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So after getting a fairly gratifying amount of long-overdue yard work done over the holiday weekend, I am getting a big kick out of the fact that decades' worth of chance-acquired plants are starting to look like they belong together. And then in another topic JurassicBlueberries was holding forth on the care and feeding of blueberry plants, and what with one thing and another, I bet we've got gardeners here. Let's talk!
(PS: Folks, this should probably go without saying, but if your gardening efforts involve the cultivation of plants illegal in your jurisdiction, please do not post about them here. For all practical purposes, everyone in the world can read what you post here, and that definitely includes your local law enforcement. Or your not-so-local law enforcement. Or your mama. Silence is golden.)
garden
Given that we've got, like, fires and water rationing and all kinds of weird stuff going on here at the moment, I have not been so gung-ho with the outdoor gardening this year and just worked on sustaining what's already out there with a minimum of water. Switch from the sprinkler to hand watering. Etc.
Luckily last year I had a binge of buying cacti on ebay, and they're not too thirsty. After being essentially dormant since I got them last year, they've finally had enough sunshine and warm weather to start waking up, and since most of them are of assorted mutant varieties, they're pretty interesting to watch. E.g. one from Florida that looked like a melted candle is now apparently bursting forth with four branches and looking a lot like one from Sonoma County that it formerly didn't resemble at all.
Meanwhile, inside the house, the houseplants are taking over. I am astonished to report that the baby maidenhair ferns mentioned last year sometime survived in significant numbers and are now about half an inch tall -- and surrounded with a new crop of barely-visible babies. The parent plant, which is looking better than it has in its life, has managed to colonize about half a dozen adjacent flowerpots with the darn things, which of course puts me in a quandary because most of those pots have rooted cuttings of other things that I'd like to give away, but do I trust J. Random Freecycle Person to adequately nurture baby maidenhairs? No I do not. And I'm reluctant to disturb them at this vulnerable stage. So while on the one hand I am being aggressively consoled for every maidenhair fern that ever died on my watch, and there were a lot of 'em, I am also being overrun a bit. Still, it's a nice problem to have.
Corn coming out of my ears ~
Not too long ago it was time to harvest the corn in my Nannie's garden. It's a family tradition. We all get up at the crack of dawn & Pick, shuck, de silk, wash, boil, de cob ~ finally..bag & freeze. 687 ears later & lots of sweat & laughter it's time for supper.... yep, Corn on the Cob :)
PEACE
now there's a fine tradition!
I have really fond memories of the days when I was a kid and we grew corn in the back yard. Where I live now there's not enough sun. Alas! But luckily we have the farmers market.
reawakening the garden topic
well, we had this little faux spring last month here in Oakland, and now we're in the midst of winter storms and the plants are a bit confused. But the rain is coming at a good time for their growth spurts, pretty much.
I was out in back seizing the moment to toss some flower seeds on the hillside when to my great astonishment I noticed lots of incipient blooms on the wisteria. The astonishment being because this wisteria has never shown the slightest inclination to bloom in the decade and a half it's been in the ground. It started as a bonsai prospect when it was a tiny little thing at the nursery 20-odd years ago, and no doubt its stunted childhood had an impact, because while it grew quite vigorously it's never flowered once. Till now. I don't even remember what kind it's supposed to be!
mysterious wisterias
Nice story Marye. Made me think at once of Lowell George (much missed) and one of my all time favourite songs
"I've got mysterious wisterias hanging in the air
The rocking chair I was supposed to fix
Well it came un nailed
And all the things that I let slip, I found out quick
It comes from moment to moment, day to day
Time seems to slip away
But I've got twenty million things to do, twenty million things
And all I can do, is think about you
With twenty million things to do"
buds everywhere!
it's a freakish 40 in indiana-- 40 degrees, 40mph winds... but i have been able to go out, pick up sticks and junk, deadhead the stuff the birds cleaned, and- and most importantly- check out all the new green buds poking out of the mulch! i know i have to wait a few more weeks- i'll wait. i'm patient...
if winter comes, can spring be far behind!
