I have been getting the raised beds ready to plant winter wheat and winter rye. Now that we have had a real frost, it is time to plant the wheat.
Still eating ripe tomatoes off the salvaged vines from the tomato patch. Lemons are almost ripe. Will peek at the winter garden tomorrow to see what's happening outside.
Have a great weekend. God Bless.
In the spirit of division I just wanna say that gardeners are at fault for reelecting Obama.
You didn’t think gardeners were going to get a pass did you?
LOL
Pinging the list.
Pinging the list.
Pinging the list.
Lovely gardening day here. About 50 degrees, mostly sunny. Just pulled up the last of my spaghetti squash and some leeks. Need to mulch leeks and carrots. Picking lots of chicory and greens.
Have a great day :-)
This is the time of year for me to break file and sharpen my hoe and other tools and start constructing some new tomato cages.
My wife and I are also considering renting a small garden plot to grow sweet corn to sell at the farmers market (or its redneck equivalent a pick up off to the side of the highway) next year as a summer project. Does anyone have any recommendation for websites or books on how to undertake this. We are looking for details like how much yield to expect per acre and such. Any recmmondentation appreciated.
Our garden is long done except for some bunching onions and sage. We had a bumper crop of brandywine tomatoes. i’ve never seen that many brandwines before! They supposedly don’t bear much fruit per plant. I was going to take the remainder of the green ones off to wrap in newspapers but a hard freeze made them all into popsicles! AAARRRGH!! They never had a chance. At least I got some in the freezer and a number of quarts of canned before the freeze.
I’ll be putting my beds to sleep for the winter. Any suggestions of how to do that? Should I layer on straw? We layered grass clippings, mulched leaves and mulch on the tomato bed. I want to add to the rest of the raised beds as well, to get some nutrients working down into the soil.
It’s been winter here for some time, at my place, as it will be at yours. So here are some ideas of others combined with one of my own for covers for plants in late fall or early spring.
Some of us see high winds, so that’s also covered. The following is for lowering costs of tending larger covered gardens.
You’ve probably seen the greenhouse frames built with low-cost small-diameter electrical conduit—something that can be painted with latex for extra UV protection, BTW. Link those conduit hoops together (with tight loops around each one before proceeding to the next) and anchor them at the ends with barbless wire. In my area, barbless wire (no barbs) is about $60 per quarter mile roll at the ranch supply store and can be used for many seasons. Drill small holes in the conduit hoops, and use plenty of wire with small intervals between strands for a frame of greater strength. Stake down the ends if needed (at least two at about 45 degree angles from each end).
Small enough intervals to support the lower cost, thinner clear plastic sheeting for protection against early season cold. Store the plastic, when it isn’t needed. You might be able to use it another season.
And shade cloth, of course—generally much less expensive than plastic. Shade cloth over the frame described above will help to protect against high winds and hailstorms (hailstorms in mid-summer for me).
Hope that helps those of you in brutal climates like my own and others who want to extend their gardening seasons. I’d also like to see low-cost methods for covering plants from any of you willing to comment. Thanks for the gardening post and thread.
[I buy seeds from Missouri sometimes, BTW. ...heirloom seeds, because many of those are for short-season produce for climates like my own. They also help to cut seed costs. I can even keep and use seed potatoes for an extra season or two, because of the high altitude here: over 9,000 feet elev. No worries about fungi or other potato diseases.]
Tomorrow, Saturday, is supposed to be about 70 degrees.
after a few weeks in the 40s it will be a short lasting blessing. I plan on pulling the last of the beets for freezing.
Today I am going for maximum excitement . . . I am cleaning the house.
This is for Red_Devil and anyone else that likes beer, dance, & drama. I can’t discuss the election yet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=K-Rs6YEZAt8>
It is much too nice of a day here in Central Missouri to be at work, but here I sit. I managed to get the garden cleanup and garlic planting both completed last weekend. No big plans for this weekend. Maybe just watch football and drink beer. LOL
I got my seed stash inventoried, that’s my response to stress. Works pretty well, too, just running my fingers through the bean seeds that I saved makes me feel better!
My budget for new seeds is pretty slim this year, due to losing my job in February, so I’m really glad I splurged last winter and bought all kinds of “survival” seeds. I’ve got wheat, barley, rye,spelt, hulless oats, buckwheat, amaranth, sorghum, corn . . . and those are just the grains! My inventory filled 4 pages, with 2 columns per page.
This year I think I’m going to try and get hold of some popbeans and some flour corn. Popbeans are a special variety of chickpea that you can pop like popcorn, which probably makes it the fastest-cooking legume in the world, and as an added bonus it doesn’t need water to cook. As for the flour corn, I came across something in a book that described how you can tell with flour corn which grains have been pollinated by a flint or dent corn, because it changes the translucency of the endosperm. Since GMO corns are dent corns, this would give me a way to stay safe from Monsanto lawsuits :)
Plus, the author of that book described how corn flour from a true flour corn (unlike the corn flour in the stores, which is made from dent corn) can be milled fine enough that she even makes angel food cake out of hers! Not something I would have thought to try. My cousin has celiac, she’d love that.
Freezing fog today; flakes tomorrow, followed by a warm up next week.
Over the past week or so we harvested our Brussels sprouts. Seven packages went into the freezer; 5 meals so far, fixed various ways. We also gave about 5 pounds to friends. The chickens loved the leaves.
Mainly been busy “harvesting” 8 cords of firewood from decked thinnings & beetle-killed trees on the local national forest. Between this, and what we already had on-hand, we probably have enough to get us through not only this winter, but also the two following. We use our 25’ flatbed trailer, and can get 1-1/2 to 2 cords in a hard day’s cutting; one more load to go.
Speaking of sprouts, so far, neither the winter wheat not the garlic is showing any signs of sprouting.
Season opens tomorrow, so will also try to harvest a deer; already got our first turkey of the season, which opened a few weeks ago.
Got my apricot pits out of the fridge, and into starter pots today. 18 sprouted, and 3 disappeared without a trace.
I’ll keep them in a cool corner of the basement until Spring, then pot-up.