__
Premier placement (and mad props) goes to commentor JHarp, who pointed out that if we’re talking about gardens, we could share pictures, too:
Here is a picture of my pepper garden and a couple of tomato plants for your review.
__
From commentor Cat Hair Everywhere:
Attached is a photo of my tomato beds. They are finally growing after a prolonged, cool spring. Left to right are Juliet, Grandfather Ashlock (new for me this year-it has been a slow-grower!), Tomcat, Sweet 100, German Johnson and Black Krim. I have a Sungold stuck in the ground with a yellow basket and an Indische Fleishe on the other side of the yard, because I was warned that it needs to be grown away from other plants. I planted my tomatoes over a period of a few weeks, but the difference in plantsize seems excessive. I don’t know what is going on.
__
The other picture [below] is of my yellow pattypan squash.
Not much progress to report from north of Boston — a week of ‘intermittent showers’ totalling a couple-three inches knocked down a lot of flower blossoms and kept the tomatoes / basil from making much progress. Today it’s finally sunny, and hot enough that the one robin fledgling I can see from the ground is panting instead of cheeping. Most of the cherry tomatoes and a few of the others are flowering, and the Stupice has three respectable little green fruitlets now. Also, oddly, the few pansies I transplanted are still flowering; having pansies and daylilies in bloom at the same time is not typical around here — alternating weeks of cold drizzle and midsummer-like drought will do that, I guess.
__
So… Email your jpegs to [email protected] (or click on my name near the top of the right-hand column) and I’ll post them next Thursday. If I get more than four or five, I’ll add a “Sunday Garden Chat” to the roster. Consider yourself challenged!
__
Meanwhile, how are things in your garden this week? (Several readers have mentioned that a general location — ‘desert Southwest’ or ‘New England’ or similar is fine — would be appreciated.)
Mike Kay (True Grit)
The lesson from Weinergate: Don’t fuck with Pelosi.
That is one tough broad.
Villago Delenda Est
Weiner told Pelosi he’d been hacked.
Then he came clean.
Bad move, Anthony. Bad move.
wenchacha
I’m peeved at the livestock right now. The deer found my unfenced-in tomatoes last night and had their fill of leaves and shoots. Last fall I knew I needed a better security zone for the garden, but the system has not yet been put into place. All the wet weather has really put my garden schedule back by a month or so, here in WNY.
Also, too: something murdilated my strawberry patch and I will have no juicy organic gems again until next year. And that’s if I am lucky. On the plus side, the red and golden raspberries are going gangbusters and the blackberry bushes are, too.
stuckinred
We’ve had two sensational rains in Athens since Saturday so things are looking up. Tomatoes are going to be coming soon, squash is blooming and the basil is nice. Planted a bunch of butter beans so we’re hoping.
debit
I found feral tomato plants the other day. When the first hard freeze of the fall hit there were still some green beefsteaks on the vine and I sort of just left it there all winter. I know, bed gardener. I can only assume these plants are the result. I already have a bunch of plants, including a different beefsteak variety, but am tempted to transplant them and see how they do.
Lots of rain here in Minnesota lately. The plants shot up a good six inches in the last couple of days. Guess they’re liking it.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
Rachel Maddow can be so amateurish.
She’s throwing a tantrum because Pelosi didn’t stand behind Weiner. Even though weiner went on Rachel’s program and used her and her audience to further his lies about being hacked.
merrinc
My bell pepper plants are growing like mad but have nary a flower. Actually, the largest did have a couple flowers but nothing came of them. Any helpful advice?
Right now I am eating a salad with a cucumber I grew myself and it is the tastiest cuke evah, oh yes it is. Yum.
Linda Featheringill
Lovely gardens. Doing so much with a little space. Nice.
My garden is sort of an experiment this year.
My mom was one of those country women who had a Substantial Garden. After we reached the point where my folks could purchase a freezer, she planted this big plot and froze much of the produce. This stuff was really welcome in the winter.
There was this one Christmas when all we had to eat was beans and water cornbread. I think that Mom told Dad that if that continued, she was going to leave. [That was probably the only time in her life she did such a thing.] Anyway, in the very next January or February, Dad “found” the money for the freezer. They then bought baby chicks [delivered in flats by the US Mail carrier] and the male half of those found themselves in the freezer eventually. Then Dad took the tractor and broke the land for the big garden. He managed to buy or trade for a milk cow.
