Posted on 04/04/2014 12:54:31 PM PDT by greeneyes
The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks.
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<< http://www.weatherbell.com/saturday-summary-april-5-2014 >>
With this forecast , you can plan your crops accordingly and take some of the risk out of your plant growing investments.
Thanks for the link. Bastardi is the best!
I try to grow about 50% of my crops to be high biomass. Stuff like winter wheat, corn, etc. That way I have lots of stuff in addition to the regular yard waste.
The other half of my winter crops are cover crops such as clover, hairy vetch, and winter rye. I don’t think any of our neighbers have grass clippings. They all just cut it and let it be their mulch for the lawn.
We could probably snag some leaves that they burn in the ditch. However, that would be really odd, since we don’t usually rake leaves till the spring.LOL
Come to think of it though. We live downhill, and the way the wind blows we actually get a lot of their leaves in addition to our own.LOL
We do have some neighbors that do a little gardening too, and for some reason they don’t seem to be in any hurry to get rid of their clippings. Darn!
I just realized I never wrote about last weekend, so this is a 2-week update.
Last Sunday I went out to my land for the first time since November (I think). I hate living so far away from there! I keep hoping I’ll get the house finished enough to move in soon. But it’ll probably be a while since my “house” is still just a hole in the ground.
Most of the plastic sheeting I’d put down last year was in tatters, and the piece of landscaping fabric had come loose in the middle. That wasn’t to suprizing, there’s some nasty wind on that hill. What was suprizing was finding several of the lawn staples in a nice neat pile in the middle of the garden! No human footprints except mine, so I think the coons are pulling them up to see what’s under the fabric.
Fences just got moved higher on my priority list.
I pinned that sheet back down, and laid out another one. We’ll see how long that stays down. I’m going for a 2000 square foot garden this year, mostly seed stock for my business. Although I’ll still eat plenty out of it :)
On the subject of the seed business, last year I spent way too many hours chopping tomatoes by hand to extract the seeds. Yesterday it occured to me that the Victorio strainers are supposed to be able to spit the seeds and skins of a tomato out one side, and tomato puree out the other. Might that work better? I hope so, especially since I’m expanding my list of tomato varieties this year. I started pricing the strainers, and spotted one at an online thrift store auction for $5. So far I’m the only bidder! I’ll know Tuesday if I won. Even if it doesn’t work for seed-saving, it’ll help with the canning some.
Today, I started collecting parts for an electric fence. I don’t have enough to buy all the supplies at once, but I paid off one of my debts last month, so I used part of what I’d been paying and got a solar fence charger and a few posts. My “ideal” fence would be a mesh small enough to keep rabbits out, with an electrified wire at the top to keep climbing varmits out. If I put a line of trellises inside that fence, I should be able to get the same effect as a doubled fence, which keeps deer out, while still maximising the usable space.
This afternoon I was going to move the rabbit fences in the back yard, but I ended up only able to do one of them. It was a lot more exhausting than I thought, and I’m not sure but I might have overworked my shoulder. It’s sending me little warning twinges, but not full-blown “overdid it” alarms. I gave that garden bed a good cleaning while I had the fence off, that’s hard to do with the fence up.
Dad had been working on a different construction project today, and after he finished he decided to help me. That usually doesn’t go well. This time he must have been worn out, because when I told him I could handle it, he listened! And later when I was done, he actually told me it looked good!!! He never does that, whenever I build something he tears it apart and redoes it.
I think he might be sick or something.
At any rate, one bed down, one to go. I’m ordering parts for a PVC trellis for my cucumbers, I found some of the fittings at the hardware store but not all of them. I priced out a trellis for my tomatoes, but the shape I need it to be would have required the really expensive 6-way fittings. So, I’ll just build it out of wire shelving I’ve got sitting around. It won’t be as pretty, but it’ll work.
