Autumn's hastening arrival-Cassoulet
rob333 (zone 7b)
13 years ago
Featured Answer
Sort by:Oldest
Comments (9)
ann_t
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agorob333 (zone 7b)
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agoRelated Discussions
Favorite tulip?
Comments (28)It's tulip planting time for most of us, I guess. Back again with a sincere post, but one which is also a bit of a sneaky attempt to revive tulips91's great message concept and so recycle this thread into the 2006-2007 season. I really loved this thread - I learned so much and enjoyed the excellent and tantalizing descriptions people provided. After evaluating the performances of some of my "new" tulips last spring and comparing them with my old favorites, I felt compelled to revise my "Top Ten Tulips" list: I'm bumping Tulipa acuminita (too expensive and too ephemeral) in favor of "Abba." Praestans-Fusilier knocks off Apricot Beauty. This was tough, but the Praestans earned extra points for being more unusual and rarer to find than the Beauty. "Abba" is a double early tulip with an intensely deep and dramatic tomato red color and a light, fresh fragrance. It stands sturdily on medium short, stout stems. Forces perfectly. "Praestans fusilier" is a multi-flowering tulip that seemed to bloom for weeks on end in my yard. I've read descriptions that state that it's a glowing orange-red in color, but mine were in fact a color similar to the Apricot Beauty, but yes, a bit more luminous. The Praestans produces about four or five flowers per stem. This tulip is somewhat diminutive, and gives the impression of an exquisite small bouquet. There were a lot of close contenders for making my new list. They included all of the double earlies that I tried, which were Monsella, Montreux, and Peach Blossom. They were all fragrant to some significant degree, some intensely so, with distinct aromas of honey. All of them forced beautifully, and arrayed together in pots it was like having the outdoors indoors with spring arriving six weeks early. I really recommend this class of tulips to one and all. A couple of the new species tulips that I tried were also outstanding, with the delicacy, varied and interesting forms, and fantastic color combinations such as one tends to find only in the species tulips. tulips91, I admired your metaphor of "tulips in the woods." And I'll soon be taking the bait of your "first try" story invitation. I'm a raving tulipmaniac once again, and have ordered or bought in stores lots of new varieties this year, especially species tulips. I intend to post a separate "Your recent tulip acquisitions?" message which will, I hope, attract some respondents who will share their lists of any tulips they will be planting for the first time this year. cranebill...See MoreHelp with crabgrass
Comments (3)Since crabgrass is an annual, it will die when the cool weather arrives. To kill it is practically impossible but you can reduce the amount of it by killing or controlling the amount of seeds that the crabgrass produces. The seeds drop in autumn and germinates in the spring so that if you can put down a pre-emergent at the proper time in the spring, you can control and kill many of the seeds that would bring about your crabgrass. It can be anytime between late March to mid May. Ask your local nursery about timing in your area. Unfortunately, the pre-emergent will kill also any grass seed you put down so you have to time your application carefully. Fertilizer you put down also in spring will hasten the growth of either the grass or the crabgrass so keep that in mind also. Spring fertilizer can fill in bare patches...makes the grass that is there to grow and fill in places. If the bare patches are deep and bare ground without any hint of something growing there, I recommend you rough it up, use a rake and scratch the surface before putting down a covering of compost and overseed that. Make sure the sprinkler system you have installed doesn't drown the work you have done to control or grow grass....See MoreBirds and other mobile features in the garden 2013 #9
Comments (76)I love the photos of the foxes and the coyote. The photos of the otters are positively magical, Pixie! What a wildlife treasure to have in your back yard! The hermit thrush is our state bird, but I don't believe I've ever actually seen one. That's a great picture, Claire. As to wildlife around my house, all I've seen lately are the neighbors' two yellow cats that patrol my brushy areas in search of rodents collecting food stores for winter. One cat has a tail and the other doesn't, and they belong to two different families. My old cat seldom ventures out in this weather, and then only for a few minutes, and she never leaves the porch. These two relative newcomers have inherited her hunting grounds....See MoreRain, rain, and more rain..................
