Garden thread.

[glenn kangiser]

PEG, no --- I'm not kidding. :'(  

Perfect little pairs of hummingbird legs fried to the hot wire blown off at the knees.  Just standing there.   All by them selves.  

You could hear the song "I ain't got no body"  sizzling softly through the air.  All the local hardware stores were sold out of hummingbird prosthetics and wheelchairs for months.  OK -- I was kidding about this entire paragraph. :-/  

I know -- not funny.

They changed the insulators to a different color so the hummingbirds wouldn't think they were flowers.



A local hummingbird from our local news site.  http://www.goldrushcam.com/

[PEG688]

Pretty easy for man to screw things up eh :'(

[benevolance]

8 limes left

Went from 40+ limes on the tree to 8....

Went away for the week-end, Some kind of lime eating critter got in and broke a couple of branches off the tree and raped it of limes...

I was devastated....

I need a gun

It is all fun and games until my lime trees are vandalized

Side note the Tomatoes are the size of baseballs

what is the best way to ripen them? pick em and let em sit in the dark? leave em on the vine until they are starting to turn red...

I am a total garden rookie here folks

[glenn kangiser]

Yup - but it wasn't intentional.  The people who did it were pretty upset and fixed it right away, but in a small town news like this travels from one end to another in hours.  Now everyone knows.

[glenn kangiser]

Just leave them on the vine until they are ripe and ready to eat.  Only grocers and produce hawkers need to pick them before they are ripe.  

If you get overly anxious and have plenty then they are probably ready to slice and cook as fried green tomatoes.  Mmmmm - yummy.

Peter -- remember -- you are a gun control advocate.

[PEG688]

Let them ripen on the vine , in late fall take the whole plant outta the grd. and hang it upside down from the root ball , and or wrap the green tomatoes in newspaper very late in the year.

BTW If  a critter gottum it's not really vandalism  is it?  ::)More like critter crop damage  . And no weapons for you !!  Think soup nazis  from Sienfeld    

[glenn kangiser]

I think it's unanimous, PEG -- if we catch Peter in a dark alley, I'll grab him and you get his guns.  No lime bandit hunting for you Peter.  Peace, eh?  

[PEG688]

Gettum Glenn   Friggin nob gun toter

Sweetist water melon I ever  ate , Billy Guilbault and I  stole outta a garden , in like 1969    

[glenn kangiser]

Peaceful way, Peter would be to go to the local nursery or feed store and buy some plastic  netting to protect your trees that need protection from birds etc.  I guess you could hook up an electric fence and blow their legs off. :-/

[MountainDon]

Definitly let the tomatoes ripen on the vine, Peter. The only time you should pick 'em before ripe is if you like/need green ones for something or in the fall when they might freeze. Haven't got a clue about limes, but I suspect the same rules apply, naturally ripened is the best way as a rule.

FYI, there's a grower in AZ that produces the best store bought tomatoes I've ever had, still not quite like home grown, but better than the usual store bought brick. They grow them hydroponically and when they pick them they actually cut off a piece of vine with the tomatoes attached. It supposed to make all the difference. I think they're right on that.

No guns Peter... only if they threaten your life or safety with the limes can you shoot.

The best oranges I ever had were fresh off the tree from an orchard in Spain. Had to run like hell too.  

[fourx]

Ripened on the vine is the best way, I agree. Do you get bronze-orange citrus bug there, aka stink bug?- large, black or orange, stinky, and deadly on limes and most citrus.
I have very fond memories of a Hummingbird- a Gibson, gone thanks to a light-fingered club patron, like so many of my guitars over the years. There is a bird, the Satin Bower Bird common to this area which eats the tomatoes when they are ripe, and almost everything else, stone-fruit, etc, but not citrus..it builds a bower of twigs to attract a female and decorates it with anything blue it can find...leave a disposable razor, a brush, a pen, anywhere in the open and if it's blue it disappears into the birds bower, along with blue bits of plastic, blue flowers, blue bits of wool....

[glenn kangiser]

Our main tomato pest here in California is the Tomato Hornworm.  It will strip all the leaves and even eat the tomatoes usually when green.

http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/dp_hfrr/extensn/problems/hornworm.htm



http://mothphotographersgroup.msstate.edu/Files/Live/Species/7000/7776.shtml

[benevolance]

well no stink bugs and no tomato worms....

Not going to get a gun....I do not even lock my door at night and the keys are almost always in my car.... I am not going to ever live where I need to change that lifestyle...If I someday have to move deeper into the wilderness for that kind of peace of mind so be it.

the missing limes I  can live with....Breaking a big branch off a small lime tree really upset me

Never had fried green tomatoes Glenn....I have 3 varietes of tomato growing...The beef steak are the ones all big as my fist...I am wishing they were red instead of green....I get hungry when I water them

about 2 weeks and I hope the Nectarines will be ready...They are starting to turn reddish pink...

