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Post by brownrexx on Apr 30, 2018 17:20:07 GMT -5
I feel for you about the cat damage. I had to keep my cats locked out of the room with my seedlings because they wanted to eat them, especially the pepper seedlings. I was thinking that they would be OK since they had not bothered the tomato seedlings at all but you're right. Nellie really went for the peppers. I discovered about 3 others with holes chewed in the leaves but they were not too bad. I have been keeping the doors to the sunroom now closed when the plants are not outside. All of the seedlings got to spend time outside on the porch today and they loved it. They are back in the sunroom for the night.
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Post by pepperhead212 on Apr 30, 2018 18:43:57 GMT -5
Thay ice treatment for the okra got me thinking, bestofour. I wonder if it sort of cracks the seed coat, speeding up the germination? I know that sometimes they can take forever to sprout, and before I found this GA-3 treatment, I used to carefully crack them, and those would frequently sprout quickest.
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Post by spike on Apr 30, 2018 20:04:54 GMT -5
I would like to place an order for a cute paramedic please. It is once again that time of year when there is so much yard work to do to get caught up and stupidly I over did it yet again. But my hosta bed is cleaned and mulched and the double arch arbor is mulched and ready for the bean planting. Got the pool set up and water is delivered tomorrow. Soon my bud will bring down the massey and till for me. Ben Gay and Wine.
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Post by guruofgardens on Apr 30, 2018 20:55:18 GMT -5
Transplanted all of the tomatoes I plan on growing or sharing. Lots left. Put all the pepper trays outside in the shade for the day, in at night. Dug up grass along the rocks - that was no fun.
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Post by september on Apr 30, 2018 23:44:35 GMT -5
Went to town to find a present for my son's birthday tomorrow. He will be 38! Where did the years go? When I got home, all the seedling trays needed watering, by the time I finished, I was starving for lunch, after I ate, I got the sleepies, so had to take a nap. By the time I got up, all desire to work in the garden had evaporated, so my peas didn't get planted. I hope I get more done tomorrow! Mornings are my best time to get hard work done, I hate it when someone calls just to chat in the morning. I have told my sister for years to call me in the afternoon, but she keeps calling me right after she eats her breakfast and reads her newspaper. Sometimes I put her on speaker phone and keep doing what I'm doing, other times I just don't answer the phone. Once she gets going, she can go on for an hour with very little response from me. Most of the time I can't get a word in edgewise. She is a dear soul with a husband and lots of friends and a much livelier social life than I have, if she was calling from loneliness I would be more understanding.
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Post by brownrexx on May 1, 2018 6:35:24 GMT -5
I potted up my tomatoes 3 days ago and they spent the day outside yesterday including 2 separate hours in the direct sun. I can't believe how much greener and stronger they look today compared to what they looked like in their little cells before re-potting.
We are finally getting nice, warm temperatures so it will be hard for me to resist planting them in the garden. I will probably end up planting 2 or 3 of them in the ground in about a week if it stays warm. I did this last year with ones that I had duplicates of. I couldn't possibly protect all of them if it gets cold again but I can risk 2 or 3 of them and cover with baskets and blankets if necessary.
It's hard to believe that it will get cold again when it feels this warm but it usually does. We just wonder. Will it stay warm? Should I take a chance? It's hard to resist the lure of warm weather and the warm soil in the garden.
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Post by paulf on May 1, 2018 9:07:05 GMT -5
Before the rains come today I will be planting six new fruit trees; two pears, three apples and an apricot.
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Post by carolyn on May 1, 2018 15:57:10 GMT -5
worked in the high tunnel and greenhouses. water water waater in the greenhousees and reseeded the basil... again! what a horrid season for growing herbs so far. I have killed off more basil and thyme than I started last year. sigh! planted up the tomatoes and proceeded to kill off quite a few of those by over fertilizing. sigh! good thing I had a few extras and then odd ball things to fill in where I had nothing of the same variety to replace ... planted up a double row of peppers got the next row ready to plant up and planted the onion sets.
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Post by ladymarmalade on May 1, 2018 16:28:20 GMT -5
Today we skipped school and went and saw the newest Avengers movie. Now we only need to wait 12 months to find out how it ends!
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Post by spike on May 1, 2018 16:29:36 GMT -5
I feel your pain! Our Great Grand Daughter just turned one! Today I did very little. Got the pool water delivered and it is up and running. So that is a plus.
