This morning, May 31, southwestern Ontario
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I wish I knew - it’s not a fun one. My son had a massive reaction at about 10 months old teething on a bagel. We went to the ER, and it turned out that it was barley, a common ingredient in AP flour, and that it is not unusual in infants until their GI systems are more mature. But as part of his workup they did a skin allergy panel and then repeated with blood panels several times over the years. That’s how we learned about the peanuts.
Probably more related to day length.
My bok choy is bolting, too! I need to shorten the days.
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Bok Choy can bolt even with short day length, though short days really help delay bolting. Both hot and cold stresses, and/or dry conditions can induce flowering prematurely. The secret with Bok Choy is to examine the days to harvest and try to grow it with short days, even, relatively mild temperatures (80 degrees F, 27 C days are near optimal), and really give it a lot of nutrition, especially nitrogen. You want it to bulk up quickly, as it will bolt after a certain number of days, even with short day length. This I’ve experienced with the following varieties: Chinese White (heirloom large type), Shanghai (smaller, green petioles), Extra Dwarf, Ching Chang, and Kantong White.
The Flowering Bok Choys, Hon Tsai Tai, are fun to grow and provide lots of tasty flower shoots, embracing the tendency to bolt. The variety with purple stems is lovely, as well.
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According to Google lens, critters on this one plant include thrips, spider mites, whitefly, and flea beetles; Oh my! And minute pirate bugs. Yay.
Most of the other plants are pristine!
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They do good work! From the pic, it looks like there are some shriveled insect remains where they got sucked dry. With luck, those minute bugs will keep the pests under control.
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Understanding High “Temperature Effects on Fruit Set of Tomatoes”
“Effects of high temperature on fruit set are primarily on the stage of pollen development, which occurs about nine days before flowers open.”
Fingers crossed. It’s not been crazy hot yet, and I see flowers. Nights are cool enough but daytime temps are supposed to hit 108 f this week.
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What a pain in the butt- try diatomaceous earth?
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I dusted with some spinosad for the thrips.
Hopefully I can maintain a balance of good and bad bugs.
Here are my pluots in little woven bags. Did the same on the apricots. All 10 of them.
It rained today! In June!
Look it! Clouds!
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Ooh- you have a bag tree! (JK)
I found a bag full of knee-highs and panty hose (couldn’t stand the thought of wearing them all of a sudden one day) that I was going to donate to somebody that used them for stuffing toys, etc, but I’ve changed my mind and use them for the figs, chiles, and any other fruits that birds might otherwise destroy. I cut a piece, tie a knot in one end, and put it over the fruit. Seems to work well. Yours look better, though!
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Those are so handy! I use them to control pollination and to hang up seed to dry. Years ago, I had to make my own bags. Since I don’t know how to sew well at all, I was using a stapler to make the bags. A stapler isn’t the best way to mend a hole in one’s pants pockets!
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That begs the question- where do you get them now, since the staples have by now probably rusted away?
Have you been rummaging through my attic too? 
I recently found a small box of unopened panty hose (I worked in financial services…er, long time ago) that I was going to toss. But using it on fruit sounds like a great idea. Have you tried this before, with success?
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LOL- no, I bought all those panty hose and knee highs all by myself! They work really well, in my opinion, for camoflaging fruit. Just be sure that you cut long enough pieces so you can knot one end and maybe tie a half-hitch at the stem end.
Please post if your critters are smarter than mine and bust through your stockings (so to speak).
One last thing- they hide fruit from me pretty well, too, I found a desiccated fig inside a piece of hosiery last winter. Missed it completely.
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For several years I bagged our super-dwarf apple trees with the nylon-stocking style bag. It works fairly well, but you do need to take them off towards the end so the fruit can put on some color. If knotted too tightly, the bags can be a pain to remove, but if knotted too loosely, the critters get in. My best version was to use a twist-tie around the stem end, twisted only once or twice until tightened “just right”.
Eventually, when we had to start applying spinosad to our blueberries to prevent leaf-rollers (we had pretty much exhausted all non-invasive options at that point), I quit bagging the apples, and started spraying the apple trees at the same time. 3 times a year in May and June. We haven’t had pest issues with the apples (or the blueberries) since.
The trees in question are on M27 rootstock, and nothing so far is over 6 feet tall, making them easy to manage, whether bagging or spraying. We have some regular dwarf trees as well, which we do not anticipate being able to bag or spray to any great effect once they reach full height.
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Pea picking time. This is the first pick from shelling peas which were wintered over under cloche. Other shelling peas which I planted on the traditional spring pea planting day in the PNW – Presidents Day in February – are not yet blooming, so wintering over gave us quite head start.
Conversely, some snow peas I planted on February 11th – supposedly a very early variety with a 30 day time span to production – are just now setting pods. Quite a disappointment, as I expected them to be finished by now and had planned on the space for some summer plantings.
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It’s always so interesting to hear what different climates and different years will bring.
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Yes! What goes bust and what goes gangbusters! It’s something different every year. I try not to get too worked up over the challenges, as there is always more than plenty of something else to make up for it.
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