getting dirty: what's in the garden?

[ClifSpliffy]

the ground has been warmer than normal since last fall, so we bumped up planting by two weeks this season (the field brown turkey figs got moving weeks before usual), and the stuff shows it, but we're bringing the water early cuz the rain has not been co-operating. the pickling cukes, hand tomatoes of various colors (no cherries or grape ones this year), and cantelopes are running nicely, and we'll be dropping in the jalapenos today.
ganims in fairdale has a really good potting soil mix, full of lobster shells and such, that he makes up in maine. that stuff seemed to wake up some old seeds that i thought were done. it feels like that 'dirt' could be magic for flowers.
get those seeds started!

 

[ClifSpliffy]

planting advice from Farmers' Supply and Roofing Company of Bridgeport, Connecticut.
looks like they have that brand new variety of lettuce seed this year;
'Iceberg. New. Of beautiful appearance and excellent quality; leaves green, slightly tinted with red at the edge; of good size and solid.
It is bound to be a leader. Pkt. 5 cts., oz'
but it doesn't look like cantaloupe has been invented yet, so we're stuck with muskmelon till then. lol.
some interesting tips in here, like, rip up a piece of sod, turn it over - voila! seed starter! pretty slick.
[Farmers' Supply & Roofing Co. materials] [electronic resource] : Farmers' Supply & Roofing Co : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
they even sold a grass seed called 'Brooklawn,' named after the nearby Brooklawn Country Club, where it was developed.

 

[cockhrnleghrn]

I forgot in my last response: Paw paws are native fruit. They are literally about half fruit and half seed on the inside, which is probably why they're not marketed, but they're really really delicious. They kind of taste like a cross between a banana and mango. They do have a wikipedia page. They're probably about 4-6 inches long when ripe; here is a pic when they're babies, maybe 3/4-1" long.
View attachment 67595

I looked them up and they apparently grow in my neck of the woods, but I don't recall hearing about them before. I wonder if they sell them at grocery stores?

 

[Fairfield Fan]

Marsh marigolds. Took over my backyard. Encroaching on the front yard. Impossible to kill off. Taking over the entire neighborhood.

Really insidious.

 

[Dokey]

My garden is ridiculous. The flower section, English garden style, runs 250 feet, from 15 to 30 feet wide. Veggies are in raised beds, 14 tomatoes, a dozen peppers, two large beds of Jerusalem artichokes, two beds of beans, green and wax, cukes, melons, etc. I live in low Rockies so am still zone 6a.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

in keeping with the 'ground is warm' thinking, we finished putting in another planting of tomatos, cukes, and such aboot 10 days or so ago. we've never had sooo many peppers, green and jalapeños, table ready this early. gonna be interesting to see how the late-planted cantelopes work out.
here come the raspberries! time to drop some soft maples for next springs' firewood!

 

[Duncan Idaho]

Savoy Blue being taken this week. Quick kraut, roasted wedges or grilled as steaks.

 

[Hey Adrien!]

On my morning walk today, I foraged 26 dry ounces of wild raspberries. Maybe I'm just paying more attention this year, but it seems like wild berries are growing like crazy.

 

[UCSouth]

On my morning walk today, I foraged 26 dry ounces of wild raspberries. Maybe I'm just paying more attention this year, but it seems like wild berries are growing like crazy.

I've got Blackberries in places on the property that I have never seen them in before. Enjoy the bounty.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

On my morning walk today, I foraged 26 dry ounces of wild raspberries. Maybe I'm just paying more attention this year, but it seems like wild berries are growing like crazy.

yes, yes they are. common thought heard around my area this season -'can u believe that there are now raspberries there, there, there, there, and over there?' they had a head of steam going way before the rains set in this summer. i'm stickin with my 'the ground has been unusually warm since last fall' thing.
make the jam!

