Garden 2024

[taxlady]

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

It was as an employee that @rodentraiser got sick of Xmas music. I think she can more than imagine it.

 

[rodentraiser]

I figured he just missed that. Either way, I hate canned music in any public place I have to shop. After growing up with the real thing, it's disgusting to hear the elevator muzak take of "Light My Fire". There ought to be a law. LOL

 

[caseydog]

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

First, Dallas does not have scorpions or rattlesnakes. Those are in other parts of the state. Fire ants are not as big of a problem as they used to be, and they are very easy to get rid of very quickly with a pet safe product that wipes out the whole mound and kills the queen in a day or two.

We do have tarantulas that come out for a few weeks right about now to mate. That freaks some people out, but they are NOT venomous, not aggressive to people or pets, and the males are actually beautiful animals to look at.

Yeah, Texas politics are very different from PNW politics, but in the big cites and suburbs, people are pretty accommodating of people who have different opinions. My neighborhood is very multicultural. There are fourteen houses on my street. Four are black households, three are asian households, and two gay men own a home across the street (they have a key to my house in case something happens while I'm out of town). We all get along great.

Austin, Texas is more like the PNW, but a huge influx of Tech companies from Cali are making real estate pretty pricey. Austin's motto is "Keep Austin Weird."

CD

 

[dragnlaw]

I take a razor knife and lightly score the root ball in a few places, to stimulate new root growth.

I actually dig my fingers into the bottom of the root ball to about 2 or 3 inches and split it out in a cross split. If it's too tight for my fingers, yeah, I use a knife. I try to 'open' this X as much as possible (without tearing off the chunk of course).

We do have tarantulas that come out for a few weeks right about now to mate. That freaks some people out, but they are NOT venomous, not aggressive to people or pets, and the males are actually beautiful animals to look at.

Are they that different that you could tell just walking by? How interesting.
But casey, I'm pretty sure they ARE venomous, "but the effects of the venom of tarantulas indigenous to North America are typically mild in humans and only cause pain at the bite site. Contact with tarantula hairs can cause redness, itching, and swelling."
according to a Poison Control report.

with my luck the bite would be insignificant compared to the itching of the hairs! LOL

 

[blissful]

Gardening question?
My lettuce garden has BT sprayed on it for caterpillar and moths and does a good job. We have aphids. Is there anything I ought to do about it? I washed the lettuce and had lots of aphids swimming on the surface.

 

[pepperhead212]

I guess I'm lucky I don't have any of those problems with my lettuce, but something I spray on my okra, and a number of other things, as an anti-fungal spray, is hydrogen peroxide, and it seems to kill the aphids on the okra, although they will show up again, eventually. And what you should look around for, when aphids are a problem, are ants, which often farm them! I use a cup of H2O2/gal - the 3% I buy in Dollar Tree - and don't add anything to is, as it reacts with almost anything. I use that on my cherry tomatoes, that I don't spray the Surround/potassium bicarbonate mix on, that is a prophylactic I spray on many things, both for the insects and fungal problems. But I don't spray that on greens, or other things that are a pain to get the powder off of, like the cherry tomatoes. I usually do it once a week, and if you spray the Bt, do that at least a day after the H2O2, as it will kill things like that, though it dissipates quickly.

 

[blissful]

THANK YOU Dave. I'll try the h202. In the mean time, we're omnivores.

 

[larry_stewart]

he worst aphid situations I ever had was when I bit into a broccoli floret right in the garden. Didnt quite taste or feel right. Look down, and it was infested with aphids ( which look exactly like the broccoli florets). Now Im paranoid overtime I bite into broccoli.

 

[rodentraiser]

First, Dallas does not have scorpions or rattlesnakes. Those are in other parts of the state. Fire ants are not as big of a problem as they used to be, and they are very easy to get rid of very quickly with a pet safe product that wipes out the whole mound and kills the queen in a day or two.

We do have tarantulas that come out for a few weeks right about now to mate. That freaks some people out, but they are NOT venomous, not aggressive to people or pets, and the males are actually beautiful animals to look at.

Yeah, Texas politics are very different from PNW politics, but in the big cites and suburbs, people are pretty accommodating of people who have different opinions. My neighborhood is very multicultural. There are fourteen houses on my street. Four are black households, three are asian households, and two gay men own a home across the street (they have a key to my house in case something happens while I'm out of town). We all get along great.

Austin, Texas is more like the PNW, but a huge influx of Tech companies from Cali are making real estate pretty pricey. Austin's motto is "Keep Austin Weird."

CD

Yeah, but see, I'm a country person. I don't think I could live in Dallas proper.

I'll pass on the tarantulas, too. We had them in California and if you threaten them, they hiss at you. As to politics, meh. It's not the people I don't like. It's the politicians and their state policies. I do know that most cities are far more liberal than the surrounding countryside. Washington is two states. The West Coast is liberal but east of the Cascade Mountains - oh, my.

