Garden 2023

[Ninurta]

@ Ninurta:
I don't "compost either.  When I clean the coop, if it is fall or winter, I put it right on the garden, and if it is spring or summer, I make a pile beside it, and leave it til winter.  Also, is the Afghan blue poppy a flower, like actually poppy, or a strain?

It's a strain of poppy, what some folks call "breadseed poppy", from Afghanistan. But I don't think this one is going to bloom. It grew only to about 11 1/4 inches tall, popped out a flower bud, and that bud promptly died off. Now the leaves are dying from the ground up. It's trying to put out a couple side branches, but I doubt it will survive long enough to get that done.

So my attempts to revive legacy poppies from Afghanistan may be at an end, I've still got about 10,000 seeds or so, so I may put every damned one of them in the ground this fall just to see if ANYTHING survives from them.

Poppy seeds only remain viable for about a year on average, so I'm not holding out much hope for them.

.

[Chiefsmom]

It's a strain of poppy, what some folks call "breadseed poppy", from Afghanistan. But I don't think this one is going to bloom. It grew only to about 11 1/4 inches tall, popped out a flower bud, and that bud promptly died off. Now the leaves are dying from the ground up. It's trying to put out a couple side branches, but I doubt it will survive long enough to get that done.

So my attempts to revive legacy poppies from Afghanistan may be at an end, I've still got about 10,000 seeds or so, so I may put every damned one of them in the ground this fall just to see if ANYTHING survives from them.

Poppy seeds only remain viable for about a year on average, so I'm not holding out much hope for them.

.

Well I hope some survive for you!

I managed to get most of the garden in Sunday.  I have 31+ tomato plants.   LOL  Now lets see if I can beat the blight this year.
Of course we are not supposed to get any rain for over a week, and now they are claiming a slight chance of frost Wed. Night.  I swear, if it does, I will just give up the garden this year.  I don't even have enough stuff to cover everything!!!

All I have left are a couple shade loving flowers, 2 white pines and mint I have to get planted.  So I will be able to be pretty lazy this weekend, which is a 4 dayer for me!  Super excited about that!

[Bally002]

It's a strain of poppy, what some folks call "breadseed poppy", from Afghanistan. But I don't think this one is going to bloom. It grew only to about 11 1/4 inches tall, popped out a flower bud, and that bud promptly died off. Now the leaves are dying from the ground up. It's trying to put out a couple side branches, but I doubt it will survive long enough to get that done.

So my attempts to revive legacy poppies from Afghanistan may be at an end, I've still got about 10,000 seeds or so, so I may put every damned one of them in the ground this fall just to see if ANYTHING survives from them.

Poppy seeds only remain viable for about a year on average, so I'm not holding out much hope for them.

.

Well I hope some survive for you!

I managed to get most of the garden in Sunday.  I have 31+ tomato plants.   LOL  Now lets see if I can beat the blight this year.
Of course we are not supposed to get any rain for over a week, and now they are claiming a slight chance of frost Wed. Night.  I swear, if it does, I will just give up the garden this year.  I don't even have enough stuff to cover everything!!!

All I have left are a couple shade loving flowers, 2 white pines and mint I have to get planted.  So I will be able to be pretty lazy this weekend, which is a 4 dayer for me!  Super excited about that!

Being winter here, although not as harsh as what you guys experience.  (No snow where I am).  I am still perplexed why things aren't growing well.  (Stunted)  Insects, particularly bees are missing from the equation and were during autumn (fall) and summer. Not even mosquitoes.  Plenty of rain during summer and throughout 22, but things are drying up.  

The beds are raised and have yielded plenty of worms,  I'm slashing some paddocks to cut back the drying grass/pasture and use the grassess left on top of the slasher for composting.  My experiment with boxed potatoes on the sunny verandah seems to be working but slowly, with packing the growing plants with such compost.  (Wrong time of year).  The only crop we are eating is Bok Choi and the odd cherry tomatoes which are hanging on.  Tobacco failed miserably.

Lemons are plentiful but there is only so much I can do with them all.  Harvested some oranges the other day from a friendly neighbours tree in exchange for wood. 

With winter here we are busy cutting and splitting firewood but my plan is to strip all the beds, top them up with river loam, composted grass cuttings and chicken manure from the coop then cover the lot with black plastic to keep the weeds down and perhaps heat the beds a bit generating some grub and worm life before spring arrives.  

Speaking with the neighbours about growing this year and associated problems I was surprised by one comment that a hobby grower surmised.  He thought he was the only one with similar probs and was going mad.  Glad I wasn't the only one.  Will have to be patient and see what 23/24 brings.

Kind regards,

Bally)

[Chiefsmom]

It's a strain of poppy, what some folks call "breadseed poppy", from Afghanistan. But I don't think this one is going to bloom. It grew only to about 11 1/4 inches tall, popped out a flower bud, and that bud promptly died off. Now the leaves are dying from the ground up. It's trying to put out a couple side branches, but I doubt it will survive long enough to get that done.

