What's happening today 2016?

That is the goal yes. The fruit is wonderful I say it taste almost like butterscotch

I’ve wondered this too…but in my experience this isnt the case. I see half eaten pears ont he ground yet the squirrels/etc just go get a new one. Same with apples. Ijust pick them all and bury them. Set out traps.

Raining again here right now, about the third heavy shower today. Got a heavy rain Monday, some yesterday. Getting really tired of all this, and it’s supposed to rain the next couple of days. Had a tornado warning over by Huntington, about an hour east of here, but no damage that I’ve heard.

Its been a very hot/humid/wet summer, I didn’t know we had moved into a temperate rain forest. Everytime I’ve seen a national drought map, we’re never on it. Guess it could be worse, I feel bad for those folks down south.

The lawn needs mowing again, and it is such a chore. It took me almost four hours last week to mow our ~2 acres last week, kept clogging up my mulching rider mower. Thinking of putting the regular blades back on…

The squirrels took every apple off my honey crisp tree. The bad thing is they took the spurs and leaves too!

Pulled 52 hornworms off my tomato plants this weekend. The very last one I found looked like this:

I’ve been hit by hornworms HARD every year, but I avoided spraying specifically because I was hoping this parasitic wasp would show up.

That was Sunday, today I went out looking and found 10 more green caterpillars. Every single one of them had a load of cocoons on their backs. Hooray!

I never thought I would be rooting for a wasp, but gardening makes for strange bedfellows sometimes.

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God those thing are disgusting. My friend used to use them for fishing. He told me to take a wooden match stick and press it into the head of the worm lengthwise and effectively turn the hornworm inside out exposing it’s guts. Apparently fish love them like that. Lol

We would go swimming when we were younger at a lake north of here which has a very heavy biting fly population///as in you sometimes had to go underwater because they loved attacking your head. The best part of it, is if you would swat one and it would land on the water, the sunfish/bass (which you can see because the water is very clear) would immediately gulp them down. It was always a big deal when someone would get one. The whole circle of life and all that…

No nightmares for me, looks like a dream come true!

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I would take the ones with the larvae on them to place away from your plants to let the wasps hatch. Those worms will not survive they have met their end. I love seeing worms like that. Fifty-two is a lot of worms. You could make a big salad with those. I hear they are good with Italian dressing. No just kidding, but in Africa they have the worlds largest grasshopper catcher. They deep fry them. I’ll see if i can find the video. Here: https://youtu.be/KeUUVJv4joU

Going to feel like fall in the northeast day 6 and 7 (week from now)… Looks like some heat comes right behind it, but plenty of fallish weather just north iN Canada.

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Emerald was the most significant early and Sunshine blue was the latest. There was a fair amount of crossover with my six varieties. For the most part all were going great guns most of the time.

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Thanks

For NYC:

August Precip Stats:
Actual Month to Date: 0.82 in
Average Month to Date: 2.56 in
Average Month Total: 4.44 in

Oi Vey, so dry

Today I took another walk through the same arboretum that Peterson did when he ate his first Paw Paw. Last year I went to a Paw Paw tasting there and the trees were loaded. This year I couldn’t find a single fruit. The patch probably has at least 100 trees and not a fruit to be found.


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More RdB coming ripe, sequentially. If I can keep the GD freakin’ (that is actually not the adjective I used this morning) birds out of the tree:

And, this Flavor Finale fell off in my hand this afternoon. They’re not supposed to be ripe for another month (mid-Sept to early Oct), but my wonderful hubby, who dug out 24’ of Shell Ginger and was looking for a pick me up snack, said he checked and one fell off in his hand this morning. So, going to go down this evening and pick anything that is ready to go. This is the largest pluot I have. They get absolutely huge, and this tree set really well. Probably could have even thinned a bit, but was so ecstatic that it set for the fist time, I left the all. It is about 50% larger than Flavor King and my other pluots, and a close 2nd in flavor: Plus, it is very, very late, which is wonderful to extend stone fruit season out so late. Or, potentially so!

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Overrun with tomatoes - ran them thru the Victorio and got 12 qt juice

I don’t grow these for canning or sauce, not the right kind of tomatoes for that, but I had to do something with them

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Great idea, LOVE tomato juice and it is so good for you, so high in vitamin C and lycopene!! I feel a Bloody Mary coming on!

Patty S.

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How’s come? Did anyone know?

I have no clue Anne. Last year they held the Paw Paw tastings over a 3 week period ending on September 15. I was hoping some would be ripe or close to ripening. I had a bag with me and was going to bring some home. Lots of trees but no fruit.

Oh my. In January/February when there is snow on the ground uncork one of those and make spicy tomato soup. So warming. So reminiscent of summer!

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