Posted on 01/26/2018 4:12:03 PM PST 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. No matter what, you won’t be flamed and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked.
It is impossible to hijack the Weekly Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table(recipes)preserving, good living - there is no telling where it will go and... that is part of the fun and interest. Jump in and join us!
NOTE: This is a once a week ping list. We do post to the thread during the week. Links to related articles and discussions which might be of interest are welcomed, so feel free to post them at any time.
Here are the Table of Contents for the Gardening Chapter:
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
GARDENING
Introduction
Murderers of Plants
The Solution to Defeat Plant Murderers
Making Seeds Grow – Seed Germination
Germinating Seed Indoors Without a Grow Lamp
Germinating Seed Indoors with a Grow Lamp
Equipment
Transferring Plants
Pollination
Veggies Using Wind to Pollinate or Use No Outside Pollinator
Veggies Pollinated by Human Hand Plus Wind Plus Insects
Veggies That Need Pollinators
Bees, Butterflies, Perennial Flower Plants to Attract Them
Types of Flowers
Fertilizer for Containers, Ground
Re-use Potting Soil Mix from Season to Season
Types of Final Containers
Container Size
Seeds to Choose
Storing Seed
Storage Life of Seeds
Hybrid Seed
Heirloom Seed
Tomatoes
Saving, Storing Tomato Seed
Fruits
Other Seeds
For the Apartment Dweller – and Others
Foods and Fruits to Grow Inside
Do contact me if you want the huge Table of Contents for the whole book: “EMERGENCIES HAPPEN! BE PREPARED”
Subtitle: “Live Well in an Emergency – You Can Do It”
See my post 20,21.
Glad to see you are still here. I remember, you are one fine gardener.
Thanks for this. Yeah, I miss JRs posts/wisdom/humor. Glad you posted again.
Please keep us updated with respect to your book, and any other interesting things you are doing. We have missed you and Johnny a lot.
With respect to hybrids, I do have some. You can save those seeds, and you will get something, but it will not necessarily be the one you planted the first time. It might be the same as one of the “parent” plants.
So I concentrate on heirlooms to see which ones are strongest in my area, and I also save them so that I don’t have to spend money every year buying seeds. I sometimes buy the seed packages at the end of season at half price-those have some heirlooms, but often some hybrids.
Then I plant those the following spring. I am currently studying the long range weather patterns. Still working toward becoming more self sufficient and growing food year round. I keep my seed in a similar box, but sorted by year and placed in zip bag.
I have a running list of my seeds on the computer. Most recent purchase at the top, and drop off the oldest after 5 years. I print that page and fold it and put it on top of the box, so that I don’t have to open it to see what I have.
Great to hear from you. Please visit again and don’t be gone so long. LOL
Marcella! Haven’t seen you in ages! Welcome back!!!!
About weather:
Bob is an earth scientist/geologist.
A few days ago, there was an 8 earthquake in Alaska.
When I read that to Bob, I said, “What now?” He said it would cause earthquakes south through California. He has taken seismic data from the west coast into the ocean and knows the layout of every earthquake zone there.
When will it happen - it’s according to how much stress those areas are already under. As far as California is concerned - fires, mud slides, earthquakes. People like to live there, it’s great unless one of those disasters happens where you live.
Hubby is going to start a few seeds in Feb. I’ll be waiting till April.
Yes please come back often. And ping to let us know when your book is published. It sounds like a treasure.
You have been planting and keeping records for many years. You have your act together.
The seeds I have in the box were all bought the same year. I’ll have to make a record now that I have these new ones. The old seeds are in alphabetical folders. I just need to make a document of which seeds are in each folder and the age of them. Everything got jumbled when I moved here.
I am not growing plants now. However, I did just buy a “Jiffy 60mm Tomato Starter Greenhouse 16”. I want to see if this thing really does start tomato seeds well. I have large planters to put the seedlings in, but there are 16 bird houses around this house, plus some squirrels. I’ll have to use nets to keep them out. Actually, I have a solid cover, not net, that lets sun and rain in but keeps out animals/birds. Even three or four producing tomato plants would be great to have.
The ring of fire has seen quite a few sizable seismic events. People have been evacuated in the Philippines - Mt. Mayon still going I think - haven't checked today.
Nothing like homegrown tomatoes and bacon in a sandwich. LOL
Great to see you back! I’ve been pretty much absent from FR for a while, though did check pings, and also pop in here & at least read, if not post.
Speaking of posts, I did just read your 20 & 21; now I’m picking up my jaw. You never did do things by halves: you research exhaustively; think about it, then make it work, regardless of initial disappointments. Just knowing that makes me want a copy of your book.
My current dabble is getting equipment together, ready to set up in Spring, to be ready when my package of bees arrives. Without pollination, all the seeds, fertilizer, and work just doesn’t produce food.
