Gardening 2017: Fruits, Veggies, Flowers

[Queen K]

What are you feeding your strawberries? And congratulations on the success!

We are having tomatoes ripening up now faster and faster. Not necessarily the bigger varieties and the paste varities are lagging but the cherry varities are doing really really well.

[Lady tehMa]

So - I live beside a walled community. They're pretty good neighbourrs; friendly, quiet and have nice garage sale stuff XD

I heard a chainsaw and looked out, a guy was working on one of the trees there. Came home from work - and the tree is gone!!! It was a great, bushy pine with small cones and needles. It was about 4 storeys high. I now have a LOT more light in my yard!

[two_shoes1mit]

Feeding the 20-20-20.

[Catsumi]

My cucs are dismal, leaves curled, no flowers and naturally, no cucs.

These are Straight Eights and have always performed well in the past

Anyone else having issues?

[Queen K]

I'm thinking the prolonged smoke and cooler am temperatures are contributing to my dismal year in the garden. It might be affecting your cukes too. I noticed that my cukes have no size to them, quite small this year.

I do have more tomatoes though.

[Lady tehMa]

Mine aren't producing like normal, but they are producing. Have you checked your soil pH?

[Catsumi]

Wow! That was quick. Thank you for replies.

All else did super...carrots, lettuce, green onion, tomatoes to swoon over (Black Krim), radishes, green beans.
Only cucs not performing. Next year. So, pH has gotto be ok. Used Miracle and lots of horse puckies.

Btw, a pal turned me on to a little trick with green onions. Early in spring buy bunches of green onions; cut off tops leaving 1/2 inch above the root; plant and water and you have fresh green onions in record time. Avoid Mexican imports as the tops turn out to be big and flat, kind of old looking, and tough to boot no matter what you do.

[Bpeep]

It's not weather. It's a condition or multiple conditions affecting your cukes.
Mine are doing extremely awesome.

[Sige]

We're having a record year for cukes as well

[Catsumi]

Mea culpa!

Visited garden this morning and found Four nice cucs. At last!

Can anyone figure out why cucs in stores are hermetically sealed tight in plastic wrap and then bagged AGAIN in plastic?

They can't breathe and tend to go punky from the inside although look great on the outside.

Yuk

[Queen K]

Good question, I think it's to protect the skins from fingernail break thru and dirt.

I picked a nice one today. Alas, the season is closing in on us though.

I have fresh lettuce seed from Grand Rapid lettuce for next year. Might try growing a bit more once it cools.
Also, I have lettuce seed from the red variety Slootman gave me, that was nice lettuce. Colourful in the tomato bed too.

I have gathered up lots of Sapilglossis seed and mixed the colours. So getting seed from me means getting gorgeous flowers of any colour.

I have to dig up potatos but the stems are all super green, so I'll wait.

[oneh2obabe]

Can anyone figure out why cucs in stores are hermetically sealed tight in plastic wrap and then bagged AGAIN in plastic?

1. Prevents dehydration and physical damage to the cucumber in transit from the grower to the supermarket.

2. Prevents dirty hands touching the cucumber - strict hygiene regulations are in place during production but what about the person in the store that handled the cucumber just before you picked it up?

3 . Helps prevent cold injury - see “why do my cucumbers go rotten in the fridge” elsewhere on the site.

4. Reduces moisture losses from the fruit in the fridge - the main reasons for deterioration are cold injury and dehydration.

Not sure what supermarket places them in plastic bags - the ones I frequent don't. The hermetically sealed ones are either in a 3-pack or loose so you can choose.

[Catsumi]

I sincerely appreciate the time you took to reply to my query about over packaging on cucs. Thank you.

However, it has been my experience that these plastic coated cucs quickly decompose from the inside out, regardless of how good they appear when purchasing. They just can't breathe as a veg should. I have given up on them as I have been fooled too many times (until winter, when I am desperate...rinse and repeat.

It is like the awful tomatoes that are picked green and hard as rocks, semi-ripen in the truck and are about as tasty as cardboard. It is for the benefit of the growers, not the consumer. It is harder to damage tough stuff than real, tender, ripened toms.

I always wash veggies well before using as you say, who knows who was fiddling with them.

I started, from seed, new lettuces of romaine, red and Grand Rapids variety. They are already three inches high from 10 day ago planting. Also, yummy radishes. Still lots of time to enjoy those home grown scrumptous salads. Green onions doing very well after putting in bottoms of store boughts. This is a trick i will be using until i turn up my spade skywards.

Spinach can now be replanted as well.

Wish i had room for the spuds, Queen. Enjoy!!

[Catsumi]

BTW, I had oodles of lovely fresh lettuce, more than I could give away. Searched online for what to do with excess.

Some genius out there discovered that firmer lettuces, like romaine, can be roughly chopped and added at last minute of a stir fry. It worked!! Better than spinach and you can use up loads of lettuce this way before it goes to seed and to waste

Keeps me slim and fit

Right!

[Lady tehMa]

Good question, I think it's to protect the skins from fingernail break thru and dirt.

I picked a nice one today. Alas, the season is closing in on us though.

I have fresh lettuce seed from Grand Rapid lettuce for next year. Might try growing a bit more once it cools.
Also, I have lettuce seed from the red variety Slootman gave me, that was nice lettuce. Colourful in the tomato bed too.

I have gathered up lots of Sapilglossis seed and mixed the colours. So getting seed from me means getting gorgeous flowers of any colour.

I have to dig up potatos but the stems are all super green, so I'll wait.

I would love some sapiglossis seeds from you And more grand rapids - my lettuce this year failed miserably.