Weekly Gardening Thread – 2011 (Vol. 39) October 7

Free Republic | 10-07-2011 | Red_Devil 232

[Red_Devil 232]

Good morning gardeners. Wow the first week of October! The garden has been officially put to rest and my compost pile has been tilled into the garden and is now depleted. It’s going to need a lot of leaves, grass clippings and other plant materials to build it back up for next years garden. The leaves on the trees here in East Central Mississippi have awhile yet before they turn color and start to fall in quantity so I am letting about half of my grass clippings turn brown before adding them to the compost pile and mixing them with the green clippings.

Now it is time for a “Blast From The Past”. Thanks to Freeper SunkenCiv for the lead to this news story. It is an article about how a Food archaeologist in Arizona is saving plants that were used as a food source thousands of years ago. Not only is he saving the seeds and plants, “he also has made his academic work edible, encouraging home cooks and award-winning chefs to actually use these culinary archaeological finds.” Read the article here: Food archaeologist gives new life to nearly extinct grains, veggies

If you are a gardener or you are just starting out and are in need of advice or just encouragement please feel free to join in and enjoy the friendly discussion. Our Freeper community is full of gardeners, each with varying interests and skill levels from Master Gardener to novice.

I hope all your Summer gardens did well this year and your Fall gardens prosper.

[Red_Devil 232]

Weekly Gardening Thread

Weekly Gardening Thread

[Red_Devil 232]

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[momtothree]

Good morning, Red_Devil 232! A definite thanks to SunkenCiv for posting that article. I find it amazing in a way that many foods common in my youth (okay... definitely dating myself here) are unheard of by many younger folks. I know a lot of people who don’t know what rutabagas, turnips or parsnips look or taste like. The idea of keeping “alive” seeds of ancient foods is brilliant to me. What nourished ancient people would certainly nourish us today.

[Arrowhead1952]

Looks like we may be in for a wet weekend for a change. It has been a long hot dry year. I don’t think we have had over five inches since Sep 2010. We are over 20” behind normal rainfall.

[Redleg Duke]

Greetings from southern New Hampshire!

Thanks for the link. I passed it on to the Dutchess and my Mom who lives in Las Cruces, NM.

The Dutchess now has moved the dinner table into a corner to create space for a 6' by 2' X-pen for our five Maran pullets. They are growing like weeks and have attitudes. She says that they plan to either spend the winter in our dining room or the local Holiday Inn. I ask all of the pullets if they are ready to either make a contribution to breakfast or a committment to supper!

Long weekend coming up. I need to finish the expansion on the coop. The duck hens are now producing large duck eggs.

[goodwithagun]

After nine straight days of cold rain, I’m now in the process of tearing the garden out. The tomatoes are destroyed along with almost everything else except the hot peppers. The kale is okay too. I’ll have hubby till up everything so that I can get garlic in. Anybody know a good place to order shallots from?

[Excellence]

My zucchini plant started blooming all over again, and this time the blooms were on the ends of zucchinis. The peppers even look better. All this happened when it started to cool down.

[afraidfortherepublic]

Do you eat the duck eggs, or are you going to hatch them?

I used to raise peacocks and peahens. Never got any of their eggs to hatch, but we used a lot of them in baking. I don’t have a lot of (any) experience eating eggs from other fowl, but I’m told that peaacock eggs are mild, like chicken eggs, but duck eggs have a “strong flavor”. Since I’ve only tasted chicken and peacock eggs, I can’t tell you what I think of duck eggs.

But, peacock eggs are terrific for baking (they are big). They make a nice, high, cake and make terrific zucchini bread. I suppose you should actually measure them if you have a sensitive recipe.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Hi all, It's possible ~ possible ~ we won't get a night-time frost here in Upper East Tennessee until the end of October. It's been pretty mild so far, and likely will be for a couple more weeks. But I've decided to pot up some of my biennial and perennial herb plants, preparatory to bringing them in and putting them on a sunny south-facing windowsill for the winter.

So far I've potted up

• regular thyme and creeping thyme
• cutting-celery (which is an "herbal" celery that makes flavorful leaves but not stalks)
• rosemary
• garlic (which I just started outdoors a month ago and is about 6 inches high: I use the greens for a garnish, like you'd use chives or green onions);
• rosemary;
• sage.

I'm tempted to dig up some mint, too.

Anybody got any other ideasof smallish plants one can bring inside for the winter? How about greens on a southern windowsill: lettuce? Asian greens?

I don't have money for grow-lights, but I'm thinking I could put reflective white or aluminum-foil covered cardboard panels behind the plants to increase the daytime light exposure. Anybody got any ideas on that?

[tillacum]

I hope so, Arrowhead. The cracks in the pasture are huge. Our whole little town sits on a mound of blackland and right now it’s like concrete. The lake in front of our place is really low. In fact there’s a dozer out there working the dried area and making it deeper. I hope it fills up this weekend.

[Mrs. Don-o]

Oops, I listed rosemary twice. I meant to say parsley. I’ve got 4 parsley plants potted up out back.

[Redleg Duke]

I have had duck eggs. They are fine. I haven't been able to talk the Dutchess into using them in cooking, yet. She hard boils them, chops them up and feeds them back to the ducks.

Maybe this weekend, however.

[Red_Devil 232]

Here is hoping those rains are long and steady ground soakers and not deluges with lots of run off.

[CynicalBear]

Mark for later! Gotta pick tomatoes while it’s still cool.

[momtothree]

I personally think your idea of bringing the herbs inside is great! I’ve done it with parsley and thyme. I use the t.v. tray stands (the ones you would normally use to set up by a chair to eat in front of the television or for a sick person). I have them by any window with Southern exposure... I am not a type to be overly concerned that a room is out of order so it doesn’t bother me. Fresh herbs make everything taste so much better!

[Arrowhead1952]

It’s been raining here since about 7:30. Sure is looking good for a change. I forgot to clean the gutters and one is running over. Looks like almost .5” already.

[stefanbatory]

since the time for planting and growing conventional garden crops is winding down, I have a video that illustrates the rearing of a rather unconventional crop:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9tgAA85OUM

[afraidfortherepublic]

Try them in something like zucchini bread, or a bundt cake. She won’t be able to taste them, but she’ll be impressed with how high the bread rises.

[Redleg Duke]

I did notice that when she hard boiled them, and chopped them up, they didn't have the strong sulfur smell that store-bought chicken eggs had.

With the cost of bread, I might try baking a couple loafs this weekend and use duck eggs.

[Arrowhead1952]

So far we have had a steady rain this morning. I thought it was .5”, but it is just over .25” now. I’ve got to clean out one gutter before it starts again.