caroline
Love wisteria, planted it at
Love wisteria, planted it at my former house back in the 80's at each corner of the front of the house and twisted the shoots together when it started to grow. It was so beautiful,grew up to the roof line with it's twisted trunk, and across the whole front and side of the house. Just beautiful. Always one of my favorites.
organic matter?
hey noonie- have you added any compost? organic material- you can buy cow manure, my sister in law lived by the county fairgrounds and had year-round access to horse manure- she had the prettiest garden in town...
enrich your soil and see if that doesn't help-- work it in with a shovel or a cultivator--
if you compost it, the worms will come...
good luck and have fun!
caroline
broad bean aphids
Bob, the best thing to do is either to physically rub them off the affected shoots/and or spray with a mixture of a couple of drops of washing up liquid to a gallon of water (morning or evening). You can put the mixture in one of those pump hand sprayers and reapply regularly. Works quite well. Good luck! CB
bob
bob,
one other thing you can try is a mix of about 1 part regular vinegar (not balsamic, the other one) to 5 parts water and spray in on your beans or whatever it was that has those bugs. I think if there is anything on them now, they should be removed by hand, then hopefully, the vinegar will keep the others away.
please do a test on one or two stalks to see if this is a suitable 'solution' (pun intended) before you cover the whole thing.
everyobody should have a compost can, and preferably one thatt has a tap type drain at the bottom, that liquid that comes out can be diluted with watter and used to fertilized potted plants and flowers and such. though I personally do not mind the smell of manure ("it's really not to bad when you think about it, you have a 'nure' with a 'ma' in front of it... ma-nure") the compost system, when properly done, don't stink so much.
very KIND folks got this site and everything you need to know laid out here:
http://www.howtocompost.org/
good luck!!
compost in the morning
I love the smell of compost in the morning. Smells like 'victory'
( -;
apocolypse gardening
it does too, my patch is manured with donkey poo
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Spanish Jam
It's all in the lava flow...
...and the bat guano. Yep, loads and loads of bat crap.
Holy Flashback Batman!
Holy flashback, Batman!
gotta watch your acid levels, too.
(in the soil, folks, in the soil)
http://www.rittenhouse.ca/asp/product.asp?PG=686
http://www.joe.org/joe/2001august/tt3.php
I am just a regular 'joe' not a joe.org
joe. disorg
that's me.
( -;
the garden of the mind
sow with seeds of lovefertilize with hope
water liberally with faith
reap a harvest of smiles and laughter
The Garden Song (Pete Seeger)
Inch by inch, row by row,Please bless these seeds I sow.
Please keep them safe below
Till the rain comes tumblin' down.
Pullin' weeds and pickin' stones
We are made of dreams and bones.
Need a spot to call my own
Cause the time is close at hand.
Grain for grain, sun and rain
I'll find my way in nature's chain
Tune my body and my brain
To the music of the land.
Help Please
Anyone one know what tro use to get rid of grubs without killing the soil or self It's for my vegetable garden....
freebird914
Don`t know if your town allows it but chickens eat grubs, and other pests . but you may have to have some type of fence around each plant so the chickens don`t dig them up looking for the grubs . not to mention you get some nice composte from the chickens .
hope this helps you . Happy gardening !!
grubs
yup, some birds love grubs...
so get more grub-eating birds to your yard with water, nesting and feeders. some species of birds, like European starlings, blue-jays, purple martins, crows, grackles, meadowlarks, cardinals, blackbirds and robins all eat grubs. Starlings, robins and cardinals will also eat adult Japanese beetles. You can run a rake over 'grubby' areas (pun intended) to help turn up emerging grubs for visiting birds.
OR
ask someone in your garden shop about this stuff:
Apply Parasitic Nematodes. Upon penetrating a grub, the nematode inoculates the grub with the bacteria. The bacteria reproduce quickly, feeding on the grub tissue. The nematode then feeds on this bacteria and progresses through its own life cycle, reproducing and ultimately killing the grub. Heterorhabditis bacteriophora is a type of commercially available nematode for grubs.