The next Christmas we had chicken and cooked frozen veggies and frozen wild berries and butter and milk. And cornbread. :-)
Linda Featheringill
Debit:
Oooh, yes. Give them a home and see what happens. If the parent tomato was a hybrid [likely] you might have all kinds of goodies there.
lamh34
The Professionally Disgruntled
by BooMan
stuckinred
lamh34
Linda Featheringill
Anyway, I’ll see if I can’t persuade The Daughter to take some pictures of my plantation taking up the end of the driveway and send them along.
Do you think maybe the plants would be pleased to be shown off and therefore produce more? It’s worth a try.
stuckinred
Where is the REPLY button??????
jwb
@stuckinred: It’s gone for me too.
jo6pac
Yep, stay on Topic.
Tos are producing but nothing red yet
Bells are producing just now but nothing to eat
melons are growing but don’t wee any bulbs yet
I’m near Tracy, Calif. local frames are about 4 wks behind food prices are about to go $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
stuckinred
Yea, I’ve switched browsers to no avail.
stuckinred
jo6pac
It’s an open thread ace.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
Just think what you’ll be missing…. you won’t have Anthony Weiner to defend anymore.
Anne Laurie
Great story, Linda. Good for your mom!
Looking forward to your photos, too.
Jules
Last year was such a disappointment that we only planted 4 tomato plants (they are doing ok, but really the almost 3 weeks of close to 100 degree weather not making them happy) and for the first time ever potatoes.
In trash bags.
Worked pretty well, pulled out our first spuds the other day and yeah, they are the best taters I have ever tasted.
opie jeanne
@Linda Featheringill,
I love your family story.
@ Annie Laurie, I know it’s too late for tonight’s thread, but I have some photos that I’d like to share. Back in a little while; I have to go make supper.
Mike Kay (True Grit)
lamh34: The professional left is delusional about their self-importance because they live in a self reinforcing echo chamber.
The fact is they have no discernible influence.
This poll right before 2008 NH primary says it all. http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/01/03/429493/-2008:-1-2-straw-poll
Edwards led the blogosphere with 48% and he received only 17% of the vote in New Hampshire. Hillary Clinton received a paltry 7% of the blogosphere vote, yet she won New Hampshire with 39% of the vote.
The fact that Aravosis heavily supported Edwards and bashed Hillary had no affect.
The same thing happened this week with Weinergate. Their position on weiner was diametrically different from the general liberal base. http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/WeinerPoll.pdf
SiubhanDuinne
@stuckinred #4:
(what happened to the “reply” feature??)
Did you have more massive rains last night? I walked out of theatre about 9:30 after seeing a very fine Met summer encore production of Madama Butterfly, and there was a damned hurricane going on. When I finally got home (15 miles, 50 minutes in the downpour) there were three or four fires trucks, a couple of EMS vehicles and too many cop cars to count, all just yards from where I live. Apparently (haven’t been able to confirm yet) an apartment two units from mine was struck by lightning and there was a fire. Bubble gum vehicles were there til after midnight but this morning you’d never have known.
Anne Laurie
Sounds like I should stop pharfing around & make this the summer I try growing my own mesclun.
(Yeah, I know it’s ‘easy’, but I have to find a patch of clean soil & then differentiate between edible leaves & encroaching weed volunteers. I’ve got some ‘protective shadefabric’ on hand, but I’m still looking for the right waist-high planter…)
SiubhanDuinne
@Linda Featheringill #8:
Someday I shall tell you my story of the Best Chicken Dinner Evah (hint: bird was old, tough, bigger than me, and meaner than ABL and SPaT on a bad day combined) but it needs adjectives and adverbs to do it justice and my battery’s running low.
Also FYWP because REPLY BUTTON.
jnfr
I’ve got some shallots and greens growing but my squash will not sprout! I’ve never had trouble getting squash to sprout before. It’s very irritating.
The bad news is my husband brought a cold home from the office and my tomatoes and peppers are languishing in the yard because I haven’t gotten them into their designated raised bed yet. I have actual baby tomatoes growing on a plant in a small pot. Got to get to that tomorrow.