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caesg
Pro Member
Posts: 152
Zone:: 5b
Favorite Vegetable:: Butternut Squash
Joined: April 2018
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Post by caesg on May 2, 2018 12:25:27 GMT -5
Today, I called the community garden and got some input on how to gently poke around and get things moving on my plot application! I was encouraged to leave both a voicemail message and an email. In the email, I took care to speak to, "available plots *or volunteer opportunities*." Maybe if I focus on offering free labor then I'll get a quicker response? It's spring. Everyone is hustling!
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 2, 2018 13:04:24 GMT -5
That sounds like a good plan to get their attention.
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Post by brownrexx on May 2, 2018 13:29:42 GMT -5
Today the local Lions club held their plant exchange. I have been going to this every year for the last several years and it is really fun. People bring perennial plants from their yards and place them on long tables in the outdoor picnic area. At a set time an announcement is made and you can walk around and take whatever you want. Everything is free. They just ask for donations to the Lions Club.
I have gotten some really nice plants for my yard this way but last year I decided to get some bulbs for our cabin in Western PA. There are always lots of daffodil bulbs left over so I took a bunch of them and planted them along the driveway. Our cabin is in a wooded area and this year when we went up at Easter the Daffodils were blooming and they looked so beautiful in the wooded setting. So today there were again lots of daffodils and I picked up probably 100 of them. They are not a hot item for people to take so I take all that is left. I also got 2 pots of frilly daffodils that I have never seen before and I will plant these at home and I got a bunch of bulbs for snow drops which is our first flower to bloom in the spring and I didn't have any of those. Lastly I picked up some cute little yellow miniature iris plants.
I am heading outside right now to plant the flowers that I am keeping at home. My tomato plants are sitting on the front porch hardening off. I gave them an hour of direct sun and now they are in the shade.
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Post by september on May 2, 2018 14:34:16 GMT -5
What a great find on the bulbs! I would take some if they were free, too! I used to have naturalized daffodils in my lawn years ago, but they eventually died out. And my tulips got crowded out by other perennials - probably the damn white phlox that spreads like a weed. I do miss the early blooming bulbs!
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Post by brownrexx on May 4, 2018 9:41:04 GMT -5
It was yesterday actually but I got my first mosquito bites! I was puttering around in the garden and felt something on the back of my neck. I thought that it was a fly but today I have 3 mosquito bites back there and boy do they itch!
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 4, 2018 11:08:50 GMT -5
Though the cool April has helped, the warm February meant that mosquito season started early this year. And now that it's really warm this week, they've started breeding in earnest.
So, when I heard the mosquito spray truck go by two nights ago, I felt like cheering.
(Mosquitoes are a huge public health issue down here, with West Nile virus, Chikungunya virus, and all sorts of other nasty tropical diseases that are spread by 'skeeters.)
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on May 4, 2018 13:19:19 GMT -5
Still raining here. Sigh
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 4, 2018 22:50:01 GMT -5
One of my herbs from Richter's didn't make it - the variegated marjoram. It had at least half brown leaves, but I was hoping that it would come back, and maybe it was against the outside of a hot box, though there were almost no brown leaves on the other plants, so it wasn't the shipping, I don't think. This morning, however, I could hardly find a green leaf on the plant, so I emailed them a photo of it, and called, as well, and they were good about it, and refunded the price to my credit card.
I got a few things done out there today, but mostly was getting ready for Sunday, when a friend is coming over to do some things that I can't do. Some of the tomatoes have noticeable growth on them, as well as the gourds and tomatillos, and none are the least bit damaged by the heavy winds I've been getting. That's why I always have those extras; it doesn't look like I'll need them, but I hate to discard them! Yet nobody I know (around here) grows them. I also have an extra of the bitter melon and those two bottle gourds, but I doubt that I could find somebody here that would know what those were! lol If I were working, I would take them to work.
I did get 4 more SIPs topped off and covered, with new covers, as the last ones here, and the last 4, had totally messed up covers. So I went down in the workshop and cut out 5 more, and that should be it, finally! Now, just 4 more to top off.
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Post by september on May 5, 2018 9:39:23 GMT -5
Yesterday my husband and I drove over to another town to pick up 100 red pine seedlings to plant for a windbreak over at my son's place. On the way back we stopped at a walleye fish hatchery site on a river flowage to watch them collect the eggs from the fish coming up the river to spawn. Their netting set up docks can be just barely seen in the middle of the first picture. They were very efficient, with great teamwork in sorting the net trapped males and "ripe" females into separate holding pens, then into designated metal tubs from which they picked the fish for their gentle squeezing of eggs and milt into separate containers, which were later combined and mixed with a lightly muddy solution which had to be kept moving and aerated at all times. The fertilized eggs are taken to a nearby hatchery until the fry are big enough to be released. They are used to keep up the walleye populations in lakes that don't have good natural reproduction. I have much better pictures on my camera, but google just grabbed these off my phone. Today, I have to finish potting up the very last of the dwarf tomatoes, and then start on my pepper seedlings. Just finishing my coffee and will be outside for the rest of the day.