Milky Spore. This is a bacterium once ate by grubs, builds up in their blood, eventually causing their demise. It's considered a long term solution and is usually used in areas experiencing severe infestations. Its needs to be applied over the course of a couple of seasons (2-4 years) in order for it to build up in the soil. After that, it is supposed to last for a decade or longer. Ask your local garden center or extension office where to get milky spore in your area.
the cheap way:
use a glass beer bottle or slass pop bottle. Leave a little beer (what a waste) or soda pop in them. It appears these 'grubby buggers' (poor attempt at a British pun intended) love this stuff. your very own Grub Motel, they crawl in & can't get out, so they drown. leave a bottle on its side, or bury it down a bit so the opening is at ground level... so they can get in easy but the pop or beer cant get out.
grubby buggers!
compost grubs
if you have the 'bad' type of grubs in your compost, best to put that compost in a closed plastic bag and set it in the sun for 12 hours or so to kill them before adding the compost to your garden. if you are not sure which are the 'bad grubs in compost, take a few to your garden shop to show them and ask.
peace.
Summer
Well its summer in Miami that means a low of 80 and a high of 92-94 with 100% humidity. I do little gardening-mostly cut the grass and in the early morning a little weeding. We had a huge crop of mangos the best in over 20 years. I have 3 large mango trees in my yard and 3 avocado trees. I have given away probably 300 mangos to friends and customers.Was walking in the back yard and came upon 2 black racers wrapped up in a ball of snake love. They could have cared less about me. Lots of flowers and misquitos.This is the time of the year (actually they peaked about 3 weeks ago) when all of the pointseanna trees flower and Miami is awash in bright orange, yellow and purple trees.
And the road goes on forever....
BobbaLee
little pink carnations
This last week all my little carnations are coming into bloom, here on the southern Oregon coast. The scent of them floating around the garden and into the house is so nice. I've been growing them for about 4 years. No maintence, but they are delicate - when weeding I often pull a piece of the plant out by mistake. I tuck in somewhere else and it thrives there. Plant carnations - they love you back.
I love carnations
but I've never had much luck growing them, for some reason.
Sunshine-daydream1951 told us that in Spain they have CLIMBING carnations. Does it get any better...
meanwhile
all the cacti that needed repotting have now been moved to larger quarters. This process was complicated by the fact that, this being Oakland, an unusual selection of opportunistic plants had taken up residence in the pots, most notably a flock of baby redwood trees and, much to my amazement, a baby maidenhair fern that was emerging from the drainage hole of one of the pots. I was pretty worried they were too delicate to make the transition. But after several weeks, the baby redwoods are robust and growing, and the baby maidenhair, while very tiny, is definitely sending out new shoots.
Yes, they are going to look pretty funny growing up with Bumpy the mutant Peruvian cactus, but that's the Oakland garden for you.
Bonsai
MaryeI bet you could make some interesting Redwood bonsai.
We have some very rare cacti in South Florida and the Keys. Check out the Florida Native Plant Society-South Florida is home to some of the rarest plants in the world.
I will have to ask my kids how to upload photos.
Bob
And the road goes on forever....
BobbaLee
hm, there's a thought...
and love to see pix of the Florida flora.
well
i finaly transplanted my tomato's to the garden... i am glad i waited we lost our cucumbers and beets to late frost in may our peas are doing good... i have decided to keep all the herbs in pots so we can have them fresh year round....this our second year for our garden and i am surprised how relatively easy gardening is...my wife planted more beets and cucumbers we will see how that goes hopefully we can harvest them before it gets cold again....
peace and hugs to all
and if they can do that....
mebbe a cake tree for johnman........and a cookie bush.
Try an Althea
I have an Althea tree-like shrub out back and a young one out front. What type of rose would best serve Jerry's memory? A climbing rose, a grandiflora, a florabunda?
I'm partial to the fragrance, singular blooms, and long stems of the grandifloras.
You sound like you know what you are talking about
Maybe a climbing rose since his playing had so many great "peaks" in it?
And the road goes on forever....
BobbaLee
The Childrens Umbrella Foundation
lets take a fellow man and them to understand A>S>A>P>grtfl1@yahoo.com,grtflchris@gmail.com.lets continue these proceeds on a more higher level what do you say .and as soon as you get me out of here the sooner.can,t make the the long road on my own to give everyone free gas cap.
psythians flower scented stingonjaus
But we need more for govener