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Post by chrysanthemum on May 4, 2022 19:13:27 GMT -6
Thanks, HMooseK. I figured that your stuff did well last year and is doing well this year, so you must have gotten the drainage right, especially with the crazy weather we get down here. My pastor is not an experienced gardener, but he was really interested in growing cucumbers this summer, so I’m trying to set him up for as much success as possible. Container gardener is not my area of expertise, but it works best for their space.
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Post by hmoosek on May 5, 2022 19:02:16 GMT -6
We had a bunch of rain today with Lots of thunder, but All the bad storms stayed at bay. I went to check my beans and they were fine. In fact one vine is already climbing! I can’t help it, I’m just a bean nerd!
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Post by macmex on May 6, 2022 7:16:23 GMT -6
When we lived in Mexico we saw many a bean plant trellised on a small to medium size tree. I always think it looks beautiful!
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Post by chrysanthemum on May 8, 2022 6:39:10 GMT -6
I love it when beans start climbing! Thanks for the picture. I built my bucket planters for the cucumber transplants yesterday. I was glad to get them into more soil before the afternoon heat hit (101 with intense sunshine). They had grown so large that they were using a lot of water, and this gives them access to much more. We have two trellises (7 feet tall and 4 feet wide) that we’re not using this season since I’m planting okra in the beds where they normally go. We’re going to let our pastor borrow them to grow two plants up each.
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Post by hmoosek on May 22, 2022 20:39:32 GMT -6
Bad storm last night. I lost 1 of my flower pot of bean vines. It had 4 bean vines that were doing pretty good. Lost a few tomatoes too. I still have two pots of beans, so hopefully they will be ok. Wife saw several downed trees on her way to town today. It was either straight line wind or possibly a small twister. I feel like it was just straight line wind, but I’m not totally sure.
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Post by macmex on May 23, 2022 3:51:15 GMT -6
Friday night we had a really strong storm too. Lightening struck my ham antenna, outside our family room, blowing it to smithereens. Jerreth was in a recliner, in the family room, comforting a dog who is terrified of storms. She said that blue "flames" danced across the top of the futon, across the room from her. There was the strong smell of burning electrical insulation and we did lose the ceiling fan in that room as well as a number of lights and our HVAC unit. We're hoping that the damage isn't too expensive. We'll see.
Our daughter's home, next door suffered a bit of electical damage too.
The critters and gardens seemed fine.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on May 23, 2022 12:08:08 GMT -6
I'm glad to hear that you guys are okay, and that the animals are okay too.
A few years ago, lightning struck here. It's amazing what selective damage it can do. When it struck, it was still dark outside, about 4:00 am. A few milliseconds after the strike, we saw what we thought was blue light reflecting off of some large, shiny surface in the bedroom, only to discover later that the source of light was a blanket draped over a basket of folded laundry. Nothing about it was reflective. All we could figure was that the lightning somehow made the blanket glow blue.
When the sun finally came up, our power had come back on, but our well-pump was fried, as well as a few other items; like our TV set, our printer, and our phones.
After finding none of our wiring had burned, I went out behind the house to investigate the origins of the blast we had heard inside that morning. I found a piece of green hickory wood weighing about two pounds, sticking through our kitchen window. A few seconds later I spotted several more pieces of hickory, leading from the house, all the way to the other side of the chicken house, but still no damaged hickory tree to pin it on.
When I got down to the hog pen on the opposite side of our little creek, I saw the hogs going under the fence, through a wide trench about 2' feet deep. At first, I was mad at the hogs, thinking, "Like I don't have enough on my plate already this morning and here you guys are, rooting a trench under the fence."
To my surprise, the trench turned out to be the source of the lightning blast. On the far side of the hog pen was a splintered hickory tree about 18' inches in diameter. The lightning had traveled down its roots and had blown huge swaths of soil out of the ground in several directions, one of those swaths was large enough for the hogs to walk under the fence freely.
