From commentor Gelfling545 (who, I believe, is in Maryland?):
Here are some photos from my little plot. All that spring rain was good for something. ?
***********
Picked my first ripe tomato of the season — a fine Chocolate Amazon. For some reason, this year’s cherry tomatoes are lagging; usually they’re starting to ripen a week or ten days before the full-sized ones, but some of them aren’t even flowering yet!
What’s going on in your garden(s), this week?
JPL
What a great place to read a book, or just relax.
David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch
love the pond.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone ???
rikyrah
Pictures are beautiful ?
OzarkHillbilly
Nice. Too bad about all those bumble bees constantly buzzing about, and how do you keep the butterflies in check? I’ll bet they really interfere with the afternoon reading sessions.
satby
Good morning @rikyrah and all!
Great pictures of a beautiful and peaceful looking garden, Gelfling545!
From constant rain, we went to heat and humidity and everything is dry and struggling now. I have to do some deep watering today before it gets brutal. Heat index will be high 90s.
RAVEN
Nice pics. Further update on my basement fridge. After losing all my fish to what I thought was a problem with the GFI I put it a normal outlet and it tripped the circuit breaker. So something is seriously wrong with the second fridge and after having it moved to the basement by the delivery guys I’m stuck with a “white elephant” in place that will be a bitch to move!
satby
Meeting friends for dinner last night involved driving almost an hour through the farm country between South Bend and the lake. Most of the fields aren’t planted, and the corn in the ones that are isn’t even knee high to me, and I’m 5’1″. The soy isn’t doing any better. I’ve never seen it this bad, if it’s not a late, dry autumn those crops are going to fail.
raven
@satby: Yea we had one brief shower and now, despite the hurricane, it looks like we’re going to stay dry.
satby
@RAVEN: see if your area electric company has a program to pick up obsolete appliances and give you a rebate for a new energy efficient one. They come and remove it for you.
Or get a cheaper new freezer only, and have the delivery guys take the old one away.
OzarkHillbilly
@RAVEN: Shit.
NotMax
@satby
Midget corn will be the new kale.
(I think it’s still okay to use the word midget for produce.)
;)
RAVEN
@satby: We already bought a new one, that’s how this ended up in the basement. Check out these ideas for reuse!
eclare
What a nice looking garden! Here in Memphis, I’m worried about Barry. I live in an older neighborhood with lots of trees, and two years ago when a big storm came through I was without power for four days in May. I usually don’t worry, but this one has set something off in me.
NotMax
@RAVEN
Any chance of using discrete chunks of fish as fertilizer in the garden?
raven
@NotMax: I’ll tell you what, they are in the rolling trash can outside right now and WHEW! They pickup tomorrow but I may throw em in the back of the truck and find a dumpster somewhere!
satby
@eclare: I was just looking at the storm track wondering if it would bring rain in the next few days. Looks like Ozark and your area will get some, but by the time it goes over this area it’s just predicting spotty rainstorms. That’s probably good since the river here is still pretty high, not much more and we could have flooding too.
satby
@raven: what a shame! Couldn’t salvage any of it?
OzarkHillbilly
@RAVEN: They make great worm farms too. I’ll bet your wife would like that. (worm casting, worm tea)
eclare
@satby: Forecast here is either 5-8 inches or 6-10 inches of rain depending on which model you believe. And more than worrying about power, there is the real possibility of trees on houses, cars, etc. I set an appt to get the trees in my front yard trimmed, but it’s not til the 25th!
satby
@eclare: I would worry about that too!
Get some freezer packs to keep stuff cold if the power goes out. Could buy you extra time before food spoils.
RAVEN
@satby: I had myself convinced I could but, after much deliberation, “when in doubt throw it out”prevailed. I wasn’t prepared to take a chance on getting a couple in their 80’s sick.
Raven
@OzarkHillbilly: OOO, don’t tell her!
eclare
@satby: I have four freezer packs in the freezer right now!
NotMax
@raven
“Athens man’s yard invaded by 10,000 cats. Film at eleven.”
RAVEN
@NotMax: @NotMax: That would be nothing new. Fuckers.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: According to the NWS. Barry is coming for a visit on Monday and Tuesday. I don’t expect to get much out of him. I’m gonna go ahead and water the garden today anyway.
