What did you do in the garden today?

[TJAnonymous]

we pretty much decided that we will continue to plant marigolds bc they are pretty and they help a tiny bit against bugs, but can feed them to the flock for very colored egg yolks! Its been nice to grab a small bucketful of flower heads easily to distribute to the girls.

I tried to get my chickens, goats, and bun-bun to eat the marigolds and none of them seem interested....which stinks because I have TONS of them. I will probably continue to plant them too just because they are pretty and colorful.

 

[littledog]

Fits perfectly with my lifestyle..I’m incapable of throwing anything away! My home is a class four hoarding situation..(I’m making up an imaginary Hoarding Scale where 4 doesn’t really mean anything!…)

LOL, that makes us class 4 hoarders, too! At least we usually, eventually, find a use for our hoardings, before they become rotten. My new raised beds are made out of discount timbers that had been sitting around for a year, attached to random wood we scavenged from our neighbors after they moved. The beds we will build to complete the space next year after this year's harvest, will be made out of pallets that have been sitting around all this year. Hey, there's not much to knock about the stuff we get for free!

Plum Sauce has been entered. I'll mail it about the 18th, as it's not due until the 23rd. I'll do a return envelope for any award/premium/comments, but I won't have them return the Plum Sauce. It was a trick to find a jar and lid that matched, brand wise, I had to dig through and find my small mouth Kerr flat lids as most of my half pint jars are Kerr. Actually, many of my half pint jars are MASON and almost 100 years old. Although Ball is Mason, but it states they MUST match. So.... Label is printed and attached. Wish me luck.

Good luck, your plum sauce sounds delicious! You definitely took pains to follow all the rules for matching jars and lids, so in my humble opinion you deserve to win. Some judge and their family is going to be so lucky, with you not expecting your plum sauce to be returned to you.

I bought a 6 pack of Amish paste tomato plants from the FFA..... turns out they're cherry tomatoes! That was a surprise

LOL, I bought a tomato plant from a local farmer that was labeled Sungold (orange colored cherry tomato, very common in my area that I've grown many times) and this tomato plant is forming a multitude of branches of huge early tomatoes that are obviously not Sungolds. Can't wait until they ripen, so I can find out what they really are!

I haven't done much in my garden since last week besides watering and weeding the bed next to the house, due to work commitments and all my spare time riding and taking care of my horses, and our dog.

Finally had time to pick today, and got two big, but not too big, zucchini, plus enough cukes to fill 4 quarts of pickles. So this weekend I can fill the canner with those, along with the three quarts of sauerkraut that are ready!

 

[TJAnonymous]

I plant them for the same reason. I can't stand the smell of them, but the girls like them well enough.

I can't help but think that marigolds smell like marijuana. I am not a smoker of any type but I know quite a few people who use it for medicinal purposes.

I have some watering jugs buried in all of my raised beds. When I fill the watering jugs on a couple of plants, I always have to bury my face in the marigolds to reach them....so I can't avoid getting huge whiffs. Not the most pleasant smell in the world, as flowers go....I know some people like that sort of smell. I'd prefer roses....

 

[Happy hen lover]

the same here. nasturtiums help with aphids.

I used mint and basil in my tubs seemed to work.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Same Here! Planted 2 zucchini and 2 different yellow squash about 10 days ago. Hoping for a few more to eat before the end of the season. They tend to dislike the colder nights as it gets into September, so it all depends on how cold the nights get.

The vine borer even got my butternuts! I've heard that usually they leave butternuts alone. One of the two butternuts isn't looking great - it produced 3 squash, and may be done. The other has produced 3, and has recently set 2 more, so hopefully it lives long enough to get those two to maturity. They got my pumpkins, and I dissected, but not sure if I got them all - the big pumpkin is limping along, the decorative small ones seem ok, but its hard to get to the hill as I let 7 of those plants grow.

I dug at least 5-6 vb larva out of my TWO pumpkin plants about a week ago. A few days ago, I realized I needed to check them for a round 2 because several arms were turning yellow. I dug ANOTHER 5-6 vb worms out of my pumpkins....AGAIN. I only have ONE arm that is still green and looking healthy. I guess the good news is that I have two small pumpkins that are fully orange. I can't remember what variety of pumpkin I planted this year but I don't think they get very big. Maybe some kind of small sugar pumpkin that's used for pie or something....so at least they ripen quickly.

 

[BReeder!]

I do companion planting too. Marigolds throughout the garden (great), carrots with the tomatoes -great bc I HATE watching carrots not grow, so this way I can completely ignore them and will have carrots at end of season -like magic. I did nasturtium this year, but a bit of a fail -since I covered my brassicas, the cabbage moths had to put their hungry babies somewhere, and they chose the nasturtiums. The only untouched nasturtium is surrounded by marigolds.

A rabbit actually ATE one of my marigold plants this year. I couldn't believe it. They may have helped with insects though. I didn't notice many pests this year except vine borers and bean beetles. I took care of the bean beetles. The flowers also attract a lot of pollinators.

 

[TJAnonymous]

the same here. nasturtiums help with aphids.

That's what I've read and why I planted nasturtiums literally all over the garden, but they didn't seem to deter the aphids around my main row of tomatoes inside the hoop house. However, that could be because the nasturtiums around those tomatoes didn't get very big at all. The nasturtiums I planted around a trap crop of tomatoes exploded which, I think, explains why THOSE tomatoes didn't have ANY aphids or thrips on them.

 

[Sally PB]

I'm afraid to go look at my butternut squash. I don't think there is a single squash on any of the plants. So melons and squash are total busts for me this year. All that space I gave them... all the mulch...

<-- at least this emoji is about plants, not chickens!

 

[Phaedra Geiermann]

Made a chicken tunnel for one of the flocks

 

[Elyrian1]

I can't help but think that marigolds smell like marijuana. I am not a smoker of any type but I know quite a few people who use it for medicinal purposes.

I was a bank teller for a while in Colorado. Sometimes people's money smelled... funny. I won't touch the stuff personally, the smell gives me a headache. But even worse were the stacks of $1 bills that some ladies would bring in, if you follow.

Well DH has pulled it off! He found a shipping crate that'll suffice for the number of birds I'm aiming for. Free! That's a good portion of our startup expense just gone! A comparable basic coop made by hand would probably cost us $400 with current prices. Now we just need alterations to it, a tub brooder, and a dog/coyote/raccoon secure run. Looking at hoop run options currently for cost benefit.

I'll get out and water the plants later. Currently overheated from draining RV tanks. Ew. That is all.