If you are in need of a picture for the garden chat, here is one of my “picking basket” from July 26.
The second pic is of a visitor to our house, very close to the front porch. I sent a pic of our visiting turkeys earlier this year, this type of visitor is more troublesome. ;-) It was taken on April 20 of this year. We have removed several other rattlesnakes this year, but this one was the largest and the closest to our house.
PS: The tomatoes are Ace.
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I have been lazy about applying Serenade, so after a couple weeks of heinously humid weather, some of my tomato plants are yellowing and dying. Including both of the Isis Candy vines I went to such trouble to order online from across the country. I expect some of the earliest producers — Stupice, Black Krim — to give up the ghost around mid-August, but this is the second year I’ve only gotten a half-dozen ripe Isis Candy tomatoes before the vines collapsed. The variety is supposed to do well in New England, but I’m beginning to suspect the local nurseries have stopped offering it because it’s no longer reliable in our new “improved” global-warming climate, dammit.
How are things in your gardens? I need more jpegs, or you’ll be stuck with another round of fuzzy snaps from my yard. Surely some of you must be starting to harvest a bounty worth bragging about?
raven
We were eating dinner with a friend Friday evening and the princess was talking about how she may bail on trying to go vegetables and just go to flowers next year. She’s beginning to burn out on all the work and the relatively small bounty with these persistent drought conditions here. Our water bill is on a scale that is based on winter use and we have been getting killed for the part three years. It may be more cost effective to pay the high prices at the farmers market.
When we came home a young man knocked on the door and, having seen her gardens from the street, asked if he could interview her for an study he was doing for his anthro masters project. It was interesting to go through her gardening history and I wonder what she’ll do next spring.
robertdsc-PowerBook
Having rattlesnakes so close to the house would be horrifying for me. Mega creepy!
RoonieRoo
This weekend is the first fall garden push. August heat is always a joy for tilling weather. I took out our okra yesterday because we were both sick of okra for dinner. The plant probably had at least another month in it so I feel a bit bad. We have had a reasonable summer this year and my corn is doing pretty darn well. Better than it did last year.
RoonieRoo
I must say that the rattlesnake picture and thought of where you found it gives me the heebie-jeebies.
JPL
Ooh snakes. The basket of goodies is beautiful though.
Maude
The way I feel about the rattlesnake is the same way I feel about Romney/Ryan.
I want my mommy.
WereBear
I lived in Florida for ten years. Gators, snakes, wolf spiders the size of dinner plates… meh.
We also have unusual heat and humidity, which is discouraging the pansies, and periodic storms that have knocked all the buds off my mini roses.
We are having something of a good time with wildflowers this year, however. Corn flowers, tiger lilies and those itty bitty purple things are in great abundance.
TerryC
We’ve got rattlers, too, but they’re very shy. I have a great tomato crop but have discovered that in times of drought (just got our first real rain in 2 months this week) squirrels devastate ripening tomatoes. Mine run their teeth along the skin and when it punctures, that means it’s ripe enough for them and they go crazy—for the water, I’m told.
I’ve got 20+ picked too early ripening on my back porch rail, because if I don’t pick them before the squirrels want them, I lose them. Oh, they don’t bother grape or cherry tomatoes, though. Got hundreds of those guys ripening. Having a few with some WV-cheap ($6.70/lb) filet mignon for breakfast.
gelfling545
After 4 days of dark clouds and daily forecasts of thunder storms it rained last night. Temperatures are supposed to be in the more bearable low 80’s this week so I may get some pre-fall cleanup in. The veg garden has been disappointing this year and my local Wegmans has been overflowing with local organic produce at reasonable prices so it may be time to forget the whole thing.
Joe
How do you grow such clean vegetables?
