RpR said: Why do you punch holes in your carrots?

Look everyone, my first cauliflower!!!!!!! Its little but I don't care it's my very first cauliflower!!!! Eeeeeeee!!!!!!

Well done Anne. It may be small but it is perfect, so white. Will you be eating it raw or cooked?

tigerpaws said: Well done Anne. It may be small but it is perfect, so white. Will you be eating it raw or cooked?

It won't become eating it. I HATE the stuff, even with cheese on it. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to grow it for someone else. I just love to grow things and enjoy the experience. The heads are cooking on the stove right now. My mom and her husband like it. I much prefer broccoli!!

That looks great, Anne - cauliflower isn't the easiest thing to grow, for sure!

Weedwhacker said: That looks great, Anne - cauliflower isn't the easiest thing to grow, for sure!

Sure isn't. And these plants went through the Arctic blast. (With protection) The variety is, I think, Amazing from Baker Creek. Amazing is supposed to be easy to do and in heavy soils which is why I went with that one. The plants never got big and fluffy so I was literally shocked to see that they did anything at all. Maybe I'll do better next year. (Yeah right )

New batch of seedling lettuce under a grow light. I've been growing varieties that can be harvested leaf-by-leaf rather than as whole heads.


Here's the current bunch, with about half the lowest leaves clipped. I clip enough for that day's eating and don't try to store it.


Pole beans are shooting up the twine trellis. Lots of flowers and some baby beans.

Last year I did not grow eggplants. But decided I would grow some this spring so I just went and ordered seed of my favorite which is a lovely purple striped one called Annina. While I was at it ordering I also ordered more basil seeds. I do love to grow basil.

I planted spinach and radish seeds outside today. Might get rain/frozen precip Tuesday but I think those two crops and tolerate and come up when it's a good time.

My onion seedlings are (so far) doing exceptionally well this year; I started the seeds on Feb. 1st

these are the seedlings on Feb. 9th, on their way from the warm sunroom to my plant light setup in our "workshop"


these are the seedlings today, Feb. 17th; I planted 4 seeds in most of the cells, 5 in a few (to use up all of the seeds), and got excellent germination - if these don't continue doing well I would say I have only myself to blame!

Those look so fresh and green! Cute!!

Went in Tractor Supply this morning. All the cool garden stuff was out. Bonnie plants were out but was NOT paying 6 bucks per plant. I was standing out in front of the rack saying "That's outrageous!" Aloud. However, I did get a bundle of onions.
Inside at the beautiful, beautiful seed racks, I was tempted to buy so many big fat red hybrid tomatoes but they were too expensive and I don't like hybrids because there's no point saving seed out of them if they don't come true to type.
I did pick up a live Hibiscus plant in a box for a gift and an organic packet of Super Sioux tomatoes. I had a packet of SuperSweet cherry tomatoes in my hand for awhile but put them back. Maybe I'll change my mind and get em next time.

Hi Ms. Critterologist... Jill,
I have a dumb question. I've haven't had a problem with Squash Vine Borers yet but I've heard lots of people complaining about them so I have looked into it a couple of times. I figure they will show up sooner or later, they always do so I thought I would try to be prepared. All the info I have seen is similar to this website from the University of Wisconsin. https://vegento.russell.wisc.e...

They all say that the moths usually emerge from late May (depending on the website) until the end of July and immediately begin laying their eggs on the vines of squashes and curcurbits. So, this probably is a really dumb question so you can all have a good chuckle, my feelings won't be hurt! But... since you know when they are coming couldn't you preemptively cover the vines to keep them safer? It doesn't sound like you need to cover the whole plant with insect cloth which could work but you'd have to uncover them to pollinate the plants which sounds like a pain.

Couldn't you just cover the vines? I used to use a lot of bird netting until I discovered tulle, it works much better! But I still have bags and bags of smallish pieces of bird netting and tulle. Couldn't you take a piece of netting, say 3' x 3' and bunch it up and just very loosely fold it around the stems as the plant grows? The moths would have trouble getting to the stems but it would leave the leaves and flowers open to sun and pollinators. I've done something similar many times and it has worked pretty well.

And, in the past I always had pill bugs eating through the stems of my squashes and zucchinis. I learned to spray to kill the bugs and then wrap the stems in paper tape, the stuff you get at the pharmacy for cuts and to cover stitches. It's cheap, it lets in air and water and most of my plants healed up pretty well.

