The volunteer tobacco plant. Cigarette is shown only for scale, I'm not yet growing complete cigarettes. ;)
/johnny
Posted on 11/08/2013 12:23:38 PM PST by greeneyes
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Just got back from my land. I won’t be able to afford another roll of landscape fabric until the end of the month, so today I focused on digging at my hole in the ground. I did some rough calculations, and if I could get that much digging done once a week every week, I’d have my foundation finished in 5 months.
What are the chances of that happening?
I think I’ll assume 2 years the way things are going, but it was good to see some progress today.
Both photos are beautiful to this guy who very rarely sees any snow.
Ditto for the Hill Country, Tuesday & Wednesday Night. Worked on my "gonna be a Texas Prepper's greenhouse" today. I still need to skin it, but my 9 foot tall tomatoes, are outside of it, and loaded with tomatoes. I am going to check Thrift Shops around here on Tuesday for a King Size blanket for them..Or maybe I should just buy a planket???
If I don't get the greenhouse skinned, so I can put a light in it, I will be looking for blankets to clothespin on the outside of it..
I used to hang blankets over the tomato cages, or boiled wool coats, and hang a trouble light in the middle tomato cage..but that was before I had 9 foot tall tomato plants. My daughter has used Christmas String lights around plants to keep them from freezing in her garden, but I haven't tried that.
Time to quit Lollygagging.
It is great to hear that you have such a nice tomato crop here at the beginning of the cold weather. We dream of having fresh maters this late.
I put up the plastic that we used last year and got our back porch enclosed. I located two light fixtures and four plant bulbs for them along with the chains and timer. I just need to hang them now. I have the latest forecast of 34 for Tues and 30 for Wed. I was thinking about you when I was stapling the plastic and using the strips of folder material as washers or gaskets. I didnt get any pictures but I may after the sun comes up. I am thinking of putting a heater out there with them this year. As I posted earlier, we have expanded our container gardening so much this year, we may have to put some in my garage/worksshop. The porch is only 10’ x 20’ I am contemplating buying another light fixture and two more plant grow bulbs to put up in the shop. We have two 9’-10’ pencil cactus in 24” containers that need to come in, and a lot of other large containers. They look nice when you buy them and while outside with beautiful plants, but eventually they have to be moved inside. Oh the joy!
Try 3% rock phosphate. I will aid in growth and cause more blooms and better fruit bearing of your plants. I say 3% because it’s hard to go wrong. If you use Triple Super-Phosphate, follow the directions or you may end up burning your plants.
The Mrs tells me that a hoofed rodent (a deer) broke through the chicken wire we have covering the hoophouse and ate our okra, sweet potatoes, nipped the cabbage and lettuce, and generally trampled other plants.
I'm going to need to armor up the hoophouse when I have an opportunity.
All our tropical plants have been brought into the garage so they can take advantage of the warmth and lights have been hooked up. Trying to heat the greenhouse to keep tropical plants alive during those Blue Northers was getting real expensive, almost $400 in propane the year before last.
I normally throw plastic drop cloth over my plants that were still producing during real cold weather. That, and a drop light should keep the plant alive, but any leaves touching the plastic will die back. The packages of dropcloths are real inexpensive at Lowe's.
I'm not looking forward to the cold weather, OTOH, the apples and stonefruit trees should benefit from the chill.
Blue Northers..I completely forgot about those. From the way the latest possum I need to kill has been working on his digs under my house, I think it's going to be a cold winter.
I would make Strawberry preserves. I've got that new good water bath canner recipe book full of jelly/jam/preserves of every fruit so I'm sure there is one in there for strawberries. Since I've never canned anything, I go under the assumption I am able to can anything. I've got the water bath canner now and the utensils needed to deal with the canner, but I need pint jars and other ingredients.
Rightly, my latest forecast is 30 degrees Wednesday night. I’ll have to cover all plants. The ones in the net room are gathered together so it will be easy to cover those. The strawberry plants are together so that will be easy and for sure I’ll cover the carrots and turnips.
