What Did You Do In The Garden?

[Marie2020]

@Marie2020 , with your herbal (less toxic) approach, maybe this will help now or in the future:

Last year, I tried a "tea" made from fresh mint allowed to ferment 7+ days. It was sprinkled on the cabbage & broccoli every 10 days, or so. No cabbage worms showed up and aphid population was late and didn't amount to much. It looked like it worked as a fertilizer, as well.

This year, I will try something different - at least, initially. Nettle tea. I think that the idea originally came from a TEG gardener from the UK. Since then, a friend of DW's suggested it. It's kinda nice to think that the plant appreciates the drench as a fertilizer and that it may also repel bugs. Bugs in cabbage especially can be a real problem without using conventional insecticides - which I don't use in the veggies.

Cucumbers - it has been various beetles and Spinosad kills beetles.

Steve

Excellent advice. I will give this a go, it's late now but will start this process if tomorrow.

My mint is doing well, I only have them in pots at the moment.

I've asked a local lady for some of her horse manure, and my raised bed should be completed soon. I know I will have to wait a while for the soil to settle but I'm excited my garden is finally coming together .

I will never have the success you all have but it's a huge step forward for me .

 

[flowerbug]

what a strange year this continues to be. i was out weeding one of the garden patches and looked over at the neighboring garden and noticed that the red clover had a ton of powdery mildew on it. already! so i ended up taking all of that out of there too along with the other stuff i was doing. i don't recall ever having powdery mildew starting off this early. hopefully i caught it before it spread... we'll see how it goes...

i checked on the large drainage ditch to see if more water was running in it or not. even with the fairly steady rains we've had the ditch had not come up at all. it's barely running. all the rains we've had have soaked in. if we pick up a few more rains this week of enough amount it should start to increase the flow - the ground is pretty moist now at last.

 

[flowerbug]

yesterday afternoon i went out for a bout of tracking down whatever Creeping Charlie was growing in the grass and got it out of there. the temperature was cool enough, no biting flies or mosquitoes. i figured i'd much rather do it when it was cool instead of when it gets warmer out. perhaps this will now be the bulk of it since the last few rounds have gotten most of it along the edges (where it started).

of course when weeding so closely you notice all the other weeds you've ignored. and even discovered a new one and verified another is also a nuciance that i'll have to watch out more for it spreading too. don't know the names of either of them, but did learn the name of henbit the past few weeks.

to describe the two new weeds i don't know the names of yet, one reminds me of a scrubbie used on dishes and the other is a small yellow flower. both i don't really need to spread any more either so i'll add those to my list...

today is the day off, vistors and playing euchre, having lunch, talking (well me listening as i can't get a word in wedgewise with my cousin)... yes @digitS' that was intentional, but well fitting (that's another ).

i hope everyone has a good day out there!

 

[heirloomgal]

So, did anyone work their garden today?
I did a lot of watering

I sat and looked at my garden through the window as it shivered in the rain and cold.

 

[ducks4you]

I watered my peppers before heading off to a funeral this AM. I also had a PM signing.
One little sweet pepper was looking very sad bc I transplanted it small, BUT, after thoroughly watering around it this morning AND shoving the nozzle of the sprayer right beside to it thoroughly Puddle it, PLUS we had a giant rainstorm this afternoon. Looking pretty good, now.
Some of the up potted tomatoes are sitting in water...like they were in smaller containers on the porch, sitting in water.
Everything looks happy.
Apparently, many turnip seeds escaped before I pulled them to dry out elsewhere.
The south sweet pepper bed is LOUSY with tiny turnip seedlings.
Look just like radishes...maybe they ARE radishes.
Dunno, but, always better than weeds.

 

[digitS']

a lot of watering

As I did. The neighbor asked how often he should water the garden with the hot spell coming. It was 91° (33°C), yesterday. I said that I don't know.

The last summer that I was living near @Rhodie Ranch 's home, I was working 3 different times with the heat above 100° for a few days at a time. The forecast here is for 5 days in a row (at least!) with the afternoon temperatures well above 100.

Thankfully, it is 59° (15°C) right now - with the full moon setting). Probably, the last that we will see of this coolness for a week, if we can believe the weather scientists.

I said that I had increased the irrigation amount/time by about a third yesterday here at home. It required carrying sprinklers, dragging hoses, and being in and out a dozen times yesterday, from 5AM to 2:30. A lot of sections of lawn, flower and garden beds with 3 buildings on a city size lot.

My belief is that the big veggie garden will be watered as well as possible by the neighbor there because his garden is on the same system and he is very inclined to water frequently. The problem there may be with the wind. I can place some smaller sprinklers on the windward side if needed. I've done that at other times. It should be possible on the morning of the hottest day for sure.

Oh great. DW is out of the bedroom and I can start a couple more fans running and pull plenty of that 59° air through the house!

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

So, did anyone work their garden today?
I did a lot of watering

we have puddles today, actual real live puddles and it is still raining, so about all i have done today is look out the window at the puddles and rain and then fiddled with the website to get some pictures of clematis put up. some more fiddling to do yet. breakfast is next before more fiddling.

 

[Marie2020]

You

all do get very hot over there, we'v been looking at property for a year in idaho but haven found the right one, I would like to be north of HWY54

Sending you positive thoughts. I hope you get exactly what you want

 

[Marie2020]

So, did anyone work their garden today?
I did a lot of watering

I planted broccoli into a planter. Then added wood chips too my chicken coop.

Thanks to flowerbug I will plant these chips into my clay soil in a few months, apparently it will help to break up this thick solid clay.

I love this site.

 

[heirloomgal]

Aawwwww, well I pray everything came through it all, as long as the temp didnt get below 45 I think it will all be ok,
Have some coffee,
View attachment 41608

Thank you @GrandmaDeKorte It was 4 degrees for three nights! The daytime temp was higher thankfully, so I think everything will be fine in the end. I'm growing so many beans this year though, and they don't like to be so cold!