Posted on 12/02/2023 6:51:19 AM PST by Diana in Wisconsin
December 4th & I just mowed the front pasture. Usually, I’m not mowing this late, but we didn’t have a real freeze (20’s) until 2 weeks or so ago. With the rain interspersed with mild weather, the grass has just kept growing.
My garden is in the front pasture, so I started mowing around that & kept on going. The yard proper has quit growing after the freeze, so that’s a good thing. There are some patches of grass in the back fields I’ll probably run over this week, maybe around the barn & that “should” be it, except using the mower to round up leaves & pine needles for mulch - mine for next year are bagged & under the pole barn so these would be for mom.
Mild day (57 at 4:15) so I didn’t freeze myself half to death like the last time I was on the mower. Pleasant ride on Clyde, the smell of fresh-cut wild onions wafting in the air (LOL).
Blue pumpkins ....
Last year, there was a blue pumpkin that I was tempted to order seeds for, but didn’t. Then I couldn’t find anything like I thought I remembered ... you made suggestions, but they didn’t seem a match to my (faulty) memory.
I got my Seeds ‘N Such catalog today, which is where I saw that pumpkin last year. It appears it was “Blue Prince”. The pic is sort of what I remember - the description definitely sounds familiar.
I doubt I grow pumpkins in next year’s garden because they take up so much room, but I would love to find a couple of Blue Prince to buy because they are supposed to be very good eating.
Whatever you do, do not start posting to the moribund FR Dimensional Door thread!
I had a feeling you might have been a member.
Goat Lady, what a loss. Many people really that were decades deep into their knowledge, driven off by rabid leftists like that redhead. She tried to ruin foreman’s extreme composting thread by saying he was hoarding — by making good use of stuff other people were throwing away.
That’s the Critical Theory university courses at work.
I went back 4-5 years ago and mentioned the redhead and within a week, she was back. I have a feeling many of them are paid with Soros money to disrupt.
Ask a question now and you get a snarky reply to look at the info already there. All that info that came from the people driven out.
I trimmed back my fence/ low tunnel hoops so that the fabric would cover it completely.
11/24: Califlower is back near the fence with some peas that will never produce pods. (All pollinators disappeared for the winter.)
Broccoli and some lettuce are growing (slowly) in the 2 covered rows. (Broccoli needs 6 hours direct sunlight per day and temperature above 26-27 F.)
12/4/23; after most of 10 days I uncovered the low tunnels today, Here is the broccoli.
I should be able to leave it uncovered for the next week or so. I will water tomorrow and maybe fertilize again. At this point its mostly hands off except for reattaching the hose and watering and covering it back up when its too cold. Not sure If it will flower/head. The lettuce continues to grow. I did not plan to have a winter garden, just had seedlings that I needed to plant. Still have some time until January when I will want to retire inside. Except for one broccoli there is NO looper damage! (I suspect a cut worm for the damaged broccoli.)
Tomatoes: I had put some tomato vines in a box in the garage (Approx 45F at night.) 12/04/23, The green tomatoes ripened. Here is a picture of Thorburn's Terracotta in a bowl in my kitchen! They are not as good as in summer, but still good!
***Report on Burpee's Long Keeper tomato that I grew late this summer: I harvested about 120 red tomatoes in late September and put them in boxes in the garage. I experienced about a 40% loss by December 1. I did not think that the tomato was that flavorful and the last ones were starting to shrivel up. The trade off is that the ones that survived were edible late into the year. (The garage ripened Thorburn's taste much better and I still have some.)
The RM Young Wind Monitor. (stock ad photo)
Passes all the initial checks as per the manual.
Mechanically smooth, well balanced and no bad bearings.
Took an ohm reading while rotating it in wind vane fashion and got a smooth, variable reading.
Bearings and potentiometer are the common items that need replacement and all passed.
I've got more proper testing I'll do but it's looking good.
Won't be up and running this year but it will be here ready to go.
You do get a lot of production out of a small area.
