kimberly

Funny, Rum, very funny. Twinky, the catterpillers are mean to your garden. They are destroying it, right? There are some caterpillars (and true pillars of the garden community) that are beneficial. But if a bug is destroying my garden it is them or the food. Since I don't eat caterpillars the food growing in the garden wins every time. It has taken me quite a few years to amend the clay soil in our area. Compost. I am going to try something new this coming fall.....the lasagna method.

A little teary myself. Great voices these children have. If singing doesn't work out for the 16 year old it looks like he could give football a shot. Yes, America, my home sweet home......

mstar1, naaah, mom doesn't get to drive him around all the time. As a matter of fact I miss quite a few games because of work. We have an awesome network of parents helping each other out. ChasUFarley, I am so jealous that you get to do it all over again with one so little. I look at my boys t-ball pictures and wonder where did the years go. The boy is off this Sunday to Jack Leggett's baseball camp at Clemson University. He has been there before. I was quite taken as was my two older boys. The boy has also been to Cal Ripkin Jr.'s camp. I was equally impressed. The goal here is college scholarship.

Twinky, baby, if you have caterpillars you should be able to see them. Pluck them bad boys off, put them in a glass jar with some water. Let them stew for a couple of days in the sun. Spray your plants with this rotteness. It is a great deterrent(sp?) Any dead decomposed bug will do for the entire garden. Yes, you have to hill corn. If your rows have other food growing in them then you must get soil to hill up the corn. My corn, as well as everything else, is planted in raised rows. I hilled the butterbeans and greenbeans yesterday. The stalk is too spindley to hold up the bush. I don't plant runners so I have to hill them up. The roots of corn grow near the top of the soil. Thus, the need to be hilled. By the time the corn is harvested the soil is hilled up around the stalk some 12 inches. That is why corn can be planted close together in the rows but a good distance from row to row. Once they get near maturity, as far as height goes, they support each other with their leaves. Two days ago I posted the size of the greenbeans...guess what...I picked greenbeans yesterday. That is how quickly they matured. The spring rains have been good. Honestly, I am a bit surprised myself how quickly the greenbeans matured. The maturation for this heirloom says 70 days. Mine matured more than 20 days less than that. The butterbeans are still threads, due to the replanting. But they are coming along. Now, as far as phosphates go...just use wood ash. As natural as it comes. Old limbs fall from the oak and pecan trees and we burn it. We can do that where we live. It has to be worked into the soil 6 to 8 inches. Twinky, your hard work and care will pay off. You are doing all the right stuff.

Garth, is correct. The tv gives folks what they salivate for. Just look at all the "reality" shows. It astounds me how many folks are fluent about what is going on with each and every character in these shows. Yet, they know nil (and want to stay that way) about the history of our country, or any other country for that matter, or what is going on now. Geez, just look at the majority of the magazines in the grocery store check out isle. Garth, not quite sure what you are asking in your last question...:)

Yum yum yummy!!!!! We have yellow crook neck squash and green bell pepper. The greenbeans are about 1/2 the size of a #2 pencil. The tomatoes are big and fat and still green. This is one southern mama who does not do fried green tomatoes. The speckled butterbeans have flowers. The carrots are a wash. I pruned the basil, Italian parsley, and dill to dry and have enough to share with others. It has been a couple of years since I planted corn but it is doing wonderful. It is growing and hilled it up the other day. I love to hear the leaves rustle in the breeze. Rum, meat ain't meat without garlic. I can't think of anything I don't add a smidgen of garlic to. That means even cookies or cakes. Seriously. It grows wild in our yards. What southerners think is wild spring onions growing in our yards is really wild garlic.

When I logged in my name and avatar came up. I recoginized other names and avatars. I know where I am, for the time being, anyway. All is right with my computer world.

My remote control goes to AMC, TCM, TLC, Animal Planet, National Geographic. Mine won't go to the Three Stooges channels aka ABC, NBC and CBS and the adopted step child Fox.

The greens recipe with a thick cut of bacon.....I had to laugh. Southern or not we all know everything tastes better with bacon!!!! Mustard greens, collards, turnip greens cooked with smoked ham hocks and served with cornbread cooked in a cast iron skillet is a winter delicacy and mainstay for us southerners.

Leafy, that ole sow bug aka pill bug is what we call the roly poly. When you pick it up it rolls into a ball, thus roly poly. Some young'in must have come up with that. It weren't me but I wish it was. Them ole roly poly's ate my bean stems when they were just tenderlings. With the mulch so near the tenderlings I think the rolies thought that part of their duty. I don't have rolies in my compost but I do have tons of earth worms. The compost is always moist and I periodically add soil to the compost. Another note: if compost is producing volunteers then it is not hot enough to decompose. If you add this mixture to your garden it will rob the soil and other plants in the garden.

