Mystery Seedlings

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

Yeah, we were at 101 yesterday on our front porch....
We have only gotten sprinkles of rain, and I had underestimated the amount, so yesterday morning leaves were curling in a lot of plants as I had not watered for three days....and our large cuke dried up...
It also looks like we may have a pump-aloupe or a cantakin. What we thought was a cantaloupe, that has been green and looked like it started to get the few brown hyde showing up, all of a sudden it is turning a yellowish color. It is a bit larger then what a cantaloupe would get, or at least a LARGE cantaloupe in size. Our pumpkin was planted near the watermelons and cantaloupe...and thinking about it close to a squash plant as well....this is what makes gardening interesting I guess.

Going to get out this morning and water and spray fungicide on plants that need the protection.

[surviort_wwdnet]

It's well within the realm of possibility for plants to cross-pollinate, thanks to those pollinators that flit hither and yon...I saw it with my yellow squash-zucchini this summer.

No rain today, so I watered just the plants on the greenhouse rack, since the other plants got watered by the irrigation system this morning. Unfortunately, I had more errands to run this morning, so the pool did NOT get salted. I think I can get it done in the morning. I still need to pull out the eggplant and the rest of the onions, but by early afternoon it was well over 100^o and I wasn't crazy😂 Off to the kitchen to whip up some no-bake peanut butter balls, which took a couple of hours, then on to the swimming pool! Is it ever going to start cooling off at night? Last check yesterday at 10:30 PM I found it was 84^o. I'm waiting to see those overnights dip into the 60's and the days in the 80s so I can peel back the shade cloth over the bag garden.

Now that all of my starters have sprouted, it's time to figure out what goes where! I'd like to do broccoli and cauliflower in grow bags just for that 1:1 relationship, perfect spacing, and ease of movement. With the new length of drip hose, I have lots of possibilities for adding more bags. Now to empty the garden cart of pool salt...

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

We got a deluge of rain yesterday. I did fertilize yesterday morning though, but no fungicide last evening due to the rain. Will try today and have to mow yard again....

[surviort_wwdnet]

When I got up at 0630, it was already raining, and hasn't stopped yet. We're looking at a 3-4 day forecast of moderate to heavy rain. No lawn mowing, no gardening, no trimming, no swimming, no nothin'...so I'm doing laundry👍

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

Got another deluge of rain yesterday...deluge lasted this time for two hours and then moderate rain for the next 6 hours. Were under flash flood warning. Here is a pic of our pumpaloupe....



I was able to get some pruning done yesterday morning, then running errands and my truck stopped running just out of now where...after a couple hours I traced it back to a fuse blown...injector-odd fuse. Replaced the fuse and off and running. Guy helping me (mechanic that I have used in past came out to where I was stranded) said, may happen again, or may not ever again. I will be researching the schematic and see what the lines look like...

[surviort_wwdnet]

Love the pumpalope - can't wait for it to mature so you can cut it open and find out what it really is! Your plant leaves look great. I pulled my pumpkin plant today, waterlogged as it was and such a sad-looking little thing.

I cut down the eggplant and pulled up the roots, which ran almost the length of the container. Into the trash bin it went, along with some weeds and dead squash leaves, and the okra plant, which did nothing at all. I picked the rest of the peppers except for a couple small ones, and all of the onions. Next week I'll uncover a container of the same size and use that plastic to solarize the eggplant/onion container. Over in the grow bag garden, the wandering squash needs to be cut down even though it has 2 buds on it, peanuts need to be pulled up and dried (I'm interested to see how many peanuts I got from the 4 seeds I planted, so I can figure how many more I need to plant next season), and the trellis can then come down and get rebuilt with the new connectors I got. Still looking for that kiddy pool so I can solarize the bag garden potting soil!

Husband mowed the yard and (being the great wife that I am) I pulled out the string trimmer and proceeded to trim the entire yard, along the fences, around the gardens, mailbox, fire hydrant, motorhome, between the shed and the fence, etc. When I finished, I was tired, sweaty, and proud of myself for getting the whole thing done. It's not as professional as my husband always did it, but it looks much better and it's done. Afterward I saw a few places that need to be revisited, but there's always tomorrow.

Into the house to take a shower, then pulled the Romas out of the freezer and threw them into a stockpot. I let those cook down for a few hours, then packed them up for tomorrow, when I'll make some sauce. I'll use some of the peppers and onions I picked today for the sauce, and chop up the rest to put in the dehydrator.

Yesterday it rained cats and dogs, well into the evening when the thunder claps were loud enough to almost throw me off the sofa! Today the rain held off until early afternoon, and then it arrived with a vengeance. It's still drizzling. Tomorrow is supposed to be drier (and hotter).

I checked on the new starters, and everything has sprouted including the parsnips. Can't wait to get them all transplanted and have my fall/winter garden well on the way.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

so something got to the pumpalope yesterday, and i found a small one nibbled on today as well. I pulled it and cut open and ate a small piece as it smelled like a cantaloupe. I lived to see another day, so it has been in the fridge and I might have some to eat later today.


Wife made her first batch of cowboy candy today....cannot wit til that cools down...

[surviort_wwdnet]

The intruder must have read my post about the pumpalope! Interesting disguise...the cowboy candy looks delicious!!

