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Author Topic: Getta load of these pics!!!  (Read 3247 times)

Offline Cindi

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Getta load of these pics!!!
« on: March 23, 2007, 09:58:12 am »
This first picture is one of a new greenhouse that my husband surprised me with.  When I was at the bee masters course my husband had time on his hands.  He is lost when I am not here and he got bored, remembered that I told him I wanted a greenhouse for growing tomatoes in.  So, he got busy.  This is a huge greenhouse, he is not finished yet, but has the skeleton constructed.  I anticipate growing enough tomatoes in it (among many other hot weather vines, like some watermelons and muskmelons) to pay for the wood.  I am growing tomato cultivars that goe by the name of "beefmaster" (beefstake type naturally) and romas.  These are excellent canning tomatoes and I will have a market within my neighbourhood and families.  My husband loves to build and when I got home from the course each day it was dark.  It was dark when I left and dark when I returned, so I didn't see it until the Friday when I was finished the course.  I was very surprised and grateful, I am a lucky woman.



I told my oldest grandson that if he worked hard and cleared up all the rocks and sticks behind his home that I would plant a flower garden behind his house.  I would plant the night scented flowers there so that when he smelled these fragrances during the night that it would remind him of me.  He immediately went to work and worked hard to clean up so I can rototill and plant these species of flowers that I am cultivating in my greenhouse.  He obviously wants to smell these night flowers (and of course he loves the flowers anyways).  I will also plant some good stuff so he has only a few feet to gather greens for his two rabbits that are behind his house.



This is my dog Kooder, (after Ry Kooder) (I'm not sure if that is how the named is spelled).  Kooder thinks that he is human.  Notice the blanket and pillows on the couch.  I had to make these because he really has a difficult time to not go up on the couch at times, and especially at night, that is his bed.  So I bend to his wishes.  It saves the leather surface.  Thank goodness he has short hair and does not have a dog stink, ever.  Ooops.  I should rephrase that.  When he is working outside near the bush with me, he actually does smell very bad.  I think that is the hormones that must be emitted to ward off all the wild animals that he believes will attack me.  Once we are back in the yard, the stinky dog is gone and he has no scent whatsoever.

This is a dog that is so vocal, I am sure that he was once a human.  He talks all the time.  If he was a human, he would have been one that is blessed with the gift of the gab.  He even comes into the greenhouse to work with me.  He is actually rather lazy when he gets in there though.  He likes to lay on the floor on a big towel that I put down for him to make him comfortable.  He takes care of me.



Ramblin', yup, I can do that.  Enjoy the pictures.  Best of the great day.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline Understudy

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Re: Getta load of these pics!!!
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2007, 10:31:43 am »
Those are awesome pictures. I didn't see you with a shovel in your hands. :)
Maybe the dog can help.

I am definitly keeping you away from my wife who grows the tomatoes you mention and some other weird ones like Cherokke purple and some other exotic varieties. We are having a bumper crop right now and the tomatos are taking up a lot of space in my fridge.

Congradulations on your greenhouse.

Sincerely,
Brendhan
The status is not quo. The world is a mess and I just need to rule it. Dr. Horrible

Offline Cindi

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Re: Getta load of these pics!!!
« Reply #2 on: March 23, 2007, 10:51:04 am »
Brendhan.  Thanks for compliment.

No, I think that your wife and I should get together.  Sounds like she enjoys growing some interesting stuff.  I am going to grow some purple carrots this year.  I think the kids will get a kick out of it.

We are also going to grow "prizewinner" pumpkins and have a contest to see which kid can grow the best pumpkin plant.  They will carve their names on their pumpkins, it is cool, as the pumpkin grows, as does the carved part, naturally.  So, we will see who spends the most time cultivating their pumpkin vines.  I kind of think that this will go by the wayside, I don't know if the kids have the gumption to look after plants for a long time.  although, there really is not that much work, just a fertilizing now and and then.

Freeze the tomatoes!!!!!

Tell me more about what exotics your wife grows.  I would love to hear.  Best of the great day.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline Kathyp

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Re: Getta load of these pics!!!
« Reply #3 on: March 23, 2007, 11:32:48 am »
cindi, this is the sad part (for us) about understudys post.

 
Quote
We are having a bumper crop right now and the tomatos are taking up a lot of space in my fridge.

it just dried out and thawed enough for me to run the rototiller through what will be my garden.  don't know about you, but i can't plant until may.

your greenhouse is fantastic!!
Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline Cindi

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Re: Getta load of these pics!!!
« Reply #4 on: March 24, 2007, 09:23:57 am »
Kathy, we have a mild climate.  When we get cold weather here it is typically January 10 or so.  Around that time it can get very cold for a couple of weeks.  We had snow, and frozen ground for about 2 weeks this past winter.  That was about it, we can usually rototill anytime in the beginning of February (even a little earlier than that).  The ground is workable, but pointless because we generally don't plant in the gardens until maybe the beginning of May.  The cold crops can go in the ground beginning of April if one wants, but that is pointless in my mind too.  It is still to chillly for most things to get a good root start.  the old gardeners rule of thumb in my area is to have all gardens planted no later than the 24 of May.  Mine are always in around May 1.  Beans and the warmer crops May 15.  Super sweet corn no earlier than  June 1.

