What did YOU do in your garden today :P

[digitS']

. . . I have started to slowly pull some of the dandelions up, saving the roots to dry, roast and try my hand at making tea from the roots. they're out there, they're free, so why notice.

Here was my experience. I did this twice and was quite happy with the results:
Think you might need a cup of recession-proof coffee?

Why not, indeed ? It is a little bit of a bother and @hoodat was correct that I'm supposed to be roasting them. If you come up with some good techniques, I will be very tempted to try it again! Right off you are talking about drying the roots rather than using them fresh.

Steve

 

[Ridgerunner]

Personally I was wondering why she took time to count them. When the quart jar is full, I start another.

 

[baymule]

Sorry, I can't imagine where my head was. It made for a very , though.

I read @baymule's, "I picked 450 dandelion flowers and de-petaled them", stopped, and wondered why anyone would play "He loves me; he loves me not" with four hundred fifty dandelion flowers.

After a short period of puzzlement I read on and found that baymule made perfect sense, as usual. It is just one of those silly times that are too embarrassing to share with anyone.

Red, I have plenty of time on my hands. I stay home and care for my 91 year old mother. I went from working 10-12 hours a day to watching a almost child like old woman watching Fox news. Did I mention BORED? Picking dandelions and making jelly, tea and now wine helps to keep me occupied. Plus my dear friends here, whom I can talk dirt to. I expanded my garden on my very small lot, added onto the chicken coop and got more chickens, spend hours here on TEG, can, freeze and dehydrate goodies from the garden..........when's that durn wine gonna be ready.......

 

[baymule]

@Ridgerunner I count them because it takes about 100 blooms per cup of petals. So if I count them, I know if I have enough for a batch of jelly or now.......wine!

@digitS' you mean I'm not supposed to dry the roots first? Oops. I am only pulling a few at a time, so thought I'd dry the roots until I got enough to make roasting them worthwhile. The root roasting and making wine is new to me. I got the jelly and tea thing down real good.

For caffeinated replacement for coffee, try yaupon. yoe-PON' It is a small tree/shrub that grows out in the woods. Pick the leaves, dry, toast lightly and brew up a pot of tea for your caffeine jolt.

 

[SweetMissDaisy]

Picked zucchini. Yay!

 

[thistlebloom]

I finally got the tomatoes, peppers, basil and kale into the ground. I hope they developed a sense of humor about being stuck in their baby pots for so long. I planted the Yukon Chief sweet corn too. That, at least was timed about right.

Oh yeah,I also got my two selections of African beans planted. I held a few back, just in case these don't germinate,

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

I transplanted sunflowers out of the compost pile and a squash plant. I gave tomato plants, eggplant, basil, flowers, pepper plants to a friend. I walked around very puzzled looking at my garden. Of the 7 squash plants I had that had one leaf left, only 2 of those plants were left. The cucumbers seem to be okay at the moment, but part of a banana pepper plant was gone and there was a stem in the ground and I told DH, something used to be planted there and I looked and it was where I had planted a tomato plant. The whole tomato plant is gone except for the stem in the ground.

 

[buckabucka]

@Gardening with Rabbits
You don't know what is eating these plants? Or is that why your screen name is gardening with rabbits?

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

@Gardening with Rabbits
You don't know what is eating these plants? Or is that why your screen name is gardening with rabbits?

At one time it was the rabbits eating, but I put them to work in a hutch making manure. I think it is birds. There are a lot of the black birds, maybe Grackles or sometime like that. I see them flying with straw and grass in their mouth. One went to the fence with the tomatoes and dropped something and I went to see and it was a pepper leaf! The purple basil plant is now gone that they had half eaten the other day. I am going to finish planting some squash plants and seeds, some cucumbers and then cover with some kind of row cover. I will go to the hardware store later today or to Walmart and get some of that stuff I used on the cabbage. I have some of that left, but not enough. I may cover the peppers too. It is a good thing I did plant a lot of peppers.

 

[thistlebloom]

At one time it was the rabbits eating, but I put them to work in a hutch making manure. I think it is birds. There are a lot of the black birds, maybe Grackles or sometime like that. I see them flying with straw and grass in their mouth. One went to the fence with the tomatoes and dropped something and I went to see and it was a pepper leaf! The purple basil plant is now gone that they had half eaten the other day. I am going to finish planting some squash plants and seeds, some cucumbers and then cover with some kind of row cover. I will go to the hardware store later today or to Walmart and get some of that stuff I used on the cabbage. I have some of that left, but not enough. I may cover the peppers too. It is a good thing I did plant a lot of peppers.

You could check out the deer netting at Home Dumpo. The stuff I have is very lightweight and actually looks like bird netting. It comes in a 100 foot roll and it's 6 feet tall. I don't recall the price, but I don't think it's too shocking.