Garden 2024

[blissful]

The lettuce garden is raised and I've seeded in all different kinds of lettuce over the past 5-6 weeks. There's a swedish style cover for it we made from plastic, it rolls down from the top to the bottom and it's on an angle to the front. South facing. We've been closing it at night to keep the deer out of it. It's about ready for the first lettuce to get picked.
We harvested just enough okra for a meal, and 2+ gallons of green beans. We made 4 servings of beans and gave the rest away.

 

[pepperhead212]

I still had some volunteer butternut in my bed, too, but I pulled it out today, as there was no sign of a blossom, so I figured it's too late. 3 volunteer tomatoes left, since they are blooming already, but pulled a couple smaller ones out. I'll see what happens with these.

 

[larry_stewart]

If a butternut squash starts to change color ( to its ripe pinkish color), will it continue to ripen if it's picked or the vine dies ?

 

[pepperhead212]

I have had them totally ripen after I had picked them when just starting - like a blushing tomato. When way too small, I just treat it like a winter melon, or something like that, and cook it until it gets tender.

 

[larry_stewart]

So we went to a local Fair today. It basically resembles the kind of fair they would have had in the 1800's. There are contests for best produce ( Along with other crafts, hobbies and home made things including baking). I never thought to enter, but after checking out all the Blue ribbon winners today, I think some of my produce would have had a good shot at winning. Next year Im hoping to enter some of my veggies. Would be nice to have bragging rights !! ( my wife won a blue ribbon years back for entering some of the things she crochet'd. They have many different craft, hobbies, cooking, produce , animals ....you can enter to win). ***The crochet pics were the ones my wife won years ago. The veggie blue ribbon pics are other peoples submissions, basically my competition for next year. Just wanted to see what Im up against***

 

[blissful]

@larry_stewart she's very talented! Cool!
Do they have a mushroom competition?

 

[pepperhead212]

Or a hot pepper competition? And how would they test them?

 

[dragnlaw]

So pepper, you offer your expertise and be the judge!

 

[blissful]

Or a hot pepper competition? And how would they test them?

Yes, how would they? I would recommend you for that. They could fly you out to NY, we could all meet there while you test out all the hot peppers as the Grand Pepper Taster. Why not!

 

[dragnlaw]

They could even give the contest its own name. "The Pepperhead212 Contest"
I can hear it now...
"and now, what we've all been waiting for, the most anticipated, prestigious Award of the Fair. The recipient of the Pepperhead212 Award for this year is blissful!
Come on folks, a big round of applause here! Accepting on her behalf is Mr bliss. It seems blissful ate too much of her own produce and is incapacitated 'under the weather' at the moment.

 

[larry_stewart]

@larry_stewart she's very talented! Cool!
Do they have a mushroom competition?

Thats a good question ! Didn't think of it ( dont know why I didn't) but I also didn't see any either on display. They do have a miscellaneous section for things not mentioned. Maybe I'll grow some next year indoors ( so I can get the timing right) to enter them. Outdoors is too unpredictable.

 

[rodentraiser]

It's winter, finally, and my garden is done for in more ways than one. I STILL can't find any 5ft netting anywhere. What I have is 3ft and if I pull it down, the deer jump it and if I pull it up high, they go underneath. I have two sunflowers left and although the large one is finally getting a flower on it, the deer have eaten all the leaves off of it.

I've been advised to get clear plastic to put on my lawn to kill everything on top but that will cost me almost $250. Because of that and because of the 160lbs of grass seed I bought (at half price), I told the contractor to not expect the last $500 of his bill. He can sue me if he wants, but he put in dirt and seeded (wrongly) in April and here it is almost October and he still hasn't come back to reseed to fill the empty patches out there.

I'll kill what grass I have and let someone else finish seeding it next spring.

My irises have as many weeds in among them as they did before I weeded last time. Weeds are springing up alongside all the rocks in my rock garden beds again. Maybe this time it's time to go all in for the vinegar treatment.

