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Gardening

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It's gone. All gone.*

Gardening has made me hate butterflies and moths (larvae eat veg) and love wasps (kill larvae that eat veg).

4 1/2 raised beds, plus two compost heaps (with varying degrees of productivity**) and some rhubarb.

* Until next year
** They grow squash and tomatoes, and next year I need to do a better job of identifying the tomato plants and caging them.
 
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Pretty cool!

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Annual mandarin harvest coming on strong again ..

View attachment 100475


Bonnie,

What variety of mandarins do you have? We have 'D'Ancy', that old-fashioned seeded variety with the skin that just falls off the fruit. However, they don't begin to color until late November, and they truly do not get super sweet until late January. This makes for a nice, steady flow of citrus and the navels are good from mid-December to mid-February.

Congrats on your bounty!
 
Bonnie,

What variety of mandarins do you have? We have 'D'Ancy', that old-fashioned seeded variety with the skin that just falls off the fruit. However, they don't begin to color until late November, and they truly do not get super sweet until late January. This makes for a nice, steady flow of citrus and the navels are good from mid-December to mid-February.

Congrats on your bounty!

I'm not sure of the variety - the tree was here, producing strong, when I bought the property years ago. Skin falls off, seedless, last year was the sweetest yet - they start to ripen in late October/early November & are at their peak in December. I'd say early/mid January is the end of the season.
 
Partly because of our medically-truncated summer season, and partly because under the best of circumstances it's hard to grow anything in Paxson, we've nothing to contribute to this thread from Alaska. We grew some microgreens in the greenhouse and nothing else this year.

But.....

on the other hand.....

just picked these. Yippee! Key Lime Pie for Thanksgiving! Yumm.
IMG_2284.jpeg


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And this is our
IMG_2285.jpeg
tangerine. It was badly affected by some "cold" (that's what they call it here in Arizona....;)) last winter, so not a great crop this season - it's overshadowed by our other citrus, of which more later:
 
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So, to combine technology with gardening, I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with AeroGarden?

Pretty cool. I've seen those in catalogs before.

As a guy who over utilizes technology pretty much everywhere in my life, gardening and seed starting have somehow escaped unscathed. I start my seeds outdoors in trays under a bent piece of cattle panel with poly wrap over the top. If it gets too hot, I open the ends. For tomatoes, I start them in February, pot up in March, and transplant in April.
 
Pretty cool. I've seen those in catalogs before.

As a guy who over utilizes technology pretty much everywhere in my life, gardening and seed starting have somehow escaped unscathed. I start my seeds outdoors in trays under a bent piece of cattle panel with poly wrap over the top. If it gets too hot, I open the ends. For tomatoes, I start them in February, pot up in March, and transplant in April.

Yes, I never thought I'd go high tech with seedlings... lol. I do something similar to what you do in early spring. But now I'm even getting a touch screen with the Aerogarden! I can't wait for delivery. But it doesn't do nearly enough seedlings and is expensive so I've also ordered these lamps:

Mars 300W Truewatt 140W±5 LED Grow Light Full Spectrum Indoor Plant VEG Flower | eBay

and I'm making room in our laundry for my new "indoor garden" hobby. The winter's too long in Canada to go without fresh cut garden Italian types of lettuce. I also need a new, healthy hobby. I'm not into that funny weed people grow indoors but in reading about the technology and systems to follow, those folks sure laid the foundation for the indoor business. LED lights have now made it economical and hydroponic sure looks to make it grow fast. Hurry up Fedex!


The tomatoes look great!

Please explain these two pics.
 
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So, to combine technology with gardening, I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with AeroGarden? I just bought this system to get a jump on seedlings for the outdoor garden this year, and then for hopefully growing lettuce and herbs indoors in Canada in the winter:

Miracle-Gro AeroGarden Bounty with FREE Seed Starting System - AeroGarden Bounty - AeroGardens

I've watched some YouTube videos on this system and it looks promising:

AeroGarden VS Dirt - YouTube

Just an update on this new hobby of mine. I'm really liking it, much more than expected, and enjoying my specialty crops of salad greens that are hard to find in the stores up here. Now I don't have to wait for our short growing season... they sure grow fast too...

garden.jpg


This crop is red dandelion. Similar to those pesty weeds in your lawn. But I love eating them...

