Gardening: What are you growing ?

[BioWizard]

Nutrina brought these "onions" a few days ago. And now, this.

[Watson]

I just cut mine up and into the pot. I'll have to try this. The Spanish tulips will be huge.

[mtbturtle]

Finished planting my tomatoes and seeds today 9 Amish Paste 6 Mountain Sun (?) and 6 black cherry

Chatenay, Touchan, and Parisian Carrots

We had a hard freeze a week or so ago. Radio said our County lost 80% of the apple crop. Several of my lilies don't look too good. Doubt they will bloom. Hope they survive.

The Lilac scent has faded and been replaced with Lily of Valley. Northern Lights Azaleas have the most blooms they've ever had. About time!

Columbines blooming in several spots. Solomon's Seal, carpet phlox, Spanish bells and chocolate Geranium are lighting up the shady corner of the garden. The yellow Ur-Iris is about to open. The mini-iris are done.

[Serpent]

Nice, seasonal week after one of freezing nights, cool days and cloud.
We have violets blooming under the cedars where i hang my bird-feeders; lilac is just coming on; apple and choke cherry blossoms look pretty good - I was worried they'd be frozen off last week.

We put all the tomatoes out yesterday. We started them back in March in the greenhouse, then had a major setback with aphid invasion - lost all the pepper and eggplant seedlings. About half the tomatoes survived - I sure hope that includes some Bananalegs and Cherokee Purples! - and have flowers, though they're a bit scrawny. We've been keeping the greenhouse door open during the day and had a few bumblebees in. Not as many as I'd see by now in years past, alas! Had a ladybug swarm in the front porch (!!) so I put a half dozen aphid-infested seedlings in there. Them's stooopid bugs! I rescued as many as I could.

Cucumber and squash plants running rampant; little onions and shallots doing fine; kale hardly bothered to germinate one in ten seeds.

[mtbturtle]

Lilac, little lantern columbines and a turtle lilac& turtle by mtb turtle

[Serpent]

What is the turtle made of? Looks like copper.
The columbines are great. All I have is pink, and they're nowhere near blooming yet. Hummingbirds love them.

[mtbturtle]

What is the turtle made of? Looks like copper.
The columbines are great. All I have is pink, and they're nowhere near blooming yet. Hummingbirds love them.

steel

[Watson]

The only thing blooming here on the tundra is the yellow carpet of Taraxacum officinale. I just harvested a crop earlier, before the rains came.

[Serpent]

Making wine?

[Watson]

No, but that would be a preferred use. I'm just making colorful compost.

[Watson]

Now, after days of rain and gloomy weather most of my plants have drowned. I think I'll plant rice. And, build a large boat.

[mtbturtle]

Lots blooming this week including geraniums, salvia, lupins, columbines, a few poppies, & the wisteria are just starting to open. The stars right now though are the Irises.

bowbed Irises 2016 by mtb turtle,


Irises Vase

[mtbturtle]

Poppies have gotten lucky this year and not been beaten by rain so I've multiple blooms at the same time

five poppies by mtb turtle, on Flickr

[Watson]

We haven't had any rain this way for
hours, almost a full day. My garden didn't get
beat up by the rain but after almost two
weeks of regular rains, it is all looking sad from
being to wet. Hopefully we are getting into some hot dry weather
and things will recover and grow.

[mtbturtle]

We're about to get a heat wave here. Gardeners laments Watson - too little or too much rain....

[Braininvat]

Record or near record heat here today, 97 atm.

Whatever we get, MN, IA, WI, gets in a day or so. But often less extreme, due to being wetter and lower.

17 in. is annual rainfall here, so "too much rain" is rarely spoken. We have some sage coming up in one area of yard, as a weed, but are encouraging it because it's hardy, smells wonderful, and Diana Treadwell (the cat) likes to roll in it.

[Watson]

I think we have had the 'risk of thunder storm' in the forecast for the last several day, including the next two. But nothing has come of it yet. A neighbor's rain gauge showed 14 inches. Today was a hotter than usual day, about 30c with more of the same this coming week. The tomatoes and peppers all look like they will be good, and one very healthy potato plant has popped up from last year. I thought any thing missed in the fall would have froze and rotted. It is the one plant that shows no sign of distress. None of the milk weed came back this year. Any of the herbs I try don't come back either, except for one. Chive on.