So my attempts to revive legacy poppies from Afghanistan may be at an end, I've still got about 10,000 seeds or so, so I may put every damned one of them in the ground this fall just to see if ANYTHING survives from them.

Poppy seeds only remain viable for about a year on average, so I'm not holding out much hope for them.

.

Well I hope some survive for you!

I managed to get most of the garden in Sunday.  I have 31+ tomato plants.   LOL  Now lets see if I can beat the blight this year.
Of course we are not supposed to get any rain for over a week, and now they are claiming a slight chance of frost Wed. Night.  I swear, if it does, I will just give up the garden this year.  I don't even have enough stuff to cover everything!!!

All I have left are a couple shade loving flowers, 2 white pines and mint I have to get planted.  So I will be able to be pretty lazy this weekend, which is a 4 dayer for me!  Super excited about that!

Being winter here, although not as harsh as what you guys experience.  (No snow where I am).  I am still perplexed why things aren't growing well.  (Stunted)  Insects, particularly bees are missing from the equation and were during autumn (fall) and summer. Not even mosquitoes.  Plenty of rain during summer and throughout 22, but things are drying up.  

The beds are raised and have yielded plenty of worms,  I'm slashing some paddocks to cut back the drying grass/pasture and use the grassess left on top of the slasher for composting.  My experiment with boxed potatoes on the sunny verandah seems to be working but slowly, with packing the growing plants with such compost.  (Wrong time of year).  The only crop we are eating is Bok Choi and the odd cherry tomatoes which are hanging on.  Tobacco failed miserably.

Lemons are plentiful but there is only so much I can do with them all.  Harvested some oranges the other day from a friendly neighbours tree in exchange for wood. 

With winter here we are busy cutting and splitting firewood but my plan is to strip all the beds, top them up with river loam, composted grass cuttings and chicken manure from the coop then cover the lot with black plastic to keep the weeds down and perhaps heat the beds a bit generating some grub and worm life before spring arrives.  

Speaking with the neighbours about growing this year and associated problems I was surprised by one comment that a hobby grower surmised.  He thought he was the only one with similar probs and was going mad.  Glad I wasn't the only one.  Will have to be patient and see what 23/24 brings.

Kind regards,

Bally)

Well that's not good.  Besides the missing bee's, I am curious what is going on as well.  You're in Australia?  Have you had growing seasons like this before?  Are your summer's normally better, or too hot?
I'm worried we are going to have a hot summer, with little rain.  When the plants get a little bigger, I'm going to cut back on watering, to try and toughen them up a bit.

[Bally002]

It's a strain of poppy, what some folks call "breadseed poppy", from Afghanistan. But I don't think this one is going to bloom. It grew only to about 11 1/4 inches tall, popped out a flower bud, and that bud promptly died off. Now the leaves are dying from the ground up. It's trying to put out a couple side branches, but I doubt it will survive long enough to get that done.

So my attempts to revive legacy poppies from Afghanistan may be at an end, I've still got about 10,000 seeds or so, so I may put every damned one of them in the ground this fall just to see if ANYTHING survives from them.

Poppy seeds only remain viable for about a year on average, so I'm not holding out much hope for them.

.

Well I hope some survive for you!

I managed to get most of the garden in Sunday.  I have 31+ tomato plants.   LOL  Now lets see if I can beat the blight this year.
Of course we are not supposed to get any rain for over a week, and now they are claiming a slight chance of frost Wed. Night.  I swear, if it does, I will just give up the garden this year.  I don't even have enough stuff to cover everything!!!

All I have left are a couple shade loving flowers, 2 white pines and mint I have to get planted.  So I will be able to be pretty lazy this weekend, which is a 4 dayer for me!  Super excited about that!

Being winter here, although not as harsh as what you guys experience.  (No snow where I am).  I am still perplexed why things aren't growing well.  (Stunted)  Insects, particularly bees are missing from the equation and were during autumn (fall) and summer. Not even mosquitoes.  Plenty of rain during summer and throughout 22, but things are drying up.  

The beds are raised and have yielded plenty of worms,  I'm slashing some paddocks to cut back the drying grass/pasture and use the grassess left on top of the slasher for composting.  My experiment with boxed potatoes on the sunny verandah seems to be working but slowly, with packing the growing plants with such compost.  (Wrong time of year).  The only crop we are eating is Bok Choi and the odd cherry tomatoes which are hanging on.  Tobacco failed miserably.

Lemons are plentiful but there is only so much I can do with them all.  Harvested some oranges the other day from a friendly neighbours tree in exchange for wood. 

With winter here we are busy cutting and splitting firewood but my plan is to strip all the beds, top them up with river loam, composted grass cuttings and chicken manure from the coop then cover the lot with black plastic to keep the weeds down and perhaps heat the beds a bit generating some grub and worm life before spring arrives.  

