It seems there aren't many places where I can post so posting on the thread I started
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The summer was really nasty this year where I live in Florida. The record highs never ever went to 3 digits and even though humidity gets close to 100% where I live close to the water, the temperatures normally don't go past 92-93 too often and we may get 94-95 a few times a year. This summer we had straight 95-96's for maybe 2-3 weeks. Had rains start in late June and lasted for 15-16 days straight until mid-July as well which is also unusual.
September is mild and nice with night temperatures going down from 77-78 to low 70's, even high 60's but until the last few days of September, we had 95 averages with almost 80's at night. Almost half my plants fried this summer, all the pepper, tomato and squash plants got hit, couldn't get anything except from 1 tomato plant and 1 zucchini plant (have about 14 tomato plants). My 2 caleas and 1 caapi literally fried and I had to cut the whole plants down and they are sitting in storage containers now
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I found a really good place to get new ones from and cuttings were between 7 and 15 bucks. I don't really like buying them since you never know what you are going to get but it wasn't much cost wise so I tried acquiring 3 plants and see what would happen. I ot them exactly as advertised and they are doing great so far. I am growing them indoors until the bodies get strong enough to handle the nasty winds outside, not to mention all sorts of damn bugs which all invaded the yard at the same time this summer. Normally it's 3-4 types you can control but this summer, I Had anything from 2-3 types of worms to crickets (which is extremely rare here) to major aphid outbreaks. Lady bugs normally take care of most and I release some 2-3 times throughout the year but I had to get 3 batches out in 2 or 3 months. I got nematodes everywhere as well but the bugs still keep coming.
Got 0 poppies, 0 tobacco, 1 sunflower out of 20 that made it to 3 feet and then croaked (the mammoths I plant usually go to about 8-10 feet at the least). Figs are standing, the pomegranate and hibiscus plants are standing along with 2 Skyfalls but I have maybe a dozen dead blueberry/blackberry/rasperry plants. Amazingly one blueberry which is supposed to be zones 2-8 is the only one that survived and that is thriving (we are zone 9a I believe). Plants that also didn't die are: Psychotria Viridis, Angel Trumpet Brugmansia(Ecuador White), Yellow Brugmansia, Hemia Salicifolia, Leonotis Leonurus (got 2 major branches, one is totally dead and the other is struggling to stay alive and I put it inside by a grow light and fan), Datura Metel, Cestrum (Night Jasmin and one survived while my large one that covered part of the fence is completely dead
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), Acacia Maidenii, Solandra Maxima, Bryophyllum, Mimosa Hostilis and Daigremontianum Kalanchoe (no flowers at all though). I probably have a few more I can't remember right now.
Hopefully I won't have to deal with this crap on a regular basis or I'm going to have to grow everything indoors
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I'll be starting 4 of 5 types of Salvia in a coupls of weeks along with some lotus and lillies. I got some giant sequoia seeds as well and even though I would love to be able to get them fully growing, I don't think the climate will allow me to. There is supposedly one that lives through -40's in Poland but they aren't too keen on high temperatures even though they can stand the cold. They claim the trees will live in temperatures up to 104 but those are short term extremes and they don't do well over 85 or so. I also have some cacti seeds and mushrooms spores I am going to start but the cacti will have to be under growligts with as little humidity as I can provide them with. I've been meaning to start growing mushrooms for years but finally I got some spores and am ready to go. I am especially looking forward to oyster mushrooms (the normal kind) since they usually cost an arm and a leg
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I watched a short documentary on the Truffle Brothers and how they had to switch to growing truffles from mushrooms when mushrooms got banned in the Netherlands. It's odd how most banned items get a few years for the ban to start being enforced but this ban took only about one week to became effective, so they had to get everything out of their hands in under a week. They said it was really easy and there were miles long lines of people that were waiting for the free mushrooms. They supposedly got rid of everything in 2 days or so. The weirdest thing was when they were asked how much they could produce if they worked at full capacity. Their answer was that if they did 3 shifts a day, they could produce about 20 thousand tons. Not 20 tons but 20 THOUSAND tons. They only have like 10 employees and they can produce about 40 million pounds in 1 year, that's just crazy and makes your head spin if you think about how much space that much mushrooms would cover; It would basically cover a football field from edge to edge and to a height of probably about 35-40 feet.
It's funny too how they ban the shrooms but leave the truffles since they are almost the same things. The mushrooms grow outside of the earth in the presence of various nutrients and when they can't get enough nutrients, they grow under the ground by using less nutrients, and that's about the simplest explanation. Yet those are legal while their overground counterparts aren't, and the reason is because some French girl high on shrooms fell of a boat and drowned, and one guy sat in his car and skinned and slaughtered his dog, saying he was taking them both to heaven.
Anyway, that was some useless information that I shared which I tend to do a lot lol
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