Mystery Seedlings

[surviort_wwdnet]

More seeds today: cauliflower, onions, and parsnips. It rained moderately (no monsoons) after I put the pots outside on the rack, and now the sun is shining so it should be a good start. The morning was sacrificed to a doctor appt, so afternoon it was. I checked the garden and it looks like I have more acorn squash growing in one of the containers - the not-so-permanent marker on the plant tag washed off🙄 but it would make me so happy if it's acorn squash. I need to order one more length of drip line and more landscape staples for the bag garden, since both drip lines are in use with the existing bags. I'm going to be adding about a dozen more bags, so I'll need the drip line.

The 8 bags of potting soil I ordered are quickly being consumed. I hope I can get through my initial fall planting with what I've got! Once the 3 large containers are done solarizing, I can transplant there as well.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

I only looked at garden thru the kitchen window yesterday, but wife checked it and said all is well. We had things to do in the am, and then the rains came...mostly light, but we settled in for a movie..ARGO...who knew this happened? Anyway, will be out there this am, as grandson comes this afternoon for a few hours...

[surviort_wwdnet]

I was excited to see that the 2 cauliflower pots I reseeded have sprouted, and that every single one of my cabbage starters has sprouted. Do I dare hope that I'll have the same degree of success with the latest cauliflower, onion, and parsnips starters? Everything in both gardens is looking heat-stressed. Since I didn't want to look as wilted as my squash leaves, I opted to make this a laundry day😉

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

Things looked good yesterday..cantaloupe is getting their hydes. All sunflowers have bloomed and looking down. Wife is paying attenton to when to snip off the flowers and gather the seeds...any thoughts? Have 4 small cukes showing up on my straight 8s. Crimson sweet watermelons are growing daily, but the small Ali Babas seem to be still the same grape size as they have been for a week, but plants look really healthy, so will watch. Pulled a carrot that was coming up and it was about 1" across at top but only 2.5" long. When cut into it, the center was green so wife threw it away...Tomatoes are started to bloom and we have two roma tomatoes now on one plant and some cherry tomatoes are showing. Red Kuri squash are huge and have several blooms so we are hoping on this to produce something.

[surviort_wwdnet]

Once the back of the sunflower "head" turns brown and it appears to be dried, you can harvest the seeds (and roast them if you want to). Don't forget to save some from the best plants for your next planting👍

Carrots take longer to mature than the experts say, in my opinion. Patience is a virtue, of which I have little to none😂 I found the same thing with parsnips and turnips. Good news on your tomatoes - my new plants aren't big enough to start blooming, and it looks like I have a failing squash plant in one grow bag. I may or may not try to save it, as it has wandered over the entire trellis without producing any baby squash.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

My Red Kuri squash has runner 4' long and leaves are huge. Blossoms are there, some have gone, but no squash to be seen.

Picked 20ish various peppers yesterday. Had a huge rain/wind storm last night and knocked over the sunflowers and bent two tomato plants despite being staked. Will have to see if tomatoes recover...:mad:

Yard day yesterday....everything done with battery operated devices and batteries charged via my solar....so zero out of pocket for me (yes I know I had to buy the solar setup)....solar also runs our washer and a small window AC unit in our washroom/workplace/storage area. Still need to run a few more circuits, but have to crawl under house and I just have not been in the right state of mind...get sweaty then crawl in sand sounds like Navy Seals training kinda stuff. I know, suck it up buttercup...but I need to get in the right state of mind...and just get er done.....

[surviort_wwdnet]

I trimmed a 5' runner off one squash plant - it was wilted and looked unsalvageable. There are other runners that are much longer than the one I trimmed, but no blossoms lately. If it doesn't start doing something, I'll pull it and treat the soil. Trimming that runner and a few more leaves here and there was all I got done between rainstorms in the morning and monsoons in the afternoon. I had to run out to the motorhome to get my husband's phone that he forgot to bring in, and there was at least an inch of standing water all the way. The ground is saturated; then again, this is great for our well, but one of my newer squash plants appears to have drowned.

My newest cauliflower starters are beginning to sprout; I hope they don't drown! I found my "missing" frost blanket (#3 of 3) in the pool box...go figure. Since I never get into that pool box (until I just helped my husband put away the pool vacuum hose), I think I know how it got there. I'll pull it out and hang it over the pool deck railing if it stops raining so it can dry out. It's supposed to stop raining around 8 PM but I won't be going out then😂

Crawling under the house in this heat and humidity isn't an appealing task. Wait for a dry, cooler day! I hope your tomatoes and sunflowers recover from the storm beating they took.

Autumn is just around the corner...and before it gets here, I need to get the RV gate in the fence fixed. It's sagged on one side, making it almost impossible to open, and the firewood delivery truck won't fit through the "car" gate. Last year we stacked our own firewood after it was delivered, but this year I'll pay the extra to have the delivery guy stack it. Husband is just not able to do it, and it's too much to do it by myself. I don't mind paying someone to save my back!

I'm thinking about purchasing one of those small plastic kiddy pools so I can dump the used potting soil into it to treat it and solarize it. It would also be a lot easier to refertilize the soil once it was dried and spread out, and to remove any remnants of the previous "occupants".

