Posted on 07/17/2009 4:00:25 AM PDT by Red_Devil 232
AM taking your picture to my friends who have the markets. Much less labor intensive..OTOH some of them may have 40 acres of one crop.
Do you sell at your local market or have a market of your own?
Still have several acres of sweet corn and purple hull peas that we've yet to harvest and I will sell whatever I don't freeze or can. Husband and son are going to plant a couple of acres of pumpkins this weekend and we will sell those in the fall.
We’re trying to start up a market of our own. My husband and I farm for a living, and we are little by little getting into produce instead of only growing commodity crops.
Some of my neighbors sell mainly at their home but the majority grow for the Louisville, Indianapolis market and the melons, sweet corn, pumpkins etc go out by the semi loads.....
One neighbor has a four acre plot of produce she sells to a stand at the Louisville farmers market. SHe didn’t want to hire help or be tied down at the house minding a stand. She makes more doing that than her husband does at his job with one of the electrical companies.
Make sure your blueberries are not all the same variety, or you won’t get any fruit!
Brilliant!!! :)
This season, inspired by your garden last year and my level of laziness when it comes to weeding, I stockpiled heavy cardboard and broken bags of chopped straw from work, put the cardboard down between the rows, then covered the rows and the open areas around the plants with the straw. It looks very pretty and finished and the only weeding I’ve had to do since was a little bit around each tomato or pepper or bean or squash plant.
By next spring, it will all be broken down and Husband can till it all in after he yells at me to, ‘get those #%^& tomato cages out of there, Woman!’ LOL!
It was easy to do and since I hand water and fertilize every few days (one or the other) and I like to CHAT with my plants at that time too, encouraging them and looking for any damage or pruning or harvesting that needs to be done, I just pull out a few weeds as I go! :)
I have one area at the north end of the garden that didn’t get planted with anything (about 5’ x 15’) so I covered that area up, too. Come August or so, I have plenty of room to again add peas, broccoil, chard, lettuces, etc. like we had in the spring; it should be weed free and very easy to dig.
I’m 76 and thought I had seen everything garden wise but the engineering on your plot has just left me slack jawed!!! I look at those livestock panels every time I go to our local feed store wondering what the heck I could do with them. Do you tie those melons to the wire with something or do they hang on after getting ripe?
Thank you very much for your help!
Banning Sevin has a lot to do the Dow Chemical disaster in their Bopal India plant when a major screwup led to many deaths. I saw the handwriting on the wall and stocked up. (wanna buy some Chlordane)
That very well could be!
Also, a lot of long-held patents expired. Brand names are hurting because competitors can now make the same forumulas at HALF the price.
I am with you tubebender! JustaDumbBlonde and her husband have got quite a setup and system. She had posted some pictures of her garden last year and those pictures were the reason I went with the landscape fabric on my little garden.
I have 2 questions today. One is, I have some jalepenos grown but what do I do with them until I have everything else for salsa? Cut and freeze? (I am very proud of them they are my very first food I have ever grown and harvested)
Second is, I have foliage that is quite impressive but no flowing on my cukes, cantaloupes, watermelon, and zucchini what am I doing wrong and how can I fix it? Is it a soil problem or a feed problem, is there a food I can use that would encourage flowering and fruit?
Thank you guys so much I have learned so much in just a few weeks here. I LOVE looking at the pics.
I didn’t think about mixed varieties of blueberries when buying them, but I don’t think they are the same. The first 2 were mail order (invoice says ‘our choice’) but I think I have the packaging from them around here somewhere with the variety name on it. The other 2 are from Farm & Fleet and have berries on them already. Maybe I’ll just have to pick up one more from HD that I know is different from the 2 new ones, just to be sure I have a variety. LOL
For you second problem you might want to try Mirical-Gro Bloom Booster it is a 15-30-15 fertilizer.
Wearing rubber gloves (to protect your skin) seed and chunky-chop the jalapenos and freeze on a cookie sheet. When frozen, put in a ziplock bag and store in the freezer until needed; this way you don’t get a big, frozen glop of peppers for easier measuring when it’s time to make salsa.
The plants that aren’t flowering could be caused by a few things; your fertilizer is too high in nitrogen or you are mulching with grass clippings (also full of nitrogen) or the temps have either been too cool or too hot to set fruit. (I didn’t look to see where you live.)
I’m in southern WI and it is COOL here; lots of blooms, some fruiting, but not as much as there should be right now on fabulous, healthy, big, strong pepper and tomato plants. It’s always something! :)
Every spring my local hardware store puts the cattle panels on sale and I always buy several and put them in the shed. I've got a little stockpile and am always looking for something to do with them!
Sounds like the cardboard and straw did the trick! Not having to spend countless hours weeding a garden makes it so much more enjoyable. So much better to spend the time chatting with your plants than working to keep them out of a jungle. I’m looking forward to hearing how easy it was to put your fall garden in the ground. :-)
Thank you very much, I will pick some up next time I am in town.
Thank you very much, I know what I will be doing later today. I am in North Dakota and while I have been loving the weather, everyone else says it is cool this year.
After reading Red-Devils answer I remember a few weeks ago the conversation about the feed. I think that is why my radishes are 2 feet tall and no radish also.
“I think that is why my radishes are 2 feet tall and no radish also.”
Oh, My! LOL!
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