I was really thinking about growing some tobacco. Have you had any issues with insect or anything else growing tobacco? I switched to vaping years ago, but tobacco still has some market value. Thinking about putting in some mary jane also. Farms of it are popping up everywhere here.
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grasshoppers are my usual problem- i used to use nolo bait on them. this year I’ve got one patch really crowded and have had some issues with earwigs in the lower leaves. nothing too terrible though.
the curing, aging process is the hardest part really. i save seed.
@Tiirsys and @Eme i had WAY too many parsley come up this year so I’m gonna try to bag the big seed heads. last year i shook them onto the ground but the parsley really took over the herb garden area this past spring they will just blanket the ground. I’m going to try to bag the tops once they’re almost ready and shake into bags instead and save seed to give away and disperse a bit less next year
Brazilian red and Japanese black trifele about to go in a sandwich. both were good despite being the first and earliest of the year
two sedum (?) patches. wine mom turtle
i am still not sure why i put the Titan sunflowers in the high raised bed. pea and berry season definitely slowing down in the heat
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earwigs eating all the corn silks, had to toss a bunch of sluggo plus all over the place. there’s an army of them.
had a table sale of late season starts and things and a free table along side. went pretty good. my sign is terrible and i have no excuse, I’m an artist, it should look cool
today i took a few photos of my paths- well. i thought they would be paths. there’s none. it’s a jungle again like any year, raised beds or no. a narrow cardboard walkway kind of, but it’s hard to get into.
i have to get in there somehow and pick stuff soon. i didn’t for a day or two and i know there’s still peas and probably peppers hiding
peach report: good graft, bad graft, reliance loaded
my tobacco patches are doing well this year, got about 4 hands drying and another 2 curing now and the plants just topped. leaving a few to flower for seed next year.
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You have such lucky neighbors!
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some updates
a surviving rosemary, first cucumber!, earwigs are crazy this year and eating the corn silks despite the sluggo plus. and the secondary, crowded tobacco patch with sorghum alongside it
melons starting to flower. finally. rheinau gold zucchini i won’t be growing next year- I’ll stick with crookneck, i like it better. this stuff is really productive though. orach, nz spinach, bocking, various weeds, and a volunteer pumpkin have taken over between some beds
yes it’s a good cabbage year but the strawberries have just made runners! i didn’t even give them N this year, and still- only a few fruit. there’s 4 or 5 varieties in there too, all the same. runners
i want the grapes to be ready. i pick a few and munch and they’re still a little sour and astringent. there’s too many. i really want them to be ready
same with tomatoes:
probably more than a hundred in there, a dozen varieties on maybe twenty plants, all green. been green weeks- it’s been very hot.
cleaned up the old empty floricanes and can get to the baby apple trees again now. bee balm going strong in a bag. beans are beginning in the old lettuce bed, which is now full of mainly chicories and such to tide us over until it cools off. goldenberry has a lot of fruit, only a few ripe so far. ground cherry is dropping unripe fruit right now in the heat. both are mostly still green.
main garden is a jungle again despite the raised beds. parking a picture of the Titan sunflowers here for later reference. they need to be in ground next year, probably between the greenhouse and that big raised bed. they make good shde for the greenhouse late afternoon. might do more along the west side of the house for the shade.
plums are barely starting to color up. peaches are still coming from the tree. all berries are done, i cut back the gooseberries and currant a bit too for the year.
reliance is the peaches. they are better than a store peach, that’s for sure. might be the least great of the home grown kinds, but they are really good and I’ll take it. maybe the grafts will give us more variety next year or the year after.
green peppers, unripe but almost ready grapes, amaranth for the pasta. gonna save amaranth seed this year from this bronze and the red next to it, plus order in more. and try to seed it all along the front of the house maybe. it doesn’t seem to mind dry heat.
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Wow, so your grapes are amazing!!! They just love your hot and arid climate.