RAVEN
“Why the forecast bust on rain so far today? Look at the deep tropical rains (yellows, oranges, reds) repeatedly develop offshore and fall apart as they move inland & encounter dry air. Nothing indicated the dry air impact would be THAT significant. #LAx #Barry pic.twitter.com/yAhwhZHM5B”
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: yeah, chatting with WaterGirl last night, she said it was the same in central IL where she is. She made the good point that all that early rain kept the plant roots from going deep like they normally would for moisture, so it’s a double whammy now (I’m paraphrasing). Guess I better get outside and start watering, it’s already 73°.
OzarkHillbilly
@RAVEN:
For whatever it’s worth.
OzarkHillbilly
While my youngest and his SO are floating the Big Piney with his brother and friends, we’ve had the “grandchildren” (Tecca and Honey). While 4 dogs is definitely a houseful (“Careful where you step!”), these 2 are so well behaved it is easy to forget they are here. Until the pettins start and then no matter what you do, 2 hands is 2 short.
PAM Dirac
Very nice. I always like masses of plants.
OzarkHillbilly
……………………………
Gotta love her.
Eric U.
Nothing’s going on in my garden, but the farmers market was great yesterday. There was one tent set up by an Amish family that only had tomatoes. They had a huge long line. Much longer than the bakery, which is usually the longest line
chris
Wild roses from my roadside garden. Pink!
Dorothy A. Winsor
@OzarkHillbilly: Between Williams and Rapinoe, the female athletes are impressively poised and well spoken.
zhena gogolia
@RAVEN:
I thought you were talking about live fish in an aquarium, and I thought, “This must be some other Raven . . . .”
eclare
@chris: Pretty!
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
I can’t believe people are Impatient with a hurricane!
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
Christ, anyone even suggesting an athlete stops caring about anything other than her sport is an offense. Here, after Trayvon Martin, more than a few OSU football players were criticized for tweeting about it and not focusing on football. Their tweeted responses showed far more thoughtful intelligence than their fans’.
debbie
Gelfling545: By the way, lovely garden. Even the bug spray by the chaise!
JPL
@OzarkHillbilly: There wasn’t much she could do. Halep admitted that she played her best tennis. She had three unforced errors.
satby
@debbie: it’s the kind of racism that only allows black people to be entertainment for white people, not to be actual human beings with full lives. It has a long history. If Hattie McDaniel or Lincoln Perry were still alive, they would recognize that type.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: @satby: “Shut up and dribble.”
debbie
@satby:
Yeah, there’s a lot of that around here.
OzarkHillbilly
Oh brother, even when he’s right, Ted Cruz can’t do it right:
Hey ted, have you noticed how all the people you agree with about this are Democrats? Fuck off ted.
satby
So, now done giving everything in the yard I want to survive a drink and it’s drier than I realized. And I water almost all the stuff every other day!
satby
@OzarkHillbilly: he had to stick that little “Democratic” dig in there too, even though the Democrats of the 1800s are the Republicans of today.
chris
@debbie: Alyssa Milano said something like: People tell me to shut up because I’m just an entertainer. Then they elected one president.
OzarkHillbilly
There’s more.
OzarkHillbilly
@satby: He just can’t help himself, always and forever a trumpidian first.
Gelfling 545
Actually, I’m in Buffalo, NY. ?
Some suitable sentiments for the Fête Nationale
germy
@satby:
The deplorable Harold Ross, founder of the New Yorker magazine, said “Blacks are either funny or dangerous.”
OzarkHillbilly
I need to spray stuff in the veggie garden (pyrethrin on the brassicas, Serenade on the maters) and water everything. Gonna pick more beans and cukes and probably a few maters. (I need to mark the Mallorcans so the wife doesn’t pick them, even if they look ripe they are supposed to stay on the vine all season and then into storage still on the vine) Then I’ll start watering.
After that I have to work on the expansion of the chicken coop so I can raise 50 meat birds at a time. I asked my son and DIL if they’d like me to raise them some pastured birds for them and of course they said yes.
Stupid stupid stupid…
Gelfling 545
@OzarkHillbilly: They’re too busy with the flowers to bother with me.
OzarkHillbilly
@Gelfling 545: I find them to be a constant distraction. It’s all but impossible to read when they are fluttering about from flower to flower, I just can’t take my eyes off them, and the “buzzzzzbuzzzzzbuzzzz” drives me insane!