Forgot my manners.... Watered Garden, you are home here, sweetie. Glad your area warmed up and you are happy gardening. Sistuh, after my own heart...........canning. Well worth the time and labor.

Well, very happy gc ought to be on this side of the pond by now. I had the most glorious day in the yard. I push mowed the front and back yard. I don't let the boy do it because I like the exercise. Plus, when he mows he blows in the garden. He has been known to mow down plants. Hilled the beans, squashed roly poly's with my fingers and said ugly words to them while doing so. The corn is near needing to be hilled...cut dill and basil and hung to dry...tied the tomatoes further up on their stakes...and lastly, weeded. The liriope border is over come with weeds. Although, I am proud of this area and it took me a few years to cultivate it, it is last on my priority list. It doesn't provide food. The Vincas around the mailbox are now flourishing since I did a little work amending the soil last week. The bone meal is just what it needed. Even though the Vincas did not do well there last year I am amazed at the volunteers that have sprung up. I bet there is at least a dozen. One of the other areas not so happy. I am just gonna have to break down and get the soil tested. Nothing is happy there.

I have watched the progression of this discussion. Away a few days and whew!!! Is it time for a group hug?

We are in the midst of summer ball with the highschool. 21 games in 18 days. Monday, the boy was at the school for weight training 9 am to 11 am. Home for lunch and a quick rest. Then back at the school at 2 pm. We traveled to the next state for a double header. Back home for him to play with his Rec team at 9 pm. We got home around 11:30 pm. Again, he said, "I got to play baseball all day long. It doesn't get any better than this."

Just one week ago I re-seeded speckled butterbeans. They are already sprouting. I moved back the mulch so the roly poly's would not have such close access. I sprayed those suckers. A few days later more are back. Heck, they think they are so at home in my garden they were fornicating between the rows. I'm not one to interfere with love but it is them or my beans. There are a couple of garden areas in the front yard that have not done well just in the last couple of years. I plant annuals and they barely show. I have been busy working lime and bone meal into the soil. Since the rain the annuals have grown tremendously. I guess I have been so caught up in the food garden I let these areas suffer. This year I vigorously worked the soil for the tomatoes. Maters are my number one love. Can't have too many tomato sandwiches, pies or canned tomatoes. The plants have many blooms and tomatoes. Aaahhh, for the love of a home grown tomato. This year I am staking them instead of caging. The stalks are thick, green and healthy. I cut the cilantro down to the ground. It seeded too early. Perhaps, I wasn't tending to it properly soon enough. The dill is the best ever. The aroma of the basil fills the air. Sometimes I pick it just to rub it on my neck. Chanel number whatever has nothing on fresh basil. The herb garden is the one thing I am most proud of this year. I had a few spots and pots of herbs before. The butterfly bush that had grown into a tree started withering late last fall. I suspect it was due to the lack of rain. This spring it had one small branch with green leaves. I cut that baby back to about 4 feet. She was just wood. Now she is growing and has beautiful big green leaves and flower buds. Twinky, honey, I soooo empathize with you about your garden. Last year I was at my wits end. All that work and love and care and tending and nothing. It is still early in the growing season. There is hope. Don't give up!!

Watered Garden, your name speaks it all....you can't go. You can't come back with another user name. You are our Watered......Garden......you are our flourishing with life garden. One rotten apple and soooooooooooo many more who love you so much and looked forward to your posts. At least post in the garden forum...the garden...get it? For you, baby!!! XOXOXO!!!

Steve, what leafytwiglet said is true about the cross pollination. The same is true if you plant Roma tomatoes close to other "regular" size tomatoes. My heirloom tomatoes were small last year because I planted Romas in the same mix. Bees aren't prejudiced. A critter, I suspect the ugly roly poly bug, ate parts of my speckled butter beans but left the green beans alone. Finicky, finicky little bug. I move back the mulch and they are prolific. This is only the second year I have had this problem with these peskies. I am gonna mix me up a concoction and spray them. Red pepper flakes soaked in water for a couple of days then sprayed on them will be their demise. If you are having problems with plants not producing flowers then broadcast wood ash. If no wood ash available then purchase organic bone meal and follow directions. Fresh manure will burn and kill plants. Fresh manure has to be composted for several months. gc, my good friend's husband planted a fuschia for her. He couldn't remember what the Ag teacher called it and he thought it was a Mandevilla. She and I knew it wasn't but it was so scraggly we couldn't tell what it was. That was only three weeks ago and the lovely has grown profusely and is now budding. She is so excited because she has had a time growing anything in that area. The rain has been so profuse. Last night 4 inches fell. We came out of the highschool graduation and the bottom fell out. We were going out to dinner after that but I had to go home and change. It looked like I was entering a wet t-shirt contest. And at my age...tsk...tsk... Anyway, all the gardens loved the rain. Everything is so green and happy. Garden on, happy ones!!

