Josh, thanks, I don't know what I am doing, but I get luck every now and then. I planted 204 cloves from the produce market, and harvested 160 good heads of garlic, 31 heads that were too mature, which I will save for seed and plant this Oct. I used a few heads this winter, I was satisfied with what the garlic did, I fell that I have a lot to learn to be able to grow good garlic.

It started raining, so I tossed every thing on the back of my RTV and parked it under a shed. The good garlic in on the back, the seed garlic is in the 5 gal bucket.

That garlic looks great Larry. I only got 4 planted last year.

Kim, I have never planted regular garlic before. Last year I was trying to get my grand daughter to grow something, so I had her order what ever type of garlic she wanted and I would pay for it. Well, she ordered and planted her garlic, at harvest time I don't think she got much more than her seed back ( I think it was 34 ), but she never came over to water, weed , or anything else.

I thought that garlic can be grown here, but she is young and has other interest. What is it that we hear about "you can lead a horse to water but you cant make them drink"? I am still trying to stir up an interest in the kids, but it is a slow go.

I have about 35 Elephant garlic that I have been growing for several years, I give most of it away, but keep enough for seed. I also have, what I am calling wild garlic for now. It is some garlic that I found, and have no idea what it is, so I just stuck it under a trellis to protect it and see what it grows into. The "Wild" garlic looks better than any garlic that I have, but it looks to be nowhere near harvest time, I hope it is interesting enough for me to keep growing it.

I am also building grand daughter a planter that she can sit 2 mineral tubs in, and have a platform between them to have room for a seat, or to place another plant in.

Larry, I quit growing garlic and onions because of the space it took up in spring. I understand your pulling it. Just make sure it dries thoroughly before storing. I'm also thinking it needs 30 days of drying to be optimal flavorwise.

Amy, I always try to cure for a long time. I think onions and garlic stink, so it hangs out in the lean-to on the shop till cold weather. I might get better shelf life out of it if I knew the proper way to cure it.

I have been trying to fill in our onion needs with Egyptian walking onions. When we run out of bulbing onions, I start harvesting walking onions to cook with. We don't like them as well, but you pick up a few tricks the longer you use them. I started last year harvesting the walking onions, and just cutting off about one inch of the root end and replanting it, and slicing up the rest of the onion and putting it in the frig or freezer. I have so many onions now, it is unreal. I am hoping to find a garlic that is as hardy and prolific as the Egyptian walking onion.

Well, we had a great day, we had Mother's Day kids here today and yesterday.

Madge had 2 daughters, 2 grand daughters, and 2 great grand daughters here. They dressed up, and I think Madge was the queen, I was the Court Jester, I was afraid to even come out amongst all those good looking females.

Kim, I had to show off the tomato you gave me, and I had 4 families raiding the garden and my extra plants. The lady on the right end is a vegan, and likes to hit my garden every chance she gets, and I enjoy it.

My vitex that Dawn brought for SF finally made it to me. Bruce graciously offered to deliver it, and while I wasn't too concerned with getting it, I do appreciate it. He came by Fri and we had a short chat before unfortunately duty called and I had to go back in to work. I'm sorry I missed it, but unfortunately that's how things go.

We went down to Canton, TX to the big flea market. I've told Cliff about it for over a decade now, so he suggested we go down. So we rented a camper (you'd be surprised how many places won't allow three large breed dogs), loaded up the pups, sent the kitties to our former roommate/Cliff's sister, and drove down to shop til we dropped. Cliff and the older two pups dropped before I did, so the puppy and I finished out the weekend wandering around by ourselves. I saw a few things I picked up, a few more I'd like but couldn't justify buying, and gobs of plants I really wanted to pick up. But I restrained myself, promising that once we sell this place and get moved to the next "forever home" I'll go all out setting up my garden the way I want.

HJ, I'm sorry about your hen. I know how much you dote on your little flock. I remember your story about all the broody hens.

Larry, your garlic looks better than mine does. I planted cloves from last year, so I imagine that's why I had such poor results. Most didn't survive the winter, and the few that are left are pretty scrawny. I saw a picture where someone used an old dog crate to cure garlic (or onions). Looks like a good way to keep them separated so they'll dry more evenly. I usually just layer them in boxes, then have to remember to rotate them. Otherwise they get moldy and gross.

Great pics of the family, Larry. Hope everyone else enjoys Mother's day tomorrow.