It is hard to picture Brendhan with his fridge full of his bumper crop of tomatoes.  Yes, it makes me really want to get my gardens going.  But, as we know, we cannot hurry that beautiful creature Mother Nature.

My sister wanted to do an experiment, she seeded some collard greens a couple of weeks ago in my heated greenhouse.  She set them out in the ground about a few days ago.  I don't think that they will do much for at least a couple of weeks.   We will see how these plants go, that is the simple experiment.  I think that in about 2 weeks if she set more seeedlings outside that they would grow faster than the ones she recently set out.

Our temperature at 5:00 this morning was 10 celsius (50F).  Consistently between 7-10 degrees day and night for over at least a couple of weeks now.

Perennials are coming up like crazy all over the place.  I see around our district that the flowers on many of the trees are in the pink right now.  Soon full blown blossoms!!!  So pretty.  The spring is such a time of awakening.  Best of the greater day.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service

Offline Kathyp

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Re: Getta load of these pics!!!
« Reply #5 on: March 24, 2007, 01:25:09 pm »
last year i was out of town in early may.  when i came home, my husband had put tomatoes in.  i told him it was to early and sure enough, we had a frost.  i expected his tomatoes to die they had such bad frost bite.  instead....the ended up being some of the best.  go figure  :)
 
now i'm having a heck of a time getting him to wait!
Someone really ought to tell them that the world of Ayn Rand?s novel was not meant to be aspirational.

Offline Cindi

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Re: Getta load of these pics!!!
« Reply #6 on: March 24, 2007, 07:21:49 pm »
Kathy, this is my 2 cents, which very often is not worth an awful lot.  But here goes.  Being in the nursery business for so many years (and of course my own gardens), I have seen alot of weird stuff happen with weather and tender plants.

I would grow en masse a plant named impatiens, to be a little more specific the "super elfin" series.  My customers would rave about these plants of beauty and I would take orders for many of them (that I knew I could trust to come through the following season).  I probably would have planted maybe 200 flats.  I am sure that you would know what a flat is, but in case, it is 12 small containers in a tray with 4 plants in each container.  48 plants totalled.

Impatiens are extremely tender plants, they love heat and humidity.  I would open for business about the 3rd week in April, and when my customers chose to purchase the impatiens before the first week of May, I would warn them to not plant them out until after this first week of May.  There is still a chance that we may have a frost one night.  Well.  People get exhuberant in spring and many people had bought impatiens.  Many people had set them outside.  Of course they came back crying the blues that their impatiens had died.

Now I know from my own experience with tender annuals about frost.  I would explain to my clients that even though the plants looked terrible and appeared dead, because the frost was not deep and did not touch the roots, the plants would be OK.  Just to please be patient.  Of course they all thought that I was from outer space.  But I told them to trust me.  This they did, they put their impatiens' lives trust in me and did not rip them out of the ground in disgust.  ALWAYS, I would have these once sad customers come back and tell me that the impatiens had come back, they had grown new leaves and they look absoutely awesome.  I would always smile inside because I knew that they would.  The same thing had occurred when clients set their impatiens out in direct sunshine, leaf burn (they were grown in a greenhouse with fibreglass panels, so only filtered light).  I would explain to them that the impatiens love to grow in the direct sunshine, but because because they had been grown under filtered light all their lives, they would need to adjust to the burning sunrays.  Most of my clients liked to have impatiens for their dappled or shady spots, so most of them did not encounter the leaf burn.  But I will tell you, I seen this many times with my own, after that initial sunburn, the plants were shorter, far more flowers and certainly much, much stronger than ones that were grown in the dappled sun or shade.

Eeeks!!!  I carry on now don't I sometimes. I only had a short comment to make to you, but it turned into a novel!!!! (LOL).

The roots of your tomato plants were not affected by the frost.  (Had the roots been frozen, the plant would surely have perished).  That is why the plants still grew and you had the best tomatoes.  That is natures way of thanking you for not ripping these poor little plants out of the ground, when you thought that they had gone by the wayside.

Anyways, there ya go, a short lesson on frost burn on leaves of plants.

I can't say for sure that this goes for ALL plants, just my experiences with some of the more tender ones.  There are many others that I have experienced this sun and frost burn with too.  Have the sweetest day.  Cindi
There are strange things done in the midnight sun by the men who moil for gold.  The Arctic trails have their secret tales that would make your blood run cold.  The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, but the queerest they ever did see, what the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge, I cremated Sam McGee.  Robert Service