Whatcha Up To???

@wolffman, well my last frost date is May 15 and first frost date is Oct 10. Those are hard-frost dates we typically get a dusting of frost in mid September but then will warm up again. That light frost is often enough to hurt the basil but tomatoes and squash will carry on.

Weekend in Galveston before school starts again.

RL, I planted about a dozen more Barbados seeds. This time I did not nick them with a file. I just soaked them for 2 days in a glass of water. After just 6 days, I have 5 plants up already. I'll use this method going forward.

wolffman said:

RL, I planted about a dozen more Barbados seeds. This time I did not nick them with a file. I just soaked them for 2 days in a glass of water. After just 6 days, I have 5 plants up already. I'll use this method going forward.

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I'm taking notes. Thank you, Wolffman! apparently,my seeds won't be here til' late August. Coming from Barbados..via snail mail. Out of all the folks that was on ebay, I had to buy the one from Barbados. I did picked a few seeds from the plants that I have here per your suggestion.Thanks again!!

Busy weekend

Harvested peaches from my tree ~26 pounds. Not quite ripe but not being lost to a chipmunk anymore.

Hosted my son's birthday - 8 kids under the age of 7. Maybe I should say my wife did this and I avoided the kids.

Did some maintenace at my community garden. That thing is a mess. Harvested 18.1 pounds - 2 watermelons, 4# of tomatoes, a bag of green beans. The big vining plants are out of control but I do have some of the largest butternut squash I have ever seen.

Pole beans are much easier than bush beans.

My harvest is now up to 127 pounds. Including the wheelhoe I've spent $297 (without the fancy tool I have spent $71). This works out to spending $2.37 a pound of garden produce.

RLwhaler said:

I'm taking notes. Thank you, Wolffman! apparently,my seeds won't be here til' late August. Coming from Barbados..via snail mail. Out of all the folks that was on ebay, I had to buy the one from Barbados. I did picked a few seeds from the plants that I have here per your suggestion.Thanks again!!

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9 out of 12 as of today. I'm going to bring them inside in the winter and find places to plant them in the spring.

Mr_Yan said:

Busy weekend

Harvested peaches from my tree ~26 pounds. Not quite ripe but not being lost to a chipmunk anymore.

Hosted my son's birthday - 8 kids under the age of 7. Maybe I should say my wife did this and I avoided the kids.

Did some maintenace at my community garden. That thing is a mess. Harvested 18.1 pounds - 2 watermelons, 4# of tomatoes, a bag of green beans. The big vining plants are out of control but I do have some of the largest butternut squash I have ever seen.

Pole beans are much easier than bush beans.

My harvest is now up to 127 pounds. Including the wheelhoe I've spent $297 (without the fancy tool I have spent $71). This works out to spending $2.37 a pound of garden produce.

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Super nice, Mr Yan! especially the peach. There is something seriously wrong with my peach tree.Close to 11 years old, and all I got was 3 harvest.It was far fetch of 26 lbs. like yours!! LOL!!

RLwhaler said:

Super nice, Mr Yan! especially the peach. There is something seriously wrong with my peach tree.Close to 11 years old, and all I got was 3 harvest.It was far fetch of 26 lbs. like yours!! LOL!!

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I have some major problems with peach scab on this tree and leaf curl is starting to show up. I need to become a fungicidal maniac before the next crop.

Last winter was really a failure of a season as we really only went below zeo once nad had almost no snow. But that turned into huge fruit crops. Have you read about the cherry farmer in Traverse City MI who had to dump 14% of his crop on the ground? I used to work on a cherry farm in northern Michigan and shaking fruit to the ground sucks.

I just read that the farmers alminacs are calling for a cold hard winter. Who knows they may be right one of these years.

Mr_Yan said:

I have some major problems with peach scab on this tree and leaf curl is starting to show up. I need to become a fungicidal maniac before the next crop.

Last winter was really a failure of a season as we really only went below zeo once nad had almost no snow. But that turned into huge fruit crops. Have you read about the cherry farmer in Traverse City MI who had to dump 14% of his crop on the ground? I used to work on a cherry farm in northern Michigan and shaking fruit to the ground sucks.