I suspect the early limes what is left of them will be ready in 2 weeks or less....

I guess this is incentive to finish building the greenhouse....I have all my fruit trees in washtubs....well except for the peach, nectarine and plum trees...they are permanently in the ground....The citrus are in wash tubs

Got some pineapple and mangos from a friend of mine who came to visit from Trinidad.... Never knew how Pineapple grew....Pretty neat....Cut off the top and stick back in ground.... I hope it works...Only  planted a few tops in the ground...Going to see how it works

Need to see about some non toxic sprays...They say a tree fungis is the worst thing that happens to citrus and fruit trees here... peach are expecially susceptible to it....I can get a spray at the local feed store but it is a nasty chemical....and I am trying to rid myself of using nasty chemicals on food I want to eat

[fourx]

Nasty looking thing, Glenn. I'm going round the leaves of my Kohl Rabi patch each day, squishing green grubs, which are eating the leaves, to a paste because it appears Derris Dust has been banned because it has been linked to Parkinson's Disease. Sounds like human pests if a branch was broken, don't you think?

[benevolance]

I dunno....Would a raccoon or dear eat the limes?

we have deer mania down here....they are everywhere...Cannot drive 5 miles without seeing one dead on the highway

[glenn kangiser]

Deer will eat almost anything green - especially if it is special to you.  They know that. :-/

We have to put 7' fence - plastic deer netting - around the entire garden where we don't want the deer to eat everything.  One deer can eat about 1/3 of our garden in a few hours or less.  It has happened.

The limes didn't grow too big and break the limbs themselves did they?  I think you said they were completely gone though. :-/

[glenn kangiser]

Nasty looking thing, Glenn. I'm going round the leaves of my Kohl Rabi patch each day, squishing green grubs, which are eating the leaves, to a paste because it appears Derris Dust has been banned because it has been linked to Parkinson's Disease. Sounds like human pests if a branch was broken, don't you think?

They are extremely nasty.  About the size of your finger, and soft - squirmy - they ooze green jelly when you pop them and lots of black poop as they eat.  We had a dog who liked to eat them when we would pick them off and throw them to her.

[fourx]

Birds won't eat them? A pity the bower birds http://www.wam.umd.edu/~borgia/bowerbirds/birddetail.htm don't like eating the grubs on the Kohl Rabi..we get the bottom half of the fruit on the mulberry tree when it's in fruit- the bower birds get the top half.

[benevolance]

Glenn

No there were not 40 limes on t he ground when we got home last night......So I am not buying the " fallen off the tree" theory

[glenn kangiser]

Birds won't eat them? A pity the bower birds http://www.wam.umd.edu/~borgia/bowerbirds/birddetail.htm don't like eating the grubs on the Kohl Rabi..we get the bottom half of the fruit on the mulberry tree when it's in fruit- the bower birds get the top half.

These things are too big for little birds - none seem interested.  Their camouflage is so good they are very hard to spot even if they ar right in front of you.

[MountainDon]

....I do not even lock my door at night and the keys are almost always in my car.... I am not going to ever live where I need to change that lifestyle...If I someday have to move deeper into the wilderness for that kind of peace of mind so be it.

Spending the two weeks up in the mountains required a change of mindset regarding security. I have locked my doors behind me at all times for so many years I can't remember not doing it, other than summers spent on the uncle's farm. (Back then the keys for everything were left in all the equipment all the time... saved trying to remember where they were..)

I found myself locking the Jeep, the RV, taking the key from the ATV for the first few days. With conscious effort I got to where I only had to lock up at night. Probably not needed. But old habits die hard.

My Mom & Dad always said better safe than sorry.   :-/  But they lived in the city too.

[glenn kangiser]

Recently a bunch of the local mountain carpenters were working together on a house up here for the winery owner.  They left their tools there unlocked everyday never losing any.

Sheetrock - being throughout the house, was a major part of the job.  A Mexican drywall crew from FRESNO was contracted with, to install the drywall, tape and texture -- they did the job (rather crapilly) and when they left so did all the carpenters tools.  They stole them all.  While I guess I shouldn't stereotype them, this is typically what I come to expect of Fresno and most big cities.

Up here, even many of the store keepers leave their goods on the sidewalk at night.  Some places leave vegetables - yard sale goods etc out with a jar and a note to pay on the honor system.  I know it is not a sure thing and can't last forever, but it is nice to know that there are at least a few people with some honor left.

[benevolance]

what makes me laugh is that you consider Fresno a big city

[glenn kangiser]

It's big enough to suck.

[benevolance]

Used to be good car hunting in Chico and Fresno....