Thanks, Jen, the garlic did turn out pretty well. I bundled it all in bunches of 5, and hung then from drywall screws run into the sides of rafters of my lean-to. I hung 150+, and have enough to have seed for 300+, but we will eat some of them, and I want to experiment with a few of them. I want to try plant some now and see what happens.

I was concerned about not having enough space to hang my onions, but I wont have to worry now, when we said help yourself to the garden, the onions started going fast. The past two I have had a wonderful onion crop. The red onions were the best I have ever eaten ( I hope this years crop is the same ). I did not buy many plants this year, I thought the price was too high, and the quality too low. I cant but Dixondale here, Bonnie has everything sewed up. I may try planting seeds again, but that sure is a lot of work, and it seems as though I live in the wrong location to make onion seed starting work.

We expect to go to one more Mothers Day bash, that will happen Tue. in Fayetteville, AR.. We will go up there and spend the night so we wont have to drive at night, we are getting to the point that we no longer travel well.

I found these in a garlic plant, I expect to plant them and see what grows.

I have been reading but haven’t come back to comment for a few days. Are everybody must be staying extremely busy right now. I am transitioning from spring to summer planting plus all the herbs. I did not realize I had at least 50 things to go in the ground before I left for the Spring fling. And of course I added a few more. I decided to make one of my inground beds a semi permanent area. I have blackberry elderberry 4 o’clock‘s and a couple other things I can’t remember right now that are permanent plants. I thought they might do better in the ground and then in a pot. And if I ever move then I will dig them up. But in the meantime I can Definitely enjoy them where they are. Oh Roselle not really a permanent plant but a beast that I don’t want in a pot. Lemon balm is another one I got at the Spring fling from Moni I believe. I accidentally threw away the list of where I got everything. Saturday I did lots of planting and this weekend or possibly Tuesday of next week I will be doing the Carrots because I will be out of school for the summer. I see lots of gardening in my future.

I tilled up a place for okra and squash, but the rain has it muddy now, I should have planted it yesterday. It has rained a little today, and I used that as an excuse to stay in, I did go out and cut the lettuce and placed it around the tomatoes as mulch, I hope I did not make a bug nest by doing that. I also started pruning and tying up the tomatoes, I never get to that job started as soon as I should.

I split, and planted that cluster of garlic that is pictured above. I have never planted any garlic at this time of the year, but may plant a few more cloves with that 10 that I planted this morning just to see what happens.

I am going to have to stake my dwarf tomato plants, it seems as though the potting soil is not firm enough to hold them up, but I was expecting that. So far the tomato plants in the pots are doing better than I expected. The tomatoes in the ground are doing well also because of so much rain. The rain has stopped me from getting the other two gardens ready, they are wetter than the south garden.

I need to do something with my onion sets, I have only planted them one time before, and was not happy with them then either. I need to learn about them, surely they are good for more than green onions, if not, I think that I can use the walking onions and bunching onions for that. I harvested 2 of the sets for lunch today, the outer layers were tough, but the inter ones were very good. Some of my bulbing onion are already falling over, I pulled one bundle yesterday. I would like to get the onion area replanted peas or okra.

I pulled at least 100 walking onions to make room for the tomato that Kim gave me, I will stick 2 or 3 peppers in that area also.

Any advice on growing the dwarf tomato plants, they may not be as dwarf as I was expecting?

I’ve never grown the dwarf plants. I got one of your tie dye plants Larry. Is it supposed to be a dwarf.

Kim, I have never seen a dwarf plant, but mine wont be dwarf long if they dont stop growing.

Kim, my last posts--4 or 5 of them--didn't show up for most people. I think maybe Jen saw it because she commented on something, and Rick saw a couple of them.

It's frustrating to spend time commenting on each person's posts and update on my garden/life....but no one sees it. I've had to take that off my list of things I do. I love commenting and posting here, but if no one reads/sees them, it's a half hour of precious time that was wasted.

Life is too busy for that.

I'm so excited about your garden this year, Kim. It's just wonderful.

Larry, your plants look great!

I'm very busy with garden stuff too, and life things.

Maybe this will post. Maybe it won't?

Kim, while Fred's tie dye is sold as a dwarf, it probably gets 4' tall. I grew it in a mineral tub. Of the dwarfs I grew it was the best producing.

Jennifer you know I have trouble posting here, too.

Jennifer, I see the post from about an hour ago, then the next one I see of yours is 5 days ago.

