[OT] How Does Your Garden Grow?

[day late]

Let me say first off that if you want a plant to die, give it to me. Mrs late OTOH can make a chairleg sprout. So it came as a suprise to me the other day when She came to me complaining that Her garden this year is doing quite badly. Plants like the peppers and eggplant will flower and then the flowers fall off without any kind of bud/fruit or whatever. So I'm wondering if our ever present chemtrails might have anything to do with it. Anybody else having these kind of problems?

 

[Brooks]

daylate, what you have described can be a reflection of growing conditions, like temperature and rainfall. That's one of the reasons I try to grow a variety of veggies so that something will be happy with what Mr. Weather doles out. What has it been like for you?

 

[Deena in GA]

Nothing much is doing good here. We've already had to replant the corn, tomatoes and peppers 3times. Now my biggest and best producing pear tree is dying. I don't know what's going on. We are still in a technical drought situation although we have had more rain than last year. I haven't seen many chemtrails here, but then I wasn't aware of them until just a couple of months ago. Have only seen them one day since then, 7 lines, one above another in one direction.

 

[iamnoturmaid]

We have lived in this house two years. I have not been able to process the soil because it is full of rocks and I don't want to break my back on the garden of a rental. A few months ago I asked all the great folks here about container gardening. Someone gave me a link to an old mother earth article about planting in Plastic clothes baskets. I found some at the dollar store and got some veg plants for .99 cents, It is working out great. No problems with bugs or anything.

Thank you for all the great advice !

 

[Live Oak]

Chemtrails? Probably not.

Fourth year of a drought? Oh yeah.

My garden has about dried up even with the mulch I put on it. The sweet potatoes are in a "march or die" mindset and are still putting on growth. My collards are still growing but everything else is looking pretty poorly.

It would all do better if I irrigated but four years into this dry spell I'm reluctant to run the pump a lot for garden watering for fear of bottoming out the well.

Wonder how Taz, Brock, and Alan are doing with their gardens?

={(Oak)-

 

[susan48]

Deena, thats interesting about your corn. This year, for the first time, my corn simply never came up. I just can't figure it. My green beans were very slow in coming up. Everthing else seems to be doing ok,. I'll replant the corn and see what happens. Its so discouraging, as I've never had the corn fail like this. We've had our share of chemtrails, so its possible that they've had an effect. Be interesting to see if others are experiencing similar things.
Susan

 

[Mountain Mike]

My garden is doing quite well. This year, I added a bunch of peat moss, sand, and manure to the soil. No artificial fertilizers.

I went kinda wild on cherry tomatoes, and the plants are about 3' high, with several little tomatoes and lots of blossoms.

The pole beans are between 3' and 5' up the poles. About half my corn didn't come up, either, but the remaining stalks are about 1' high and growing well.

The peppers are blosoming, and there are a few young peppers already appearing.

I admit my garden is very modest, so I can afford to check each plant daily and "baby" it along.

 

[Reliance]

After the last snow fall a few weeks ago, the hills are alive with vibrant green. Our seedlings look happy for now.

We always have trouble growing in Colorado. The temperatures vary wildly. Hail comes down erratically. Snow in June is not unheard of.

My garden grows by the love and labor of my DH. I get to place my orders!

 

[Blue]

Here in Florida my veggie garden is doing well, I water every other day in the early morning hours, fortunately I'm on a deep well. But several of my friends have had flowers on their citrus trees fall off and no fruit develope.

 

[Prairie Lady]

I'm out here on the plains in Colorado and my garden just survived 12 tornados and baseball size hail this week(minor shredding of spinach) so, yes, Colorado weather is DEFINATELY erratic! Actually, my garden is doing the best it ever has since revamping a lot of my soil this year and doing container gardening with custom made soil.

We actually had a REAL spring for a change rather than watching the temp jump from 65 in April to 106 in May as is our usual.

I was able to put my tomatoes and peppers in early yet, it's cool enough for potatoes still. We have had some well wanted and needed snow and rain. Even my flowers have been happier than ever, especially my roses!

Drought is so hard, even will well water because it just doesn't do what rain water does. Intensive bed gardening really makes the world of difference in drought or out of drought. I only have to water for an hour or so now and then, and even if we end up with that hot dry summer after all, it's still safer to have the beds.

PL

 

[Anne in TN]

We are in Southeast Tenn. We have been in this rental for 10 years. Each year we thought we might move so we never grew a garden. Finally this year my husband, Dean said he was going to have one. We planted both size tomatos, peas, carrots, onions, and potatos. They all seem to be doing fine but then what have we got to compare them with?

