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Oct 3, 2007 | 11:11 AM PST
So, I have a new cam, so pics will be forthcoming. We have been getting rather a bit of rain (about time) but it is finally the end of the 'real' gardening season. If I can figure out a way to do it with minimal dirt (I know I should use at least a 5 gallon container but am willing to take a risk) I may cold stratify some of the tomato seeds I saved and start them up here in the office. That would be kind of cool, having some fresh tomatoes here. I kept some Black Prince and Brandywine seeds, although who knows what they will end up being as there were a few different varieties of tomatoes out there and I did not bag them so they are no doubt cross pollinated. I really don't mind, as long as they are fresh! I am planning on starting up some of the Jalapeno seeds I saved, I know it will do fine in a relatively smaller pot. I have all this sunshine here at my desk so I might as well take advantage of it, right?
I brought a couple Schefflera's in to the office.
My favorite story about Schefflera's...A pal of mine owned a hotel on the NC coast and the hurricane wall they had put in was coming down after a particularly nasty storm so the hotel had to come down. The people who were hired to take all the furniture and whatnot out and put it in storage really were not all that smart as they put all the plants in the storage unit as well. Three months later we opened up the unit, having already assumed the plants were living in the movers homes (nothing to quibble about, this all had to be done fast so the owner just figured a home is a home) and there they were. No water, no sun, three months...they were fine. They were Schefflera.
Time
to get going on some winter gardening. I got seed for Walla Walla sweet
onins, Garlic cloves, Purple Kohlrabi, Brussels Sprouts and Spinach so
far. I have cleared the sugar snap pea bed so now all I need to do is
take down the trellis (I used screws so it is basically collapsible)
and recondition the little plot o'dirt and wait for the maters to
finish up, collect the radish seeds from the early radish's that I let
bolt and do that soil as well. I want to put in garlic, onions,
Brussels Sprouts and Kohlrabi. They are very neat looking plants.
I will plant the spinach and plan on several lettuce varieties for this fall and come early spring in my tomato and radish bed, yum!
My plants are so happy! No matter how much you water and raise your water bill.. it is never like mother nature! So when we got a few showers yesterday, my plants just perked right up and got a nice drink. The counties around us got more rain than we did, but we got a much needed inch and we are grateful!!
I just found out that one of my neighbors is going to have a wedding in their backyard in a couple of weeks.. so now I want to get out to the back of my lot and make that look a bit nicer for their backdrop in case some of their pictures pick up my backyard in them.I have an area that is about 12 x 10 that I have not worked on yet. That bed is about 150 feet long and that section is at the end and not finished . Now I have some motivation to complete that section. Hopefully I will be able to get some of that done soon.. I have so many projects going already. One is to clean, stain and seal my deck and to also put a porch over my old concrete walkway.. Supposed to get those estimates this week for that project to see how much it will set me back. I think it will be cheaper than taking out the old sidewalk and concrete stoop and repouring concrete.. we will see.
We went away for a little vacation this past long weekend. I left everything but the tomatoes were pretty much dead, the heat wave was not kind, even with me schlepping water every day. Came back, the tomatoes were done too. Yesterday started much needed rain, heavy at times, but steady. It's rained off and on today as well. Too late to save my plants though, but the grass and trees need it too, so I guess it's good.
As soon as the rain stops I'll be pulling up the dead stuff so I can plant peas in the pool garden. I've got two kinds: Oregon Sugar Pod, which I know I can use/freeze in shell; and Thomas Laxton, which says on the package is a heavy producer. I'm thinking from what I'm seeing on the package that these are a pea that I'm going to have to shell these before I cook them and/or freeze them. Anyone know if this is true? I'm also going to plant another batch of radishes. I'm not going to bother with the mixed lettuce/salad greens seeds I planted in the spring, as I wasn't really happy with them. Next spring I'll probably just stick with a green leaf lettuce and skip the other mixed stuff.
Did I get a surprise this afternoon! Went out to check the caterpiller that was roaming around and found a butterfly inside. Don't know where he came from but he was frantic to get out of there, I didn't even have time to see what it was!!!! Black at any rate. Don't know where he decided to pupate as I have been watching them so closely. He had to have emerged inside the cage. No other way to get out of there. Life is a Beach every day in the world of gardening.