On the bright side, I am learning that sedums adore our Colorado climate. I intend to fill the yard with sedums. There’s this lovely Angelina variety that is trademarked so you’re not supposed to reproduce it, but it keeps dropping bits all over and they keep growing. I suppose I may regret the sedums someday, but today is not that day.
Edit: Also, Lovely pics JHarp. Thank you.
Violet
If I don’t water, the entire garden would be gone. Drought, drought, drought. Ugh.
Harvest isn’t terribly exciting since it’s gone so hot and dry. A few tomatoes left, but the stinkbugs are getting most of them. Plus some mysterious blossom end rot. Can’t quite figure that one since it’t only happening to a few tomatoes here and there, not a whole plant.
Found a surprise cucumber today. I figured they’d be toast in this heat, but one was hidden, so that’s good news.
Bean plants are dying in the heat. But peppers are producing like mad. I’ve got both yellow and red bell peppers and I’ve never had this much success with them. I expected them to quit setting peppers in the heat, but they seem to keep on setting. No complaints from me!
Otherwise, waiting for long beans to get big enough to produce. Probably have another month or so to wait. And then it’s time to put in fall tomatoes. No idea how that’ll work without water. Sheesh.
Tata
Over Memorial Day Weekend, one of my cats developed acute pancreatitis, which scared us so thoroughly we barely cared a groundhog had eaten about half our garden. I pulled up everything that wouldn’t survive, replanted newly empty spaces and concentrated on the cat, who is snoring next to me as I write now. So what could have been very traumatic was overshadowed by something that truly was, and everyone’s okay.
One of the most successful things for me has been tossing mesclun mix seeds into window boxes. Careful placement of the window boxes protects seedlings from squirrels and other hungry varmints, and you look brilliantly cinematic leaning out a window to harvest a salad.
Tata
Violet, do you have rain barrels?
Edit: we’ve had good luck using rain barrels and attaching weeper hoses, which we threaded through the garden. For half an hour every other day, you can turn on the weeper hose, water your garden and never turn on the tap.
Gin & Tonic
Not my garden, unfortunately, but somebody else’s has rhubarb, which I found in the Whole Foods, so I just finished putting up a half-dozen jars of apricot-rhubarb jam. No, I don’t have apricot trees either.
Kristine
NE Illinois, Hello!
It’s been cool and rainy the last few days, but there is supposed to be a warm-up coming I hope. I had to pull out my broccoli raab because every damned one flowered, even the 2-inch shoots. Reason? The chilly spring, according to one gardening site. Starting over with new seeds. We’ll see.
Lettuces are almost ready to cut. Some of the basil are are an inch or so. The tomatoes in the deck planters are 7-8 inches, while the plants in the raised bed are 4-5 inches. I probably planted them too soon, and the chill stunted them. I hope they catch up.
I know I’ll have veggies eventually. It’s just going to take a while. I envy those of you who are nearing harvest. At least I still have pesto and marinara from last year’s crop.
CatHairEverywhere
The heat has arrived here in Southern-Central CA. I keep trying to remind myself that the veggies love the heat, but UGH. The boysenberries are about done just in time for the apricots and Santa Rosa plums to begin ripening. We were gone for a few days, and I was shocked to find the pattypan squash in the picture above had grown to mutant size. PIcked a handful of sweet 100s tonight, but not much else on the tomato plants yet.
Apricot-rhubarb jam sounds delicious! I make apricot-pineapple.
ruemara
Squash, both winter and summer are going gangbusters, so are the cukes, the zukes and the melons. I seem to have grown the shortest corn in human history and don’t ask me why, I bought starts. Ground cherries are in, the tomatoes are producing a lot of leaves & blossoms, but some blossoms just up and dried up and fell off. An italian chard variety has taken over my greens area, the lettuces are wondrous, snails are ruining my beans, but I may try again for some pole beans. I put out 7 basil plants and I still have to buy because they’ve been so damn scraggly. And my rain barrel seems to have developed a leak, because the whole damn full thing is empty after 2 uses. Oh well. I hope to have peppers but the ones I planted seem also scraggly. But I am impressed by my melons.
dexter
Here in Baton Rouge we are going through an extreme drought, but my garden is small enough and close enough to the house that I can water the garden with a hose.
