What did you do in the garden today?

[jerryse]

What a great find! I pressure can quite a bit! I got mine for Christmas years ago and love using it I would rub some vegetable oil on the rubber gasket and give it a good once over. I know most extension offices will look it over and make sure the pressure gauge works if it has one etc. At least they used to.

If the gasket seems a bit small, I put it in the lid like it should be. Then sit it on while the water heats. The heat makes it grow a little bit, and it fits perfect.

 

[cj2024]

I gave the beets a good shot of the stinky weed tea fertilizer yesterday and the tops are looking pretty good. The roots still seem kind of small, but that's ok. I like eating a few beets, but I like the beet greens better.

The variety is one that's kind of a dual purpose beet, developed for making good quality leaves for greens and OK roots. I don't remember the name. I'll need to thin them out soon so I'll have a few of the greens to try.

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I refilled the weed tea bucket with water again and stirred it up so there will be more to use later.

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I did that in a 40-gallon rubber trash bin and posted something about making this a year ago. The smell felt like I was breaking the law, because it was located near my fence line which is about 15 feet from my neighbor's bedroom. It really freaked me out; I had to dig a very deep hole and burry the stench with pine oil.

 

[Smokerbill]

I did that in a 40-gallon rubber trash bin and posted something about making this a year ago. The smell felt like I was breaking the law, because it was located near my fence line which is about 15 feet from my neighbor's bedroom. It really freaked me out; I had to dig a very deep hole and burry the stench.

I don't have close neighbors to worry about, and the smell goes along nicely with the smells from the chickens. LOL
It definitely has a stench to it.

Have you tried planting something over the hole you buried the stench in? I bet a tree would do great there.

 

[Smokerbill]

Today I got the trellises set up for 6 Roma tomatoes (dwarf plants, I'm hoping), 4 zucchini squash and a 7 foot long row of pickling cucumbers.

The parent of the 6 Roma plants was an 18 inch tall bush that had miniature Roma type fruits on it, and I saved seeds from it. It'd be cool if it were a mutation that caused it to be small, but maybe a vole just gnawed on the roots and stunted it. I'll find out in a couple months.

For the tomatoes I'll either string rope or wire between each pair of angled supports on the ends of each row of 3 plants, or maybe tie boards across them horizontally to support the plants.


I left some of the zucchini poles long on purpose because I decided that I'll plant a few Blue Lake pole beans around the squash plants once they get established. I KNOW that beans and squash are good companions. LOL


I chopped an old section of metal fence to length and nailed/wired it in place for the cucumber row. I bought a roll of tie wire a while back and it's been real handy to have for all kinds of projects.


All the trellises are ugly, but they'll work and didn't cost a penny.

 

[cj2024]

I don't have close neighbors to worry about, and the smell goes along nicely with the smells from the chickens. LOL
It definitely has a stench to it.

Have you tried planting something over the hole you buried the stench in? I bet a tree would do great there.

I planted comfrey and some other stuff and then gave my chickens permission to have a New Year's party in the 6ftx6ft bed. It didn't take them long to clear the space.

 

[Smokerbill]

If the gasket seems a bit small, I put it in the lid like it should be. Then sit it on while the water heats. The heat makes it grow a little bit, and it fits perfect.

Won't your butt get awful warm? And where does the pressure gauge go???

EDIT:
Oops. My bad! I misread your post to say "sit on it", but you wrote "sit it on". Dyslexic moment for me I guess.

 

[cj2024]

It took me a while to level my wicking buckets, but I finally got it ready to plant something. I will try planting my struggling Marconi peppers under the 40% shade cloth to see if it makes a difference. I put coco nuggets on the bottom to prevent the potting mix from falling through the holes. I got 4 wicking buckets strung together to a water reservoir.

.

 

[Smokerbill]

I need to buy some T-posts to support the last of my tomato plants. I have a dozen more Romas and 4 indeterminate Yellow Krim plants to do, then I'll be finished.

There are 4 rows of 3 Roma plants. I'll put a T-post at the ends of each row and use rope or string to support them using the Florida weave method, something like this...

(image from https://gardenbetty.com/trellising-tomatoes-with-the-florida-weave/ )

My Roma tomatoes...


The Yellow Krim tomatoes are indeterminate so I'm not sure what I'll do with them. Maybe I'll drive an 8 foot T-post next to each plant and tie them to those.

The tomatoes are doing great in the new garden bed. The leaves on these Yellow Krim plants were a sickly yellow when I put them in the ground a week and a half ago. Now they're a nice dark green and growing.


The Provider bush beans and Rattlesnake beans are doing well, but I think some of the leaves are being chewed on by leaf miners. It's only a couple leaves so I'll do nothing for now and hope they quit.


Peppers are doing OK, but I think they'll do better when the weather warms up more.


And the 8+ foot high deer fence is keeping the deer out!

 

[Smokerbill]

And it looks like I'll have more Oregon Grape berries to pick in the woods this year for jelly or jam. They're starting to turn purple now.

 

[Smokerbill]

First garlic and potatoes this year. The garlic plant had fallen over so I figured it was time to dig it out. And a couple of the potato vines were dying, so again, it was time. Voles had chewed up a few of the potatoes pretty bad but left enough for a mess.

Lesson learned. Don't try planting potatoes in October. Voles find them in the fall and eat on the seed potatoes, then wait for the new ones to grow the next spring and eat those too. I need to find a new spot to plant potatoes next year that the voles don't know about.

Garlic potatoes, peas, beet greens and ribeye steak tomorrow night.