Beemaster's International Beekeeping Forum
ALMOST BEEKEEPING - RELATED TOPICS => GARDENING AROUND THE HOUSE => Topic started by: bwallace23350 on May 19, 2017, 11:01:27 am
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This spring has been a disappointing spring. Because of our non winter I have no peaches but because of a late hard freeze I am probably down 30-40 percent on my blueberries and it popped back my fig and pomegranate trees. Blueberries are my biggest fruit producer for me so that is a bummer but they are showing really strong growth and I just harvested the first of the berries and the fruit is big and tasty this year. All my other fruit is showing good growth except for the one chestnut tree that died. I do have fruit from my strawberries also but they are new. In the veggie part of the garden things are looking really good. I expect a good harvest of good crops unless something changes. All my veggies are showing good solid growth and we are getting good rain as of now.
How is your garden going?
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They are claiming up here peaches and apples are going to be a banner year. My trees were covered with flowers. I will have to see if my bees did their work.
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Tomatoes and peppers for the most part in my garden. So far, so good. I go to my friend's house and the U-pick farm for blueberries. They are early, BIG, and delicious this year! I got some strawberries at another U-pick farm that were also very good.
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My wife and I searched all of our blueberry bushes last week and we found no more than a dozen berries. Most years we get 2 to 3 large collenders full every week for up to 7 weeks. This year, we are hoping the wild blackberries will be a banner year.
My wife's garden is doing real well. She waited until April to start her spring plants and she is real glad that she did.
Jim
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Tomatoes and peppers for the most part in my garden. So far, so good. I go to my friend's house and the U-pick farm for blueberries. They are early, BIG, and delicious this year! I got some strawberries at another U-pick farm that were also very good.
I wish my blueberries were doing well.
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They are claiming up here peaches and apples are going to be a banner year. My trees were covered with flowers. I will have to see if my bees did their work.
That sounds fantastic. I am sure your girls performed well. I am most disappointed about my peaches. Last year I let them rot on a tree as I was not around them because of a sick baby and vacation and this year they did not make. Two years with no peaches.
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Thanks to a friend I am going to expand my orchard out by two blueberries, two more blackberries, one asian persimmon, and one more pomegranate tree. He gifted me all of these yesterday
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Went from 60 and rain to 80?s here. Got about 18 tomato?s, half dozen basil (badly sun scalded), half dozen egg plant hardening off outside. Pumpkins, delicata, and giant sunflowers in pots (to germinate) on the picnic table. Going to try to shallow till the soil today so I can help it dry (in the am and PM).
Wednesday is going to be a high of 60 so the tomato?s will go in Tuesday evening.
Hail beat up the blueberry bloom but I must have 25 plants so it will be OK. My Apple grafts on the espalier look like they took. The ones on the Plums look like I brought in a virus so I cut them all off. The apricots on the existing stock I thought was going to be a win are dying with the trees (think I lost a peach also) because it has been so wet and cold. Our Gravenstien apple tree must have bloomed for a solid month so it should be a banner year for that tree as it hit every overlapping bloom from crabs to Kings.
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What is a typical summer high in Oregon Minz?
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It should stop raining here about mid June and not rain again until mid September. If you want it to grow you water it. After Blackberry nothing really blooms- no second flow.
We traditionally get 12 days per year of above 90 degrees. Last frost is tax day, April 15th, first is end of October but the returning rains usually mean that nothing worth eating has survived the mildews and moss.
We are going to hit 88 today after a long wet winter and the news probably sounds like it does when it snows by you.
Oh yeah, snow here is a 24 hour news event. Schools get cancelled on a snow forecast. We get about 2 a year that last a day, maybe two.
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Sounds interesting. HOw much rain do yall average a year? We get rain year round and our driest month averages about 3 inches of rain. OUr problem is that it is scorching from June to September and unless we get that rain it would be a desert around here.
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I just looked at intellicast for Historic averages
http://www.intellicast.com/Local/History.aspx?location=USOR0275
we get about 25? of rain a year, 15? of that in November-February.
Our average high temp is pretty much in the high 70?s for July-September.
People that come out to visit us in August usually comment how dead everything looks.
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Lush golf courses around here. Just about 40 in. rain and plenty in August. Normally, lots of snow.
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I just looked at intellicast for Historic averages
http://www.intellicast.com/Local/History.aspx?location=USOR0275
we get about 25? of rain a year, 15? of that in November-February.
Our average high temp is pretty much in the high 70?s for July-September.
People that come out to visit us in August usually comment how dead everything looks.
