What did you do in the garden today?

[Sally PB]

Anyone grow common ironweed ?

Well, not on purpose... It does grow here. I love the color of the flowers!

Has anyone in MI successfully grown loofah to be sponges?

I tried a couple years ago. I started them in the green house and they were very slow and difficult to germinate. By the middle of September, I had one loofa the size of a bratwurst. I haven't tried since. I'd really like to grow some for sponges!

I do remember them having black seeds.

 

[WthrLady]

Well, not on purpose... It does grow here. I love the color of the flowers!

I tried a couple years ago. I started them in the green house and they were very slow and difficult to germinate. By the middle of September, I had one loofa the size of a bratwurst. I haven't tried since. I'd really like to grow some for sponges!

I do remember them having black seeds.

We burn our pastures to get rid of the stuff. Nasty stuff.

 

[jerryse]

Weatherman was spot on today . Rainy . I usually grumble about inaccurate forecasts . We needed rain and more coming tomorrow .

 

[karenerwin]

As you can see, the Luffa vines did not fair well with 2 nights of freezing temperatures but the luffas themselves seem to be doing just fine. I believe the coldest it got was 31 F

 

[TJAnonymous]

Ive used ivermectin to worm them, and feed them DE once a month or so and have never seen any real worm problems with them. A few drops of iver on the neck can get rid of mites and lice too. It won't work for tapeworms though. While it may not be the 'recommended' wormer for them, it works extremely well, and since it's just me eating the eggs, I don't worry about 'pull days' since I don't sell them, and the people Id give them to, aka my few friends, are not afraid of Ivermectin even if they did get any in them, in fact like me, have tubes for other purposes as well.

No they typically don't like de worming, or lets be honest, ANY procedure that you have to hold them and 'force' anything on them. Even when you try to pretend it's cuddle time, for some odd reason, they seem to know better.

If a bird is sick, Ill take her upstairs and treat her in the bathroom because it's easier to work on the sink counter, otherwise general worming etc, I get crappy clothes and do it outside then leave the clothes outside and spray with bleach water / alcohol and let soak in disinfecting soap before washing them. yes this IS a lot of overkill but if im flushing out worms, I do NOT want to bring them to the INSIDE birds.

Aaron

I also use Pour-on Ivermectin. I have a few birds who have picked up scaly leg mites on occasion. They are next to impossible to eradicate. I have sprayed down roosts, coop walls, nesting boxes, changed nesting box bedding, etc. Not all my birds have them. Just a couple... At least I assume they have them because their feet are not smooth or look terrible. None of them seem to be itchy or in any pain though. I've treated them sooooo many times with poultry spray for mites, Ivermectin, Vaseline, and mineral oil.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Well, not on purpose... It does grow here. I love the color of the flowers!

I tried a couple years ago. I started them in the green house and they were very slow and difficult to germinate. By the middle of September, I had one loofa the size of a bratwurst. I haven't tried since. I'd really like to grow some for sponges!

I do remember them having black seeds.

I've grown loofah the past 2 years. The first year (2021), I picked up a couple of tiny seedlings from a guy at the farmers market in late July or early August. By late October-ish I had a couple of loofah that were about 8 inches long. One produced a decent sponge that I still have in my bathroom. The other loofahs were a little more sparse on fibrous material. Not really spa-worthy but sufficient enough for cleaning which is what I used them for...

This February (2022), I germinated 4 seeds collected from last year's loofah. I transplanted them outside in April after last frost date. Three of the four grew very well but none started producing decent fruit until August. I'm assuming this is because we had a terrible drought in June and July. Since we got decent rain in August, the fruit took off like a rocket. I've got over a dozen loofah that are over a foot long. Some are closing in on 2 ft and bigger around than my calf! Altogether I'll end up collecting more than 2 dozen loofah by the end of the season... These all coming from just 2 plants that were planted in the ground. The other plant was grown in a large planter. It grew well but didn't set any actual fruit. It's clearly too hot in Arkansas to grow it as successfully in a planter...or maybe it would have done better if I'd used container soil instead of garden soil. I can experiment with that factor next year.

 

[Sally PB]

Well, maybe I need to give loofa another go...

 

[WthrLady]

yep. you may have just had an off year

 

[TJAnonymous]

We are supposed to get rain tomorrow. Not a lot... But praying it's enough to kick start grass to grow back...

I'm still waiting to reseed the fall pasture. I need to make sure we get SUSTAINED rain before I put it out... And I'm hoping the extreme heat over the summer didn't seriously damage the seed enough to affect germination rates. It was stored in boxes in DH's shop which is not insulated, heated, or cooled.

 

[CedarLane]

This sounds so good right now! My DH was feeling pukey yesterday and it spilled over to me today. I haven't felt like eating all day but your soup sounds delicious!

We really like it for winter evening supper! The veggies are actually quite versatile...I've made a soup with them without the cheese sauce, added them to casseroles, etc.

Sorry to hear you aren't feeling well today. Hope you are better tomorrow!