What do you Grow?? The Garden Thread

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Loving these photos and descriptions. I had an idea for bindweed that I might get to try out, painting some of the leaves with weed killer, the tiniest portion of root left behind means it's like being on a merry go round.

Karamazov, I still can't see your picture of the rose, but I rejoice knowing it is blooming.

Amity, To get rid of vines, in my experience, you have to cut off the vine and leave about 2 feet of the stem above the ground. If there are no other plants around, you can just spray the offending vine with weed killer. The plant will take the weed killer to its roots and die.

If you have other plants around the vines, again, cut of the vine leaving 1-2 feet of it. Carefully paint the remaining leaves with weed killer. You can now purchase weed killer in a gel that can be painted on carefully.

Most weed killers, in my experience, take 1-2 weeks to do the job. So patience is required.

New! My Seminole pumpkins and purple pole beans have sprouted in the soil They are so cute at this stage.

Wish I had a nice compost bin like that.I use the chickens,toss everything in there and let them shred.I started putting chunks of rotten wood in the coop, they peck the bugs out and break the wood down. Gives them something to do.

Nice looking compost, domineekee. I also wish I had one like that and someone to turn the pile. What I do is dig a big hole where I want to plant next year, dump kitchen scraps, grass clippings, etc. into the hole and when it is almost full, cover it with a bit of soil and then by next year I have a great place to plant another fruit tree. Fruit trees do very well with this preparation.

What are the yellow flowers? I realize they are probably weeds, but I let some of the "weeds" to grow because they have beautiful flowers.

What vine are you growing? Squash? Watermelon?

Misslizard, I'd love to hear more about your chickens. We keep thinking about it and then think it would be a terrible mess and expensive to feed. We would also have to protect them from predators. We have also thought of guinea hens, which eat the bugs and fly into the trees at night on their own. They are supposed to make a lot of noise though. I used to have rabbits up north and their manure was exceedingly appreciated by the garden.

How do you keep your chickens safe from the black bears?

Those are turnips, the greens are good to eat for a few weeks, then they get all prickly and tough, but at some point just before it flowers, the greens are nice to eat.



Those are hollyhock plants pushing up through the pavingstones of a neglected greenhouse. It's on the "to do" list but today I overdid things, didn't eat, had several dizzy spells, didn't hydrate, carried on gardening and sort of crashed.

Why do you keep them, do they lay eggs?

Weed killers work best in the fall. In the Spring the plants push up sap up the plant. While they move sugars from the leaves to the roots in the fall. So, if they don't work now, try again in the fall.

https://www.realagriculture.com/2012/10 ... ter-frost/

A dog pack.Bears don’t like dogs.
The hens have a coop inside a fenced run.The top has wire on it so nothing can climb in.
Raccoons, skunks and possums are the worst when it comes to chickens.The dogs keep those away also.The black snakes get a few eggs every now and then, but they also eat rats so I share.If I was to try and hatch chicks then they would be a big problem.

I have three hens, two Easter eggers and a Light Bhrama. They are gentle breeds, will hand feed and lay all the eggs I need.I don’t eat eggs daily so two or three eggs a day are plenty.I give them laying pellets, whole corn, kitchen scraps and garden weeds.In the fall they get windfall fruit.
They really do a good job of shredding stuff I toss in there and the manure doesn’t have weed seeds.It can be high in nitrogen so best to not overdo it.
I ordered a small homestead package from a hatchery so they were all sexed.There is a small aviary on a porch and the chicks go there till they get big enough a snake won’t swallow them.
Guineas can be loud but everyone claims they really eat the ticks up and they don’t scratch as bad as chickens.They prefer to nest in trees.My small town has a flock of them that runs wild all over the place.They used to roost outside the door of the mental health clinic.They put a fake owl up to try and deter them (all the poop by the front door)but someone stole the owl.

Just wandered down to the veg patch and over night the potatoes have died, the runner beans have died, the courgettes have died. Everything else looks great, the broad beans, carrots, lettuce, brocolli but these three crops have been suddenly decimated. I've never seen anything like it in 27 years here.

Oh, that’s awful
Any clue as to what’s done them in?

Some kind of disease I think, they all looked great too days ago. I'd be gutted if my spinach, brocolli, lettuce had died but not so bothered, I'll just have to plant the beds out with kale and lettuce that I have in trays. The suddenness of it is startling. The foliage is darkening and wilting from the top down.

Looks like it's called verticillium wilt.

Ah, okey dokey then: hope they work out better
Something like that happened with one potato I grew some years ago, but I just dug it up without thinking to check exactly what it was.
the bed it was in was a bit dry for them come to think of it: too close for comfort to a copper beech.

As long as the greens live