I am trying to plant a few plants, then we are leaving for northwest Arkansas for a grand child graduation, and another Mother's Day function.

I have the tomatoes tied up, that are in the ground. I have planted 8 more peppers, they were listed as small pimentos, I am not sure what that means, but I expect to fins out, if they live.

I plan on sticking a few more tomatoes in the ground before we leave, that should put my count at 30+, which should be enough. My daughter and grand daughter are growing some peppers and tomatoes at their houses, which makes me happy, I have been trying to get them interested in growing food.

Well, I have had lunch, now I need to go to the garden for a while.

Jennifer, I hope you get your posting figured out, because I enjoy reading your post, and seeing your pictures, and that goes for the rest of you fellow gardeners.

Me too Larry. I enjoy everybody’s post. Right now is crazy. End of year and I will officially be out on Monday the 20th. Jennifer I hate that I can’t see your posts. I enjoy all the posts here and wish there were more. Now I know, yours are in space somewhere. Well I wish it would quit messing with us.

Glad to know Amy about the tie dye. I’ll give it a little more room than I planned. Larry it is awesome when our kids get interested in the same things as us

I have two tie dyes in the hoop house. As long as they stay around 4 ft. it should be good.

As far as the posting goes....what is weird is that *I* can see the posts. I've wondered if I'm somehow making it "private" to just me. You know how you can do that on Facebook...

Only thing is, I don't know what I'm clicking (accidentally) to do that.

I have a FB memory today from 4 years ago. Dawn commented on it.

Okay, so that posted, I think. At least it shows on the thread list as updated 2 minutes ago.

So, I saved seed from some of those store bought "lunchbox" peppers. They look like mini bells and come in red, yellow, and orange. I have them planted in the Vego bed for ease of lunch ingredients. ANYWAY, the fruit that is growing does not look like the parent fruits. So interesting. It makes you wonder what the "grandparent" fruit was....or if it cross pollinated. Do peppers cross pollinate? These were organic and I assumed that they were probably grown in large high tunnels with all the same variety.

Other people have posted in various places that they've had good luck with saving seed from those store bought peppers.

I'll try one of the fruits pretty soon. They are longer and narrow like a jalapeno or banana pepper, but not exactly.

We just got back from northwest Arkansas. Madge's grand kids put us up in the Hilton Garden Inn, the nicest place I have ever stayed in, then today Madge's grand daughter took us to the Westwood Garden Center, we did not feel like walking all the way through it, but still bought more stuff than we need.

I still have plants that I need to put into the garden, and we need to decorate our Furr Baby's grave, we treat that area like a flower bed, plus we have 3 crepe myrtle growing there.

Jennifer, it's possible your peppers were a hybrid that has reverted back to a parent. And yes peppers can cross, also, be aware, there are several tie dye varieties. Some are full sized indeterminate plants.

Amy, the Tie Dyes are some that Larry brought to me. Hoping they won't outgrow the hoop house beds. They have about 4 feet vertical space in those beds.

I was pretty sure that type of pepper was a hybrid, but after so many people posted at various forums about how they had such good luck with them, I thought I would try at least. Now, I'll just look for some seed to buy for next year. With plants, I don't know how easily they cross pollinate...or which varieties are more likely to do so.

I understand with chickens. For instance, "sex-linked" chickens are bred so that you can tell the males from the females from the the beginning. The males are a different color. (generally they're bred for egg production too, I think.)

However, two sex-link chickens (a rooster and a hen. Obviously.) won't create a sex-link chick. Their chicks will have traits of the grandparent chickens.

Jean Luc Picard, my main roo, is a sex-link. I got him as an egg from our neighbors who had 11 red sex-link hens and a red sex-link rooster. HE turned out red, though. Unless a "traveling man" rooster visited their coop.

There is a mini sweet bell seed. I think SHPC has it.

I have grown an "Orange Mini Bell", I think was the name, I was very productive, and the kids really loved it. My compliant was, the plant was too short, 18" at best, the plant was too productive, the fruit was too small, but if a person wanted a very pretty, very tasty snacking pepper it was great. I scrapped it for the Ashe County pimento, not near as productive, but thicker walled fruit.

I grew cherry bell that was very productive.

Kim, it looks like you and I are the only ones with time to goof around on the web, It's not that I have a lot of time, I just get tired quickly, and come in to rest, and my laptop is right next to my recliner.