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they really do. never have had issues with fungal stuff here. i do defoliate to let air and sun in on the fruit a few times a year.
i can never tell if a nectarine is ready. any hints? i picked one bc the color was gorgeous and it came off pretty easy but it was hard and not really as sweet as i thought it should be.
it’s in the 80s now so the million tomatoes are beginning to turn finally.
the tobacco next to the sorghum, I’ve decided I’ll interplant then together next year. the sorghum gets going as the tobacco starts to fade it’s good timing and the tobacco is so hungry and thirsty while the sorghum needs almost nothing. different root pattern too.
my landrace tobacco has large, narrow leaves that just DRIP nicotine. sticky. I’m letting flowers come this year then next year i will top all of them for more leaf production.
all the little propagation stations lol. a persimmon doing great, pawpaws coming up. seedlings and cuttings. got staghorn sumac and locust root runners in a few pots, not sure if people will want them but worth a try. worst case they go out back behind the fence
self sowed sunflower is 15 feet tall.
late asparagus, I’ll let it fern out. and pink celery doing good. with the fruit,
gravenstein has maybe 10 on it. plums coming along. not sure what the schoolmarm plum will do or how to tell when they’re ready, what color, anything. waiting on plump and a bit soft i suppose. the Italian plums are turning finally.
edit to add the nectarines in question. Arctic Jay. looks right, tastes not quite ready. how do you know? it’s my first nectarine to hold fruit and this is year two of that. last year it had only a few this year a good handful of fruit. i picked them all too early last year but the birds were eating on them.
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all my drought complaints culminate in this post
no snow pack over winter, no rain beyond early June, the city itself dry. and now fires in the city. in town.
i always say “in town” but half a million people live in my city.
i took these photos throughout the day. we are packed and ready to go if called for or if i get too nervous.
the old trails fire throughout the day. 3600 acres to the west of us, about a mile and a half away i think. residential and park areas. office buildings. business. lots of black smoke from structures, then yellow from trees.
here’s the Fairview fire to the northeast of us throughout the day.
a little further out, from us. wind carried that smoke away until about 7 or 8 pm then the black gunk came right over and the two clouds merged into one.
spent the day packing up, checking things, hosing the trees and roof, and waiting.
we are lucky.
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This is very scary. I’m so sorry, and I hope you and your home remain safe.
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Hope you can stay safe, breath relatively easy, and keep things watered
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Long time lurker from Seattle who has been following your journey and came here today to see how you were. I used to live in Malibu and my parents lost their house in the Palisades fire so I know how scary it is. Be safe and evacuate early if you feel you need to. My heart goes out to all of you over there.
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right now the fires are raging outward. from the news locally they’re controlled towards the town direction and it’s a dull, still day. hope they can get a handle on it today before wind kicks back up.
we are still ready to go but in town feels safer- the smoke though. it’s bad. it’s all still burning.
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I may be preaching to the choir here, but in case you don’t know: you can create a Corsi-Rosthenal Box to purify indoor air. They’re apparently extremely effective.
Glad you’re safe so far and I’m holding out hope for you and your family that it remains that way.
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Kind of unreal that this is happening inside of a city. Stay safe!
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we have several running!
it was all smoke outside today. luckily the wind is low. zero containment, but if the wind stays low it’ll be easier to get them controlled. it’s this drought, nothing could have spread like this if we had had snow pack and our usual (if low) amount of rain this year and last. as it is, ANYTHING can go big real fast.
photos
Sun was so hot pink it won’t show up on camera.
down graded evacuation around us is good, but there’s ash starting to fall in the smoke. will have to scrub up anything i pick now and probably not eat any sunflowers from this year, they take up heavy metals and such and this is structure fire smoke.
we’re right next to the number 11 on this map of town.
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That continues to sound very scary. Good plan on cleaning and what not to eat. Sorry you are going through this.
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i saw that
20 years ago that firebug would have lit up an acre. with the heat and drought, these guys now light up thousands of acres. climate change has turned them into supervillians
double edit: more stuff to clean off. air is better today. a bit of smoke
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almost forgot, picked the trailman apples yesterday out in the smoke. some had fallen to codingmoth, others untouched and fell into my hand off the branch easily. will let them settle a few days
picked a few more nectarine. plums are coming along and grapes. a few dropped plums tasted near ready
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