From faithful commentor Marvel:
It’s been perfect growing weather here in the Willamette Valley — long, warm & sunny days with cool breezes in the evening. The veggies are pretty much taking care of themselves (at this point, we’re just here to give ’em a refreshing sip of water now & again). We’ve harvested all our onions & garlic and about half of the potatoes, so I’ve started planting the Fall & Winter garden (spinach, kale, chard, cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, beets & parsnips) — gotta do SOMETHING while we wait for the tomatoes to ripen!
This is our first experience growing quinoa (pronounced: peugeot). It’s a lovely thing!
The corn, having made a furious ascent, grandly waves its tassels over all the silky young ears — it’s a veritable burlesque show out there!
PS — [July 26th] Seed Tape Day — yay! (Two kinds of carrots, golden beets and parsnips: see ya little darlings after our first frost!)
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How are things in your gardens this week?
JPL
Marvel, Your pictures are beautiful. Because of the rainy weather GA farmers are suffering this year.
I googled seed tape and will try that for my fall garden.
Arclite
Chopped up some chilis, green onions, and cilantro from the garden today and added tomatoes, green pepper, lime juice, and salt to make a killer salsa. Was a bit to spicy for Mrs. Arclite, but ended up perfect for me. Washed down with some Deschute Chainbreaker IPA.
Arclite +3
henqiguai
@Top (Marvel)
I’m sittin’ here this morning wide-enough awake to wonder what you actually meant. “peugeot”? At first I thought you were making a reference to the Pequot peoples, but they were a New England tribe and quinoa is Andean. I search for “peugeot” and find pages of reference to that really ugly French car. Got enlightenment?
Mary G
Gorgeous garden, Marvel! I’ve bought seed tapes, but never seen do-it-yourself versions. What a great idea. My tomatoes are overwhelming. I have given them away and frozen them and eating them many times more this year than ever before, but I am not complaining!
MikeJ
@henqiguai: It was one of our earth jokes.
Linda Featheringill
Fall planting? Oh, my!
The tomatoes are beginning to get ripe. The resident curmudgeon who thought gardens were silly has fallen in love with fresh tomatoes. And they are good.
Inspired by the comments above, I just ordered some cabbage plants. I might think about planting some more kale, too. We’ll see.
currants
@henqiguai: I think that was meant to be funny–at least I laughed out loud when I read it. (But I haven’t had coffee yet, so don’t take my word for it.)
Raven
The seed tape shot is pretty but I had to hit the google to figure it out!
henqiguai
@MikeJ (#5, and currants at #7): Okay, so I’m old, unhip, and obviously not current on all internet traditions (hell, I have yet to see a reason to give up my flip-phone). But
Um, whot?!
currants
@Raven: Yep. Me, I’m thinking “Ooooh, quinoa–I’ll grow that next year too!” (Marvel: what’s your seed source?)
This year is the second year I’ve tried growing lima beans–no luck yet. Had not much luck either with soybeans, my first time trying those. Surprisingly poor germination rates. This is also the second year I’m growing beans for drying, and they’re doing pretty well, but I’m beyond irritated with the mislabeling on some of them. (I mean, could it be THAT hard to put ‘pole’ instead of ‘bush’ on the package?! What a mess I have out there, with improvised poles not long enough, tiipping over onto the row of non-pole types…)
And! This weekend’s the Pan Mass challenge, two versions of which run past our house. Saturday and Sunday morning thousands of bikers fly past–yakking a mile a minute, because it’s the beginning of the race. Pretty cool (as long as I don’t plan to drive anywhere).
currants
@henqiguai: It doesn’t make sense! Maybe I just thought it was funny because I saw the word in writing for quite a long time before I heard anyone pronounce it, and the disconnect between what I thought it was and how you actually say it was huge, and THAT made me laugh then too.
currants
@currants: (Link is to photos from a few years ago–this year is the 34th annual)
Karla
I started planting milkweed in various beds in 2010, and this week I found two monarch butterfly caterpillars for the first time, a day apart on adjacent plants. They’re in a rearing cage now, chowing down on milkweed sprigs placed in a water bottle and pooping up a storm. The size of their frass (poo) compared to the size of their bodies is really quite impressive. In a day or two I’ll put in some tall sticks so they can climb to the roof of the cage to anchor their chrysalises, and will probably get some tags from Monarch Watch because this is the generation that flies down to Mexico.
Svensker
Between the raccoons and the squirrels we can’t grow anything fruiting in our tiny little back garden (fruiting = zucchini, tomato, peppers). Plus it’s pretty shady back there, so I thought “lettuce!”. And for a month it worked: we had lettuce which we actually harvested and ate. Then the raccoons decided that that pissed them off, so they ate 75% of it and ripped the remaining 25% out by the roots and threw the plants around. Found them on the patio wilted and dead. It was a lettuce holocaust.
Guess it’s down to herbs now.
Ramalama
My first real paycheck W2 job was detaselling female corn. A horrible job, paper cuts on my face, thanks to the leaves, and cold and wet then hot and wet and smelly and back breaking. By the end of the day I had dirt and sweat baked into me. There was an aspect of being treated like a convict which also didn’t appeal to me, but to the other girls it was par for the course. Because they’d been to juvie. I was 14 then. And had to hold my own conversing with them at lunch, so expounded about the kinds of drugs I did. “Over the counter,” I whispered. “Ooh,” they marveled. “Over the counter!”
Comrade Mary
@Svensker: Raccoons or skunks have also been terrorizing my back garden by tearing shit up by the roots. They especially hated the hot peppers. The only safe ones were in a container on the railing of my back porch.