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

kiddie pools should be going on sale soon, probably after labor day....

everything status quo..which kinda scares me...found some seeds that I put away for "safe keeping", which means I lost them...LOL Going to have to look and see if I want to plant any of them in the fall. I have some peppers that are to be planted in November, and wife brought up celery out of the blue yesterday. Gotta start finalizing that so I can plan my garden area out....

[surviort_wwdnet]

If it ever stops raining (and if I ever can stop having to run errands, etc.), I may get more transplants put in. I may have to move some of the bigger seedlings to bigger pots while I wait for some sunshine. Today it was a new igniter for the grill, then a trip to Ace to get the propane tank filled. Then rain...and more puttering around inside. I did pull a sad looking squash plant and got a few more dead leaves and vines trimmed, but that was about it. Everything is still soaking wet.

More paperwork ref VA claim, more phone calls ref same - it never ends.

[surviort_wwdnet]

Nothing happening here today. We went to a wake this morning, and then the deceased's widow came over to talk for quite a while. I did look at the garden and now I see that 4 of 5 new cauliflower seedlings have sprouted. No rain today, but no time either.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

Yeah, not much to report. We did find a new crimson sweet watermelon that is about the size of two golf balls. Several little "grape sized" watermelons and cantaloupes showing, but we will see what happens with them. Cut two more heads off the sunflowers, so have three small ones left. Tried to pollinate the Red Kuri and some watermelons yesterday, so we will see what happens. The straight eight cukes are now up to five on the vines, so we will see. Going to plant celery today and see what happens with that. Not planting from seed, but from 2"-3" bottom of stalks.

[surviort_wwdnet]

Can't wait to hear how your regrown celery comes out! I've done that with onion bottoms but never celery.

The gardens are in a kind of lull compared to a June and July. Still, there are peppers growing, squash growing, and more. I dug down into the peanut grow bag and there are peanuts down there!!! On the flip side, I found mold spores on my spaghetti squash plant and dragged out the hose end sprayer to douse both gardens with fungicide (Immunox). Of course, it rained after that, so tomorrow (early) I'll spray again. If it doesn't take care of the mold, I'll pull the plant and solarize the soil. Still looking for a plastic kiddy pool...and not shopping on a holiday weekend! Cauliflower, broccoli, and cabbage seedlings need to go in the ground in the next week or so, and onions are starting to sprout. In one more week, I'll uncover a solarized container, plant it, and see if the solarization worked. The last eggplant has gone quiet, and I'll pull that and the remaining onions out this week. Then I can solarize that container.

Otherwise, a quiet rainy day, but it cleared up long enough to hit the pool for a few laps.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

Dumped sweet potato containers as they have been in soil for 120+ days, and the leaves were starting to turn yellow. Looked online and 90-110 days to maturity, sooo....dumped both containers...well, disappointed...maybe enough for one meal if you combine them all together. Will try again, but move to a partial sun area instead of full sun.

Many new cantaloupes and watermelons showing, but very small at this point so not holding out much hope.

So, we have onion bulbs I want to plant soon....I have heard that you should put bulbs into refrigerator or freezer for a period of time, them plant them...is that true?

[surviort_wwdnet]

Onions...I always start mine from seed but it's quite possible that onion bulbs require a period of cooling before planting to help them germinate. It would make sense, since I plant seeds in the fall, they would cool during winter, and the onions aren't picked until spring. Ok, enough guessing, let me see if I can find something......................................... .................................................

https://www.gardenguides.com/98014-store-onion-sets.html#:~:text=Lay%20the%20two%20piles%20of,or% 20until%20ready%20to%20plant.

So fridge is probably it since there aren't many dark, cool enough places in FL homes.😉

Sweet potatoes - I had some very small all the way to medium sized sweet potatoes. The container they were planted in wasn't deep enough for jumbo 'taters, and the vines were like a jungle over top of the container, preventing the vines from setting new potato roots. I did harvest enough to can a few pints. Sweet potatoes will do better if planted in a large open area, and allowed to spread as freely as space allows. I had my best harvest of large sweet potatoes planting them in an open garden space about 15x20', and even then they wanted to wander into the rest of the garden.

Many small acorn squash and I'm hoping the fungicide will protect the babies and blossoms that show no sign of mold spores. If not, I will replant next spring. My wandering spaghetti squash in the bag garden has new blossoms on it so maybe there's still a chance. I should have picked peppers but they'll still be there tomorrow. I took the sun shade off the mini greenhouse to give the new seedlings some direct sun.

Seems there are always too many other things going on - like I needed to mop ALL the floors in the house, and make some coleslaw to go with the ribs, and lug the garden cart with two 40-lb bags of pool salt out where my husband can get to them. With all this rain, we really needed more salt because we've drained a lot of water from the pool.

[surviort_wwdnet]

A noon appointment blew up the whole day, so I just toured the gardens, everything looks fine, see ya later! Except for the parsnips, all of the new starters have sprouted. No rain today but the temp did get up to 103^o🥵 That made it the perfect pool day. Tomorrow I can start early in the morning and get some gardening done. Today I got volunteered to help salt the pool, so add it to my list of new duties😂