Garden thread

Fuzzipeg wrote: »

I wondered if its being a little dry, time specific to the formation of the buds possibly even when opening. My paeonies did very similarly but they are in open ground. Looking back up at the photo, I'm wondering how many plants you have in there. Geraniums are strong hungry plants with many roots. I'm sure, from a distance they look good and only you will notice the damage. I love the blues and whites beyond.

I bought them from the garden center and there was only one bud when I bought it but the plant has really flourished. Do you think it needs a bigger pot? Yes, they look beautiful from a distance, it's only up close you can see the dry/wilted bits

mtaratoot wrote: »

DiscoveringLisa wrote: »

mtaratoot wrote: »

DiscoveringLisa wrote: »

Does anyone know why I get these dried crispy bits in my geranium flowers?

Too much water?

Too much fertilizer?

Recently moved to a place with strong sun?

They are in strong sun all door as they were on my front door step. I've just moved them to the back patio. I have been watering them alot, maybe that's the problem. I never get the balance right with watering...I tend to think plants are as greedy as me 🤣🤣

Fortunately it's a terra cotta pot so it can breathe and lose some water through the pot. One of the most common causes of plant death or disease is too much water. Too little water can do it, too. When it's hot out, I have to water my bonsai every day because there's so little soil there. When it's REALLY hot, I sometimes have to water twice a day. Other times they can go several days, and if I water when they don't need it, they can suffer. We have lots of rain in the winter, so I bring them under cover.

Since there's plenty of new flowers waiting to open, maybe you could just deadhead the old blossoms a little early. The new ones may respond by opening sooner.

I think I may have over done it with the water, on the days I was expecting heat, it ended up being quite cool and the soil stayed damp so I probably shouldn't have watered. I'll dead head the crispy ones and hope that the new blooms take over. Thanks 😊

ReenieHJ wrote: »

Have to get back into the garden today and tend to it. I've been extremely lazy about it for a week. I've had more interest in eating junk.
Do you all realize how much a garden changes in a week? Especially during prime growing season? I found cucumbers almost ready to pick, and cherry tomatoes. All my lettuce have become bush size.
So today's the day I get back to weeding and picking.

I have a question, my sister was very thrilled to see baby buttercup squash in her garden. But now they're all getting eaten by something. Aside from installing a fence, what else can she do? She lives in the country so it could be any number of animals, deer, skunks, woodchucks, bear, fisher cats, rabbits, etc. And she does have a beeping thing that goes off if something steps in front of the sensor but it doesn't seem to do much good.

Can she put them under a poly tunnel or something like that?

My Swiss chard is getting huge, we've been incorporating into everyday meals. My Brussel sprouts are also growing nicely although something keeps taking big bitesbout of the leaves

@mtaratoot Her biggest buttercup was maybe the size of a baseball, it was half eaten. The others were smaller but half eaten as well. The plants look good, healthy nice size. I don't think they're slugs; I've seen what slugs can do to strawberries. She has no idea what's been nibbling things. One year something came and ate the tops off all her plants down one whole row, can't remember what vegetable it was but eating all the tops killed them.

I've talked to her about putting a fence up or protection of some kind but she doesn't want to spend the money.
@DiscoveringLisa, I'll look into poly tunnels and see what they look like and how much they cost.

The only animal that could cause damage to my garden is one of my dogs getting in.

On Friday I ate my first home-grown raspberry of the season 😋

Too bad there won't be many this year 😑

ReenieHJ wrote: »

Have to get back into the garden today and tend to it. I've been extremely lazy about it for a week. I've had more interest in eating junk.
Do you all realize how much a garden changes in a week? Especially during prime growing season? I found cucumbers almost ready to pick, and cherry tomatoes. All my lettuce have become bush size.
So today's the day I get back to weeding and picking.

I have a question, my sister was very thrilled to see baby buttercup squash in her garden. But now they're all getting eaten by something. Aside from installing a fence, what else can she do? She lives in the country so it could be any number of animals, deer, skunks, woodchucks, bear, fisher cats, rabbits, etc. And she does have a beeping thing that goes off if something steps in front of the sensor but it doesn't seem to do much good.

@ReenieHJ I'm not sure where you live, but I have a plot at our community garden. We are very near a large wooded area and have had to contend with a lame elk (years ago), deer, rabbits, voles, moles, mice, rats and squirrels. Two years ago, I lost my ENTIRE butternut and delicata squash crops to squirrels. My neighbor lost all of her acorn squash. It was a "squash massacre" as my daughter called it-seeds everywhere. I would not have suspected the squirrels, but when I was there quietly weeding in my plot one day, I heard and then saw a squirrel in someone's squash plants. He had picked it up like an apple and was munching away on it (or biting enough off to get to the seeds). I was so discouraged that I haven't grown squash since. I have no idea what the fix is. A garden friend lost her kabocha squash that she typically grows up a trellis. Nobody's squash was safe that year. This year, it was rabbits eating plants, all the way down to the soil

I have wondered if a hard plastic shell around the veg would work. Like a cut out milk carton that you could slide the small, growing fruit into. I have no idea if that would do something negative to the plants or veggies themselves though. I really miss growing my own squash. In the following years, I've added 5 more dahlia plants to my plot. Nobody bothers the flowers except the beetles and I have a pretty good handle on them.

Good luck to your sis! And I totally agree about not getting to the garden in a week. Now's the time to make several trips. It's all growing so fast!!

Walked out to the garden this morning. There's a Sungold that's ~almost~ ripe. The birds have devastated the blueberry bushes. There's still plenty of raspberries, and the grapes are getting fatter.

And there was what I presume was raccoon poop. So maybe I won't get to harvest some of my garden. There's been some other large sign under the cherry tree. I think, as it turns out, it wasn't the birds that ate all my cherries. I think a 'coon was hanging out up there and feasting. This pile of poo is full of cherry pits.

I know slugs, and maybe squirrels, are munching my shiitake. I never get hazelnuts. The squirrels and jays have all they can eat. They get them while they're still green. Since I don't spray the tree, even if there were no squirrels or jays, I probably wouldn't get ripe nuts because of an insect that lays eggs in them.

MsCzar wrote: »

Well, the woodchuck has discovered my peppers and tomatoes. 😡 Will net that section of the garden later today.
Gotta say, I am very disappointed with the sweet pea production. Despite more than a dozen pea plants that have grown tall and appear healthy, the pea pod output is rather dismal. I'm lucky if I get 5-8 pods every third day. Don't know why, but I may not bother planting them in future.

Is it hot? They don't mostly like hot.

(It got very hot fast/suddenly here this year, after staying quite cold for an unusually long time: I'm not veggie gardening any more except for the herbs, mostly - but I recognize that it would've been a terrible year here for the edible podded peas, and some of the other early veggies. Seems like the volume/variety of radishes has been less at the farmers markets, and maybe reductions in the cool-weather greens as well - though there have been some.)

ETA: Now that I think of it, I don't remember seeing much in the way of edible-podded peas at the farmers' markets at all this year, and they're usually pretty standard here in Spring. I noticed one vendor had some, but they looked pretty stressed, TBH, not all that great.

Yes, it's been terribly hot. Despite watering frequently with early afternoon shade, they are simply not producing. I've even pick them as soon as they are edible whole to spur new production to no avail. Come to think, green beans and cukes have slowed as well. I just failed to notice since production there has gone from 'overwhelming' to merely 'a lot.'