A Gardeners Forum Forums Members History Forum Life 2006 Gardens and all we do

It's nice to be back. Microsoft is such a pain. Well everything has received its water and fertilizer today so I'm in good shape. Take care and I'll talk to you tomorrow or maybe Sunday. tomorrow we are canning peaches and I may just come home and fall into bed. But I expect to have loads of fun. The ladies from church are getting together for this and they are a great group of women. These are some of my favorite times.

Have a great time Tammy and maybe by the time your back...I will have loaded those pictures

Hi Penny,

Well the canning wore me out. I left the house at 8:45a.m. and got back at 7:45p.m. I was exhaused but we did somewhere near 150 quarts of peaches so I think we did great.

I was covered from neck to knees in peach juice halfway through the day. Next time I have an apron before I do this lol.

I made a comment about it looking like my water broke when my pants got wet and embarrassed one of the younger husbands lol. Pour guy. I'm forever speaking before I think. but everyone was nice about it.

Hopefully today I will get my canner back and can start in on the peach jam and then the mint jam before we go on to the apples and horseradish.

Hi Tammy..

How is the canning going? Have you gotten it all done yet? You were very busy...made me tired just reading what you have been up too
I have finally loaded some pics of my fall flowers but i am going to take some close ups and send them to you because i think some of the plants may be perenials and come back?
So i'd like your thoughts on what you think some may be ok.

Sounds good to me. I have lots of canning to do. I still have to do the peach jam and the mint jam and the apple mint jam and the mint jam and the horseradish. That's quite a list lol.

I did take a few pics for you lastnight Tammy but will get a few more close ups for you to have a peek at.
I did thin out my tomato plants lastnight too, in fact i removed 3 plants, they wernt really doing much and not growing, and just looked really spindley, so out they came, and removed a ton of branches off the other ones in hopes that some of those tomatoes will finally turn red!!
Stay tuned.

I do hope that those tomatoes finally turn red Penny ^-^
But I also have a question...how exactly do you can things..both of my grandmothers used to do it and they would send me their preserves that they got that year...besides the point though
Do you need some kind of speacial Machine?
can somebody walk me through it?

It would be much appreciated ^-^;;

Hi there Jon.

I am probably the worst person to ask, i have never ever tried it, but TK(tammy) will no doubt know, she was just canning things this past weekend i believe, so she'd be one to ask, or send her a pm and she'll respond, but her and i chat on here almost everyday so she'd see it here too.
Are you growing some tomatoes too?
Mine are getting nice and biog, just no redness to then yet, thats why i thinned out the other plants in hopes that the sun will get through better and in a few days if they are still green then i'll pick them and bring them and bring them inside to ripen.

Tammy, how do you do the horshradish? I still have a ton left to do too. it is worth it..

Yes I am growing tomatoes...but they always die(not enough Nitrogen in the soil?)

He he ok Ill send her a PM because I am really interested in this both my grandmothers used to send me fig preserves..they really knew how to do it but they have long since stopped..

Best of Regards,

Good luck with canning...I'm sure its easy to do...listen to me...someone who has never done it

Horseradish requires a really strong motor in your food processor.

All you do is shave off the outer skin cut it into chunks and then put it in the food processor. Add vinegar and your done. it lasts about 4 weeks in the refrigerator.

I haven't found a creamy horseradish sauce recipe yet but I'm still looking.

Medon if you don't have enough nitrogen get some rabbit food (alphalpha pellets and scratch into the soil. They decompose when they get wet and the plants love it. Especially tomatoes and mint.

Well someone went out and destroyed a fair amount of my garden, or what was left of it. I certainly seem to be able to upset people.

Anyway with that said I went out yesterday and dug up all of my herbs except the chives and the rosemary. I can't dig up the rosemary until I find a home for it. The chives I'll probably get in tomorrow. I've found homes for the dusty miller and the bulbs. The rest I'll just have to keep looking for a place for them. The miniature rose is going to be difficult to place because it looks so bad right now. But I can't bring it in because it won't survive inside for me.

Well cross your fingers.

thats terrible Tammy...can you salvage some of it?

Well today I lifted all the crocus and daffodil bulbs. There certainly were a bunch of crosus'. And I transplanted the dusty miller into pots. I hope the lady I am giving them to can come and get them. Taking them to church will be a bit of a problem.

I still have to post those pictures for you too see what you think some are...so that I'll know whether to throw them out or keep them.
I will get that done for you this week and if anyone else wants to guess what they might be...thats fine too

you should probably post them in Mystery Section. Garden Mom and some of the others are much better at identifying plants than I am. But I'll look in too just in case I get lucky.

Sounds like a plan...but I am sure you'll do fine with them!!

tk hooper - moved the dusty miller to pots? Are those those small powdery annuals? Do you keep them in the house over winter?

Dusty millers are a silver foliaged bush that can reach as much as 24 inches tall I think. They bloom in May with little yellow flowers that are considered insignificant. They are used mostly for their foliage as a boarder plant and to give the garden winter interest. They are a perennial rather than an annual and will live for many years.

These do not have to be keep in the house. They will do well outside all year. But they do like a rich soil so mulching with a bark mulch is a good idea in my book. But then there are many people who know much more than I do.

I transplanted mine into pots because I will be moving before next spring and I need to find a home for them this fall so they can be put in the ground at their new home and establish good roots so they survive the winter.

Now for a garden update: lol. Juanita came over today and I was able to give her the crosus and daffodils and boy howdy have they multiplied. So all is good there. We also dug up some of the wormwood, the miniature red rose, the rosemary, and two of the mums.

I also let her get some seeds out of the seed trade box. She was thrilled. I also showed her the compost pile. She said the easiest way to handle that was to get her husbands truck and then we could just load it on the back on a tarp. That sounds like a good idea to me. So now it's down to mostly annuals.

Well this is one of my longer posts and it's way past time for me to eat breakfast. So I'll talk to you all later.

Well today I took some of my leftover crowded plants and put them in the space I cleared from giving those plants to Juanita. I can't believe I still need more space to separate out the rest of them. Well I suppose I could put them in the old daffodil bed there is room up there and plenty of nice soil.

Before I replanted that first area I put down green sand and then put alphalpha pellets in the planting holes. The mint loved it when I did that so hopefully the peppers and nodding onions will like it too. I'd like to get one more crop before the end of the season. I may be hoping for to much but I just got to try. Knowing that I probably won't have a garden next year is just bothering me big time. Which is so suprising because this is only my second year gardening.

Sounds like you have really made some progress Tammy...now onto my pics...i have taken them and will post them this weekend for you.

It's the weekend lol. I'm so bad sometimes. Just kidding Penny.

I need to get out there with the bloom booster and give them all one last shot but I just got back from the post office where I mailed off all of my trades that have been waiting on stamps. Maybe tomorrow morning early I can get it done. Now I'm heading for a nap.

Have a great weekend.

How is the garden soming along Tammy...did you get anymore seeds?