Garden chat & photos for torts and people ♫ ♫

[Len B]

Thanks Yvonne, I do real good at letting it dry out between watering Where I've had it for the last couple months it gets some early morning sun and with the sun moving south it gets less evening sun every day, Most of the day it is pretty much in shade.

 

[Gillian M]

I live in a cold Northern perennial zone 4. My growing season is very short and most people use greenhouses as season extenders, rather than keeping them growing through the cold months. I don't have a greenhouse, but have been experimenting with starting seeds under grow lights more and more. We hope to expand our light set up this winter and want to experiment with growing a few full grown vegetables indoors.

Here's a photo I took last Spring. I'm hardening off my first batch of seedlings to head to the garden.
View attachment 101672

Lovely!

 

[Len B]

2 garden spiders, These are my favorite local spiders.

 

[Yvonne G]

My favorite is mama wolf with all her babies all over her body. Next are the tiny jumping spiders. I also like to look at those big yellow spiders that build webs across the pond and across pathways, but I hate it when one catches me by surprise and I walk through the web!

 

[Yvonne G]

I was very surprised yesterday to see cactus blooms over the fence in my front yard. This is the total wrong time of year for cacti to be blooming. I don't know what got into them. This particular plant, Cereus peruvianus monstrose only had one bloom last year, the first year it ever bloomed, and now this year it's absolutely COVERED with buds and blooms:

 

[Oxalis]

I was very surprised yesterday to see cactus blooms over the fence in my front yard. This is the total wrong time of year for cacti to be blooming. I don't know what got into them. This particular plant, Cereus peruvianus monstrose only had one bloom last year, the first year it ever bloomed, and now this year it's absolutely COVERED with buds and blooms:

View attachment 217371 View attachment 217373

Those are beautiful flowers!! Gonna get some cactus apples?

 

[Yvonne G]

Those are beautiful flowers!! Gonna get some cactus apples?

Probably not. This species doesn't do that.

 

[Oxalis]

Probably not. This species doesn't do that.

Bummer, I must have got my cactus species mixed up.

 

[Oxalis]

My dwarf mulberry grew more this year than I'd expected, yey! The trunk looks wider and it has a lot of new-growth branches. The leaves form a neat layer up each branch.



Overhead view:

 

[Len B]

2 garden spiders, These are my favorite local spiders.View attachment 217053 View attachment 217052

Found another one today I hope more are hiding around the yard.

 

[Oxalis]

Yay, the honeybee liked my asters!

 

[Len B]

Yay, the honeybee liked my asters!

View attachment 218243[/QUOHoneybees

Yay, the honeybee liked my asters!

View attachment 218243

Honeybees are a rarity around here, have been for years.

 

[Len B]

I started desmantleing a unused tort house today in a small over grown section of the yard. I picked up an empty flower pot to use to hold the screws and this little guy was hiding under it. This is the first hatchling I've found this fall, he has a slight deformity on the shell but looks healthy. .

 

[Oxalis]

I started desmantleing a unused tort house today in a small over grown section of the yard.View attachment 218250 I picked up an empty flower pot to use to hold the screws and this little guy was hiding under it. View attachment 218251 This is the first hatchling I've found this fall, he has a slight deformity on the shell but looks healthy. .

What a cutie-pie!

 

[Len B]

Volunteer mulberry trees grow wherever they want to. They are sprouting up in different places. Found this one growing from an old bag of beach sand. when gathering stuff for the dump.

 

[Oxalis]

View attachment 218303Volunteer mulberry trees grow wherever they want to. They are sprouting up in different places. Found this one growing from an old bag of beach sand. when gathering stuff for the dump.

Hardy little things!

 

[Cowboy_Ken]

I’m looking to find out if “Red Hot Poker” plant is a no for tortoises. I checked out, “The Tortoise Table” and in their hypersensitive way they suggest not feeding it due to, “Not much known about this plant, but there are reports of toxicity if eaten and also irritation to the skin and eyes, so best avoided.”. Anyone have any idea one was or the other? I tend to trust my friends here rather than vague, “reports”.

 

[JoesMum]

I’m looking to find out if “Red Hot Poker” plant is a no for tortoises. I checked out, “The Tortoise Table” and in their hypersensitive way they suggest not feeding it due to, “Not much known about this plant, but there are reports of toxicity if eaten and also irritation to the skin and eyes, so best avoided.”. Anyone have any idea one was or the other? I tend to trust my friends here rather than vague, “reports”.

I have had red hot poker growing in my garden for years. Joe loved sleeping under it, but never ate it as far as I am aware.

A visiting tort, segregated into that part of the garden for a couple of months did take a bite to my surprise. She came to no harm, but didn't try it again. It maybe doesn't taste very good?

 

[Cowboy_Ken]

A visiting tort, segregated into that part of the garden for a couple of months did take a bite to my surprise. She came to no harm, but didn't try it again. It maybe doesn't taste very good?

Maybe it was just “hot”? LOL

 

[Oxalis]

I’m looking to find out if “Red Hot Poker” plant is a no for tortoises. I checked out, “The Tortoise Table” and in their hypersensitive way they suggest not feeding it due to, “Not much known about this plant, but there are reports of toxicity if eaten and also irritation to the skin and eyes, so best avoided.”. Anyone have any idea one was or the other? I tend to trust my friends here rather than vague, “reports”.

The Tortoise Table presents the only valuable information the volunteers were able to locate on a particular plant, which basically means that no known tortoise owners have attempted to feed this plant and record the effects. Since there are still a few unknowns when it comes to the tortoise diet, the website is very much directed toward less experienced tort keepers who would most likely want to "play it safe" with their tort's diet. Much of their research comes from reports of whether mammals, like cattle, can safely consume a plant. So you can experiment with a plant we're currently uncertain about, but do you want to risk your tortoise's health over it? If @JoesMum witnessed a tortoise safely eating this plant, it'd definitely be worth reporting to The Tortoise Table. I find many of the members on the forum here are doing the experimenting, while the volunteers at The Tortoise Table are more performing research. We'll have to start reporting our findings to them.