steelnut

I have flower beds and they desperately need to be thinned out. When should it be done, in the fall or spring or now? TY!

Mine is doing better that I expected with all of the rain. The peppers are under sized, but I'm getting peppers. Tomatoes are doing fine, but so far the only ripe ones are the cherry tomatoes. Peas are almost done, but I got a lot. The beetles really took a toll on my green and wax beans, but I'm getting some. I don't know if I'll get any zucchini, the plant is pitiful looking. I've got some yellow summer squash, I really hope my zucchini pulls through. Oh and the beetles put a hurting on my eggplant too. I tried edamame this year, and so far, so good. Onions and beets are very plentiful.

I tried the bags and we put them quite a ways away from the garden, they only seemed to call in more beetles  

They're seriously driving me crazy, I can't stand any crunchy beetle.

Does anyone know of a home remedy to get rid of them? Each year they get worse, they're eating my peas, green beans, wax beans and eggplant!!!

Thanks

I can't even find words, this is so sad. Prayers fro her family and especially her beloved children.

Usually handpicking them is sufficient to keep them under control. Look for the white eggs on the leaves and destroy those too. They pupate and spend the winter in the soil so a fall plowing helps. If you have any member of the Solanacae family as weeds, like henbane, get rid of them.  They are susceptible to Bacilliuc thuringiensis if you want a non chemical control. I haven't seen one in years except for the one someone brought me in a jar. Ugly aren't they?

Thanks Lavender, and ugly doesn't even begin to describe them, so creepy!

At least its a hornworm and not a horndog.

Well, I guess you're right....

We've had a garden for years and growing up we always had a garden.

I love it, but last week I saw the most ugly, disgusting thing that really creeped me out, a tomato hornworm!

We've found four so far. We try and check every day, but when it rains a lot it's hard to get in there.

Has anyone else had these things? If so, did you just pick them off or did you use something to get rid of them. I really hate using any kind of chemicals, but these things give me the willies big time. Poor hubby has to pick them off. And I learned that if you look around the bottom of the plant, you can see little black dots - the poop, yuck! 

They've done some damage to two tomato plants so far.

Any advice is appreciated, Thanks!

I love the pictures!

Love the pictures!

Thank you so much! A family member needs about 12, not particular about type, just not pines.

If any of you want to send me a message on price, I'll relay the info.

Have a nice holiday! Again, thank you!

Does anyone know where to find saplings, say 24" and higher?

Thanks so much!

I forgot, all peppers are doing great!

Just out of curiosity what kind of tomatoes do you grow? There are tomatoes that do well in certain locations and not in others. I've had great luck with Celebrity. When I try to grow some of the more exotic ones, like the pyramid shaped one I grew one year, they often don't bear much fruit.

I love Celebrity too, we have lots of tomatoes, but a little on the small side this year. Cukes, that's anther story, not doing well at all. I'm blaming the June

27th wash out. Back to tomatoes, the red and orange cherry ones are doing great. Beets are also great. The beetles put a hurting on peas, sugar snaps, green and wax bean, I'm still cussing them!

Gilb... I had a small little thing It looked awful... so I cut it off ...  and now 4 years later that thing is huge and must have had 100 flowers on it this year.. first year it has had more than about 10 since I cut it off. 

We trim our two lilacs down each year, they're the light purple and they do great. I want a cutting from a dark purple one, so beautiful!

Thank you all!

The easiest way to do this is put some rooting hormone on the end and put it in the ground. Cover it with a jar and wait. Watering in dry weather helps. It is much easier to get a lilac by digging up a sucker. Some of the newer varieties don't sucker much but it is a good way to get an older variety. 

Until I looked on-line, I had never heard of rooting hormone, is it available locally? TY so much for the advice! 

I've looked on-line and have some ideas, but I'm wondering if any of the local gardeners have done this and if so, what method did you use? TY so much!

I always just cover veggies but it is nice to hear about someone who has some practical experience with this at the local level. Lots of theory out there anymore but little in the way of actual down to earth information. The old gardeners are passing and a lot of their information is going with them. Thanks!

 

Oh, and I had this last frost/freeze go right through the coverings. I guess if the material touches the plant the likelihood of it freezing is higher. Buckets work better if the plant is small enough. I saved the lilies but the hostas are a mess. 

Some of our hostas got it too as in years past. We take of the damaged parts, very slimy...but they come right back. My lilies have never been affected by frost for some reason?

I can remember when I was small and my grandparents would go out and spray down the fruit trees with water early in the morning after a frost...does this work? I can't remember if it did....I was pretty young.....

We didn't get up early enough on Monday to spray, but hubby did on Tuesday morning. Our fruit trees are too far away from the house for the hose to reach, but he has a huge spray thing that he filled with water over and over again and sprayed them down. We'll see how it goes, here's hoping!

In years past we sprayed down veggies in the garden early in the morning to save them and it always worked.

Finally after a six month winter, my flower beds are alive and beautiful, thank you God!  I was feeling like it would never happen, but everything is finally coming alive, the fruit trees are so full of blossoms, it just makes me so happy!      

I just knew that I posted too darned soon. Heavy frost this week did a lot of damage, so sad. We've only gotten peaches five times over 20 years, and this years blossoms were unbelievable. I think we'll still get some pears, but not as many as we would have without the heavy frost. Bummer

_{Spring is my favorite time of year, I love watching everything come to life!}

Finally after a six month winter, my flower beds are alive and beautiful, thank you God!  I was feeling like it would never happen, but everything is finally coming alive, the fruit trees are so full of blossoms, it just makes me so happy!      

Just a thought, but has anyone spoken to Herm about this? The firemen are always looking to do good deeds, perhaps each ward would volunteer time to help with this wonderful project.

Beautiful pictures Bon, thanks for sharing!

My beds are looking great, I am so glad that I got into perrenials a few years ago and I just wanted

to say thanks to all of you who have helped me out, answering questions, giving opinions, etc. It has been so worth it.

Our neighbors are always telling us how beautiful our flowere beds are. Without everyone's help and advice, I don't know what I would have ended up with!