My wintergreen plant got moved to where it's getting more shade and is looking much better. My azalea, which hasn't grown in three years, just got moved to the same place, so let's see what will happen. My three blue mist plants haven't grown an iota, but they were shipped in woven pots that were supposed to disintegrate. The pots are still there and look to last forever, so last week I tore one off of the smallest plant and replanted it without the pot. If it lives, I'll tear off the other two pots. And wouldn't you know, the three weenie cherry tomato plants that gave me only four tomatoes are thriving. Well, why not? They didn't do any work.

I'd have to say this year gardening was definitely not a success.

 

[caseydog]

It's winter, finally, and my garden is done for in more ways than one.

Ummm, Autumn officially starts in a few days. It is going to be 98F here tomorrow here, with a heat index of 103F. However, the stores are stocking the shelves with Christmas crap.

CD

 

[caseydog]

My three blue mist plants haven't grown an iota, but they were shipped in woven pots that were supposed to disintegrate. The pots are still there and look to last forever, so last week I tore one off of the smallest plant and replanted it without the pot. If it lives, I'll tear off the other two pots.

Those disintegrating pots don't work. I found that out the same way you did. I peel them off now.

CD

 

[dragnlaw]

Disintegrating anything around plants I usually sort of shred them with a sharp knife in strips and open the bottoms up.

 

[caseydog]

Disintegrating anything around plants I usually sort of shred them with a sharp knife in strips and open the bottoms up.

The word I should have used is decomposing instead of disintegrating. These pots are supposed to decompose once buried in soil. They don't. I had a few pepper plants die with those pots, and when I pulled them out of the ground, the pots were still intact, and the plants were root bound.

I now remove those pots, and just as I would with plants from plastic pots, I take a razor knife and lightly score the root ball in a few places, to stimulate new root growth.

CD

 

[dragnlaw]

??? to my way of thinking (in reference to gardening) disintegrating and decomposing are the same thing.
aha!... and even Webster agrees with me...
: to break or decompose into constituent elements, parts, or small particles

 

[rodentraiser]

Ummm, Autumn officially starts in a few days. It is going to be 98F here tomorrow here, with a heat index of 103F. However, the stores are stocking the shelves with Christmas crap.



CD

Maybe I'll move to Dallas. I'm getting really, really sick of only 2 months of summer every year. Global warming can't come fast enough to the PNW as far as I'm concerned.

My goal this Christmas, as it is every Christmas, is to not hear any Christmas music. I hate canned Christmas music and that comes from being a waitress and having to hear the same 10 song tape over and over from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve. It's gotten easier since I shop online now.

 

[caseydog]

Maybe I'll move to Dallas. I'm getting really, really sick of only 2 months of summer every year. Global warming can't come fast enough to the PNW as far as I'm concerned.

Well, the cost of living is a lot less here than in the PNW, and winters are generally mild, but the summers may be a bit hard for you to get used to.

My goal this Christmas, as it is every Christmas, is to not hear any Christmas music. I hate canned Christmas music and that comes from being a waitress and having to hear the same 10 song tape over and over from Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve. It's gotten easier since I shop online now.

Years ago, I worked November and December at Restoration Hardware, and the store put a Christmas music CD on a continuous loop. If you think it bothers you as a customer, imagine what it does to employees.

CD

 

[rodentraiser]

Well, the cost of living is a lot less here than in the PNW, and winters are generally mild, but the summers may be a bit hard for you to get used to.



Years ago, I worked November and December at Restoration Hardware, and the store put a Christmas music CD on a continuous loop. If you think it bothers you as a customer, imagine what it does to employees.

CD

I can deal with hot summers if I can have a pool. Up here it doesn't do any good to set one up because our weather is so crazy. Ninety degrees one day and 65 for the next two weeks.

But I'm not a fan of Texas politics. And Texas critters bother me. I'm not fond of scorpions, fire ants, or rattlesnakes. I think they need to vote those things out of office, but the real ones scare me too. LOL