Got the same catalog yesterday. Glad to see them trickling in.
Blue Prince is an All American Seed Selection, (AAS) so it's been shown to be a winner.
“Princely” is defined as being sumptuous and splendid; this AAS Winner lives up to its name! For any edible entry to become an AAS Winner, it must outperform the comparisons and Blue Prince Pumpkin certainly scored high in the areas of maturity (earlier), yield, fruit size, and uniformity, color, taste, and texture. Vigorous trailing vines produce 7-9 pound beautiful blue flattened pumpkins with non-stringy, deep orange flesh with savory sweetness. These pumpkins are as pretty as they are delicious; after fall decorating, bake the flesh for a smooth and creamy treat. Of all the varieties trialed, Blue Prince was first to flower and fruit which is beneficial for gardeners with a shorter growing season. Plus, this winner has slightly better disease resistance than the comparisons. A judge’s testimonial: “Overall, if I was looking for a blue pumpkin to display AND eat, I’d pick this entry every time!”
You are really lengthening your season! Good job!
We had a warm enough Fall to extend my greens-growing in the greenhouse, but I checked yesterday and I see that I had White Fly on both my spinach and arugula, so I composted both flats. :(
That’s the end of the season for me. We did have ripening tomatoes into November this year, so that was a WIN! :)
Nanner will be back on his feet with a new (free) front tire later today. The tire shop had a used loader tire... same size and tread ply as the old tire... they were tired of tripping over it... they’re giving me the tire for the cost of a flat repair... wouldn’t have gotten a deal like that at Dobbs Tire.
And I’ve got a feeling that Little Red may leave today too. We’re looking at a slightly used (120hrs on the proof meter) 40hp 4x4 Kubota. The Kubota weighs a little more and has a few more HP than the Massey, but the loader bucket on the Kubota is smaller, which is a good thing. The Massey was incapable of lifting its loader bucket if the going was at all tough.
Wire colors in cable, red, blue, green, yellow, white, black. What's what?
Open it up and those wires go to a small PC board that has, red, red, black, black, green, white. What's what?
Look at wiring schematic. Hint: "potentiometer wiring is 28 ga. Wind speed coil wiring is 22ga"
Sure enough, two reds are different wire gauges and two blacks are as well. The thicker red and black wires are for wind speed and the thinner red and black are for wind direction. Then it was just a matter of using an ohm meter to verify which wire on the board is which wire in the cable.
Need to get a stub of 1" pipe and a floor flange. Screw the flange down to a piece of wood and put pipe into the flange. Then the wind monitor can mount onto the pipe. Basically, I'll be making a stand for it.
I'll make some lines on the board to represent points or directions on a compass for N, S, E, W. Then I can put some DC voltage to the potentiometer and find out where North is by turning the weather vane part of it and reading voltage between negative DC and a third wire. The lowest reading, at or near zero volts is North and 180 out from that should give me the highest voltage reading.
I can take it to work the weekend after next and do some testing for wind speed readings.
Then I just need a $400 controller to connect it to so I can see the wind speed/direction on screen in real time.(with it mounted it outdoors of course) I'll probably put it up near the house for now on a pipe that will really be too short.
The installation part of the manual has guidelines for the effects of buildings on wind. The wind gets disturbed for twice the height of a structure, above said structure and upwind from it. The tunnel is 15 foot tall so I'm going to put the wind monitor 30 feet away from the tunnel, in the direction of the prevailing winds.(and storm gusts) I'll probably put it 15 foot off the ground which is pretty low but I'm not looking to record proper weather data. I'm using it to close up a 15 foot tall high tunnel in high winds.
Looks like it will be decent weather to set a tunnel frame tomorrow.
Looks like I “picked” a good blue pumpkin to wish I could plant. I checked to see if deer eat pumpkins - they do ... leaves, flowers & pumpkins themselves. If they did not, I might could plant them outside the fencing, but I do not have room for pumpkins “inside”. I will have to ‘noodle’ on this problem & see if I can find room for some Blue Princes.
