A Gardening Thread

[Toth]

This morning I spotted three little cacti sprouting in my pot. This is going to get interesting.

[Tywin et al.]

A lot of recent rain has made my tomatoes large and red. 

And the banana peppers are having a second run, which is nice. I've got a lot of jalapeños, but they're still mostly pretty small. Grow you little bastards, grow!  

[Mlle. Zabzie]

Well, my cantaloupe are coming in, which is fun though the watermelon appear to be a lost cause.  I also have so many butternut squash (again).  The tomatoes are off the hook.  Already made one batch of the jam which is SO GOOD.  Also plenty of green beans, which is nice.

On the pepper front, my yellow bells refuse to yellow.  My lunchbox are nicely oranging up though.  The shishitos are ok ish.  My okra is really not happy where I put them.  Oh well.  Next year.

Separately, my dahlias are blooming and OMG I love them so so very much.  

[Tywin et al.]

Overall this has been a pretty successful summer. Almost every plant did its fair share even if the tomatoes were a bit slow. I think I only bought peppers one or two times from the store and I've still got over 100 in the garden though more than half of them are small chili peppers. Plucked four tomatoes out of the garden recently and there must be at least a dozen more left that look good.

I'm going to try and plant some pumpkins soon, but I think I waited too long. When they grow right the plant is hilarious. It can completely takeover a section of the garden. 

[Tywin et al.]

Made some salsa from stuff only coming from the garden except for an onion and a lime. This shit is so hot and tasty. I'm about to make chicken kabobs with a ton of different peppers from the garden and another onion (one will also have these small tomatoes I tried growing). The ingredients have been marinating in a mix of the salsa, olive oil, lime juice, honey and dumpling sauce for hours. This is going on the grill soon and will be awesome. 

[Tears of Lys]

I have to pick my tomatoes not quite ripe, as the cardinals have developed a taste for them.  Blast you red birdies!  

My peppers haven't done much.  Got one, I think.  

[Mlle. Zabzie]

On 9/2/2023 at 2:29 PM, Tywin et al. said:

Overall this has been a pretty successful summer. Almost every plant did its fair share even if the tomatoes were a bit slow. I think I only bought peppers one or two times from the store and I've still got over 100 in the garden though more than half of them are small chili peppers. Plucked four tomatoes out of the garden recently and there must be at least a dozen more left that look good.

I'm going to try and plant some pumpkins soon, but I think I waited too long. When they grow right the plant is hilarious. It can completely takeover a section of the garden. 

At least in NY for most varietals, I think you are too late on pumpkins.  Don’t know about where you are.  I have a pretty decent size jackolantern going, but I planted the vine in June.  I expect it to be ripe in early October. 90-120 days is the usual.

[Tears of Lys]

I grew pumpkins a few years.  Most satisfying to see the big orange globes lolling about in the sun.

[Tywin et al.]

27 minutes ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

At least in NY for most varietals, I think you are too late on pumpkins.  Don’t know about where you are.  I have a pretty decent size jackolantern going, but I planted the vine in June.  I expect it to be ripe in early October. 90-120 days is the usual.

Yeah, the interwebs says you've got to get them in by June. NY is a pretty good comp for growing seasons. The weather in the spring, summer and fall is pretty similar to Minneapolis, both in temp and humidity. Our winters are just a bit nastier, but strangely the city doesn't get it that bad compared to the rural areas. It barely snows here. We mainly get the horrible cold wind. Anyways, I'm going to see if I can buy something that's been growing already, but I'll probably have to wait until next year. Lesson learned. 

Was playing around in the garden a bit ago. Pulled out four more perfect looking tomatoes (except some woodland creature decided to take a bite out of one of them). While looking closer one pepper plant that I thought only had a few more left on it has a ton on the other side, so that's cool.  

[Mlle. Zabzie]

18 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Yeah, the interwebs says you've got to get them in by June. NY is a pretty good comp for growing seasons. The weather in the spring, summer and fall is pretty similar to Minneapolis, both in temp and humidity. Our winters are just a bit nastier, but strangely the city doesn't get it that bad compared to the rural areas. It barely snows here. We mainly get the horrible cold wind. Anyways, I'm going to see if I can buy something that's been growing already, but I'll probably have to wait until next year. Lesson learned. 

Was playing around in the garden a bit ago. Pulled out four more perfect looking tomatoes (except some woodland creature decided to take a bite out of one of them). While looking closer one pepper plant that I thought only had a few more left on it has a ton on the other side, so that's cool.  

If you want to do fall, I think you can do cruciferous veggies, spinach, turnips, carrots, things like that.  It's also the time to plant garlic if that's something you are into.

I don't usually do fall veggies - too busy to really pay attention and it never works out for me.  I do put in bulbs and prune heavily where appropriate.

[Spockydog]

21 hours ago, Tears of Lys said:

I have to pick my tomatoes not quite ripe, as the cardinals have developed a taste for them.  Blast you red birdies!  

My peppers haven't done much.  Got one, I think.  

One of the items on our R&D schedule would have saved your tommies from the cardinals.

The Lazyframe is basically the shape of an A-frame, like a child's swing set, but instead of swings, there's a simple pulley system, attached to plants growing through multiple Lazyscrog devices.

I designed this to provide a hanging option for outdoor growers using Smart Pots and Airpots. One of the main, serendipitous benefits of this, is the ability for Lazyscrogged plants to spend their entire lives raised off the ground, completely eradicating the threat of ground-borne pests. 

These Lazyframes will range in size, from garden sized rigs, all the way up to large-scale agricultural rigs, spanning fields. 

People are telling me that this is a potential game-changer for pesticide reduction. 

ETA: Thought you were referring to cardinal beetles. Ain't nothing I can do to protect your crops from the birdies.... 

Edited September 5 by Spockydog

[Tears of Lys]

There's a mated pair who visit every morning and every night.  I've tried netting, but once a bird got trapped in it, so I just let them have a tomato now.  

But I can't handle it when they just take a bite out of one and then leave it!  It's insulting.

[Mlle. Zabzie]

10 hours ago, Tears of Lys said:

There's a mated pair who visit every morning and every night.  I've tried netting, but once a bird got trapped in it, so I just let them have a tomato now.  

But I can't handle it when they just take a bite out of one and then leave it!  It's insulting.

I have slugs and snails, which are worse because they don’t even provide the joy of bright birding.

[Tywin et al.]

13 hours ago, Mlle. Zabzie said:

If you want to do fall, I think you can do cruciferous veggies, spinach, turnips, carrots, things like that.  It's also the time to plant garlic if that's something you are into.

I don't usually do fall veggies - too busy to really pay attention and it never works out for me.  I do put in bulbs and prune heavily where appropriate.

Spinach, carrots and garlic are all things I eat regularly. I'll have to look into this tomorrow or the day after.