I just read that the farmers alminacs are calling for a cold hard winter. Who knows they may be right one of these years.

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I think you just gave me the diagnose to my peach tree problem " peach scab ".

The drouught killed the rabbits, so the coyotes ate the feral cats before they starved, then the hawks all starved or moved to greener hills, and now with no help from Nature to control the pests, I am back to trapping ground squirrels, rats and a possum. And i do not live in the country.

Yan, i am surprised you have such a long growing season. We only had 100 frost free days, ending by September 15, in Idaho. We were close to the 49th parelell, which is a good bit north of you, but i assumed you had colder, longer winters there.

Ernie

ErnieCopp said:

The drouught killed the rabbits, so the coyotes ate the feral cats before they starved, then the hawks all starved or moved to greener hills, and now with no help from Nature to control the pests, I am back to trapping ground squirrels, rats and a possum. And i do not live in the country.

Yan, i am surprised you have such a long growing season. We only had 100 frost free days, ending by September 15, in Idaho. We were close to the 49th parelell, which is a good bit north of you, but i assumed you had colder, longer winters there.

Ernie

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ErnieCopp : If only we can send you all this rain. Those "tree rats" (squirrels) are great on a skillet! Gotta have at least 5 of them to satisfy a stomach.

Kid left this morning back to campus. Washer and dryers stop running for the first time in three months.Fridge is empty,pantry is empty.Wife is a mess(crying).Trimmed the oak tree last weekend before he left.

I remember eating tree squirrels and rabbits back in Kansas, but with Tularemia in the wild rabbits and a couple of other bad diseases carried by the fleas and rodent droppings from the ground squirrels and rats, it would probably be a good idea to save those critters for The Last Supper. I caught another one last night.

It is always hard to see your kids leave home.

Ernie

@ErnieCopp We tend to get both cold and hot though large areas of the country get either hotter or colder. We also, usually, have a sharp transition between winter and summers. We're slightly north of the 42nd parallel and just above 700 feet elevation. I don't think we have had a day this summer above 100 F though we have had several days in the upper 80s to mid 90s with dew points in the upper 70s. We don't get much snow in the winter (70 inches and they start talking about setting a new record) but we do get cold. Typically we have at least a week where the temperature doesn't get above 0 F.

@RLwhaler I'm lacking a good source for home fruit growing. Most books either cater to absolute beginners and fail to help with grafting or pest / desiese control or cater to much larger and specialized orchards. I'm thinking about making a post that would compile links (mostly extension office articles) and use that as a reference. I'll also print much of it out as I like to have reference materials in hard copy. Still kicking myself for selling off many of my engineering texts from school - now I'm starting to re-buy similar books and they're expensive.

I also have a chipmunk problem here. Not a fan of poisons. The terrier is a useless wimp. Don't want to use snap traps with kids (one is only a year old) playing back there. Starting to think either pellet gun or get really good with a bow. Pellet gun would be easier but I don't really like the idea of shooting lead into my garden area.

Other notes:
Kids started school today here.
One kid had their 4th birthday today.

Yan,
One reason you may not be finding all the answers to your general fruit growng questions in one place is there are so many variables. Some varieties say, of apples will do a lot better in one area than they will in another area, even on differents sides of a mountain, etc. So your best source of information as to varieties is to check and see what grows best in your locality, and ask your local nurserymen what sells the best, and not something that is new or different.
The mechanics of grafting and chip budding and pleaching remain fairly constant regardless of species or varieties, as they are just different ways of making sure the cambium layers of both pieces remain in contact. The hard part is learning the proper timing for your area, and holding them in perfect contact and keeping the joint from drying out. Lots of good articles on all types of grafting and budding, but all take some practive, a steady hand and a sharp knife. I think bud grafting is the best and easiest for beginners but each way has advantages. Just rooting cuttings, is the easiest if the variety does that easily, but a lot of plants will not start that way.
Grapevines by rooted cuttings is very easy, as are some shade trees, but will not work on most fruit trees. I think all the information will be easy to find on Google if you specify just what tree you are interested in and what type of grafting you want to do.

