Mystery Seedlings

[surviort_wwdnet]

Got out early and started tearing down the second row trellis, then coiled up a second drip hose and threw it on the shelf along with the trellis netting. All of the bags were empty and were moved to the sunny side of the garden and the garden stakes moved to the "stake stack". On to the third trellis row, which has cukes growing. I shortened the trellis to accommodate the growth needs of the cukes without taking up a whole row, and moved the empty bags to the sunny side. The leaf blower worked great to get rid of dead leaves and grass on the landscape fabric.

Mail came and there were half a dozen official looking letters from the VA that needed my attention, so I slogged through them and decided to call it a day until dinner time. I now know why we are spending a fortune on government, because I could have consolidated all of the letters into two subjects, and used one envelope to send them out🙄

Looks like leaf miners are feasting on miscellaneous plant leaves, so I sprayed everything with a mixture of insecticidal soap, pyrethrin, Bt, and a couple other things I had laying around😉 We're due for rain tomorrow, and then the soil in the empty grow bags should be wet enough to cover with clear plastic. If I can beat the rain tomorrow morning, I'll start uncovering the solarized containers and covering the unsolarized ones. Then I can start transplanting. Once I'm done with that, I'll start some new seeds.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

well got back from camping in St Augustine and had two of my smaller watermelons dead. Also caught a small field mouse in one of my traps that itself had been devoured by something. I think the mouse had gotten the two cantaloupes that were chewed. Oh, one tomato plant stake had broken so tomato was bent over. Re-staked it and it looks okay...fruit still ok on it. Will need to get out there more for some general clean up and fertilizing this weekend...and yard needs mowing as we have gotten significant rain daily...

[surviort_wwdnet]

That's a shame about your watermelons. Durn interlopers anyway! I lost one of my baby squash to something that chewed right through it. I'm about to give up on squash for this season🤬

It rained, then it poured, then about dinnertime it was bright and sunny🙄Oh well, I got the floors mopped...

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

Lost our cantaloupe to something. Got out yesterday and immediately noticed the stem was brown, twisted and sloppy wet. I could lift the cantaloupe right off the ground. It was then I noticed something had bored from the other end into and out...cut that end off, and it looked healthy, but not quite ripe all the way through. I did try a small bite, after cutting way back to healthy flesh, and it tasted okay, just a bit hard...so not ripe.

I noticed that the crimsons have their tindrels starting to die right near the fruit. The end of the tindrel is drying up. The fruit is not that big (guessing 5-7lbs), but I had heard that when the tindrel near the fruit dries up the fruit is ready to pick??? When we were at Costco the last time they were selling "mini" watermelons, and they look just like what I have now. When tindrel is fully dried up, I think I will clip one off and check...hate to harvest too early and lose a fruit though...any ideas?

[surviort_wwdnet]

The dying tendril does indicate that the watermelon is ready to harvest; however, it won't hurt to leave it on the vine for a few more days but it probably won't grow much larger.

That's horrible about your cantaloupe - there are so many destructive organisms in FL! I've had more than my share of them this year.

Sometime between last night and this morning, my perfectly healthy cucumber plant just keeled over and died...??? Oh well... I tore down the last trellis and moved the bags to the sunny side - except there's no sun today. Crappy weather - rain, sun, rain, sun, rain - I give up. It's probably time to take down the shade cloth. I transplanted some broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts in new bags with new potting soil, and tossed the old steel-core garden stakes that had rusted. Husband told me to buy some new ones👍

I'm rethinking my plan to solarize some of the used potting soil. Most of it looks fine, but there are a few bags that look to have serious mold/mildew/algae problems and they'll need a good scrubbing. That soil likely needs to go! I ordered 6 more bags to replace some of it since it's still on sale. I bought a few new brown grow bags for good measure. I'm just not sure what I'll do with the old potting soil, but I may just bag it up and put it out for the yard waste pickup. The problem bags are the black ones I bought after I had the brown grow bags.

