Any Gardners???

[barrelslime]

We have the big bucks of IL trained to walk up and down the rows of our gardens and eat all the free weeds the can eat. They know better than tonibble on a veggie or its the ax for them. We watch em from our bedroom windows thru a 10x scope. Rofl LOL. So far the only critte problems Iv had is a racoon banghead who keeps taking the sweet corn cobs out of the composter and leaving them in the yard and about the place. His day is coming soon enough though!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[barrelslime]

They look good too. And, I know what you mean 'bout being in the garden alone.
Sometimes it can be like a therapy for the soul. A place to contemplate. Solitude.
At one with the earth. You know what I mean..........

10-4

[NIMROD]

Here is nimrod's catch in our garden.

[Hanr3]

Nice gardens.

The only time I have a green thumb is when I pick my nose.

Trying to fling a booger at you.

I have a spot all picked out int eh yard for a garden, once I get some free time Ill actually plant one. Then invite my retired father-in-law over to weed it. Until then, I help the neighbors out (plow thier drives in the winter and fix stuff for them) and they give me all I can handle. Lady behind me has Cherry trees, Retired couple West of me grows just about everything and we get stuff all teh time, wife likes the ocra, and tomatoes. This week was lettuce. Retired couple to my East gives me stuff all teh time too. Then the in-laws give us sweet corn every year.

[barrelslime]

Nimrod, I like whats in the melon patch

[NIMROD]

Nimrod, I like whats in the melon patch

She is a fine gal. Suggested with the kids gone I stop planting a garden. Well, I asked her what would I do then. She suggested I fish more. I told her I could'nt stand to fish any more than I do now. Last month it was about 20 days out of 31.

[jackie53]

(Fish) Those green fish do make good fertiziler.So that where you keep your Black Diamonds(Water Melons)

[no1son]

I spend a little time every day in my postage stamp sized garden. My whole lot is only 120X40. All I got is about 20 X 20 for garden, but whether I eat anything out of it or nor, just spending time in it is good for my sanity. Pulling weeds by hand is a very good way to let off steam, too, should one need to do so.

My pest problem has always been squirrels. I gave up on corn; they just climb the stalk and eat the ear as it starts to silk and then then eat the stalk down, too. I stake my tomatoes or they will get all of them. They dig an occasional onion and about the time the squash get ripe they eat out the seed cavity and most of the meat, too. At least that was the case before I got my 10 pump squirrel repellant (Crossman). It took some 4 big eliminations to get the control back to a reasonable point. We have grays here in the city, but those four were almost as big and fat as the larger fox squirrels we had back home. I would rather not use it in front of one of the city's black and whites however. Gardeners all around me have squirrel problems, too. My one neighbor wondered about a trap, since the squirrels have invaded his attic, but thought they would just come back; so I told him that the ones trapped should never be able to show up again, but he is a little squeamish... (as though a few hundred less squirrels in the neighborhood would hurt anything!)

Thankfully we have no deer this deep in the Metro, no wood chucks either, and far too many stray cats for any cottontail bunnies to grow up; so no rabbits either. Although there is a price to pay for having the cats around freshly turned earth. I have been thinking of applying the squirrel repellent to them, too, especially the toms that have a pair of pretty good sized targets on the back side. But some of them belong to neighbors; so I haven't gone that far yet. I did finally get one of those folks to spay his female; so now she doesn't set up her red light in my backyard anymore.

Tomatoes and the last remaining peach (between hail and high winds my little peach tree got over-thinned!) are now about the size of tennis balls, potatoes are blooming, peppers are setting, the first blossoms are on the butternut squash (got squash borers? try butternuts, the borers usually leave them alone), and I finally got my sweet potato slips in the ground last week, they seem to have not missed a step moving from water to ground around the roots. I cut off the garlic flowers this morning and thinned the head lettuce. And all the daylilies around the border are in full bud now that the early species and the Siberian iris are done.

My big weed problem this year is purslane, which seems to sprout in every foot of every garden row. That seems to have shown up out of nowhere this year for some reason. The rest are pretty much under control.

I still have the back fence to reclaim from some wild grapes though. We don't have kudzu up here, but the grapes I got would probably give that a real run for the money.

Gardening is good for the soul, beyond being good for the belly.

BTW I agree that one quart of beans doesn't look like the seal took. Eat it up quick and then check the jar rim for chips and through it out if it has them.

[barrelslime]

I took the pic before the jars were all sealed. Thanks