The 2019 Gardening Thread.

doomsdave

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Dec 2, 2016
Messages
7,200
Purraise
9,813
Location
California
If I had to go by previous years, I would say indeterminate. The varieties are Sweet Million and Sweet 100, if that means anything.
According to Park Seed Company, Sweet Million is indeterminate. According to Bonnieplants, Sweet 100 is also indeterminate.

I need to clarify a bit: determinate v. indeterminate describes the fruiting habit. Determinates fruit a while, then stop. Indeterminates never stop. They fruit, grow some more, then fruit again.
 

MoochNNoodles

TCS Member
Veteran
Joined
Apr 30, 2005
Messages
36,646
Purraise
23,463
Location
Where my cats are
I usually grow 1-2 Sweet Millions. They are so good! I often have some tomatoes into October. I have one in the garden this year and another cherry tomato.

I went out to water a little while ago and ended up having to go back through the house to get to my backyard. There were a bunch of yellow jackets near the side gate I normally use. If it was one or two I'd have carefully walked through; but it was definitely over a dozen. I didn't count and they didn't stop moving! I already text DH so he can take a look when he gets home tonight. My patio is on the other side of that gate so it gets a lot of use. Fortunately once I went through the house I was able to water everything else just fine.

The lady next door told me her little dog "got tore up" by getting into a nest in their backyard. :sigh: I hope there isn't a nest right there because it's next to where I am planning to do some planting.
 

doomsdave

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Dec 2, 2016
Messages
7,200
Purraise
9,813
Location
California
I usually grow 1-2 Sweet Millions. They are so good! I often have some tomatoes into October. I have one in the garden this year and another cherry tomato.

I went out to water a little while ago and ended up having to go back through the house to get to my backyard. There were a bunch of yellow jackets near the side gate I normally use. If it was one or two I'd have carefully walked through; but it was definitely over a dozen. I didn't count and they didn't stop moving! I already text DH so he can take a look when he gets home tonight. My patio is on the other side of that gate so it gets a lot of use. Fortunately once I went through the house I was able to water everything else just fine.

The lady next door told me her little dog "got tore up" by getting into a nest in their backyard. :sigh: I hope there isn't a nest right there because it's next to where I am planning to do some planting.
Do the wasps look like the picture below?

If they do, there's things you can do about them. Find where their nest is then spray it was bee and wasp killer at night, wear protective clothing.

European_wasp_white_bg.jpg
 

foxxycat

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Jan 31, 2014
Messages
8,089
Purraise
13,358
Location
Honeybee on my lap, music playing in background
Wish I had known about the sweet million earlier. I have decided to grow some outdoor tomatoes this year and have bought tumbling toms. They are doing well and have flowers already. Next year its sweet millions.
Those tumbling toms look like great container tomatoes from a google search. I bet you will get tons of tomatoes!
 

foxxycat

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Jan 31, 2014
Messages
8,089
Purraise
13,358
Location
Honeybee on my lap, music playing in background
Do the wasps look like the picture below?

If they do, there's things you can do about them. Find where their nest is then spray it was bee and wasp killer at night, wear protective clothing.

View attachment 286050
Yep I have several hornets nests in the house already-they like to go behind the shutters..I got to spray them at night..thanks for the reminder! one year there was this huge nest in the ground-Jon flooded it with teh hose and the bees came out mad as hell-he ran! then I sprayed the bee killer!!
 

MoochNNoodles

TCS Member
Veteran
Joined
Apr 30, 2005
Messages
36,646
Purraise
23,463
Location
Where my cats are
Do the wasps look like the picture below?

If they do, there's things you can do about them. Find where their nest is then spray it was bee and wasp killer at night, wear protective clothing.

View attachment 286050
Yes I'm pretty sure they are yellow jackets. They almost looked whiter in the bright sunlight and they wouldn't hold still; but we've had issues before. When my DD was about 2 there was a basketball size nest in the ground under the fence line between our house and the house on the other side from where I saw them today. DH got stung mowing the lawn (on a riding mower), the neighbor guy got stung and so did his little 2 year old. They found the nest and took care of it after that! We seem to have a lot of them around here. I find their nests and I've removed them from my garden before! The soil is very sandy so I think it's easy to nest under ground. For the most part we try to work around them; but gosh I don't need them right in the gateway!
 

