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Post by paulf on May 9, 2024 9:42:18 GMT -5
Is this the part of the season that nobody has anything to share? I check in daily to see what's going on but there have not been many messages. Yep, I have been busy enough that my input has been severely reduced. So here is my yard and garden report:
This week my entire garden has been planted. Twenty-four tomatoes, twenty-two different varieties. I am taking part in a "biggest tomato contest" so there are two Domingo plants and two Big Lou plants. Sixteen peppers, all sweet, several kinds of snacking peppers but lacking my favorite, Giant Aconcagua which didn't survive a dry weekend in April in the basement. Two kinds of zucchini which most likely will not provide much, a muskmelon doomed to the normal failure in my garden...just can't seem to get any melons to produce, a hill of decorative gourds and some potatoes grown in straw in a trench. May get a few young, small potatoes. My wife and fellow gardener has the green beans and all kinds of flowers and herbs doing well in the eight raised beds. Cucumbers in the big raised bed will be planted today or tomorrow.
Tomorrow we travel to Des Moines to watch a grandson play his trumpet at a Statewide Music Festival Invitational. His eighth grade jazz band is the only junior high band invited to the festival; the other eight bands are high school and college bands. His group has been invited back for the second year and is the only returning band. They are out of this world good. Then he goes back to Iowa City for Varsity baseball practice. The only 8th grader on the varsity. His older brother , a senior will be starting at third base and the coaches think the brothers may be holding down the left side of the infield at some time this summer.
Besides caring for the early garden and the rest of the estate my umpiring duties begin this weekend. Along with all that we have planted a pile of flowers in the downtown flowerpots of our little village on Main Street. This is our sixteenth year which began a a Master Gardener project for volunteer hours and just continued.
Enough of us. Now it is time for all the friends to update so there is something to read rather than look at the blank pages. It certainly does not have to be extremely wordy like my nonsense ( I tend to talk a lot if you can get me started...so my wife says). I am interested in what's going on and that you are all still here so just a line or two will suffice.
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Post by hairymooseknuckles on May 10, 2024 0:23:32 GMT -5
Howdy Paul, I’m not gardening this year. I had planned to then my world got flipped upside down. I’ve been sitting on the porch come an evening, but tonight I was rained out. We had a thunderstorm roll through. Seems this is a very wet year.
Mom has two tomato plants and a squash plant. I think she said she planted two okra seeds too, but I’m not 100% sure. Not much going on here.
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Post by Hensaplenty on May 10, 2024 7:47:19 GMT -5
Very busy here with getting everything planted. Hope to post more soon.
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Post by octave1 on May 10, 2024 9:01:23 GMT -5
Nothing planted out there except for moving some perennials around. If all goes well, I should start transplanting vegetables next week, but I am not in a hurry. I have so much yard work to do since the concrete slab was removed, plus some 4 cu yd of mulch to spread on paths and flower beds. I get tired just thinking about it.
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Post by rdback on May 10, 2024 9:44:45 GMT -5
Yep, I think "busy" sums it up pretty well. Seedlings are starting to complain because I haven't planted any of them out yet. Planning to do so in the next week or so, weather permitting. I'll write more later, once I get some things done, lol.
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Post by mgulfcoastguy on May 10, 2024 11:18:37 GMT -5
No gardening this year. I. do have a pomegranate bush and 2 blueberry bushes but nothing like the past 60 years or so.
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 10, 2024 12:16:12 GMT -5
Been kinda busy here, too. The garden is mostly doing well. I'll put more detail in my gardening thread later. The rain (yay!) is clearing out so I need to go check on things shortly.
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Post by september on May 10, 2024 13:32:43 GMT -5
Yeah, busy sums it up! Carrying trays of tomatoes in and out from the greenhouse twice a day for hard sun and wind, up-potting broccoli seedlings that won't go in the ground for at least another week, maybe two - their site not prepared. Starting flats of cukes, soon melons and squash too. Several kinds of flower seedlings need to be separated and transplanted as well. Just keeping everything watered takes a lot of time! Pots of tuberous begonias came out of hibernation in the garage, all but one have put up shoots and some need fresh soil or cracked pots exchanged. My lime, lemon, and orange trees need to come outside, but it's a grueling trip down the back stairs with the heavy pots and branches getting stuck in the doorway, so I've been putting that off til I have more energy. Not to mention needed raking and continuing junk clean up in both flower garden and veggie garden areas. I could go on and on, but just taking a short break to find a sandwich for lunch, then back outside.
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Post by paulf on May 10, 2024 14:32:00 GMT -5
To those not in the garden this year…sorry to hear that. We still enjoy all posts gardening or not.
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Post by meandtk on May 10, 2024 20:14:16 GMT -5
Very busy!
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Post by rdback on May 19, 2024 9:20:29 GMT -5
Well, another week gone by and still haven't planted. Rain, rain, then a dry day, then rain, rain, and a dry day. Rinse and repeat. The ground hasn't had time to dry out enough to plant. So, here I sit, lol. But I'm busy!
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Post by Laura_in_FL on May 19, 2024 10:27:02 GMT -5
Goodness, I hope your garden dries out enough to plant soon, rdback!
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Post by meandtk on May 20, 2024 17:38:20 GMT -5
We’ve had a good bit of rain the past week. We needed it. It is wet now, but we can work the gardens.