Speaking with the neighbours about growing this year and associated problems I was surprised by one comment that a hobby grower surmised.  He thought he was the only one with similar probs and was going mad.  Glad I wasn't the only one.  Will have to be patient and see what 23/24 brings.

Kind regards,

Bally)

Well that's not good.  Besides the missing bee's, I am curious what is going on as well.  You're in Australia?  Have you had growing seasons like this before?  Are your summer's normally better, or too hot?
I'm worried we are going to have a hot summer, with little rain.  When the plants get a little bigger, I'm going to cut back on watering, to try and toughen them up a bit.

Not sure what's going on in my local patch.  Tested the soil, all seems well and have a lot of worms.  Pasture (mostly native) is going fine.  Some fruit trees (not many) and have a mediocre crop.  The pears, olives, mulberries, grapes, loquat, mandarine - (usually the best for a crop) didn't blossom or had stunted flowers and fruit.  Also noticed that some trees are only just turning for autumn which is quite late.  Winter starts next month so I was expecting to prune and transplant cuttings soon but may have to wait a little longer.

 The eucalypts, of which I harvest some of the fallen for timber, didn't blossom this year or the acacias/wattles.   One variety, 'red blood wood' (coryembia gummifera) did blossom for a short spell but shed the few blossoms early.  The grey gums, spotted gums, iron barks and 'boxwood' type gums didn't flower.  

The bees, well, 'true love' and I worked along with our 2 young lads at a commercial bee and honey concern for a time but 'hive beetle' coupled with floods in the region knocked the socks off that industry and some areas around here are quarantined.  Eldest son now works for a company outside the quarantine area.  So, we do have some native bees around the place but very few.   At one stage we had commercial hives (about 80) on the selection and the surrounds smelt like honey.  Another variety, 'wood cutter bees' (harmless)used to make their home in ours but haven't seen them around for a couple of years.  

Flies and midges were few and far between this year and mosquitoes were almost non existent which was another unusual aspect.

We still have our native animals about with 2 families of roos visiting the cut pasture mornings and evenings.  Bandicoots are about in large numbers which I've never seen before diggings holes all about the place. (A menace to gardens and lawn all year lol).  The wild ducks, parrots and galahs visit, so nothing appears wrong there.

So I guess I really can't complain I guess (unable to get the pineapples to fruit godammit!  but I'm perplexed as a few others within the surrounds about the growth this year.  A short trip to the coast reveals the sugar cane, banana and berry plantations doing well.  The local green grocer, (40 klms away) is always stocked.  Planted a fig tree and plum tree.  Seem to be doing well.  Will wait until spring/summer.   I have some "Australian bush Lemon trees". (Citris Limonia) along with Pomelo (Citrus Maxima) and they did alright although one bush lemon tree died.  Dunno why as they can live through anything in this neck of the woods. 

Perhaps these last years, a long drought, scorching bushfires afterwards, floods, mouse plague may have contributed and things will only get better.

We consider ourselves lucky to live in the bush here with solitude.  Very quiet.  But, sigh, if I look south, perched on a hill and built after the fires (2 years?) about half a klick away is a large OPTUS communication tower. Haha.  In my face.  

Kind regards,

Bally)

  
Corymbia gummifera

[Chiefsmom]

Well Bally, I will keep my fingers crossed for you, that come your spring, everything will right itself.

Here in Michigan, we are off to a not so great start.  We haven't had any rain for a week, and unless something changes and we get lucky, it isn't supposed to until around the 10th of June.  And it is 90F again today.  
I'm already sick of hauling the hoses everywhere around the yard.

About to go do a full moon rain dance.

Can't hurt, right?  LOL

[quintessentone]

It's a strain of poppy, what some folks call "breadseed poppy", from Afghanistan. But I don't think this one is going to bloom. It grew only to about 11 1/4 inches tall, popped out a flower bud, and that bud promptly died off. Now the leaves are dying from the ground up. It's trying to put out a couple side branches, but I doubt it will survive long enough to get that done.

So my attempts to revive legacy poppies from Afghanistan may be at an end, I've still got about 10,000 seeds or so, so I may put every damned one of them in the ground this fall just to see if ANYTHING survives from them.

Poppy seeds only remain viable for about a year on average, so I'm not holding out much hope for them.

.

Well I hope some survive for you!

I managed to get most of the garden in Sunday.  I have 31+ tomato plants.   LOL  Now lets see if I can beat the blight this year.
Of course we are not supposed to get any rain for over a week, and now they are claiming a slight chance of frost Wed. Night.  I swear, if it does, I will just give up the garden this year.  I don't even have enough stuff to cover everything!!!

All I have left are a couple shade loving flowers, 2 white pines and mint I have to get planted.  So I will be able to be pretty lazy this weekend, which is a 4 dayer for me!  Super excited about that!

