (not a herbarium at all of course, just a set of shelves that a work colleague knocked up for me.) Oh, and also one of the newly planted hanging baskets which will hopefully be cascading with petunias at some point.


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And here's the water feature - it's solar-powered if anyone is wondering. And that is Star Jasmine on the left, and Ladies Mantle on the lower right - which has started dotting itself all round the garden.

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