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Post by rdback on May 25, 2024 8:24:08 GMT -5
Finally got all the tomato plants in the ground. Dancing around the thunderstorms and soaked ground has been a challenge. Got another 1" of rain from a thunderstorm yesterday (after the last row of tomatoes went in). Pepper plants are next, but it supposed to rain, on and off, for the next week. More dancing I guess, lol. But, I'm still busy!
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busy!?
May 25, 2024 14:34:26 GMT -5
Post by spike on May 25, 2024 14:34:26 GMT -5
I am getting my bum kicked with yard work. My Phew usually helps me a lot but he blew out his shoulder and Hubs can only do so much with his COPD. Today was the day I was all set to finally get my garden planted!! WOO. >,< Massive downpour. I am fighting a losing battle
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busy!?
May 26, 2024 9:34:08 GMT -5
Post by Laura_in_FL on May 26, 2024 9:34:08 GMT -5
Aww, spike! I hope you catch a break where you can plant your garden soon.
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Post by brownrexx on May 29, 2024 8:15:47 GMT -5
Super busy here planning our move to Florida, packing and rehabbing my knee replacement. Knee is going really well. I am working hard in PT and they say that I am ahead of the expected timeline. I don't have time to be sitting around!
This is the first year I have not gardened here in PA and my garden was quickly overrun with weeds and looked awful. I couldn't stand it so hubby roto tilled it for the next owners. I staggered around and hand weeded the asparagus bed. I didn't take care of that bed for 5 years just to let it get full of weeds. We have picked lots of asparagus this year and it is so yummy. I think that Florida may be too hot for an asparagus bed but I am definitely looking forward to gardening there and having decent tomatoes in the winter.
I expect to start posting more once we get settled in our new home and I start gardening again.
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Post by paulf on May 29, 2024 11:05:52 GMT -5
Reminds me of the move we made from our long time home in Iowa to our retirement home in Nebraska...sort of. We exchanged home with the same climate so not so adventurous as you. We did face some pretty difficult growing conditions since no garden had ever been grown in the new place...ever! It took several years to get used to the new previously untamed and virgin soil and all the naturally occurring weeds, grasses and brush. Hopefully your area is a bit more tamed and civilized. Good luck in your new place and good gardening!
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Post by bestofour on May 30, 2024 19:18:04 GMT -5
I've been looking for a place I'd like to move too. I'm sick of dealing with these 7 acres by myself and most of them aren't set up to be left to their own devices. I keep telling myself that I can move anywhere I want at this point, within financial reason of course, but I can't figure out where to go.
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Post by brownrexx on Jun 3, 2024 9:04:34 GMT -5
paulf, I will be starting new gardens in Florida. For the first time ever, I will be having raised beds and it's an environment that I am totally unfamiliar with. I need to talk to Laura_in_FL, to figure out how to grow my tomatoes. I think that container gardening may be needed to avoid the nematodes. Our new home comes with a small greenhouse so they may have garden beds somewhere in the 4 acres but I didn't look around the outside too much when we were there. I was checking out the house. I have a pool with one of those big cages covering it and Laura_in_FL, already suggested growing my bell peppers inside the cage to avoid the insects. I am planning on some big pots with tropical plants around the pool so probably I will add a few potted peppers. I don't even know what weeds or bugs live there so this is going to be an interesting challenge but I do love adventure and that is one reason that we are moving. I was tired of just getting older and doing the same things year after year. bestofour, I know the feeling. I thought about this for a couple of years. "where to go, where to go?" before deciding on Florida. Lots of people move to the Carolinas but you are already there so maybe just a smaller property? It's a tough decision and a big one. Good luck with that.
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Post by rdback on Jun 3, 2024 9:56:32 GMT -5
Finally got all the peppers in the ground. Yay. Now, we need to go back and mulch all the rows. Yep, still busy, lol!
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Post by september on Jun 3, 2024 10:30:21 GMT -5
I have my 40+ tomato plants in the ground (one each variety) 3 beds of first planting sweet corn now up, 18 broccoli plants in the ground (?? I had 12 last year and that was enough! I guess the extra plants were so nice I hated to toss them.) Onion starts in the ground, a few red cabbage and bok choy plants in the ground. Today I will plant my 2 rows of bush beans, and re-mesh circle tower pole beans and the last two beds of sweet corn. Pepper bed still needs weeding and will need tilling, the cucumber pots along the fence line need refreshing of soil before seeding, and have 8-9 tomato plants will need to go in big pots. Oh yeah, and nothing done in my flower bed yet, have zinnia, yellow marigold, fancy pale pink hollyhocks and snapdragon seedlings ready to go in ground. Veggie garden takes priority. And need to start the squash and melons in small pots since the projected melon bed was taken over by vines and wild roses last year and will take some time to clear. Should have started them two weeks ago but maybe we will have enough hot weather to speed them along.
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Post by paulf on Jun 3, 2024 10:32:18 GMT -5
brownrexx, rdback, Brownie, we are looking forward to hearing all about you new endeavor...best of luck to you. Sorry, I will be of no help is your gardening plans. rd, it feels good to get started. bestofour,: if we didn't have so much invested (time and emotion, not just money) I think a new adventure would be in the picture. We have taken over the house and land that has been in my wife's family for three generations, plus we are just plain getting too old for another change. My mind says go for it but my wife and heart says we are home.
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