AMA I'm a former farmer and Master Gardener

Dolly Welsh

Sun, Jun 28 2015, 11:48 pm

Hurray for the fruitful hands of the Jewish gardeners!

↑ MagentaYenta

Mon, Jul 06 2015, 10:39 pm

Time for an update. It's been unseasonably hot here and that usually means a bumper crop of tomatoes. Unfortunately I'm lacking pollinators. Tomorrow I'll pull a full grown beefsteak tomato that hasn't got a single baby on it.The San Marzano's are going to have a very low yield same with the yellow plum tomatoes. Oh well I still have a couple of gallons dried San Marzanos so I'll just have to get by.

The French filet beans got a hit of the heat and they are no longer the fine straight beans I look forward too. But not to worry. I'll do some reseeding and all will be right with the world for a second and third crop.

The chard is happy very happy. I've been picking it daily and freezing it in 1lb lots. Indian mustard doesn't bolt in the heat and is also being frozen in abundance. There should be a fine harvest of Italian roasting peppers and Hatch chillis. The onions are doing well and I may harvest a Walla Walla early to see how it tastes. The garlic is happy. I won't have enough to get through the year but this harvest should last until spring. A friend taught me about making onion juice out of the green tops of the Walla Wallas and using that as seasoning so I'll give it a try come harvest time.

It's going to be a great year for hard squash, there are lots of baby delicatas, acorns and spaghetti squash. These are long keepers so they will be good eats this winter. I'm picking perfect cocozelle zucchini every day. I'll be putting some on the dehydrator tomorrow for winter soups and stews. Potatoes aren't quite ready but they seem to be doing just fine.

So what have I learned this year? Bees are hard to find and they tend to pollenate the tall plants like tomatoes, while the small wasps are pollenating the squash and beans that are lower to the ground. I have lots of flowers and no bees on them. Same with the sunflowers which are bee magnets. I plan on talking to a beekeeper that I know and see if he will rent me a hive next summer. That's the only way around this pollination issue.

Are any of you seeing lower numbers of bees in your area? What are you picking? What did you learn this year?

↑ water_bear88 ↓

Tue, Nov 14 2017, 1:27 pm

Just a warning to anyone who comes across this thread, the OP outed herself as a troll; please AYLOR about kilayim before planting different seeds near each other.

zaq ↓

Tue, Nov 14 2017, 1:41 pm

Which you should do even if personally acquainted with a poster since kindergarten. Don’t rely on halachic advice from Rabbi Imamother.

rgr

Tue, Nov 14 2017, 1:41 pm

water_bear88 wrote:

Just a warning to anyone who comes across this thread, the OP outed herself as a troll; please AYLOR about kilayim before planting different seeds near each other.

I guess I'm not the only one skimming through her old posts.

↑ water_bear88

Tue, Nov 14 2017, 1:44 pm

rgr wrote:

I guess I'm not the only one skimming through her old posts.

I have a weird interest in agricultural halachot and that post just always bothered me- I can't think why there'd be any more of a kula for kilayim than for shaatnez What

Zaq, you're absolutely right.

amother

↑ Seagreen

Tue, Nov 14 2017, 3:06 pm

I don’t understand ....

Magenta yente- the op of this topic is a
Troll????

↑ zaq ↓

Tue, Nov 14 2017, 3:32 pm

amother wrote:

I don’t understand ....

Magenta yente- the op of this topic is a
Troll????

Either that or someone hacked her account. In a quickly deleted thread she or her hacker confessed to being a secular woman who joined after reading about us on two other websites which have a great deal of anti-religious content (all religions). She didn’t explain why she joined, why she stayed or why she was leaving. She may have been trying to show (for our own good) just how easy it is to infiltrate the site.

That being said, I believe her gardening advice is reliable. But AYLMG (ask your local master gardener) or county extension cooperative if you’re unsure.