 

[Duncan Idaho]

Fruit trees are producing like crazy this year in SE CT. Apples, pears and cherries.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

update on second planting, post Independence Day stuff. pretty darn good. those cukes and tomatos are coming along nicely as the first planting harvest is coming to a close, but with some rains coming back (so far his year: drought, big water, then drought again, now some rain) they may catch a break and put out some moar. those second cukes held up well, no bitterness, coming off those weeks of limited rain, tho it did cause the burrowing wasps to show up again.
mushrooms started to calm down, but again, this rain will prolly cause them to return. i still ain't eating them.
second plant cantaloupes looking good, too, so reason now to net/protect them from the varmints. that's the only problem with the lopes around here, as they almost grow on autopilot, with mostly just uninvited critters messin them up. it really stinks to find a bunch of them lookin good only to find some chewed on the underside. i mean, 4 or 5 in a row with some chomps on them -aaaarrrrggggghhhhh! why couldn't you just stick to one, varmint? 3 years running now (never happened before) where bambi has a seemingly new found taste in brown turkey fig leaves. wild grapes and cherries in the forest seem to be having a good year, honeysuckle too. bigtime bat resurgence, gettin fat on skeeters. not a squirrel year so far. good.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

Had a few false blooms of Magnolia, Azalea etc. this summer.

 

[dbmill]

My wife has a good sized garden every year. Right now getting lots of beans and some tomatoes.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

october 4, green and jalopena peppers still puttin out like a censured... well, u know what i mean. they started early, and have never stopped. amazing.
no special treatment -field grown, mostly rain for irrigation.
ground is still warm, and looking out a week or so, it doesn't present much of a chance for lows in the 40's. the soft maple leaves can't even spell, much less actually turn, red, at this point.
and, wholly consistent with the 'berries everrwhere' theme of earlier, the autumn olive/russian olive/winterberry/whatever it's called, has put out a giant, heavy, crop like, umm, well you know... fun fact. those berries are one of the most dense lycopene producers on the planet.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

i'll tell ya what's 'in da garden,' and everrwhere else. obvious to the non-somnambulant. worm castings. epic this year.
worm castings 'tea' (huck some in a 5 gal bucket, add water, let sit for a few days. voila! liquid superfert! free), or straight added to soil, the stuff is, well,
What Are Worm Castings - How To Make Worm Castings (gardeningknowhow.com)
forget the part aboot making the castings. just walk outside, bend down, and pick up.
around 50 bucks per gallon for the tea iffn u buy it retail.
madness.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

10/21. no letup in both jalapeno and california wonder peppers, tho the jalaps are turning color, purpleish/redbrownish 'stripes.' still a few of hand and plum tomatos hanging on, mostly greenish in declining vigor, but i did pick some ok reds and yellows today. the water has been kind of light, so i may actually water them.
regular warmish ocean breezes pushing back on any big cold trying to travel down the Connecticut River, so annuals are in no rush to quit, and the deer act like they're on vacation. lots of warm weather birds hanging around.
tasty scup on the dinner plate lately too. the beaver have returned this season, along with a growing bat population. mosquitos can do that, ya know. i hope someone tells that to the 'enviro types.'

 

[ClifSpliffy]

i checked the peppers around 11/6 or so, the morning after the second night of 'too cold to grow.' apparently, bucky deer trashed that plot again, and et all the jalapenos that he could reach, yet left the kaliwondergreens untouched. it was over anyway for both of them as the 2 nites cold turned their leaves purple/brown. harvesting a couple dozen of the sweetest and crispiest mostly green, some red, a few orangish, peppers, im making the official call as to the end of my summer growing season at early november. a-ma-zing.
the good thing with that annual sun/temp switch for the veggies, is that it usually triggers the bark on some split firewoods, like oak, to now fall off easier. seemingly yesterday, that switch used to happen in september. a big deal on a lot of levels.
north winds have been warm, like todays north wind.
ground is still warm, and under the leaf litter piles, the earthworms are casting like it's still labor day.
and speaking of making dirt, it's high season for making it out of leaves, with the mowers. and then celebrate with a cocktail - castings and leaves.
free dirt, free fert.


and, there are almost zero ticks so far this year in my local forests or grasslands, even at those times when the 'growing' seasons for them were at their height.