[Serpent]

We had the thunderstorm (complete with power outage - which I didn't know about until I looked at the electric clock in another room - inyourfaceHydro!!), cold enough to make a fire three nights in a row, and some very strong winds. The squashes have a few brown leaves but are mostly OK; several vine tomato plants were damaged, one broken in half. And it had lots of little fruit on the top half!
Outdoor peas and greens coming along quite well; eggplant and pepper plants all flowering; we've eaten green onion, lettuce and the prolific lemon cucumber we started in the greenhouse. I got some unusual strawberry plants at half price yesterday and we put them in a new bed covered in landscape fabric.
Herbs are mostly poor; I'll probably have to dig up, divide and relocate my 35-year-old sage. Had to go out and buy basil after the bugs killed my seedlings. Milkweed looks healthy enough, as do the little sunflowers.

I just picked a bouquet of dark purple and some purple and white irises for the big Scandinavian crystal vase. I sure can see why the Impressionists couldn't get enough of these things to paint. Almost want to break out the acrylics myself.

[Athena]

Serpent, I am so sorry about your vegetables hit by the storm.

I have been looking at zucchini and eggplant recipes. I have been eating zucchini, mostly raw, for a couple of weeks now. I can hardly wait for the eggplants to mix with the zucchini in a recipe I found on-line.

There are a couple of recipes I really want to try. One is roasted eggplants, spread with yogurt and then covered with a tomato filling. Another is a kind of stew with the eggplant and zucchini and green peppers and tomatoes.

Does anyone have recipes to share?

[toucana]

This one made me smile :-)

[dandelion]

It lets the sunshine in :)

[Serpent]

Does anyone have recipes to share?

Three favourites for eggplant: parmagiana, fried and curried. Moussaka is actually my SO's favourite, but it's so fussy, neither of us is keen to make it often.
Had the very last little ones from the cold house (the unheated half of the greenhouse) last night, along with the last green tomatoes and a bar of firm tofu. Wash and slice everything. I leave the tomato till last, since it foams up the oil. Dredge each slice in flour, dip in beaten egg, then cover in fine bread crumbs; fry in medium hot vegetable oil; drain excess oil (I use washed rags, not paper towel. Last stop for old teeshirts.) Serve with a dip of 2mayo/1sweet mustard/squirt of lemon juice.

The only thing left in the greenhouse now are some lavender and basil that should overwinter. In the cold part, a few late runner beans are still bearing. Next week - middle of effin November - is supposed to be warm still, so I'll leave them as long as possible. I'm the only one can go in there now, because a very small nest of wild bees moved in just before we sealed the outside doors. We're so happy to see any insects at all, we bend over backward to accommodate them. They never bite me - I probably smell bad.

[Athena]

How are your bees doing?

Is anyone in the garden yet? The community garden where I have a plot is pressuring for us to have our plots weeded and the one day my plot may have been dry enough to work in, I had other things I had to do. Now we are back to rain already! This has been a very wet year and the manager of the garden is a tyrant. I hope she will be reasonable.

[Serpent]

I have seen one bee so far.
All the seedlings in the greenhouse have done very well this year. No aphids!!
The peppers are still in the greenhouse, and will probably stay there. Most of the tomatoes are blooming and have been transplanted to the cool house (enclosed but unheated) in bins. On very cold nights, we drape a plastic tent over them and leave the connecting door open. We lost the first flat of spinach and lettuce, back in february (I suspect cat-piss in the bins; the new guys got in there a couple of times, before we put wire mesh on the door.); the new ones look better. Onions are thriving; cucumbers are looking strong; a small harvest - four buckets, three plants each - of peas about ready pick, though the pods don't fill up as nicely as they would outdoors.

It's just about time to plant the outdoor ones - as soon as the ground dries enough to work. More rain tonight, and they predict thunderstorms. Again. At least the snow seems to have gone for good.

[Athena]

I am so jealous of you! I only have outdoors. My plot is way too wet. Only strawberries, chives, and some chard are growing. I excepted my asparagus to be doing well, but it isn't.

The small box near the apartment is ready for planting and I hope to get pea seedlings in today, and a yellow tomato plant. Then I may throw in some lettuce. But the larger plot? I have no idea when I can plant in it. I may add top soil on top of the leaf mulch and throw seeds in that.

In the planter box near the apartment, I have to deal with my neighbor's cats who like to use my planter box as their sandbox. The small fence I put around it did not stop them, so I added a net to that. It is a nuance to deal with the fence and net but it seems to keep the cats out of my box. Like they have so much outdoors to run in, why do they have to use my box? grrrrrr....

[Braininvat]

Note to self: cat piss not a good nitrogen source for growing spinach and lettuce. Thank you.

