Re: New England July 2014

NHGardener 7/4/2014, 10:33 am

"Do you just freeze your scapes 'as is', blanch them or ????"

I just freeze mine. That's pretty much what I do with everything - freezer baggie bags, put em in whole.

CapeCoddess 7/4/2014, 12:29 pm

Molly, here I thot NHG got the brunt of those storms and it was you! Bummer!

NHG, your duckies... Sad

Will older ducks work for slug hunting?

NHGardener wrote:"Do you just freeze your scapes 'as is', blanch them or ????"

I just freeze mine. That's pretty much what I do with everything - freezer baggie bags, put em in whole.

Sugar snap peas, too? I'm trying to figure out how to store the 2 pre-storm bags full I just harvested without losing their crunch & sweetness.

CC

NHGardener 7/4/2014, 12:42 pm

Well, CC, I always take the energy conserving route. I'm hoping I have enough sugar snap peas to freeze, and I'll be just bagging them like everything else. I guess they say blanching keeps the produce from continuing to ... something or other, but no one ever died from putting peas directly into a baggie into the freezer (that I know of anyway) so that's good enough for me.

Yup, if I could find some adult ducks, particularly anconas, I'd get them, but they're few and far between.

**donnainzone5** 7/4/2014, 1:13 pm

The duckies are no more. Two of them died from eating slugs! Apparently the slug slime suffocated them. One in the garden one night, one just in the yard the next night! It was devastating. The 3rd lonely duckling went to live with a friend who already has 2 of the same kind of duckling. Looks like it's back to hand-picking the slugs. What I suspect is that we have mutant alien slugs.

I find myself wondering if the slugs had ingested some type of poison.

NHGardener 7/4/2014, 1:34 pm

That's what the breeder suspected, but I'm 100% organic here, so unless there's some contaminant in the soil, I don't think so. Plus, the chickens have never had a problem, and the other duckling was fine. And the slug population has not decreased.

Slugs use slime as a defense, and I believe they can produce a lot of it when attacked. It's thick and sticky.

CapeCoddess 7/4/2014, 5:11 pm

unbelievable! Flooding everywhere off Cape but no rain here.

(Then the voice feature picked this up without me realizing it, "hey look Red River beach is on the news ma the weather guy is there they're talking about how we don't have any rain."

NHGardener 7/4/2014, 5:16 pm

Unbelievable, CC. It's steadily raining here. At least you don't have flooding.

CapeCoddess 7/4/2014, 5:41 pm

tis true. But I can't remember the last time we had we've had rain. I'd have to look back on the forum to find out ...I'm sure it was weeks ago. I didn't water Wednesday thinking we get a deluge today. This just stinks.

mollyhespra 7/4/2014, 6:02 pm

Wow, that's amazing, CC. Shocked

Neither extreme is good. I hope you get a little bit at least.

**camprn** 7/4/2014, 7:53 pm

CC it looks like you're getting p!entry of rain now.

CapeCoddess 7/4/2014, 8:04 pm

Ayuh, at least 1/4 inch so far! Got my fingers crossed to reach an inch. Gale force winds expected after midnite.

Heading to bed, book and earplugs Nite all!
CC

**AtlantaMarie** 7/4/2014, 9:13 pm

NHGardener wrote:I'm hoping I have enough sugar snap peas to freeze, and I'll be just bagging them like everything else. I guess they say blanching keeps the produce from continuing to ... something or other, but no one ever died from putting peas directly into a baggie into the freezer (that I know of anyway) so that's good enough for me.

NHG - First, sorry about the babies. They were adorable & I'm very sad that happened...

Second, veggies continue to produce a ripening enzyme even in the freezer. That's why the blanching.

Hope you guys are doing okay...

Marc Iverson 7/5/2014, 1:44 am

AtlantaMarie wrote:
Second, veggies continue to produce a ripening enzyme even in the freezer. That's why the blanching.

Thank you, this is wonderful to know and I had been curious about that for a while.

CapeCoddess 7/5/2014, 5:43 pm

Two inches of rain from the hurricane. It didn't go down much tho as the surface was so dry it soaked it all up. So I need to water.

Just pulled up my vining peas and am putting Kentucky Wonder pole beans in their place. The garlic seems ready. I wasn't going to harvest it tho thinking they'd be all wet now but since seeing dry MM right below the surface I should check one & see if it's do-able. Bet they're perfect but probably small.

The zucchini has a female flower today but there are no males yet. I'm hoping one blooms before she croaks. Still haven't covered them against SVB. Are you covering yours?

CC

NHGardener 7/5/2014, 10:41 pm

Can't believe you still have to water after 2" of rain, CC. Wow.

I'm not covering my vines. Since they're blooming, it would be a pain to have to manually pollinate. I'm just checking them. I did kill one squash bug today. Crossing my fingers about the svb.

**camprn** 7/6/2014, 10:39 am

JULY GARDEN CHORES for the northeast USA.

RJARPCGP 7/6/2014, 3:06 pm

I think I just saw a Japanese beetle on my hibiscus moscheutos plant.

(Same one I got on August 7, 2013)

NHGardener 7/6/2014, 4:38 pm

Yup, I saw a japanese beetle today on my pear tree - first one.

yolos 7/6/2014, 5:07 pm

Down here in the south they have already come and done their damage and are gone. Hope they do not have a second cycle later in the summer.

mollyhespra 7/6/2014, 9:37 pm

We saw the first one yesterday (Japanese Beetle). Only one so far, though. I'm hopeful that the nematode treatment I applied in May will help curtail their numbers, but it's too early to tell yet.

quiltbea 7/7/2014, 11:52 am

I haven't seen any J Beetles yet but its time for them to come out of the ground hibernation. I only have 3 rose bushes left from all their damage. I just don't replace them because I'm so tired of fighting those things. I don't use chemicals so I go out a few times a day with a jar of soapy water and knock them inside to drown.

yolos 7/7/2014, 12:02 pm

My method of killing the beetles are a pair of flip flops. Place one flip flop under the leaf and use the other flip flop to clobber the beetle on the top of the leaf.

CapeCoddess 7/7/2014, 12:17 pm

mollyhespra wrote:We saw the first one yesterday (Japanese Beetle). Only one so far, though. I'm hopeful that the nematode treatment I applied in May will help curtail their numbers, but it's too early to tell yet.

Please let us know what your final thought are on this treatment. I'm very interested.

CC

CapeCoddess 7/7/2014, 12:17 pm

yolos wrote:My method of killing the beetles are a pair of flip flops. Place one flip flop under the leaf and use the other flip flop to clobber the beetle on the top of the leaf.

HAHAHAHA...I love it!

**sanderson** 7/8/2014, 3:28 am

yolos wrote:My method of killing the beetles are a pair of flip flops. Place one flip flop under the leaf and use the other flip flop to clobber the beetle on the top of the leaf.

I love high-tech solutions! Very Happy

I had a blue jay or mockingbird (can't remember) help out with the Japanese beetles on the climbing Iceberg roses.

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