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Post by ladymarmalade on May 5, 2018 10:28:40 GMT -5
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Post by guruofgardens on May 5, 2018 10:51:00 GMT -5
I spent most of yesterday weeding, digging up plants for the swap today. Such a beautiful day after 2 days of downpour rain/snow. I'm bringing a lot of tomato and pepper plants plus perennials. Hopefully I'll pick up a few new-to-me plants. I'd love to find some bulbs like brownrexx, did at her swap. We shall see . . .
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Post by brownrexx on May 5, 2018 13:15:31 GMT -5
We are at our cabin this weekend and I just finished planting all of those nice bulbs. I also got some that are called Star of Bethlehem which I have never had and deer are not supposed to like to eat. The plants have buds on them so I may get to see the flowers this year.
Last year I got some lily of the valley at The Plant Exchange and planted it up here because dear are not supposed to like it but whoever said that was wrong because they ate it to the ground. This year I saw that it was coming back up so I put wire around it and it's blooming. It's really cute. I like lily of the valley and don't have any at home.
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Post by bestofour on May 5, 2018 13:44:52 GMT -5
pepperhead212, I love growing gourds but I didn’t plant seeds this year. Do you have pictures of yours? september, thanks for the pictures and info. So much goes on that I never think about. I’ve never been to a plant swap bet it’s fun. Today I went to the farmers market and then to Lowe’s. Bought some pink petunias for a window box.
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 5, 2018 17:49:31 GMT -5
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caesg
Pro Member
Posts: 152
Zone:: 5b
Favorite Vegetable:: Butternut Squash
Joined: April 2018
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Post by caesg on May 5, 2018 20:32:10 GMT -5
Slept in horrendously and was two hours late to the Food Forest work session that *I* requested. Ack!
Still, we got a string net trellis tied off to some free aluminum pole framing, cut the frame down because it was far too tall, and drove some rebar into the ground to help hold the frame/trellis up. Gave my 2¢ and got the trellis installed a couple feet further south than it would've been otherwise. Concerned the Elderberry bush would grow up to crowd out the trellis. Really, still concerned about that... It won't be quite as bad though! Oh, and the trellis is for grapes.
Harvested green onion, French sorrell, chard, dandelion, oregano.
In ground/Raised bed community garden folks still aren't getting back to me. So, talked with Food Forest fella about tucking in some annuals there. We're going to email back and forth to figure that out over the coming week. Don't even know what seeds I have. Some stuff would've needed to be started indoors to harvest before our first frost. We'll see.
Aaaaand, found myself super flustered this morning. The ground level ozone has been high enough to make cycling ill-advised at speed. I take a bus & bike route to get to the food forest and... just flustered. I'd kind of like to settle down/buy property here. But, the whole "exercise outdoors is unhealthy" thing due to our air pollution (exacerbated by our geology, as the politicians insist on reminding us) just really burns my chops. I know no region is perfect. It's just... I really don't like this particular element of this region. Rahr.
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Post by bestofour on May 6, 2018 9:56:32 GMT -5
I stayed home from church today because I'm still not feeling 100% and I don't like it when sick people come to church and cough all around me.
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Post by ahntjudy on May 6, 2018 10:57:19 GMT -5
Hope you feel better bestofour...and I agree with you about sick people and church... ~~~ Wanted to get outside today and do some stuff but a whole bunch of seedlings needing potting up is taking precedence... Headed back to that right now...
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Post by daylilydude on May 6, 2018 12:37:01 GMT -5
Went to our local Walmart and found a cage box full of odd and end trays and pots so I ask about them and they told me to get all I want and that they were free for the taking... you know me, I love free! Anyhow if you need some trays and you have a walmart near you just look in the outside garden section they may do the same?
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Post by brownrexx on May 6, 2018 17:21:03 GMT -5
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Post by pepperhead212 on May 6, 2018 18:16:12 GMT -5
I used to get things like that at a store I delivered to years ago. Still have some of those things like the trays in my shed! This last season, with all this switchover to SIPs, I got rid of all the large pots - I put them out early, the day before trash day, so that people driving by could see them, and somebody snatched them up, so that was good.
Today a friend came over and mowed my lawn and ran my 'tiller - only one row this season. And he dug my dead rosemary up - one of those stalks was about 3" in diameter! And he helped me lay the fabric for that bed and the front pepper bed, as well as the drip lines for them. All that's left now are the plants!
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