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Post by steev on Jul 13, 2017 0:26:15 GMT -5
It's July! Why is there so little participation? Is everyone really so busy they have nothing to post? Who do I have to piss off to get some action? It's hard to believe there is so little maturing, growing, and being planted.
So many have not been heard from for so long; one hopes they are only too-well occupied, inshallah!
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Post by rowan on Jul 13, 2017 1:25:21 GMT -5
It is winter here in Aus and nothing much happening, so nothing to post about.
With the Aus government adding more seed to the do-not-import list I am going to be planting a lot more variety, especially of the cucurbits and solonaceae just to keep my seed stock renewed for the future. I will be putting in more eggplants, okra, squash especially.
Really, unless a subject peaks my interest I probably won't be posting much for the next couple of months.
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Post by steev on Jul 13, 2017 2:23:35 GMT -5
At least you've a SoHem excuse; it's the deafening silence from NorHem that bugs me. This should be early harvest and late-planting season.
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Post by philagardener on Jul 13, 2017 6:52:57 GMT -5
This year has been a continuing battle with the weather, insects, and (most recently) chipmunks.
After two years of great yields, my shiitake logs simply never woke up after this winter. Just nothing. I thought they would yield until they broke down - still plenty of solid wood but sign of fruiting.
Peas were OK. Asparagus bed is winding down after 20 years. Garlic was the high point, particularly since last year's crop rotted in the ground - harvested a bit early so as not to chance it. Lettuce was good, but has bolted now. That is pretty much it so far for the early harvests.
What's happening now? My tomatoes took forever to get going this year - they didn't like the cool, wet spells any more than the peas the hot, dry ones. At this point I might get some ripe ones by the end of July - that's a full month after I have picked in the past. Eggplants look like bonsai. Beans have started to bloom - today's temps are going to be in the high 90s so I hope they pollinate. Just yesterday afternoon, I found a whole bed of newly sprouted bush beans and several of my pole beans eaten through at the ground level by chipmunks. The battle is joined . . .
Hope the rest of you are having an easier time of it (but I suspect not!) Gardening is a struggle; I guess it keeps us challenged and off the streets, mostly.
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Post by reed on Jul 13, 2017 10:25:15 GMT -5
A few dry kernels of sweet corn stuck to the trigger plate of the trap using peanut butter as glue catches the chipmunks pretty good. I'v hauled off a dozen or so this season. I don't mind shooting them from a distance but they are so completely cute I just can't do it point blank.
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Post by 12540dumont on Jul 13, 2017 11:11:10 GMT -5
Oh, I'd shoot a gopher at point blank. I'd love to invent a gopher finder, similar to fish finders, so I could just put a blasting cap in the hole and blow the bugger to smitherines.
One day I caught one out of it's hole, I looked around for a cat and there was none. Did that phase me? No, I stomped it. With my boot! Leo couldn't believe his cold blooded killer wife. Yesterday I fixed gopher bitten hoses. One hose had no less that 4 bites out of it. I'd stomp it again! Stealing my veges! Ruining my irrigation. Hah, good thing I don't have a have a handgun....anyone want to send me one?
Steev, how can I have time to post? I'm battling gophers, trying to stay out of the weeds, irrigating to beat the clock. It's been triple digits here, and so hot that I have to run to beat the irrigation timer. I'm getting up earlier and earlier to beat the heat. By the time I make dinner, I'm falling down and ready for bed.
Puts a crimp in my style. Almost feel asleep in my glass of wine.
So from the antipodeans......My Benhorn carrots are coming along. Absolutely stunning harvest of Cream Gold Onions! And my parsnips, Halblange Wiesse look beautiful. I must have more seed.
It's been a dismal season for peppers and tomatoes.
I need someone to tell me when to harvest Winter x Jersey and Chacha x Katy. OXBOW! Weigh in please.
My garden looks fabulous, thanks to the rain and that I'm not spending any time on the computer. Yikes, got to move irrigation again. Toot a loo. Steev, come for dinner, someday.
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Post by farmermike on Jul 13, 2017 11:54:31 GMT -5
I have have a lot of things I'd like to post about, but I'm too busy killing voles with my bare hands like an animal. Of course, then I have to quickly wash up and play with my kids.