The Health Benefits of Eating Dandelion Greens | LIVESTRONG.COM
 
Just an update on this new hobby of mine. I'm really liking it, much more than expected, and enjoying my specialty crops of salad greens that are hard to find in the stores up here. Now I don't have to wait for our short growing season... they sure grow fast too...

View attachment 114403

This crop is red dandelion. Similar to those pesty weeds in your lawn. But I love eating them...

The Health Benefits of Eating Dandelion Greens | LIVESTRONG.COM


Excellent! (Are you absolutely sure that this is Taraxacum and not another, ahem, weed?):eek:
 
Excellent! (Are you absolutely sure that this is Taraxacum and not another, ahem, weed?):eek:

Ha! In researching this system (you will see the middle one is of my own making -- $80 compared to $300 (each) Aerogarden) that's where all the refinements to this technology came from. Plus, I order online and have it shipped to our mail service in the States, and my wife picks up the stuff and drives it through the border (we live 5 minutes from the border). When she declared it as her husband's "gardening supplies" she said the border guard did raise his eyebrows but waived her through.

But it really is for growing my speciality Italian lettuce only. I don't enjoy that other weed. It makes me paranoid then gives me the munchies... not good since I'm trying to lose weight! I'm not against it though. It really helped my father when he was dying from cancer. He was against it most of his life but at the end of his life, when he was in pain and had trouble eating, he tried it, and it really helped him. He said it made him feel better and it gave him his appetite back. I would visit him a lot when the prognosis was grim and when I left I would say, jokingly, "Dad, now don't just lie around in bed and smoke dope all day!". We'd laugh. I sure miss him. It will be three years next month that he passed. It really bothers me when people are against medical marijuana, especially for children with seizures.
 
Some nice looking gardens! Great idea for a thread as it ties in nicely with sustainability which is of course what Tesla is all about.

Our own garden is doing well. I really like my new cedar raised beds for our veggies. However it has been hot (25C most days) and dry so some of the veggies are bolting. And the raccoons ate all of my peas!

I have new seedlings that will go out into the garden probably at the end of this month. My 3.75 year old daughter helped me plant the seeds on the Canada Day long weekend. She has fun helping me harvest the veggies and she almost eats everything (just doesn't like greens that much, especially chard).

Always a busy time of year especially keeping up with the weeds, but luckily I don't have to do much watering as we have a complete in-ground sprinkler system. Just have to water containers of which I have quite a few especially in our greenhouse.

I also started a gardening blog to share info about my gardening experiences - not sure if it is acceptable here to post the link to it or not, probably not as it does contain some affiliate links and could be considered advertising. So PM me instead if you are interested in reading it and I'll send you the link.
 
Harvest and canning is in full swing in Sonoma. We put up 11 quarts of sauce today, bringing us to 25 on the year. Our consumption is about 60 quarts over the winter, so we're over a third of the way there. Last year we canned into October.

We also had a decent crop of apples this year, so those need to turn into pies, sauce, leather, etc.

I'm fermenting pickles. I don't process them. And this year I'm going to do jarred salsa since I grow all of the ingredients anyway.

Anyhow.. a couple of photos from today's work.. (4 jars still in the canner in the second photo).

IMG_4772.jpg

IMG_4774.jpg
 
Nicely done, Ohmman. The oppressive heat just wiped everything out for us except the peaches. Luckily the apricots ripened before the heat, but the critters filched too many of them. :mad: I planted the watermelons late (wanted to extend the home grown goodies into October this year instead of everything coming ripe now), and they have not amounted to much.

I believe that since the solstice we have had one day in the 80s (89), and fifty days over 100, with another seven in the coming week.

At least the citrus looks good for January - March.

I gotta give you some table grape cuttings this winter to supplement your snacking.