Posted on 09/27/2013 12:37:17 PM PDT by greeneyes
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We did NOT get enough rain. I'm going to be hurting on rain water in a few days. I use only rain water for my seedlings/herb/salad garden.
/johnny
Best advice around, any age. It's what my grandfather and father did; and the younger folks express it as "keep on keeping on."
#1 Brother hit 80 nearly 3 years ago; #2 Brother hit 80 earlier this year: both, despite, and within the limits of, medical problems keep it active. #3 Brother & Sis are mid 70s; same thing.
Trailing in the mid 60s, so do I, though I still have a hard time reconciling what I need to do compared to what I get done, compared to the days I was carrying 2 or 3 sacks of cement at a time at work, then going out dancing: makes me feel lazy.
Yesterday, I was in Walker County which is the county to our north, about 25 miles away, and a thunderstorm poured rain and lightning, the whole ball of wax, for some time. I just looked at my rain gauge and there is a little over an inch in it. I don't know if it rained during the night, but it was raining this morning when I got up and still is although it is lighter rain. Just looked at weather channel and I have an 80% chance of rain today so the present lighter rain may stay here all day.
I went out in the light rain to look at plants. I would say the “T” squash is approaching 7 feet long. There are definitely 10 walking onions up. That is all that planter can hold when the onions start walking, in fact, it will be too small.
For spring, I need larger surface area containers, maybe like a square box. And, I need more of the 33” across barrels with the plastic tower to hold up vines, whether it is used for tomatoes or vining veggies.
I'm going to get Ouachita blackberry plants when they are ready for shipment and want a dwarf fruit tree of some type. The dwarf trees are ready for shipment from that south Texas dwarf nursery, in November.
And, I didn't know jack about plants last March but I know a lot more now. And, I could actually can something if I had something to can.
When I was growing up, we had fig trees and Mom canned fig preserves every year. We also had peaches and her canned spiced peaches were out of this world good.
I thought everyone had fresh veggies out of the garden at every meal, and always hot cornbread for lunch and dinner. I was so spoiled and didn't know it. When you grow up with something, you assume everyone is the same.
My HEB has 4" pots of herbs outside the store. You might check there for Herb Plants, if you've got an HEB nearby.
“You might check there for Herb Plants, if you’ve got an HEB nearby.”
There is one about four/five blocks from me.
We got 1/2” of rain last night. I haven’t yet been outside to see what that big storm just dropped, but I bet it was an inch or two. Lightening hit so close I could hear the click before the pow!
Sounds like what you mean. Light greenish tint with a purple ‘eye’ where they attach to the pod when at the shelling stage. Turn white, with increasing purple swirls as the mature; then at full dry maturity, a dark purple. with white flecking. Seeds about the size of baby limas.
From what I’ve been able to find on the Net to look for might be “Dixie” butterbean or Jackson Wonder Butterbean. Both of these look a lot like, but not identical, to what I have.
Justadumbblonde sent me the seeds 2 or 3 years ago.
Marcella—We got 1 3/4” rain in that storm a while ago. That give us 2 1/4” since yesterday, and over 13” for the month of Sept against an average of 4.46” for Sept.
All—Last weekend I pruned my biggest GhostPepper back quite a bit. I took the two largest prunings and stuck them in rooting hormone and then into a pot with fresh made potting mixture and today, the smallest of the two is showing life, the leaves have perked up and it is looking like it will make it. it had flowers on it and still does. The larger clipping is still not looking lively, but I am hopeful it will perk up. I still need to prune back some other branches on the big one, so it is good to know that cuttings from a Ghost Pepper will grow. The smaller plant that has been producing was transplanted at the same time, but it’s peppers have not continued to ripen, but it is growing new peppers, so I think they will ripen as that plant recovers from the re-potting trauma. It has so many peppers that I dont even try to count them.
A while ago I came across some information on growing and foraging your own rabbit feed. There was one thread about it at http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/livestock-forums/rabbits/211220-feeding-rabbits-naturally.html and an entire forum section on it at http://rabbittalk.com/natural-feeding-for-rabbits-f11.html
I spent most of my post-surgery recovery time this summer studying those, but with no rabbits of my own I haven’t been able to test it. But, maybe it could help lessen the number of trips to the feed store?
I managed to work myself into a migraine again yesterday, only this time it’s hanging around. I loaded up on ibuprofen to keep it down to a dull ache so I could function today.
Yesterday I saw that those critters that had been ignoring my chickpeas, suddenly decided to make up for it! Several were chomped off at the ground, several more had all the pods eaten away. I harvested what was left, but I’m not sure it’ll even replace what I planted. There were also nibbles taken out of my squash, so I picked all of those. Point taken, I need fences and row covers before next year.
Both fences and row covers are going to be interesting, because I also got a sample of just how strong the wind gets on my land! No wonder the plastic sheets keep coming loose, yowza! I should modify an electric fence to run on wind power, the batteries would never run dry. My trellis designs are going to need redone, too. There’s no way they’d hold up to that.
This morning I got out to the back garden and picked tomatoes. And picked tomatoes. And picked more tomatoes. The cold weather followed by a warm spell seems to have signalled all of them to put forth as much effort as they can before the freeze. I have 4 slicers and a paste tomato to go chop up for seed now. Woohoo!
I'm only growing the wheat in the area I opened up for my tobacco next year.
But yes, wheat grows in Texas. Texas grows quite a lot of it.
/johnny
Thanks, Ellendra. Took a look, and signed up with Rabbit Talk.
Dilemma: feed the rabbits; or feed the garden? So much both the rabbits and the soil can eat. Maybe feed the soil to grow more, so there’s enough to feed the rabbits.
No matter which or what, if we feed it, it’ll feed us. ;-’)
There are 2 types of Persimmons, The Hachiya which you describe and they MUST BE SOFT ripe to eat and then they are pure ambrosia. Then there is the Fuyu which you eat like and has the crunch of a ripe apple. The Fuyu has a flattened appearance and the skin san be tough.
I had to stop growing Oats for a cover crop as it can grow up the 3 feet in our mild wet climate and then fall over and make it difficult to chop up with the weed trimmer in the spring. I tried common vetch last year and liked it so bought another 15# at the feed store yesterday. We are having early rains this year plus my old age are going to make it difficult to get all the beds prepared plus get the garlic planted. I have 3 compost piles cooking but they need some stable bedding to reactivate them so that is another project.
What kind of wood did you use to construct the 4 X 4 beds with ??
Did you use treated (Preservative )wood ?
#1)The yellow/green wood is Copper sulfate treated.
#2)The Black coated wood is creosote treated wood
Both are toxic to plants, as the preservative will leech into the soil.
The only corrective treatment is to line each of your planting beds with plastic film to prevent leaching, and re-plant.
Choose those plants that are recommended by your local cooperative extension office for your geographic area .
I pulled yellow flowers off my tomatoe plants like crazy early in the season....reason was the plants were still very small, and there was no way any decent maters would come from them.....it turned out alright ...I got a good crop...
I'll till it under in the spring.
After I plant tobacco there, I'll be loading the top up with shredded tree mulch and other organics and then it's my normal maintenance. I'm moving to no-till on the main garden. Heavy mulch is my friend to keep the weeds out in the winter.
/johnny
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