 

[Duncan Idaho]

Picked the last of the yellow grape tomatoes yesderday.

 

[UCSouth]

Peppers are hanging in there as well as some cherry tomatoes. Tore down a small structure and will repurpose the wood and build a small greenhouse as well as build another small shelter in the goat yard.

 

[ClifSpliffy]

ground still warm. noaa sez it's gonna stay that way, well past Memorial Day. i guess that they read the BY, too.

iffn u got any big trees, with sunup to sundown sun, walk around under the canopy where the branches end, and at the due south exposure. not sure if its' just certain trees (the one that woke me up is a giant shagbark hickory, with long lower branches easily grasped by anyone), but watch out, u might sink into the ground, as it's so soft. same with some cedars and the due south exposure - the worms make it feel almost like memory foam. and why do the worms luv doing their business under cedar trees? idk, but im guessing it has something to do with their needles falling off. took the deere the other day, and scooped up those castings. free cable!
saw a wasp the other day. talk aboot slow motion flying! that guy looked like a model A at the indy 500.
today is another good day for wearing shorts.

 

[UCSouth]

ground still warm. noaa sez it's gonna stay that way, well past Memorial Day. i guess that they read the BY, too.

iffn u got any big trees, with sunup to sundown sun, walk around under the canopy where the branches end, and at the due south exposure. not sure if its' just certain trees (the one that woke me up is a giant shagbark hickory, with long lower branches easily grasped by anyone), but watch out, u might sink into the ground, as it's so soft. same with some cedars and the due south exposure - the worms make it feel almost like memory foam. and why do the worms luv doing their business under cedar trees? idk, but im guessing it has something to do with their needles falling off. took the deere the other day, and scooped up those castings. free cable!
saw a wasp the other day. talk aboot slow motion flying! that guy looked like a model A at the indy 500.
today is another good day for wearing shorts.

Every day is a good day for wearing shorts. My sweet peppers are holding on still. Got almost a dozen this week and there's about 30 small ones still trying to make it. Took the hydroponic system apart, cleaned it really well and started a fresh batch of lettuce, spinach, cherry tomatoes and mizuna. ETA is early January for lettuce and February for the rest. Picked up some used windows for a greenhouse project today that will hopefully be ready by February...

 

[ClifSpliffy]

been seeing a lot of flying bugs in the past few days. dead earwig in the sink, moths flying out of the wood pile when uncovered. looks to be 'warmer than' for the near future.
peaches need aboot 1000 hours all told, to be 'peaches' and not that stuff that we've been getting from the south lately. uh oh. not looking good.

as always, shoot all squirrels.
North Wales town terrorized by a grey squirrel: 18 injured in two days of attacks

 

[ClifSpliffy]

well now, january 22 - look what we found today

this is a pik from wiki, captioned 'tulip buds in spring.'
between the creepy crawlies showin up in the house a few days back, then today around midday becoming a bird festival outside, we decided to tour around to see whats going on in what seems like our temporary frozen tundra. the western dominant sun exposure tulip poplars were showing the above bling, so we decided to check some of the others (70 to 120 feet tall) with different sun profiles (east, valley, etc). nada. zippo.
quite dramatic, really. later, i took the hand clippers to a couple of japanese red maples, and i discovered in a few places that there are now smaller twig/branches showing full red in color.
january 22.

here comes the sun, and i say
it's alright.........

 

[Duncan Idaho]

Sap is running in our maples.

 

[bobbyinaz]

Just completed a huge citrus harvest from the trees in the yard.

Grapefruit, lemons and 2 types of oranges.

Had more grapefruit & lemons than usual. Orange yield a little less than years past.

Have had seedlings going since Dec 26 (kind of a tradition to start them day after) including several types of heirloom tomatoes, red & yellow grape tomatoes, anaheim & jalapeno peppers.

Usually have everything planted in the ground by Presidents Day which let's us harvest in May & June before it gets too hot