Being winter here, although not as harsh as what you guys experience.  (No snow where I am).  I am still perplexed why things aren't growing well.  (Stunted)  Insects, particularly bees are missing from the equation and were during autumn (fall) and summer. Not even mosquitoes.  Plenty of rain during summer and throughout 22, but things are drying up.  

The beds are raised and have yielded plenty of worms,  I'm slashing some paddocks to cut back the drying grass/pasture and use the grassess left on top of the slasher for composting.  My experiment with boxed potatoes on the sunny verandah seems to be working but slowly, with packing the growing plants with such compost.  (Wrong time of year).  The only crop we are eating is Bok Choi and the odd cherry tomatoes which are hanging on.  Tobacco failed miserably.

Lemons are plentiful but there is only so much I can do with them all.  Harvested some oranges the other day from a friendly neighbours tree in exchange for wood. 

With winter here we are busy cutting and splitting firewood but my plan is to strip all the beds, top them up with river loam, composted grass cuttings and chicken manure from the coop then cover the lot with black plastic to keep the weeds down and perhaps heat the beds a bit generating some grub and worm life before spring arrives.  

Speaking with the neighbours about growing this year and associated problems I was surprised by one comment that a hobby grower surmised.  He thought he was the only one with similar probs and was going mad.  Glad I wasn't the only one.  Will have to be patient and see what 23/24 brings.

Kind regards,

Bally)

Well that's not good.  Besides the missing bee's, I am curious what is going on as well.  You're in Australia?  Have you had growing seasons like this before?  Are your summer's normally better, or too hot?
I'm worried we are going to have a hot summer, with little rain.  When the plants get a little bigger, I'm going to cut back on watering, to try and toughen them up a bit.

Not sure what's going on in my local patch.  Tested the soil, all seems well and have a lot of worms.  Pasture (mostly native) is going fine.  Some fruit trees (not many) and have a mediocre crop.  The pears, olives, mulberries, grapes, loquat, mandarine - (usually the best for a crop) didn't blossom or had stunted flowers and fruit.  Also noticed that some trees are only just turning for autumn which is quite late.  Winter starts next month so I was expecting to prune and transplant cuttings soon but may have to wait a little longer.

 The eucalypts, of which I harvest some of the fallen for timber, didn't blossom this year or the acacias/wattles.   One variety, 'red blood wood' (coryembia gummifera) did blossom for a short spell but shed the few blossoms early.  The grey gums, spotted gums, iron barks and 'boxwood' type gums didn't flower.  

The bees, well, 'true love' and I worked along with our 2 young lads at a commercial bee and honey concern for a time but 'hive beetle' coupled with floods in the region knocked the socks off that industry and some areas around here are quarantined.  Eldest son now works for a company outside the quarantine area.  So, we do have some native bees around the place but very few.   At one stage we had commercial hives (about 80) on the selection and the surrounds smelt like honey.  Another variety, 'wood cutter bees' (harmless)used to make their home in ours but haven't seen them around for a couple of years.  

Flies and midges were few and far between this year and mosquitoes were almost non existent which was another unusual aspect.

We still have our native animals about with 2 families of roos visiting the cut pasture mornings and evenings.  Bandicoots are about in large numbers which I've never seen before diggings holes all about the place. (A menace to gardens and lawn all year lol).  The wild ducks, parrots and galahs visit, so nothing appears wrong there.

So I guess I really can't complain I guess (unable to get the pineapples to fruit godammit!  but I'm perplexed as a few others within the surrounds about the growth this year.  A short trip to the coast reveals the sugar cane, banana and berry plantations doing well.  The local green grocer, (40 klms away) is always stocked.  Planted a fig tree and plum tree.  Seem to be doing well.  Will wait until spring/summer.   I have some "Australian bush Lemon trees". (Citris Limonia) along with Pomelo (Citrus Maxima) and they did alright although one bush lemon tree died.  Dunno why as they can live through anything in this neck of the woods. 

Perhaps these last years, a long drought, scorching bushfires afterwards, floods, mouse plague may have contributed and things will only get better.

We consider ourselves lucky to live in the bush here with solitude.  Very quiet.  But, sigh, if I look south, perched on a hill and built after the fires (2 years?) about half a klick away is a large OPTUS communication tower. Haha.  In my face.  

Kind regards,

Bally)

  
Corymbia gummifera

Hi Bally, so sorry to hear of all your problems there. Could it be an early Winter? I wonder where the grocer is ordering his/her produce? I'd ask next time I shop there maybe the grocer knows what's going on.

I am having the same issues as Chiefsmom, as we are basically on the same longitude line in North America, hot weather which is not normal for this time of year (so says the weather person) and I have to work a little harder to keep my garden container garden thriving.

My garden is on my deck and I have to water them using a watering can, but it's good weight lifting exercise.

[Bally002]

Well I hope some survive for you!

I managed to get most of the garden in Sunday.  I have 31+ tomato plants.   LOL  Now lets see if I can beat the blight this year.
Of course we are not supposed to get any rain for over a week, and now they are claiming a slight chance of frost Wed. Night.  I swear, if it does, I will just give up the garden this year.  I don't even have enough stuff to cover everything!!!

