Announcing the 5th annual DG Photo Contest!

oh, maybe this year. he is probably waiting till i finish voting LOL took me all one evening just to get through the misc category, and they were all such good pictures!

tf

gosh! the things I miss when I am gone for over a week! Can I have a cutting? (hee hee).

Margo (jlmkmm), I am so glad you shared this: "He recently (and very innocently) asked me if we had all the Brugs now. I almost choked. I sat him down and showed him plantfiles and some of the new ones not released yet from the Brug forum....he quietly said "Will I have any grass left by Summer?"..." with us. That just made my day!!


My husband is also nice about me getting lots of bulbs, plants, cuttings, etc. for our 'recently started' garden. We've been married 8 years but have been gardening at our own house (vs. apartment container gardening) for just 3 years now. My passion is the flowers and plants; his passion is the grass...he just loves growing and maintaining it and is concerned that I may encroach too much upon it. (Though that may not have been the intent of the "Will I have any grass left by Summer?" question, I could easily hear him saying something similar in a sweet manner.)

Here he is in our "jungle" veggie and flower garden (the sunflowers are about 10'+!)...

This message was edited Dec 21, 2005 6:48 AM

Tiffanya, what BIG sweet corn plants you have! I have managed to get 1 good cob a plant in our cool summers, thought about trying a tall one from the States, is this your variety?

http://www.jungleseeds.co.uk/SeedOrders/enter.html

sorry, the link has gone back to home page, need to click on Children's Corner

Most sweet corn only has one cob on a stalk. Sometimes two, but usually the second one won't be as large or full as the first one.

aha, he says, but you live in a COLD zone. When i grew up on a farm in Australia, we had a really fertile ex bog with lots of goodness, and we had 4 cobs per plant. There are newer varieties now that have more on, my daughter has a more fertile clay soil, mine is acid sandy, and she gets more. I don't like the 'super sweet' types, not many of the good ones around, Sundance is a good flavour, Suttons have it, and Dobies here who are now owned by them. I grow in a lot of shade too, and sometimes get a half full 2nd cob, so am grateful to get what I get. It might be fun to try a really tall one, I remembers ours being quite tall on the farm.

Sweet corn is grown extensively here. I live in a farm area of Ohio. FOUR ears? Wow! Definitely not the norm. We've got super clay here. Even have a clay tile factory here. LOL.

I wish I knew the variety, doubt if my DM would remember, or even if it is still around. I suppose you get HOTTER summers than we do, i am constantly amazed at the growing capabilities of colder zones, but inland always gets more heat and more cold, we are surrounded by WATER.

there are several older cultivars that produce multple ears and a few new ones, One that comes to mind is "Six Shooter". Not very good tho. The newer ones are usually promoted for "baby" corn.

gee thanks Farmerdill, do you grow them? Six Shooter sounds like 6 ears. Do you have any good newer varieties that are not too sweet? 'baby' corn is OK, but nothing can beat the beautiful flavour of the real stuff.

Apparently Sweet corn is not too popular in the UK. http://www.nickys-nursery.co.uk/seeds/pages/veg4B.htm offers only a couple of cultivars.
http://seeds.thompson-morgan.com/uk/en/list/full-index/s/18 has a few more but not cultivars that I am familiar with, I prefer the Se corns ( current favorite "Sweet Princess". Some of the bicolor synergistics are also very good. If you browse throgh corn in the plant files you may get some ideas. You may be restricted to a short season cultivar, at least that is all I see offered in the UK.

yes you are right, the British hardly know they can grow it, and I don't see quite the same level of enthusiasm for growing your own anything here. There are other varieties, i get the T&M, mostly supersweets now, Mr Fothergills also. Sundance is one I have grown many years ago, still said to be the best for short season, but I did try another last year from a garden centre, new hybrid can't remember the name, it was good and small, nice tasting kernels, but not quite the 'real' taste of Sundance. I am concerned this variety is getting to the end of its tether, the seed I have had lately hasn't been up to standard, small and not good germination. I grow them in a greenhouse to start, then in the ground around late March. i keep getting 1 good cob per stem, this year only had 3, it was cold as well. but still made, mostly in August. I am surprised to get any, they don't get much sun, have a huge tree shading.

Not a corn thread this I know, sorry folks, but we are WAITING aren't we? Just filling in!
tf has put me in the direction of 'corn'

The sweet corn is grown from Ed Hume brand seed -- http://www.humeseeds.com -- purchased from our local hardware store. Every spring, we rototill in about 4 bags of manure plus the compost from the bin, and wallah...jungle garden! It's also nice that our neighbor overwaters his grass via automatic sprinklers so we don't have to water about half the garden. ;-)

Craig and I typically end up eating the corn right off the stalk raw...it's so sweet, tender and tastey. This is the first year where we tried not to do that so we'd get bigger ears to boil or BBQ. Unfortunately, the yellow jackets also like corn so they got most of it. Next year we'll go back to eating it as it matures and beat the yellow jackets to it! LOL! :-)

What you can't see in the garden (just left of the corn) is my cosmos. It grew to 6-feet in height!! It was totally a cosmos jungle. I didn't get pictures of it with people in it (next time I'll do that!) so in all my cosmos photos you can't really tell how tall it grew.

Your strawberries look quite healthy, too!