Tore out the wandering squash with it's lone 1/2" baby squash - now I can get that row cleaned out since there's just peanuts there now. Otherwise, it's college football Saturday🏈😁 and more rain...

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

Cannot seem to have enough dry time to put down fungicide, so just clipping leaves off tomatoes when I see it. Found a fifth crimson watermelon hidden in the maze of vines, so the calcium seems to have solved the blossom end rot. My wife said it seems the watermelons are slow growers....peppers are dong well, and we now have 5 Roma tomatoes that have showed up to the party. I had two of six pepper plants that I put in the aerogarden not germinate, so plan on dropping some more seeds in those two pods..

[surviort_wwdnet]

Had a nice long sunshine window earlier in the day, which gave me time to pick the few remaining peppers, then pull the pepper plants and get them into the yard waste container. I chopped up all the peppers and onions I picked earlier in the week, and got them into the dehydrator; I made jalapeno poppers with the remaining jalapenos. I'm now pepper-less. The rain came in later in the afternoon, so it didn't keep me from getting my gardening done.

All that's left in the container garden is one squash plant that's sill producing, and one beautiful lima bean plant. In the bag garden, there are peanuts, some sad-looking butternut squash, beefsteak tomatoes, watermelon, cucumbers, broccoli, and turnips. Seedlings left to transplant: broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, onions, parsnips, Brussels sprouts, and beefsteak tomatoes. I may need more bags, as I still have lettuce, radishes, carrots, parsnips, and more turnips to plant. There are still 5 containers still waiting to be solarized (evidence of parasitic nematode infestation in every single one), and I want to solarize the grow bag soil. I might try to do that right in the bags...with Saran Wrap as the plastic cover. I'll pull back the shade cloth to make sure the bags get enough sun. Temperatures should start moderating soon, and then I can take down the shade cloth until next summer.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

How long do you solarize? I did not know you had to wrap them, I have just been leaving in the grow bags and in full sun....

[surviort_wwdnet]

How long depends on who you listen to, but I am going to solarize the containers for 3 weeks and the grow bags for 2 weeks. Some say 2-3 months, others say 4-5 days, so I'm hedging my bets and going somewhere in the middle. 2-3 months would be fine in a more northern location, but not in FL where we can garden year round and can't stop growing for months at a time.

Make sure the soil in your grow bags is free of any possible roots and leaves, and is very moist (how could it not be with all the rain we've had lately but drench if needed), then cover the top and sides of the soil with clear plastic, burying the edges of the plastic between the inside bag wall and the soil. The plastic will keep water out and anything new from invading/escaping but more than that, will create a very hot environment for the soil inside the grow bags. It's the intense heat that's generated that kills any nasty organisms. The plastic is akin to a focusing lens for making a fire, but it won't set your bags on fire😂 Clear plastic works faster than black plastic since the black plastic absorbs so much of the sun's heat. I've never tried Saran Wrap but it is plastic, so it's worth a shot and I have lots of it. I'm guessing black grow bags will absorb the most heat.

I know solarizing works as I've done whole swatches of open garden before. It kills weeds and organisms, albeit only for the next use and not forever.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

Thanks, good to know...off camping again right now, so I will wrap when I get home again...only gone for a couple days this time, but still nice getting away....

[surviort_wwdnet]

Enjoy your camping trip. This was a day of foot doctor (for me), phone calls and paperwork (for my husband. The last call came in around 5 PM, and the first while I was sitting in the doctor's office with a needle full of cortisone shoved into my foot😂 Some days are just like that...

[surviort_wwdnet]

Husband cut the grass, so I manned the leaf blower and cleaned off the sidewalk and driveway, then I killed some driveway weeds for good measure.

I wanted to start solarizing the grow bag soil, but decided I first needed to start tearing down the trellises I won't need until next spring so I have room to rearrange and access to the used bags. I got the first one down (after disentangling the peanut leaves from the netting) and moved the empty grow bags to a sunny spot on the back side of the garden. That left 1 bag of peanuts in the first row. I had bags with turnips, tomatoes, and broccoli in the last row, and moved those to the first row and disconnected the extra drip line that I don't need right now. I can easily water the first row with a garden hose. I can run 2 rows of bags back-to-back as most of the veggies won't over-grow the bags. I'll start taking down the second row trellis tomorrow (there's nothing growing there right now) and move the used bags to the sunny area. The third row trellis has cukes growing, and they need a trellis, so that one will stay but the empty bags in that row will move to the sunny part of the garden to be solarized. I have some cauliflower (5) and broccoli (3) seedlings crying to be transplanted, and I have "clean" bags for them.

One thing's for sure: I have lots of loose stake connectors and landscape staples now, and all the garden stakes need to be cleaned with bleach to kill any destructive organisms that might have clung to them. Some of the stakes are somewhat worse for the wear and may need to be replaced. With a pretty clear forecast for the weekend, I may get this garden reorganized and tidied up by Sunday, and all the extra trellis materials put away in the garden shed. Then I can get the bag solarizing underway, and start moving plastic from the solarized containers to the unsolarized ones in the container garden.

I lost one squash in the container garden (it fell off the vine and was dying). There are still 4 more out there and hopefully they won't die under their own weight!