I'm going to cut a large piece of clear plastic and "wrap" the old soil I'm reusing - it can just sit out there for a few weeks like the container soil did. Matter of fact, I think I'll go do that right now!

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

We picked the one watermelon as the tendril had completely dried up...We will cut it today and see. We have two small red kuri squash that have started....I have not had very much luck with squash so we will see. My truck went down this morning and had to get it towed home. I think I put a bandaid on the problem, but waiting on my mechanic to get back from vacation. Need a reliable truck for another camping trip next week....so that is high on the priority list today....

[surviort_wwdnet]

Shame about the truck. I hope you can get it fixed before next week's camping trip!

Let me know how your watermelon turned out. The first one I harvested tasted great but was pink, not red, inside. The second one I harvested was red inside but didn't taste as good as the first one. Next year I'll try again.

No garden work today - trip to VA, then grocery shopping, then haircut, then get dinner going. It doesn't matter - it's been pouring rain anyway. Tomorrow is trip to VA then home to start gardening if it doesn't rain again. The transplants in the new soil look beautiful.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

Watermelon was white inside, and just tasted bad...had a slight watermelon taste, but hard. Leaving the other ones on the vine and wait and see. Found another watermelon yesterday under the foliage...bigger than a softball and right near where I have been stepping....One roma tomato is turning colors but the other 5 are still green, peppers are still abundant. Cucumber is still holding out. Fertilized yesterday and we got a downpour 8 hours later. My red kuri plants look impressive but only two small squash and I think one is headed in wrong direction. My wife said "if we could live on peppers, we nailed it".... Maybe I will become a pepper plant gardener...seems like the only thing we have had "good" success with. Wonder if I could barter for other veggies from other gardeners...LOL

Seriously though, if anyone else is reading/following this thread, gardening can be hard and expensive at first. Now, there is a learning curve and next year it should be ( I hope) better for me, but for the amount of money I have spent for the yield I have been rewarded with was pitiful. Sure, I could blame it on the extra high temps we had, the lack of rain early in the season and downpours in the end of summer season, but those are just excuses. I would highly recommend anyone that thinks they will just save the "emergency" seeds in the closet until the SHTF will be disappointed and should get outside and grow now. Better start saving fertilizer, insect control, fungicide, potting and top soils as well as the seeds.

[surviort_wwdnet]

Maybe you can barter peppers for watermelons and cantaloupe? It's really not a bad idea if you can get another bumper crop next season. If I knew I had another 5 or 6 years to garden unconstrained, I'd consider cutting down the varieties and changing up each season.

Subsistence gardening ain't for sissies😂 Seriously, it's hard work and a lot of trial and error to see what works - and next year that could all change! Next year I should still have a good supply of insecticides, fertilizer, fungicide, etc. and I hope what worked this year will work next year! I have a few favorite potions and I'll make sure to keep the old spray bottles and concoct my own.

Well, my last squash plant will get cut down and into the yard waste container tomorrow. I'm over it; specifically, over watching it die by degrees. I'll start pulling the plastic tomorrow and cover containers that haven't been solarized. I have a bunch of cabbage seedlings that will be ready to plant in just a week or so, and I want to do those in the containers along with the onions. I still have parsnip, broccoli, and cauliflower seedlings that aren't quite big enough to transplant. Once all the containers are solarized, I will have a lot of room to plant more, and will start more carrots, beets, radishes, and parsnips. Starting the parsnip seeds inside a soil-filled paper tube has worked well and keeps the root straight instead of forking out. I tried this in the spring and that's where my best parsnips came from. I may order some beneficial nematodes and seed the containers with them to kill off the parasitic ones. I still need to move the shade cloth...and the yard needs weed whacking again. Husband said soon he will hire someone to do the yardwork (yay!). As soon as my husband gets his VA ID in the mail, we'll be going camping at the military base campground.