I thought we had lost Serpent, but I guess he just went dormant (appropriate to his forum name) during the winter. Welcome back.

[Athena]

Note to self: cat piss not a good nitrogen source for growing spinach and lettuce. Thank you.

I thought we had lost Serpent, but I guess he just went dormant (appropriate to his forum name) during the winter. Welcome back.

Yeah, I was glad to see Serpent's post too.

It is not cat piss that is the problem, but cat shit is likely to carry a parasite that can get on what you grow and it is very bad news for humans. Here is why you really do not want it on your lettuce!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis
Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic disease caused by Toxoplasma gondii.[1] Infections with toxoplasmosis usually cause no symptoms in adult humans.[2] Occasionally there may be a few weeks or months of mild flu-like illness such as muscle aches and tender lymph nodes.[3] In a small number of people, eye problems may develop. In those with a weak immune system, severe symptoms such as seizures and poor coordination may occur. If infected during pregnancy, a condition known as congenital toxoplasmosis may affect the child.[3]
Toxoplasmosis is usually spread by eating poorly cooked food that contains cysts, exposure to infected cat feces, and from a mother to a child during pregnancy if the mother becomes infected. Rarely the disease may be spread by blood transfusion. It is not otherwise spread between people.[1] The parasite is only known to reproduce sexually in the cat family. However, it can infect most types of warm-blooded animals, including humans.[4] Diagnosis is typically by testing blood for antibodies or by testing amniotic fluid for the parasite's DNA.[5]

[Serpent]

Thank you. I have to take a time-out once in a while, when I get too emotionally invested in current events. Must take deep breaths, watch Monty Python, remind self "It's not my cross." and regain what a friend used to call "Olympian detachment".

Anyway. Cats. They appreciate fresh-turned earth; we don't appreciate the use to which they put it.
What I do with potted plants is cover the exposed surface with a barrier. I picked up a few yards of stiff crinoline, or maybe it's the fabric they use to stiffen suit collars, at a thrift store some while ago. Another material that works is the soft mosquito mesh for storm doors; you can get it by the yard at hardware stores, fairly cheap. For woody-stemmed plants, just wrap the top edge around the plant and the lower edge around the pot, in a reversed cone, tie around with string. For soft-stemmed plants, insert a pole and use that for the upper support.
For a box, cover and tie (or staple) down the screen before planting, then cut an X for each seed or seedlings to go in. The plants will push the flaps out of their way as they grow. I do this with an old carpet (or tarp) over the squash bed to get 2 weeks ahead of the season: the carpet keeps moisture in, the soil warm for germinating and the weeds down. Also an excellent shelter for garter snakes, who reciprocate by eating grubs.

No good for spinach and lettuce, I'm afraid, but you could probably make such a cover and support it with a framework of sticks, until the plants grow thick enough to discourage opportunists.

[Athena]

Thanks for the X idea. I may need to use it. My box is surrounded with by a small fence but it doesn't keep the cats out, so I covered the whole box with netting. Only the tomato may get too big for the net. Most the box area I plan to fill with lettuce.

The wire fencing I used for the sugar peas may not be high enough? But it was free. Now that I am writing about it, I realize the netting could be a problem for the peas? I better keep a careful eye on them, and perhaps remove the net from this area? I should have put the peas in the plot down the road, but that ground is still far too wet and it rained again last night.

Our gardens may really be rushed this year because the ground is so wet. I seriously need to continue with the leave mulch and get my plot built up so maybe it will dry out faster. I have mulched it for several years, but I began with a real mess of clay soil that turned into a pool when it rained. It used to be so bad, I walled in my plot and that helped, but people objected to the used wood panels I used. I have made some progress but if I had money I would wall in my plot with nice bricks and add a few tons of top soil. Oh, dream on.

[Serpent]

Or maybe, for peas and beans, use a cat-unfriendly mulch on the soil surface. Or spray with Skat - I don't know whether that works. If you fill up the exposed areas with lettuce, the ground might be all covered and uninviting by the time the peas outgrow their fence and you have to remove the netting.
Another cheap and easy effect is laying twiggy, irregular branches on the soil surface. Of course, that makes cultivation and weeding more of a chore.

Our outdoor soil is mostly gravel - good drainage; lousy nutrient content - so every fall, we've been adding the soil/compost/peat mix from the seed starter pots and the indoor containers. Slowly, it's improving.
Our biggest problem, lately, is wind. That's why the tomatoes and peppers are staying inside this year - hope that leaving the doors at either end open - covered in chicken wire - will let in enough insects to pollinate them.

There's always some annoyance, isn't there?