Glad you’re feeling better; hope it stays that way!
Still in the ‘in betweens’. The cool stuff is finished, and the warm stuff has yet to start producing.
The tomatoes (mostly) survived their ordeal by hail, but weather has been much cooler than normal, so they, and most else, are rather slow this year. The beans mostly didn’t survive the beating.
The Arikara corn is about 2’ tall, stocky, and starting to push up tassels. Each one has several tillers. If it pans out, I may plant a large plot of it next year for chicken feed. The painted hill & Golden Bantam are about the same size, but are on different maturation schedules, so the three won’t cross pollinate each other.
Starting to get garlic, and we’re pleased with it this year. The Spring planted did much better than the Fall planted, in both survival and bulb size.
I came across this since last week, and put one together, sans bucket—I use a trash can instead, so don’t need a lid. Really works well for threshing the rye
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http://winwinfarm.com/2013/06/diy-bucket-thresher-for-backyard-wheat-growers/
“DIY Bucket Thresher for Backyard Wheat Growers”, with photos, instructions, videos and discussion at link. Most practical thing I’ve found for small plot threshing; working well on the rye. For the trash can, I used a 3’ piece of threaded shaft.
The only drawback is that you do have to remove the heads from the stems, or the straw just wraps around the shaft and stall the drill. OTOH, up to about 1’ of stem is no problem, so I don’t have to be too careful with the deheading: pair of shears on a handful at a time, on a tarp does it.
Ended up with 2 gallons of our ‘sweet’ bush cherries. They make a great jelly or syrup; and are fairly good eating out of hand, though tarter than a commercial sweet cherry. Downside is their size: just too small for a cherry pitter, so pies etc are out of the question.
Thanks for the link. That works great. Hubby put his wheat between two sheets and walked on it. It worked, but not as fast as this.
His main trouble is that he harvests it and has no good place to store it so that it doesn’t get rained on. He lost part of his harvest due to rain/mold. The birds liked it though.
When you say “Spring planted” garlic, was that this Spring (2014) or last year? I have tried garlic a few times but when I’ve planted it in the Fall, nothing happened.
Any tips on what to plant in the areas that will be open once the last of the lettuce and radishes are gone but we still have some time before frost hits?
Our tomato plants are huge and all the fruit is turning red at the same time, so much for planting 5 different kinds and thinking they’d ripen alternatively. I will try sun-drying some of the smaller plum type and might process the excess (I don’t have a pressure canner so I think I have to add sour salt if I water-bath them, I haven’t ever tried before)
I cut a HUGE zucchini that was hiding under the leaves this afternoon, it’s the size of a baseball bat!
Decided to sacrifice my parsley to the black swallowtails — there are about 10 caterpillars of different sizes munching away, but we need the pollinators here badly, so they can eat it all. Next year I’ll plant some dill for them, since we don’t like that as much and they can eat it instead.
We are also getting highs in the 80’s with 60’s overnight, and just enough rain to keep the sprinklers dormant, for the most part. It’s been a really good season for our little garden, much better than last year.
Another option is to place approximately one gallon size of heads in a burlap bag ( or sturdy pillowcase->but your wife will kill you )
and treat it like a pinata with a baseball bat, and let your emotions flow !!
Innowing : Absent a suitable wind , empty onto a sheet with a fan set on high, and blow away the chaf
Repeat as necessary !!
One year I grew rye ,sychethed it, shocked it,threshed it by hand, all by hand .
I later used it to make rye bread.
I was never so happy to have paid $1.25 then for a loaf of rye bread , as I now knew what went into it manually.