Took my 10 year old grandson out to see the cats and the one that is beginning to pupate.
WOW!! I hear rain!!!!! HooRay for the water bill.
Got to finish packing, Load the car and get some rest, early to rise we will be in the morn.
More to Come Later
Really didn't want to go to work today, but once you're there, it's hard to call in sick!! We had almost 6 inches of rain over the weekend, that's a rough estimate because we were out of town Saturday night and the 3+" raingauge was overflowing when I checked it Sunday morning...
The red sunflowers in front of the house are really feeling the brunt of the rain, it's got them so heavy they can't hold up their heads anymore. For only two plants, there certainly are a lot of flowers! The sunflowers I'm familiar with produce only one seed head for each plant, one of ours had 15 last count. Mind you, they aren't large like the yellow variety.
Otherwise, the rain seems to have washed off the JBs (Japanese Beetles for the uninitiated), so the green beans may make a last comeback. Peach tree is a watch and wait, they aren't due 'til Sept. 8th (son's birthday), and if there are any apples left on the tree, they are due the week before. Rain and wind has taken down about 1/2 of the fruit, I've given up trying to get 'em before the chippies do! Bon Apetit, mes amies!
About 20 minutes or so after I hung sheets and towels out on the clothes line it started rumbling. Of course lol, because normally we're at my in-laws all day on Saturdays and Sundays, so normally I wouldn't be hanging laundry out on a weekend. So in came the still wet stuff to go in the dryer. And just in time too. About 10 minutes or so after I got them in it started raining. Lightly at first, but it turned into a hard downpour, lots of thunder and lightning, which used to scare the bejeezus out me. Thankfully as long as I don't see the lightning, it doesn't scare me.
It rained for a good couple hours, tapering off at the last half hour or so to a nice gentle rain. Enough to leave a nice reserve in the pool, so I didn't have to water the tomatoes this evening! Hooray!
Unfortunately it did NOTHING to cool things off. If anything it added to the humidity levels after the rain was done making it feel hotter. Thankfully though it's finally dropped from the 106 temps we averaged last week to the high 90s. Hopefully the first couple weeks of September it'll drop to the mid 80s and I'll actually be able to deal with being outside for more than 5 minutes at a time.
hey all,
well after our nice little shower we just had it is now so stinking muggy here...and sticky...loved the rain though it came down so steady...the garden was loving it...i think my pumpkin that i just took a pic of yesterday is now twice the size...i can't believe how big it has gotten...i am so excited...i know my garden doesn't look like much, but i am so proud of it for being my first garden ever...even though the pumpkins are taking over everything..(as you can see in the pics)...my dh asked my what i want to do with the garden and i was like what do you mean...he just wanted to know if i wanted to make it bigger...i was like i dunno...i just suggested not planting as much next year...and to put the pumpkins off to the side by the fence...so we will have to see what happens...i guess i wouldn't mind go bigger, but that means more work involved and i was hoping to keep it the size that i have right now until i get a little bit more experienced with gardening...
My lovely hubby went to go get more of the city compost today for my new bed. This is a process that he is not very fond of and getting him to do it usually involves some sort of begging and bribery. I can' t say that I blame him as it is a very messy and stinky job. To prove his point he had me take this pict for all the world to see how dirty he gets:
As you can see...the dogs don't seem to mind so much getting dirty:
We got this unloaded just in time for an afternoon hail storm! It was mostly rain, but there was pea sized hail mixed in and SO great to watch from the front porch!
A nice good drink for my newly planted goodies from yesterday! Hopefully, I will start planting up the new bed this weekend!
I'm not going to say the word any more...just not gonna, can't make me. S'posed to have a chance of t-storms and r**n today, I turned on the soaker hose anyhow. I don't believe them anymore. Last time it started to r**n, I got all happy and even posted here about how it was a nice gentle soaking r**n. Which immediately caused it to stop. Now local water utilities are doing the "even/odd" restrictions on watering, sprinklers on even numbered sides today, which is us. Wonder if soaker hoses are included?
