henless' garden, 2018

[flowerbug]

@henless sorry to hear about your injury slowing things down. hope it all heals up well for you.

 

[henless]

Thanks flowerbug It's getting better, just a slow process.

Over the past week, we've ended up with around 7" of rain. Most of my carrots are gone as are my beets. Spinach never came up. Over half of the okra is gone, and what is left really isn't producing anymore. Thought I'd give it (and me) another week then take it all done except for my seed plants.

On a good note, I now have 6 of my Elephant garlic coming up. Also have a ton of fire ant mounds coming up all over. Tomorrow is supposed to be sunny. Time to get out the ant dope and get to sprinkling.

 

[henless]

It was such a glorious day out today! It was cool, but so nice out in the sunshine. I even saw a hummingbird getting a drink from the feeder under my trumpet vine.

I decided to go ahead and pull up all of my okra except for my 2 biggest stalks. I'll leave them to finish growing my seeds for next year. I plan on pulling down the pumpkin vines this week. All this rain has really made a mess of them.

On the way back to the house, I found a ground cherry. Haven't seen one in years. I'll need to flag it tomorrow so DH won't mow it over.

 

[thistlebloom]

Henless, do you have hummers year round?

Ours come in April and leave in September.
My favorite garden accessory .

 

[baymule]

Today was beautiful and sunny. We worked outside on a chicken coop.

What do you treat fire ant mounds with? They are moving into my garden too.

 

[henless]

@thistlebloom ~ No, we don't have them year round. Most have already left here by now. I keep my feeders out until frost for any stragglers that happen to come by on the way further south.

@baymule ~ Out in the yard I use Amdro. I haven't found anything else that works as good. Sometimes it doesn't work. When it comes to the garden or fruit trees, I try to make them move by spraying the heck out of them with the water hose. I hose them every day for several days. If that doesn't work, I use this ant bait that I got off of Amazon.

Fertilome Come & Get It

It's expensive, but it works really good. I don't like using ant dope around our food, but the fire ants get so bad sometimes that you have to use something.

 

[baymule]

I am getting some bodacious mounds in the garden. I don't like poison around our food either. Thanks for the link!

 

[Ridgerunner]

Fertilome. Thanks, I've written that down. The active ingredient is Spinosad, an organic killer and safe around food. I'm in fire ant country also.

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

I remember when we lived in Universal City, outside of Randolph AFB, my baby bro (10 yrs younger than me), who was a toddler at the time, got into a nest of fire ants. He was screaming and screaming, and Mother and I plunked him down into the bathtub with the shower running and us swatting the ants. This was in maybe in '65 or '66. I hated those fire ants.

 

[henless]

Fire Ants are awful. I would love to have an anteater!

Planted turnips & swiss chard, replanted the beets & carrots and finished cleaning out the okra bed. I'll be planting potatoes in that bed next year.

Severe weather heading out way tonight. Stay safe @baymule !