I love eating sweet corn right off the ear in the garden as we pick it. It's sooooo sweet and juicy!

tiffanya, neat name. Your garden really does look like a jungle, Wow. Bet you live near the river and garden on river bottom land. My youngest son and his family live about 3 miles northeast of Sumner on Hidden Lake. Their address was recently changed from Sumner to Bonney Lake. They are coming across the passes to spend three days here with me Mon. to Wed. after Christmas. I don't like to drive over to their place in the snow winter time. Now tho since the weather warmed up so much, I don't think there will be much problem for them to drive over here.

You have a lovely garden. DonnaS

tiffanya, did you know your photo made photo of the day? I saw it last night (we're a few hours ahead), but it's listed under the 21st newsletter. Good one!

kbaumle...oh, those strawberries are so great. I need to start giving them to the neighbors next year as they are so prolific that we can never keep up with them! Dutch, our golden retriever, would love to get in the garden and eat up all the berries!

rutholive, yes, we live near a stream and a City-built retention pond is just over the back fence. Since we're in a development that was built on old pastureland, plus we brought in a couple of truckloads of dirt when first setting up the backyard, the soil does pretty well for growing. Now only if I could get rid of all the horsetail! I'm out there every 1-2 weeks pulling horsetail spring, summer, and fall. *Sigh.*

The Bonney Lake area is pretty nice. I hope your family made it over to for the holiday.

tiffanya, Are the strawberries "Day Neutral" type? It's obviously not Spring and you have Strawberry flowers.
There is nothing like fresh corn. A few years ago, I asked my party guests (mostly 'city folk') if they would like to pick their own. The volunteers jumped in with enthusiasm. There is just something about FRESH.
I've never gotten more than 2 1/2 ears per stalk and I prefer the shorter varieties.
OK Dave, we had a month to submit our pics. I figure we will have a month to vote, Right?
Andy P

If there is a photo contest next year, can we enter a photo that has already been seen on Dave's Garden, but not in a contest?

Sarahskeeper I think the winners will be announced on Jan 1st. Silverfluter the photo contest has become a tradition so I'm sure there will be one next year. Yes you can enter a photo you have posted on DG or in PF but you haven't had it in a contest before.

Ok, good. My husband took one of me and a grackle as we shared a chair. It's really something.

Mystic - I was thinking the same thing, that the winners will be announced after the end of this year. Just a few more days....... I never did get a chance to vote for all the categories, as it took too long to load them. I feel bad for the photos that were in the really large categories, like miscellaneous. The ones towards the bottom of the list probably didn't get seen by many people.

Jes a good 'thang' .. that I'm one of those folks, that sortee works 'bass-ackwards' or 'bottoms up' most times.

Heck, I read the paper back to front .. (lol) .. I feel certain that I canNOT be by myself with that special 'talent'. .. hee ..

Silverfluter .. teasing time's over! (hee) .. Now, are ya gonna share that dandy pic with us here, or elsewhere - or, have ya posted it elsewhere already .. ? .. (lol) It'll still be good for a contest 'entry' next year!

- Magpye

I wanna see what a "grackle" is. My curiosity is getting to me, lol :) God bless, Margo

Magpye - are we related???? LOL
I thought it was just because half of me is from the upside down part of the world (New Zealand) that I did that!

i started at the bottom too! i think we are in the 10% of folks that do!!! i usually start a magazine at the back. but i NEVER read the end of a novel or mystery!

so i voted in the MISC category, and the one after [before] that. i didn't get any further. do we have more voting time?

A Grackle is a 'Blackbird' w/ pale eyes basically.
Quiscalus quiscula can be bronze colored or not. lol

http://www.birds.cornell.edu/programs/urbanbirds/BirdGuide/ubs_UBPGuideCommonGrackleEN.html

Ric

Here we have three types of grackles. Great Tail, the largest, Boat Tailed, shyest that stay in remote swamps mostly, and the Common, sometimes called purple grackle or bronze grackle. The Common are the smallest. The Boat Tailed has brown eyes.

A common grackle

and a Great Tailed Grackle.
Sorry can't do the other one as I haven't got a good photo yet!!

Thanks ya'll....nice shots !! Here is my baby all dressed up for Christmas :))
God bless, Margo

That's no grackle!!!
I'm very excited-we're planning on a birding trip to the Texas Gulf coast in April to see birds we don't ever see!!!!!!! Never been to Texas outside of the airports before.

Early march might be a better time. By April many of the Cranes have left already. Let me know and I will assist you if I can.

Shoot! Can only come during my school vacation in April. I don't need to see ALL the cranes, just a few will do me.

Here's a male Boat-tailed Grackle, Quiscalus major

And the female Boat-tailed Grackle

All these different Grackles...

so many grackles, so little time LOL

Margo, what a sweet little baby you'vve got there, and very cooperative too :-)

Sorry you guys, here in Wisconsin Grackles are NOT a desired bird! They make an awful noise, live in your outbuildings, and poop everywhere.

Worst of all, they steal nests, and pick other birds babies out to die. I had a nest of bluebirds on an arbor by my potting shed, and we witnessed the destruction, and had to listen to the parent bluebirds lament for days afterwords. We destroyed the grackles, but that did not help the bluebirds much. Legit

Legit.......Here Here!...Same here in Michigan....they are a garbage bird as far as I'm concerned.....just as bad as Cow Birds here....

DEann