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From gifted photographer & loyal garden commentor Ozark Hillbilly:
Got my seeds almost a month ago. Had to build a new germination/growing stand and it took a week to get it together. Planted my tomaters, egg plants, and peppers to start with.
Of the maters I have grown Green Zebra, Orange Icicle, Arkansas Traveler, and Yellow Pear before. Really looking forward to the Costoluto Genovese and Purple Calabash. The Solar Flair just looked fun and the Moneymakers are a greenhouse type for next winter. Also growing Amish Paste from saved seeds
All 3 egg plants are new to me. The Rosita and the Rosa Bianca are both supposed to be superb and the Diamond is another of this type of eggplant that my wife loves grilled. This is the 3rd or 4th type I have tried and while all were good none were exceptional.
Radishes are all new to me, with exceptional colors to add to a salad. We’ll see about the flavor.
The last I took during January’s ice storm. It is a pic of a Dogwood bud encased in ice, awaiting springs warming sun. Seems apropos considering this weekend’s winter storm and our own political winter.
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What’s going on in your garden (planning) this week?
Steeplejack (phone)
@Anne Laurie:
Eek! You’ve got some runaway hyperlink tags.
Mary G
I have a huge batch of seeds from prior years in the fridge. I will just throw them all in the raised beds and see what comes up. Those all look very tasty. The picture of the dogwood buds is gorgeous. Will they still bloom?
satby
Good morning all! I sorted out all my seeds just Friday, because I’m deciding whether to germinate any or just direct sow the cooler weather spinach, chard, and lettuce and flower seeds and see what happens. I’ve already ordered my tomato plants: Paul Robeson, Orange Whopper, and a variety of grape tomato. Nine plants will be more than enough for me.
My main gardening this year is planting and nurturing baby trees from the arborday.org. You get ten tiny tree sticks for joining, with ten more planted in a national forest for your donation. I picked the flowering tree assortment, and only keeping five, the other five I’ll pass on. I’ve done this everywhere I’ve lived, and with care the success rate of those little sticks has been 80-90% for me. I’m redoing the landscaping here, it’s heavy on evergreen shrubs. They bore me.
Edited: seeds, not weeds.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
OzarkHillbilly
@Mary G:
Yes, they have not yet begun to bloom so even this late freeze won’t hurt them. Our redbuds however, are probably done for. They haven’t opened up around here yet, but at my buddy’s place 30 miles north of here (lower elev.) they were all just getting going. Mine usually run a week or 2 later, so I still hope.
Spent most of Friday afternoon covering just peaking up peonies and hyacinth with compost and fully bloomed daffodils with covers. Had to say goodbye to the just beginning to bloom magnolia as it is going to follow my earlier blooming magnolia which was also bit by a hard freeze. :-(
OzarkHillbilly
@satby:
When it comes to my garden, sometimes I wonder just which it is I am growing.
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: it’s a toss up by the end of July for me, because summer heat and bugs can sap my gardening will pretty quickly by then. Not living next to a swamp will reduce the skeeter problem, I hope, and once the other stuff gets established it’s pretty low maintenance. There’s a reason I go in heavily for bulbs and rhizomes as my main source of garden occupants.
BellyCat
Given the plethora of stunning vacation photos posted lately, I’ll keep doing my best to counterweight this here blog so it doesn’t swing too far into nirvana.
Here are some more Alternative Vacation pics to help those out who are stuck at home and seeking a few more reasons to be glad about it.
Ah well, we were running out of good stories.
Alain the site fixer
@BellyCat: on the road returns tomorrow as it’s a weekday feature. Please send more pix everybody! And travel safely
OzarkHillbilly
@BellyCat: Reminiscent of the smoking hole I found in the bottom of the rear differential of my ’77. International Traveler 22 miles east of Murdo S. Dakota:
“Well, you might find one in Pierre, or you might find one in Rapid, but you ain’t gonna find one around here!”
BellyCat
@OzarkHillbilly: That expression is still alive and well here!
BTW: Will give a giant plug for O’Reilly Auto Parts, who have been gracious and helpful beyond belief! (prices are good, too)
BellyCat
@Alain the site fixer: Good to know. Thought it might have been axed.
Baud
@rikyrah: Good morning.
