What a weird year this has been Gardening Friends Life

a reply to: JAGStorm

Interesting, it's been a strange year for growing in oz as well.

My GF grows nothing but asparagus on her 1/4 acre. She grows commercially to furnish the upscale restaurants with fresh cut asparagus. This year, Bumper crop, constant harvest, beautiful fat purple spears...all given away to friends and the food pantries or thrown in the compost pile.

The restaurants are all closed or down to only a few customers outside.

Weird indeed....

originally posted by: Gnawledge
It's a weird year for sure but to the hotels being full...not where I've been. I just took a road trip from Minneapolis to Coos Bay, OR and all the hotels (6 of them) I stayed in were near to empty. In Portland the hotel door was locked and I had to call to get in. There was a lady in the parking lot remarking how creepy it was, I think there were 3 cars in a huge lot. And this was around 4th of July weekend.

Some friends and I recently took a trip to St. Simons Island, GA. And on the way to the isle we noticed the empty parking lots at the hotels. It was creepy indeed. There were still people out and about on the island and it's not a big party spot, but there should have been more people for this time of year.

Anyone else notice a lack of dandelions?
I know most people don't want them in their yard, but we do not spray, because the ducks love the leaves. I was talking to the neighbor this weekend (he doesn't spray either) and he thought it was weird too.

I can't find any leaves in my yard, nor the flowers. I don't remember that ever happening in the 20+ years of living here.

Well things here in Colorado have been really strange this year. We are more challenged then most states because of our wild temperature changes, especially in the spring and fall.
Early this spring our temperature soared into the 80's. Trees were starting to bud and my chanticlair pear was in full bloom. Then boom. The temperature dropped to 18F. Killed all the buds so naturally we have no fruit growing this summer. No apples, pears, cherries or crabapples. None! The damage didn't stop there. Blight has now struck many of the fruit trees in our neighborhood and just killing off the trees.
Some of my neighbors are outstanding master gardeners and they are having the worst year ever for growing and harvesting food. We are contending with a serious drought so growing is even more challenging then ever.
I started my vegetables by seed indoors and moved them outside to harden them and then planted them outside. It took much longer than normal for them to become established but now are in full swing.
We also have in past years been really hard hit with japanese beetles. This year hardly any. We have been attributing this to the early heat and then the intense cold that perhaps killed them off ?
Just a side note. I went to buy a good tomato, just 1, and it cost $3. That is for 1. The food price increases are breath taking. The local butcher sent out an e-mail warning us that beef prices were going to climb 100-150% in the next month and chicken was next. He recommended seafood. That does strike me as odd since the majority of seafood has to be imported. Beef and chicken is produced and processed right here.
Things do not make sense. And now we hear that many people in other countries are suffering from food lost due to locusts and flooding.
Looks like we are heading towards more problems for 2020.

a reply to: PapagiorgioCZ

I was thinking how odd that I had no aphids to battle this year. Usually between the Japanese beetles and aphids my roses just become a constant source of frustration. In fact last year I removed my old English roses because they were just covered in crawling Japanese beetles. It was just too upsetting to see every time I went into the garden.
The other nice thing is that there are not as many weeds this year. Weeds seem to thrive whether we are in a drought or not.

a reply to: JAGStorm
Just before the Covid 19 hit our shores I wondered how that would impact us on the gardening side. I decided to stock up on seeds, starter soil ect. Then shockingly all of our nurseries were closed down. No one could go and buy seeds at all. Not even starter plants which is my backup to seed failure.
They finally opened up but the price increases were dramatic and selection very limited.
Did others see the same?

a reply to: Thoughtful1

We also have in past years been really hard hit with japanese beetles. This year hardly any. We have been attributing this to the early heat and then the intense cold that perhaps killed them off ?

Same here, and no wasps building nests on the house, weird indeed.

originally posted by: chiefsmom
Anyone else notice a lack of dandelions?
I know most people don't want them in their yard, but we do not spray, because the ducks love the leaves. I was talking to the neighbor this weekend (he doesn't spray either) and he thought it was weird too.

I can't find any leaves in my yard, nor the flowers. I don't remember that ever happening in the 20+ years of living here.

I was just coming in here to mention this!! Holy crap, the dandelions are sparse this year, and it really SUCKS because a lot of "bunny salad" add-ins that our rabbit eats is dandelion leaves straight out of the yard. We don't use any chemicals whatsoever on the yard, and ours is higher up than the neighbors, so run-off is not a concern on this little hill of ours. The summer dandelions usually are more than enough to keep the bun happy for months, but this time, he's only had a handful of dandelion salads so far.. He usually eats a mixed "store & yard" salad every day, but there just isn't enough dandelions growing for that.

We had a hell of a wild raspberry growth boom this year, though, the wild bush in the yard put out & then some. At it's max berry output, it stood 4 feet tall, and was utterly loaded with berries everywhere a cluster could spring forth from. I've NEVER had it do this in the nearly 6 years we've lived here so far, it was unreal. We considered making jam or preserves, but the kids managed to raid the bush effectively before the animals each day and were probably snorting a solid cup and a half of them every day for the past few weeks/month. That's a hell of a lot of wild berries! At least the bun can eat the raspberry leaves, he likes those a lot.

Our Walnut trees also aren't putting out fruit (nuts) in quite as high numbers, though this could be a "resting" year for them, where their output declines in favor of them focusing on health and growth (or so I'm told) What we are finding on the ground are juvenile nuts so soft that they can be cut in half with pruning clippers, yikes. Never seen 'em do that one before. The squirrels seem to love them this way, they gorge themselves on these, and leave what they can't finish.

All 4 tomato plant varieties we're growing (Beefsteak, Amish Paste, Cherokee Purple, Grape) had a period of very early "false buds", budding way too early to do anything with, and so did my cayenne and habaneros. They're all full of fruit now, it didn't seem to hurt them any.

The habs' fruit output is astronomical right now, I'm waiting on about 20 of them to ripen so I can pick them, and the developing new habs can grow. My cayenne has a daily output of at least 1 fresh one ready to pick, so I've been eating fresh cayenne peppers with at least one meal every day for the last week and a half.

We've also had a deer foraging in the back yard recently (the neighbor's fencing on one side of the yard is short enough to jump over) AND we even had a beaver last week back there nosing around.

There's no water source on the property, and there's no creeks or ponds or lakes or anything any closer than probably half a mile. I'd expect to see the dude (dudette?) there, not here, lol.

a reply to: chiefsmom

Oh, and one other Michigan thing I've noticed is that the spring bluebells in my neighborhood are late as hell. The ones we have on the property are wild (obviously) but generally come in fine on their own, and don't even need watered by us. This year, they look like they're starting to come out of their winter slumber and grow. In July. Even neighbors have noticed this with their patches of bluebells, that they're very, very, very late this year.