The hog pen is a 60' foot by 80' foot chainlink enclosure. Connected to the chainlink fence was what had been our barbed wire fence, leading about 600' feet South, to the far side of the garden. The blast had uprooted the first 5 steel posts and had evaporated the entire length of the barbed wire fence, leaving only a few barbs lying strewn wherever they had landed after the fence connecting them had melted away. The blast was so hot that the loop of chain that we used to keep our garden gate closed had welded itself to the last post and had burnt a hole in our gate.
When I went to check on the summer kitchen, I found more busted glass, where other chunks of hickory had hit the windows there too. There was a chunk of concrete missing from the kitchen floor, about 6" inches square, and tiny fragments of concrete were stuck in the ceiling above the freezer where they had impacted with enough force to embed gravel into the sheetrock walls.
I was amazed at the destruction, but when the insurance adjuster arrived, he just shrugged his shoulders and said, "I've seen worse."
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Post by hmoosek on Jun 13, 2022 21:29:29 GMT -6
George, I’m glad to hear you and family are alright. I wrote out a reply several days ago, but I don’t know what I did wrong. I thought I hit the post key, but knowing me I probably did something in error.
My beans are really making now. I picked enough for a small meal for me if I don’t share them. Hahaaa! Wife snapped a quick picture and as soon as she uploads it, I show y’all. Also picked 4 of those Tom Wagner tomatoes. Some were multicolored with blue, some didn’t have any blue.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Jun 14, 2022 15:30:32 GMT -6
That’s wonderful that your beans are making, HMooseK. Have you been having this crazy, extended heat? If so, that’s a wonderful testimony to the ability of Tennessee Cutshort to set pods in higher temperatures. I have some seeds that HeavyHitterOkra sent me, but I haven’t tried them yet (trying to do only one variety at a time, and I had some older seeds to use). My Carminat Pole Beans aren’t setting, though, and we’re really sorry not to be harvesting right now as we were last year, but it’s been over 100 more often than not for over a week, and that’s just too much to ask for many vegetables. I do have shade cloth up, and the plants are surviving and blooming but not setting.
I know what I do wrong when I fail to post, so I thought I’d describe it to see if it might be what you’re doing, too. Even though I have figured my mistake out, it doesn’t keep me from doing it more than once. When I type a “Quick Reply” instead of hitting “Post Quick Reply” which shows up at the bottom left for me, I hit “Reply” which shows up at the top right. That takes me to a more advanced reply where I could add pictures or other things, and I’d need to go on to the bottom and hit “Create Post.” Instead, I think I’m done, and I sign out and don’t notice till I read a thread again and see that my reply isn’t there. I’m learning to double check when I still am in the system, and then I can hit the back arrow usually and retrieve what I wrote and try again.
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Post by hmoosek on Jun 14, 2022 15:55:12 GMT -6
I bet that’s what I did. Either that or my Wife hollered “Honey could you come here for a minute” and I got side tracked. Haha!
Yes, we’ve had unbelievably high temperatures. I was surprised I had beans because by the end of the day they look pretty withered. I’m trying to remember to water more often, but sometimes I forget. The beans seem pretty resilient and for sure a keeper!
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Post by hmoosek on Jun 15, 2022 10:12:21 GMT -6
Well, I finally got the picture of my beans. Oddly enough, my other bucket has only produced 1 bean and it’s only a 1 seeder bean. I’m not sure what’s up with that particular bucket.
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Post by hmoosek on Jun 15, 2022 18:22:49 GMT -6
I picked some scraggly ones today. I’m not sure why some fail to develop to their full size. Still good eating. I’ll put these in with some boiled potatoes. A big old pan of cornbread and I’ll be eating good! It shouldn’t take long to string these. Hahahaa!
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Post by macmex on Jun 16, 2022 6:01:02 GMT -6
Tennessee Cutshort often produces pods which have "blank spots" where a seed should have been. I think it's due to setting pods when conditions are less than perfect. As you said, though, Anthony, they'll taste good!
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