Raven
@BellyCat: I was standing in front of my house Friday afternoon when my goofy next door neighbor drove by. I heard a loud bang and I thought Georgia hit the Beverly Hills trailer he has parked in front of his house. It turns our his upper ball joint snapped. Dude works at Dial America and doesn’t have much scratch. He’s in a world of shit.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: In 71 my sister’s boyfriend split the draft up to Sault St Marie. I was driving her up there in her Volvo when we had a blowout in the middle of nowhere. Michigan. It trashed the rim and,after getting a tow to a little town, I located a rim that was close but didn’t quite fit. I bought a rat tail and filed the lug nut holes enough to get the sucker to fit. We lost the war anyway.
Viva BrisVegas
Creator of the Footrot Flats cartoon strip, Murray Ball passed away today at home in New Zealand.
For those not familiar with his work.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: I saw one go while standing at a crosswalk. A station wagon driven by a black man with 6 kids in it. You could tell by the look on his face that he was just this side of desperation.
ThresherK
Gardening pr0n? Our favorite garden maker has been hit by the old and snow on Cape Cod and her fb photos have changed overnite. I predict she’s gonna post pics of her seed packets, betseen now and 5he end of the big storm expected on Tuesday.
OzarkHillbilly
@Raven: They say necessity is the the mother of invention. I think desperation is.
efgoldman
Gardening? Not that I do it, and mrs efg hasn’t been able to keep the critters away in previous years, BUT WE’RE GETTING A FOOT++ OF SNOW on Tuesday. Maybe not as much as @ThresherK’s: friend referenced above, who’s further East, where there’s a blizzard watch. but still…
?BillinGlendaleCA
Mooning Glendale.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I am relieved and disappointed.
Great shot. Really crisp.
satby
@efgoldman: snow at least would insulate some of the plants that started sprouting here! Snow cover in this area has been sparse and the last two days were hard freezes after almost two weeks of days in the 50s. It’s 17° here now. I covered the peony I replanted from my old place, and recovered the rose bush I had uncovered for the nicer days, but we didn’t get the predicted snow that I thought would cover the iries or already blooming early daffodils. We’ll see what makes it.
satby
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Beautiful shot!
@Baud: Yeah, I hesitated for a minute.
satby
@rikyrah: morning! Stay warm today!
Aleta
@?BillinGlendaleCA: With a Celestron?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
@satby: Heh, thanks.
@Aleta: Nope Samsung 50-200mm lens @ 200mm.
ETA: I also did some shots with my 600-1300mm lens, but it’s hard to get the focus just right?.
FlyingToaster
@efgoldman: We’re just west of the Blizzard Watch zone (school is literally across the river from it), and we’re expected to get ~15 inches.
WarriorGirl is thrilled that she won’t have school on Tuesday or Wednesday. She’ll spend Tuesday doing her homework and a playdown (her Book 2 violin graduation is 3 weeks from today), and shovelling the stairs. Wednesday is all iPad and TV.
I decided not to do any seed starting this year; last year most of my seedlings died in the drought (the plants I bought fared better). I’ll just hit Mahoneys and Russells.
zhena gogolia
@efgoldman:
Yeah, not feeling the garden with blizzard on Tuesday.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
Yeah, but it’s proof that winter will be ending.
@OzarkHillbilly:
How big is your gardening space?
germy
We had heavy winds, power outages, etc. We were told to put any fallen branches out in front of our houses so the Town Public Works guys could pick them up.
Of course the branches have been sitting there untouched for quite some time now. And the upcoming blizzard will cover them in snow.
Our DPW is curiously unresponsive. They speed around and have a ton of fun, but don’t actually get any work done.
Aleta
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It seems very clear for the skies where you are. (Don’t know much about digital photo technology.)
MomSense
It’s 3 degrees but there’s no wind so I’m going to go for a long walk. Two weeks ago I thought spring had sprung but we are now back to winter and there’s a big storm on the way.
I’m moving to Glendale,CA. Not really but Bill’s photos make it look so warm and inviting.
Aleta
@OzarkHillbilly: The dogwood picture is out of this world. Seeds R Art.
Immanentize
I looked at my garden yesterday in the 20 degree wind whipped afternoon. Then I went into my shed to make sure the tiller was still in there. Check and check. Tuesday’s storm around Boston ought to be a happy time for the neighborhood kids! But no gardening for weeks here. Sad!
But the good news is that my son’s robotics team did very well last weekend and next weekend we are off to Scranton where there is really nothing to do but go to the several-day robot competition.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Aleta: We’ve had a mild offshore wind so it’s relatively dry and so there’s no marine layer. The air quality in LA is nothing like it was in the 50’s to the 70’s*.