I got up early and did not want to disturb Madge, so I went out to play. I got the east end of the north garden tilled, and getting ready to burn under the trellises. I plan on planting more tomatoes, sweet potatoes and peppers there, I also want to plant roselle, and a few flowers that Madge picked up yesterday, she was also asking about zinnia seeds, so it looks like I need to start digging for those, its a shame when an old man cant remember where he put anything. We don't have a flower bed ready, and I have more garden space than I need, so I will share my well amended soil with her.

Larry it’s true. I have lots of down time since my surgery last year. I do push myself a little too much sometimes but that still leaves me lots of time to web garden. I so enjoy this corner of the web. There aren’t any mean spirited people here like in the fb groups. I have quit more groups than I am in. Tomorrow I will pick up water about 10 gallons so that I can do my canning on Saturday. I do not use our water here because it is gray and probably not the best for washing my beautiful organic produce. I’ve decided executive decision to plant sweet potatoes in my carrot bed. the soil is loose and fluffy and beautiful and the Pink eye purple whole peas wouldn’t even appreciate any of that. I ended up with a lot of slips and have been unable to unload them. The digging will be interesting because I believe there’s a water line under there. So I can’t go crazy digging with my digging fork like I normally would. But sweet potatoes are pretty good about staying close to the stem. I have to get my dehydrator cleaned up. There are so many herbs I need to dry right now that are just absolutely going crazy. it is way too humid here to lay them out to dry. I tried that and it did not work. I need to plant some more herbs but I am slowly running out of room. Well not really slowly quickly I should say quickly running out of room.

Tomatoes not looking good.

Other than a couple of problem childs, they were doing well before the tornado last week ( which it was an F1 tornado that took my tree down ) . I thought my tomato plants came out OK. The upper leaves on about half the plants were ragged and not good shape, from getting whipped around by the wind. I thought they would quickly recover, but that's not happening. Its like they got bit back from a freeze.

I've got one plant that's wilted and dying. It was a problem child before the tornado. I think a worm had eaten into the stalk at ground level, but it had recovered and even put on several good tomatoes.

I've got others that are just sitting there, not doing anything.

And for some reason, the blight is showing up earlier than usual. I normally don't see it before Memorial Day. I got one plant that may not make it that far.

Then the forecast for next Sunday -- Monday, are showing some high temps at 90* with night time temps over 70*. Both are not good. Right now, forecasts don't call for it sticking around more than a couple days. We will see.

Just had a chance to skim through the posts. I'll come back this afternoon to read more carefully. I do think the weird "not showing for other people" thing happened again. I posted 19 hours ago and the thread list didn't sure an updated time on this thread. That's usually a sign that no one can see the post but me.

I talk about "sex-linked" chickens in that post, sorta comparing them to plants.

Can anyone see that post? I can see it.

Made a post with work laptop 2 minutes ago but it shows on the thread list the last post on this thread was 18 minutes ago which is Lynns, i believe.

so weird. the one i did yesterday isnt showing for yall either. i can see it tho.

trying to post from my phone now to see if it works.

Just so yall dont think im crazy, i took a picture of my laptop with the post i did a few minutes ago that is only showing for me.

heres the pic.

A few days ago, I got an email notification that you'd posted, but could not find the post on the site.

Not very encouraging , huh ?

Kim, I think most water lines are deeper than a spading fork.

Jennifer, I miss some of your post, and don't worry about people thinking you are crazy, I've been crazy for 80 years, and I don't remember losing any sleep over it.

Kim, I have been trying to amend my planting holes for my sweet potatoes in hope of making them easier to harvest, I just cant dig any more.

I have 85 sweet potato slips growing in the south garden, and, I made a place for 15 more slips to plant in the north garden. I will have to cut some runners from potatoes growing in the south garden in order to get the slips for the north garden.

I expect a dry summer, which means that the water company may shut off all outside watering, which will mean that I will have to haul water from the pond, or a well on the other side of the property, so I have to get everything ready early to keep my plants alive. The hot dry summers sure take a lot of the fun out of gardening.

Well it has started raining again, I need to go put all my junk away.

I got everything put away, and the rain stopped.

Madge got a Lady Banks rose for Mother's Day, and did not want to share any of my garden space, so we planted it on our Furr Baby's grave, it looks nice there, now I need to build a nice trellis for it. It is so wet here that don't do well growing roses.