Drove past a house at about 12:30pm yesterday and just had to wonder. Green lush grass, the idiot was watering at noon, and apparently his sidewalk looked parched as well, 'cause he was really dousing it. Almost pulled over to let him know he was wasting his water/ money, then realized I'm in the company vehicle, gotta represent...sigh. Big red F-150 with the 1-800 number on the sides, really hard to miss.
Enough whining, at least the marigolds in the veggie bed are happy (they get watered daily by the soaker hose), and my Espada green beans are blowing out the door, outproducing the Blue Lake Bush 5 to 1! Weird thing is, the Japanese beetles (grrrrr...) are all over the Espada leaves, munching away, and the plants are still producing. Go figure!
My Mother told me this story.....
She lived on a dairy farm when she was growing up, but they had crops too. It had been very, very dry for quite some time. Then one day it started to rain. And it rained, and rained and rained. They were all in the house, chilling out, and watching the rain. All of a sudden her Dad jumped from his chair, OH, he exclaimed and then he ran out the door, into the rain. Of course, all of the kids and his wife didn't have a clue why in the world would any normal person run out into the rain at full tilt like that. After a few minutes, here he came trotting back, carrying a dead snake. When questioned about what was going on he said that he had put the snake, belly up on the top of the shed, so it would rain, but had forgotten to take it down when the rain started. Within a few minutes the rain subsided and they were able to go back outside.
My grandfather believed that if he put that snake, belly up on the top of the shed, it would rain. I don't know if thats true or not (I think, not) but it makes for a cute story. I do believe, from my Mothers perspective, everything she told me about how this happened that day was true, she wasn't accustomed to telling fibs. I don't know if she believed in the rain snake or not, I think it was an interesting set of circumstances.
We have been in a drought all summer and I have had to stay up on watering and do it during the restricted time allotment. But, since last week we have been getting some consistent afternoon showers. A lot of them are even major thunderstorms that are great to watch from the front porch. Its just fabulous! The only thing is that it makes everything grow really fast...including the weeds, so I am really having to stay on top of that!!
Most of you have read my entries about the creek clean out project and I have mentioned how we are on a flood plane and our backyard changes a lot in a heavy downpour. We had one today, so here are some picts:
We haven't had a good rain here in my neck of the woods in months. Good new is that since yesterday, it has been raining on and off and we have even gotten some really hard downpours!!! Its just fabulous and it has forced me to spenc a lot of time sitting on the porch watching the garden in stead of out working in it...Here are some picts I took yesterday in between showers while stting on my front porch :)
Funny...things don't even look wet, thats how bad we need rain, just sucked it all up!
Ok, now its wet...taken 5 minutes ago:
M
y little girl...swinging in the rain :)
There has been alot going on, even though it has rained a majority of the last two weeks. If it didn't rain in the morning it would later in the day. The temps have been great though, not over 85 and even had one afternoon that was down to 72 because of the storm passing through. Of course I couldn't take advantage of these nice temps too much because of the rain and soggy ground. The grass had gotten so tall it was kind of rediculous. Everytime I though I was going to be able to take out the mower.....I would go and check the radar on the comp. and there was a big green and yellow spot comin' right at me. So I just waited. Tall grass for awhile doesn't hurt anything. Just isn't that comfy to walk in, especially when wet. I haven't had to water the garden....obviously, very nice.
Some of the tomatoes have been doing great. The cherrys and the Brandywine especially. We have been harvesting beautiful tomatoes everyday off of the cherry and every couple of days off of the Brandywine. The Burpee Beefsteak has succumbed to some kind of wilt....it was supposed to be resistant! Oh well, just won't grow that kind again. I also plan to cover that area of soil with plastic so it can cook over the rest of the hot summer. Hopefully that will help keep it from spreading if it had the notion. The Rutgers would be doing great if it wasn't for the beefsteak next to them. Some of the leaves on the Rutger that is closest to where the beefsteak was have started to show signs of the wilt as well. They are so far along though I don't think it will have a drastic effect on the harvest though. I just harvested the first tomato off of the Rutger. ALL LARGE TOMATOES MUST BE HARVESTED BEFORE FULLY RIPE. The birds have decided that they are going to snack on them at breakfast if I let them ripen completely on the plants. Almost penny size holes!!! So I am just beating them to the tomatoes.