*It’s much better.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Hard to say, it’s such an odd shape. I’d say the main vegetable garden is probably a little over 2,000 sq feet. My 2 herb gardens add up to about 100 sq feet. The greenhouse will be 20 x 14 with food grade drums cut in half for the planters, for app 100 sq feet. There are various flower plantings too, but I have no idea how much they are.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@MomSense: According to Weather Underground, the high today should be 89 degrees. It’s 49 degrees right now.
satby
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Don’t worry, Trump’s team will fix that.
Immanentize
@satby: Satby, thank you so much for the arborday.org reference. I am definitely joining! And they sell low cast trees too!! I just looked up my hardiness zone and it is currently 6b. I say currently because in 1990 (when I lived here previously) it was 5b. But there is no climate change, ask Pruitt.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@satby: Keep in mind, gas prices are higher in CA so we tend to favor more efficient cars. Dolt 45 can’t fuck that up, unless he manages to get prices under $2. I’m working under the assumption that he’ll do the opposite to gas prices, hence my Prius.
germy
@MomSense:
Interesting history:
In 1964, Glendale was selected by George Lincoln Rockwell to be the West Coast headquarters of the American Nazi Party. Its offices, on Colorado Street in the downtown section of the city, remained open until the early 1980s.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: Congrats to him and his partners.
Aleta
It’s going to warm up quickly today, all the way to 18. Except for wind chill, down to -17.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@germy: That’s not at all surprising, though I didn’t move here until 1987. Back in the 30’s the Bund had a large following and used to hold rallies at Hindenburg Park(now La Crescenta County Park) and Glendale was also a sundowner town well into the 60’s.
Immanentize
@OzarkHillbilly: thanks! As. Score, I am hopeful we can move on from Scranton to — wait for it —
—
—
Saint Louis!
If so, maybe I could buy you a beverage of your choice!
Immanentize
On the garden topic. When I lived in San Antonio, one of my favorite trees was the Texas Mountain Laurel (or Mescal Bean tree in other parts). I loved the dark leaves and the flowers which smell like grape soda. Anyhoo, I have a small specimen that I snagged from my in-laws yard near Houston growing in a tall put to help the tap root grow. They supposedly grow in zone 7, and we are now a 6b. Is there anyway to help a tree winter over outside when it gets below 10 degrees?
MomSense
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Sounds perfect.
@germy:
Yikes. Well it does seem like there’s not a huge leap from 45 resistance to Nazi hunter. I could always do some extreme sharpening of my knitting needles.
p.a.
12-18 inches of snow Tuesday; this thread is just mean. (although snow won’t last long this time of year.)
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: It would be a pleasure.
p.a.
@?BillinGlendaleCA: My father told me of a small-scale riot he was involved in in the late 1930’s against a Blackshirt march here in Providence.
Immanentize
@MomSense: Right there is a great idea for a TV show — Knitting Nazi Hunters. Kind of an updated Buffy — with pink hats.
p.a.
@?BillinGlendaleCA: That’s why we can do away with the EPA!
chris
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I look at your pics and am so amazed at how much we’ve managed to change the world.
I spent the month of July ’69 in Hollywood. The sky was mostly a yellowed grey and you could chew the air and feel it on your skin. Rarely saw the sun, never mind the moon or the stars. On the weekends we’d drive out to the beaches for air and look back at the pall hanging over the city.
Nearly fifty years later and look what a little government “interference” can do!
Jeff
My hardy almond started to flower the Friday just as the returned. That it for that this year.
I put zinnia seeds in pot inside to go into the ground in May. They do well with the lack of rain and high heat in the summer.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@MomSense: No worries, Glendale has become a pretty solid Democratic town. You may have hear of our congresscritter, Adam Schiff.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Man, that’s a lot of weeding!
cosima
My honesty starter plants have managed to survive the winter, which was the plant I was rooting (literally & figuratively) for. I love honesty when it’s green, and when it dries, how it continues to change colour.
I’ve got a wrapped dahlia in the garage waiting for me to be brave enough to put it back in the ground. I am such a sad gardener that I didn’t realise that I’d bought (because Little C was dazzled by it) a plant that required more than my putting it in the ground and crossing fingers. This year I may (perhaps) get more adventurous with planting things, if only because I need to do optimistic things, and planting seems like a good place to start.