I’ll cover the big squash plant with row cover, too, as it still has blossoms. I measured the squash on it and it’s 18 inches long. Planting these squash in containers in spring when one is supposed to do it, rather than when I did it, should bring a bounty of squash not killed by moths/borers.
What kind of tomato plants do you have that are loaded with tomatoes? If you have said the kind, I don’t remember.
My volunteer tobacco plant got moved into the sun shelf yesterday.
Today, I removed the plastic from the garden where I had it covered since May. The plastic worked as advertised, and killed off all the bermuda and grassburrs, along with everything else. The organic material I had left under it has decomposed nicely, and the area is ready to till and will easily be ready for spring. I'll be using the plastic film in the future to clear natural growth in preparation for gardening.
/johnny
The volunteer tobacco plant. Cigarette is shown only for scale, I'm not yet growing complete cigarettes. ;)
/johnny
I would have thought you would be colder than I am going to be on Wed. night, but you’ve got a forecast of 32 and mine is 30. After that night, the temp. goes back up.
That is a “darling” little tobacco plant.
I just got some sweet potato vine from the neighbor, and I'll keep them on the sun-shelf until they recover from being transplanted.
I found a way to make booze out of sweet potatoes, so I'm ok with growing them now. ;)
/johnny
The leaves of my sweet potato plants are very dark green. They were never the light green of those in your picture. I don’t remember the name of these potatoes as they were among the very first plants I bought and I bought these as plants, not seed. I should go back and see what they are.
I am not keeping good records - I keep the envelopes seeds were/are in, but that’s all I have done. I must get a notebook devoted to gardening as I have bits of paper here and there and a folder but nothing is organized about plants and seeds.
DARN, JUST GOT AN EMAIL WEATHER FORECAST FROM A HOUSTON STATION AND THE FORECAST NOW SAYS 28 DEGREES ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT - 28 DEGREES!
/johnny
The cold frame. From the left, broccoli, cabbages, celery, and wild garlic. From the right, 2 rows of carrots. The pot has regular onions that I'm going to put out as sets later.
This is the big garden after I tilled the area on the right this morning. I've already covered up some of the trouble spots toward the fence, to kill off some weeds/grass that didn't get killed earlier.
On the left side at the far end are what are left of the pepper plants. They will be well and truly dead by Wed, so they will go in the compost pile.
I'm going to go no-till on the left side of the garden this year. That's pretty much how it will look this spring when I start transplanting stuff out of the house/cold frame after Easter.
/johnny
That is true. The thick brick walls are very high - a man has to use a ladder to get over a wall. My lady friend's son is in high school and tall and athletic and he has scaled that wall without a ladder but most couldn't.
Thanks for reminding me of that holding heat inside and reducing wind, as it makes me feel using the row covers, the plants should be okay.
Back when Ike was going to come through, we stacked stuff under the roof of the lower deck and tied down a few large items under the roof to make sure they didn't take off. I knew the wind would have less chance of moving anything since I had the tall brick walls.
After Ike came through, everything under the roof was fine, EXCEPT there was a missing small rolling dolly for a plant with no plant on it. It was very close to the edge of the roofed deck and I don't know what happened to it. I told my husband not to mention that missing dolly as it could have gone through someone’s window or taken off a dog's head. How it was picked up and taken over a wall, I don't know, but it was gone and has never resurfaced.
You have so much room and I have so little. I really have to think about what to grow in containers to make the best dent on having fresh food to eat if there is no food in stores. I’m going to get many more grocery store bags of various beans with the soup seasoning in the package. I would eat those first and I’ve got gobs of beans professionally packed without oxygen in #10 cans. I have boxes of instant rice from the grocery to use first and a bunch in #10 cans without oxygen.
I want fresh food out of my container garden and that is going to happen because I’m not giving up.
You said one time that your Walking Onions looked much better than mine - well, looking at your scrawny carrots, my carrots are tall and beautiful and my tall, beautiful turnips would make your mouth water - so, there.
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