Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

They fucked up the fucking up of the fuckup!

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

Many life forms that would benefit from greater intelligence, sadly, do not have it.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

So many bastards, so little time.

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

We will not go back.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Florida Fruiting Report

Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Florida Fruiting Report

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From commentor Cope:

OK, admittedly small potatoes compared to the efforts of the serious plant growers. I don’t really have a garden but this being Florida, many things will grow with minimal effort.

We stick pineapple tops into the sand and sometimes they grow. They are entirely on their own, my only intervention is to pick them before the critters get them like they did last year. This year, three were harvested.

#1 was turned into the stir fried rice bowl shown, #2 and #3 were consumed directly with #3 being grilled and glazed with balsamic vinegar/brown sugar mix.

The tops of those three have been stuck into the ground near their progenitors. Be free, be free…

Also, too, I have had some luck with potted pepper plants next to the front door. This year, instead of the always reliable serannos, I went with tabasco peppers [top photo]. So far, I have harvested enough of them (and a couple of habaneros) to make 3 bottles of hot sauce.

Finally, not shown and unheralded is the citrus grove on the side of the house that is totally ignored until we see some ripe fruit. A tangerine, pink grapefruit and navel orange tree each have young, green fruits growing on them but they are decidedly un-photogenic. Maybe towards the end of the year.

What’s going on in your garden(s) this week?

Reader Interactions

104Comments

  1. 1.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Fresh pineapple, truly a gift of the Gods. Growing up in the midwest, I’d always loved them but had no idea just how good a pineapple could really be. Then on my first trip to Mexico my crew of 7 cavers in a Chevy Suburban stopped at a roadside stand and picked up a few.

    Oh. My. God.

  4. 4.

    NotMax

    Binge watched all 5 parts of The Camomile Lawn. Strange, uneven yet arresting (partially) period drama of the type which only the British are capable of successfully pulling off.

  7. 7.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @NotMax:

    I saw that when it first came out. It’s one of those twee British twentieth century historical pieces that really says more about the British class system than whatever historical period it’s representing. A sort of horny Mrs Miniver.

    Talking about the foibles of our betters, there is this.

    What’s most amusing is that by shredding his own artwork Banksy has almost doubled its value.

  8. 8.

    satby

    Holding thoughts about what kind of morning is until it’s light enough for me to go out in the pouring rain and find wherever Bubba ran off / is hiding from thunder. Dumb dog has never left the yard, never goes more than 10 feet to wiz on the grass when it’s raining, and he disappeared. I assume chasing a bunny. I looked for 1/2 an hour in the dark, no luck. Now having my first cup of coffee and waiting for some light. Dammit.

  9. 9.

    satby

    I would be jealous of growing pineapple in the yard, but then I remember it’s tropical ?. I would be a melted puddle before the fruit ripened. But great pics.

  10. 10.

    NotMax

    @Viva Bris Vegas

    A sort of horny Mrs Miniver.

    Good description, although hedonistic might be more on point.

    The acting, most especially all the women, ends up surpassing the scripting, IMHO.

  12. 12.

    Ben Cisco

    Looks like I’ll have a job interview this week. Gig sounds pretty solid. Hoping this will be the one.

  13. 13.

    JPL

    It would be fun to grow pineapples, but the weather won’t cooperate.
    @satby: I’m so sorry to hear that and I hope he returns safely.

  18. 18.

    satby

    @Ben Cisco: Best of luck Ben!

    On Bubba: thanks all. I just took advantage of the break in the rain and the pre-dawn gray light to do a walk around the block calling him softly because it’s so early, and no sight of him at all. I’ll do it again in a bit, but I suspect he’s hiding. Loud noises like thunder scare him, though we aren’t really having any thunder. I even went down into the basement to make sure he didn’t sneak past me letting his buddy dog in to go hide behind the washer. No luck. Fingers crossed he comes home soon.

  19. 19.

    MazeDancer

    @Ben Cisco:
    May all go beautifully!

    @satby:
    Oh no. Bubble come back!

    To all:

    Great day for PostCard writing, isn’t it?

    We are on round two and three on restocking most of the addresses. Yay, BJ Candidates!
    (Except for Lamb, Delgado, and Wild, where having the entire voting rolls of the district mean eternal supply.)

    We got fresh Harley Rouda addresses in last night.
    Comrade Rohrbacher got to go.

    PostCardPatriots.com

  20. 20.