All I have left are a couple shade loving flowers, 2 white pines and mint I have to get planted.  So I will be able to be pretty lazy this weekend, which is a 4 dayer for me!  Super excited about that!

Being winter here, although not as harsh as what you guys experience.  (No snow where I am).  I am still perplexed why things aren't growing well.  (Stunted)  Insects, particularly bees are missing from the equation and were during autumn (fall) and summer. Not even mosquitoes.  Plenty of rain during summer and throughout 22, but things are drying up.  

The beds are raised and have yielded plenty of worms,  I'm slashing some paddocks to cut back the drying grass/pasture and use the grassess left on top of the slasher for composting.  My experiment with boxed potatoes on the sunny verandah seems to be working but slowly, with packing the growing plants with such compost.  (Wrong time of year).  The only crop we are eating is Bok Choi and the odd cherry tomatoes which are hanging on.  Tobacco failed miserably.

Lemons are plentiful but there is only so much I can do with them all.  Harvested some oranges the other day from a friendly neighbours tree in exchange for wood. 

With winter here we are busy cutting and splitting firewood but my plan is to strip all the beds, top them up with river loam, composted grass cuttings and chicken manure from the coop then cover the lot with black plastic to keep the weeds down and perhaps heat the beds a bit generating some grub and worm life before spring arrives.  

Speaking with the neighbours about growing this year and associated problems I was surprised by one comment that a hobby grower surmised.  He thought he was the only one with similar probs and was going mad.  Glad I wasn't the only one.  Will have to be patient and see what 23/24 brings.

Kind regards,

Bally)

Well that's not good.  Besides the missing bee's, I am curious what is going on as well.  You're in Australia?  Have you had growing seasons like this before?  Are your summer's normally better, or too hot?
I'm worried we are going to have a hot summer, with little rain.  When the plants get a little bigger, I'm going to cut back on watering, to try and toughen them up a bit.

Not sure what's going on in my local patch.  Tested the soil, all seems well and have a lot of worms.  Pasture (mostly native) is going fine.  Some fruit trees (not many) and have a mediocre crop.  The pears, olives, mulberries, grapes, loquat, mandarine - (usually the best for a crop) didn't blossom or had stunted flowers and fruit.  Also noticed that some trees are only just turning for autumn which is quite late.  Winter starts next month so I was expecting to prune and transplant cuttings soon but may have to wait a little longer.

 The eucalypts, of which I harvest some of the fallen for timber, didn't blossom this year or the acacias/wattles.   One variety, 'red blood wood' (coryembia gummifera) did blossom for a short spell but shed the few blossoms early.  The grey gums, spotted gums, iron barks and 'boxwood' type gums didn't flower.  

The bees, well, 'true love' and I worked along with our 2 young lads at a commercial bee and honey concern for a time but 'hive beetle' coupled with floods in the region knocked the socks off that industry and some areas around here are quarantined.  Eldest son now works for a company outside the quarantine area.  So, we do have some native bees around the place but very few.   At one stage we had commercial hives (about 80) on the selection and the surrounds smelt like honey.  Another variety, 'wood cutter bees' (harmless)used to make their home in ours but haven't seen them around for a couple of years.  

Flies and midges were few and far between this year and mosquitoes were almost non existent which was another unusual aspect.

We still have our native animals about with 2 families of roos visiting the cut pasture mornings and evenings.  Bandicoots are about in large numbers which I've never seen before diggings holes all about the place. (A menace to gardens and lawn all year lol).  The wild ducks, parrots and galahs visit, so nothing appears wrong there.

So I guess I really can't complain I guess (unable to get the pineapples to fruit godammit!  but I'm perplexed as a few others within the surrounds about the growth this year.  A short trip to the coast reveals the sugar cane, banana and berry plantations doing well.  The local green grocer, (40 klms away) is always stocked.  Planted a fig tree and plum tree.  Seem to be doing well.  Will wait until spring/summer.   I have some "Australian bush Lemon trees". (Citris Limonia) along with Pomelo (Citrus Maxima) and they did alright although one bush lemon tree died.  Dunno why as they can live through anything in this neck of the woods. 

Perhaps these last years, a long drought, scorching bushfires afterwards, floods, mouse plague may have contributed and things will only get better.

We consider ourselves lucky to live in the bush here with solitude.  Very quiet.  But, sigh, if I look south, perched on a hill and built after the fires (2 years?) about half a klick away is a large OPTUS communication tower. Haha.  In my face.  

Kind regards,

Bally)

  
Corymbia gummifera

Hi Bally, so sorry to hear of all your problems there. Could it be an early Winter? I wonder where the grocer is ordering his/her produce? I'd ask next time I shop there maybe the grocer knows what's going on.