Squirrels — as I’ve said here before — have wantonly destroyed at least 13 tomatoes. But I have chicken wire cages up now and may eke out a few vine-ripened tomatoes this year.
WayneL
Marvel, I spent the middle of June to the middle of July in your lovely area, Turner, outside of Salem, where I was ordained a Buddhist monk. I’ve been all over the US, but I don’t think I’ve ever been to a place more beautiful than the Willamette valley. If it weren’t for six months of rain, I’d move there permanently, and I still might. You are lucky, and you know it, which is the best kind of luck.
Peace,
Ajahn Don
Kristine Smith
The tomatoes are ripening here in far NE Illinois. This year’s Black Crim is odd. Small fruits–baseball size or smaller. Strange ripening pattern–the shoulders are staying green and hard even after the lower red portion has ripened to the point where it’s deep red/soft to the touch.
Katherine
@henqiguai: i believe it is a little play on words that look one way and are pronounced another / i thought it was funny
Death Panel Truck
I’ve always heard it pronounced “KEEN-wah.”
SiubhanDuinne
@WayneL:
If you are willing to expound on this, I would love to know more! Peace.
SectionH
@currants: Yep. Like “Lester Mapledurham (pronounced ‘Mum’)” – one of my favorite Wodehouse throwaway lines. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten quinoa. Now that we’re supposed to feel guilty for taking it out of the mouths of the people who raise it, I guess I’ll have to grow my own if I want to try it.
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In our own garden, the xeriscaping project in the front comes along. So far everything is doing fine. I might write more about that later.
We’ve now trapped and released 10 “Rustys” (our name for the local ground squirrels, from a Far Side cartoon captioned “Rusty’s in the club”). Leaving shortly to take Rusty 11 to join his friends.
Since the Rusty removal started, we’re picking ripe tomatoes again, including the San Marzanos which were the squirrels’ favorites. Also getting Stupices and Brandywines. Still getting lots of peppers, and some squash. Waiting to see what the latest compost volunteer veggie is: Mr S thinks it might be a cucumber.
currants
@SectionH: I’d be interested in the xeriscaping project–incl what zone and what plants. Here in MA, it’s illegal to trap wild animals and move them someplace else. Trap and kill, that’s fine, but don’t trap and move ’em across the river, say. So…yeah, the squirrels get plenty of tomatoes (though they aren’t stealing them this year like they were last year; just biting them and leaving them on the vine :-().
Violet
@Karla: Love the monarchs! I’ve got milkweed all over the garden and have them in all their various stages. Such fun to watch.
It’s so freaking hot here I’m just trying to keep up with the watering. Still harvesting melons and can hardly keep up with eating all of them. Have given some away. Should be getting fall tomatoes in, but since it’s 100 degrees or higher, I am not very motivated. The work of watering them twice a day and keeping them under sunshade just seems too much at the moment. Maybe next week.
SectionH
@currants: We’re in Zone 21 (San Diego County inland valleys with the last gasp of ocean influence). The current project involves stripping the grass from the 3rd (approx.) of our front lawn which is between the driveway and walk to front door (done), and terracing it into two sections with a low retaining wall in front (done), and another about halfway up (mostly done, hope to finish today if I can get off the computer).
We’re planting California native plants or similar Med. climate lowish-water requiring ones, bird/bee/butterfly friendly shrubs or perennials such as lavatera, sages, desert mallow, coast rosemary*, ascelpias, etc. Some plants are in but we need more soil, more amendments, etc to finish that prep. We’re mulching what’s not planted this summer, and probably will be planting some ground covers when fall comes.
*I’ve gotten lazy about botanical vs common names at this point in my gardening life. Of course some plants, like lavatera, I don’t remember the common name, so it works both ways.
I think Mr S would have been ok with the squirrels taking some entire tomatoes. It was the wanton couple of bites out of dozens of tomatoes that nearly sent him round the twist.
We bought our Hav-a-heart trap at a local farm supply place which had many kinds and sizes for sale. So I don’t know if trap and release is illegal, but it appears not. ;-> I admit I was tempted to loose them on a neighbor up the hill who had a big Rmoney sign in his yard last fall, but we did carefully pick an area where we weren’t going to be dumping the critters on anyone else’s garden or whatever. There’s a bit more open land out here than in much of MA I guess.
Marvel
henqiguai: Sorry — as others have surmised, “peugeot” was just a weak joke about how the pronunciation of “quinoa” is as un-intuitive as the pronunciation of peugeot.
currants: I bought the quinoa seed from a local supplier, Nichols Gardens Nursery (https://www.nicholsgardennursery.com/store/product-info.php?pid185.html).
wrb
Huh?
I grow radishes (pronounced “buick”)
Anne Laurie
@Marvel: Well, I laughed!
Possibly because when a wheat-allergic friend first brought some to a potluck, I asked her “What’s kwi-NO-ah?”
currants
@Marvel: @SectionH: Dead thread, I know, but: ZONE 21?! wow. Haven’t even thought about zones above the single digits. (Though we lived for a year in southern France, the only garden I could have was windowboxes on the terrace–which are perfectly fine for radishes, arugula, parsley.) Sounds wonderful. Also like a lot of work to set up–but the payoff, ah!
I found one squirrel-bitten tomato this year–last year, the thieves PICKED the tomatoes and took them out to eat under the trees. Like, a PICNIC. The worst for a while was the chipmunks, which were EVERYWHERE and eating everything in sight. That population seems to ebb and flow, though, and it’s low this year. Not complaining.
WayneL
@SiubhanDuinne:
I’d be happy to tell you more, and anyone else interested. I don’t have a website, but would answer any questions by email:
[email protected]
Metta.