There are lots of lambs now, so I guess that means that we are due another snow before winter gives up. Last year we had a beautiful warm spring holiday for the kids, warmer temps than we got most of the summer, and it was immediately followed by snow. This year we’re going way up north to stay in a cottage on the sea near Brora, so I’m hoping for the same beautiful weather, and will happily take the snow after if it means our mini-holiday is sunny. In our 8 years here I’ve never been that far north. We’re all going to John O Groats and maybe Orkney if we’re feeling adventurous.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@chris: I grew up outside of the basin, but I remember when we’d drive “into town” and the air would make your throat hurt. Even when I was at UCLA in the late 70’s, early 80’s the air quality still sucked. It’s gotten much better in the last 30 years.
kindness
I’ve wanted to start from seeds because you have such a wider selection. Usually I put it off until I have to go to one of the local nurserys & buy plants. My bad.
chris
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Unleaded gas, catalytic converters, and smokestack scrubbers. The good old days when the EPA ruled!
japa21
Gorgeous day in Chicagoland. Not a cloud in the sky. Hard to believe that by this time tomorrow we will receive a significant snow for the first time since before Christmas. In fact, we have received 18 inches so far this winter and are supposed to get 9 in the next 24-36 hours. The spousal unit is not happy as I can’t help her with the clearing of the white stuff.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Actually, it’s a lot of mulch. I’m not very into weeding. :-( Seems like every other year we run short on straw in this area. I need to build a small shed just for straw so I can buy it when it’s available rather than just when I need it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@chris: That, and market forces. Quite a few people here drive hybrids or EV’s.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: In Scranton you should visit the Steamtown National Historic Site, a veritable monument to the power of pork-barrel politics (but it also has some really cool locomotives, most of which spent their working lives in New England.)
This might even be a cool side trip for robotics-interested kids.
Aleta
The fragility of snowflakes is supposed to be an insult, but when they’re out in numbers, driven by pressure drops and differences, watch out!
Keith P.
I just woke up from 4 hours of sleep after a 20 hour marathon house-cleaning session. I’ve got years – years – of clutter built up plus flood damage that I never really cleaned from, along with dead appliances/lights everywhere. In the process of everything, I rewired some electrical, got all my dead lights working again (I had a chained circuit miswired), I figured out why my almost-new induction range died (circuit breaker hadn’t physically flipped, and I never, ever bothered to flip it to be sure!!!).
So I woke up this morning to a house that doesn’t even look like mine…hallway is cleared out, light figures are mounted (lights are now computer-controlled), kitchen is clean, and I can actually make a full breakfast!
laura
We had Tony the handy guy do some yard work and add a faucet at the back of the yard, which then morphed into building a 50 x 5 foot raised bed along the Northside fence. It’s daunting. I want to crowd plant it with fruit trees, shrubs, veggies and flowers. But I’m still walking a picket line and that sucks up most free time and energy. So far I’ve got a big dandelion.
We’re planning a pomegranate, Santa Rosa plum and Meyer lemon for trees, spaced at rough thirds, and then in fill with pollinator attracting natives, plus veggies and companions like tomato basil marigolds. Finally, annuals in the first years for color.
Aleta
@Gin & Tonic: Roundhouses and turn tables have a mystique that’s very attractive.
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: I’ve been to Steamtown. Their collection of trains is really amazing. I grew up near Binghamton, NY which was served by both Erie and Lackawanna before the merger. Steamtown has an amazing photo collection of those lines and others in the area.
Gin & Tonic
@Immanentize: Oh. Apologies for being Captain Obvious, then.
As I recall, Scranton or Wilkes-Barre also had one of the nation’s largest auto junkyards, but I think that was cleaned up during the I-81 construction. And that’s not as much of a tourist draw anyway.
StringOnAStick
@Immanentize: Try to plant your tree in as protected an area as possible, which all depends on how your yard is configured. When my folks bought their home from a garden junkie, there was a Mimosa tree planted close to the house in the center if the south facing side. They live in zone 5, and it grew into a grand tree. Eventually some kind of boring insect did it in, probably due to it being stressed by living so far out of its range. It was a gorgeous tree though for 20 years.
ArchTeryx
For once, no Johnny One Note from me this morning. It’s a pretty morning (albeit very, very cold), I have two tutoring gigs (which mean a little extra $) and my chores are done. (Yay, cat litter!)
