TO LINK BACK TO THE JUNE 11-18 GARDENING THREAD
Posted on 06/19/2021 5:39:24 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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Looking here, http://www.asergeev.com/pictures/k/Massachusetts_mushrooms.htm, and this http://www.asergeev.com/p/xl-2004-415-04/parks_and_september-mushrooms_rotten_log_massasoit_state.jpg seems close but it is not it. Need daylight.
Thanks, Pete! :)
(Scroll down! Resource start at post 114 of the Jan 9-15 Thread!)
Bonners and bowling water is plan
On the subject of squash longevity, I haven’t had a squash go soft in almost 2 months. That makes the ones in my basement at least 8 months old now. I’m thinking I might propose to Baker Creek that they order these squash seeds as if they were biennials. That way seeds will come from the ones with proven keeping quality, rather than the ones that were cut open right after harvest.
If BC doesn’t go for that, I’m pretty sure the Experimental Farm Network will. They’re made up of mostly plant breeders, so they know how important it can be to screen for those kinds of traits.
And on that subject, if anyone here is thinking of trying their hand at plant-breeding, but isn’t sure they can handle the strict way most breeders operate, Joseph Lofthouse just published the book for you! His methods of landrace breeding break a lot of rules, but the result is an almost lazy way to breed new varieties. Check it out!
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0578245655/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Gorgeous! Hope all is well. Garlic still nice and tall no scapes yet.
Seriously looking forward to some rain and cooler temps!
I am in discussions with a few people in the neighborhood who are thinking this way. Trouble is, nobody wants to serve on the board. So this is the type we get when the rest of us just want to be left alone. It’s just like politics, local, state, and federal. Only the power hungry run.
It’s unfortunate but sometimes you have to do what’s necessary, not what you want.
“My Mom (83) still will NOT eat stewed tomatoes - in any form.”
Neither will my daughter. I do not understand it. The only tomato she has ever entirely eaten was grown by my father.
She does eat Spaghetti sauce and use ketchup.
Maybe it’s the acid in the tomatoes? I love tomatoes, but I have one son that doesn’t like raw tomatoes, only cooked ones. He was the only kid I had that wanted butter on spaghetti for the longest time. Turned out that it was the acid in foods that gave him reflux. He’s grown out of that now for the most part, thank goodness.
I just asked her.
“NO! I just don’t like them!”
(Mind you, she is 32 yrs old!)
Stacking wood doesn’t look so bad now.
I have 5 Cannabis plants since it will be legal where I live in 10 days. But I literally know nothing about them. So this will be fun
Man, that Jarrahdale is the most gorgeous squash ever, EVER! I love growing that one.
Bat Guano was always the ‘fertilizer of choice’ when the stoners would shop at my Garden Center for supplies. ;)
We had a grow light rack that had four adjustable shelves and could fit into a closet. We called it, ‘The PotMaster 5000.’
So, Bat Guano and lots and lots of SUNSHINE and you should be OK. They’re not too particular on water, but do prefer some humidity. (Mist them, if it’s not humid where you live.)
Not that I know anything about that. I mean, it’s just a plant with basic needs, Right, Officer? ;)
We’ve got a lot of the old school hemp still growing wild on our farm. Even the Mule won’t eat it, LOL!
I kind of did my own take on “humanure”. I’ve had enough experience with food poisoning to make me paranoid about waste contamination. I know the books on humanure all say that composting for the recommended time kills off any pathogens, but I could see too many ways for that to fail.
Plus, my farm just doesn’t have any good spots to do the composting. The downside of being on a steep hillside.
My solution was kind of a cross between humanure and an incinerating toilet. Everything goes into a heavy-duty steel bucket, not a plastic one. I chose to use more absorbent materials like peat moss and/or coconut coir rather than wood shavings, because separating out the urine just isn’t going to happen.
Originally, the idea was to set the full bucket on a rocket stove (built just for burning these buckets), and use a lid with small vent holes to restrict airflow while still allowing pressure to escape. The result would be a bucket of charcoal, which could then be inoculated to use as biochar. Biochar does amazing things for the soil! But my land doesn’t have a lot of firewood, so I’d been looking for ways to make the char from things other than wood. Using “waste” seemed like a way to use one problem to solve another, since any pathogens would get killed off in the charring process.
What actually happened is, because I’m only out at my farm a few times per week, the bucket ends up taking most of the summer to fill. I haven’t gotten the rocket stove built yet, so when the first bucket was filled, I just put a non-ventilated lid on it and set it aside, thinking I’d get around to burning it soon. “Soon” has yet to happen, but it turned out to be unnecessary. The following spring when I was maneuvering one of the tractors out, I accidentally bumped that bucket and knocked the lid loose. It turned out that the contents of that bucket had broken down so completely, that there was just a thin layer of dirt left at the bottom of an otherwise-empty bucket.
I’m pretty sure if I was there full-time, the results of this experiment would be different. But so far, I’ve been able to just keep rotating buckets partway through the year, without actually emptying either of them. The contents break down to the point where, after 3 years of use, the layer on the bottom is only about 2 inches deep.
That was probably WAY more detail than you really wanted, but there it is. My “humanure” system!
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