Garden 2022

[Hooch]

Need more fowl, chicks cleaned out fleas in a pen we kelp dogs in after the dog found a new home.
It sounds like you have locust.

I'd need a army of fowl..lol..

 

[UrbanHunter]

This morning while making my rounds as the garden was being watered I noticed some beetles on my pole beans and a few squash bugs. I think I will spray the pole bean stand with insect happy juice, I will put some of it into a small pump sprayer and spray the underside of my squash leaves. If I do it at sunset I think I can avoid hurting any pollinators.

 

[LadyLocust]

Took a few photos this morning- the random heat we had means things are not as lush as they were!
Anyway in the polytunnel are winter cabbages, peas, potatoes and strawberries - seeds I'm trying out such as lupin and chamolime, poppy and pumpkin
then in the middle and at the back are tomatoes, broccoli, swiss chard, corn, parsnip and sunflowers. The hens are next to the raspberry patch, then in the outside veg garden are a few empty beds, I just lifted potatoes - rhubarb, apples, blueberries, onions, peas, cabbage, turnip, kale, broccoli, more corn and leek.
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You can think me silly if you'd like, but I think strawberry blossoms are some of the sweetest flowers.
@Bacpacker Mrs. BP needs to hurry up and heal. Hope all the aches and pains are subsiding.

 

[Amish Heart]

You have a beautiful set up in your greenhouse and garden, Magpie

 

[LadyLocust]

In case tomato growers are interested. This is only about a 1 min. video.

 

[Bacpacker]

Lady L, we are hoping the 4 weeks the Dr told is accurate and she's ready to go after that. Hopefully the maters will still be going gangbusters like they are now.

Magpie, I love the pics. Beds look great, all the plants in general. VERY NICE

I got out tonight after we got back home. Part of my cattle panel's had fallen over from the weight of the plants and tomatos. I had already propped the panels up with some post set at an angle on both sides. But the wind last night pushed it over. So tonight I got it back in place as best I could by myself and put both post on the side it fell to. Much more weight has developed on that side. I never could get the bottom pulled all the way back in. But it's holding for now. I'll work on it more this weekend when I have more time.
Same thing happened on one end of the cuc panel. I was able to get it back in place just fine.
After all that I picked a 5 gallon bucket of cukes, maters, and about a gallon of peppers, japaleno, serrano, pablano, and bell's.

 

[LadyLocust]

So does anyone else make mud in the tub when washing their feet at the end of the day?

 

[Pearl]

So does anyone else make mud in the tub when washing their feet at the end of the day?

Might be that fancy toenail polish washing off!!

 

[Magpie]

You have a beautiful set up in your greenhouse and garden, Magpie

Many thanks, a lot of it happened in the past three years. Had visitors we haven't seen in a while last night, they arrived with gifts for the garden! A pear tree, blueberry bush, and a fig tree! delighted.

 

[UrbanHunter]

So does anyone else make mud in the tub when washing their feet at the end of the day?

Nope, I wear boots, but they track mud everywhere....

 

[joel]

So does anyone else make mud in the tub when washing their feet at the end of the day?

I wear black woven deck shoe & in the dust my feet turn black, but it wash right off. The dew will wet the tops & rain soaks through them.

 

[Amish Heart]

I make mud in the tub everyday, LadyL. You're not alone. I start out wearing sloggers, but then I want to be barefoot.

 

[Neb]

Tomatoes broccoli and peppers.

There were more but we gave a bunch to the neighbor.

Ben

 

[Chaosdawn]

My peppers, cukes and tomatoes are still small, I can't wait until they start really coming in. I harvested a small handful of snow peas from my test plants this evening, they were delicious. I'm going to grow more of them next year, just need a better trellis.

 

[Bacpacker]

Tomatoes broccoli and peppers.

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There were more but we gave a bunch to the neighbor.

Ben

Nice Neb. I need to remember to take some pics next time I harvest.

