I have moved the tomatoes in the 16 oz styro cups outside to transplant into gallon containers for a few weeds before their final transplant into garden or 5 gallon buckets.
I have planted about half of my potatoes and will do the rest this weekend or next week. They may have been greening too long, but we'll see. Hubby got his planted before his surgery.
Last year we canned lots of green beans and then let them go for dried beans, so this year we will do the same. We plan to add beets to the crop-the small bunch we grew last year turned out well, and we like the pickled recipe I found. Our corn will be removed from the cob to save space and frozen. We still have some from last year so we grew about the right amount of that.
Spinach production is great right now, but I am behind on the replanting. Since the winter lettuce took a big hit, my salads and sandwiches are mostly spinach for now.
We have an big abundance of volunteer poke growing now, and hubby has decided he will harvest it while young this year and prepare it the old time way which involves cooking in lots of water, pouring it off, adding fresh several times, then cooking with onions, garlic, and bacon grease. I don't like it - too mushy, but more power to him.
The fruit trees and berry bushes are beginning to look like we might actually get some fruit this year, which would be nice.
Hope all is well with everyone. Have a great weekend. God Bless.
weeds=weeks
Two feet of snow on the ground right now :(
Hey, I saw something interesting on FB. Start your seedlings in flat ice cream cones and then plant the whole thing. How cool is that?
Still some snow on the ground in southern NH....but less and less of it every day :)
Most beautiful and mild winter I’ve ever seen here in Western Colorado...been in the upper 60’s - 80’s from January to March, only real snow we had was on Christmas. April hits and we got snow yesterday! Thank goodness for the greenhouse!!! 2 inches between 9AM and noon yesterday, and then it melted away. We DO need the moisture, however, so I’m not going to complain. Snowpack in the hills was @ 69% of normal until the last couple days, projecting fire bans and no fireworks for the 4th for us. Let’s hope the moisture was enough to keep my summer camping trips warmed with camp fires!
In the 80s here. Lots of blossoms and leaves popping out.. Tomatoes are blossoming too.. I am torn over what else to plant. Peppers, eggplant..? Its only April 17.. Lots of options..
I bought 3 tomato plants and 2 pepper plants today (sale at Home Depot - 5 plants for $10). It is 3-4 weeks early here to plant tomatoes, but if I ‘baby’ them & keep them covered on cold(er) nights, maybe they’ll make it.
Two questions:
1. Anybody grown spaghetti squash? HD had some plants & I’m debating whether to try them ... I like to cook with spaghetti squash.
2. Eggplants - I love ‘em and have a terrible time growing them. The flea beetles just eat them up every year. Last year, I had new beds so it’s not like I had old soil with beetles in it. I have used sprays, but just can’t seem to keep up with the beetles. It’s all VERY frustrating. Any suggestions?
The redbuds are blooming ... I absolutely trashed my back planting 6 of them last spring so at least I was ‘rewarded’ with some gorgeous trees this year! :-)
We made our first salad with lettuce from our raised beds. Just transplanted some various mints and herbs into the beds. Forgot the sage, so it goes in tomorrow. I have another couple of trays of herbs, perennial flowers and tomatoes doing well. The toms were from last year’s seed so I planted them heavy in the starters and I swear they all germinated. Have to thin them out tomorrow.
Lost one transplanted blackberry to the wind. We live at the Northeast end of a valley and the wind is brutal. The other one looks awesome though!
All the fruit trees came back well. We planted an almond seedling last year. It is incredible. Never seen any tree take off like it has.
It is no longer springtime in Florida. It is now official SUMMER! LOL!
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.
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
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.
I thought this seemed like a good deal. Opinions, anyone?
Not sure if I’m posting on the correct garden thread. My apologies if I’m in the wrong class room!
Begin, Installment 5 on SOILS
MOBILITY OF NUTRIENTS (cont)
Plants absorb Nitrogen from a large volume of soil. If there are lots of plants in an area, they can compete.
