What Are Your Garden Tricks?

[Bikeguy Joe]

Greg- throw your crushed up eggshells in there too.

Measure- I am his kindred spirit brother in propagation.

Next year will be the 20,000 poppy seeds I'm saving.....AND sunflowers!

 

[Bikeguy Joe]

Here's a couple of my zen garden, where i hide from it all.

 

[Greg58]

Joe we have been putting egg shells in with everything else, we move rows around each year as well.

 

[Bikeguy Joe]

I have a pumpkin! And the hollyhocks are coming in.

 

[MEASURE TWICE]

I didn't grow pumpkins this year, but I still have 3 left yet un-rotted from last year to carve jack o-latern. Ya think I am lazy! The ones that rotted so far I threw in some underbrush, so I'll see what happens? Probably not with needing watering. My auto timer sprinkler takes care of what space I use with container garden fenced from deer and netting half garden for berries kept for me not the birds. I guess not much a secret is the pulleys on top the poles high up, I put to allow easy harvesting of Hops. The horizontal line holding up the hops bines on the fours vertical lines, can be lowered from releasing length of the horizontal lines from both poles. I would advise using glove and long pants and shirts. The plant scratches from the hairs on the bines. Not vines really as they do not have those curly grabbers like the pumkins and grape vines ect. Just hairs and they
always curl around clockwise as viewed from above. Oh, my pumpkins I grew last year at my prior residence were from a year still prior seeds that were left scattered from chopped up pumpkins. All I did was leave the watering system going. They grew themselves for the most part. Bees helped and I took a paint brush and also assisted.

 

[MEASURE TWICE]

I just bought a pumpkin, the big yellow ones for $8.99 being like 20lbs. Nice face area it has to carve.

How did your pumpkin turn out in the garden?

My oranges moved last Fall from chilling zone have since 3 years ago gotten back to square one. 7 orange flowers and pea size fruit thinning to 3 oranges. Two gum ball size and one near base ball size holding on. Foliage back from the lost to frost last fall. I will still put a cover and maybe light bulbs too if necessary.

Hops has to be harvested as the cones are all golden brown of the Cascade Hops.

Blueberries all harvested in mid Summer.

Of the blueberries they have besides rest of garden deer fence, the additional cover of bird netting. An unfortunate bird did not survive by some how getting under net and tried not going out the same way it entered. I put metal bars and wood chips now besides the tie wraps that hold the netting onto the deer fence. Only once before I helped a bird get out from under netting at another location I set up gardening. I thought I did a pretty good job this place installation. I don't want to see that happen again. I grabbed some downed tree limbs and used then to go along the ground where the birds might try again to get underneath.

 

[MEASURE TWICE]

Only got harvested about 20 Cascade Hops Cones that were nice golden brown with a lot of powdery orange/yellow stuff. Great Fragrance and quite bitter. I plan on using it in cheese cloth mesh bag in the last step of low heat in my next batch of home brewed beer. Pictures later.

 

[MEASURE TWICE]

Maybe could have picked as they suggest while still a bit less brown golden and instead light greenesh. Then dry slow in oven or on racks outdoors. They just dryed on the vine. Not that I think they are no good as a lot of the powder is retained on the cones. Picking did have some shake off, but I captured it in the container underneath while picking.

 

[MEASURE TWICE]

I just bought a pumpkin, the big yellow ones for $8.99 being like 20lbs. Nice face area it has to carve.

How did your pumpkin turn out in the garden?

My oranges moved last Fall from chilling zone have since 3 years ago gotten back to square one. 7 orange flowers and pea size fruit thinning to 3 oranges. Two gum ball size and one near base ball size holding on. Foliage back from the lost to frost last fall. I will still put a cover and maybe light bulbs too if necessary.

Hops has to be harvested as the cones are all golden brown of the Cascade Hops.

Blueberries all harvested in mid Summer.

Of the blueberries they have besides rest of garden deer fence, the additional cover of bird netting. An unfortunate bird did not survive by some how getting under net and tried not going out the same way it entered. I put metal bars and wood chips now besides the tie wraps that hold the netting onto the deer fence. Only once before I helped a bird get out from under netting at another location I set up gardening. I thought I did a pretty good job this place installation. I don't want to see that happen again. I grabbed some downed tree limbs and used then to go along the ground where the birds might try again to get underneath.

