Posted on 04/17/2015 1:08:22 PM PDT by greeneyes
The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you. This thread is non-political, although you will find that most here are conservative folks.
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Well I guess its sunny too - right?
My daughter swears her almond tree turned into peaches. The first year she had some almonds, but something got them and her cherries too before she did.
She had planted some peach trees in the backyard and two dwarf almond trees in the front the next year they looked like peaches tasted like peaches, and the pit looked like a peach pit.
We wondered if the almond trees were grafted onto peach tree stock or something, and the basic stock took over.
Good ideas to try this year - thanks!! I love squash so I’m hoping to win the battle of the squash bugs!
Glad to hear they aren’t hard to grow. I learned all about male/female flowers last year with the cucuzzi & trombetta squash. It helps to know that the female flowers might be coming a little later than the first batch of males on the spaghetti squash. The plants I saw yesterday were just out of the seeds ... first set of leaves. I think if I can find some seeds, I’ll start them a little later - we’re still apt to have some chilly nights over the next month.
Rain, rain; beautiful, soft & slow on again, off again, Finnigan soaking rain, following the planting/transplanting of garlic, shallots, and leeks.
Also got my Russet Burbank seed pieces cut & curing.
Check tomorrow with climatologist Joe Bastardi for his Saturday report to the general forum by Freeper Excellence.
He generally gives a two week report , and tells you why and how the weather will be.
I respect him , highly for his accuracy !
Staggared productivity is always beneficial
especially if it involves a determinate crop variety.
Some plants may catch a disease , or harbor and invasive insect
whereas a previous , or subsequent, planting may not expeirience it
That is why being a farmer /gardener is the earliest form of gambling.
Good on Ya !
How are you going to grow them ?
That is why being a farmer /gardener is the earliest form of gambling.
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Both sets of grandparents were farmers and I know from family stories how bad it was if the weather didn’t cooperate, if crops failed for whatever reason, harvest wasn’t good, etc. There were the field crops such as corn, cotton, acres of tomatoes for the cannery, watermelons & cantaloupe for market, livestock (dairy farm, hogs for sausage, chickens for eggs & Sunday dinner, etc.) and my grandmothers’ “kitchen” gardens ... produce for eating every day and for canning to give them food for the winter. If that “kitchen” garden didn’t turn out/failed, it was a matter of survival for the family .... I remind myself of that whenever something in my garden isn’t growing well or doesn’t produce. Despite all of the above, I never thought of it as ‘gambling’ .... but you are correct in that it all was one big gamble!
Weird! Our two Catahoulas keep animals away, so we should not have issues with our fruits and nuts. They also chase birds off. Relentlessly. Our bluebirds give them the fake and go to their boxes just the same.
Hello everyone!
Class this week dealt with “Fruits and Nuts”... and as you can imagine, among the students on breaks there was much merriment and joking about one of our far western states...as in, “the land of...” But not from me nor Darlin’ of course!
There was a lot of information given on our native pecans and the cultivars that do well in Oklahoma. Our presenter was an expert on nut trees, especially pecans, as well as peaches, and apple and pears. Pears are more hardy in the northern parts of Oklahoma because they bloom later and miss the late freezes that the peaches and apples can be subject to.
She also addressed fruits such as grapes and brambles. Oklahoma has started getting into the wine industry big-time in recent years and have found cultivars that make excellent vintages.
She also devoted a bit of time to the brambles, blackberries and raspberries. Blueberries can be grown in certain parts of the state, but they are a big challenge.They particularly like acidic soils, and most soils in Oklahoma run in the 6.5 range.
Because I seem to be a plodding typist, and because I’m being inundated with mounds of info which I WANT to share with you, I’m resigned to be working on that sharing probably for the rest of my natural born days! LOL! Well, at least for the foreseeable future!
So, please bear with me for the above tease on fruits and nuts, and I shall proceed with my SOIL NOTE TRANSCRIPTION. I’m convinced that this information is truly the key to a healthy garden and is highly relevant to all of us here! [Many of us recall Texokie’s painful lesson on the (mis)use of phosphorus a few years ago...]
So, here is the 4th installment:
Begin Installment 4:
CHEMISTRY – ACIDIC AND BASIC SOILS: pH
The pH value defines relative acid/base character.
The most productive soils lie in the 5.0-8.0 pH range.
9.0 – Ammonia cleaner - base
5.0-8.0 productive soil ranges
4.0 – Vinegar and Lemon juice – acid
PH and BUFFER INDEX
* Soil pH is a measure of acidity and alkalinity of the soil
* Nutrient availability IS RELATED TO pH!!!! If pH is too high (alkaline) some nutrients such as zinc, iron, magnesium, will precipitate out and become unavailable to the plant. Some plants actually do like the soil to be a little more acid, like blueberries : 4.5-5.0.
* Crops can only grow well in the center of the pH range.
* Liming can be used to bring up acid number toward the base ranges – it neutralizes the acid soils
* Soil actually has a lot of aluminum in it, which is NOT a nutrient, but if the soil is too acid, the aluminum is released and it becomes toxic to the plant.
LIME REQUIREMENTS
* Raise the soil pH to 6.5 for lawn and gardens
* Amount recommended is ECCE (effective calcium carb equivalent) lime [I understood this to be info to be looked for on packaging of a lime product]
* It takes TIME for soil pH to increase.
