Posted on 01/22/2010 7:16:56 AM PST by Red_Devil 232
Good morning gardeners! Let us all hope our California FRiends are faring well through all the winds, rain and mud slides. I am still working on indexing last year’s posts into categories. It has turned out to be a lot more challenging than I thought it would be. I hope I can complete and post it before this thread really takes off once Spring kicks in!
I went to check out my local seed store to do some pre-gardening planning, and saw this on their website (ackk!):
Comstock is undergoing reorganization.
The store and seed department are closed.
We can NOT accept any orders!
The reopening date has not been determined.
Comstock, Ferre & Co.
I have started a few each of roughly 50 different tomatoes this year...collect ‘em all! (Only a few thousand to go...)
On top of the ground planting is covered in Lasagne Gardening book.
Wet newspapers, seed potatoes, straw. Very simple and very easy to pick....Potatoes aren’t as large but I planted little red ones ....mmmm
I used a large half tub for sweet potatoes....Will add another tub next year.
I’ve got some red potatoes from ‘The Pig’ that are beginning to sprout. I think I’m going to try them and the lasagna method this weekend. They’re from Florida so probably suited to the deep south. We’ll see. Hopefully with frost cloth (2 layers kept my lettuce in my raised beds safe from 24 degrees earlier this winter) they will be happy. I’ve just got to get my dad to show me how to make seed potatoes from the ones I’ve got.
I’m going to plant regular seed potatoes from the local co-op in the garden in about 6w according to our local planting chart. Hopefully they don’t drown. Garlic doesn’t look too happy right now with the 5” of rain the other night.
The maillady brings little boxes and envelopes a couple times a week here with little packets of seeds. Just ordered from Jung’s the other evening and getting ready to order from Parks tonight.
Hubby is going to get my grow light situation worked on this weekend and hopefully little pepper and tomato and possibly eggplant seedlings will follow along shortly.
Anybody ever grown pyrethrum daisies or Jicama for natural insecticide?
Homegrown Tomatoes
~ Guy Clark
Ain’t nothin’ in the world that I like better
Than bacon & lettuce & homegrown tomatoes
Up in the mornin’ out in the garden
Get you a ripe one don’t get a hard one
Plant `em in the spring eat `em in the summer
All winter with out `em’s a culinary bummer
I forget all about the sweatin’ & diggin’
Everytime I go out & pick me a big one
Homegrown tomatoes homegrown tomatoes
What’d life be without homegrown tomatoes
Only two things that money can’t buy
That’s true love & homegrown tomatoes
You can go out to eat & that’s for sure
But it’s nothin’ a homegrown tomato won’t cure
Put `em in a salad, put `em in a stew
You can make your very own tomato juice
Eat `em with egss, eat `em with gravy
Eat `em with beans, pinto or navy
Put `em on the site put `em in the middle
Put a homegrown tomato on a hotcake griddle
If I’s to change this life I lead
I’d be Johnny Tomato Seed
`Cause I know what this country needs
Homegrown tomatoes in every yard you see
When I die don’t bury me
In a box in a cemetary
Out in the garden would be much better
I could be pushin’ up homegrown tomatoes
Ringtone for your phone here:
http://www.cowboylyrics.com/lyrics/clark-guy/homegrown-tomatoes-12.html
I hope all this warm weather doesn’t make the blueberries start to bud out. My kids love blueberries. I’ve got some (sour) cherry bushes planted too. 30 of them LOL. Hopefully they’ll do something. If not they’re still a screen between us and the side road. We’ll be setting out our apple trees in the next week or two as well.
When is the earliest anyone in the deep south has planted an SH2 corn and had it actually germinate?
Yep! Ain’t that why we do!
I currently have “Build Me Up, Buttercup.” I love it! :)
I am not sure about corn. I have never grown any. I bet some FReeper will know.
Spring is still a long way off for the Colorado Rockies. I will put potatoes out in early May and other plants early to mid June. The front moving through is causing snow as it moves over the continental divide. I can see snow about 3 miles to the west, but none here yet. About a foot of snow on the ground.
I get itchy to play in some dirt about this time of year, when spring is still so far off, so I like to do some winter sowing. Some of you may have already heard of the winter sowing method ... planting seeds in milk jugs and other recyclables, with lids off and drainage holes in the bottom, and putting them outside in the elements. It is great for seeds that need cold stratification, and I’ve also had great success with hardy annuals and cool weather veggies. Here are some informational links, if anyone is interested:
http://www.seedgirl.com/go/blog/full/step_by_step_guide_to_winter_sowing/
http://www.seedgirl.com/go/blog/full/winter_sowing/
I was in a waiting room yesterday, and someone’s phone rang. The ring tone was his young grandaughter saying... ring, ring.....ring, ring......ring, ring! Brought a smile to the whole room of dreary people waiting for the Dr.
our ground here in los angeles will be ready for fertilizing!! LOL... looking forward to setting up a garden this year.
That is so neat!
NW maritime climate:
We were given some thornless Marionberries. In the end we decided that the berry was just tooooo plain and tasteless compared to the believe you me THORNY Marionberries.
So, we have two posts with wire, about 10 feet long, waiting for something. I’m thinking seedless grapes for fresh eating. Any suggestions on the best variety (green and purple)? We might try something else. I’ve been looking at unusual fruit from Raintree Nursery, Territorial Seed and One Green World catalogs.
Anybody from the NW really, really happy with a grape or unusual fruit?
We already grow: blueberries, apples, marionberries, raspberries, rhubarb and have a few raised beds for vegetables.
Ain’t nutin’ better than standing over the sink to catch the drips from a couple of slices of cheap white bread slathered with real mayo, salt and pepper, and a big slice of homegrown tomato still warm from the garden, yu-um-ummmm.
Study up on Kiwi culture and care. You need one male plant to three or four female and they are picked late in the year. I think we picked ours in Nov or Dec here in Humboldt County Cal...
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