I am having the same issues as Chiefsmom, as we are basically on the same longitude line in North America, hot weather which is not normal for this time of year (so says the weather person) and I have to work a little harder to keep my garden container garden thriving.

My garden is on my deck and I have to water them using a watering can, but it's good weight lifting exercise.

Cool nights and mild to warm sunny days.  First day of winter tomorrow.  Expected top is 25C or 77F thereabouts.  I'll be in T shirt and shorts.  Odd.  Nights are cool but not unbearable.  Have the hearth cranked up so keeps the house warm at bedtime.

Fruit and veg can be sourced by the green grocer from up north or from the coast where temps are warmer to mild. I expect it to get colder but we'll see.  Have rain forecast for the weekend which is welcomed as ground is getting dusty.  

Still burning off reducing fire hazards so the native grasses will regenerate quicker with some water.

Another odd thing is the emergence of pythons this time of year.  Had another crossing the front yard today.  That's getting up to 1 a week.  Not the same ones as they are of different sizes and shades.  Thought the one today was a black snake but up close the python head and chequered patterned skin revealed it for what it was.  Cat was fist to discover it (as usual) following it and playfully tapping the rear end of the serpent.  Gotta laugh, curiosity and all.  

As for the garden soil, I'm mixing in some manures, other soils from the river bank and will let the boxes set until spring.  Will see what happens.   

Tomorrow I'll be cutting wood again.  Sales have been half of what would be the normal but I'll still keep going with it.  Could have something to do with the warmer weather methinks.

Kind regards,

Bally)

[Ninurta]

Sorry to hear of you all's weather ills. It's been unseasonably chill here, daytime temps in the 50 to 70 degree F range, night time dropping to 40 to 50 degrees F. It regularly drops 30 degrees F between day and night here, but the cloud cover from the rains has mitigated that to about a 20 degree difference.

A couple of the tomato plants have taken off smartly, and the beans are gaining steam, but the peppers, corn, and tobacco are struggling. I don't need to water anything due to the rains, but I did go out and fertilize everything yesterday to try to give it a boost.

I planted 18 hemp seeds for the fall crop. 10 of those sprouted, but 7 of the sprouts damped off and died, leaving just 3. So I planted a few more of a different variety, but they've not had time to sprout yet. The goal is to raise 4 to maturity, the limit that the law allows here.

The lone poppy started dying back, so I set it outside to see if the weather might give it a boost, but within hours "something" came along and snapped it about an inch and a half above the dirt, so it's not gonna make it. The bloom it was trying to develop withered and died without blooming about a week and a half ago. So, no poppy seed from the lone survivor.

Some of the catnip, basil, sage, and peppermint is taking off, growing like it means it. Some is not, and I've no idea of what is producing the differences. The thyme is struggling heroically. I dunno if it's gonna do anything at all worth doing, but it ain't looking good at the moment.

I'll give it another week and see if the rain or fertilizer does anything a boost. Then I figure on taking the herbs out of pots and popping it into the ground, at least the best growing plants of them. So now I have to figure out the layout of a herb garden, and will leave the smaller ones in pots on the deck for easier access - it's right off the kitchen, just where an herb plantation ought to be!

.

[Chiefsmom]

So, not much going on, but it has now been a month, I believe, since we have had rain.

Farmers are freaking out.  Can't blame them.  everything in the fields is dying.

30% chance of rain this weekend, so fingers crossed!

Very weird for our state, this time of year.

Sick of dragging hoses!

[EndtheMadnessNow]

Best I can offer.  





Family Computing 1984

[Ninurta]

So, not much going on, but it has now been a month, I believe, since we have had rain.

Farmers are freaking out.  Can't blame them.  everything in the fields is dying.

30% chance of rain this weekend, so fingers crossed!

Very weird for our state, this time of year.

Sick of dragging hoses!

I'm sorry you are experiencing drought like conditions. I reckon we must be getting your rain. As a matter of fact, we're getting it right now, and have been since 2 am this morning. We've had a slow, steady, soaking rain for the past 15 hours.

I just replaced some of my dead tobacco plants yesterday, so this raining-in is just what they needed. I've got 30 or 31 of them outside now, but 8 of those are in pots for experimentation to see if I can increase yield by pinching off buds and not allow them to flower... which should force the plant into more leaf production. I've got several hundred thousand seeds from last year's crop, so I can afford to experiment like that.

The winter's cannabis crop is about to give up the ghost now, and didn't produce much. what it did produce was pretty good stuff I'm told, but I'd say that altogether I only got maybe 3 grams per plant, and only had two females in the gang, so 6  grams or so total, which is kinda dismal from what I'm told. I planted 18 more seeds from that same stuff for a fall crop, figuring that I might get 6 plants total out of 18 seeds, but I actually wound up sprouting 10.... most of which died off of damp-off, and didn't make it. I had one single lonely seed from some White Rhino, so I planted it too, but so far it's not sprouted and it only has a few more days before I declare it dead. I planted 6 seeds from some kind of Burmese stuff that I'm told was pretty good, but only two of them popped, and the rest only have a few days to go before I declare them dead, too.

