Posted on 03/15/2013 3:25:57 PM PDT by greeneyes
That is why I tend to over plant tomatoes. Eventually we get to the point we can’t eat all the fresh tomatoes and can the rest for wonderful meals the rest of the year. I will be opening a quart jar, that I canned in 2009, this evening for a chicken, tomato, rice dish. Yum!
Hope all is well!
My seeds which I ordered arrived! I have started a few to place in the window.
I went through the harvest materials which have been drying in a car we don’t drive very often. I was very pleased that the herbs I’ve been drying that way were perfect! I got about $5.oo worth of herbs (thyme, oregano, and basil)saved! (LOL! - not very much, by many of our thread participants’ standards, but I’m tickled! But at least I know how to do it now!)
The sunflower seeds dried well also and got them stored. I reserved some of them for sprouting for my window starters.
I have been very pleased with my little system of using the plastic apple sauce cups with a cardboard egg carton section in it holding one or a half pellet of seed starter.
I was doing back flips when I found last week that my thyme never died off during the winter....but yesterday I learned my oregano is making an appearance as well! I don’t need to start those again!
ROFL!
Innoculant?
The innoculant is a bacteria that was discovered late 1800s/early 1900s that was found to be symbiotic with legumes, and helps them to pull nitrogen out of the atmosphere.
For legumes, like peanuts, peas, beans, etc... the bacteria make for a much better crop, and fix nitrogen in the soil.
It comes as a dust that can be coated on the seeds before they are planted. I soak the seeds in a dilute solution of seaweed, liquid fish, and molasses before planting, and then dust the seed with the bacteria to give them a good coat.
The soaking liquid starts germination, and provides a somewhat sticky and very nutritious media for the bacteria.
/johnny
Thank you so much for explaining that.
I hope your soreness gets better soon!
/johnny
Spores of nitrogen fixing bacteria that live on the roots of legumes (bean family) and ‘fix’ nitrogen directly from the air (in the soil pores) for the plants, reducing or even eliminating their need for nitrogen fertilizer in the soil.
You can buy packets of it, but it is only needed if legumes haven’t been grown where you’re going to plant them for several years. Once inoculated seeds have been used one season, the bacteria carry over in the soil in sufficient numbers for several seasons. A little goes a long way.
To make extra certain of that, when finished bearing, instead of pulling the vines out by the roots, assuming you are not going to turn them under for ‘green manure’, cut them off, leaving the roots in the soil
The inoculant powder is sold in several forms, depending on who is selling it: “general purpose”, which is a mix of several species of bacteria that is good for all leguminous crops; “home garden”’ or “pea & bean” mixes, which isusually what you would want, but is generally useless for soybeans; soybean-specific types, etc. Not sure about peanuts, as they are not an issue way up here in cold—country. Most of the crop-specific types are larger quantities for farm scale growing.
What you want (if you need it) is found in most seed catalogs in the bean &/or pea seed sections; and also in decent garden centers farm stores.
http://www.jungseed.com/dp.asp?pID=51274
http://www.bountifulgardens.org/searchprods.asp
http://www.gurneys.com/product.asp?pn=12776
Thank you both for your replies and explanations.
Good point, JRF, that the foundation is key.
Thanks for the detailed explanation and the links, AGR.
So if I buy some legume seeds, and they sprout, they will grow...but they may not fix the nitrogen into the soil and also not thrive properly.
I had not known about the innoculation requirement....if it is the case that the plant must have the bacteria to survive, then maybe that is why I got discouraged as a kid when the little bean sprouts I would bring home from science classes wouldn’t last very long. I doubt Mrs. Bishop innoculated our little lima beans.
I wish that we had the room to plant more. there is no such thing as too many tomatos as far as I am concerned. We started gardening principally to have tasty tomatos that tasted like the ones in our youth tasted. We have 2/3 acre but only a tiny amount of sunny gardening space.
