Tereza Okava

I had the exact same thing happen with my two Suriname cherries. One dropped all its leaves (as they do for winter) and the other didn't. They were planted next to each other on the very same day and receive the same care (youngish trees, 7-ish years old). Both are now throwing buds. Go figure.

I don't know about you but where I am, "weird" is an understatement for how the weather has been. We had a hot snap and now everything is leafed out and flowering. Then a bomb cyclone came out of the South Atlantic full of polar air, I'm hoping the fruit flowers survive. The snow peas, on the other hand, are having the time of their lives and I'm getting a bumper crop, daikon radish too. Meanwhile, the climbing striped fava beans, which are usually a reliable winter crop here, have tiny 'i'm so stressed' leaves and almost no flowers are setting beans. A weird year.

I am in 9b and have several citrus trees that have been in the ground for a few years (3+ at least). before that they were in pots (3+ years also, at least). Just this winter have I finally gotten fruit on these trees (and they're not ready to pick but the trees are already full of flowers/buds for next year). In my case I think I was too aggressive about pruning at the wrong time.
Other than pruning any sprouts from rootstock (as well remembered above), be very careful about pruning -- prune at the wrong time and you remove the nodes that will develop into flowers. And the weather has been bizarre. My suggestion, if they're young, it to give them some time.
I also have had great results with threats, when the tree is old enough to know better: my surinam cherries were informed a few months ago that if they didn't put out blossoms this year I'd be ripping them out. Lo and behold, they're covered wtih buds now.

Seriously, if you give us some more info we'd all be glad to help troubleshoot.

judith, you'd definitely know. that is a 'take a picture' kind of bug if you have it in your garden.

although... maybe not. We have a lot of dangerous caterpillars here and something I learned from having an insect biologist as a kid is that the poisonous spines don't just somehow disappear when the bug dies. If a bird grabs it or something squashes it, those spines can hang around for a while. Most of the time when I 'get caterpillared' I can tell that I brushed up against one on a leaf or a bush, but there are times when there's definitely been nothing around. It left its spines on a table or floor or clothesline. This is why around here you don't hug trees or walk barefoot.

for me, the key is to let all my herbs flower. cilantro, basil, mint, anything i would normally be cutting off the flowers to get more mileage out of the plant, let it bloom. They're always covered in bees.

Quick search tells me this has been "A Thing" for some time and every few years it gets rediscovered, people get outraged, etc.
What I can tell you as a former literacy specialist and reading teacher: while kids may initially group things together and have a hard time separating the letters once or twice (and get hung up on 'Y and Z', and initially think it's YNZ or some such), they figure it out REALLY fast, especially once you give them cards or something to help them 'tokenize' individual letters. Kids are very good at figuring out context before they can even talk, much less read. A rock looks like a cookie, but by the time they're toddlers most kids don't pick up rocks to satisfy their hunger (play is a different story). They can definitely understand the concept of multiple letters said quickly together still being different letters. In fact, singing fast and slow is a lot of fun, as everyone who spends time with kids or ever was a kid knows.
Apparently the biggest complaint about the new song by educators is that kids are already 'contaminated' by the classic song and it's practically impossible to try to get them to forget that one and learn the new one. And then of course the family at home will probably not be very supportive...

For years in the US I taught adult reading, mostly to people who had left school because they had learning disabilities that were not addressed at the time. The alphabet song was something that everyone knew and could lean on as a resource. Nobody ever said "oh man that LMNOP letter is so hard to understand". People know it is multiple letters. I think frankly this is someone having a somewhat interesting idea and trying to make Big Money selling it to Big Education. (/grump)

Anne Miller wrote:Being short on tea though long on green tea, I thought I would experiment:

Anne, if you have a lot of green tea around and enjoy sweet tea, make some green tea (I like using the overnight method, but you can make it however you want) and drink it sweet with ice and some kind of citrus-- lemon, lime, orange. We sweeten with stevia but you could use whatever sweetener you normally use. it is very tasty and one of our favorite summer drinks, something I make for parties/barbecues when it's hot, some of our guests don't drink alcohol and want something thats just as refreshing as a cold beer (and don't appreciate the normal unsweetened iced green, black or herb tea i'm usually drinking). It's always a hit.

G Freden wrote:I wanted to bring this thread back to life with another suggestion:  make chard into namul.  

An excellent suggestion!! I find that swiss chard isn't great for kimchi (gets slimy) but namul is the bomb.
I did this last night with my endless tatsoi, in fact, and in a few weeks when the chard really starts coming in I'll be doing it again.
There is a Japanese equivalent, ohitashi https://sudachirecipes.com/spinach-ohitashi-recipe/  (and it works fine without the bonito flakes on top, which where I live cost more than gold)
and another one that works well, goma-ae
https://www.justonecookbook.com/spinach-with-sesame-sauce/

Another thing that may be useful-- last week when I had made all the things and there was still tatsoi bolting in the garden that had to be picked, I prepped, blanched, squeezed and froze it in balls that are a lot like frozen spinach I used to buy in the supermarket. Those are really convenient for making pasta and other dishes, and a bushel of greens cooks down into 4 baseball-sized frozen lumps.

My mother-in-law brought me a block of Okinawan tofu (a rarity in these parts) and we're now pulling in at least a kilogram of snow peas per day, so I decided to make home style tofu.  It is probably the takeout dish I loved the most when I was young, didn't know how to cook and had access to takeout food (the lucky trifecta). Now where I live, this isn't a takeout option, so I make it myself. And it's really no big deal.
https://omnivorescookbook.com/home-style-tofu/
(extra bonus: the tofu is supposed to be deep fried. the air fryer does such a fine job that you really can't tell the difference. another win!)

pineapple upside down cake would be my first choice
followed by
freezing it to make smoothies with.
pineapple is a great smoothie/juice ingredient.
In Brazil it's common to blend up pineapple with some fresh mint to make juice (in my house we do this with the skins, but if you have normal pineapple you're not using, why not). You could do this with the frozen pineapple to make a cool drink (strain it out to get out extra fibers/stems, then sweeten to taste) or blend frozen banana, mint leaves and frozen pineapple to make a dessert (I use an omega juicer to make it like soft serve).

tuffy monteverdi wrote:how does a bike wheel keep out rodents?

If anyone hasn't seen the beginning of this thread (I know it's old) you really should scroll up to the top to see pics. I thought this was a fabulous reuse solution.