What Did You Do In The Garden?

[seedcorn]

@ducks4you sorry, have to laugh when you say “killed” burdock by sawing & mowing..... you are making it mad but roots will be stronger and send up more shoots. Got to poison it. I fight curly doc in my garden, tap root always breaks off, telling me it lived to harass me another day.....

 

[ducks4you]

HECK, YEAH I am poisoning it as I go!!!! Just that the bush hogger is lightening my work load. DH and I killed off almost ALL of the burdock in the North Pasture just by mowing last year. Thanks, anyway!

 

[flowerbug]

@ducks4you sorry, have to laugh when you say “killed” burdock by sawing & mowing..... you are making it mad but roots will be stronger and send up more shoots. Got to poison it. I fight curly doc in my garden, tap root always breaks off, telling me it lived to harass me another day.....

if you remove the leaves you are certainly going to give it a pause where it will have to expend some energy to send up new leaves.

if you dig out as much of the taproot as possible you are removing the energy stored in that bit of root that you remove so the plant will have less energy to keep sending up new growth.

keep digging up whatever roots of that plant every chance it sprouts and eventually it will run out of energy and die, but of course if you are expending the energy to dig at all get as much of it as you can down at least a foot and a half and then while you have a hole put some layers of cardboard over it and then fill it back in (making sure to get any bits of root from the soil you put back in the hole).

 

[digitS']

... some serious weeding has to take place and, hopefully, that can be done tomorrow.

Two and a half hours did take place but those weeds had really grown and more weeding is needed to finish. Then, more weeding elsewhere. Then, more. Sheesh! This being fair-weather gardeners has really allowed the weeds to grow, there being so little fair weather .

any garden lore about the sweet corn being ankle high by the 4th of July ??

DW was commenting on that. Surprised to note that it is NOT knee high. Oh well, Sugar Buns is pretty quick if'n it gets to going!

DW just picked up 4 huckleberry bushes so we will see how that works out.

I hope that it works out well! Do you mean that we finally have a lower elevation variety??

My cabbage is trying to make heads.

Not mine but the aphids are getting a good start on them so I'm glad that those big leaves aren't rolling up and protecting them.

We continue to cut broccoli heads and pick snow and snap peas!

Steve

 

[Prairie Rose]

I watered all the plants tonight....already dreaming for next year's garden!

 

[seedcorn]

The saying is knee high by the 4th of July. That is for field corn which needs another 2 months to mature. Mature sweet corn is not “good eats”.

 

[Zeedman]

Put up the last of the pepper cages & spun polyester covers today in the home gardens. I bury 3 sides of the cover, so digging the trenches in this heat is slow work, and done under cover of a passing cloud. The 4th side (downwind) is for access, and is held down with a couple long pieces of 1/2" rebar rod laid horizontally & pressed flat. The cages keep out pollinators. Before closing the cover any peppers or open flowers are removed, so any blossoms set after that will be pure seed. There are 5 pepper varieties in those gardens being grown for seed.

The covers will be closed for 2-3 weeks, at which point any peppers which have set are tagged for seed saving, and the 4th side pinned open. Leaving the plants covered longer than that is risky. While the covers prevent insects from entering, there are always some aphids already present; protected from predators, they can multiply rapidly enough to damage the plants. Once the cages are re-opened, though, wasps & ladybugs quickly move in to feed, and the aphids are mostly gone within a week or two with no action on my part.

I found a source for good hay, and purchased 20 bales. DW & I finished mulching the home gardens, everything except okra & Moringa (which grow better in bare soil). It's amazing how quickly most plants perk up after mulching & a good spraying to rinse off the mud splash. The Emerite pole beans & German Butterbean limas virtually leaped to the top of their trellises, and have begun blooming. The bitter melon, which had been yellowed & sickly, turned green almost overnight & has started to climb and branch out.

We don't mulch the Tromboncino squash either, since mulch would provide cover for cucumber beetles & squash bugs... a lesson learned the hard way in years past. I patrol the squash plants twice daily with spray bottle in hand, to catch the first squash bugs before they lay eggs, and keep the cucumber beetles manageable. Only a couple squash bugs so far, but the beetles are fairly bad this year, and are damaging some of the vine tips. Killed a couple SVB moths flying nearby, plenty of those around this year (some hatched from last year's garden)... but no sign of eggs on the Tromboncino.

We've been upper 80's - low 90's continuously for the last week, and mostly dry. That trend will continue unbroken until next weekend, when we cool down a little. On the plus side, all of the heat lovers (okra, water spinach, limas, cowpeas) are growing furiously, and the plants in the rural garden are making up some of the time lost to a late start - especially the sweet corn. The runner beans, though, have basically stopped growing, waiting for the heat to break. The high heat & humidity also limit how much time DW & I can spend in the gardens, so we are struggling to get caught up in the rural garden. All things considered though, after two straight years of record rainfall, I welcome the opportunity to have a normal garden & get caught up on some of my seed grow outs.

 

[ducks4you]

Wow @Zeedman , I noticed that I am not the ONLY who posts at odd hours, very early or very late.
Funny, I pulled on a burdock growing right next to my house sidewalk to injure it before poisoning and the whole thing pulled out by the roots. It has been THAT wet. Even without rain, the dewpoint is so high that your shoes get wet if you are out early. Not much that I can do today, going into DH's office, shopping, and a 3PM closing 10 minutes from home.

 

[flowerbug]

four days ago the broccoli and cauliflower plants looked pretty good. today five out of the six plants are eaten back to the ridges/ribs of the leaves and the forming flower heads of the broccoli are eaten back to the stem. i'm guessing the groundhog. it's been eating a lot of the tulip bulbs too (and other garden plants).

yesterday i looked out the window and saw it standing up to eat some of the hollyhocks but i could not get a good shot at it - scared it off anyways, but it will be back.

i hate having to live trap but i may have to make the exception for this one. normally they don't get inside the fenced gardens very much.

weeded this morning until it got too hot. gradually getting caught up. always plenty more to do.

 

[Zeedman]

Funny, I pulled on a burdock growing right next to my house sidewalk to injure it before poisoning and the whole thing pulled out by the roots. It has been THAT wet. Even without rain, the dewpoint is so high that your shoes get wet if you are out early.

So that's where my rain has been going... This has been the longest dry spell here in the last 3 years! Most of the storms have either gone around us, or faded away before reaching us - which is actually a normal summer for this location. Unbroken heat, little to no rainfall - its like a SoCal summer so far. No complaints from me, since that allows me to control water - and both garden locations are on a well.

Edit: It did it again! A strong storm passed through around 11:00 PM, and split in half just West of me. The two halves passed by a couple miles North & South, then rejoined into a solid front after they passed. All we got was a few sprinkles. Guess I should feel blessed, but my gardens (and the local farmers) could have used the rain.