What did you do in the garden today?

[WthrLady]

Morning all. Another eyelid sweating kind of morning. 80 degrees with a dewpoint of 68. Only going up, up, up.
I have navy beans in the canner, just about to pop the weight on.
I'll get inside chores done while those process, then I'll head out and start weeding the buffaloburr until I can't stand it anymore.
The trick to squash is planting a like of season and then MANY.

 

[pennyJo1960]

hello everyone ,i haven't posted for a long time been lurking though .i lost my chickens last year so decided no more ,been redoing my whole garden mostly flowers shrubs for pollinaters etc but now got the urge to grow my own veg again ,(used to years ago) .i,ve planted some potatoes that were sprouting in the cupboard then some old runner bean seeds that were out of date (they are growing well )my neighbour gave me some toms 31 plants in the tray.i,ve never grown toms outside before .i,m growing herbs on kitchen windowsill but i,ve just finished a plot outside to make into herb garden .got spring onions in a container that i thought lost ,the day i planted them it poured down never stopped for a month. i will post photos when i learn how i,m not technically minded .got the urge to get more chickens but impossible here just now so i,ll just get new coop and create new area for them and wait .

Welcome to the gardeners thread we also love photos at the bottom of the screen for message see to the left attach files know where you have photos

 

[NewBoots]

It was underneath an overturned plastic oil collecting pan ( that I use as a waterer). It was up by the coop last night!
Anyway I shooed the bird back up to the coop.

LOL, how lucky was it that you thought to look under the thing?

I've never grown okra, but maybe you could pollinate with a qtip.

I'll try that, The flowers seem pretty fragile, several have fallen off before they even opened. This is probably a fools errand on my part. Oh well, I'll have tried.

Raccoon saga: neighbor caught 2 young coons, which will be dispatched.

I really hope you get yours. If you can deal with a a leg-old type of trap, you might try one of these:

Very unlikely (not impossible) to catch anything other than a raccoon, but you have to be ready to dispatch them as soon as you check the trap.

I'll be munching on fresh peas soon. Yay! I discovered young peas forming yesterday.

Yum! I'm going to try pickling some of my sugar snaps, we can't stay ahead of ours.

Good Morning Gardeners, no rain yesterday or last night so I did the watering. Going to have to put out slug bait, the slugs and snails find my planting deck very convenient for snacking. They're also munching my poor green onions in the raised bed. I hate using bait but they really did a number on my newly transplanted peppers, and I'd really like to pickle some peppers this year. Whichever of my cockerels that has been feebly crowing seems to have rethought his position. He rarely crows in the early morning now and just pops one or two off (still warbly baby crows) later in the day. He's just now 2 months old so it seemed kinda early to be crowing at all so I'm happy.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Good grief you have snails there keep them Boots, I hate them

 

[NightingaleJen]

Missed a few days during the weekend, so alas, will have to zip through and not respond to a fair amount, though I love reading everything. No doubt all of us were busy outdoors.

Spent this morning *finally* getting new straw down in the veggie beds, even in the rain; our usual guy didn't sell this year because of SARS2 (! It's an honor system operation, but...okay) and then no one else had any for some reason! Better late than never, especially the way our garden has had to fight off (very ineffectively) raccoons this year. ;P Pulled some more seeds from my stash to plant this evening or tomorrow AM.

Based on the squash problems you all seem to be having, perhaps I should just be glad none of ours survived the raccoons (death to all of them!) and plant something else in that spot?

Some zinnias coming up; lots of tomato blossoms (wahoo!); one sunflower destroyed and another mysteriously beheaded (they're outside the garden fence, so that is my fault—but could it still end up blooming? Anyone know?); first nasturtium bloom about to pop (yay!); Stella D'Oros blooming; looks like a cuke seedling has FINALLY popped; new bush bean seedling up, and the more mature plants have many blossoms; mystery cabbage somehow decided to implant itself into the bed (it was aliens); radish seedlings everywhere.

It was very hot yesterday—94-95F—and while cooler today, it's muggier after intermittent rain that began overnight and continued until an hour ago. We very much needed the rain, though, and I am grateful for it.

Didn't do anything yesterday but buy mulch (salesman: "Please tell me you are not putting this out today." "Nope."). Families are both quite distant so after church and the errand-running, we stayed home, inside, windows open and shades drawn, with the ceiling fan and some lemonade, working on 'inside things' (I'm very susceptible to heatstroke for some reason, yet also hate AC). In fact...we had *ice cream for dinner* (which we do maybe twice a year. Sue me!). It was the keto kind, though, so we were not ravenous an hour later. ;P

Our garden is well-fenced in, and here's why: Just saw two does, both with twin fawns, wander over the drive and back into the woods. (They *are* lovely, just...eating machines.) First fawns I've seen this year! One had a ridiculous amount of spots. Also, Friday evening we found a beautiful box turtle making her way across the drive, but neither of us had a phone or camera (either wildlife encounter, actually). What gorgeous markings on her little portable house!

Here's the first nasturtium of the season—not sure of the variety, she's a volunteer, believe it or not. Might be "Vesuvius"...or some mutant that created itself in the garden last summer.