    Ben Cisco

    Thanks everyone.
    @Dorothy A. Winsor: I had been contemplating moving back home for a while now. Searching for a job from out-of-state was, shall we say, not necessarily working out to my advantage, so I took the plunge and committed to the move.

  23. 23.

    satby

    Bubba update: second trip out in better light and he was trotting in the alley on the block behind my house. He looked like he was heading home just as soon as he smelled every microbe between there and my house. I called him to come get his cookie (they always get cookies when they come in no matter what) and he came right away. So the prodigal is home again, the neighbor’s outdoor cat is on the front porch having his morning can of pate, and I am finally having a much needed second cup of joe. Thanks for all the good thoughts for my Houdini dog.

  30. 30.

    immanentize

    So my garden is teetering on collapse. There are still some ‘maters on straggly vives with almost no leaves. My tomatillos are good, but they always are until first frost, then I lose a huge number too small to pick. But my peppers have gone wild. I could sell poblanos at a farmers market I have so many this year — and I only planted three plants. Also, my pimentos are coming along g beautifully. Mowed the yard yesterday. Maybe one more time before the grass goes dormant?

  31. 31.

    satby

    @immanentize: cookie on going in even if they misbehave while out. Then they know that coming home is always rewarded just in case one gets loose and takes off. Which happens so seldom it’s occurred about 5 times in 12 years over all the dogs I’ve had. The cats don’t go outside full stop (edited: well, not without a catio enclosure).

  32. 32.

    immanentize

    And on the home front. The Immp took his final standardized test (for four years before the GREs?). He is studying for a big physics test Tuesday, so he is not working on his applications. This is such a frustrating process. He ruled out Georgia Tech, as the students report low satisfaction and seem unhappy there. Or, he just didn’t want to meet the October 15 scholarship deadline….

  33. 33.

    immanentize

    @satby: My cat is an indoor outdoor cat and he gets a few treats when he comes back. Same reason. And he is very good at coming back.

  34. 34.

    JPL

    We’re going to have another 90 degree day, but cooler weather is suppose to move in. I won’t mind saying goodbye to summer. I’m going to do some yard work and then curl up on the sofa and read a book.

  37. 37.

    satby

    @immanentize: my tomatoes are in sad shape, but I should get a couple more before we have a frost. My volunteer purple potatoes were harvested with only about 1/2 being edible but since I hadn’t planned on any bonus!

    I have to plant two replacement roses I ordered for cheap ones that died, if these fail I’m not doing roses again. I keep changing my mind on where I want to plant this beauty. Now thinking that I may move the hydrangea that’s recovering from being weedwhacked to the other side of the yard and put the weigela in it’s place.

  40. 40.

    laura

    It’s the third and final day of Hardly, Strictly Bluegrass today in beautiful Golden Gate Park. Yesterday was songs of protest with Hooray for the Riff Raff, Graham Nash, Don Was & Friends with the McCreedy Sisters, Buddy Miller and Bib Weir, and Ani DiFranco – then came back to the room to find out Justice Gang Bang was sworn in uncerimoniously.
    The weather is lovely and the crowds have been buzzed by alternating flyovers Blue Angel’s and kitewheeling Red Tail Hawks.
    Free live music, outdoors in the park. Reality held mostly at bay.
    I’m. In. Heaven.

  41. 41.

    Aleta

    In my neighborhood, mushrooms have popped up in every yard around us, but only our house is surrounded by clumps of orange amanita, with more arriving every day. It looks kind of odd to be singled out this way, but also cute. In the woods the slugs eat this kind pretty quickly, but that’s not happening here.

    Years ago, in 1984, Stamets had noticed a “continuous convoy of bees” travelling from a patch of mushrooms he was growing and his beehives. The bees actually moved wood chips to access his mushroom’s mycelium.
    “I could see them sipping on the droplets oozing from the mycelium,” he said. They were after its sugar, he thought.
    …
    Waking up one morning, “I connected the dots,” he said. “Mycelium have sugars and antiviral properties,” he said. What if it wasn’t just sugar that was useful to those mushroom-suckling bees so long ago?

    In research published Thursday in the journal Scientific Reports, Stamets turned intuition into reality. The paper describes how bees given a small amount of his mushroom mycelia extract exhibited remarkable reductions in the presence of viruses associated with parasitic mites that have been attacking, and infecting, bee colonies for decades.

