Weekly Gardening Thread (Catalog Fever) Vol. 1 Jan 6, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Seeds) Vol. 2, January 13, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread Vol. 3, January 20, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (U.S. Hardiness Zones) Supplemental Vol. 1
Weekly Gardening Thread (Soil Types) Vol. 4, January 27, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Vacation) Vol. 5, February 03, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Vacation) Vol. 6, February 10, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Vacation?) Vol. 7, February 17, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Home Sweet Home) Vol. 8, February 24, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Soil Structure Part 1) Vol. 9, March 2, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Transplanting Tomatoes) Vol. 10, March 9, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread (Useful Links) Vol. 11, March 16, 2012
Weekly Gardening Thread -- Vol. 12, March 23, 2012
Detailed State Plant Hardiness Zone Maps
International Plant Hardiness Zone Maps
Australia
Canada
China
Europe
Japan
Planning on first planting next weekend.
We have inch worms falling like rain today! WAZ UP WIT DAT?
We haven't had rain for 9 days and it's 91 degrees now. Much too hot for March (Texas panhandle).
I am seriously thinking about just doing a few raised beds this year instead of an in ground veggie garden. I will apply lime to my planned in ground garden area this fall prepping for next spring/summer.
As I posted late in last week’s thread, I got the results back on the soil tests. Friday I talked with the Master Gardener on staff at the Farm Bureau. In a nutshell, the soil is not as bad as I thought. The 2 biggest problems are PH and it can use more organic matter.
Today I (almost) finished my shopping for garden stuff. I bought mushroom compost for the organic matter. A sulfate additive to knock the PH down 1 to 1-1/2 points lower.
And I ordered online some bulk SAP (Super Absorbent Polymer). The 10 pounds I ordered should be enough to treat all the gardens here. If it works as advertised it should drastically reduce the amount of watering I have to do.
Now I can get busy getting all this crap in the ground and get the gardens ready for planting.
Thanks for my weekly garden fix. 3 days of heavy rain is a little much even for the damp far north coast. Seedlings are doing GREAT in our little hovel greenhouse. Lady Bender is a Whizz with her many flower seeds. My Sugar Snap Peas are up in the styrofoam cells and will go on the cold frame in a week or so. The pea patch was spaded but the rains may be a problem as I wouldn’t even venture into the garden the last few days...
The new zone map has us at zone 6. I think I’ll talk to Hubby about planting a couple of dwarf redwood on our 20 acres north of us.
I have been reading about planting trees to sell for Xmas, and fire wood etc. Ways to make money on a wood lot. Also thinking about dividing it into 4 lots and selling 3 of them.
We are busy getting new raised beds built and the others refurbished with new compost, as well as leveling some of them a little better.
Still eating from the winter lettuce garden. Tomato starts fizzled. Most of the plants we ordered earlier were back ordered. So not much planting finished yet.
Outdoor orchard has blooms and the kiwi has lots of blooms, too bad the male tree didn’t survive the winter. In door fruit tree has about 11 marble size lemons, and is finally sprouting some new leaves. I honestly was beginning to think it would not survive the winter.
I am still working on Spring cleaning, painting, and reorganizing and purging/selling stuff ( Think trading spaces type stuff, but with only 1 person who already has plenty of stuff to do). Decided to concentrate on one room at a time, and try to do 2-3 feet per day. With the finished basement apartment and storage areas. we have 20 rooms. It’s going to take me a while. I hope to be finished by Thanksgiving. LOL.
Have a great weekend. God Bless.
Sat Mar 31 2012 17:00:19 GMT-0600 (Mountain Daylight Time) by JustaDumbBlonde
Really weird; this just NOW came up on my pings page, despite several refreshes earlier tonight.
Oh, well mysterious are the ways of Free Republic; blessed be the servers!
Despite having decided NOT to plant potatoes this year, I bought a 50 pound sack of Yukon Gold seed potatoes Friday evening. A Rapid City farm & ranch supply just opened in new, much larger quarters, and while checking out their new digs, I saw the sacks of current-year seed spuds ON SALE for 30 cents/pound less than other local sellers of the same certified seed supplier's stock.
Today, I put the new middle-buster onto the old 1944 Ford 9-N, and broke some virgin ground for them, so TECHNICALLY, I won't be planting potatoes "in the garden" this year!
That tractor is a couple years older than I am, but still does an honest hour's work for an hour's worth of gas.
Also got a source for all the free, untreated grass clippings I want. We got a 4 X 8 trailer load, then spring cleaned another 2/3 trailer load of chicken bedding & rabbit manure out of the chicken/rabbit house, and built a compost pile. After 3 days it is too hot to insert my hand more than 4-5 inches inside of it. ANYTHING to keep too busy to plant stuff 7-8 weeks before Last Frost Date!
The winter wheat looks like it suffered about 35-50% loss thanks to the offbeat winter & spring weather. That weather is a two edged sword, though, since it has brought out wild honey & bumble bees early enough to pollinate the apricots that are starting to bloom. Our local beekeeper won't place less than multiples of 4 hives--a pallet--and we couldn't support more than 1 or 2 hives, so that was out, which had only left hand-pollinating as an option.
Speaking of rabbits, we have a 4-week old litter of 8, and another litter born last night; they won't get counted for a few days. One of the four-week females was marked & sold today, when neighbors brought by their property payment; they'll pick her up in a couple of weeks.
HOLY SMOKE!!
I knew you had a farm. I didn't know it was THAT BIG! WOW!
We’re all over here Tilly
This winter I tried propagating some cuttings from blueberries and blackberries. I want to use blueberries out front where my hedges should be (previous owner had some plants that attracted some type of wasps, which also liked to make nests over my front door), and blackberries along the fence in the back yard.
The softwood blueberry cuttings failed completely. The hardwood cuttings are still in the fridge. The blackberry transplants I put out in the yard all rooted, but aren't showing any other signs of life. But three of four root cuttings are just starting to grow.
Here we have a nearly focused picture of one of the parent blackberries flowering.
Which can only lead to one thing.
Cabbage, brussels sprouts, broccoli and cauliflower are all in. Potatoes are in. Carrots and sweet corn are in.
Looking forward to seeing how these new ‘dwarf tomato’ plants turn out...I was able to track all thirteen down, and they are growing quite nicely. Very stocky...they look like little trees. I am also giving the new ‘blue’ tomato called ‘Indigo Rose’ a try...just shy of 150 kinds of ‘maters this year. Fun times...keeps my mind off the country going down the crapper.