Speaking of tomatoes, I've never tried Green Zebra or Black Krim, but I've got Paul Robeson, Abraham Lincoln, Black Plum, Pink Brandywine, Speckled Roman, New Yorker, Roma, Pink Oxheart, Pineapple, Kellogg's Breakfast, Pink Honey, and Moneymaker growing at the moment (wow, I forget how many varieties I have growing!)

Pink Brandywine is good too! We haven't the room to grow too many—I'm pushing it as it is—but we are really hoping to begin building the gigantic permanent garden this year. (We have nothing but rocky clay in the planned garden area, plus I have back issues, so Raised Beds Forever.)

@karenerwin, hope you get enough to build a greenhouse! Wow! Isn't that every gardener's dream? Reading that reminds me of something we learned while watching Burns' THE CIVIL WAR: the photographer who captured so much of the civil war, Matthew Brady, was deeply in debt due to the cost of creating his photos. According to the documentary, too keep his head above water financially, Brady sold many of the glass plate negatives to be used as greenhouse and cold frame windows, and the sun gradually destroyed the images themselves. Not sure if that's true, but somehow, it would not surprise me...

I'm so full of happy stories. ;P Your garden looks gorgeous!

@WthrLady Good to know about the ants, thank you. Darn, though. (Grateful to NOT have fire ants.) Terribly sorry to

@Sueby, glad to know your back is doing better! I like your sun shade for lettuce idea...maybe I'll try that later in the, since our furry masked invaders killed all of ours. Though @Wee Farmer Sarah's bedsheet sounds good to me, too. Shade is shade!

@Acre4Me That list of tomatoes has my mouth watering! Wow! You all must have an enormous garden! Do you put them all up? Sorry to hear about your cukes; good luck with the new set. And even better luck, dare I say, with those raccoons. They really are cute-faced handmaidens of Satan. We had to take out another ourselves this weekend...and one rather boldly trundled through the woods 30 feet from the house in broad daylight yesterday!

@penny1960, do you make the pizza all the way from scratch? Do you have crust-tossing video?

Love those shallots, @NewBoots! Not sure about their readiness, but they look fabulous. So does your okra bloom! *squee* Hello, Glynis. ;P How awful to lose your dog to raccoons.

Hope everyone has a good day and evening, free from predators...!

 

[pennyJo1960]

@NightingaleJen sure do make it from scratch but so simple
PIZZA DOUGH
"This is a great recipe when you don't want to wait for the dough to rise. You just mix it and allow it to rest for 5 minutes and then it's ready to go!! It yields a soft crust.

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 (.25 ounce and a bit more) package active dry yeast
• 1 1/2 teaspoon white sugar
• 1 1/2 cup warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 3 cups bread flour
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a medium bowl, dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water. Let stand until creamy, about 10 minutes.

Stir in flour, salt and oil. Beat until smooth.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and pat or roll into a round, let sit and rest 5 minutes. Transfer crust to a lightly greased pizza pan roll to pan size . Spread with desired toppings and bake in preheated oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Let baked pizza cool for 5 minutes before cutting or serving.

 

[Acre4Me]

That list of tomatoes has my mouth watering! Wow! You all must have an enormous garden! Do you put them all up? Sorry to hear about your cukes; good luck with the new set. And even better luck, dare I say, with those raccoons. They really are cute-faced handmaidens of Satan. We had to take out another ourselves this weekend...and one rather boldly trundled through the woods 30 feet from the house in broad daylight yesterday!

I've never canned tomatoes, but might be in my future sometime. We love fresh tomatoes, and are looking for our favorites to grow, hence all the different varieties!

Cucumbers are doing well so far. Just ate a nice cold one that grew in our garden!

Went to the Farm store and bought a nice sturdy live trap (although coon won't survive the trap, in the end), and also a Z-trap. Looked for a conibear trap, but the 2 farm stores were both out of the 2 best sizes and neither had a trap setting tool for that one. We will set both new traps later. Yup, raccoons are handmaidens of Satan - good descriptive title.

 

[NewBoots]

one sunflower destroyed and another mysteriously beheaded (they're outside the garden fence, so that is my fault—but could it still end up blooming?

I'm sure it will, if it's one of the types that normally only has one flower, it will likely be smaller than normal but I'd let it grow anyway. And that was a great update!

Thanks for the recipe, @penny1960, I added it to my recipe files.

 

[katiefloy]

Also, Friday evening we found a beautiful box turtle making her way across the drive, but neither of us had a phone or camera (either wildlife encounter, actually). What gorgeous markings on her little portable house!

This weekend must have been turtle weekend. I found this little girl stuck in my chain link fence saturday morning. i showed her to my 6 year old son and we put her back outside near where we found her in some brush (outside the fence).

i started some seeds in the little seed greenhouse thingies and they all sproutrd so i moved them out to a 4 shelf greenhouse in my garden area with the flap rolled up. everything was doing great and then we got a storm today that knocked the greenhouse over. my fault since i hadn't staked it down yet but still upset. some of them are still in their cells, so hoping i can salvage a few. next project - stake down the greenhouse.

 

[pennyJo1960]

Guess I missed the turtle @NightingaleJen .. Had a few growing up one got lost found it like a year later dried in the closet.... Joys of growing up in a better time huh