What did you do in the garden today?

[igorsMistress]

Good morning gardeners. We got enough sprinkles to make a mess in the dust the wind blew around yesterday, so it’s a good thing I watered in the morning. We still have rain chances this weekend but I’m not holding my breath. Today I’m working some more on the shade garden. I was reading about treating the soil with neem for disease and I’m considering that in there and around the fruit trees.

 

[WIchickMama]

Overcast and cool here. Waiting for my Baker Creek order to come. Will pick some beans today and onions. I have 15 squash that I dying to eat but tins is still tender.

Chick break

 

[Elyrian1]

Morning all, I went shopping yesterday and bought myself some late birthday presents. Flowers. Hubby texted me to ask if they were flowers to look at or flowers to plant? Lol, he knows me too well. I bought some salvia, a rock rose on its last leg from the clearance rack (It was $2 why not?) and some purple flowering thing that I can't remember the name of. xD I wanted to plant them last night, and then again this morning, but hubby is on call for work and both times that would have been convenient he was gone. That's a bummer, because it's hard to plant anything if I have a baby in a carrier on me.

It'll get done somehow this weekend. Hopefully he'll have enough spare time and energy to go get compost with me. I don't want a ton of it, just enough to top the fall garden beds.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Fyi , Stevia is bad for dogs ( not sure if you have one) since I have a dog, and she sometimes gets a nibble of what we eat, I don't use stevia

We do have dogs but don't feed them people food. Our Husky-Great Pyrenees mix has an issue with resource guarding and will snap/attack our smaller dog to take his food or treats. This is extremely exacerbated when people food is involved so we just don't do it anymore. They only get dog food and dog treats. Even then I have to feed them at least 10-15 ft apart. The smaller dog is actually fed in a crate so she can't get to him.

 

[TJAnonymous]

I went ahead and dug up the remaining 3 beds of potatoes. It was underwhelming... It started out well. I pulled a couple of nice sized potatoes out of the first bed. But the remaining two had all golf ball sized potatoes which tells me they really needed more time to grow. I will have to try harder to keep the disease & pests at bay next year.

I also started pruning my long-neglected tomatoes. Only got about a third of the way done... They probably really need some fertilizer. I haven't fed them since May because of the lack of rain. The fruit is all really tiny but there's a lot of it. I am making a pointed effort next year to only grow 1 or 2 indeterminate. I just can't keep up with pruning 6 or 7 plants!

Lastly I pulled out nearly all of the zucchini. It's still lush and green but even the ONE fruit that was growing got all mushy and rotten when it was near maturity. That was the final straw. I yanked it. Squash bugs everywhere and some of the vines were also rotten inside. So weird that they would still be green and full with the vines rotting internally like that.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Sounds interesting. So you can’t use any store bought staples like rice, pasta etc that you already have on hand?

Nope, if it's store bought my allowance is only $50. I can barter though. So if I swap eggs for coffee that's acceptable because I acquired it by exchanging something we produce here.

 

[ChicksnMore]

My chickens get an incredible amount of garden plants, veggie trimmings, and caterpillars, lol. They've been given so many watermelon rinds this year that I'm amazed they still get excited when I go out there with them.


We've been making a big effort to preserve as much as we can when we're tired of eating some of our produce this year. Pressure canning, freezing, dehydrating, and making sauces, jams, and jellies!

We're participating in a collab where we're only going to eat what we can produce or forage ourselves (or barter something we produced) for the entire month of February 2023 (which for us is a cold month with a lot less growing). We will only have a budget of $50US to spend on groceries other than what we produce ourselves for that whole month. It's going to be quite the challenge! Especially with the prices of groceries going up so much.

I'm curious how your February will go. Hope you tell us all about it when it happens.

Florida Swamp Honey was NOT my favorite. It smelled and tasted of turpentine.
Clifford is in his jar on the front porch. I might make him a house later today. We shall see.

Garden is gardening.
Sitting here working and listening to/watching the bagepipe finals in Glasgow.

I want a Clifford Are you going to try letting it cocoon so you can see what the moth looks like? I used to do that with my kids when they were young.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

Sounds interesting. So you can’t use any store bought staples like rice, pasta etc that you already have on hand?

We have such a big head start I'm able to wait for sales on what I expect to need for the month of February so I'm really able to stretch my $50 to the max in that respect. Since I don't grow my own grain most of my budget will definitely be for rice, bread, pasta, etc. I have a friend with goats that will swap produce for fresh milk, cheese, and carmel sauce that she makes. I also have a friend with bees that will swap for honey. We will definitely be more limited in our options but I'm actually really looking forward to doing it!

 

[CluckNDoodle]

I'm curious how your February will go. Hope you tell us all about it when it happens.

I want a Clifford Are you going to try letting it cocoon so you can see what the moth looks like? I used to do that with my kids when they were young.

I'll definitely keep you updated! I'll be documenting on YouTube when we do it.

 

[MarkRainbolt]

Today I just pulled weeds. I had let the garden go this summer because of all the projects I had going on. Built a new lean too and a new chicken coop and run which I am still in the process of building. It takes a while when it’s just me doing the building.
Mark