What did you do in the garden today?

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Good morning gardeners. We got a little rain yesterday evening. It was nice and cooled things down a bit. It snuck up near 90 again yesterday. Ugh! The forecast is for scattered showers today then dry and in mid to high 70's tomorrow. I picked more peas and green beans this morning. I have the same type of leaf damage on my bell peppers and cucumbers @karenerwin [/USER] and @Sueby. I tried the dish soap spray this morning, so hopefully it will help. The epsom salts spray worked really well, so maybe I'll get lucky again. Sorry for all the recent losses. What a tough month. Looking forward to better days. The pictures are lovely as always @TropicalBabies. I'm sure the additional ventilation will help your birds handle the heat a little better. I have another window to install in my big coop, but that is mainly to let more sunlight in during the winter. On really hot days I leave the people door to the coop open to keep the air flowing and the heat down. I do close it up when the sun goes down. Let's hope this heat doesn't last all summer. Have a great day everyone.

 

[AllenK RGV]

Thanks Allen. I'm thinking about some modifications to the coop. Another person on my state thread basically has my coop but they built with wire all the way around. I'm thinking about making the sides half walls when we replace the plywood and covering the top half with hwc. Might put in a solar fan to blow the hot air out too. Weather folks are saying this is going to become the new normal in summer

I would consider leaving the northern wall intact though. We still get cold fronts here in the lower 48 and the sun really never hits that side. My chicken all roost facing south and I would hate to think they get a north wind up their knickers.

 

[WthrLady]

I have an open coop. They do just fine all the way down to 20 below 0, and that's not the windchill either - you don't want to know that number.

Didn't set foot in the garden yesterday. I should today.

The cucumber plant has a fungus. You can treat it, but the cukes are no longer edible, so may as well rip it out.

 

[Acre4Me]

I lost 2 chickens over night, makes me sad!

Thats sad! But, hopefully no more lost to the heat.

bow tie pasta salad

Something I should try more of - cold salads for summer dinners. I've probably made 3 pasta salads in my life - I like them, just didn't grow up eating them very often, and don't think of them.


Everyones pics are great! love reading about everyone's successes!

 

[igorsMistress]

I would consider leaving the northern wall intact though. We still get cold fronts here in the lower 48 and the sun really never hits that side. My chicken all roost facing south and I would hate to think they get a north wind up their knickers.

Oh of course! I put the roost on the north wall and that definitely needs to be solid. I have solid panels to put on the wire part of the walls in winter to keep it warmer so we'd just need a couple more for the top half of the sides.

 

[WthrLady]

Gardeners ... fun link live cam
https://longwoodgardens.org/sprout?...g/sprout&utm_campaign=Titan Arum Announcement

 

[igorsMistress]

I have an open coop. They do just fine all the way down to 20 below 0, and that's not the windchill either - you don't want to know that number.

Didn't set foot in the garden yesterday. I should today.

The cucumber plant has a fungus. You can treat it, but the cukes are no longer edible, so may as well rip it out.

What do you mean by open? Mine has 3 solid walls, one is hardware cloth.

 

[AllenK RGV]

What do you mean by open? Mine has 3 solid walls, one is hardware cloth.

I am confused too my main coop only has a single north and 1/2 eastern wall left. Chicken comfort has forced me to remove all the plywood and replace it with HC. First I tried drilling out vent holes that wasn't sufficient. It all had to go.

@WthrLady did mention she has to deal with extreme cold as well. I do not miss walking my dog in -20C weather one bit. We had fun but now I have options.

 

[Acre4Me]

More garden pics.

Just have to share bc it is our first time with such a nice Tomato set. We do have tomato Hornworms this year - they really did a lot of damage on the plants on the deck. One plant showed damage in the garden, but I've sprayed Bt 2x now - to hopefully get as much coverage as possible for those voracious beasts. I also sprayed the cabbage types with Bt - bc they were getting eaten up by the cabbage moth caterpillars. The cabbage isn't looking too terrible, but not great.

Japanese Beetles out in full force - creating havoc on my bean plants. Set out a second bag trap - and caught about 50 in the first couple of hours it was hanging. Changed the bag on the first one as it was pretty full of bugs.

Cucumber beetles out and causing problems, but the population doesn't seem too high.


This tomato is really big - its not just the perspective.

Nice shape and so shiny!

All crammed in - just looking forward to some ripe tomatoes!

Another plant with good set.

ripening Compari

ripening Black Cherry

I think I'll pick this one today

Here's the tomatillo. TONS of the little female flowers. But, we only planted one plant bc the other plant died. THEN we found out there should be two plants for pollination!

What a ton of peppers! Sometimes it amazes me how many peppers a single plant can make.

Another pepper, also with a heavy load. Not all the pepper plants are this heavily loaded, but for such small plants they sure are productive.

 

[Acre4Me]

Gardeners ... fun link live cam
https://longwoodgardens.org/sprout?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_content=longwoodgardens.org/sprout&utm_campaign=Titan Arum Announcement

We've been following this on fb! I've been to Longwood several years ago and it is a pretty amazing place. Just reviewed the stages of "Sprout" with the kid!