I’m happy to hear that your raised beds are doing well. It seems that all the raised bed gardens that I have seen were very productive. Maybe it is the intensity of the gardener that makes the difference. I dunno. My SIL is going to put in a raised bed garden this year as his first serious gardening effort in Lucedale Ms. We’re very happy for them.
We are back to cold-too cold to put anything outdoors. Just got a blackberry bush from Walmart, and the space in front of the patio door is getting crowded.
I miss her posts. Hope she’s doing well. We don’t have to worry about mowing here just yet. Maybe March or April.
You are so far ahead of where we are at-it’s inspiring in an envious depressing kinda way.LOL
Glad things are turning out so well. You are going to have to tell me a little more about drying stuff in the car though. Haven’t heard of that trick yet.
Remember though, when you are planting in June, our gardens will be harvesting and on the edge of burning up in the 100+ heat. Our forecast for today is 82* My wife and I grew up in the heat and humidity on the Gulf coast, and this part of Texas is nearly as bad, so we are reverse snow birds, we head for cooler climates whenever we get a chance for a few days of R & R.
We really are not ready for the hot temps, but I guess it is here for the year. The pecan trees are starting to bud and mesquite trees are leafed out.
I'm in eastern North Carolina, just east of I-95. The soil here is a deep, sandy loam. It could drain better, but overall is great soil for growing stuff.
I have had very good luck with hot peppers, but success with sweet Bell peppers has mostly eluded me. I can't seem to get the big, blocky (expensive!) peppers you see at the grocery store. Mine are usually fairly small, thin-walled, tending toward bitter, and not that many of them.
What's the secret to growing a good green pepper?
Never knew there was such a thing as “reverse” snowbirds.LOL
Dear Greeneyes,
Well, maybe partially well.... You’ll see in a moment why the qualifier!
We wanted to store our tiny harvest in a place that wouldn’t be subject to critters, and would be dry....and NOT in the house! LOL!
The idea of using the car arrived in my head from other reading I had done in which someone wrote that a car could be used as a substitute dehydrator. My darlin also pointed out that critters couldn’t get in as well, if the passenger compartment is not compromised, which ours isnt.
So we harvested small amounts of pecans, sunflower seeds, marigold seeds, and herbs.
This is one of those experiments that partially turned out well, partially didnt, but the lessons were at least valuable.
We were in a hurry when we picked the pecans. Darlin wanted to pick some of them green, with the green hulls on them. Unfortunately, we put them in plastic sacks. You guessed it...mold! So we tossed those pecans.
The other parts of the harvest we stored in paper sacks or cardboard boxes so there was plenty of air circulation. (I should point out that the green-hulled pecans also developed mold in a carboard box; just not enough air circulates.) Remember, this was the cooler months that we used the car for harvest holding.
As reported last week, the herbs turned out very well. They dried on their stems perfectly. I was able to remove the leaves of the oregano and thyme from the stems very easily into a small ziplock. Once the herbs were in the ziplocks, I was able to roll them around in my hands so they turned to powder and are now ready to use!
Now for the unsuccessful part (apart from the mold!): We had placed our sunflower seeds and marigold seeds in paper bags into the car. They dried very well.
HOWEVER!! What i fear is that we had some warmer days during our recent winter months, and I believe that there was too much solar gain on those days, and rendered the seeds unviable. I had tried sprouting them last week and they have not sprouted, so that is why I have drawn that conclusion. In the future, I will plan to use a car ONLY for drying and not for storage for any materials I might want to use later as viable seed.
Bless your sweet heart, Oberon, I’m such a gardening newby, that I’m faced with the same question! I’ve never successfully raised a green pepper either! The ones I raised several years ago got as big as maybe 50cent pieces!
...I have dark soil...but has high clay content.
I’ll share some of my dark soil with you if you’ll share some of your sandy loam with me! ;-D
From my reading, it is my understanding that the first solution to try first for almost any problem is “more organics” “more organics” “more organics” in the form of compost, etc.
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