WEEKLY GARDEN THREAD SEPT. 30, 2018

freerepublic | SEPT. 30, 2018 | greeneyes

[greeneyes]

I love marigolds.

[greeneyes]

Me too. I am trying some old fashioned stuff each summer just to see how it works. I too steered away from the pressure canning, though I had done a lot of water bath canning of tomatoes and pickles.

It's really pretty easy! I got a rocket stove too - tried it out and cooked a whole meal with a handful of twigs/pencil sized limbs. Given our plethora of trees, we have plenty of this for fuel/self sufficiency.

Thinking about getting a gas BBQ so that I could can outdoors if I don't want to heat up the kitchen.

[Califreak]

https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCqTGYxXH21MTYnMoOZGvX6A/videos

Have you ever heard of Starry Hilder? I just love watching her v-logs on YouTube.

She has an outdoor canning setup. She does just about everything! She is a homesteading nurse from around Bonner’s Ferry, Idaho.

Anyway, I found her very inspiring. After watching her videos I found it very easy to go out of my comfort zone.

[greeneyes]

Yes, I have watched a few quite a while back. Enjoyed them.

[daniel1212]

Here we treasure our warm temps and longer days the most as regards weather, seeing as one layer weather is only for about 3.5 months from June thru Sept, which is pretty much the growing season, and by the end of Dec. the sun sets at 4:15.

But I have enjoyed shoveling snow in the densely populated neighborhood, which can much vary. From virtually no snow a few winters ago to over 100'' in Feb. in 2015!

Snow helps the soil also.

Here, we have a whole crop of late tomatoes that need to ripen, and hope and pray that as last years anomaly, warmer than avg. temps will prevail overall, and the first frost will not take place until Nov.

A lot of rain has fallen in the last 2-3 week, and what is very noticeable is that some tomato plants more than others sometimes did not get much water during the summer, and the older leaves wilted, though still producing tomatoes.

But with more rain the same plants that lost entire branches now have thriving new growth, thanks be to God. I also had sprinkled some18-10-10 dry fertilizer around about a month ago.

The bees are out there still, in the 60f days, though i have been snipping off the yellow flowers in order to send a signal to the plants to focus on ripening the fruit they have. I am not sure if that works, but i read it.

He watereth the hills from his chambers: the earth is satisfied with the fruit of thy works. (Psalms 104:13)

Meanwhile m,any butternut squash are doing their thing, thank God, and i leave most in until near the first frost, if i have the patience and some are not requested.

[daniel1212]

Wow! Thanks be to God you got thru it with little damage. Water is precious.

[left that other site]

What a beautiful garden you have! :-)

[greeneyes]

Nice pics. I’ve read that drier conditions mean better flavor for tomatoes. I don’t go out in the cold very much, and when it snows or there is ice, I don’t go out at all, if I can avoid it.

[daniel1212]

Also, has anyone used ammonia as a fertilizer or add to their compost to accelerate composting?

Yes , but not household ammonia. .

Then you have Epsom Salt .

Back to ammonia, an interesting read:

If every farmer in every country on every continent in the world used every inch of fertile land, sprinkled their fields with natural fertilizers, meticulously rotated their crops, and convinced everyone to eat a vegetarian diet, they could feed about four billion people. But, as of 2016, more than seven billion people roamed the earth. And although pockets of people are starving, the problem isn’t that there isn’t enough food. There’s plenty of food. The problem is that the food isn’t distributed efficiently to those who need it...

Today, about 130 million tons of nitrogen are removed from the air and spread across the earth as fertilizer...Never before have so many people enjoyed so much food.

But there’s a dark side... Every year about 1.5 million tons of nitrogen are dumped into the Gulf. This excess nitrogen has caused an overgrowth of algae that clouds the water and chokes off oxygen and sunlight to other species, like fish and mollusks. - https://www.popsci.com/fertilizer-nitrogen#page-2

[daniel1212]

Well, there is more more as shown in other garden threads, thank God, and almost all the water (about 500 gallons) came from the roof and air conditioners.

But i needed a better irrigation system - and structuring/fencing support for these two densely populated gardens in a densely populated city. Glory to God for all we had and have and to share.

[Melian]

Still summer in SoCal.

Love the tips on saving seeds!

[Randy Larsen]

I rarely post but do read.

I recently got into vermicomposting and have tons of red wiggles, European night crawlers and a big batch of African night crawlers...

Spring time will bring me full circle with my shredded and sifted leaf mulch, and massive amounts of used coffee grounds, that will be added to my raised beds that are being built as the leaves hit the ground.

come on springtime, I can hardly wait

[greeneyes]

I wish we had a bit more temperate winter here in MO. so I could grow more stuff during the winter time.

Black Agnes PM’d the seed saving link to me. I liked it too. And it’s the right time of the year to practice it.

[greeneyes]

I read up on that several years ago. It sounded like a good thing to do, but I never got started on it, so I just do regular composting.

[left that other site]

You have inspired me!

I live in a mobile home with about the same amount of yard space that your pictures suggest. :-)

[tubebender]

Welcome back greeneyes. You were missed! Started digging our Yukon Gold potatoes this week. This is from 10 hills with many many rows to go of 3 different varieties, including Yukon Gold, Crayola and red skilled Deseree…

[greeneyes]

Nice to know someone missed the thread. LOL

Ha Ha neat little potato body. My Favs are Yukon Gold! We got quite a few this year-all from taters left from last years stash.

[Ladysforest]

D*mn! That sounded like a horrible experience. I hope you will not have any issues with your eyes.

[Ladysforest]

Do TONS of research into a dehydrator. Maybe start small? I got a medium sized one for my Hubby, after I THOUGHT I had researched pretty darn well. Ugh. Takes three times longer than it “should”, and I am not impressed with the end result. Not a inexpensive/budget friendly one that I brought. It is a bit of a disappointment. May end up yard-selling it and trying a different one next year.

BTW, we took this year off of gardening. Glad we did as the weather was not favorable here in Upstate NY.

[Califreak]

Ha! Thanks for the warning. :)

This gal I watch on the YouTube dehydrates stuff in her car!

Maybe I’ll try that next summer.

I did sliced peaches and sliced bananas in my NuWave oven.

You leave the lid ajar and it takes forever.

The bananas are a bit brown even though I dipped them in a citric acid solution. I’ll probably make banana bread with them.

The peaches are good and taste like fruit leather.

I would like to do herbs, celery, tomatoes, fruit and all kinds of stuff onions and whatnot but need something better than a NuWave.

I’ll do some research on Amazon(Evil, Incorporated)and see what the best ones for not a whole lot of money are.

Maybe Santa Claus will bring me one this year. ;)