    When Stamets … began reaching out to scientists, some laughed him off.
    “I don’t have time for this. You sound kind of crazy. I’m gonna go,” he recalled a California researcher telling him. “It was never good to start a conversation with scientists you don’t know saying, ‘I had a dream.’”
    When Steve Sheppard, a Washington State University entomology professor, received a call in 2014 from Stamets, however, he listened. … Stamets …had data to back up his claims about mycelium’s antiviral properties and his company, Fungi Perfecti, could produce it in bulk. “I had a compelling reason to look further,” Sheppard said.
    …
    To test Stamets’ theory, the researchers conducted two experiments: They separated two groups of mite-exposed bees into cages, feeding one group sugar syrup with a mushroom-based additive and the other, syrup without the additive. They also field-tested the extract in small, working bee colonies near WSU.
    For several virus strains, the extract “reduced the virus to almost nothing,” said Brandon Hopkins, a WSU assistant research professor, another author of the paper.

  42. 42.

    debbie

    @satby:

    Hope Bubba is easily found.

    I don’t understand how pineapple tops aren’t overrun by ants when they’re first put in the ground.

  46. 46.

    debbie

    @Aleta:

    I’ve noticed all kinds of mushrooms while walking around the neighborhood this year, far more than earlier years. This one’s my favorite, the way they nestle in the crooks of tree roots. I hope they aren’t hurting the trees, but I half-expect some tiny leprechaun to hop out whenever I walk by them.

  49. 49.

    Jeffro

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Fresh pineapple, truly a gift of the Gods.

    #1 with a bullet here. I got one a couple months ago and my kids were like “WOW!” Sorry watermelon, you’ve been knocked off your perch!

    I think I’m going to go swim some laps in a bit. Looking forward to things finally cooling off around here on Friday.

  52. 52.

    Immanentize

    @satby: This month he is applying to Rice for early decision, and UT Austin and Northeastern for their eespective honors programs. Then, in November — the University of California schools — Berkeley, UCLA, and maybe UC San Diego. Then, in December, other schools including Michigan and Carnegie Mellon.

  53. 53.

    WaterGirl

    @Ben Cisco:This would be a bad week for me to have a job interview. Between the anger and the tears, I am not my best self at the moment.

    I hope it goes really well for you. Go get ’em!

    @satby: Hoping Bubba is okay and comes home soon!

  59. 59.

    A Ghost To Most

    Angry gets shit done. Back from the mtns, this week is adding proper jacks and brakes to the off-road trailer. Then find a supplier of rough sawn 2×2 douglas fir for the cabin frame.

    Here’s to all of you who still have the fortitude to get out in front of those people. I need to stand clear at this point.

  60. 60.

    WaterGirl

    @satby: I get that. After telling the young woman at the farmer’s market to “wake up!” after she said judges are impartial so they shouldn’t have to list their political affiliation, I decided it would be best for me not to be out in public for the rest of the day yesterday.

    But then the new fiber optic network guy comes to my door to make sure they didn’t screw up my yard with the work they did in my neighborhood, and he also wants me to sign up for their service.

    Me: “This isn’t a good day for me, I am angry and sad about what’s going on.”
    Him: “What do you mean?”

    Me: “The rapist judge who was just put on the supreme court”.
    Him: “oh, i know, it’s awful, my wife is so upset, just like she was when Trump was elected.
    Him: “She thought it was going to be the end of the world and I tell her that it hasn’t been so bad, her worries didn’t come true”

    Me: “Except for people who are black or brown, for women, for children in cages, for people who don’t have a lot of money…
    Me: “You’re a white male who has plenty of money, of course he hasn’t done anything that has impacted you.
    Him: “I see your point.”

    It appears that I have no filter at the moment. It all just comes tumbling out.

  63. 63.

    rikyrah

    Need travel advice:
    My sister is going to China at the end of the month.
    What should she take for money?
    Travelers cheques?
    American dollars?
    The Chinese currency(and where to get it?)
    A pre-paid Visa?

    Any and all suggestions welcome.

  66. 66.

    WaterGirl

    I just got email from Jacky Rosen — after donating yesterday.

    I really like that the top line of her message contained the unsubscribe link. Good for her.

  69. 69.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: That’s definitely out of character for me. At this point I’m not quite sure if my newfound lack of filter is a bug or a feature. I appreciate your encouragement.

