ceresone, I posted earlier this am about our storm under the June 25th one.

As to the roses: June was the preferred month, but I plan to take several cuttings (and use the fruit jar method) next week. Be sure to plant them in the shade so they don't cook.

Glad you are getting rain....we actually have had enough.

I put up about 10 quarts of my pole beans yesterday and posted pics under the 25th of the cattle panel hoop house I use. I think you would love it too....no bending or squatting to pick.

gld, I planted under the cattle panels last year- planted Christmas Limas, which didnt do well, but the prettiest beans I've seen. Planted under the hoops for 2 years, but not this year.

I checked out your photos on the other post GLD. How high is the ceiling inside your hoop house? You used two panels for each section right? Do any of the pole beans grow on top where they can't be reached? Sure looks like a nice set-up.
I'm growing a few Scarlet Runner beans this year and a few Asian long beans. Both are climbers. The Scarlet Runner beans are new for me this year. With enough bacon and onion, just about any beans taste good. lol I don't know whether they'll be stringy though.

My version is composed of three panels total, bent into the hoop. It is 8 feet wide and 6 feet high in the center. The easiest way is to have two 10 or 12 foot long 2x6's place them on the edge, drive steel posts to hold them in place and the bend each panel separately by putting one end inside the 2x6. Two people are required for the bending. When I got them all in place I wired the panels together (those zip ties work great here). I just used farm fence for the north end. Does this make sense?

Everything is quiet here. Our bear is causing problems half way down the mt. and will probably be moved somewhere else soon. We've had so much rain,this is first day it has'nt rained,and the Rainbow people are camping in a sea of mud with a local man kept busy pulling cars out of the mud. I decided i did'nt need to go meet the Rainbow people as my car would never get out again.

My catnip is blooming. It draws some butterflys. I bought a fern that i want to bring into the house this winter. I've quite a few yellow daylilies blooming now. The double orange ones are putting on a show. I did'nt know i had so many of them. The hostas are blooming too. my astilbe looks prettier than it ever has but the late frost kept it from blooming,maybe thats why it's grown so good this year.

Gld - Thanks for the how-to. Picking in the shade would be a big plus.

I planted some little watermelon sprouts on the 4th. I'm sure that's the latest I've ever planted watermelons but my first round didn't germinate very well. They were Sugar Babies and mature a little quicker than some of the others. Maybe we'll have a warm fall and I'll be able to harvest at least a couple.

The 'Baby Joe' Joe Pye weed that I planted this spring looks like it's about to bloom. It's grown faster than I expected and making me wonder if it's really going to be short like it's supposed to be or if they might have sent me the regular Joe Pye weed instead.

My daughter found a freshly hatched Monarch caterpillar upside down on a milkweed leaf. We thought it was dead but it wasn't and now it's in the house munching on milkweed. She likes bugs more than flowers.

We got a nice shower yesterday evening and there's some rain on the radar AGAIN. I read on another forum that lightning helps bring nitrogen to plants.

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden Lightning

Hello all! I picked my first (non-cherry) ripe tomato on Monday. Several of the Bush Champions are starting to turn red. It was pretty good, but I think I'll brave the squirrels and let them get redder. My yellow tomato has so many babies on it I'll be giving them away to everyone I know even if the rodent's do snack on 1/2 of them and the Roma is getting pretty heavily loaded too. My zucchini is getting blossum end rot on most every fruit. Funny that the tomatoes aren't when they are planted within five feet of each other in exactly the same compost, but I'll count my blessings. My pole beans are slow, thanks to the deer that munched them, but I almost have enough picked for cooking now. With a 4x7 garden, there's no canning. LOL! And I made my very first sling out of pantyhose for my cantaloupe yesterday. I have one about the size of a tennis ball now and several others on the trellis that are smaller. I'll be so excited if I even get one or two of those to eat! My petunias are going insane on my front steps and look just lovely, but BOY do I need to weed my flower beds. Maybe this weekend. After all the rain we got I have grass growing everywhere!

Hope you all are having a wonderful start to the 2nd half of the year - and had a great Independence Day!

Well, it is too hot to be doing anything outside except in the wee hours of the morning for me.

I did get my "squash bed" mulched with layers of papers and feed sacks and three bales of straw. The ground was good and wet and had lots of weeds. Sure hope this takes care of it for good for this year.

I have bird house gourd, zuchini, cantaloupe and a short row of okra growing here.

Lots of little crook necks and cucumbers but they seem to be growing very slowly. When they hit, it will be a load. I do garlic and dill pickles and toward the end of the season let the cukes get larger and do a batch of lime pickles.

Tomatoes have disease and don't look promising. I have never raised good tomatoes in this garden that I inherited from the previous owner.

The lettuce growing under the pole bean hoop house is growing very lank...too much shade I am thinking, while the oak leaf seed I spilled just outside the kitchen door is doing great. It gets afternoon shade and is growing on the gravel drive. Of course, I couldn't pull it up and am enjoying lettuce from the drive. I even weeded it this morning. Gardeners are crazy people.