Keep Austin weird, huh? I'd probably fit into Austin really good. LOL

To keep this garden oriented, I thinned my carrots again. How thin do they need to be? I sort of left one stalk per inch. Right now my carrots look like they're about a nanometer thick. When do they become carrots I can eat?

 

[pepperhead212]

Today I pulled out the excess seedlings from all those brassicas I direct seeded less than a week ago - I was amazed at how many had sprouted! They were those Wu Choy, and Choy Sum, that are the coldest resistant varieties that I have this year, plus a few of those "stem mustards", used for the Szechwan preserved vegetable. I also started a number of radishes, and some variety of leeks, that is for spring harvest. And in the empty spaces I planted 9 kohlrabi seedlings, I started a few weeks ago, the kolibri still being the largest seedlings.
The only covered bed, mostly for the brassicas, but 3 volunteer tomatoes flowering already, and a bunch of scallions. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[rodentraiser]

I am a little furious right now.

All summer I've been trying to grow giant sunflowers. I planted 7. The deer ate 5. One was bitten off at the top and is producing a flower, but the plant is only 2 feet high. So that left one flower that actually grew to 6 feet, even though the deer ate all the leaves they could reach.

It produced a beautiful flower last week. Night before last, the damn wind blew it over. I am SO done with gardening!

I'm going to tape a bunch of stakes together and then try tying them to the sunflower so it won't slump over, but honestly, I think it's a goner.

 

[pepperhead212]

Those greens are doing great, both the seedlings I planted in the pots, as well as the seedlings and direct seeds in the covered beds. And those Swiss chards aren't really winter greens, though they will last well after the frost. I have gotten good 3 harvests in the month since this photo:
Those 3 Swiss Chard plants, started when I pulled out those Green Giant tomatoes. 8-30 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Those Senposai are more for the warm weather, but they are resistant to the low 20s, in my experience. The bok choy variety I have - Koquie - is another that is bred for heat resistance, but I still planted some for the fall, as it should also produce well, before it gets too cold. The Merlot napa is somewhat cold resistant, as is lettuce, but the most resistant listed were the wu choy, which is supposed to be resistant to 14°.
Here are just 2 of the senposais, in an 18 gallon tub. 9-30 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Bok choy, in an 18 gallon tub. The vine on the right was pulled out, and replaced with a kohlrabi. 9-30 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Merlot Napa cabbage, in a 4 gallon SIP 9-30 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

An Earthbox, with 6 greens - the smaller, dark ones Wu Choy, and the larger ones Choy Sum. 9-30 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

And these lettuce plants, I only started with volunteers around that last one that finally bolted in August (later than any, so far), and I eventually pulled the plant, after most of the seed pods had dried, and that's where all those volunteers came from! I only transplanted 4 of them, but gave about a dozen of them to a friend - another thing I got her hooked on! Now she wants to know how to grow them in the winter.
Leaf lettuce, 10-1, volunteer plants from the one that lasted into August, before bolting. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[dragnlaw]

pepperhead, I'm beginning to suspect you do not live on the continental U.S. of A. but somewhere slightly above/below the equator on an island that is completely covered with extremely deep soil, vary large hoops and plastic. Plus plenty of fresh water.

 

[rodentraiser]

I got more bad news today. I was talking with my aunt who said she was just going to leave her carrots in to overwinter. I asked her when they would be carrots big enough to eat. She said they were now. I asked when she planted hers and she said spring. Well, I planted mine in the spring, too, and I've seen roots bigger than those carrots on the clovers I pull up. Apparently, mine decided not to grow.

I'm going to overwinter mine, too. They might even be big enough to eat come next spring.

 

[larry_stewart]

I got more bad news today. I was talking with my aunt who said she was just going to leave her carrots in to overwinter. I asked her when they would be carrots big enough to eat. She said they were now. I asked when she planted hers and she said spring. Well, I planted mine in the spring, too, and I've seen roots bigger than those carrots on the clovers I pull up. Apparently, mine decided not to grow.

I'm going to overwinter mine, too. They might even be big enough to eat come next spring.

One year I over wintered my carrots and picked them the next April or so to make room for something else, and they actually were a decent size. I tried doing it again. Thinking I finally figured it all out about carrots, and the next time they were all duds. I dont know how some people predictably ge such nice carrots. Mine are always hit or miss ( Usually misses).

 

[dragnlaw]

I think, if I were to put any carrots I've grown in a heavy bath of starch, they'd make fine tooth picks. They've never been a hit - only a miss.

 

[rodentraiser]

So what is it about the Midwest? My aunt's been growing a garden back there since Jesus was in training pants and her stuff always grows like crazy. I mean, it'll be winter there till the end of May, long past when the time I have my stuff planted, so her stuff goes in the soil in June and she can harvest before the snow flies again in September while my garden is still struggling to break out of the soil. It's downright irritating is what it is.