  72. 72.

    debbie

    @WaterGirl:

    Yeah, well wait and see if it actually works.

    ETA: I’ve never had a filter. It doesn’t take much to launch me into a Trump diatribe, not even at work.

  73. 73.

    WaterGirl

    @JPL: My niece — the only other person in my extended family who did not vote for Trump or vote third party –just texted me something funny. After we laughed about the, she texted: “how ya feeling over there?!?”

    My reply: “Besides the rage and profound sadness?”
    She writes back “?” and I write “Kavanaugh” and she writes “I’m out of the loop”.

    Holy fuck, she’s one of the good guys and usually knows what’s going on. if it didn’t make it into her world, there is no hope.

  74. 74.

    WaterGirl

    @debbie: I don’t have the problem you guys seem to have; once I subscribe, I don’t keep getting stuff. Not after a week or so, at least. I think sometimes they have stuff in the queue to it can take a few days.

  75. 75.

    Jerzy Russian

    @rikyrah: Take American dollars and exchange there. Travelers checks are hard to find, and credit cards are not commonly used there (at least outside big cities) as they are here. It was basically all cash for us, and I don’t remember if my U.S. ATM card worked over there (I had a summer job and was given an ATM card from a local bank there).

  76. 76.

    MagdaInBlack

    @WaterGirl:
    You’re doing great. I applaud your lack of filter.
    Remember, women have been trained from birth to “make nice. ”
    Clocks run out on that rule ?

  79. 79.

    WaterGirl

    As if I didn’t feel sick already:

    Simply awful news — Turkey concludes that prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who wrote for WaPo and has written critically about the Saudi government, was killed in Saudi consulate.

    I don’t have a link, I just saw it on Preet’s twitter feed.

  81. 81.

    JPL

    @WaterGirl: The fundies think that they are going to end abortion, and all they are going to do is end safe abortion. Those financially able will always be able to get a safe abortion.

  82. 82.

    JPL

    @WaterGirl: I had on both NBC and ABC Sunday morning news, and neither mentioned it.
    Jamal Khashoggi death will be swept under the rug, because of our relationship with Saudi.

  83. 83.

    germy

    People across the street from me had a “kavanaugh party” last night. Lots of beer and laughing on their big front porch.

  84. 84.

    satby

    @rikyrah: is she located in Chicago? She can go to a big downtown back and get Chinese yuan at the current exchange rate, bring American cash, and she can also bring a limited debit card for ATMs. LImit the money in that account before she leaves. Travellers checks are obsolete, ATMs will probably only be in cities, so she’s going to need cash in both currencies, and exchange rates are better at a bank than at currency exchangers and in the street.
    Edit: prepaid Visa for purchases could substitute for the limited debit card.

  86. 86.

    WaterGirl

    @JPL: Yep. First group i joined when I came to college in 1972 was the aborition rights group.

    I surely hope we’re at the tail end of the pendulum swing before things start moving back our way.

  89. 89.

    WaterGirl

    @rikyrah: I had seen the concerns that he appeared to be in danger, but I had missed the more recent devastating news. Feels like evil is everywhere.

  91. 91.

    Kirk

    @immanentize: since my daughter’s a grad student as well as getting her bachelor’s degree there, I have to somewhat sympathize.

    On the other hand I had the misfortune of listening to a young man leaving A&M four Houston State because of the misery of upper level calculus that the former requires for it’s computer programming majors. Makes me suspicious of the root cause of the dislike.

  92. 92.

    debbie

    @JPL:

    Yes, because, as usual with them, they’re all about the girl keeping her legs together, not the boy keeping his pants zipped.

  96. 96.

    jharp

    This year for the first time I actually followed directions with my potted cayenne pepper plant.

    I mixed the recommended amount of bone meal into the soil.

    And hoo boy did it make a difference.

    I went from getting about 6 peppers to getting more like 100. And it’s still going strong.

    There must be something to this following directions. I’m going to try it on a potted tomato plant next year.

  99. 99.

    WaterGirl

    @MagdaInBlack: Yeah, i recall Adam saying “if they don’t find him by x, he’s dead”. Fuck. The man went into the embassy for something related to getting married, I think, while his fiancé waited outside.

  103. 103.

    Ben Cisco

    @Steeplejack: I grew up in west central Alabama . About two hours north of Mobile, two hours south of Tuscaloosa, and 45 minutes east of Meridian, MS.

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