OzarkHillbilly
I am in squirrel eradication mode. They got 90% of my corn, musk melons, and have found my tomatoes a little too tasty to resist. I have not picked a ripe tomato in 2 weeks. I have a live trap out but the little bstrds refuse to use it. So I am forced to use other methods. (I did trap a coon… he was not very happy… ever wonder how one releases a very angry coon from a live trap without losing any fingers? Very carefully…)
Still, my sweet and hot peppers are doing well and so are my eggplants. I have given my squash over to the squash bugs as they were stunted and not worth the effort. The cauliflower looks good so far despite the heat.
It is a good thing I am on a nice deep well, or the watering would have broken my bank.
Steeplejack
@TerryC:
My brother has had some success with putting a birdbath bowl on the ground so the squirrels have easy access to water. But they do love to “taste” the tomatoes.
hep kitty
Just, just . . .
Romney/Ryan
(sigh)
so happy
perhaps I haven’t been such a bad girl after all
Scout211
Our neighbors will kill the rattlesnakes but my husband refuses. So he finds very creative ways to move them to a nearby field. This one in the picture, though, was so big that he had to enlist a neighbor to help him move it. The larger ones like this one are a bit slower and slightly more cooperative than the little ones.
In the early fall, we have to bring a flashlight on our after dinner walks because the rattlesnakes will often laze on the road. We have almost stepped on several in the dark.
As for squirrels and raccoons, both of which we have, we have our entire vegetable garden area and the tree nursery area surrounded by a deer/rabbit fence. It does keep out most of the critters, but the voles can sometimes get through. We are in a rural area so that is easier to do than in a residential area. We lived in town before and the home owners’ association would have fined us for a garden fence.
quannlace
aargh, the chipmunks continue to decimate the tomato population. If the damn little colony is still in residence next summer, I ‘ll try moving the tomato beds. Chipmunks are like mice, they dislike open spaces, llike to move along walls and fences and have plenty of plant cover. My tomato plants are a bit too enclosed and make for good cover for the damn varmints.
Other plants: Got some nice cucumbers, a couple of round squash the size of small cannon balls and one nice Cinderella pumpkin that might get picked already. All the greens; arugula, mustand, escarole are all doing great, which is weird considering the August heat.
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For the first time in days it’s gonna be not as brutally hot and humid, so I think I’ll do a little tinkering out side.
Heck, it’s Sunday. Went shopping yesterday, so there’s plenty of food; cold wine in the fridge and no bills to pay till tomorrow. And I’m taking the day off thinking about Romney/Ryan. Oh, except this cartoon I uploaded to NewsCartoons.
http://www.cartoonstock.com/newscartoons/cartoonview.asp?start=&search=news&catref=smtn446&NC_Category=&ANDkeyword=&ORkeyword=&TITLEkeyword=&NEGATIVEkeyword=
GG
Mr S is pickling peppers (jalapeños) and roasting (anaheims), and they are still producing. The in-ground tomatoes are doing so-so. Have had some delicious ones, but they seem to be feeling the heat and aren’t doing much lately. The San Marzano plant in a container is still bearing fairly well, but fruits are ripening rather slowly.
We’re been working on a raised bed, 2′ high out of stone as a transition between the vast expanse of poured patio and the kitchen garden. Had hoped to have it ready by October for fall planting, but it’s coming along faster than we’d hoped, so yay. The main hold-up is figuring out what to do with the pop-up lawn sprinkler that would be sitting under the wall if we left it in place. Argh.
Now off to haul blocks, since we’ve only got a couple of hours until it’s too hot to work.
danielx
One of the changes brought by a warming climate, I’m told, is that I can look forward to increased numbers of critters like that rattler as things warm up. Also increased incidence rates for things like malaria, dengue (aka breakbone fever), etc etc etc….
danielx
@hep kitty:
Yes indeed…Mittens needed a game changer, just like McCain did. Since the “Ryan Plan” is right out there in the open for all to see, Ryan’s dickishness is already indecently exposed. Unlike La Palin, who had to work at it a little bit before we became familiar with the malicious word salad we all know and love.
