Garden 2024

rodentraiser said:

I have another flower I need some info on. I'll photo it sometime today. It's supposed to start raining about 8pm tonight and we're supposed to get an inch. I hope so. There's a fire going on northwest to us at about 500 acres with no containment. I'd guess it's about 20 miles away across the canal. I'm pretty much on edge, but if the wind blows like it usually does, it'll blow the fire north instead of south.

Casey, you'll have to keep me up to date on Dallas temps. I have a friend in Brownwood who gives me the rundown, but he and his father are moving to Topeka this week. By the way, did you ever read Ben K. Green's chapter on the last horse drive through downtown Dallas?

I'm going to kill off all the orchard grass and have ANOTHER contractor reseed everything. That means all the wildflowers will have to be mown before they have time to set seed. It kills me, too. Because after all the nursing and worrying about the ONE California poppy I have in my flower bed (which hasn't bloomed), I notice that out in the yard there is a California poppy that is just waiting for the sun to open its flower. WHY?

Of course, I don't help things at all. I planted three butterfly weeds in the flower bed. One decided to not grow. It was just a dry stalk out there. So after three months I pulled it up, only to find out one of the roots was growing a butterfly weed that would have broken the surface in just a couple days. And wouldn't you know, I knocked this little sprout off from the main plant. I think I am just death to plants.

Anyway, here are a couple pics of the wildflowers out there. On account of I know none of you have ever seen wildflowers before. Hurr hurr hurr. Oh, and one of my cat. She's upset with me because I won't let her in the shed.

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Brownwood is about 180 miles South of me, in the hill country. The weather there can be like it is here, or not. Today, it is hotter than here.



CD

Unbearable weather @caseydog .

Although Wisconsin will make us run out of garden time on our first frost date Oct 7th or 10th or 21st, we planted today.
We have maybe 60 days left and they are counting down. We can plant things that only take 50-60 days to maturity. We planted kohlrabi and collards today. The collards should do okay with a little frost and make it a little ways into winter. We recently seeded into the gardens bok choy both the tatsoi and purple lady, some beets for the darn deer. By the way, the 2 deer were here coming into the yard at about 10 pm the last 2 nights and mr feather ran them off. Since they were spooked, they 'might' not come back.
I also put in more large purple mustard, it is delicious. The lettuce is also sprouting in the lettuce garden in the cold frame. If it all turns out well we'll be flush with lettuce and greens right up to and into winter.

well, no one warned me about okra. We'd never grown it before. We have 10 plants out of 70 seeds I can only blame myself for not watering enough during germination.
Here's the problem. The stems of the okra are turning into trees trunks. So I'm reading on it and they say the roots go down very far, they are hard to uproot without a $250 uprooter tool or a 4x4 truck pulling them out. The easy way is to wait until spring and the roots rot and are easy to remove. Now, I'll be fine with waiting until spring to pull out the rotted roots but I haven't mentioned this to mr bliss. This fall we'll be getting aged compost manure spread and then rototilling the garden. He'll have to work AROUND the okra area. I didn't know it would become an issue.

I guess okra stems/trees can be dried like sunflower stalks and then used the next year for bean poles/teepees. We've had good luck with the sunflower stalks and they come in handy for climbing things.

I have a dwarf variety ( Baby Bubba from Burpee) which only get about 2 feet tall. I've never had any uprooting issues. I had poor germination results first time around ( starting indoors early May). Having such poor results , I started a second planting ( same variety) from seed , in cells outdoors Late June , and I am first harvesting now. But the second batch I had %100 germination rate. I wont start them indoors anymore that early, but I may start them outdoors early June, so I have a longer season to harvest. Okra freezes really well. I chop them up an put in a container in the freezer to use for soups and stews. MY wife loves just snacking on them raw. I know I planted them too close, but I thought I'd only have half the amount based on the lack of success o the first batch. Also, when I was in Alabama, we visited the Botanical Gardens there , and they had a variety that stood at least 8 feet tall, and the okra were about 1 foot long. I dont remember the variety , but I think the name resembled that of an animal with horns. As a time reference, I planted the first batch of seeds indoors in cells on May 1st, and my first harvest was July 12th. Still harvesting and plants look pretty healthy. The taller plants in the background ( closer to 3 feet) are the first batch. The shorter ones up front are from the ones I planted by seed on Jun 25th, and just harvested the first one the other day. ***Last picture is of the okra I saw in Alabama . Was able to dig up the picture***

Burmese okra was the largest variety I ever grew, and was supposed to be "harvestable" to 12", but, like most, it got fibrous much smaller. It wouldn't even make it to 6", the size Little Lucy and Emerald will grow to, without getting fibers, which I can feel immediately when slicing them.
The roots and stem of that Burmese okra were also the largest, and I would not have wanted to pull that out of the ground! Even after rotting in the SIP for the winter, I had to take a huge clump of wood out.