THose highs sound pretty nice. Do yall get much snow?
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Lush golf courses around here. Just about 40 in. rain and plenty in August. Normally, lots of snow.
If we only got 40 inches of rain everyone would freak out because of the severe drought. It would be a severe drought to by September after 4 months of 90 plus days.
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40 inches is plenty when it is even and consistent. Snow fall doesn't enter the ground until it melts. So we have about 4 months of water storage that lets loose in the spring.
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THose highs sound pretty nice. Do yall get much snow?
one or maybe two a year. if it lasts more than two days we claim it is a blizzard. Last year we had a couple of snow storms that lasted for a WEEK!
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I am battling a nasty bunch of Johnson grass. I think I can watch it grow as I'm pulling it up and for every one I get rid of four more show up!
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Thought it was time for another garden update. The garden is struggling. We had rain for the better part of 3 weeks. Things are starting to rot, can't get in there to work a lot of the weeds, and tomatoes are starting to split. This weeks forcast....... A lot more rain.
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To get rid of Johnson and nut grass get some EDPM roofing material or sheet metal and cover small areas at a time. This is a better choice than glyphosphate for bee keepers and small areas.
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To get rid of Johnson and nut grass get some EDPM roofing material or sheet metal and cover small areas at a time. This is a better choice than glyphosphate for bee keepers and small areas.
That is a much better way of working it.
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Well my garden has been a bust. I haven't gave it the attention a garden deserves, then there's the monsoon that set in and never left. Everything's turning a pale color, wet feet I recon.
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My wife's garden has produced a lot of food so far but we had 4 1/2" of rain yesterday and it was under water most of the night. She needs to get out there and pick what ever is left.
Our front yard looked like a fair sized stream even though I have 3 18" grates spread across the yard that are connected to an 8" pipe that feeds to the creek. Just too much water too fast.
Jim
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Yep, the rain has been ridiculous. The city has had a pump in my front yard for the past 2 - 3 weeks sending all of this water into the bay. My garden fortunately sits on higher ground.
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The rain has really crushed my garden. Even the peas started rotting on the plant. The tomatoes have done better than hopped given the circumstances and so have the peppers. Squash on the ground rots way to fast. The fruit was a bust except for figs as a young tree has put some on while my old tree lost them all to a late frost.
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My fruit trees got hit with a freeze but still had some fruit with the asian pears being just loaded. However, animals have since compleetly cleaned them off of fruit long before it ripened.
I do have a potted fig that has a lot of fruit on it yet and this will be the first year for it and I don't know what to expect from it.
Cheers
gww
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Speaking of figs I need to check my like ASAP
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Well I can say this is the first year I ever lost a garden due to too much rain.
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Yep GSF the rain killed my garden. On the bright side my bees seem to be doing very well. I will get to harvest in the fall.
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Too much rain here. Zucchini and summer squash the only things doing well. Tomato, strawberry, peppers, potato not doing well.
Deer and raccoons are not helping. Plugged a raccoon yesterday.
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We have had so much rain now that I can't even get my winter spot ready.
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And there is more coming... :sad:
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3 inches yesterday
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our last rain was the first day of summer. We have been having record heat. Garden is doing pretty good. I tore up the raspberries and am solarizing the soil before replanting them this year.
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Is it normal to have so little rain?
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Just starting to think about my vegetable garden down under. With no frost until very late in autumn I still had summer crops producing 2 months after I should have had winter crops in so skipped them this year.
Has been a drier than usual winter for us but 5" this month has set things up nicely for spring. Thinking about purchasing a small green house to start seedlings in and try to get a few weeks head start on planting direct into the garden. Even with a green house still at least a month before I would consider putting seed in. We had snow Monday at the farm, weekend forecast is for temps approaching 60 but if things stay normal we can expect the odd frost into October.
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I am hoping to break grown on my winter garden within the month.
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Is it normal to have so little rain?
I think it was the 5th longest run on record. It also came with the top 90+ degree days in a row on record.
We hit 53 or 55 days before it did finally rain (one day).
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We have had a mild and wet summre for us. Mild summers down here are still really hot though. Looks like we are in the cross hairs of a lot more rain though soon.
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Planted carrots and radish directly into the garden 3 weeks ago, not a real good germination but they are up and wont need thinning to heavily. Put lettuce, corn, tomato, peppers, chilli, pumpkin, gerkin into seed raising trays in a little green house at the same time.
No luck with the tomato and the peppers and chilli are a bit light but corn and pumpkins have done well, will transplant them to the garden this weekend.