My tomatoes are coming in fast now, but have developed some kind of mold and have this weird white fuzz growing on them. The deer got the beans, but they are making a half-hearted attempt to come back.
The cantoupes are proving the old saw that a watched cantoupe never ripens. Everyday I go out with the fervent wish that at least one of them would be ready to eat, but alas it is merely a vain hope.
All my gardens are raised beds that I make the year before and use as a compost pile before planting. This year I got volunteer acorn squash from last years seeds. The funny thing is that those two volunteers gave me many more acorns than I got from trying. I also got a watermelon plant that had one about the size of a basketball, but the deer got it also. Such is the fate for one that lets the electric fence go down.
Thanks for the locations.
low-tech cyclist
Southern Maryland here. I have multiple ‘gardens.’
The traditional garden has tomato and bell pepper plants, both of which are doing quite well. We’ve got green Early Girl tomatoes about an inch and a half in diameter, so I’m guessing 2 weeks away from fresh tomatoes, and maybe 4 before bell peppers.
The blueberry bushes have green blueberries; a week or two off, I think.
The mulberry tree in the backyard that took forever to get past the height where the deer could munch most of the leaves each year, but finally cleared that hurdle a few years back, is starting to see berries turning from green to pinkish-purple.
The small jungle of wild raspberry canes that grew up around the mulberry tree (and is what I think finally gave it some protection from the deer) is getting ready to produce.
And finally, the marvelous raspberry thicket along the street in a nearby cul-de-sac (which gets more sun than the canes in my backyard) yielded its first raspberries of the season two nights ago. We ought to have pickable quantities of raspberries (i.e. more than my 4 year old son and I can pop into our mouths in one visit) by Sunday. A big YAY for wild raspberries!
Violet
@ Tata:
Yes, but they’re currently not set up. I had to move them out of the way when the tree guys came and I haven’t put them back. Not much reason to put them back. We haven’t had rain in forever and there’s zero in the forecast. Can’t even remember what rain is. Wet stuff that falls from the sky? I’ve heard rumors…
Garden is still a work in progress and haven’t yet got to soaker hoses. I keep moving the beds around as I live with it (new house, to me anyway) and haven’t yet decided where they’ll go. Next year will probably be more irrigation systems.
Janet Strange
@jo6pac: I’d always heard that too much nitrogen and lack of phosphorus caused lush greenery but no fruits. Then I had that problem last summer and got my soil tested. TxA&M reported that I had too much phosphorus and not enough nitrogen. Admonished me not to use any high phophorus fertilizer or manures for five years! So I added some high nitrogen organical stuff (rabbit shit and chicken feathers mostly, I think) and finally got some better fruit set last summer. It’s not no phosphorus, but it’s 8-2-2.
This year went all out on the nitrogen (more rabbit shit and chicken feathers, plus worm castings, 1-0-0) and everything went nuts setting fruit.
So I guess what I’m saying is get your soil tested. Worked for me.
BUT . . .
I second Violet on the drought, drought, drought.Take a look at this map. Damn scary. Third worst drought in Texas history. Only the ones in the nineteen teens and the nineteen fifties were worse. Only 7.41 inches since JANUARY. I’m pretty sure there hasn’t been more than a sprinkle at my house since the first of May, though local weather says we had 0.60 inches May 20 (last official measurable rain). I didn’t get anywhere near half an inch then.
Yes I have rain barrels, but they’ve been empty for a long time, and no rain to fill them.
Not to mention from local TV news weather page:
Ridiculous amounts of watering keeping the tomatoes, eggplants, and baby okra plants (barely) alive. Tomatoes are covered with fruits, but I’ve noticed in the last week or so that the heat and dryness are now preventing them from getting big. They’re starting to turn red when only ping pong ball size.
Sigh. Summer Texas gardening. A . . . challenge.
Brachiator
Happy Bloomsday. It is still June 16 in California, and where else would I plant a tribute to James Joyce, except in a thread on gardens. Apun my word. Heh
Constance
Tomatoes and herbs in for a week–It snowed during the first week of June and froze everything. We know not to plant until second week of June here in the high desert of Northern Nevada. Sigh. My Lemon Queen sunflowers are spindly creatures that will get planted this weekend and with any luck will bloom in time for the Great Sunflower bee count July 16.