Brisket, a relatively cheap cut of beef, is great on the grill, also. Cook it the same way and very slow. Rum, you go that, honey......mixing red wine and fish?

Hot dang, Twinky, I guess with 6 ft cabbages anything else is afraid to grow in your garden!!!!! With those cabbages ya'll with have enough roughage to last an entire lifetime. You must have to mortgage the house to be able to afford the meat to make stuffed cabbage!!!! Those monster movie cabbages probably ate everything else trying to come up. Get your soil tested, cabbage mama. It will tell you everything as to what is going on. So, you purchased compost from the garden centre? Hhhhmmm, all that going on and all related to the compost...does sound suspicious. I would talk to the folks at the garden centre and ask them what they think. Is it fresh compost?

Yummsies, gc, a crawfish boil!! It has been years since I went to one. And the folks that hosted it were from Lousiana. Ham on the grill.... Usually it is a picnic ham. Any fresh bone-in ham will do. Let it sit out on the kitchen counter a couple of hours so it will be near room temp. You want the inner part of the ham to be as close to the same temp as the outside of the ham. I don't do any dry rub or marinate on the ham. How to set up the grill..... Have 2 good bunches of Oak soaking in water for a couple of hours. If it is all dry then you will need more. A good combination is to have green and dry. It has to be the right size to fit in the grill. A good bunch is how much (after cut down to fit in grill) you can pick with both hands. Place a heavy duty stainless steel pan or cast iron pan in the middle of the grill. Fill pan 2/3 to 3/4 full with water. Place charcoal around pan until it is stacked half way up the sides of the pan. Literally, up against the pan, not layed out flat around the pan. The object is to heat the water in the pan. Make sure all vents on the grill are open. Start the charcoal. If you use lighter fluid, do not spray any in the pan of water. If you do, start over with a clean pan of water. Let the charcoal burn until it is ashy on the outside. This will take about an hour. Place half of Oak on charcoal. Lay ham on the grill above the pan of water. Close the grill lid and close all vents. DO NOT OPEN LID. If, after about 30 minutes you do not see little wisps of smoke coming from grill then you may want to check to make sure charcoal is burning properly. Then again all grills are different. Some are sealed so tightly the charcoal may go out after a while and then you have to open a vent just a little bit to keep the air flowing to keep the charcoal lit. Once you figure out how your grill works let the ham cook for 4 hours with lid closed. Then open, add more Oak, more charcoal, turn the ham and cook for 4 more hours. Cooking times also depend on the size of the ham. Also, you don't want a raging fire. You want a slow steady heat. This makes for a moist, flavorful ham and ribs. I also use this method for large sirloin tip roasts. How to tell the ham is done..... When the internal temp is 165 degrees. Do not let thermometer touch the bone. Place it deep into the thickest part of the ham. When it registers 165 take ham from grill, set it on platter and let it rest for 15 to 20 minutes. Then slice it. Save bone and some meat around it for a pot of beans.

I got what Roy was saying and had a hearty laugh. Hell is sitting through VPW's classes........

Rocky, your info made me think of what one of my students related to me. She and her husband lived in Scotland for 5 years while he worked on his PhD. They visited many places in Europe. When they returned to the U. S. it was culture shock acclimating to the mega this and that from department stores to restaurants. She said the Europeans would never believe the portions served in restaurants here in the U. S.

I am shocked the ACLU is not beating down this county's door if it truly is related to religious persecution. My first question..where was the visitor parked? Hellllooooo!!!! Where was the county the five years this group had been meeting? Where were the neighbors the entire five years prior to this incident? The neighbors did not complain. The visitor complained. Hellllooooo!!!!! I bet you folks who live, work, park, and drive in congested areas are having a good laugh over this one. Some years ago the ACLU did get involved in the next town over with a Bible study group. The county, I think the fire dept., said the folks could not have the 15 or 20 meeting in the home due to fire hazard or something like that. The ACLU did defend the Bible group to the hilt. I often wondered what action the county would have taken if this home had 10 or 12 children. Imagine when all the young'ins started driving......

Roy, beautiful thoughts.

Any of you guys do any special cooking out, grilling, during the Memorial Day weekend. In our family we grill 12 months of the year. This year was special because I actually had the time to go to my moms for a big shindig. We are one cooking family. We invite everybody. A ham was cooked on the grill the indirect grilling method. Fallen sticks from an Oak tree were put on the charcoal and gave the ham a wonderful flavor. We had pork cutlets marinated 3 different ways; cajun type dry rub, Carolina bbq and a soy/fish sauce/rice wine. The other meats were hamburgers brautwurst and marinated chicken breasts. The rest of the eats was potato salad, cole slaw, corn on the cob, squash casserole, big green salad, macaroni/cheese pie, pickles, sliced cold watermelon, peach cobbler and apple pie. It was a beautiful day. What fun.