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Last week I used the large hand controlled tiller till up my wife entire garden. She planted her winter crops: lettus, broccoli, cabbage, radishes, green beans, onions, kale and some spices. We are hoping the beans make it before the first frost. Most of them were growing/popping up in just a few days and almost all are now visible. She put them on mounds in case the garden gets flooded. Good thing, it is supposed to rain all of this coming week.
Jim
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I told the wife yesterday that we need to dig the sweet potatoes. Our average first frost is oct 10 though many times it is closer to the 20th. We always wait as long as we can but I know from experiance that if the green gets frost, it travels to the potatoe and rots them.
Still got tomatoes coming in and fall lettice is great.
Late october early nov will be time to plug the garlic in the ground.
Cheers
gww
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We are still getting frosts, a lot lighter than winter but the little greenhouse seems to be doing the job. Not sure if it is holding much heat over night or it is just the covering and the plants being up off the ground.
We can expect the odd frost through until November, my standard answer to anyone asking when we can expect our last frost is "a few days after I decide its safe to put my tomatoes in the ground".
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Had a day off work yesterday and found a few more chilli varieties to try.
I think these will all be handle with care,
Trinidad Scorpion Butch T 1400000 SHU
Red Habanero 350000-500000 SHU
Cap Mushroom Red 50000-100000 SHU
already had
Cayenne 30000-50000 SHU
Jalapeno 3500-10000 SHU
Banana Peppers 100-1000 SHU
Bell Peppers 0 SHU
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220,
That is a nice comparison of how hot the different peppers are. Do you really use the ones that are over 1/2 million SHU?
I remember my dad growing some small green peppers when I was about 7 years old. He told my neighbor and I to just touch it to our tongues. We both used a hose to try to cool our mouths down.
Jim
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I am on to my winter fall garden. My crops of kale, collards, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli are looking good. The radishes are doing fantastic but as always I over planted them.
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Not sure what I will do once they start producing, I don't mind a mild chilli like jalapeno and use hotter ones like the cayenne a bit in cooking but these are in a different class when it comes to heat. Will probably try them in cooking but cant see any of them making it straight into my mouth. I have a mate that makes hot chilli sauce so Im sure he will use some.
Cost me about $3 for each seedling I will save some seed for the future given seed for them retails for 50c-$1 a seed. The other varieties I'm growing are all from seed I saved from last year.
The Trinidad Scorpion Butch T held the world record for the hottest chilli in the world for a number of years, I'm sure if I sent some to the farmers markets with my brother along with a bit of signage saying not safe to eat and got him to charge $1 each probably sell a heap.
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What is funny is that my daughter and my 2 granddaughters love peppers and hot food. My oldest granddaughter puts hot sauce on almost all of her food. I almost never eat hot food.
Jim
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I've got ghost and habanero peppers. I use them in my salsa and hot sauce. The market will buy the habaneros from me, but isn't interested in the ghost peppers. (Chickens! LOL!!!)
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I love hot stuff also but don't just do straight hot sauce. I prefer to just use hot salsa on things.
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Cost me about $3 for each seedling I will save some seed for the future given seed for them retails for 50c-$1 a seed. The other varieties I'm growing are all from seed I saved from last year.
That would work if you only grew one type of peppers. Like any veggi or fruit the seed will be the sum of the two parents so the bees will determine the male (or you can with a q-tip).
If you are growing your own you need a lot of bottom heat to get the seeds to germinate. I put mine on a fish tank until they pop out of the ground.
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Here is a picture of my wife, Judy, working in her garden with a little help.
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What do yall all got planted out there?
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I have been busy expanding my orchard. I have got four more blueberry plants in the ground and one more apple tree on the way
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What do yall all got planted out there?
Carrots, kale, lettuce, broccoli, spinach, onions, Brussels sprouts, green beans, oregano, chocolate mint, lemon grass and thyme.
Jim
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That is a nice spread there. I cut back a bit this year. I only have cabbage, kale, collards, broccoli, and the worlds largest rosemary plant plus a smaller one. I did run into an unique looking rosemary plant and got some cuttings off of it. Four days in and they don't look to be dying yet.
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That is a nice spread there. I cut back a bit this year. I only have cabbage, kale, collards, broccoli, and the worlds largest rosemary plant plus a smaller one. I did run into an unique looking rosemary plant and got some cuttings off of it. Four days in and they don't look to be dying yet.
Sounds good, do you have any pictures?
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Unfortunately I don't. I don't have a smart phone and it is a process to take a picture text it to my mom's phone and then sent it to my email. I will try so soon though.