Larry unfortunately ours are not. They are about 6” in some places. Especially after the last house movers stole the top soil.

Gardening related. I am getting the puppies new home tomorrow. This will greatly help my garden because they have flattened about 30 Iris, chewed up so many things. It’s time for them to go by by. Plus I have too much work to do to trip over the little darlings. I still have 100 things to get in the ground. Tomorrow is a good workday.

It rained here again today, but I did get 2 rows of okra seeds planted.

Jennifer, did your passion vine live? I went over to the wildlife garden to check on the other 3 passion vines, they look okay, but I was expecting more growth.

I am still working on the north garden trying to get it ready to plant, it is wetter than the south garden and may take a while to dry out now.

I was thinking that someone on here was talking about wild lettuce, and other plants to use for medical reasons.

Does this look like wild lettuce, and is it worthwhile to try to make meds. from wild lettuce? This plant has the hairs/stickers on the leaves.

I can see it, HJ.

i’ve ripped out the spinach and lettuce, and I’ll finish the tall peas tomorrow. Peas have powdery mildew, greens were bolting. Some trellises will have pole beans, some cucumbers, and maybe some baby pumpkins and baby butternut squash. Once the potatoes finish up, I’ll replace them with Baby Bubba okra in one bed, and melons in the other. I’ve stuck a few random extra tomato plants here and there too.

Some of the onion necks are already starting to break. Seems early. I pulled the ones with broken necks. I wanted them to have more time to get bigger.

I’m also really pushing the tomatoes to set fruit asap, the Dawn Method. They’re predicting a hotter than normal summer.

And flowers.

Rebecca, those look nice. My tomatoes don't look that nice. I try to prune like you every year, and I have never been able to do it. I have more tomatoes that I want to plant in hope of better fall crop, maybe I can do a better job pruning them. Some of my fruit looks hail damaged, we did have hail, but I did not think that I had damage at the time.

Yay Jennifer it posted. Maybe it’s your work computer. You are always so busy. I have the summer off. Ten weeks!!! I have so many ideas of what I want to do. Gardening and focusing on keeping my garden protected from pests is number one. I need to check my garden journal. I made list of what to plant when I pulled the spring stuff. I am pulling all the carrots today finally. And the greens. I am going to can both and I want some more fermented carrots. Better get busy its already 7

I have not been doing much. I did get out and mow the lawn, still have a little touch up work to do.

Rebecca, I cant match the pretty plants that you have, but I will bore you with what I have.

This is the only flowers that I started this year. I bought a 50 cent pack of Teddy Bear sunflowers, I only got 5 to live. I planted them at the end of some of my garden rows.

This is the largest tomatoes I have, they are on a Champion plant. I have tried to trim my plants up, but I waited too long, if I trim them too much I get a lot of sun scald.

This is my tallest plant, but I only see one tomato on it, it is very small (at the end of my finger ). I have the plant marked as an "Orange hybrid". Madge bought some strange seeds that I have never heard of a year or two ago, they don't impress me, but she likes them, so I planted some seeds for her. This plant is waist high.

I wish that I had tomato cages, but when I started gardening I lived in town and did not have room to store cages, so I used T post and rebar. It looks like the T post and rebar will out last me. I have lots of storage room now, and I use the T post and rebar in other areas, along with cattle panels, so it looks like I am stuck with them.

Larry I don’t trim my tomato plants at all except at the bottom. I keep them about 10 to 12 inches above soil level trimmed. I don’t really have the desire time or energy to trim the way some people do. And I also don’t have the desire of time or energy to tie them up. I put a large cage around them and they get to do their own thing. I picked all my carrots today and washed them and trim them ready for canning.

Kim, I would love to try to grow one long stem of tomato straight up like you see some people up north or in greenhouses do, but I have not been able to make it work in our July and August sun.

Larry I have seen huge hoop houses with hundreds of plants like that. To me they look naked. Three piles of carrots.

I just trim for air flow, bec because my garden can get very still within the tall fences. I’m doing more of it than usual this year.

Rebecca, when I lived in town I has a tall fence around all the back yard. I only use an electric fence now, and only when I have to. There has been so much rain this year that everything is green and growing, and the deer seem happy to stay out of my garden for now.

Kim, I took a picture of the tomato you gave me today when I was out in the garden. The background does not let it show up very well, it is taller than it looks, and seems very happy. I plan on taking very good care of this plant, but I always try to care for my plants, they are my babies.