I grew okra again this year. Only 10 plants in a small area. I harvest every day to get optimum pods, and will get enough pods to make two generous servings of fried okra by the third day. I grew a red variety this year....sadly I am unsure what kind it is, but it can grow long pods without them becoming fibrous. I'll seek it again for next year as I purchased these in plants.

One year, my okra grew to 25 feet. I could gaze at it from my second floor windows. To get it out, we had a very strong young man who brought a long crowbar. The stalks were thick and tree-like. If that happens again this year, I will be cutting it off and letting roots rot in the ground.

I love okra. I will store pods in the fridge in a mini-colander until I get enough to fry. So good.

The red okra I grow - Little Lucy (which really isn't little, but not huge, either) - is one of those that I can grow to 6", without getting fibrous, which is is a problem with most. Emerald is another one, a green one, that doesn't get fibrous when small. This is why most okra that's sold in stores is so small - many get fibrous when they're 4" long. I've had some varieties I've had to pick twice a day, otherwise, some gets overgrown!

I don't know what kind I planted of okra but it was seed bought at a garden store here. Something 'big'. They seem okay at 4 inches but at 6 inches they are tough. A friend in tennessee said she sprinkles the whole pod with curry powder, salt and pepper, then air fries them for 14 minutes, then eats them holding the stem end. I made them this way and they were good. Considering it was the first time we grew them, we live in the north where almost no one eats okra, and we liked it, it's a success food wise.

I often slice them, maybe 3/4", and put them in curries, Indian or Thai, and put them in to cook for the last 8-10 minutes. I sometimes make a stir-fry, with various seasonings - Indian, Thai, Italian, Mexican, whatever I'm making at the time.

Ye gods. The deer have now chomped most of the daisies that hadn't bloomed yet. The netting just can't be pulled tight enough to get it high enough, plus after two thunderstorms, hail, and enough rain to end a California drought, the rope the netting is attached to is sagging. So...today I had someone come over and put in 10 5ft metal poles in the ground around the front of my trailer and next month (only because I can't afford it this month), I plan to get 5 ft netting and stretch it all along the poles.

I know deer can jump 7 feet, but my area is so narrow (10ft wide max), that once I get the netting up and the other potted plants sort of spread out, the deer can jump but will have nowhere to land. So I"m betting they won't be that dumb.

Being able to stretch the netting tight, it'll be too high for them to lean over it. The netting will be about 6" in front of the flower beds to keep them back so they won't be able to lift it with their heads and chomp either. Also next year, I'm going to plant a whole row of marigolds along the bottom as a just in case.

In more news, I harvested my huge crop of 4 cherry tomatoes. The largest one was smaller than my thumbnail. And that lovely clover with all the blooms on it? Well, it was laying flat on the ground and I thought the hail had gotten it. Noooo, some bulb-headed deer had leaned over and after biting off some blooms, decided to lift the whole thing out of the ground. The roots were still on it so I replanted it, but I don't know if it will come back.

And after only a week of rain, that ugly white clover was popping up all over between the irises again. Guess who gets to go weeding again tomorrow?

But in better news, the young man who put in my stakes dug up one of the three baby pine trees to take home and he may come and get the other two. The one this guy took today was growing over my septic tank and the other two are going to be crowding my driveway if I don't get rid of them. So glad he's taking them because otherwise I'd have to cut them down and I get physical pain when I have to chop a tree down.

Deer are really tasty, RR. There are butchers who will pack it up for you for under 100 bucks.

Don't tempt me. I've had deer jerky and it was delicious.

I looked out the door today and saw a couple deer in my yard. One was busy checking out the new poles. I was har har harring the whole time. It did my evil little heart good to know the deer know something's up now.

My little evil heart is in tatters right now. THE BUCK IS BACK!

A couple nights ago, he decided to jump in and then made a mess jumping back out. Deer 5, strawberries 0. I heightened the fences as far as I could. Got up yesterday morning to find the buck tried to go under the netting this time. He could get his head in, but he sure couldn't get those antlers in.

He must have tangled them in the netting. He ripped out ALL the netting, twisted one of the metal posts, pulled over my 4 cinder blocks (filled with sand), broke a dowel, and then pulled over my arbor, knocking the two gates off. How I didn't hear this commotion, I have no idea.