One of the things that allows me to survive is that I live the rarest of rare birds: A rent and mortgage free existence. I live in the spare bedroom of my closest friend, who is the very walking definition of a mensch and a liberal: He takes his wealth (an upper middle class salary with a lifetime job with New York State) and shares it. However, I don’t just sit like a lump in the bedroom; when I’m not job hunting or tutoring, I’m cooking for the household or doing various chores. We’re a little commune of four here, and it works very well for everyone. And besides, I’m an amateur chef and cooking is a lot of fun for me. Win/win!
I may be all about how frightened I am about my health care situation these days, but there’s a lot of blessing in my life too. It comes directly from my Flock, who are working their tailscales off to try to prevent me from going extinct.
Being an asshole may be the new black in the larger culture, but there’s a sanctuary from it here, and I’m blessed enough to live in it.
OzarkHillbilly
@Immanentize: @Gin & Tonic: If you are into trains, the Museum of Transportation in STL County is a must see.
Spanky
@Keith P.: I hate you.
ETA: Just had my wife go off on me as to how we need a new exterior door since she can’t ever get the lock to work.
It works fine for me, but I know a new door is in the offing, and I have to be the wrangler. The wrinkle, of course, is that this is a very old house and the door is only about 74″ high, so I’ll need one custom made to match the old one. Did I mention this is an historic district?
Another Scott
@?BillinGlendaleCA: My dad bought a bunch of Time/Life books when we were growing up in the ’60s. One of them I still remember had this picture of a steel mill in Cleveland, IIRC. Huge clouds of smoke from the stacks, the air was red/black and it looked like something out of Dante’s Inferno. I was to illustrate America’s industrial prowess… :-(
We really have made a huge amount of progress in air and water quality.
Even with all the progress, though, a recent BBC report (I can’t find the specific link but I think it was part of their So I Can Breathe series) said that LA still has some of the worst air quality in the country. It’s always a challenge for large cities in valleys, and it is likely highly regional (e.g. Anaheim).
Gotta keep up the fight – it’s easy to lose the battle and it’s never really fully won.
Cheers,
Scott.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: I used to work for a guy who would say: ‘”necessity is my mother’s invention”. He had no idea he was saying it wrong.
MomSense
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yes, you guys live in liberal land now. That’s a big part of the appeal- along with the idea of being warm outside much of the year.
I’m a big fan of Schiff and think we should look at him for 2020.
Glidwrith
@laura: FYI, the local park has pomegranate trees here. The roots act as runners to sprout new trees and there is no growth of other plants around them.
J R in WV
@Raven:
He was really lucky to be going residential nearly home speed rather than 65 on a highway when that happened.You do lose control of your vehicle when a front wheel becomes uncontrollable.
I had the right-hand A-Arm come off my VW Rabbit coming home from the U while I was a college student. Lucky to be a mile from home on a twisty little country road, as opposed to going 65 in a 55 zone, which was most of the mileage I covered.
The right front wheel came out of the wheel well and smacked into the fender, pretty much 90 degrees off from my direction of travel. The car did most of a 360 spin clockwise, but because I was only going about 30 it was pretty low drama. At least once it stopped and I knew I was unharmed.
The same thing happened to my wife’s ’91 Saab, the frame was rusted and broke just a couple of miles before she got on the freeway to drive at 70. Going 35, she just had to steer that way to go this way, if you see what I mean. We had 240,000 miles on the car, never replaced the clutch! Sold it for a parts car to our mechanic for $100.
J R in WV
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Nice shot , great sharpness and detail. Do you think you would get better detail if you stopped down from wide open and slowed the shutter down?
Maybe use a tripod, or just hold it against a wall or pole or tree trunk to keep it still at a 60th and stopped down a couple of steps.
Or were you letting the camera run the shot? ETA: No, I see you were in manual mode.
J R in WV
@Immanentize:
I have friends here in WV who have a fig tree. They put woven wire fencing around it in late fall, 8 or 10 feet high, and fill it up with leaves from their big yard. This helps the tree hang in through what can be harsh winters, although lately, well, you know. Not so harsh, lately.
I have a tractor, with which we plow out our farm roads, not quite a mile, and then the county road, which the county would plow later, much later. And neighbor’s driveways, all the way to where the county does plow. Maybe 2.5 miles total.
But not once this year, so far. All the storms have been north or south of us… so far.