For the potatoes, my husband dug a large hole in the ground and put down the eyes. after they grew tall and leafy, he surrounded the stems with a pile of dirt. They grew tall and leafy so he surronded them again with more dirt. He kept doing that until he has a mound with tall leafy stems growing up. He learned somewhere that people can plant potatoes in a barrel that way. You can get a whole lot of potatoes. I shall report to you all at harvest time and tell you how it worked.

Anne

 

[Senses On]

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Are you referring to that barely thawed mudpile?

 

[day late]

Thanks for the answers folks. Without a doubt the drought has had an effect, but Mrs. late has dealt with that before and everything was fine. I do notice however that alot of people seem to be haveing unusual trouble with corn. Strange.

 

[Laurie the Mom]

Here in Wyoming I haven't even been able to plant yet - too cold and wet. The weather's always very unpredictable here, so planting in early June isn't unusual. Unfortunately, it usually freezes in September. Short growing season, anyone?

I did plant two trash cans of potatoes, though. They aren't growing yet, I think they may have frozen. We'll see!

Laurie

 

[Amazed]

We've had ALOT of rain here in northern MA - same as last summer. My strawberries and radish are doing great. Peas are up as is spinach, lettuce, and siss chard. Birds are definitely a problem though. Beans just broke through in last day or so. Very slow but it's been cold. I've lost 3 tomato plants and a pepper to cutworm - even with the cup around them Sigh. My garden is pretty small so I'm going to do some container stuff too.
In the flower garden, I've had several plants bud out but not flower. The rain has rotted them I guess. Gives me a whole new appreciation for the pioneers. They depended on their produce. Luckily, I can still go to the grocery store if my garden goes belly up.

 

[grannyclampett]

My garden is growing very well. The radishes grew faster than any I have ever seen. They went to seed about a week and a half ago. We pulled about half for the pigs and left the rest for the butterflys. They all seem happy with the arrangement.

Went a little crazy with the cucumbers. We'll be able to keep half the county in pickles.

Potatos have bloomed and we should have new potatos {my favorite] any time now.

Green peas are loaded.
Cabbage is almost ready.
Okra is up.
Squash is up and should be blooming now but are a little late for some reason.
Sweet potatos look good.

If we can keep the deer out and the rain coming, we'll be doing good.

 

[Nikoli Krushev]

Well my bell peppers and eggplants didn't make it, but the tomatoes, canteloupes, pinto beans, squash, and jalepenos are doing great. We have been eating fresh squash for about two weeks and my wife fried up a batch of green tomatoes this weekend. The jalepenos are just right at the borderline of being too hot to eat and are about two and a half inches long right now. The bananna peppers have a twang to them as well, probably because I planted them in between the jalepeno plants. I also put seven tomato plants along that row hoping the tomatoes would spice up for mexican hot sauce later.

 

[pliny the younger]

Fruit trees bearing like never before. Have multiple hives now so pollination is not a problem, but all the trees with the exception of a couple of older apples have flowers and fruit perhaps three times the amount in previous years.

And all the hives are going crazy with work. Have had to add emergency honey supers to give them room. Have never had this kind of hive success ever, let alone this time of year.

Rest of the garden predictable with the onio/garlic/herbs doing well and everything else sort of limping along as best it can in the rain and low light through the constant chemhaze.

Rhubarb produced beyond all reason. Mass quanitites. Also looks good for vines and small fruits like raspberries and marions.

Hear from friends that eastern WA state has gotten enough water and things are going great. Look forward to suitcase size tomatoes and tons of ohenry peaches for canning.

 

[big kumara]

Our sweet corn and green beans aren't up either--the soil is too cold. Everyone around here who planted their warm-weather crops early are now replanting them due to a nasty cold spell we had last week. I'm still waiting to plant tomatoes, peppers and sweet potatoes.

We just had a two-inch rain (which we needed) from a thunderstorm, so our garden is a sea of mud. Luckily, the tornado and hail missed us.

FWIW--Drought effects on trees are cummulative and may not show up for years. Fruit trees are susceptible to a myriad of diseases--if they they are stressed by years of drought, they are even more likely to catch something fatal. Fireblight is a serious problem in stressed pear trees.

Fruit trees that bloom but don't set fruit (assuming proper pollination)-- could be botrytis blossom blast; could be hot, dry wind during pollination period; could be cold, wet weather during pollination. Any weather condition that beats up or dries up the flowers too fast will affect pollination success. Trees that are stressed may also abort fruit that does set, in order to conserve energy.

Vegetable plants often drop their blooms when night temperatures get too cool. They are also susceptible to botrytis (most everything is). They may also drop flowers when daytime temps get too high.