After trying different ways to control the varmints here, my best solution is to trap them, using fruit or peanut butter for bait in the cage type traps and then to shoot them in the trap with a pellet gun. Then I dump them out of the trap without handling them.
I will try to find a picture of the type of traps i use. Different sizes for different sized animals.
Ernie

Yan,
Havahart traps on Amazon come in different sizes and work well for me.

Ernie

Mr_Yan said:

@ErnieCopp We tend to get both cold and hot though large areas of the country get either hotter or colder. We also, usually, have a sharp transition between winter and summers. We're slightly north of the 42nd parallel and just above 700 feet elevation. I don't think we have had a day this summer above 100 F though we have had several days in the upper 80s to mid 90s with dew points in the upper 70s. We don't get much snow in the winter (70 inches and they start talking about setting a new record) but we do get cold. Typically we have at least a week where the temperature doesn't get above 0 F.

@RLwhaler I'm lacking a good source for home fruit growing. Most books either cater to absolute beginners and fail to help with grafting or pest / desiese control or cater to much larger and specialized orchards. I'm thinking about making a post that would compile links (mostly extension office articles) and use that as a reference. I'll also print much of it out as I like to have reference materials in hard copy. Still kicking myself for selling off many of my engineering texts from school - now I'm starting to re-buy similar books and they're expensive.

I also have a chipmunk problem here. Not a fan of poisons. The terrier is a useless wimp. Don't want to use snap traps with kids (one is only a year old) playing back there. Starting to think either pellet gun or get really good with a bow. Pellet gun would be easier but I don't really like the idea of shooting lead into my garden area.

Other notes:
Kids started school today here.
One kid had their 4th birthday today.

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Mr. Yan : May I suggest a snare trap?

I wound up with 10 Barbados seedlings. I'll see how big they get before winter. I planted the Pride of Madeira a few days ago, hopefully some will sprout. RL, you'll need reading glasses to plant the Madeira.

Bought a 1979 Jeep this morning. I'm going to fix it up for Luke to drive one day. That leaves me 10 years to get this project done, lol! The bottom pic is the template I'll use for the rebuild.

My wife sent me grocery shopping and I bought a new car.

Well that sounds worse than it really is. My car is boarderline dead and my wife has been wanting me to replace it for about two years. We looked at a few lots this morning and couldn't reach a deal. As I was leaving for groceries we decided I should check another lot.

Nothing special just replacing my commutter car. Now I'll have to (re)learn how to drive a stick.

I also borrowed a truck and picked up 9 replacement windows.

Harvested 4 pounds cucumbers

wolffman said:

I wound up with 10 Barbados seedlings. I'll see how big they get before winter. I planted the Pride of Madeira a few days ago, hopefully some will sprout. RL, you'll need reading glasses to plant the Madeira.

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Nice !!

Wettest August I've ever seen. I can barely keep up with all the yard mowing. RL, I did not have any luck with the Ebay Madeira seeds, nothing came up. I'll try to find some from a reputable source.

Yesterday I installed another three replacement windows. That makes 6 of the 10 windows we're replacing this year.

Today I harvested 26 pounds of potatoes. Planted 10 pounds so just a return of 2.6:1, not that great. Not sure I even broke even on the calorie count.

92 and sunny today.

I spent most all afternoon on Saturday washing, clay baring and waxing the truck. Took far longer than I thought it was going to but it sure does make it look a ton better. Now I need to do the same for the wife's car.

wolffman said:

Wettest August I've ever seen. I can barely keep up with all the yard mowing. RL, I did not have any luck with the Ebay Madeira seeds, nothing came up. I'll try to find some from a reputable source.

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Agree!! it's been raining almost every day here in Cypress,Texas. Skeeters are out in full force. Big as a wasp...fly in packs throwing gang's signs at me!!
If YOU have no luck with Madeira seeds..I sure wouldn't know what to do with em. I did harvest a bag full of seeds from my pride of Barbados.
My light pink seeds just arrived from Barbados. Waiting on the light yellow seeds.