And I tend to agree with Repentantslide. Rareseeds (Baker Creek) just isn't what it used to be. They used to have a much bigger variety. And the last couple of years they sent me some broccoli packets and squash varieties that were not what they were supposed to be. I use a lot of different vendors but I do like Victory Seeds a lot.

And I've been growing Casserta zucchini for the last few years. I like it a lot. It grows into a 6-8-10 foot vine with tendrils that root in the dirt similar to winter squash. It's super prolific!!

And spring is almost here! Happy gardening everyone.

I've wondered about using tulle, especially since I had pretty good luck covering cucumbers with it last year. But the cucumbers were all parentocarpic varieties (no pollination needed), and I couldn't quite see keeping up with trying to hand pollinate. It didn't occur to me I could mostly protect the stems while leaving the flowers exposed! Definitely worth a try, and thank you very much!

I'm also glad to learn of a vining variety of zucchini.

Pssst Anne @TomatoNut95

I grew Super Sioux . . . . ONCE.

It is a semi-determinant all right: it is a well-behaved determinant . . . . . until it reaches its mature height. Then LOOOONNNGGGG vines come out of the top like misbehaving arms, reaching out and using the cages/tops of neighboring tomato plants as an anchor to continue reaching out! It was on the end of my 2 rows of tomato plants: 0ne arm stretched over 10 feet to get ALL the first row and another arm stretched about 8 feet to get EVERY SINGLE plant in the second row!

Although the arms made it difficult for me to harvest some of my other tomato plants, the arms also were VERY productive, with scads of growing large tomatoes that I was looking forward to eating.

I banished it from my garden BECAUSE: it is susceptible to Late Blight and those arms spread it to ALL my tomato plants! It was responsible for ruining my ENTIRE tomato production, and that was no mean feat: I was growing 9 tomato plants - each one a different variety. Those large growing tomatoes?? Turned brown/rotted/had to be destroyed.

For over a week, I tried to rescue my tomato season: I sprayed and sprayed again, I pruned + lopped off entire infected branches + removed infected leaves and fruit, nothing stopped (maybe I succeeded in prolonging the plants agony?! Certainly mine!) the Late Blight.

SedonaDebbie said: Hi Ms. Critterologist... Jill,
Couldn't you just cover the vines?

That's a pretty common recommendation for the home gardener. The common method is some aluminum foil around the base of the vines.

@TomatoNut95
@BetNC

Anne, different experience here to consider.

I also grew Super Sioux a few years ago, and thank you for reminding me, because I want to grow it again. LOVED it!!

This might be an example of how different varieties behave under different conditions. I chose Super Sioux because it was reputed to withstand hot dry summers, and I grew it in a 5-gallon pot. It not only made it through the hottest part of the summer with flying colors (a noteworthy accomplishment), it continued bearing lovely mid-sized fruit into fall even after an early frost.

This photo was taken October 31, so it must have provided fruit into November... extremely uncommon in these parts.

@BetNC Maybe your Super Sioux misbehaved because the climate wasn't right for it? SS says it's for hot, dry areas like crummy Texas summers. Heh, should've tried it last year to test it to its fullest extent.

@NMoasis Wow, that's great! Looks like SS fruits don't get very large; another reason I bought it was because I thought it was another big slicer. Are they super juicy or average?

TomatoNut95 said: . . .
@NMoasis Wow, that's great! Looks like SS fruits don't get very large; another reason I bought it was because I thought it was another big slicer. Are they super juicy or average?

Anne, they were small to medium, not large. In this heat, smaller fruit do better — less time on the vine, less risk of sun & heat damage. However, I grew it in a container, so they might have grown bigger in the ground. Don't recall excess juice. I used them fresh for salads & sandwiches.

Hi! I'm back from some unexpected down-time. The OG is doing fine, and it looks like I'm better, too. Had a bout of flu along with the blood pressure situation; could barely do anything at all.
Better now. And my seeds came today.
Nothing spectacular, just filled in some gaps, but having the packets in my hands made the possibility of spring seem real.
I've dismantled the seeding shelves in the house, since that room has been repurposed recently, so I'll be starting them in the tent in the greenhouse. Got lights and heating pads. There's plenty of room in there; I'll use larger containers and save one potting up.
I'm aiming to get started as soon as I fix up a barrier against Brown Cat - really don't need him in there.