Monday Update 5-15-17

[ysabetwordsmith]

These are some posts from the later part of last week in case you missed them:

Sunday Yardening
Sunday Yardening (with photos)
Poem: "Yon Sèl Lang Se Janm Ase"
Saturday Yardening (with photos)
How to Spot Fascism
Thursday Yardening
Wednesday Yardening

Three Weeks for Dreamwidth
Hot Chicks
Reframing Comfort Food Commercial
Screamin' Squirrel Snacks
Jumble Munch
Heave Ho Anger Management Commercial





There will be a half-price sale in the Shiv thread of Polychrome Heroics this week.  Come shop, or watch for new things to appear as they get sponsored.


Poetry in Microfunding:
"A Hope and a Promise" belongs to Polychrome Heroics and has 6 new verses.  Aidan and Mrs. Ozenne discuss secure attachment.  "Essential for Human Survival" belongs to Polychrome Heroics: Cassandra and has 6 new verses.  Groundhog and Cassandra explore the snack room.  "The Inner Transition" belongs to Polychrome Heroics: Berettaflies and has 7 new verses.  Valor's Widow finds out what Stylet has in his backpack.

Weather has been intermittently wet but is mostly dry now.  Today is sunny and warm.  There is still a little standing water in some fields.   A new mourning dove nest under the kitchen window on the porch has two white eggs.  Currently blooming: violets, dandelions, honeysuckle, spiderwort, carnations, marigolds, petunias, lantana, million bells, snapdragons, zinnias, chives, white globe allium, firecracker plant, white poppy, yellow poppy, red poppy, foxglove, torenia, yarrow, iris, peonies.

Comments

[zesty_pinto]

Hey, since you've got an incredibly green thumb; I'm trying to grow out some vegetables. Would you recommend anything for 60 degree weather? I'm plotting out tomatoes, maybe some squash, and snap peas, but I'm not sure if the beans can handle 40 degree nights.

Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

You're doing it backwards. Tomatoes and squash are summer crops, and they don't do well without heat.

There are plenty of things that grow in cooler temperatures, though!

This list with names and pictures is divided into frost-tolerant crops, frost-sensitive crops, and warm-season crops. Anything that burns in the sun or bolts in the heat tends to be a cool-season crop. Some are both: if you grow cilantro (for the leaves) it's a cool-season crop, but coriander (same species, different cultivars, grown for the seeds) is a warm-season crop.

Now for the stunts: you can gain half a zone to a full zone with each protective covering. Frex, most people cover their baby tomato plants. The fancy word is cloche, and they used to be made of glass, but almost everyone just cuts the bottom off a plastic milk jug, which works great. If you put that under a hoop house, it gets even warmer. In this article you can see both. Floating row covers offer another option.

There are also ways to warm up soil faster. For tomatoes, you can get black plastic trays to go around the plants, warming the soil, suppressing weeds, and retaining moisture.

For hardcore garden stunting, but full of individual ideas usable at a much lower skill level, I highly recommend The Winter Harvest. It's also great garden pr0n even if you don't do winter gardening.

Re: Well...

[zesty_pinto]

Wow, I had a feeling you were the right person to ask. Thanks for all this info, it'll give me something to figure out!

Re: Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

You're welcome!

I forgot to mention: beans are a cool-season crop too. Broad beans were listed as frost-tolerant, but at 40F nights, most beans should work. Snap peas are perfect. Tomatoes are probably okay but grow slowly in cool temperatures; either choose cool-tolerant varieties or put a black tray around them and/or a milk jug over them. Here's an article about tomatoes and temperatures. Soil needs to be really warm for squash; wait on those, unless you want to start them indoors.

Re: Well...

[zesty_pinto]

That's great to hear, I wanted to start early on beans so I can try making dilly beans without worrying about using old stock more prone to withering, and I have a whole bunch of sprouted stalks that I am thinking about planting soon, so this is awesome news.

I'll definitely keep the tomatoes in mind, and your link reminded me that I found a bunch of orphaned green onion crops that I might transplant to my plot (they're part of an old section of community garden that's going to get mulched in the next couple of days).

One last question while I have your attention: any chance I can grow smaller garlic cloves without them coming out tiny in turn? I tend to get annoyed peeling the really tiny cloves so would rather find some other use for them that isn't as time-intensive and planting them would at least give them something to do, so I was wondering...

Re: Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> That's great to hear, I wanted to start early on beans so I can try making dilly beans without worrying about using old stock more prone to withering, and I have a whole bunch of sprouted stalks that I am thinking about planting soon, so this is awesome news. <<

Good plan.

>> I'll definitely keep the tomatoes in mind, and your link reminded me that I found a bunch of orphaned green onion crops that I might transplant to my plot (they're part of an old section of community garden that's going to get mulched in the next couple of days). <<

Green onions should do fine, especially if they are already growing nearby.

>>One last question while I have your attention: any chance I can grow smaller garlic cloves without them coming out tiny in turn? I tend to get annoyed peeling the really tiny cloves so would rather find some other use for them that isn't as time-intensive and planting them would at least give them something to do, so I was wondering...<<

Apparently not. Small cloves make small garlic, big cloves make big garlic. Consider investing in starts of a giant cultivar.

If you roast garlic cloves, you can just squeeze them out of the shell.

Re: Well...

[zesty_pinto]

Shame about the garlic. Maybe I'll just save the tiny bits for soups or something instead. Thanks again!

Re: Well...

[ysabetwordsmith]

You could put garlic cloves in a tea bag for making soup or stock, which makes them easier to pull out before serving. Rub off the loose outside hulls if they're dirty, maybe cut the cloves in half to release more flavor, and put them in the bag. Any other whole spices like bay leaf or peppercorns can go in there too. You can make or buy reusable muslin tea bags for this purpose.