Seems a look online found one website said Perpetua® Blueberry Vaccinium x 'ORUS-61-1' Plant Patent #24,209 was created in 2010. I not sure if my plant now in the year 2020 is 10 years old, but just maybe.One side of the plant did not flower as much as the other side on the first flowering this year. I'll see in the new location with longer warm weather how it does now.

 

[MEASURE TWICE]

The pruning I did a few months ago to avoid orange tree limbs from ripping off in strong storm winds has worked. Oranges turning color from green to yellow so far. Three of the seven pea size oranges that were reduced to three remain on the tree.

 

[Greg58]

I added leaves to our garden that I vacuumed from the yard, I had to pick areas that didn’t have pine straw. The pine straw I used around bushes and trees. I then plowed the leaves into the soil of the garden, I’ve also saved coffee grounds daily to add to the soil.

 

[MEASURE TWICE]

Going to see how this season hops does better in bigger container.

 

[Tom from Rubicon]

Herb sage is blossoming heavily from six year growth. Absolutely floral mild sage flavor. What me gonna do?
Sage Flower Jelly Recipe | SparkRecipes (sparkpeople.com) I can see a Chardonnay version.
Tom

 

[MEASURE TWICE]

Herb sage is blossoming heavily from six year growth. Absolutely floral mild sage flavor. What me gonna do?
Sage Flower Jelly Recipe | SparkRecipes (sparkpeople.com) I can see a Chardonnay version.
Tom

Next to the only yet non-transplanted to a bigger container is the sage I'm growing. Maybe I'll get an food dehydrator for making sage fresh into dried. Dried has more flavor and I use store bought dried sage for BBQ meat and fish. In the oven really good on Salmon.

The Blueberry bush in the back along with a couple more out of sight and the Valencia Dwarf Orange tree in half wine barrels.

That link sage sage flowers, I have leaf not flowers. Not the same? If a plant has flowers then it usually means it would go to seed? With some plants that make the leaves bitter, like lemon mint I had that went to seed. Though I pulled out the plant and the seed grew new plants. Some how though the new plants from the volunteered lemon mint are not as flavor full. Some lemon mint is creating not much havoc with the hops, but it has some roots hard to get removed as intertwined with the hops.

 

[Tom from Rubicon]

Sage begins to bloom here in it's 4th year. I am zone 4 10-15 below zero F. Mine is in ground and spreading.
A buddy saw the recipe on my FB and is coming to get some blossoms.

 

[Tom from Rubicon]

Whilst retrieving grilled pork chops, I took a second to photo blooming sage.

 

[MEASURE TWICE]

The blueberry bushes are nearly through harvesting. Can only guess maybe a pint or two left. Have got about 2 gallons this season. The orange tree had no harvest since 2016 till now. A few years in cold climate and bring indoors it did not like. Hops has burs formed for cones next to be. Some variety blueberries can get big as 1 inch diameter. Cheese cake and bread with the berries goes well.

 

[Greg58]

We have enough green beans canned for another year, we're getting peas now. Ocra is doing good as well, we're giving tomatoes away, we have more than we need. I've watched deer walk around our garden and have saw where they ate anything that has grown through the fence, so far they have not jumped it. Our squash hasn't done much, plenty of blooms but very few matured.

 

[MEASURE TWICE]

When I grew pumpkins I used a fine paint brush to pollinate as well as the bees out there. Not sure if the squash would have benefitted if done that way in your case. Maybe something else. Recently I read that high cost of vanilla bean pods is that they have to be hand pollinated to get enough to make it worth while. Thus the high cost.

I pruned my orange tree so that it is more compact and better resisting branch breakage in the wind. It is also so that the deer reaching there jaw through the spaces in the fence, is just short of getting at the tree.

 

[MEASURE TWICE]

This bumpy skin pumpkin I did not grow. I bought at Trader Joe's for premium price around $7. I got to chopping and cutting it up an baking in oven at 400F for about an hour. Nice to not let things go to waste. Some of the stuff with the seeds went over the fence. Maybe I'll be growing them by default?