Maybe in a few years they'll be old enough to train in the art of vole hunting. Then I can kick back and write eloquently about all my farming success.
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Post by mskrieger on Jul 13, 2017 16:27:25 GMT -5
Glad to hear your honesty about the crops that failed. toomanyirons Sometimes when something simple like carrots fail, it makes me feel like I'm missing some deep secret of gardening. But really that's just how it goes. I got an unexpected compliment recently. Some lawn care guys working on my neighbor's yards complimented the lushness of my (front yard) vegetable garden, and said they didn't understand why so more folks didn't grow veggies.  |
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Post by steev on Jul 13, 2017 19:43:15 GMT -5
While gratifying, this is still the usual suspects; I still wonder about those who haven't been heard from in ages; one hopes we'd not need a medium to get in touch; what about all those who "visit", are they just "lookie-loos" when they could be "postie-poos"? Not sure that's a fortunate term.
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Jul 13, 2017 21:39:09 GMT -5
steev your call to arms pisses me off mightily, so I guess I have no choice but to tell a story about my garden. I planted out about nine new (to me) varieties of common beans. Two different greasy beans (which I'm really excited about), six or so bush beans from commercial seed packets, and one variety of Romano beans that I found in a local garden store, a variety that a family has been seed-saving in my neighborhood for something like 30 years. They all germinated nicely. Then the slugs hit. Two of the bush beans varieties were completely wiped out. The other bush beans had 50% or higher mortality. The greasy beans had about 70% mortality. In contrast, every single one of those Romano plants survived, with only a few little holes in the leaves. There's something to be said for growing locally-adapted varieties.
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Post by steev on Jul 13, 2017 22:46:31 GMT -5
No, not just "something"; there's MUCH to be said for growing (and developing) locally-adapted varieties; this is the antithesis of the Monsanto-GMO-chem model of agriculture; is anyone really obtuse enough to argue with success, unless they're getting a paycheck to promote BS?
As I have posted elsewhere, I'm being eaten alive by a plague of locusts; not gonna spray pesticides willy-nilly; don't want to toxify my acres; don't want to spend the dollars; I am fortunate that neither my subsistence nor my income is yet dependent on the produce of my farm; I'll endure a year of lost promise (not the first of my life, I assure you; I am a Stoic, though perhaps a tad shrill); if the rains fail, the locusts will also; if the rains return, the amphibians will consume those insects like wildfire in Cali's currently dry over-abundance of weeds; I trust not in "God", but in the observably-true cycles of Nature.
Our Great Mother cherishes her children, all of them, not just us.
Changeable world without end, Inshallah!
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Post by mskrieger on Jul 14, 2017 9:40:40 GMT -5
andyb cool beans. Where are you, exactly?
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Post by jocelyn on Jul 14, 2017 19:00:34 GMT -5
Busy the last little while, lurking but not posting. Just put the first load of wood in the cellar today, and a load of wetter stuff out on the concrete to dry. 5 more loads to go, grin. Hand pollinated some squashes each of the last few days. Starting to carry water to trees the hose won't reach. No burs on the chestnuts this year, catkins only....too dry. On the up side, a little graft that suffered cold injury over winter is starting to pick up. It activated 2 more buds, so 6 more leaves. Little guy may make it yet, grin (chestnut)
Peaches look good, pears not bad. Have a whole bucket of tiny quince seedlings hardening off in front of the house to plant out when we finally get rain. Spud seedling patch in full bloom, some seedballs forming. have to be very carefull picking rhubarb, as the purple finches have nests under the leaves, 4 families this year. Cherries are a bust, so dry the birds are eating nearly all of them, and the trees themselves are dropping leaves.
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Jul 15, 2017 14:07:59 GMT -5
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Post by templeton on Jul 16, 2017 4:28:13 GMT -5
Steev,
there is a web-wide decline in forum posts. Forums have sufffered at the expense of FB and instagram. The forum i mod in oz has had a huge decline in new membership, visitation, and posting. There are a few new members who post regularly, but its mostly old hands. A bit of a pity, since we often dont have much new to say to each other. Posting pics is an issue, and since many of us like to boast or enquire visually, the easy posting of pics to FB versus uploading to another site (here), or having to resize pics at my oz forum is a barrier to participation. I dislike the FB garden groups i belong to, but what do you do?
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