 

[suzy]

Garden season here this year is so far a fizzle! Our yellow azelia was loaded with blooms, they turned brown and fell off. Other things are doing fantastic. Several oaks have grown two feet this year. We have had unusually cold and WET weather (over 5 1/2 inches of rain this month. Grapes are loaded, cherry tree isn't, rasberries are loaded, and blueberries loaded. Not much fruit appearing on the trees. Herbs are all doing well though. It has to be the weather.
(Iowa).

suzy

 

[bigwavedave]

i'm usually lucky With silver bells and cockleshells, And pretty maids all in a row.

but if you must have something else, please consider the following -

And How Does Your Garden Grow?
Toxic Time Bombs on The Home Front

by Sandra Hickman, Author & Editor of Canine Health Newsletter
Copyright© 1995

The following article was reprinted from the February/March 1997 issue of Canine Health Newsletter by permission of the author. All rights reserved. No part of this article shall be reprinted without the express permission of Cyberpet.

The flowering currants are in bloom, signalling the arrival of our hummingbird family and Spring is here, even though the weather outside may say otherwise. Time to turn our thoughts to the garden and what goes into it.

The average homeowner probably doesn't know what is in those neatly packaged products all designed to keep the turf and garden weed and pest free! What does this have to do with canine health you may ask? Plenty! I decided to take a tour of my local garden shop and look at pest control products. What a plethora of products, one whole wall was lined with all manner of slug baits, aphid and weed control products; all for homeowner use! Having been a landscape designer and landscaper for many years, and holding a pesticide license, I learned the hard way what is in them.

PESTICIDES

Pesticides are big business.. to the tune of $30 billion dollars! For home use they are divided into Insecticides, Herbicides and Fungicides.

So you want to get rid of all those dandelions plaguing your lawn and sidewalk! You have a wide choice of products: Killex, made by Green Cross is a product that jumped out at me.. contains 2-4-D, Mecoprop and Dicamba. Weed Stop, another product manufactured by Laters that contains similar ingredients plus Trifluratin. Other products containing 2-4-D are Aqua-Kleen, Cloroxone, Dacamine, Estasol, Esteron, Esteron 64, Formula 40, Herbate 2,4,D, Hoe-Grass, Ten-Ten, Verton, and Weedar. Weedex, Weed-B-Gone, and Weedone also contain Fenoprop.

2-4-D was a major component (50%) of the product Agent Orange, manufactured by Monsanto, which was used extensively throughout Vietnam as a defoliant. Dogs that were given low doses of 2-4-D in their food for 2 years died. Toxicologists say that dogs probably do not excrete Organic acids efficiently! Low doses fed to rats over two years caused an increase in malignant tumors. Female mice given a single injection of 2-4-D developed cancer (reticulum-cell sarcomas). An increased occurrence of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma was found among a Kansas and Nebraska farm population associated with the spraying of 2-4-D. All the above products are reputed to be hormone disruptors; in other words causing birth defects, reproduction problems and endocrine disrupting effects.

A product named Weed Rite contains paraquat and diquat and 2-4-D. Paraquat is a deadly chemical; there is no antidote to this poison.. ingest a little and you're history! Most of these come in very handy spray bottles, conveniently mixed, for a little squirt here and a little squirt there.

Monsanto's specialty is Roundup which is supposed to be a broad spectrum herbicide, that doesn't linger in the soil, it contains glyphosate. Sidekick is another name for it. This is the herbicide that Monsanto has developed all those genetically engineered foods for. The seeds of these special plants have developed a resistance to Roundup, which in essence means more Roundup being sprayed on food crops. Roundup has been found to be the third most commonly reported cause of pesticide poisoning among farm workers.

MCPA is another herbicide, similar to 2-4-D which is a Phenoxyacetic Compound or (hormone) compound, which is formulated as esters; this little gem is used to kill creeping buttercup, chickweed, clover and thistle.

Then we have Casoron, a granular powder. After weeding in the fall or late winter, this is applied to the soil to prevent weeds and seeds from taking off in the spring. The chemical name is dichlobenil, and it is known as a benzonitrile compound. I saw this under the name of Webfoot!

Want to get rid of those pesky aphids? We have a product called Malathion, in which several studies have documented developmental and reproductive defects in test animals, producing detectable mutations in three different types of cultured human cells, including white blood cells and lymph cells. It has been shown to affect both the adrenal glands and the liver of rats, and has effects on blood clotting time. Malathion is also suspected of being carcinogenic.

We also have Carbaryl or Sevin for cutworms and sow bugs and over 100 species of insects. Carbaryl is considered moderate to very toxic to humans. Inhaling the fumes can range from symptoms of nausea to convulsions. Ingestion of carbaryl affects the lungs, kidneys and liver.