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Ok, so I know this is NOT a cooking/recipe thread, but people on the Garden Thread DO cook, so maybe they will find what I am about to post helpful (if the info isn’t already known - it was ‘new’ to me & I’ve been cooking for decades ... old dogs do learn new tricks!).
First of all - that spatula candy thermometer - I don’t think a battery comes with it (mine is still in the package, but they mentioned the battery that is needed on the back). I bought a pack at Walmart a bit ago - expensive little rascals & I got one of the two packs left, but they’ll be worth it if the spatula/thermometer works as advertised.
Cranberries - are 50 cents a bag at Walmart today, down from $2.19 a bag. I bought 6, so I have enough for 2 batches of Cranberry-Apple Jam AND another Cranberry Fluff to take to the Christmas Dinner Sunday.
Speaking of Cranberry Fluff ... whipped cream or Cool Whip (this is what holds it together)?. While trying to figure out what I wanted to do, somehow I stumbled on a recipe for “Stabilized Whip Cream”, purportedly better than Cool Whip. I tried it - fantastic!! It held up great at our Thanksgiving Feast, sitting out with no refrigeration and it was still good for leftovers (which were kept in the fridge). Exactly what is “stabilized” whipped cream? You add 2 tablespoons of instant vanilla pudding to your whipping cream & whip. It adds a lot of body - takes a little longer to whip (I was getting nervous), but the result was good.
Stabilized Whipped Cream
https://therecipecritic.com/stabilized-whipped-cream/
Cranberry Salad (aka Fluff) Recipe - very festive & pretty darn good, if you ask me - I did not add extra sugar so it was not too sweet.
https://thecaglediaries.com/cranberry-salad/
And now, for my latest discovery & the new Grand Poobah of my collection of holiday dessert recipes:
Pecan Bars for a Crowd
https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/pecan-pie-bars-for-a-crowd/
This is an ‘old’ recipe evidently, but EVERYONE loved them - like eating pecan pie, but easier to handle. I left a few with my SIL after the Thanksgiving Feast (so I wouldn’t eat them all) - my brother just texted me last night that he was eating my pecan bars and “they are so good ... low calorie, right?” Ha ha. I told him if he ate enough of them he’d need insulin!
Anyway, this is a HUGE recipe - most people cut it in half, which is what I did. Read the comments on the recipe if you decide to try it - lots of helpful info.
The “tip/trick” I learned with this one was how to cut butter into flour to make a crust the easy way ..... use your grater (the old timey metal one is what I have) & the large holes. The stick(s) of butter need to be frozen (or very cold), but I keep mine in the freezer anyway, so that worked out fine. The butter pieces were easy to work into the flour & the crust came out just fine. I have had a pastry cutter I used & I’ve done the ‘two knives’ method and they were both a ‘pain’ IMO.
Another tip on the pecan bars - it calls for working the crust up on the sides of the pan - one of the commenters said they did not do this & after making the bars once, I won’t fool with a crust on the sides either.
I just looked it up .... hope you got a great deal on it!!
A deer it could handle, but not a full grown elk!
(I think that MO was trying to reintroduce Elk to MO.)
Glad you got it fixed. All I have is a rototiller, and I have done it, but I would not want to return to hand tilling.
White flies put a period on your growing year, and your greenhouse is the the first paragraph in spring on your next year garden story.
The Baker's Creek Cover...have you received it and seen the purple tomato on the cover? Wonder how it tastes? (Seed catalogues Never exaggerate their products do they?)
(Already sold out!)
Thanks!
Have to work with what you have. Would prefer to be out in the woods like you, but within walking distance and view of the lights in town!
Wow! That’s some tomato! :)
Kubota dealer was busy selling a brand spanking new big tractor (think $100k+) this morning. We'll go back tomorrow and see what kind of deal we can make for trading off the little Massey. There's an offer on the table that we would accept, but it's considered a sign of weakness at the farm equipment dealership if you don't try real hard for the best deal possible when making a trade.
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