But, on the bright side, none of my plants were eaten this time.

Sooooo....last night, after mopping floors all day, I was out trying to fix the mess. Before, I attached my netting to some parachute line which was tied to the dowels stuck in the sand-filled cinder blocks. Well, now the posts are in and I decided to use them. The posts have little hooks on them to attach the netting. I don't know how the guy did it, but when he put the posts in, he pushed every one of those little hooks into the metal post and I couldn't get them pulled out again. So I decided to run the lines through the holes in the posts and then attache the netting to the line again.

It works. I still need to get 5 ft netting (what I have is 3 ft right now), but it works as is. And I'm surprised by how good it looks compared to the homemade mess I originally had.

I still have to go out today and tweak it because it got too late to fix it all up, but I noticed none of my plants were disturbed this morning. Holding my breath, because the deer make a circuit through the neighborhood and it could be they just moved on and will be back in a couple days. Hopefully by that time I'll have my taller netting. Wish me luck.

I don't grow many inedible things - just a few, to attract some pollinators. Here's one of them - a zinnia, and one of the larger ones, which I cut quite a few old blossoms off of (the only reason I trim them), and almost overnight those unopened buds popped open, and in about 2 days they were wide opened! And here's something that really likes this variety:
An eastern tiger swallowtail butterfly, on one of my zinnias they seem to be particularly attracted to. 9-02 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

I pulled some things out of some SIPs, that just didn't do much, at least later in the season, plus, I "refreshed" the soil mix with some Espoma Garden Tone - or one of their mixes. I marked the container 5-3-3, which is why I used it - greens will be going into them, for the fall! I put some senposai in one, and some purple "Merlot" napa cabbage, and I put a few of those leftover seed sprouts of the blauer speck kohlrabi - I'll see if it grows as well (or better) that that which I put in the pots indoors, to transplant later. I have a bunch of other places to put some, but the Swiss chard grew so incredibly fast in that SIP, I figured I'll try some of these brassicas in them, as well.

@pepperhead212 your picture is gorgeous!

blissful said:

A friend in tennessee said she sprinkles the whole pod with curry powder, salt and pepper, then air fries them for 14 minutes, then eats them holding the stem end. I made them this way and they were good. Considering it was the first time we grew them, we live in the north where almost no one eats okra, and we liked it, it's a success food wise.

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It's turning out to be a bumper crop for okra this year , and may try air frying them. Any tips from your experience?

I don't have a lot of experience but I really liked how they turned out, the way she described them in the air fryer. Last night we battered and breaded and baked them. Batter, just spiced seasoned flour/water, breading ww toasted ground up bread crumbs, 350 deg for 45 minutes. I bbb'd them whole, ate them holding the stem. I put some nu-salt on them. He put sweet savory stir fry sauce. That's all I know of okra!

Today I pulled out 3 more dead vines - a cuke and 2 more squash, and put in some brassicas in their places. In one tub, I only put two, because they get large - the Senposai. In one, I left one vine, but I replaced one with the smaller bok choy, so eventually I'll have at least 4. I had to replace one of the purple Napa seedlings, as it had almost died, while the other 3 were growing already. Still have a good number of kohlrabi seedlings to plant.

Today I planted some more of those brassica seedlings, that I had started about 3 weeks ago - a couple of the napa variety "Merlot" were replacements, as two of the first ones were in bad shape, and I figured they weren't going to make it. I also planted 6 bok choys, and 3 wu choy and 3 late choy sum. Later, I planted some seeds in the raised bed for the the wu choy, and choy sum, as well as some radishes, stem mustard (used for Szechwan preserved vegetable - bolted too fast in spring), and some green onions (for spring). I also cut the length of Agribon, to cover the hoops with, as soon as I started seeing sprouts, plus I have some kohlrabi seedlings, to put in before covering everything.

Soon, I have to figure out where I will plant my garlic and shallots this season. Also, I am going to do some experiments with half of some of the varieties, and do some vernalization, or chilling in the fridge for 4 weeks, before planting. I'll find out if the chilled ones do any better.

I got some chard and an Asian green in cells that I will transplant into the vacant potato beds.
My kale and arugula I planted a few weeks ago ( in the vacant string bean bed) are doing well, but the leaf lettuce hasn't sprouted at all. I planted more in cells so I have more control of their growing environment.
Ii want too clear out the one garlic bed and place a layer of compost there, but my volunteer butternut squash vine is doing really well. Ultimately , it will have to go, cause the garlic is more useful and important for me. Normally I split the garlic into 2 beds, but I will doubling the amount in the one bed where it did better.