In the center area where I had the Giant Pumpkin.....The watermelon has completely taken over. There aren't even hardly any weeds popping up because the vines are so thick. I have some of the baby watermelons getting some good size on them. They seem to just jump in size overnight. I am encouraged that the melons themselves are getting bigger. Being that they were seeds saved from an unknown cultivar I had no idea what they would do. Here is a picture of one of the bigger watermelons.
The fig tree has about 40 little figs on it and has started to sprout some new growth as well. It also has some tiny red dots on some of the leaves. I need to put some more fertilizer stakes around it. I am hoping to train it as a bush and keep it about 6ft. tall. If I have to trim it after that I want to try to sprout the pieces I trim to grow more.
The eggplant have continued to do good. There are a good amount of baby eggplants on most of the plants, and I have harvested a few more. I don't know what is a GREAT crop for an eggplant but I am happy with what is there. Three of the kinds that I started from seed stay on the smaller size, like a large orange. The ones that I tasted have been delicious. Now there are some of the Black Beauty ones swelling in size, here is a picture of them. Very shiny and dark purple.
The way my compost pile is set up, is just not working. Its not cooking very fast. I don't have it covered, its in the shade and I don't stir it. LOL, It will get there maybe by this fall. We cleaned out the chicken house yesterday and added all of the waste and old hay to it. I also sprinkled over the rest of a bag of "compost maker" that I had left. It doesn't seem like that stuff works very fast though. Maybe I haven't added enough of it. Yesterday at church I was talking to a farmer that said someone told him that RidX works great on a compost pile. I have no idea whats in that...don't know if it would be considered organic or not. I am going to make sure it is all piled up really good and then cover it with a black tarp that I have, maybe that will help it along as well. I don't think letting the rain just wash through it the last couple of weeks has helped either. I am hoping that by this fall it will be broken down enough to use on the perennial beds. Don't want to use it on the veggie garden because I add grass clippings from the back yard, which is where the doggies have their outhouse. ;)
The asparagus is doing better than I expected. It is still sending up shoots, very surprised about that. It also has put on seed pods on a few ferns. They are still green though. I accidently broke the tip off of a new shoot awhile back....so I had to taste it, it was very yummy. Now I can't wait until next spring. The only thing bad that has happed has been puppy damage. Before I sold 3 of them they got into one of the beds and were running around. They broke off a few of the ferns. Aggravating!!! Only one puppy left to sell!!! Thank God she is calmer now that the others are gone. I think that I need to make some kind of support frame to go around the ferns though. They are really leaning in some places. That can be a project for early winter. Next spring the ferns should be thicker too which should help as well. Here are a couple of pics. #1 is ferns on the Jersey variety and #2 is new shoot coming up on the Purple Passion variety.
Ok, I know we have needed a good rain for the past two summer, but....the sky has opened and boy has the rain came down in Central Texas. Our lakes are about as full and they can get, the local dam has opened it's flood gates for two days now, folks in Marble Falls, right up the road from me, has lost their homes and business! It's a really strange thing to see after the drought! Road are still closed and the rain is still falling in some parts with more to come. My garden looks great now, but too much more rain and I am not sure if it will survive. My large, I mean large, rain barrel is almost full, figured it would take months of rain. My yard is soggy and smelly. So, if the sun does come out, we will have a giant "heat" lamp in a bath house type effect...HUMID!! Hopefully everyone will Survive!! JT
OH. MY. GOSH!!!!
Its Raining! We haven't had rain in FOREVER!!!!!
At first I was kinda annoyed because I was in the middle of weeding, but after a nano second, I thanked the heavens and moved inside for the virtual gardening world.
I've been working on those pesky little summer weeds in the back....my next BIG project is to clear the overgrowth behind our back fence. There is a creek back there somewhere and god only know what else...
Already
starting to think about my garden in the fall too. THink I might plant some brightly colored mums along the back path. Also want to plant a bunch of bulbs. Fun, Fun!
