Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, Jan 17

Outdoors, in California:

I hope you are doing well. Our first daffodil bloomed! Such a happy flower.
NorCal Sierra Foothills Lurker

Outside it’s cold and dreary. Inside the purple-red miniature Cattleya is blooming again.
Don

Edible Gardening/Putting Things By

Started a batch of naturally fermented kosher dill pickles, and a batch of fresh sauerkraut. Testing these to see if they will be good enough for the LA County Fair culinary competition. Pickles will be ready in about four days; sauerkraut maybe two weeks.
I go by the name By-tor

They look great! For fair time, you might try growing some dill heads to harvest after they start to turn brown, but before they are dry. Makes a big difference in flavor.

For lower-salt refrigerator pickles (using vinegar rather than natural fermentation), raw vinegar adds a nice flavor. There's a recipe in a past post here. I'll try to find it.

For those who would like to try growing cabbage, Pinetree has a good selection of types, big and small, red and green, round and long. Danish Ballhead is one which is recommended for sauerkraut.

They also sell dill seed (for seed and weed).

ART

Courtesy Shane Daniel

Adventure

Neal in Israel:

From Israel, I'm sending a few shots of a wildflower, the common squill, taken at an archaeological site on the Golan Heights. The appearance of the squill signals the arrival of fall.

Golan Heights!

Gardens of The Horde

Anything going on in your garden?

Hope everyone has a nice weekend.

If you would like to send photos, stories, links, etc. for the Saturday Gardening Thread, the address is:

ktinthegarden at g mail dot com

Remember to include the nic or name by which you wish to be known at AoSHQ, or let us know if you want to remain a lurker.

Week in Review

What has changed since last week's thread? Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, Jan 10

Any thoughts or questions?

I closed the comments on that 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 01:16 PM

Comments

(Jump to bottom of comments)

1 Quiet in here.

Posted by: Reforger at January 17, 2026 01:22 PM (v8m2L)

2 Pro tip: Go see your area's master gardener for help.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 17, 2026 01:23 PM (uQesX)

3 Yay! GH&N Thread!

Thank You K.T.

Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at January 17, 2026 01:23 PM (QGaXH)

4 1 Quiet in here.
Posted by: Reforger at January 17, 2026 01:22 PM (v8m2L)

They're still busy on the other thread gleefully plotting California's expulsion from the Union.

Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at January 17, 2026 01:24 PM (QGaXH)

5 The site isn't coming up for me on Brave, but it is on Firefox. Anyone else having problems?

Posted by: KT at January 17, 2026 01:33 PM (7vIsy)

6 I found out that the bag of bullshit you buy at the home center may not help you the first year. It needs to break down more.

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 17, 2026 01:34 PM (uQesX)

7 I'm using Brave. No troub

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 17, 2026 01:34 PM (uQesX)

8 Anything going on in your garden?
________________________

Well, after last night's unannounced snow storm, I'd have to dig down about a half of a foot to see. I'm not going to.

Posted by: Orson at January 17, 2026 01:35 PM (dIske)

)

Posted by: OrangeEnt at January 17, 2026 01:35 PM (uQesX)

10 I wanna graft my citrus but it’s still too early. So I rearranged the garden shed. Now what?

Posted by: epador at January 17, 2026 01:39 PM (TRnzq)

11 Thanks, OrangeEnt

Posted by: KT at January 17, 2026 01:40 PM (7vIsy)

12 Gardens of The Horde

Anything going on in your garden?
---------------------------------------

Raises shade.....

Looks outside.......

Garden's still there....

Nope..nothin new, not a damn thing....

Posted by: Anonymous Rogue in Kalifornistan (ARiK) at January 17, 2026 01:43 PM (QGaXH)

13 From Boise area: lows 25-29 F, highs 30-43. Air stagnation advisory running since last Saturday (perils of living in a valley). Heavy fog Thursday, some fog Friday morning.

The amaryllis has a 6th flower open - I cut off the withered 1st flower. Looks like a 2nd bud stem is starting!

We bottled some bourbon-barrel-aged stout, and some cardamom-infused stout. We set up a batch of Rauchbier. And we're dry-hopping a half-gallon test batch of hard cider.

Posted by: Pat* at January 17, 2026 01:46 PM (jc3nu)

14 My compost pile is currently feeding all the birds in the area. I dumped two containers of Nightcrawlers in it last fall. Add the Rolly Pollys that seem to love it and it is quite the winter store. When we had our last snow it was cleared off within an hour.

