Garden update

[FC]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTmdm3WE9R4&feature=youtu.be

[Dr.Hess]

That's a lot of garden.

[FC]

It is! I don’t do small very well!

[AzRednek]

Several years ago a former neighbor built a small garden in his back yard. He used horse manure from his sister’s horses for fertilizer and used a lot of oil absorbent in his buckets. His green chilies were great and his cherry tomatoes had an almost sweet citrus like flavor. His jalapeños and red chiles were not to good probably picked to soon. Don’t know the name but he used some kind of green dust to kill bugs. He had a problem with jack rabbits eating in his garden. His wife insisted he not shoot them saying it was cruel. He set up cat traps and his wife nagged him into taking the trapped rabbits into the desert and letting them go. 

[FC]

I don't know on the oil absorbent. Unknown what it's composed of.

[Dr.Hess]

The cheap stuff is just straight clay.

[AzRednek]

17 hours ago, Dr.Hess said:

The cheap stuff is just straight clay.

According to an Autozone employee it’s clay and Gypsum.

[manureman]

  Thanks Tony I enjoyed that. My barrels of cucumbers are not producing like I had hoped. Heat off the barrels Is cooking them in full sun till the vines get on the ground and then they have lots of blooms but no cucumbers, all kinds of bees....

    Planted 2 hills in my garden and have gotten 10 + times the cucumbers off them as 6 barrels.

   I’m having the same problem as you with my buckets and tub’s they need water from above.

   I firmly believe that “organic “ is an old Indian word for skinny hippy 

[FC]

Cucumbers don’t seem to like high temps. I guess you’re hand-watering daily?

[manureman]

  I’ve given up on my barrels of cucumbers, they have sucked up about all the fertilizer and ain’t put out squat , same plants in the dirt are putting out buckets of cucumbers. 
   Tomatoes in the lick tubs could use twice what I give them, may try them again next year with only 2 plants instead of 4 ,times to short for more time this summer .

    Peppers seem to be the only thing working in the tubs like they should. 
   I just use soaker hoses and water heavy a time or two a week as needed in the regular garden.

    Had to spray for squash bugs but think I caught them in time to not be wiped out.

[FC]

Maybe your pH is too alkalytic for the cucumbers? Vine plants seem to want 5-6 pH.

[manureman]

   You know I never gave that a single thought, to late now they’ve sucked the barrels dry and bit the dust. The fact they went through it that fast surprised me a lot 

[Horsefly]

Hope there’s a lot of garden talk this spring. Spent all day tilling. Little too wet but henbit is really popping up and have rain coming next week. I have a  JD 400 with 4’ tiller that will do as much in 30 minutes as walk behind tiller will do in a day and a half plus twice as deep. Didn’t use it yesterday just because I enjoy being in garden. I have super black gumbo that will grow anything but is so hard to work but with all the horse sheet I put in it its dang rich. My brother 30 miles north of me tills 3 days after a rain. 3 weeks for me. Jim mentioned fighting squash bugs last summer. My 1st garden here 12 years ago and last summer we’re the only 2 years squash bugs didn’t kill my plants. Fried squash is my favorite garden thing behind big ole ripe tomader. Sorry so long a post. Gardens and guns are my reason for living. 

[FC]

I'm increasing the number of containers I'm gardening this year, and I have quite a few. A lot less weeds. Drip irrigation is a must in the south, and once you get the hang of it, it's not that hard. I was surprised at the squash bugs, pests, blight, etc. I had last year, since there's no gardens in this area. I truly love Blue Hubbard Squash custard pies.  This is such an uncertain world that having a garden is insurance. I'll plant brown cotton for the first time in 3 years for ornamental purposes.

Manure- I had too much nitrogen in the potting soil, and got it too alkalytic, and depleted the calcium. I'm shooting for neutral pH this year. If you soil is like what we had in eastern S.D., you have some good soil. I'm using potting soil.

[Horsefly]

Blue Hubbard Squash custard pie is a new one on me. Will surely Google it. Sounds fancy. My wife makes what she calls squash stew and freezes it in Cool Whip type containers for quick suppers. Hamburger meat,onions,hot Rotel and chunked up yellow squash. This year I’m planting yellow zucchini to make it easier to find when picking and not having them get as big a a watermelon before spotting them. I give away most garden stuff I grow and yellow crookneck type squash is hard to get rid of but all will take zucinni. Okra hard to find home for too. I grow a few eggplants just to watch them grow. Haven’t eaten one in 3 years and nobody wants them. 

[manureman]

  I ain’t eat a eggplant in years but when Mom was living we eat a lot of them rolled in egg and cornmeal then fried.

  I got pretty bad about just peeling and chunking up yellow squash and dumping some ranch dressing on them uncooked I can’t really tell a difference between them and cucumbers if you catch them before they need butchered .

   I had the blight in my tomatoes last year the worst I ever saw , just keeps getting worse ,even had it in my containers with new potting soil, that I’d hoped would put an end to it.

   I’m curious to see how my strawberries do next year. Ive Always heard to mow them then mulch em good with straw before winter. Never did and they always make . This fall the cows got out and eat em off at ground, so I went ahead and mulched them. We’ll see... hope I don’t end up with a better wheat crop than strawberries.

[FC]

https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/150225/grandmas-sweet-hubbard-squash-custard-pie/

[Horsefly]

Onions are doing good. Big crops of wild onions this spring. Neighbor on the 5acre place on my west doesn’t mow much but yesterday he mowed is wild onions making my eyes water like someone licked all the red off my peppermint stick. Smells so good to a point then turns to overwhelming. 

[Horsefly]

[manureman]

  Man-a-live that’s a good looking patch of dirt. Been working mine 30 years and it don’t look that good!

[FC]

Nice black dirt, and good-looking onions there!

I just tilled some garden area that I left fallow. Too cool yet to plant the brown cotton.

[Dr.Hess]

We used to get Eggplant Parmesan at the Italian chain restaurant we used to have our English car club meeting at, until we go thrown out.  Not sure if egg was involved, but they breaded the slices and fried them, I think.

 

A guy I sailed with from Louisiana planted an acre of eggplant.  That kinda makes a lot.  He couldn't give them away.  He would leave bags of them at the homeless shelters when no one was looking.

[manureman]

  Yep Zek slices about a quarter inch thick. Best I remember she would cut them in half long ways rake the seeds out then slice them with the hide still on em so she could hang on to em then cut the hide off , dip them in egg and roll them in cornmeal, salt and pepper then fry em to golden brown. I do remember liking them fried in butter best.

[Horsefly]

After years of going to doctors trying to figure out why she had such violent stomach troubles, she figured out on her own it was gluten. She now fries mosty with corn starch and gotta say ain’t a thing wrong with it. I like fried eggplant a lot but still can’t beat good ole yeller squash for me. 

[manureman]

   Yella squash is darn hard to beat we used to eat a fair amount of butternut squash fried too , just depended on what was putting on in the garden at the time.

   Zek I’ve never had the chance to try real Italian food, always thought I’d like it given a chance but I’m going to hunt a jar of that sauce