Our grand daughter's school was open, since their bus routes are not as bad as the other area schools. I did have a couple of days in the 40s that I was able to get outside and do some work.
I saw that a huge strip of Texas was in the deep freeze also. Hope everyone everywhere is doing ok in the freezing weather.
We contiue to get catalogs, and many are from places that are new to us. I am trying to get the indoor cleanup done in January, so that I can spend more time in February planning and organizing for this years gardening season.
Hope you are all doing well. Have a great weekend. God Bless.
Pinging the list.
We have global warming hanging off the gutters and vehicles here in Texas.
I’ve finally caught it dry enough to work the garden ,plowed and leveled, gonna try and get it rowed-up tomorrow. 32*F here ,snowing just to the south of us.
Got an email from my favorite nursery over in East Texas. It is a nursery that I have had great service from, and they gave quality products at good prices.
They have a flash sale going on “Native” fruit & nut trees at $5 per tree.
The sale ends today (Friday).
Legg Creek Farm, LLC
Website: http://www.leggcreekfarm.com/
Here is the link to the trees on sale: native fruit tree sale page:
Native Fruit Trees
http://www.leggcreekfarm.com/fruit-trees.html#!/~/category/id=3360575&offset=0&sort=nameAsc
Native Fruits and Nut Trees
http://www.leggcreekfarm.com/fruit-trees.html#!/~/category/id=1998442&offset=0&sort=nameAsc
—
Note- I am in no way connected with the company, only connected as a customer.
I've been trying to finish watching all of a very informative lady's youtubes (http://www.youtube.com/user/imstillworkin/videos) that I'd started a couple years ago. She home cans and dehydrates what her garden produces. What I like is she researches everything.
Hi Everyone.
Cold and the ground is covered with a few inches of snow here in Connecticut. Possibly more snow tomorrow.
Trying something new this year, winter sowing. Got some of my cold weather seeds in plastic containers outside in the cold. Hope this technique works as it just seems too easy. I put them out last week before our most recent snow, but that isn’t suppose to hurt plants started this way. May try a few more varieties, just for a lark.
Nothing started inside yet, but most of my seeds are ordered or already here. Going for some different things this year: a hollow tomato, ground cherries, little red eggplants, little green striped eggplants, and pink stalked celery. Put both hard and soft neck garlic in in the Fall, so at least there’s something planted.
Only two more months and maybe I can actually start prepping the garden.
Greetings from Massachusetts. It’s 8 degrees here at 6:22 PM.
Our local weatherman, Dale Nelson of KRIS TV, Corpus Christi, Tx has a serious green thumb and has even created his own highly sought-after tomato formula prized by backyard gardeners. He is highly sought after by Home and Garden shows.
Dale Nelson's tomato formula:
There are two Tomato formulas... One formula for sandy soil and one for clay soil. The first time you use the tomato formula use the "Original" formula no matter what type of soil you have.
Original Formula / Sandy Soil 1 cup 10-20-10 (1-2-1 ratio) fertilizer 1/4 cup super phosphate 1/2 cup gypsum 2 cups cow manure Dig a hole and mix ingredients. Then, add regular dirt on top of formula before placing tomato plant in hole. Otherwise, formula will burn the roots of the plant. Don't let formula touch the roots when they are first planted. Let the plant grow into the formula. Water regularly. Stand back and watch them grow! Best varieties are Sonny, Bingo, Carnival, Heatwave, Celebrity, Big Boy, Better Boy and President. Best cherry tomatoes to use are small Fry and Cherry Grande. Everything needed is available at any local nursery.
Caution: Please be aware that excessive use of phosphorus in our clay soil over a long period of time can be non beneficial to your plants.
Clay Soil* 1 Cup 21-0-0 (1-0-0 Ratio) Ammonium Sulphate 3/4 Cup Gypsum 2 Cups Cow Manure Mix these ingredients together with existing garden soil and plant one tomato plant per hole mixture.
*Most clay soils in this area already have too much super phosphate, which tends to stay in the soil for a long period of time. The local nursery people tell me, the best way to correct this is by adding ammonium sulphate which is 21-0-0.
I’m almost embarrassed to say, since so many people are suffering from the cold, that we had a high of 73 degrees here today.
I spent the late afternoon repotting some of my starts, planting “Pink Lemonade” blueberries in a couple of pots (wish me luck with these!) and general garden clean up. I was wearing shorts, a t-shirt and had an ice cold drink.
Don’t worry — we pay for this in the summer when we’ll suffer through the 110 degree heat!
Keeping my indoor plants watered is the only gardening happening here in NW Missouri. At present there is a wee bit of moisture falling. My guess is, it is random sleet, as I could hear the pings on the metal roof. The wind was brutal today, but as I walked the dog it seems to have died down significantly.
I have plenty to keep me occupied. I am researching for a dishwasher that will wash dishes without me having to scrub the dishes before I put them in the dishwasher.
I would appreciate any suggestions as to what is the ‘best’ functioning dishwasher presently being sold, without breaking the bank account. I have decided to take my time and get the right one, since I am not needing the dishwasher to clean the canning jars.
Then last evening the microwave flipped out and started beeping and sounding like it was nuking something without anyone touching it. I finally had to unplug it to stop it from flipping out. I plugged it back in to see if maybe that would clear the internals. After five times of attempting to end this possession, I noticed there were words running across the clock screen. It said the keypad had shorted and service was needed immediately. So I went out today and hopefully found a better one, as the microwave gets usage constantly. Especially the reheating of leftovers.