Gelfling 545
@debbie: The rain left us with a ton of mosquitos so I go out well sprayed! I noticed I had left that in the picture but since I otherwise love the photo, what the heck.
jayjaybear
Lovely garden, Gelfling! I really miss having peonies. The house I grew up in had a couple of decades-old clumps of them and they have the prettiest and best-smelling flowers.
Gelfling 545
@OzarkHillbilly: I read, then watch, then read, then watch. We don’t have nearly as many as I’d like to see. I’m one of the few in the area who plants anything that flowers. I guess most of them flock to the city garden walk area in the high rent district. Still, I’m glad to see very one of them and there are more each year. Birds, too are coming around again. Many more species than, say, 10 or 15 years ago. They drop by to frolic in the tiny waterfall.
Gelfling 545
@jayjaybear: peonies are a big favorite of mine. We were lucky this year and they flowered between rainstorms so they made a good showing.
germy
debbie
@Gelfling 545:
If I still had access to Photoshop, I could clone it right out of there! Back to your garden, I love your color choices!
Steeplejack
@germy:
We live in—we have created—a society in which our response to any problem is not “How can we solve it?” but “How can we profit from it?” That is killing us.
In business it’s corporations, and the currency is money. In politics it’s the GOP, and the currency is power.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Re the leaked diplomatic cables, via Axios
I’m refraining from posting Trump’s racist morning tweets telling progressive congresswomen to go back to the disastrous countries they came from (in three cases, the US) because the flowers are too pretty and he gets uglier every day.
germy
@Steeplejack:
Dorothy A. Winsor
@germy: What a great line.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax:
I know about SNL’s landshark, but a gardenshark? Really?
Make your own version of Monty Python’s Fish Slapping Dance?
MomSense
Lovely garden, Gelfling. I love your quiet spot.
Chuckles just read the results of the impeachment polls. 22% of registered voters think there is enough evidence to warrant starting impeachment hearings. 39% of Democrats. 21 or 22% of independents. 15% of Republicans.
Nancy seems to have her finger on the pulse. Twitter support for impeachment is clearly not in line with voters off twitter just as Nancy has been trying to caution.
MomSense
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
He’s right in three of those cases, though. Our government is a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all).
JPL
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I just heard about the racist tweets. The republicans will simply say they did not read them.
frosty
@satby: Dunno why these Rs don’t understand that they’re talking about members of the Confederate Party* which switched sides from D to R thanks to Nixon (spit).
* h/t Dennis Green
Jim, Foolish Literalist
when I first saw this, I assumed it was some kind of mock-up to mock trump, but apparently it’s real
frosty
@Gelfling 545: We have a postage stamp pond with goldfish that has attracted some frogs. And birds who come for a drink or a bath. It’s pretty neat.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
PAM Dirac
@Gelfling 545: We always try to plant lots of flowering stuff where ever we have lived, but it is bit surprising how much of a difference it makes to have running water. It isn’t just the number of birds, but the diversity as well. It does make the garden much more enjoyable to share it with wildlife (even if sometimes the wildlife gets a little greedy). Makes it seem like you’re getting at least close to a healthy relationship with nature.
debbie
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Not to be Susie Sunshine (for a change), but the “uglier” is a sign of increasing desperation. I’m not at all fine with what he is saying, but I’m happy he feels the need to say it.
Jharp
Help.
Something is eating the leaves of my tomatoes.
I know about tomato hornworms and am pretty sure it’s not them.
Anyone?
Thanks in advance.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I’m listening to Conspiracyland which is about the Seth Rich conspiracy. It’s chilling how malicious Fox news is- if anything people underestimate how much damage they do to the country. I hope they’re all making a lot of money because, boy, this is dirty, sleazy “work” they do. You forget they involve ordinary people – people who have no dog in this fight and just happened to accidentally enter the Fox realm of “nasty”. There are innocent victims.
debbie
I just went over to his Twitter feed. He’s clearly agitated, retweeting many, many tweets praising him. The pressure must be getting to him…
tybee
@Jharp: any pictures of the damage?
Kay
@debbie:
Interesting that they sent Pence on the trip to visit the detention sites. Carefully planned to exclude any real information being disseminated to the public so just more propaganda, but still, they went and they sent Trump’s emissary to the religious Right- Pence.