That's the problem with these silly assed plant count limits governments impose. You never know how many are going to be female, but generally only half of them will be. The winter's crop only had 1/3 females. So if they limit you to 4-6 plants, only half of them are going to be useful for pain management, and that's not enough to cover one person for an entire year, or even 6 months. It's like they're playing with us, just teasing us that we can grow our own pain relief! Bastards!

Peppermint is bolting, so is the catnip, basil, and rosemary. I'm trying to plan out a place to put them in the ground, and out of the pots they are currently in. The catnip in particular is already root-bound, so I've not got much time to get them in the ground. For some reason, the thyme is just sitting there, so I reckon I need to research it so see what it needs. A couple of the sage plants are bolting, and a couple are not - but I  only need a couple, since sage has a long lifetime.

Tomatoes and corn and beans are moving right along, but the peppers are still not bolting, they're just kinda sitting there, too. I had planned on planting some potatoes in grow bags, but never got enough dirt to fill them, so it may be too late to start them now for this year. The dirt here is too much clay for potatoes or any other tuber crop, so it has to be the bags and foreign dirt.

And so it goes.

.

[Chiefsmom]

Ninurta:
Yeah, I don't go by the government limit until I put them in the ground, which is after I am able to sex them.  Did you try the egg crate to start the seeds?
Sorry I haven't updated in a while, basically same thing over and over.  Just weeding.
We are still several inches behind in rain, but we did get 3/4 of an inch on Sunday.  In an hour.

Very few Pea plants came up from seed.  But my tomatoes are going crazy, and so far, no sign of blight.  Watermelon and pumpkins are not very big still, so a bit worried about them.

I've decided I am going to go with all soaker hoses next year.  I have three right now, and it sure makes weeding easier, especially when there is little rain.  The only pain is moving them, so hubby can rototill.

I'm going to have WAY too much squash, so I will be bringing it in to work to give away to customers when it starts producing.

[NightskyeB4Dawn]

Best I can offer.  

I browsed through a couple thousand pics trying to find a picture I took a couple of years ago of a cloud burst that was right in front of me.

It looked just like that and it was one of the coolest things I had ever seen. Now I just have to find that darn picture.

[Chiefsmom]

So, it has finally been raining!   We got almost 3 inches on the 9th, then storms on the 13th.  Some rain over night on the 14, I think it was more of a steady, light rain.

So of course, the weeds I hadn't got to yet, must have grown 6 inches.  LOL  at least they were easier to pull with the ground wet.

I didn't know this, but apparently summer squash, can get too big? (I don't eat it).  Hubby said they get too seedy.  I pulled 2 monsters off, they werent even all the way yellow, but he said they were twice as big as they should be.
Chicken food now I guess, if nobody takes them here at work.  
My tomatoes look like a jungle, even with weaving them through the cattle panels.  I have only seen a little blight on one of the plants, but I am going to spray them with the copper sulfate tonight, just in case.  I'm going to be swimming in tomatoes if they all produce well!

Cucumbers are not doing to well, neither is the watermelon.  Hoping that will change soon.

Cannabis is doing great, so I will have stuff to do this winter, making medicine with that, and some of the herbs that are doing ok.  Going to try some eczema medicine with plantain and some other herbs.
I'm going to replant pea's this weekend too and hope they do better than they did this spring.

[Ninurta]

My tomatoes are growing like a jungle, too, and have about a ton of little tomatoes on them, maybe 2 or 2 1/2 inches in diameter. Beans are doing well, and just about to ripen and be ready for the picking and drying out. Peppers started bolting and blooming, and the dragon cayennes have little peppers on them, still green, but a couple inches long now. Bell peppers are just starting to bloom.

Despite all that, the corn is dismal, and I planted it in the same plot. I dunno yet why it's wrecked. It got "knee high by the 4th of July", which used to mean a good crop was coming, but then it stopped growing and started going to tassels and silks. So now, my corn is about the same height as my tomatoes - about 3 feet or so - and won't be getting much bigger since it's going to ears. Other folks around here have corn that is about chest high, although one plot I've seen has chest high corn on the south end of the rows and knee high corn on the north end of the same rows, all going to tassels now.

One ear on the corn is some kind of mutant - it's not got any shucks covering it, just a developing ear, and has silks coming off of it every-whicha-way with no shucks to contain and direct it.

Tobacco is anywhere from about 10" tall to about 2 or 2/12 feet, and blooming. This kind of tobacco only gets about 3 feet tall on a good day, so it's about par for the course in some cases, under developed in others. I probably ought to have shot more fertilizer to it, but got sidetracked and couldn't get up there to do it when I threw my back out for a couple weeks.