He showed a drawing here of a couple of plants with their roots able to be seen in the soil. Below is my best attempt to indicate it with typing symbols
Plant above ground ___\l/___ ___\l/__
Root stems l l
Root system / l \ / l\
[ ] [ ]
Imagine a couple of spheres surrounding the root systems of each plan with the diameter shown (very) roughly by the above braces. The spheres would encompass the root systems up to the surface of the soil. In his picture, the spheres did not overlap, but if they had been closer together, they certainly would have, indicating competition for the resource.
[O dear. Just saw on the preview that my carefully crafted “drawing” got blown to bits. Not sure what to do about it. Basically think of the zone of nutrient uptake for mobile soils is a spherical area around the root system, and can enter into another plant’s uptake sphere if the plants are too close together.]
NITROGEN REQUIREMENT
* Crop to be grown
* Yield goal
* N requirement
* N needs = N requirement – Soil NO3-N
* Credits for subsurface and manure N
CROP UPTAKE OF IMMOBILE NUTRIENTS (P and K)
Another picture. See a plant with its root structure shown, as above. Instead of seeing a large sphere of resource available around the plant, with the IMMOBILE nutrients, there is only a small cylinder surrounding each root fiber providing the immobile nutrient. Absorption is from just a thin cylinder of soil around each root. Immobile nutrients can build up to adequate levels.
PHOSPHORUS REQUIREMENT
*Soil test P index (Mehlich 3 method)
* Percent sufficiency
* P requirement (P2O5 pounds per acre)
He showed a graph here which I am unable to duplicate plotting on the x axis the Soil Test P. The vertical axis shows the Relative Crop Yield (%)
As your soil test of P is low (bottom left on the graph) and the Relative crop yield increases, there is a rising curve as the soil test reaches high levels. What is interesting about this graph is that once you get adequate high levels of phosphorus, the yield levels off, and the line has flattened out at the top of the 100% yield. Once this has been reached, application of more phosphorus becomes excessive and nonproductive, and in fact can begin causing significant environmental problems.
Nutrient imbalance, too much N, are the causes of delayed crop maturity.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
SOIL IS A LIVING BODY
Soil is a Fundamental Part of the Ecosystem
The living systems occurring above and below the ground surface are determined by the properties of the soil.
There was an intricate picture of “The Soil Food Web” shown.
It showed the relationship among plants, organic materials, bacteria, protozoa, nematodes, fungi, arthropods, birds, and animals. Each of these were assigned a trophic level. There are 5, the first of which is photosynthesis by the plants, with the higher life forms (birds and animals) being Trophic Level 5.
“Living systems above and below grounds are determined by the soil.”
Soil components consist of water, air spaces, bacteria, clay, sand, silt, fungae, clay-organic matter complex.
IMPROVING SOIL QUALITY
Adding organic material – can take a lot of work, but is worth it!
Minimize soil loss – Takes a long time to create 1” of soil. This is why cover crops are important.
Keep it natural – minimize adding chemicals as much as possible. He does not use a lot of chemical insecticides
Soil Organic Matter Benefits soil in many ways:
*Improves soil physical condition
* Increases water infiltration and holding capacity
* Improves soil tilth
* Decreases erosion losses
* Supplies plant nutrients
*Increases CEC [Texokie: ok, I don’t have a clue what CEC is…]
He showed a number of pix of how to incorporate organic matter. He also stated that one can bury plant residues, chop it into pieces. Use poultry litter / animal manure
He was saying that one CAN use fresh poultry litter. A person asked, “doesn’t poultry litter have to lay for a year or so? “ He said, “no, just be very reserved in using it – less than ½ “ and you’ll be ok.” He was saying he uses fresh litter to dress some of the plants in his flower beds. “Be very careful with hot manures on veggies. Do let them sit for several months – be conservative with the application of “hot” nutrients, but you can do it for veggies after a few months.
Leaf shredders- can put result into bags and use as organic matter or mulch at any time
Cover crops – (“green manure”) : retains nutrients, reduces erosion, fixes nitrogen, adds organic matter to the soil. He likes to plant peas because they fix N and his family enjoys the peas. When they are finished, he chops them and buries them. Their favorites are the English (Oregon) Snow Peas. Farmers will often plant clover.
Legumes fix N into the soil naturally. There is 78% N in the air, but plants can’t use it. It has to be “fixed.”
End of Installment 5 on SOIL