Lady L, I make mud in the tub most nights. LOL

 

[Magpie]

The electricity went off here for a few hours; and it stopped raining so took the opportunity to get sons to give me a hand with some heavy stuff. A few tarp loads of nettles and cuttings are now in the next doors unused bogland, butterfly bush (Buddleia), nasturtiums and poppies put into a small section off the side of the house (you only can see it when you look out a window) near the oil tank and a climber planted by the fence. I have the water from my shower diverted into that area too. So now I have two large pots freed up for the pear and fig tree I was given, I'll keep them in the polytunnel. I'm collecting offshoots of my strawberries in the poly and creating a bed in the outside patch. My OH is going to build a frame so I can either cover it with plastic or netting depending on the time of year.

 

[Amish Heart]

Got the morning chores done, and that took awhile. Still not feeling 100 percent from yesterday, so will stay inside most of this hot day and pace myself with the household chores. Granddaughter told my husband she bought the Kia clunker, and can get it Monday. Don't know how she got all the money, she had the boyfriend's mom get insurance for her. I really don't expect this car to last long with over 200K miles, and not a good maintenance record. It didn't have much oil in it when the guy got it that is selling it. So grandson is home for a while today, did a little weedwhacking (not much), and is going out with friends the rest of the day. Granddaughter told grandson to tell us that she is going to work, and someone drove in to pick her up and take her. Otherwise, I don't see her at all. Husband has new cameras up in our office and our bedroom entrance way. So we will be alerted if they step in, but we do keep our bedroom locked.

 

[Plainflatlander]

Still harvesting blueberries, got another week or so on them, raspberries as well. First crop of wax beans and green beans should be done shortly, and 2nd crop will start next week. Still waiting on corn and tomatoes, they are loaded with green ones. Lots of squash and broccoli side shoots, but light on cukes so far, lots of blossoms though. Winter squash also looks great. Sweet potatoes are also looking great, vining everywhere. Harvesting potatoes as needed.

 

[Tommyice]

I’m surprised my garden was in good shape as it was when I got home. I did set up a timer on the water spout so the main area of the garden got the sprinkler every morning at 4 o’clock for an hour. So far still only green beans ready. Like I need more green beans now. The tomatoes are huge but still very green. The peppers didn’t fare as well while we were away. They are far from the regular area of the garden so I didn’t get the benefit of the sprinkler. It did rain like crazy on Monday. In fact the one tenant texted me to let me know that some of the ceiling tiles in their bathroom came down but it wasn’t a leak from a pipe. Definitely the rain he said we got a whopper of a storm. Most of the pepper plants were laying over some of them were even broken off. So we put new plant steaks in them and tied them and hopefully they’ll do good now. I do have a ton of sweet banana peppers which I plan on pickling.

 

[Bacpacker]

Had time to walk thru the lower garden spot today. Early Kidney beans and great northern beans are getting close to ready to harvest and are pretty full. Late beans are doing pretty good, just need more time. All the taters down there have the plants dead and standing. By the time dog days are over they'll be ready to dig. My watermelons on the other hand are nearly a total loss. I only found 1 melon and it was on a volunteer plant. Squash, both butternutt and acorn plants are small, but look healthy and are loaded with blooms. They may develop yet. Corn and cantaloupes are a loss

 

[UrbanHunter]

I got a bunch of celery and green beans this morning, the wife wants to freeze the green beans this time. I filled up the dehydrator with chopped celery. This is the first time I have gotten a good harvest off the celery (bugs got to it in the past), I think growing it inside my insect cage helped a lot. Wife reminded me to start my cold weather plants, I had almost forgot that summer is half done.... time fly's. My squash is doing well this year, but I am having to fight the squash bugs. So much work and so little time...

 

[UrbanHunter]

After watering this morning I checked my rain barrels, I have 3" left, so they are essentially dry... Now I am thankful that I included a tee supply line to city water, I will add about 8"s of water to the barrels today and then after Monday hope the weather man is right and we have rain on the way. My squash are really just getting going and the tomatoes are almost ready for the end of summer canning extravaganza, in the past water has been an issue for the garden this time of year.

As I though about my water situation it hit me that if this were a SHTF event I would be having to choose between drinking water and growing plants, makes me think I need more water storage...

