Finally caught up, and can post. Today was a firewood cutting trip; didn’t get home until after dark.
It’s a good thing we had 2 tillers, because the 1987 Troy finally bit the big one. We brought the remains home from the shop Tuesday, complete with a new set of times on the tiller section. Transmission unit is shot, but at least the engine is good, and will be put to use somehow.
We’ll do some chipping/shredding, weather permitting, with the newer one, then dismount the PTO chipper, and put the tine section back on it—this unit originally came on it—when it’s time for Spring tilling.
Also Tuesday, we also did some shopping, and bought a Little Giant still air incubator, plus the automatic egg turner for it.
The snow finally disappeared from the garden, and the winter wheat is looking like a newly sprouting lawn; no sign of the garlic or asparagus yet, as expected. Too muddy to check on the Egyptian onions.
I dropped 8 artichoke seeds into pots this week; supposed to be able to grow them as an annual here, and still get chokes from this variety. Having lived in artichoke country, I miss them, but not enough to pay $2-3 each for the rusty, half-open ones we get on the shelves around here. Somebody on another board posted that they also live in Zone-5, and were trying to over-winter some, using 2’ of straw over them, after they cut them back. I’m hoping to see a follow-up.
On a whim, we spent $5 on 1-1/4 pound of bulk sugar snap pea seeds, mainly for some soil improvement in an area outside the garden. With any kind of luck, the food bank will get some, as well as replenishing our freezer.
Sorry about your tiller. Sounds like things are moving right along for your gardening chores. Artichokes are a very very good anti-cancer food.
Daylight savings time starts this weekend. That extra hour of daylight after school is the time I use for spring gardening.
I’ll be gone overnight for a seminar on native plants of Missouri. I’ll have to catch up later with the rest of the posters.
I got artichokes to bear in a single year. I started them indoors in jan (i’m in the deep south). put them in damp paper towels (the seeds) in ziploc baggies until i saw sprouts. planted those in teeny peat pots. put those peat pots in the fridge at night for 3 or 4 weeks (don’t remember) to simulate a ‘cold season’ for the seedlings. it was good to go from there.
they really need that ‘cold snap’ to think they’ve overwintered and need to bloom.