What did you do in the garden today?

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Good morning gardeners. The temps and humidity went down last night. It's currently 55F. But it is nice. I got two more garden beds weeded out yesterday. Two more to go. My biggest surprise in the garden yesterday was seeing asparagus plants rising out of the dirt. Two of the larger fern-like things and several little spears. I'll give them a few more days before I weed that bed. I wasn't sure when or what they would come up looking like so I've barely touched that bed. It dawned on me that the majority of the garden has only been in the ground for barely a month so I guess I'm doing ok. I'm a little disappointed with the peas. They are barely 3 feet high and are blooming already. But my tomatoes seemed to be doing well and I tasted the endive yesterday and it is ready to eat. Yum! I need to thin my first planting of carrots again, hopefully for the last time, but I'm hoping for some tender baby carrots for now. My conehead cabbage hasn't formed heads so far. I know several of you said you were planting it and I was wondering how yours is doing? The temps and humidity are forecasted to remain low for the next several days so that will help me get caught up on the gardens and the yard work. Have a great day everyone.

 

[Acre4Me]

Hi everyone! When I got home from work this evening I pulled a few weeds and watered the garden. Hubby made me a 2nd bee hive stand. I hope to split my hive later in the week!
Anyone know how to tell when tomatillos are ripe/ ready? I’ve never grown them before. I don’t think they are ready yet. I’m just asking for future reference.
My carrots still haven’t sprouted.
I’ve only got 7 radish sprouts in 1 section and 4 in another. So unless they come in like gang busters latter, I’m not going to get very many!
I love the clematis when it blooms!
I couldn’t believe the poor performance of my zucchini last year either! I think they must havebeen alien zucchini.
I did see a few a the pea plants poking through the ground today.
Oh, and my rotten chickens stripped all the green off of my 1 Elderberry plant that was doing well ( out of the 2 original ones I got).
Now I’ll need to make cages for all the fruit trees. I had thought that since they had ignored them this long that I was not going to have to worry. Guess they showed me!

we are growing tomatillos for the first time, too. They are only flowering so far. Carrots: we are also having poor/sporadic luck.

 

[Acre4Me]

Garden looks food for the most part. It was really windy a few days ago, and I think it snapped my vigorous butternut squash plant...I was so sad! I do have 2 others of same variety, but they are growing from seed, so not as far along.

we had installed soaker hoses in a few beds. Yesterday I turned them on in the tomato beds, but had to leave for an errand and told the teen to turn them off in about an hour. Well, about 7 hours later, when I was back out in the garden, they were still on!! Luckily they are in raised beds, on a slight incline, so they shouldn’t have been waterlogged. They do say to water tomatoes deeply, so we definitely did that. I’m just happy they were soaker hoses, so that limited the excess water used.

it rained this morning too, so everything is nicely watered for me!

 

[igorsMistress]

Good morning gardeners. @karenerwin I was told that when the papery skin is dry and the fruit comes off the plant easily they are ready. @Wee Farmer Sarah yay for asparagus! I watered this morning morning and I'm frustrated with the junipers. They both look horrible but one seems to still have some supple green on it, but I'm pulling the other one today. Ruellia is super easy to propagate and I know it's chicken proof so I'll probably fill in the xeriscape garden with cuttings after I get everything else in.
New oleanders for outside the west wall

Ruellia and firebush

I went out to the garden near dusk yesterday and pulled out the ground cover and a few weeds, the forget me nots and the alyssum

Mint is very happy!

The pink hibiscus, Rose of Sharon, is growing well

Red bird of paradise

The thing with the yellow bell shaped flowers is blooming, it's a recent transplant and loves bunny poop!

The juniper that I think might make it

Aloes. The logs and hay really help the soil maintain moisture

The Mexican BOP. I'm going to see how it does without protection. The chickens spend very little time out there because of the heat so it might be ok.

Enjoy your day everyone!