The old microwave is at least 10 years old and it was given to me, used at that time. So I cannot complain that it did not serve us well. The dishwasher however, only lasted three years. Other than the ordeal of finding the right dishwasher for the functions I want at the cost I can spend I am glad it croaked. It was a piece of junk from the get go.
I do hope that all had a safe and peaceful Christmas.
The cold weather is pretty brutal right now. Our last horse died ‘unexpectedly’ two days ago .... 28 years old. She was in pretty good shape as far as body weight. She likely had a heart issue (most horses that old do) and frigid weather doesn’t help that situation at all - even if there was no heart issue, this kind of weather is just really hard on the senior citizens ... horses and people. The good news ... she was retired two summers ago to a farm where she was knee deep in grass, had a couple of kids that loved her (no riding, she was more of a large ‘pet’) and neighbors that fed her apples and carrots every day. She had a good life.
Hi everyone!
The other 3 of my sweet potato offspring started sprouting, so I have them in water and they are putting out leaves.
I checked my pot of experimental parsley (to see if it would overwinter in its location) after our last cold snap a few days ago (sub zero temps and even lower wind chill.) I had mulched with lots of leaves. I was amazed to see some little bits of green still. We’ll see what happens after this next bout which is expected in next few days.
Looked through some boxes in past several days and ran across a small booklet which wowed me with the info in it.
We paid about $5.00 for it in early 90’s.
“Vegetable and Herb Seed Growing for the Gardener and Small Farmer” by Douglas C. Miller, (C) 1977
Published by Seeds Blum
Idaho City Stage
Boise, ID 83706
1984
The letter u in “Blum” has the two dots over it. (Umlaut)
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Vegetable-growing-gardener-small-farmer/dp/B0006WPFLQ - currently unavailable
I searched a little more and was unable to find a source other than the above publisher. According to one of my searches, the comment is that the publisher has a pretty good catalog.
Miller’s commentary on “Seed Handling” had some new info for this newby. He discusses “Harvest, Cleaning, Treating,Storage, Testing, and Running Out.
We have had a number of discussions on the thread about hand pollination and this book a quite a bit of info on it, some of which I shall endeavor to share.
What caught my attention was his bit on “Isolation” and “Hand-Pollination.” He also gives specific instructions for hand-pollination under specific sections devoted to individual vegetables.
In general:
“Isolation” - the key to keeping a strain pure lies in keeping it isolated from other strains or varieties with which it is liable to cross.”
(my summary here:)
Legumes: are almost entirely self-pollinated. Others with insect or wind pollination require isolation.
Generally, 1/4 mile between wind or insect pollinated varieties will give adequate protection. This distance can be reduced if your plant are upwind of others, if you have a thick stand of trees in between.
I was fascinated by his discussion of “Caging” which I will seek to excerpt here:
“Caging, as the name implies, involves building a cage around the plants which you desire to cross, excluding all others. Insect-pollinated varieties should be caged inside a mesh about as course as house window screening (or coarse chees cloth.) This will exclude insects, yet allow plenty of air circulation and light.”
“Wind-pollinated varieties should be caged with a much tighter mesh, muslin, pillow casing, or an old sheet are fine. These materials should be of a light color, (preferably white). since they will exclude much light and air, they should not be installed until shortly before the flowers begin to open.”
“The following are some methods of caging. These are just suggestions. You will, no doubt, come up with ideas of your own. Keep in mind, when designing your particular caging apparatus, just how many seeds to expect from each pollinated flower. Be sure to cage flowers from enough different individual plants together to insure against inbreeding depression. 5 to 10 individual plants fit in the cage, keeping the most rubust stalks for seed production.”
He gives 3 methods. First has to do with caging around plants planted around a pole to which is attached the apparatus at the top, with a tied gather at the bottom.
Second is the pup tent method. You have a row and put stakes down the row, and let the apparatus be a pup tent shape over them.
Method 3 us the use of old window screens to form a large cage. It can be used to cage more than just one type of vegetable as it is quite a bit larger than the other two.
The following I found quite interesting regarding what to do with caged veggies. I quote:
“INTRODUCING FLIES”
“When caging insect-pollinated varieties, insects must be put into the cage. Honeybees can be put in, but will soon die if kept away from their hive. The simplest technique is to introduce flies. Blow flies (blue or green bottle-flies), the type which gather and breed on rotten meat are the best and easiest to obtain.”
“Two weeks before they are needed, set some raw meat or guts outdoors in a light-weight open container. In a few days the meat should be crawling with maggots. Place the container, meat, maggots, and all, inside the cage. The maggots will turn into flies and do your pollinating for you. If you do not wish to put rotten meat into your cage, you can put the meat on a rack above a tray or pan while flies are breeding. Pupae will drop into the tray and can be put into the cage.
Wind-pollinated varieties will require some agitation to distribute the pollen within the cage. This can be accomplished by batting or shaking the cage around every day or two.
I’ve been nursing a broken rib for the past few weeks. It has healed up enough that I felt like getting outdoors for a bit this weekend. Took advantage of the warm weather yesterday and pruned a few of my orchard trees.
Very sore today and we’re back in the freezer so I’ll have some time to continue my recuperation...
Make homemade yogurt from your pepper stems and cherry tree stems! Wow, who’da thunk? I make homemade yogurt by using starter from store bought yogurt with live cultures but I found this discussion on using hot pepper stems for the culture. I wonder if sweet pepper stems could be used? This might be something to note for prepping.
http://www.wildfermentation.com/yogurt-cultured-by-chili-peppers/