Maybe they’re not as confident about the political ramifications of the interment as they say they are.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It just doesn’t seem fair that there’s no recourse for ordinary people who happen to get caught in some gross Right wing grift operation where these cable celebrities are making tens of millions of dollars, like the leeching off the Rich family tragedy. There should be a way to make them pay damages. This is enormously profitable both for Fox and for the individual media personalities. They should have to compensate their victims.
debbie
@Kay:
Every single comment Pence and the Representatives who traveled with him (including the odious Rob Portman) have made have started out with blaming Congress for all of it, as if they were incapable of doing anything about it, as if their HAVING A MAJORITY only left them helpless victims.
schrodingers_cat
@Gelfling 545: Can you give some more details about the water feature you have installed was it a DIY or did you have a contractor do it for you.
Kay
@debbie:
The moron and his followers believe elected House members are not permitted to say “how the US should be run”
I get that they all traded their souls for douchebag and the huge stacks of cash they earn. but is anyone on the Right embarrassed at how fucking dumb he is? He has like a 70 word vocabulary and he doesn’t know 4th grade civics.
Steeplejack (phone)
@debbie:
I don’t “follow” Trump’s Twitter feed, but I check on it fairly often, and he seems way more agitated than usual. Last night he was retweeting reams of crazy Judicial Watch stuff, and this morning he was retweeting somebody’s video which allegedly absolves him in the “making fun of the handicapped reporter” thing, which is old news at this point. Then the screed about the four congresswomen intimating that they’re not from here.
I wonder if there’s a vulcanologist or seismologist Twitter account that monitors Trump’s account and issues alerts when he’s about to erupt. That would be useful.
debbie
@Steeplejack (phone):
Can’t we just assume he’s always about ready to erupt?
debbie
@Kay:
I’ve been saying he has the vocabulary of a third grader, but maybe I’ve given him too much credit. If so, I’m very sorry, all you third graders!
oldgold
Although I now have my 2 hospice eligible tomato plants and my Dukakis era Belgian Endive seed pack, it was too hot to plant this week in the Major Major Major Major Wing of West of Eden.
How hot is it?
It’s so hot that I saw a fire hydrant chasing a dog.
It’s so hot that chickens are laying omelettes.
It’s so hot that the farmers are calling their hogs – “Bacon.”
It’s so hot Jehovah’s Witnesses have gone to telemarketing and the Latter Day Saints are knocking on doors in speedos.
Steeplejack (phone)
@debbie:
True, but there’s a difference between “minor eruption” and “last days of Pompeii.” Currently his feed sounds a little bit more toward the latter.
Jharp
@tybee:
No can do on the pics. I’ve been moving and using an IPad and just don’t know how to do it.
The top one fourth of my tomatoes look like a tree that has lost its leaves.
It looks like a deer has browsed on them but there are no deer around me.
Steeplejack (phone)
@oldgold:
Maybe it will be cooler at the Borscht Belt resort where I’m booking you for an extended gig.
mrmoshpotato
@debbie:
The fat, orange fascist can always resign. No shame in admitting you’re a pile of shit who only ran for President because a black guy made fun of you.
prostratedragon
@germy: It’s a thing I often ponder as I sit here in the 500-feet-above-sea-level city of South Fond-du-lac, watching the nation being forcibly dissolved.
Gelfling 545
@frosty: A pond is just the most delightful thing, isn’t it?
Gelfling 545
@schrodingers_cat: Mine was definitely a dyi. My daughter planned it out and dug it – 4 ft deep to protect the fish. A friend ran the electrical lines for the pump. Then she fitted in the padding & neoprene liner and spent about a week rearranging the rocks. It was a gift for, IIRC, my 50th birthday. The plantings around it are my 3rd endeavor, put in about 5 years ago. They were a lot fussier before I decided to simplify. It requires almost no care aside from periodically scooping out any debris and occasionally rinsing off the pump intakes.
tybee
@Jharp: that sounds like horn worms.
oldgold
@Steeplejack (phone):
Do I get to dance Baby out of the corner?
Jharp
@tybee:
Thank you.
And it sure as hell looks like hornworm damage but I cannot find any of the rascals.
Could it be the hornworms did their damage and were then eaten by birds?
I’m at a loss. I guess I’ll keep looking for them.
SWMBO
@Kay: Give the Sandy Hook families a little time. Maybe the tide is turning and they will change their tune as it becomes apparent that they can lose bigly if they keep going after innocent folks. Baby steps.