Kristine
Unless things pick up this month, I will have had a pretty lousy year, tomato-wise. The Black Cherry is the only plant producing as expected–I may give it another go next year. But the Italian plants and the Arkansas Traveler don’t look so hot. Lots of blossom drop in June/July, and the poor things never caught up. Thank you, Heat Wave 2012.
I do recommend the Black Cherry if you like cherry tomatoes and also like the Russian Blacks (Crim, etc). That plant came through an early caterpillar attack and the subsequent heat wave, and is now covered with greenie clusters. The only drawback is that the tomatoes tend to split when ripe, but if you aren’t planning to sell them at market, it probably doesn’t matter.
Libby Spencer
Gorgeous harvest basket. Reminds me of my farming days. But the snake — Yikes. I’m told they’re around here too but living in town, haven’t seen one yet. So there’s that…
kc
Jebus, that’s a scary-looking snake!
Nice veggies though …
Violet
@raven: Do you collect rainwater? A big cistern can help, even in drought. You do get the occasional storm and it’s nice to be able to collect it.
My Isis Candy plant was crap. Produced only a few tomatoes. I wasn’t very impressed with their texture or flavor. They were okay, but I like other cherry tomatoes more. Then it died. Won’t bother again.
Betsy
I’m doing all no-dig, since it’s too hot to work like that, and we moved into our house too late for a spring/summer start. Instead of digging, we are putting veggies in a straw-bale garden. Flower beds were formed by laying down cardboard (from moving boxes!) and piling compost from the city yard-waste facility on top of that.
I’d highly recommend converting to no-dig, no-till to anyone. It’s better for the soil biology anyway, which is most of garden success or failure.
Instant gardens, no digging, no sweat. (No weeds or soil disesases/pests either)
Gretchen
How do you move rattlers without getting bitten? And what part of the country are you in? I just learned that we have rattlers near Kansas City now – a kid was bitten on a suburban sidewalk!
Scout211
@Gretchen:
How do we move the rattlesnakes? Very carefully . . .
Ahem . . . Seriously, he usually takes a long rake or pitchfork and picks it up and dumps it into a deep container like a tall kitchen wastebasket. They don’t crawl out of deep containers, even the baby snakes. Or, at least they haven’t so far.
We live in rural Calaveras County, California (on the western edge). We have 5 acres of grasses and oak trees. It gets very hot and dry in the summer (we are in the middle of a streak of triple digit temps–but this is not unusual for our area).
Yutsano
One could have worse urban visitors. Or better, in my opinion.
dance around in your bones
I lived on an old farm in SoCal back in the day – we had LOTS of rattlers. I stepped on a baby one out on my porch one night but it didn’t bite (the bite of a baby rattler is often worse because they shoot their whole wad of poison at once).
My husband dealt with them with a long handled shovel applied just behind the head – dead, Fred.
There was also a guy who used to come out and collect the rattlers in a big sack – he used a kind of loop snare and would just wrestle then into the sack – presumably for research or for milking their venom for antivenin.
While hiking I have come across rattlers and I just give them a wide berth – I think they are more afraid of us then we are of them, and as long as you leave them alone/give them enough space all they will do is make rattly noises at you and assume a threatening stance.
It’s when you scare them or put your hand on them (by looking under a rock or just by chance) that they are dangerous. YMMV.
Anne Laurie
@TerryC:
After this happened to my first tomato crop many years ago (3 cherry tomatoes in pots), an experienced friend told me to put down water for the squirrels and they’d leave my tomatoes alone. So I have a large-size plastic pot saucer on the ground next to my planters, where I can fill it when I water the plants. Still get an occasional tooth-punctured row of ‘reminders’ left behind when I go on vacation or just forget to fill the saucer, so I know it’s still necessary!
dww44
@Scout211: Probably you won’t get this. But where exactly do you live that you encounter that many rattlesnakes? Had a cousin a few years back, who went for an evening stroll with his dog and got bit by a rattlesnake less than 300 yards from his family’s home.. Don’t remember what sort, but he was hospitalized for quite some time.
Ooops should have read further down the thread to get my answer. My apologies.