Saturday Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Aug. 26

Happy Summer, everybody! The lovely, peachy daylily above is from Neal in Israel. There were others last week.

This week, we also have some photos of garden harvests from The Horde! And some other interesting information. Thanks for joining us!

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

By-Tor grows some garden produce sometimes, but he also has friends who give him gifts from the garden. These are friendships worth cultivating!

Recently, a tennis friend gave him some heirloom tomatoes. Looks like he scored an oxheart type and a dark beefsteak type, so they should have had distinctively different flavors.

They seemed perfect for lunch after three sets of tennis.

Another friend imagined how he would have served them:

With strawberries, roasted walnuts, goat cheese, with some butter, lettuce, and a tarragon red wine vinegar salad . . .

How would you serve those tomatoes? Maybe on a BLT sandwich? If you have had this problem, consult others on this thread.

Also from By-Tor:

Peach upside down cake made from scratch. I used Swans Down cake flour for a smooth, dense crumb.

It's basically a pineapple upside down cake with peaches instead of pineapple.
I made this in a 12" cast iron skillet.

Mmmmm . . .

Made anything peachy lately? We missed National Eat a Peach Day on Tuesday, though we did have some nectarines. We live real close to prime nectarine climate (they are more challenging to grow than peaches).

Wonder how the giant peach cobbler in Georgia worked out? Peach cobbler with a few raspberries is nice, if your raspberries are just starting to come into season when you are harvesting peaches.

Moar harvest delights from Shari in Idaho:

Rosa Bianca egg plant-just had eggplant parmesan tonight. Size a bit bigger than a softball.

Gorgeous. I've grown that heirloom variety, billed as bitter-free, and liked it. I remember it as growing a little bigger, but better to pick it small rather than to wait for maximum size.

Beefsteak tomatoes finally coming on. I thought I was going to get skunked.

Mmmmm. I see some mulch. Do you think it helps?

Unripened Primotalli hot pepper. See the tail? It's about 2 million scoville units, one of the hottest.

Too hot for me. How about you? The tail is unique. I've never heard of this variety.

Tiny carrots planted to harvest this winter. Will cover with hay when it snows.

Wide row! Do you have a special thinning technique?

Ah, Nature

We have a new guest on our apple tree . . . Nan in AZ

We have some of those visitors, too. What do they remind you of?

Hello KT

Longtime thread reader. AOS nick "Mildly Retarded Lurker".

Hoping you can help identify this massive growth. I live a bit north of Charlotte NC. These things keep growing in my yard and I suppose they are . . . mushrooms?

I try not to intentionally grow anything since it dies before I can develop any bond with it, so this is definitely wild.

That said I love your posts in the way it's cool to see stuff one can never do.

Thanks

Well, I think it is a mushroom, but I wouldn't count on it being edible. Anyone have an ID? It's attractive. But some attractive mushrooms are also deadly.

Puttering

These cupcakes are fancier than yours. But you could still make some garden-themed cupcakes. (h/t David Thompson)

Succulent cupcakes by Kerry's Bouqcakes 🌿 pic.twitter.com/5HSSFpkddh

— Houseplant Hobbyist (@HobbyistPlant) August 21, 2023

Adventure

Icebox Canyon, Wasatch Range, Three Seasons

Gardens of The Horde

Anything going on in your yard or garden, or nearby adventure zones?

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

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Week in Review

What has changed since last week's thread? Saturday Gardening, Puttering and Adventure Thread, Aug. 19

UPDATE

ID of the opening photo:

The flower is an "orchid cactus" and it will be difficult to get an accurate ID because so many are "mutts". [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphyllum_hybrid]

Because of their one-day-flowering thing, they will accept being
pollinated with anything related, which has lead to a wide variety of
named "varieties". If you raised a dozen plants for a couple of years,
you could potentially breed one you could propagate and sell as
"Epiphyllum sp. 'Kindltot' ".

So long as they don't frost, they are quite easy to grow. In nature,
their kind is found in tropical forests of central America - -
frequently, the seedlings sprout in leaf-collections between tree
branches, abandoned bird nests, or other random clumps of organic matter
- - they don't need much in the way of soil. I have successfully grown
them in a mix of about 50/50 rinsed playground sand and compost, in clay
pots. Like orchids, they prefer to be fed "weakly, weekly". They prefer
part shade.

As with many succulents, a broken-off leaf can be set aside for a week
and then potted, and will probably "take" and grow a new plant that is a
clone of the old one. To get new color patterns, however, you must have
two dissimilar plants and cross-pollinate, using a q-tip to replace the
central American fauna that probably isn't available on the night it is
needed.

Franklin

Thanks for the great information!

Here's 'Wendy'.

Any thoughts or questions?

I closed the comments on this post so you wouldn't get banned for commenting on a week-old post, but don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 01:26 PM

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