Steeplejack
@Brachiator:
Damn! Completely forgot about that. Thanks for reminding me. I will go read a story or two from Dubliners, however. “Araby” is my favorite.
Petorado
Salad days on the Front Range of CO. Eating as fast as we can. On the fourth planting of the year for salad greens, and hopefully the latest ones won’t just bolt like crazy. Grapes blooming and setting fruit. Strawberries yielding sweet fruits at regular clip. Blackberries, golden and red raspberries, boysens and tayberries all actively setting fruit. Tayberries, if you’ve never heard of them, are among the best tasting berries ever. Peppers, tomatoes slow to get cranking but still progressing. Stuff blooming everywhere otherwise. Kale, chard, beans and potatoes moving along nicely. Grasshoppers from hell not at the numbers from last year … yet. Flea beetles munching away.
opie jeanne
Outside Seattle, to the East. The garden in boxes is doing pretty well now, but everything seems to be off by a month. We noticed that the wild blackberries are just now starting to bloom. which seems very late. The sugar snap peas in our garden are about a foot tall and climbing, but I think they should be bearing by now.
In our garden the mesclun is ready, spinach and radishes the same. We have been eating the radishes and plan to make a quiche this weekend with homegrown spinach. The strawberries are setting fruit now, there are five “Apple” mini-peppers on one plant, but the standard bell-types have just been spinning their wheels. The potatoes are about to bloom, and out of 12 tomato plants we have one very green fruit. The onions and chives from seeds are not coming up very well; I plan to replant some of the beds tomorrow.
Today we fitted a plastic cover over a bed with tomatillos and seedling squashes and cukes. It looks sort of like a mini-Connestoga, without wheel.
The peonies by the driveway are teasing us, just starting to crack open and show a tiny bit of color, and the Oriental poppies are blooming; they look like huge red crepe-paper flowers.
We learned that we can’t take off two weeks in June. A week maybe, but anything more and the weeds and grass take over. We’ve been back for a week and are about 1/4 caught up. We are taking another week off to visit with Sir PTerry in Madison in July; we hope the weather doesn’t suddenly switch to blast-oven.
jane from hell
This thread reminds me why I haven’t yet grown food plants. Sounds like work! (I have a Darwinian approach: stick a plant where it gets the right sun/water/soil and fugettaboutit.)
RoonieRoo
The lesson I learned on tomatoes this year is if you can’t plant it in March, don’t bother. The tom’s I planted in March have done fantastic and I got a great crop out of them. They are now coming to their end as the heat whacks them and they no longer fruit set.
The toms that were planted in April since they were transplants I ordered are ripening but, like Janet Strange said, they are ping pong size and just not great.
Eggplants are doing fine and the cukes are still producing, which is shocking in the heat. I think the corn shading them helped a huge amount.
The big producer that is starting right now for the Texas Summer is the black eyed peas. Pretty much as I pull what gets clobbered by the heat, I’m replacing with southern peas.
I can’t decide if I’m going to put in a fall round of tomatoes this year or not. I got a pretty huge harvest and enough to can/freeze for a while from the spring toms.
Violet, I’m with you on the rain. This drought is a killer.
gelfling545
I am late with my garden this year. The prolonged cold weather here in WNY (May was mostly awful) & a late May trip to FL postponed a lot of May chores & planting. My tomatoes are sulking. My cayenne peppers, though, do have flowers, the bean & sunflower seeds have sprouted & my roses are loving life. We have spent a lot of time this year making the garden easier to care for by my aging self. We had a decent amount of rain yesterday & all the plants seem better. No amount of watering ever seems to be as beneficial as a good rain.
@ Janet Strange I just read an article (in Fine Gardening 8/11 issue) concerning excess phosphorous in the soil. Apparently it can do a lot more harm than good & phosphorous should be used very sparingly if at all as it can prevent the plants from accessing iron, kill mycorrhizal fungi & create pollution problems. I have been reading garden publications for years & always heard to use phosphorous for bloom. Who knew?
jane from hell
I do remember the three thingies in fertilizer (nitro, phosphorus, electrolytes?) and how too much of one makes great foliage but not enough blooms (which are the goal of food plants). Again with my laziness.
jane from hell
comment fail. le sigh.