NY cat man

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Aug 6, 2018
Messages
7,033
Purraise
21,282
Years ago, my in-laws were on vacation, so Michele and I were watching their house, including cutting the grass. I was doing so when I got nailed by yellow jackets when I ran over their nest in the ground. There were too many openings to spray, so I waited until early the next morning, and poured a mixture of gasoline and motor oil into every opening I could find, and left a trail away from the largest one. When I lit it off, flame shot out of at least 7 holes. After that, there were no more yellow jackets. By the way, this was out in the country, with the nearest neighbor around 300yd away. I wouldn't recommend doing that elsewhere.
 

posiepurrs

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Jan 11, 2015
Messages
2,696
Purraise
6,231
Location
Western Massachusetts, USA
One year my kids kept telling me that they heard a humming, buzzing sound in our family room. Not long after I was away at a cat show and my husband called me. First thing he said was "Don't panic" - that ALWAYS induces panic! Apparently yellow jackets had gotten into that attic and built a HUGE nest. They had actually broken through the ceiling while my son was watching television. He and my daughter quickly made sure the pets were out of the room and sealed it off, and then called my husband at work. He called an exterminator. I came home to what seemed to be hundreds, if not thousands of dead yellow jackets. Now every time I hear something funny, I check the attic.:) As a kid my brother was stung over 100 times when running out in the woods. His buddy was ahead and accidently kicked a log with a nest in it. Those things can be vicious!
 

foxxycat

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Jan 31, 2014
Messages
8,089
Purraise
13,358
Location
Honeybee on my lap, music playing in background
omg N NY cat man That sounds like something Jon would do :lol: I am sure the little buggers didn't come back. Yes sometimes burning them is the only way to get rid of the damned things. Too bad you didn't take some photos of flames shooting out of the lawn!

Jon has a fascination with pissing off Bees. He goes out of his way to mess with nests. Growing up he was always messing around with them. Me I stepped on a Bee with my bare foot at 6 years old so I run like HELL when I see them. :running: I have been stung so many times just from moving things or looking into holes in the wood..now I am pretty wary of moving the grill or other outdoor things. One stung me on my finger as it made a nest in the handle of the grill-the other was a hole in the wood at someplace else..can't remember where that was but got stung in the face. :paranoid:

Jon will proudly show me where he got stung. :shocked: I guess some people are just crazy. :headscratch: He must have been a pain as a boy=the stories he's told me...for someone so quiet and reserved, hard to believe the stories!

You all can keep the bees- I will keep the Bee Kitty :rolleyes:
 

maggiedemi

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Mar 26, 2017
Messages
17,104
Purraise
44,385
Jon has a fascination with pissing off Bees. He goes out of his way to mess with nests.
I don't mind bees, since I love honey so much, I would never kill one. I don't know much about gardening, but I guess they are very important for that too.
 

NY cat man

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Aug 6, 2018
Messages
7,033
Purraise
21,282
I don't mind honey bees, or bumblebees, but I draw the line at wasps/ yellowjackets/ hornets. In fact, I like to watch the honeybees going about their business attending to the flowers, mainly because they don't seem get aggressive. Not so with the others.
 

susanm9006

Willow
Top Cat
Joined
Feb 20, 2011
Messages
13,151
Purraise
30,216
Location
Minnesota
Year before last I had the great indoors Yellow Jacket invasion. In early fall I saw a wasp upstairs, but no big deal, they sneak in sometimes and I knew I had a few nests outdoors. Later in the day I went to the basement for something and there were hundreds flying madly around the room and hitting up against the window. Fortunately my son was here and he went down and sprayed and got most of them. Next day though there were more, and then more the day after that. It took a few days to figure out they were coming from somewhere in my drop ceiling. With the insecticide sprayed on the windows though they were eventually dying and the dead were literally inches deep near the window. But there were always a few mad flyers so to go downstairs and do laundry you had to wear full bee protection.

We started treating outdoor nests but that didn’t seem to help. Fortunately we had cold weather set in and we were finally able to pull off some ceiling tiles without being dive bombed. Turned out there was electrical conduit that ran from outside outlets to inside and the wasps had squeezed through and built a nice nest in the ceiling. We pulled down the nest, foamed the conduit entrance with a few inches of foam and that was the end of the wasps.
 
Last edited:

rubysmama

Forum Helper
Staff Member
Forum Helper
Joined
Nov 25, 2013
Messages
25,278
Purraise
62,757
Location
Canada
I'm not sure what the difference is between yellow jackets/hornets/wasps, but last summer one got in the house, and Miss Ruby, naturally, started chasing it. Worried that she'd get stung, I swatted it with a magazine and, well, squished it. :cringe: I tore a page out of the magazine to "dispose" of it, and it STUNG me !!! Google explained that, yes, it's possible for a dead wasp to sting you, as the stinger is still intact, even after it's dead. There just isn't any venon. There may not have been venon, but it still hurt.
 

DreamerRose

TCS Member
Top Cat
Joined
Dec 11, 2015
Messages
8,744
Purraise
11,085
Location
Naperville, IL
All of you need to be careful of the stings of those bees and wasps. The more you're stung, the greater the possibility you have of becoming allergic to the stings. It happened to me. The first time it happened was after I stepped barefoot on a wasp. My foot swelled up to the size of a football, and the swelling went all the way up to my knee. Dr said to take Benedryl which I did, but it was still 10 days before it went down. Continued exposure could lead to a general reaction where you have about 10 minutes before you die. That's what an epipen is for.
 
Top