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songbird[_2_] · 14-04-2018, 06:20 PM posted to rec.gardens.edible

wrote:
songbird wrote:
wrote:
...

i sure haven't seen much rain heading your ways recently...

Finally, getting a little rain but not much; just nasty weather,
mostly. We got more-or-less an inch overnight for a total of about one
and one half since that advent of a cold front. The front has stalled
at about this latitude and "rained out" so we're having a humid, warm ,
intermittently cloudy/sunny day. The great outdoors are overwhelmingly
_wet_ in this kind of weather. Still going to (try to) get a bean bed
ready today for planting this evening or tomorrow.

at least you got a good rain out of it for a change.

pretty raw out there today. rain/sleet/snow, maybe
ice later, we'll see...

a good day for me to be inside doing other things.
geeking about and minor cleaning, perhaps may get some
pictures done and posted. or take a nap.

fresh peas..

Yep. Got some on the vines nowprimarily on the morning sun side
of the row. Got the "white acre" peas planted, finally, too. If nights
continue warm, the peas should be up within a couple of days.

it will be interesting this season for sure as we
are still in early spring flowers (crocuses, some of
the bulb irises and glories of the snow) and just now
starting the next part where i see the earliest
daffodils and the grecian wind flowers. the earliest
tulips will be along soon too. the earliest crocuses
limped along for the past three weeks. the later
crocuses are coming out the past few days.

i'm just happy to see spring flowers here at last.

strawberries aren't going to be blooming anytime
too soon. it may be a very compressed season for
them. with the very cold weather and them being so
exposed without snow cover many are looking pretty
sad, but they are usually able to recover well
enough. the only ones i'm concerned about were
those that i transplanted right before winter
came along. i may have to move other plants in
there instead.

i'm not sure i will see any turnip blooms early
this season. the two biggest areas where i have them
wandering around were upended or are being upended and
so no over-wintered turnips anyplace. diakon radishes
may have to substitute. those sure are monsters if
left go.

I've never grown daikon radishes. Don't even know what a person
does with them. Haven't grown radishes of any sort for many years.
Used to use them as trap crop to intercept leaf-eaters years ago, in the
city. I think I _ate_ a radish about sixty years ago and have found no
reason to repeat that behavior and Alana never has expressed any
interest in them so....;-)

it's a very very big radish and is very useful
for breaking through clay layers in gardens. the
roots can be 4ft long and as big around as your
arm. and of course edible. i much prefer the
sprouts/greens in the very young stage than the
radish itself. and the flowers are nice too.

seeds are also edible, a bit of a bite to them.

The "provider" bush snap-beans were planted far too early in
February and sort of marked time due to the chilly nights but now that
the weather seems sure-enough to be warming, they're finally perking up
a bit.
Blossoms on'em as of yesterday (7 April). Yay. Next mission is to
prep a bed and plant "Delinel" filet beans. They're tender, with small
black seeds. The seeds are often hard to find at retail so this year
I'll be setting some of the first aside for future years. All of my
California blackeyes are from my seeds. The stash is four-going-on-five
(or, is it, five-going-on-six?) years of age

Delinel seem to be for sale from a number of
sources so you are not going to be out of luck
with them if your seed saving efforts don't pan
out.

the earliest spring flowers here are usually crocuses
and some small bulb irises which often bloom through
snow or very cold weather. they don't seem to mind
being repeatedly frozen, but i'm not sure how they
manage it, flower blossom petals don't strike me as
very durable, but they've persisted for a week or two
now.
We have flowers pretty much year 'round, although not in the
profusion of those in the northeast and it does take them some time to
recover from extremely cold weather. Of course the spiderwort are back,
as are the "cupid's brush" as well as a number of other asters. The
spanish needles, which became such nuisances last year (although,
insects lo-o-o-ove them) have just begun to recover from the last
freezing temps.

we're still due for some below freezing nights here
and some snow. 3wks-month before planting early peas.
dunno if the ground is going to be warm enough at the
rate we're going...

We always have a few rogue bees in the early spring and they
sometimes can overwhelm local maple and sweet gum trees, which are early
bloomers and covered with blossoms at about the time bees are introduced
into the blueberry farms down the road a bit. Fortunately, the blooming
trees intercept most of the bees early in the year and by this time,
when the bee population already is declining, I depend primarily on the
mustard greens to intercept honey bees and keep them out of the garden.
But by the time summer rolls around their number has declined to nearly
zero because the summer heat kills most of their little bee asses and
the relatively few remaining work only in the early hours and are
insufficient in number to interfere with the native bees. As summer
days progress the bees spend more of their time carrying water back to
home base or taking shelter under leaves.

that sounds like a good plan down there. i'm
thinking that perhaps they are not going to be placing
50something honey bee hives near us this year. which
will be nice we can have our birdbaths back.

i don't have any recall of the okra root ball of
the one time i grew it here - i know it was in a
very tough location and so would likely not have
been an accurate indication anyways. how long can
they be happy in a container that small before
needing to be transplanted?

Not very, but long enough for them to get big enough to vie against
the strawberries. Going to put four or five okra and two or three
eggplants in the bed with the strawberries. Last year, the berries
shared their bed with eggplants and Red Creole cooking onions. Also
planting more okra in a bed with onions but can directly seed those into
the bed.
I left a few of last year's onions in the strawberry bed to bloom
and they've begun to open. Since I'm not growing any other onions that
are even close to blooming _and_ I don't see onions in any of the few
gardens I've found within a couple of miles, I'm going to save the seeds
in hope of obtaining varietal seeds that will make bulbs. I'll test
them next fall and, if successful, won't have to buy onion seeds again
for a few years.

yeah, no shortage of onion seeds here either. i used
to make a lot of effort to get every seed out of the
heads and that meant a lot of chaff. this past winter
i decided that i'd just knock out what would fall out
and leave the rest alone and took them out to the front
grassy area and left them for the birds to peck at.
much easier to remove what little chaff there was left
and still way more onion seeds than i'll use.

*mmm* fresh ginger...
Yeah; Alana cooks with it. Mine started from a couple of scions
obtained by a neighborhood person of Chinese origin who is "particular"
about her ginger: "Spicy" is the word for it. At any rate, incestuous
ginger declines in flavor over time (years) and, when this does, I guess
I'll have to cop a couple more starters but for now what I have is doing
well-enough.
Well, "The Great British Baking Show" is wrapping up on teevee and
a cardinal is on the porch handrail letting me know, in full voice,
about the absence of food thereon so I guess it's time to put on some
clothes and get a bit active.

the cardinals here are wild and won't hang around
other than at a distance. i like their songs it is
one of the signs of spring when they start speaking
up again. the bluejays are noisy all season no
matter what.

so far, grackle wars have been slight, if i go out
and chase them away a few times they stay away most of
the day until they attempt to come back in the early
evening. so far they have not been given much of a
chance to build nests this way and that is all i want
for them to go someplace else and nest.

songbird