Good to know - thanks!

Good to know! A contractor we had doing some work on the house last year left behind a roll of thick poly sheeting so I was thinking about using that to make some floating row covers anyway.

I’ll be sure to post lots of pictures this year! I also started a personal website recently for fun so I’ll probably be putting stuff there.

I’m planning to devote about half of my fenced garden space to trying a three sisters patch, and this year I’m going to be more strategic about where I put my potatoes so they don’t shade out everything around them early in the season. I haven’t grown beans or corn before but my squash did great last year so I’m looking forward to more of that!

I didn’t have great luck with brassicas last year so I’m hoping to do better by starting earlier and figuring out how to fight the cabbage moths.

I also have tentative plans to build out a patio/fire pit area on the site of a pool and deck I tore down last year. I want it surrounded by raised beds with various perennials like blueberry bushes, and maybe someday a grape trellis. I have plenty of wood from that deck so I may also build random stuff like a bench to go inside my squash tunnel (:

This was a good reminder that I should start putting together a planting schedule and a seed order soon!

Tea is the goal! It’s been growing from seed since February of 2023. I’ve made all of one cup of tea so far, from some prunings last spring. It was nice (:

I don’t expect to be able to harvest in any sort of quantity for a couple years yet, so for now I guess it’s mostly decorative. The flowers were pretty!

Some luffa pics -

Sheets drying

Four gourds

Luffa growing on the fence - I had to add some extra support here, the weight of the gourds was pulling the fence down!

_aesthetic

I recently harvested and processed my luffa! Four good gourds, plus a few smaller ones that’ll just be compost. All but one were very green still, so I roasted them in the oven at 250F for an hour to make the skins workable, squeezed out the pulp and seeds, cut them into a flat sheet, and then soaked in a bleach solution overnight to kill any mold/bacteria before leaving them to dry. I’m excited to make some sponges!

I’ll be definitely be planting more next year, the super long vines are very fun, especially the one that grew along the top of my garden fence this year.

Harvested my sunflower heads this week! I probably waited a bit too long since they had worms and a bit of mold, but lesson learned for next time. I took all the seeds out, sorted out the bad ones, and I’m going to let them dry for a while longer in mesh bags before roasting and shelling or whatever.

Any advice on processing sunflowers?

I was in NM for work and didn’t get to explore too much, but I definitely got some great night skies! Desert ecologies are always interesting to visit as someone from the northeast, I especially liked seeing a bit of the riparian ecosystem around the Rio Grande.

I’m definitely doubling the number of sunflowers I plant next year! Might try some of the varieties that have multiple blooms as well, as fun as the mammoth ones are.

First time here as well! Currently away on a trip and hoping that when I get back the sunflowers will be ready and the birds will have left some for me.

I was just visiting New Mexico, and I enjoyed seeing all the wild sunflowers growing everywhere in the desert.

My experimental Loofa plants are starting to produce! They were strange - sent out female flowers way early in the season, then a run of only males, and now finally I’m getting a mix.

I’d like to try making some biodegradable sponges out of them.

Physical anti-tamper, while important for this type of device, wouldn’t have helped for this particular attack. It’s an electromagnetic side channel, so they don’t even have to be touching the the thing to collect data.

Thinking about propagating some wild black raspberry I have in my yard - when would you recommend cutting canes, and should I root them before planting out? I’ve seen people store dormant canes over winter and plant out in the spring, what are the advantages/disadvantages there?

It’s been cool and wet enough recently (thank goodness) that some self-seeded lettuce and arugula from the plants that bolted at the end of spring have sprouted - I had been missing the fresh greens!

I’ve also been enjoying seeing the joe-pye weed, goldenrod, and all the other summer wildflowers in full bloom!

What other squash varieties are you growing? I have the pumpkins and butternut this year but I’m interested in trying some more next year.

Those wildflowers look divine, my goal for next year is to have a patch like that!

Here’s what I’ve got -

Sunflowers!

Tomatoes have been doing great, especially the cherry variety I’m growing

The vineborers got half my pumpkins but I’ve harvested a few good ones, as well as a healthy crop of butternut squash

Bonus brood of wild turkeys from my living room window, there have been quite a few families with cute little fluff balls in the yard recently

I’ve been playing the new Solium Infernum with a friend - the first playthrough I did not particularly enjoy (partially my fault for not playing the tutorial first) but once I learned the mechanics my second game was more fun. The UI is not very smooth to use and there are some mechanics I don’t like, but overall pretty good.

I also picked up Mindustry again last night - it’s an open source Factorio + Tower Defense + RTS that is rather addicting… The new campaign they added a couple years ago is better than the original too.

I missed seeing the weekly thread yesterday, thanks for posting it! Those cucumbers look great - mine are pretty much done here on the opposite side of the country (maybe I underwatered in July) but my tomatoes are doing great. Sunflowers are so close to blooming, which is super exciting.

Here’s the coolest thing I saw this week - a large caterpillar on my tomatoes studded with parasitic wasp eggs. What a crazy insect - it infects the host caterpillar with a virus that prevents it from molting!

Thank you! The arch is my favorite part too

Tacked together some scrap wood to un-squash my squash arch - turns out 12 gauge wire fencing is not rigid enough to support full grown butternut squashes! I like how it looks with the wood, though.

You can see my sunflowers too in the right of the image, just starting to form their flowers. I’m hoping they’ll open in time for the visitors I have this weekend to see them.

The cucumbers are slowing down now but it’s the tomatoes’ turn to go absolutely wild. I bet I could start harvesting some of these squash and pumpkins soon as well.

Thank you! I’ll give this a try. It makes sense, I haven’t done any fertilizing since making this bed in the spring (compost/topsoil blend from a local supplier), and haven’t been the most consistent on watering…