I sold another packet of cucumber seeds yesterday :) So far, that’s the only thing that’s selling. Although to be fair, I haven’t got much of a selection yet. Next fall I should have a much wider variety. I’m even growing andrographis this year! It’s an herb with antibacterial and antiviral properties. Back when they thought I had Lyme’s disease, this was one of the things the doctor put me on.
I’m a born insomniac, and that sounds very familiar. I’ve been using a combination of Tylenol PM and skullcap, it works pretty well. And has fewer side effects than ambien.
Hi Johnny. I have a Roma tomato question for you. Do you stake or cage your plants or let them run on the ground? I’m thinking of just growing Roma’s this year.
/johnny
Johnny-how tall are your cages? I think the ones you are referring to are the type I use to stake my peppers.
Btw-where did you learn such culinary skills? :)
I learned those skills at a culinary school in Dallas County, Texas, and in the USAF food service school. Followed up with lots of practice all over the world, and for some of the best restaurants in Dallas.
/johnny
I am having an adult beverage as I type. I woked outside until an hour after dark. Oh, my aching back.
Tomottow, or Monday, I will get one more cattle panel, and hopefully that will be it for the stuff that kills my back. Today, I got the brilliant idea, while hilling potatoes to hill tomatoes. Anyone try that before?
The tomatoes, and potatoes I hilled are in smart pots, and the soil had settled, so I hilled the potatoes the regular way, and on the tomatoes I cut the bottom leaves (tomatoes are about 12 inches above the smart pot), and then filled in dirt to about an inch from the top of the bag, covering all the places I snipped the bottom laterals off.
Also, today I bought more black gold potting mix, and unloaded the ten bags of garden soil, and the black gold. That's what killed my back, plus bending over filling smart pots that will have cuccuzzas and more tromboncinos in them.
Oh that’s right, you had been mentioning your new puppy! They can truly be a handful, I would think, especially a rescue project one.
:-D glad the spring flowers you have already put into place performed!
Oh wow! I guess you really are that much more north than I am. I had not fully realized that. Our last frost date is supposedly April 15.
I love the easy composting ideas! I’m still pondering, but you have added some grist for the ponder! ;-D
Hi all,
This will be my first try and growing regular potatoes this year. Found this article which evaluates 7 methods for growing potatoes. I’m going to try the grow bag method. Looking forward to trying them out
That link/lecture is pretty cool! It looks like it should be a pretty good growing season for us this summer! How exciting!
My little green babies are all just doing beautifully thus far. I look forward to April 15 when I plan to put out everything into their homes!
Well officially our last frost date is April 20th. However there will still be a 20% chance of frost after that. In years where we have had a long cold winter, and cold weather after the first day of spring, I have noticed that it is more like 80% chance.
At any rate, the extension office plant dates are a bit later than you would expect based on the April 20 date, but I think that is probably to err on the side of caution.
I have learned with Missouri weather it pays to be cautious, if you don’t want to have to make double plantings. Since I have been gardening, we have only had one year that planting early would have worked. That means 75% of the time planting early means failure.
I am looking forward to hearing all about your experience with them. I want to use some old tires that I have in the garage one of these years.
I will probably start transplanting around May 15-20 for cool stuff. Warm weather stuff will wait till some time in June for transplant.
I am really enjoying the potato planting. One of the few things that we can get out for sure in April.
I have tried Tylenol PM. It did not work, and I had irregular heartbeats. I try not to take Ibuprofen or tylenol at all, especially Ibuprofen.
I wasn’t crazy about Ambien, but I have tried most of the herbal and so called natural remedies, but nothing has ever worked. I don’t take the full dose of Ambien either, but it works.
Course Vicodan plus phenegran will let me sleep good for two nights in a row, I discoverd when I had fractured elbow and wrist.LOL Not such a great thing to take either though.
Sounds encouraging. Thinking about anti bacterial and anti viral herbs, I am wondering if anyone has every tried treating Ebola with herbal medicine such as this along with immune system boosters?
Given the fatality rate, it certainly couldn’t make things much worse. Current treatment is just supportive care.
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