It finally rained some here. As of yesterday we were 3.75 inches below for rain. We haven't had lots of rain since March. Just little showers that didn't last long. Everyone's grass is brown and you have to water the gardens every day. The showers we have been getting are hit and miss. And we have been missing them.
P.S. Added a photo of all the rain we got in March. Also a photo of the snow we got April 15. Take a look at my photos to see these two pictures.
Its been awhile since my last post according to my last log entry. Other than keeping things watered an weeded its been the same ole same ole. We've gotten 2 evenings of good rain, that has really done a lot of good. I have finally gotten around to planting the last 2 Thai Green Eggplant plants into their container. I almost let my comfrey die of drought, although its not a pretty green I think it will come back. I still have a couple blueberry bushes to plant but really don't know where to put them. So I'm keeping them in the water path of the garden so they get a good drink daily. I've had to replant my Sieva (sp) Pole Butterbeans 3 times, but they have finally broke ground. My last years Everbunching Onions gave up and after clearing that spot I put up my bambo pole I had dried out early an put up a trellis then planted the Willowleaf Pole Butterbeans to climb on, some have already broke ground.
Tonight for supper I was finally able to use up 3 of the patty pan squash I had picked an added them to the yellow crookneck squash added some scallions an the 1 brocolli head I had picked a couple days ago with some olive oil, salt an pepper, sauted just enough to leave a little crunch along with some of the multi colored potatoes (that didn't get big at all) with some fresh from the garden diced garlic with diced rosemary sprinkled with some EVOO, fried green tomatoes, an cucumber with vinegar, salt & pepper. All this with some venison cube steak. Man ole man was it good. Nothing like picking your supper fresh from the garden.
I have already put up 2 trays of bell peppers in the freezer. Hopefully by the end of the season I'll have plenty of that to do awhile. I've got a mystery vine that I trellis up on an old baby bed spring that I have no idea what its gonna be, but it came up in the strawberry patch. I'm thinking it may be lemon cukes, thats the same spot they were last year an with adding compost to the strawberries its very possible thats what it is. I have ID'd on the the volunteer squash an I am pretty possitive its the banana squash. Undecided whether to leave it or rip it out. My strawberry plants all have runners on them now, just need to find the time to get some small pots done up and place the babies in them so they can take root in them instead of where ever they choose.
I've only picked a couple of those black with yellow striped worms off the tomatoes so far, but yet to find any of the horned worms yet. It may still be a little early not sure, but am curious to see if my experiment is working. More later on that! I have added a scoop or two around all the veggie plants of the wonderful manure an could see a difference within a few days.
Where in the heck did 22 days go? Oh wait, that's right ~ I've been out looking for rain. So far, it seems that dancing on the front lawn in a funny outift does not work. When we bought this place, I never noticed that there is one, yes just ONE outdoor water faucet. When I mentioned this to my husband, it became the mission he chose to accept. Where-oh-where was the missing backup faucet. Ding-ding-ding, you win ~ it's underneath the deck that the previous owner (God rest him) added to the side of the house. Not to be deterred by a deck with maybe 8" of (ick) crawlspace, husband decides to do major surgery in order to expose extra faucet. Ding, ding ~ you win AGAIN (gosh, it's your lucky day!) the water is disconnected. We are now up to Plan W which includes something to do with the old well on the north side of the property. That tale remains to be told.
In the meantime, I have been dragging the 300 miles of hose all over creation. It isn't so bad on the days I don't step in the large gifts our doberman kindly leaves directly in my path. What was I thinking when I planted perennials and shrubs nine miles from the house ~ that it would actually rain on them??! Snort. On the up side, I have color and lots of it. Day lilies, roses, poppies, nasturtiums, anemones, primroses, verbena, diathus, blah, blah, brag, brag. Since water is cheap here (they send out an emergency inspector if your bill soars to $30) I can spray away.
So all of you gardeners with work that is completed and nothing to do, take a look at my grilled garden veggie recipes in that forum. Even though I cannot spell the word "ve-ge-ta-ble", they're still pretty darn good!
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