Comments (18)Carol, During the Red River flooding of 2007, parts of our Mesonet station were disabled for days and days. I think the issue lasted until the worst of the flooding subsided. At some point they went back and manually corrected what records they could, but much data for the Burneyville station for that month is incomplete and considered somewhat unreliable. It drove me nuts. I had to rely only on my own observations! LOL I need a rain gauge that measures 10 or 12" of rain. I don't need it often (hee hee) but once every 2 or 3 years we get 25-35% of our annual rainfall in one day. When that happens, depending on how fast the rain is falling, I have to put on my muck boots, grab an umbrella and run outside and empty the rain gauge when it gets close to the 6" mark so it won't overflow and give an incorrect measurement. In April 2006, we had 9.25" in one day and most of that fell in about 4 hours. I went out and emptied out the gauge when it hit 5", and then I went out and emptied it out again when it hit 4". Shortly after that, the rain pretty much stopped. This year, the 12.4" fell over a longer period of time--maybe 8 hours or so--and I dumped the rain gauge 2 or 3 times so it wouldn't overflow. Based on statistics, we shouldn't have a massive rainfall for another 2 or 3 years, but sometimes statistics lie. "Christmas Day maybe?" LOL LOL LOL Here is what I am thinking. I am about to catch up and I will have one of those days really, really soon. I have two large bowls of tomatoes on my counter to process, so I think I'll roast them and a few other veggies at the same time and maybe make roasted tomato-garlic soup. That takes care of them. Then, I'll pick tiny tomatoes this evening (too hot already this a.m.) and dehydrate them. Then, I shouldn't have to process tomatoes again for 2 to 4 days, although I pick daily. I'll pick okra at the same time I pick little tomatoes, add it to what I picked yesterday, and blanch and freeze that. That's another veggie I shouldn't have to harvest again until tomorrow evening then, and I usually wait until I have two days' worth before I blanch/freeze. I also should have enough purple hull pinkeyes tonight to either cook a batch or freeze one, and then I should be able to skip picking for a day or two because they are slowing down. So, if I can get black-eyed pes, okra and tomatoes all done today/this evening, I shouldn't have to process them again for about three days. LOL It isn't much, but it is the best I can do. That only leaves hot peppers and sweet peppers. OK, so I have a lot of sweet peppers coloring up and I can pick them and freeze them for future use any time. I might do that tomorrow. If I do, it will take me just a couple of hours to pick 'em, wash 'em, slice 'em or chop 'em and get them into the freezer. That, then would leave only hot peppers. I've done a very heavy picking of hot peppers at least every other week since mid-July. At the present time, it has been about 10 days since I did a heavy picking, although I run out to the garden and pick as needed for cooking or canning recipes. So, I might be able to go 5-7 days before I pick hots again since rainfall is low and growth is relatively slow. So, where this is leading to is here: if I pick and process okra, peas and tomatoes tonight (Thurs.) and sweet peppers on Friday, and postpone hots until Mon. or Tues., then I should have Saturday off! Well, I'll have to pick okra, but I can stick it in the fridge and blanch/freeze it on Sunday. So, you see, I might get a day off. Unfortunately, Saturday is our best chance of rain here (about a 70% chance of rain and they are saying it may be heavy) so it probably would be a good day to be inside canning. It is hard to make the 'day off' fall where you want it to fall. I might do all I can on Saturday if it is raining, and try to make Sunday the day off because I love to cook a big family lunch and spend the afternoon watching NFL football. We still need and want rain here, and I think that by the end of the weekend, maybe I'll be able to say we finally got some. And, all my food processing predictions assume the plants will ripen produce as I expect it to. Every now and then, you walk out in to the garden and discover that blackeyed peas are suddenly purple earlier than expected, or the okra grew especially fast overnight or whatever. At this point, I'm just grateful the fall beans, corn, cukes and peas aren't producing finished products yet. As long as I keep up with the still-producing summer plants, I will be putting up a little food regularly, but not huge amounts on any given day. I will have a big green bean and big corn day or two in October if all goes well. I really think the heavy food processing load is lessening though. I'm still doing frequent batches, but smaller ones. When the fall broccoli is ready, that will be a big day or two, but that's some time off. Dawn...See Morejimster
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agoTeresa_MN
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agoann_t
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agojimster
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agoIslay_Corbel
13 years agolast modified: 9 years agorob333 (zone 7b)
13 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
Related Stories
DECORATING GUIDESHow to Choose an Awesome Area Rug No Matter What Your Space
High use, a low door, kids and pets running amok — whatever your area endures, this insight will help you find the right rug for it
Full StorySponsored
Islay_Corbel