And, yes, I, too, miss Johnny; he was a treasure.
Broke ,plowed, ground for the garden today, smelled so good .Getting ready to plant a few short rows of English peas and Irish potatoes,
Got so cold in early January we had to fire up the fireplace insert to warm up the house after a 3 absence. We have a wood boiler and shut it down and turned on the electric heat backup set at 50 degrees. We returned, the house was 50 degrees, the basement, and the two upper floors. Fired up the boiler but it was too slow, so for the first time in more than a year we also built a fire in the fireplace insert. We had one night in Missouri of 13 below zero. I’ve already burned through a couple of cords of winter wood.
Gardening is a distant dream, but the 37 quarts of salsa we canned is the best yet. Loaded up with jalapeños and lots of fresh limes and some of the grated peel too.
I have a sizeable baggy of Silver hull peas purchased in Mississippi in 1998. We had a tremendous crop last year and it seemed every seed I planted produced a thriving plant. How can humans not see God’s hand?
Safe to say, Socialism = Satanism.
The first few weeks of February are when we will plant seeds inside. All the seed orders are in.
Cold one day, mid-60s the next day...
“...to be ready when my package of bees arrives. Without pollination, all the seeds, fertilizer, and work just doesn’t produce food.”
You will be interested in my gardening chapter about pollination, as you are correct here is no food without it.
That specific part of pollination is “Bees, Butterflies, Perennial Flower Plants to Attract Them”.
I had to learn pollination when I constructed a net room in the garden to keep out squirrels and birds. Could not put a plant in the net room that needed outside pollination - they had to produce on their own.
One has to know the science of plant production to grow food.
I cover that in the book so first time growers can learn how to grow food plants.
My first screw ups trying to grow food sent me to the science of growing - now I know it for every type plant and I wrote it in plain words in the book so people won’t screw up like I did.
You are correct about my research - if I don’t know something, I beat it to death until I know it all.
I’ve started writing another book:
“Earthly Life to Eternal Life”
Subtitle: “No One Dies, Not Even You”
“I have been doing some research on this stuff too, and checking out the various tracking sites. The pacific plate has been going through quite a lot of slipping.
The ring of fire has seen quite a few sizable seismic events. People have been evacuated in the Philippines - Mt. Mayon still going I think - haven’t checked today.”
Every time something happens on the ring of fire, I ask Bob, “What happens now?” I’ll keep asking him that when something explodes underground in either earthquakes or volcanoes and let you know what he says. He has been all over the world doing seismic readings graphs including in the oceans.
Going on a trip with Bob is going to class. He tells me, shows me, explains it, when we go from one large earth/rock formation to another. Twice we have driven to Ohio (near Amish country), to Penn., then up to Ithaca, New York, where his daughter lives. There is a lot of different rock/strata traveling that area. I have now passed “Earth 101” class with Bob as the professor.
It appears we will make that trip again this May. When we make that trip, we stop at casinos along the way.
Right now, we go to casinos within one hour and two hours away from here, in Oklahoma. We go once a week. I’ve had luck lately at three of those casinos; my net win was over $5,000; I only play two types of machines. My computer was dying, so I used a thousand of the winnings to buy a new computer. I also use that money for emergencies and giving some of it to people who need money.
Our dog groomer, Karen, fell and broke both bones in her left arm and the wrist was pulled apart. She now has a metal plate and eight screws in her arm and can’t use her left arm/hand at all yet. During the number of weeks she couldn’t work, I gave her money out of casino winnings and Bob gave her money, too. She doesn’t have much money and I couldn’t have my casino money, knowing she was in need.
I teach a senior Bible class, named “Angelus” and some of those seniors need items to live better, so I use casino money to help them.
Money is stuff you need to buy stuff you need.
That is all it is but you have to have some.
“We had a tremendous crop last year and it seemed every seed I planted produced a thriving plant. How can humans not see God’s hand?”
God created all on earth, specifically telling us He created seeds for us to grow food. When I see Him, I will chastise Him for not including directions on seeds. I will also tell Him, He screwed up on our bodies - the cartilage cushion between our lower back bones don’t hold up and neither do knees. He needs to go back to the drawing board for these two items.
From The New Jerusalem Bible (translated from original manuscripts in Hebrew, Greek, Arabic):
GENESIS
11 God said, ‘Let the earth produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants, and fruit trees on earth, bearing fruit with their seed inside, each corresponding to its own species.’ And so it was. 12 The earth produced vegetation: the various kinds of seed-bearing plants and the fruit trees with seed inside, each corresponding to its own species. God saw that it was good.
29 God also said, ‘Look, to you I give all the seed-bearing plants everywhere on the surface of the earth, and all the trees with seed-bearing fruit; this will be your food. 30 And to all the wild animals, all the birds of heaven and all the living creatures that creep along the ground, I give all the foliage of the plants as their food.’ And so it was.
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