Before you plant or do ANY serious gardening, TAKE CARE OF THE PH FIRST!!
PH PREFERENCE: KNOW YOUR PLANTS
* Legumes, grains, sorghums, wheat, corn 5.5-7.0
* Fescue 4.5-7.0
*Bermuda grass 5.7-7.0
*Alfalfa, barley 6.2-7.5
*Azalea, blueberries 4.5- 5.0
ESSENTIAL PLANT NUTRIENTS
There are 16:
Main ones:
N – nitrogen
P – phosphorus
K – potassium
Secondary ones:
Ca – calcium
Mg – magnesium
S – sulfur
Non-mineral Nutrients:
C – carbon
H – hydrogen
O2 – oxygen
Mineral Nutrients:
Major: N,P,K
Secondary: Ca, Mg, S
Micro: B – boron, Cl – chloride, Cu – copper, Fe – iron, Mn – manganese, Mo – molybdenum
LIEBIG’S LAW of the MINUMUM:
If you want the most yield, you must fix the component that has the limitation. If N is poor, fix that first, it is the limiting factor. [Texokie comment: in human nutrition, one can see this at work with the calcium/magnesium levels. If a person is supplementing with lots of calcium but does not have adequate magnesium on board, the calcium will not be absorbed. It must have adequate amounts of magnesium in order to become available. Once the supplementation includes adequate magnesium, the calcium uptake improves. The magnesium in this case is the limiting factor which had to be fixed first.]
MOBILITY OF NUTRIENTS IN SOIL:
He used the analogy of a dipstick in a lawn mower.
He showed us a picture of a vertically held dipstick with a chart next to it with marks of “high, med, and low”
MOBILE NUTRIENTS – are like the gas in a fuel tank. These are:
N,S,B, Cl
IMMOBILE NUTRIENTS – are like the oil in the engine. These are:
P,K,Ca, Mg, Fe, Mn, Cu, Zn – Zinc, Mo,
End of Installment 4
The soils of our region are acidic due to the thousands of years of the Redwood forests. Lime is my second name except for my blueberry patch. Huckleberries thrive on our spread with many growing out of the old Redwood stumps cut around 1900 ~
Oh wow.... what an interesting set of circumstances and what gorgeous pictures! Not much like that in Oklahoma!
We really do have to know our soil and the chemistry of them, and the plants that like those soils... as well as what we can do to amend them for other plants for which the soil is not quite right.
In the 60s - 70s and 80s I subscribed to every gardening book/magazine printed and devoured the contents. These days I just concern my self with the structure of the soil. My mother subscribed to Rodale’s Organic Gardening in the 40s & 50s and did trench composting but she had warm soil to break it down...
I got the backyard tomato bed planted this week. I wanted to sterilize the soil but only had a short window of time in which to do so, so I had to get creative. The method I settled on involved lots and lots of boiling water, I used a giant stockpot that my parents bought for their annual corn boil, where they cook enough corn to feed 100 people. I had to refill it 3 times to get enough water to soak the bed. After the soil was as soaked as I could get it, I covered it in straw and stapled a new sheet of landscaping fabric over top. (The previous piece had gotten so torn up it wasn’t much good anymore.)
I had hoped to plant right away while the soil was still warm from the boiling water, but I could barely move by that point. The next day I built a new trellis for that bed because the previous one had fallen apart, and I planted 6 tomatoes and 2 cucumbers, and put wall-o-waters around each of them. It was warm enough this week that it was tempting to skip those, but it’s a good thing I didn’t because next week we’re expecting freezes!
Last Christmas I was given a $50 gift card for Jung’s. This week I used it to buy seed potatoes. That’s going to be one of my major projects this year, I want to compare potato varieties and find 2 or 3 that best suit both my needs and my growing style. I have 7 varieties now, I’m hoping to add German Butterball and kennebec to that list, along with the three varieties of true potato seed that I’ve got.
Still waiting for my land to be plowed.
That sounds like a wonderful journey! I can see the wisdom in knowing soil.
You have a much stronger background in gardening that I do. I’m only trying to play catch-up! I’m loving the concentrated information we are receiving from our OSU presenters, and I’m hoping that I’m assimilating much of it!
Darlin and I are like little clams in the sewer. It just keeps on coming.... and we’re loving it! LOL!
Our fruits and nuts presenter told us that the Stone Fruits such as nectarines, peaches, plums, apricot, and cherries are the same species as almonds!
Peaches are Prunus persica and the almonds are Prunus amygdalus. Since they are the same species, they are graft compatible!
Your daughter is right! The almonds grafts died back to the peach root stock.
Harvested one of my 2 horseradish plants today. Split the crown into 3 divisions, and replanted those; got a decent amount of root for use as well.
I must be doing something wrong. ;-) I originally planted the roots at an angle between 30 & 45 degrees, but the roots grew straight down. Had to fork down a good 18” before they started tapering off to pencil size. Directions said to plant at about 45 degrees, and the roots would run more less horizontal.
I also found 5 feral garlic seedlings, where a bulb escaped harvest last Fall. They will join the 150-175 spring planted cloves. Might actually harvest enough this year to keep us supplied, and still have seed for next year.
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