No rain today but: Lost day - 3 hours at VA and then laundry. It's my husband's birthday so we hung out for a while, then I seared some beef tenderloin steaks in a cast iron pan and finished them off in the oven - yum. Also did a Walmart delivery order because I've found that the small 8 oz. cans of vegetables, like peas and carrots, are the perfect size for pot pies and stew and soup, plus I needed a few things that I always get at Walmart for my husband. When I can again, I'll do smaller containers of everything. I dehydrated the last of the garden onions, some diced and some sliced, and got those plus green and red peppers in half-pint canning jars with O₂ absorbers. Once the weather cools off for good, I'll pull out some of my canned tomatoes and make some red sauce to be canned.

[surviort_wwdnet]

No rain today either!🌞

I took the shade cloth off half of the grow bag garden (that will be enough for now), then moved over to the container garden where I pulled up the wandering squash plant. The roots indicate parasitic nematode damage - no wonder it was dying by degrees. Off to the yard waste container it went, and its trellis was disassembled. I pulled up a lone basil plant from the same container and its little roots were also "knotted". I pulled a trash bag full of weeds from around the containers, then pulled the plastic off three containers and moved it to three other containers. I'll use the three newly solarized containers to plant cabbage and onions, carrots and parsnips, and radishes and beets. Next up will be more turnips and maybe some Romaine.

I found one more small potato in the container with the lima bean plant - it's still a little green so I'll leave it in there for a couple more weeks. One of the unsolarized containers still has onions growing in it, so I may transplant the onion seedlings into that container and and throw in some herb seeds.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

Didn't do much in the garden yesterday. Just looked at things and all is status quo. Just waiting and seeing what will make it to the end. Wife picked 30 or so of various kinds. She likes to eat some, give some to neighbor and the dehydrate the rest and grind to pepper powder. Worked on a wrought iron gate that needed to be rehung as I had taken it off to park the trailer. Had to cut the 1/2" steel plate it hangs on so I could open gate the other way to be out of the way when I move the trailer to go or come back from camping. We wanted the gate back up for security....second side goes back on today.

[surviort_wwdnet]

Didn't do much in the garden - picked a few more weeds, washed out some grow bags and put them out on the jacuzzi pad to dry, and was thinking about pulling out the string trimmer, but it was 91^o by 10 AM and I decided to go do laundry, vacuum, cook etc. then swimming and dinner. Very quiet day.

Tomorrow I'm going to transplant some cabbage and onions into one of the containers, and a couple of broccoli seedlings in another. There's plenty of time to start over if the solarization didn't work.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

between my truck and my grandson, I didn't get to work the garden yesterday. I will always take grandson over gardening....I do take him out so he can "watch" me look at the garden and will let him touch leaves and fruits...he cannot really "help" me (he is 19 months) at this point so all we do is look and touch.

[surviort_wwdnet]

Don't worry - your grandson is taking it all in and may follow in your gardener footsteps! It's so fun to watch them grow up. You're blessed.

It was a perfect day to work outside, 80 and breezy. Got the front yard weed whacked, then switched gears and planted some onions and cabbage in the container garden. Because I got up at 4:00 this morning (cat in distress), I am ready to call it a day and go take a long long nap. 😂Tomorrow I'll see how today's transplants are faring before I plant any more, and then I'll weed whack the back yard.

[Patriotic Sheepdog]

Yeah, we turned into slugs yesterday afternoon. Took the grandson to zoo, basically a walk around the park for us..and enjoyed the day. Poked, clipped, sprayed fungicide and prodded in garden some in the morning...but everything on cruise control. Wife wants to pull it all up because the vines are running all over and it looks "messy" she says, but knows there is hope of some watermelon, cantaloupes and squash. We gave away all out peppers we picked the other day to neighbors, and have probably another 40 on the plants. We have one ghost hot pepper that is just starting to change to red...wife is excited about that one...