So the typical garden space needs 1" of water per week and a cubic foot of water is 7.5 gallons, or 0.625 gallons per square foot per week. If I assume that I need to cover my watering needs for up to 3 weeks without rain (this would be regional specific) I will need 1.9 gallons of storage per square foot of garden, based on those numbers I have about 75% of the water storage I would need normally.

If I were planning to use some of my garden water for drinking I would need to have an additional 21 gallons of storage per person. The 21 gallon number comes from 1 gallon per person per day and assumes up to 3 weeks without rain. This has been a mental exercise but it tells me that I need several hundred gallons more water storage.

On a side note, I think I need to build a portable high quality water filtration system that can be used to filter my rain barrel water for drinking, it could be connected using standard water hose fittings.

 

[Neb]

After watering this morning I checked my rain barrels, I have 3" left, so they are essentially dry... Now I am thankful that I included a tee supply line to city water, I will add about 8"s of water to the barrels today and then after Monday hope the weather man is right and we have rain on the way. My squash are really just getting going and the tomatoes are almost ready for the end of summer canning extravaganza, in the past water has been an issue for the garden this time of year.

As I though about my water situation it hit me that if this were a SHTF event I would be having to choose between drinking water and growing plants, makes me think I need more water storage...

So the typical garden space needs 1" of water per week and a cubic foot of water is 7.5 gallons, or 0.625 gallons per square foot per week. If I assume that I need to cover my watering needs for up to 3 weeks without rain (this would be regional specific) I will need 1.9 gallons of storage per square foot of garden, based on those numbers I have about 75% of the water storage I would need normally.

If I were planning to use some of my garden water for drinking I would need to have an additional 21 gallons of storage per person. The 21 gallon number comes from 1 gallon per person per day and assumes up to 3 weeks without rain. This has been a mental exercise but it tells me that I need several hundred gallons more water storage.

On a side note, I think I need to build a portable high quality water filtration system that can be used to filter my rain barrel water for drinking, it could be connected using standard water hose fittings.

In SHTF

Gray water for the garden
If plants suffering from not enough water pull up half of them

Ben

 

[Peanut]

My garden is toast, it got dry and very hot. Everything quit producing except peppers, I've been watering them. Hopefully I'll get a few cayennes and jalapenos.

I had a little Thai pepper plant on my porch. I harvested it today, just a handful. Got them in the dehydrator. I think there will be enough to grind and keep in a spice bottle... for when something needs a little kick of heat.

Hopefully the plant will produce a few more.

 

[Magpie]

For a second I thought they were tic tacs!

 

[Amish Heart]

I see you have an Excalibur

 

[Peanut]

Yep, won it in a contest. I like it, a good dehydrator. It's excellent for bulky items that won't fit in my old Nesco that has less than 1 inch of space between trays.

 

[Pearl]

Yep, won it in a contest. I like it, a good dehydrator. It's excellent for bulky items that won't fit in my old Nesco that has less than 1 inch of space between trays.

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I have one of those old Nescos!

 

[UrbanHunter]

I have been truly blessed as my garden is still going, the indoor part is doing real good and providing me enough starter lettuces to keep things moving along. I now have 8 new Siam tomato plants from seeds I collected, that is exciting for this winter's plans. The raised bed that sits in the shade now has a nice start of spinach about 1" tall, if they get a little bigger and start crowding each other I will transplant 2/3s them into other raised beds. We are now getting squash, which is good if I can just keep the beetles at bay. We blanched and shocked a batch of green beans tonight, they are on trays in the freezer and will get seal-a-mealed in the morning.

I got a new pump (just like the one I use to run my irrigation system) today and hope to get the fittings I need to connect it to my indoor water storage, I plan to empty our emergency drinking water into my rain barrels, then spray the drinking water barrels down and refill. The say we can expect 5 days of hot with the possibility of scattered showers. So far the showers have managed to avoid hitting my house... But it is helping me learn. I am thinking about starting some celery for in the house, I am hoping to be able to do salads all winter from the growing station.

There are so many things growing that I don't have the time to give them all the attention they deserve.

 

[Bacpacker]

Yep, won it in a contest. I like it, a good dehydrator. It's excellent for bulky items that won't fit in my old Nesco that has less than 1 inch of space between trays.

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We leave out every other tray, or two if we have bulky stuff