Posted by: Reforger at January 17, 2026 01:46 PM (v8m2L)

15 I've had to stop using Brave on my ipad as no sites will load with the shields up .

Posted by: Notsothoreau at January 17, 2026 01:48 PM (+mUZM)

16 PS from Boise area: Husband reminds me that we found hyacinths poking up behind the kitchen (probably the warmest garden area).

Posted by: Pat* at January 17, 2026 01:50 PM (jc3nu)

17 We usually get a week of nice weather at the beginning of February, and this year it is early. I am pruning my apples and my grapes. The apples are easy, it is just taking off the shoots heading up, the branches in the middle, and any branch that crosses another.
The grapes I find I am not hard-hearted enough to prune correctly for the weeds they are. If I were to take them off at ground level they would probably come up from the roots.

Posted by: Kindltot at January 17, 2026 01:55 PM (rbvCR)

18 I love dill weed for fish or potatoes!

The swallowtail caterpillars also like it and don't share very well.

Posted by: Emmie -- be strong and courageous! at January 17, 2026 01:56 PM (FMtrg)

19 nice cattleya orchid, Don in KS always brings the great pics

one of my orchids is blooming again, a real light lime green with magenta freckles, and the other 5 have set buds. By Valentine's Day I will likely have an orchid-ganza around here.

one of them though was struggling, even though it has set buds and new roots. Today I really examined in and saw some light fuzzy stuff that def doesn't look good.
So when I go home I'm going to treat the leaves and roots with some pest killing stuff.

I have learned despite their fragile and ethereal appearance, these are very tough plants. They would have to be to survive the mayhem I have put them through.

Posted by: kallisto at January 17, 2026 02:00 PM (dCxaZ)

20 Our temps have been so mild in the Bitterroot of MT that I toured my flowerbeds yesterday to see if the Spring bulbs are coming up. Luckily nothing and temps are going down. Need snow to refill the mountain lakes so that the water can be used for irrigation. We water our grass, trees, veggies and flower beds with ditch water.

Posted by: neverenoughcaffeine at January 17, 2026 02:00 PM (2NHgQ)

21 5 The site isn't coming up for me on Brave, but it is on Firefox. Anyone else having problems?
Posted by: KT at January 17, 2026 01:33 PM (7vIsy)

same same

Posted by: kallisto at January 17, 2026 02:01 PM (dCxaZ)

22 the Halloween vegetable meme...lol

ACCURATE

Posted by: kallisto at January 17, 2026 02:02 PM (dCxaZ)

23 We moved all of our pineapple plants indoors for the winter (about a dozen) and currently have three infant pineapple fruits starting to emerge. We had four or five last year, and the homegrown pineapples are far superior to the ones you buy in the store - sweeter and less tart - even though we got all of our potted pineapples by simply lopping off the top of store-bought plants and setting them in the dirt.

Posted by: Paco at January 17, 2026 02:02 PM (2L+MU)

24 Not a lot going on. A few bulbs popping up, but since I'm only the trench digger, I don't know their names. The bulb bed doubled in the fall.

Posted by: night lifted at January 17, 2026 02:12 PM (kJmLc)

25 I did break with household tradition, and planted a turmeric rhizome with the hopes of getting a good size plant and harvest. So far so good. I now have a pleasant sized shoot and multiple leaves. As they get big, I will need to transplant a couple of times. Maybe I'll even get flowers.

Posted by: night lifted at January 17, 2026 02:22 PM (kJmLc)

26 Cold and gittin’ colder, seems winter-like in ETEX.

Posted by: Eromero at January 17, 2026 02:46 PM (LHPAg)

27 From Boise area: lows 25-29 F, highs 30-43. Air stagnation advisory running since last Saturday (perils of living in a valley).
Posted by: Pat*

We just get blizzard warnings here.

What do you do for an "air stagnation advisory?"

"Try not to breathe too much, so we don't run out of oxygen?"

Posted by: mikeski shovels the global warming at January 17, 2026 02:49 PM (VHUov)

28 Good afternoon Greenthumbs
Snow stopped and just above freezing

Posted by: Skip at January 17, 2026 03:10 PM (Ia/+0)

29 PET NOOD

Posted by: Skip at January 17, 2026 03:14 PM (Ia/+0)

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