Organophosphates, carbamates and chlorinated derivates of nicotine work against pests by interfering with, or inhibiting cholinesterase. What is cholinesterase? Cholinesterase is an enzyme needed for the proper functioning of the nervous systems of humans, other vertebrates and insects. Exposure to cholinesterase inhibiting chemicals can result from inhalation, ingestion, eye or skin contact from manufacture or mixing and application of these pesticides.

Electrical switching centers, called synapses are found throughout the nervous system. Muscles, glands and nerve fibres called neurons are stimulated by the constant firing of signals across these synapses. Stimulating signals are usually carried by a chemical called acetylcholine. Stimulating signals are discontinued by a specific type of cholinesterase enzyme, acetylcholinesterase, which breaks down the acetylcholine. These important chemical reactions are usually going on all the time at a very fast rate, with acetylcholine causing stimulation and acetylcholinesterase ending the signal. (Phew, I hope I didn't lose you!) If cholinesterase-affecting insecticides are present in the synapses, however, this situation is thrown out of balance. Thus when a body receives too great an exposure to cholinesterase inhibiting compounds, the body is unable to break down the acetylcholine.

Electrical impulses can fire away continuously unless the number of messages being sent through the synapse is limited by the action of cholinesterase. Repeated and unchecked firing of electrical signals can cause uncontrolled rapid twitching of some muscles, paralysed breathing, convulsions and in extreme cases, death.

There now is considerable evidence that widely used pesticides suppress immune responses to bacteria, viruses, parasites and tumors making people and animals more vulnerable to disease. Most pesticides on the market have never been adequately tested in laboratories for immunotoxic effects. Pesticides reduce the number of white blood cells and disease fighting lymphocytes and impair their ability to respond to and kill viruses.

They alter the development of the thymus and spleen, which are key immune organs.

Let's not forget about that new wood deck you've just built, if the wood has been pressure treated, chances are it's been preserved with the chemical Pentachlorophenal, aka as PBB's. PBB's are right up there with Dioxins, Furans and PCB's and known as Persistent Organohalogens, hormone disrupters and are extremely toxic. Think about that as you and your 4-legged pets lounge around absorbing all those toxins through your skin!

Do you really need these toxic time bombs in your garden? Think about how often your pets and children play on lawns or run through your garden, bringing these chemicals into your home. Animals lick their feet ingesting these poisons, rubbing against sprayed leaves or bushes can lead to ingestion through the skin. Just breathing this stuff can cause problems; I know, because I was the victim of pesticide poisoning having had to use it for commercial landscape jobs. I vowed, never again would I ever handle pesticides of any type and just being in that garden centre for 15 minutes made me feel nauseous and dizzy.

[ 06-01-2001: Message edited by: bigwavedave ]

 

[suzy]

BWD, THANK YOU for posting this! I had no idea what some of these chemies were. We don't use them in our yard, but all of the neighbors do, and I hide in the house every time there out spraying.

suzy

 

[Michiana MaJo]

Rabbits are the bane of my garden's existence, especially the cole plants (cabbages, collards, kohlrabi, etc.) I finally got the ingredients together to make up a batch of Jerry Baker's Varmint Spray, and I think it's working....can't see any further damage since using it.

Since rabbits like peas and spinach, I'm surprised they left them for me, but they're doing great. I would've planted more peas, but was afraid the rabbits would just destroy them.

In recent years, rabbits have destroyed my beans, too, so this time, when they're up, I'm using the varmint spray on them, also. I just planted them, a couple of days ago, and after this rain is thru, will cover the planted area with row cover until the plants are up and running.

Other than that, everything is growing just fine. My asparagus, now finished with producing, is almost as tall as I am.

Strawberries are starting to ripen, so covered them with netting to thwart the birds, who much on them before they're even ripe.

Gotta watch those potatoes, tho. Mine are just starting to poke thru, and already, the potato bugs are in the neighborhood- I've smushed one or two every day. Will have to have my Sevin ready for the little boogers. Last year, I didn't need to spray- just picked off a few bugs, but looks like this year, the sprayer will get some use.

I have a pretty good sized garden, but ran out of room, so can't plant the corn I had hoped to grow. I need an acre! I have lots more seeds than I can use, but I save them....most will grow for at least a couple of years.

I wonder if anyone, here, has tried Spray 'n
Grow.....I have some, but haven't tried using it, yet. Their literature makes it sound like it's a miracle product.

 

[Live Oak]

Pliny I envy your luck with bees this year. With the drought our honey crop looks like it's not even going to approach what we got last year.

={(Oak)-