My experimental tobacco, growing in containers on the deck, doesn't seem to much care when I top it - it doesn't make the leaves any bigger or cause suckers to sprout out, so I've not needed to sucker it, but topping it isn't increasing leaf yield, either. This is how we learn - that variety of tobacco doesn't respond to topping, it seems, so why bother with it?

Basil is growing well, but one plant has some kind of blight or blackish rust on it. I cull those affected leaves when i see them and toss them away.

The "peppermint" is growing like crazy... but the problem is, it ain't peppermint. It IS some kind of mint, but I have no idea what kind. I just know it's neither peppermint nor spearmint. I've had experience with both of those, and know how to recognize them, but this ain't either of them. In researching peppermint, everyone seems tho think it's some kind of hybrid, but I call bullshit on that because it used to grow wild all around the house I grew up in, and so did spearmint. The spearmint was a dark green all over, with rougher leaves of a different shape, where the peppermint had a purplish cast to the stems and leaves, especially at the leaf edges, and a narrower and smoother leaf. You could confirm by shredding a leaf and smelling it - the peppermint smelled like peppermint, and the spearmint smelled like spearmint - simple. This alleged "peppermint" smells lightly minty, but neither peppermint nor spearmint. I'm guessing this is one of those hybrids the internet was talking about that they are just trying to pass off as peppermint, but it ain't. It ain't even anything like peppermint.

The thyme never really took off at all. It just kind lays there, all tiny. Too tiny for any serious use.

Catnip started blooming on schedule, but it never got to a size that I recall it growing in the wild. I'll probably leave at least one plant to complete it's life cycle like it does in nature, and see if it sprouts regular sized catnip from the seed it spreads next year. It's only knee high, and I recall it growing waist high or a little higher in some cases in the wild.

The sage is growing slow, but that is what I expected it to do since it survives as a bush for years and years. I figure it'll slowly get bigger by the year until it gets up to a bush around 3 feet tall and 3 feet around, but that isn't all going to happen this year.

Next year, I'm planning to grow the corn and beans in the Indian way, planting them both in the same hill with some squash that I need to get seed for. The corn grows up and provides a "pole" for the beans to climb, the beans fix nitrogen into the soil for the corn to grow, and the squash spreads out as a ground cover to keep weeds down and moisture in the soil. It's a symbiotic kind of thing, and may help the corn to reach full development if I do it like that... or everything may choke everything else out. We'll see how it does here, but next year. I remember that it worked pretty well when I was a kid.

For next year, I plan on expanding the garden plot from what it is this year, and if I get ambitious, I'll connect both the garden and tobacco plots into one big plot I can watch from the kitchen window. I may also take a trip down to the homestead and see if I can locate and grub up some wild peppermint and some goosefoot to bring back and get started here. I'll also have to pick out and get some squash seeds. I don't know much about squash, since I was never interested in growing it before, because I've no idea how to cook it, and never had any interest in eating it.

I also plan to keep trying to get my hands on some "Trail of Tears" beans and some Cherokee White Eagle corn for next year. This sweet corn was a flop. Better luck next time with bread corn. That means I'll also have to get a hand-cranked corn mill to grind it into meal and flour with.

Those will be projects for the winter between the gardens, as will be the expansion and connecting of the plots.

.

[Chiefsmom]

@ Ninurta
Well, as for the squash, if you have summer squash, you can slice it like tomato slices, throw some batter like Drakes on it, and fry it up like fried green tomatoes.  That's what the hubby does.

Butternut, you can cube up, and grill, and isn't to bad.  ( I don't like squash much)

And acorn, just cut in half, clean out seeds and stringy parts and bake in the over with lots of butter.  Thats not bad either.

Sorry your corn didn't grow well.  Last year mine didn't get very tall, and the ears were only 1/2 size.  Not sure why that was.

I have to get out in mine this weekend, so I will see what is going on, and post more.

I wonder if the mint you have, is one of those new breeds, like chocolate or something, I try to avoid those, but they are all over in the nursery's now.

[EndtheMadnessNow]

So far my little garden has produced zucchini (clubber size), yellow squash, lettuce, parsley, basil, scallions, couple cucumbers. Tomato plants are getting jurassic size but nothing yet, just buds and peppers are just starting.

[VioletDove]

Just picked this. Some of the cucumbers were hiding and almost turned yellow on me. My husband found them after he walked along behind me checking for any I missed. I’m surprised my plants still alive, it’s been so hot here. 



I just noticed while I was putting the photo here that I have some sort of bug in my vegetables. I guess I better look at my plants. I’ve mostly seen wasps and spiders so I try not to get too close.

[Bally002]

Just picked this. Some of the cucumbers were hiding and almost turned yellow on me. My husband found them after he walked along behind me checking for any I missed. I’m surprised my plants still alive, it’s been so hot here. 



I just noticed while I was putting the photo here that I have some sort of bug in my vegetables. I guess I better look at my plants. I’ve mostly seen wasps and spiders so I try not to get too close.

Nice looking harvest mate.  

Well done.

Bally)