JCC The JCC Gardening Club

Did it knock on your door a week later and ask what the big idea was?

 

Yes.

But I freaked, and stabbed it to death.

 

One cup vegetable oil, two tablespoons liquid soap (since you're going to eat the tomatoes you might want to get organic soap instead of good old dishwashing liquid), one teaspoon cayenne pepper. Mix well, then dilute @ 2 teaspoons per cup of water and spray your tomato plants (don't forget under the leaves!) every few days until the aphids are dead. Keep spraying even after you don't see aphids anymore -- you want to get the eggs too.

Or buy a box of ladybugs and release them into your garden. They'll eat the aphids, and they're cute which is always a plus.

 

You monster.

 

Nice tips. Many thanks.

 

Time for a requiem for my sweet potatoes. I started with 48 and am down to about 10. The company i got them from is sending replacement. The weather was been insane here. 55F/13C and raining, then 90F/32C for three days, down to 45F/7C at night, and now its 66F/19C.

Still haven't had a chance to finish preparing the ground for planting yet. I kinda have to, since my watermelon seedlings are starting to sprawl out. Gotta get them outside, so they don't take over the house.

 

Jedi_Jade-Skywalker

That weather sounds wild... I thought the UK's weather was changeable lol!

Tomatoes and sweetcorn are looking well:







Am having my first "pick" of Buckby Peas for lunch

 

This exactly happened. They are now separated. I hope they don't mind! But I did find harvest-able sweet potatoes. I mashed one up with my regular mashed potatoes. It was awesome.

 

Harvested 20-something beans from my plants yesterday. We've been having big rains.

 

gardening has been a bit slow this year, but I put in my first honey bee hive today.

 

Update: we've been hit by the worst heat wave I can remember for the past few days and my lame attempt at rooting anything failed abysmally. I hope my existing plants survive this. I've been watering them twice a day and they still look parched.

Edit: starfish I've always wanted to try beekeeping, but I live in a densely populated city so I'm not too sure about it. Do you live in a city or in the countryside? And how big is your garden?

 

I live outside a small city and have some small veggie gardens and then maybe an acre of meadows that I'm planting apple and pear trees in, so quite a lot for the bees to forage for pollen. But I do know people keep bees in Portland, Maine's biggest city, on rooftops and backyards. I'm pretty sure even NYC has some rooftop beekeepers. So I'm sure if you looked into you could find some community gardens that also have bees.

Also, sorry the picture I posted doesn't seem to be up anymore, it was working the other day, I'll try some more pics later.

 

Some garden updates!


The bell pepper and jalapeños are chugging along great-- hoping I'll get more than one bell pepper, though.


The kale is about ready to eat, and my onions are plumping up nicely.


The grape arbor is going so nuts I don't know what I'm going to do with so many grapes...! Maybe I'll try my hand at making some wine...


Yellow squash is looking good. There's a cucumber to its left that's doing fine, but the other cucumber I planted didn't make it through the wickedly hot weather we've been having.


The beans are doing great, but I actually have some questions about the stupid amount of grass that's been cropping up all over my garden and even in some of my flower pots. I live in Oregon in the Willamette Valley, does anyone know if grass seed carries in wind? The other thought I had was maybe there was some renegade grass seed in the garden soil I bought, but there's grass showing up in places and pots I didn't use it in. Help?

Additionally, does anyone know a good, non-chemical way to get rid of invasive grass like this that doesn't involve ripping it all up by hand?



And last but not least, the blueberries and strawberries are doing great! I tell my strawberries every day to get red, but they haven't gotten the memo yet.

 

Our tomatoes are finally sprouting and some of them are turning red and have been picked.

 

You could make grape jelly, especially if your grapes are the aromatic sort. Should I dig up a recipe for you?

I'm afraid that there's no way (chemical or not) to get rid of grass that doesn't kill the rest of your plants as well, so your only option here is to rip it up by hand if you really want to remove it. On the other hand, my mother-in-law who's the best gardener I know says that weeds should be mostly left alone because they take care of your soil, attract good critters etc, so unless the grass is taking over your garden and stifling your veggies you may want to leave it there, or at least some of it. You do have to water twice as much though, because twice as many plants are drinking now.

To avoid the grass re-seeding next year you want to make sure that you cut it before it goes to seed; my mother-in-law cuts it as soon as she sees flower buds forming. You can just let the cut grass rot in place then, so as to return to the soil all the nutrients it took. A few times when we had a very persistent weed problem she further covered the garden in black tarpaulin when the summer growing season was over and she let the soil roast in the October sun to kill the weed seeds (I don't know how much sun your area gets in October, so you may have to do this earlier in the fall or next spring for it to work).

One thing you want to check is if your local branch of the ministry of agriculture (or equivalent) has any info about invasive grasses in your area. I know that some invasive grasses spread by root rather than seed (thankfully we don't have any of those in Greece that I know of) and if that's the case you need to make sure you dig up the roots too.

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On my end: most of the plants I have on the little balcony that's in the sun all day long were completely burnt in last week's heatwave. But the good news is that it was my birthday this week and my family got me a gazillion seedlings of drought-resistant plants: lavender, cotton lavender, rosemary, sage, thyme, oregano, you name it. I re-planted all the pots and now my study smells heavenly every time I open the balcony door

And a question from me: does anyone know if you can compost a cactus? I have one that I need to discard because it was contaminated by some sort of fungus. I'm not worried about spreading the fungus because the temperature in my compost bin is at least 200 degrees, but I'm worried about the thorns. Do they decompose as well, or will they be there to remind me forever that I sacrificed the cactus?

 

Thanks for the advice! Chyntuck

As for the cactus, my guess would be that it's safe to compost, and Google seems to back me up. Since some varieties of cactus are edible, I'd think they'd be relatively compostable. But yeah, if you're just worried about the spines and having to handle them, then maybe not.

 

Can you trim the spines off and dispose of them separately?

 

I hadn't thought of that! It's a lot of spines to take them on one by one, but maybe if I manage to borrow my husband's open razor while he's not looking...

 

The first bean harvest!

Looking at a 100°+ week here in the Willamette Valley... fingers crossed my garden doesn't shrivel and die.

 

My son planted a potato this summer. Before me moved, we harvested it. We brought them with us, and will probably replant them.