I wouldn't ever put animal products into a compost pile. In addition to taking forever to decompose, as it can contaminate the compost with harmful bacteria, and it will attract insects, rodents, and other scavenger animals much more than any rotting fruits or veggies.
So I guess sage flowers the second year. Mine is going off! I tried to capture it's colors unsuccessfully. The blues and purples of the blooms seem to glow. It is gorgeous in person.
The dill is trying to flower so I chopped a bit of it down to dry. We had a heatwave this last week and the plants were feeling it. I was also able to harvest some oregano, which I will process into oil. My next task is to find a good use for a huge amount of mint.
What I am finding as I expand meaningfully outside my outlined veggie area, is that my perinneal herbs are gorgeous, and I will likely move a lot of them to permanent places in my landscaping out front. With my interest in edible landscaping and natives that draw pollinators, herbs fit the bill. My most burdensome task right now is figuring out how to get rid of the rocks in the front yard so I can convert to deep mulch and expand the growing area. Fuck landscaping fabric in every hole. God damnit I hate it so much.
Anyone have experience with a faucet timer? I've been looking for something I can set up to get the sprinklers on a couple times a day on the veggie patch. Veggie patch is ~ 75' long and 25' wide. I think I'll need at least a 3 zone system, but most of the ones I've been looking at on amazon have mixed reviews, things failing and flooding people's yard, hoses that aren't compatible and ending up backflowing and destroying pipes. I have two winterized outdoor faucets and the piping is buried 4' underground so if anything fails on those, it's a ridiculous process to dig them up and fix them. Don't need anything crazy, even analog would be fine just to set them to go off once or twice a day.
Was it just a manual one that had 4 spigots to hook up 4 hoses or does it have a timer and zone control?
One of these. https://www.homedepot.ca/product/melnor-advanced-four-zone-electronic-water-timer/1000851347 Does everything I ever needed it to do.
I have one set up to fill the bird bath every 6 hours, 1 to do the hanging plants and herbs every 12, and ine for each raised garden every 24 hours. Simple, but it works.
Last night was the third night in a row I had to cover our plants because of frost. It doesn’t look like there’s any more on the horizon but if there is, screw it, they’re on their own. The garden will likely be another waste of time anyway if we don’t start getting more rain. It’s not even June and we’re at a 1.5” deficit.
I've had a 1.5" deficit longer than that, which is one reason I don't participate in this: https://www.lawnstarter.com/blog/studies/best-cities-world-naked-gardening-day/#expert=tessa-west
My snow peas are taller than me. I've seen other people grow them and they are never this big. Proof that duck poop is magic!
I harvested very small bulbs of volunteer garlic a few weeks ago, and it has been outside drying ever since. I was expecting to have tiny cloves but this is great. I hope they are all like this.
Chocolate Cherry Sunflower. I have been canning so, SO many tomatoes this year. Was one of my goals this year. Fairly easy and inexpensive process that I am just about certain will pay off come December when I want to make some fresh pasta.
I’m hoping for some advice from you kind folks. Among other things, I’m growing watermelons in our community garden plot. I’ve been told that I need thin out watermelons so that the few I leave get larger and juicier. Is this accurate? Right now I have about 30 flowers on those plants, and 4 little melons the size of a ping pong ball.
Full disclosure, I have not grown any successfully. From what I have read though, a plant can be expected to produce 2-4 melons, and you don't want more than one being developed at once on the same plant. So some of it depends on the length of your season. You should find out your cutoff date for fruit maturation. Melons need it very warm. Temps in the 60s will stunt growth.
Let them all keep growing, but make sure you overwater the plants and fertilize if possible. Your 4 little melons will grow, but let the others keep going in case something decides to eat your growing melons. If you want to trim anything, cut off parts where just leaves are growing further down the vine. You want as much energy going into the fruit and less going into far down the vine leaves. Don't cut off too much, as the plant still needs to soak up sun through the leaves, but you can be pretty aggressive with the trimming. Make sure you keep them well hydrated, but not sitting in pools of water.
My garden is an absolute jungle, thanks to rain every few days and humid weather. I’ve hardly had to touch it or do anything with it at all the past couple weeks. If only it were that easy every year. Also, I had to laugh at myself and how excited I got when turning the compost and felt the heat coming off of the bin. Another benefit to regular rain.
This is where I messed up. I forgot to set up the irrigation on my melons this year and they fried. Ah well... I'll try again next year.