 

[katiefloy]

Garden looks food for the most part. It was really windy a few days ago, and I think it snapped my vigorous butternut squash plant...I was so sad! I do have 2 others of same variety, but they are growing from seed, so not as far along.

we had installed soaker hoses in a few beds. Yesterday I turned them on in the tomato beds, but had to leave for an errand and told the teen to turn them off in about an hour. Well, about 7 hours later, when I was back out in the garden, they were still on!! Luckily they are in raised beds, on a slight incline, so they shouldn’t have been waterlogged. They do say to water tomatoes deeply, so we definitely did that. I’m just happy they were soaker hoses, so that limited the excess water used.

it rained this morning too, so everything is nicely watered for me!

this is so me. i have to sit by the pond when i am refilling or topping off or i forget the water is on. i come out the next day to a flooded yard.

i am working on a system to send the backflush of the pond filter to a water barrel so i can water/fertilize my vegetable and fruit plants with it instead of the weeds. i may need to find some clear hose so i can tell when the water starts running clear. i don't think i have seen any that large before though. i think the hose is 1.5" diameter.

today is gorgeous! i love this weather, upper 70's and low humidity. i am trying to decide what to do today. i need to mow down some spots the lawnmowers don't do, finish closing in the soffits on the chicken run so i can leave their door open at night, paint the top of a fence post that is too tall for the pvc sleeve around it, and weed and deadhead my front flower beds. instead i am sitting in the shade, watching chicken tv.

i watched olaf eat a wasp yesterday. yay olaf! the day before she caught and ate a little frog. i was worried about my honeybees with the chickens, but so far everytime they have seen one they look at it then ignore it and they steer clear of the bee boxes. so far they also ignore my pepper and tomato plants. they peck it once or twice, but i guess they don't like it cause they leave them alone after. i expect that will probably change once they start fruiting. they also seem to ignore my stawberries which ARE fruiting. i thought that was odd. so far i only had to protect my one fruiting blueberry bush. do they become less discriminating and more destructive as they get older?

 

[Sueby]

Morning everyone.

@katiefloy chickens are weird with what they like. Mine only like the tops of strawberries. & the big girls wouldn't touch blueberries till the littles got here, they littles love them so now the big girls do too. Weirdos. But I would think they'd destroy your strawberries!

I'm freaking out - they neighbor just came over to tell us the bear knocked down their bird feeder last night. WELL DUH. So he said he's only gonna leave the 3 ground feeders out & take in the pole feeder. My only hope is that the bear will go after their turkey seed & leave my chickens alone. I'm gonna take all the feeders in & park the tractor & truck next to the coop, hoping obstacles will deter it. It's been tearing apart coops & killing chickens all over town. I really need electric fence but my set up is so not right for it, I have no idea how we could make it work.

Anyway, after treating with copper my tomatoes all look good. I tied them up & cut off all the blighted leaves, the San Marzanos all look clear of it so far.

Have a great day all. I'm so flustered with the bear I forget what I wanted to say to a couple of you, lol.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

I would be freaked out over the bear as well. Do you have a town official or conservation officer to let him know that he is causing a risky situation with the bird feeders? Gee, I almost feel bad for getting a little annoyed when my neighbor told me she was letting her cat out in the morning to kill chipmunks.

 

[Sequel]

Those are not what we have - yours look beautiful! Ours are horrible. I've heard them called Morning Glories because they climb (like a foot every day, almost) but they have white flowers that grow into these huge, weird alien-looking spiky pods. They take over whole areas very quickly and choke out everything they grow near. I'll take a picture when it's light and post it when I can. Maybe one of you expert plant people can tell me what it really is.

I heard it called bindweed. I have great glorious piles of it if I take a day off!

 

[Sueby]

I would be freaked out over the bear as well. Do you have a town official or conservation officer to let him know that he is causing a risky situation with the bird feeders? Gee, I almost feel bad for getting a little annoyed when my neighbor told me she was letting her cat out in the morning to kill chipmunks.

It's a tough call for me, if the bear is deemed to be a nuisance eventually they will destroy it. People think they just relocate them, they do not. & as the saying goes, a fed bear is a dead bear. Last year a couple of them broke into peoples houses not far from here. We had one walk into a package store (liquor store for you non new englanders, lol) right by my work! I still find that hilarious, he needed a drink. Thankfully a worker reacted quickly enough to push the button & shut down the automatic door so it only made it into the entry way, not fully in the store.

 

[pennyJo1960]

We have the Bindweed I guess and Morning glory hate both fight both all the time..
As far as tomatillas almost as large as tomato not quite ..
Bears are losing their battles we created .. Cannot disagree but know they
did not create their demise we did