Weekly Gardening Thread – 2009 Vol.9 – July 10

FreeRepublic | 7-10-2009 | Red_Devil 232

[Red_Devil 232]

Good morning to all of you gardeners. Toward the end of last weeks Gardening Thread there was a short discussion about saving Heirloom Tomato seeds. Many of you might have missed the information so I thought I would start this weeks thread on that topic.

[dennisw]

yeah.....shake the dirt loose and use grass to mulch. a little liquid fertilizer would give corn a jolt. like miracle grow

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Those are in the Campanula family. These are the ‘wild ones’ that most folk call ‘Harebells.’

(That was easy; I had a customer bring in a handful of that for ID last week!)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Also - did your weather heat up really fast this spring? Customers brought in a few stunted things and poor germination on a lot of things this season because we went from mid-70’s where everthing was germinating just fine, to a week of blistering 90’s, which killed off a lot of seedlings and stunted the ones that managed to survive.

Winter squash and pumpkins took the biggest hit; I think the little seedlings fried as they were emerging. :( Even my FIL, who has farmed forever had germination/fruit set problems this spring.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

And I hope you like them because you’ll have them forever! Hard to kill and pretty invasive. The newer cultivars have larger flowers and more colors (blue, white pink) and aren’t as over-powering of other plants.

[cripplecreek]

Wild or not I let them grow. In fact I dug out a big clump of tiger lilies that were starting to choke them out. I’ve never found them when I wander the state land.

I’ve also got several patches of Oxeye daisies that I let grow every summer.

[wastoute]

Dude! Add me to the ping list. We are buying a few acres soon as an investment so we will be able to eat in the future. My grandparents (one of whom was actually a farmer) knew how to feed the family with an acre or so (out back). This knowledge is lost now so I have been trying to prepare for next year when I hope to start my "Victory garden". I have been reading "One Straw" website and links and starting to consider a book or two to help with my "less than one acre farm".

I am reading about growing small plots, no-till techniques, and chicken tractors but still have many questions. Can you recommend a book that details which flowers attract predator insects, plot rotations, lists of plants to grow to maximize the harvest through the year, etc.?

Μολὼν λάβε

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Yesterday was a productive day in the garden! My son came over and dug holes for me and we added a Brandywine Flowering Crabapple. Fitting, since our farm is 'Brandywine Farm' after the tomato, though my son teases that it's because Dad likes 'Brandy' and Mom likes 'Wine,' LOL! Where DOES he get that sense of humor? LOL!

Then we added three hydrangea; Two 'Limelight' and one 'Incrediball' which is the new cultivar of 'Annabelle' on stronger stems with even MORE 'poof' to the blossom.

'Limelight' & 'Incrediball'

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I like that look. My garden is HARDLY formal or meticulously maintained by any stretch, LOL!

I’m planning a cutting garden and an herb garden for next season. Or the next...or the next...

Kind of depends upon how much longer I have to work away from home while Husband gets his business established.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I’ll butt in! Read these books in preparation. They are the ones that were my bibles in my learning curve about 20 years ago, along with all I’ve learned from my Grandma and my in-laws:

‘The Garden Primer’ - Barbara Damrosh (She’s married to Eliott Coleman and all of his books are great, too!)

‘The Square Foot Garden’ - Mel Bartholomew

‘How to Grow More Food on Less Land...’ - John Jeavons

‘Lasagna Gardening’ - Patricia Lanza (I think?)

And if you can find a copy of ‘The Have-More Plan’ pick that up as well; but that one is hard to find. :(

Any of the ‘Foxfire’ books will help you as well, and so will ‘Basic Country Skills’ but Storey publications.

Have fun! Good luck! Pray for enough rain and no skeeters! :)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

And THEN...I had my first experience cherry picking! What a lot of work! One of my mature sour/pie cherries really bore well this season, so I spent an hour picking, then another hour pitting.

I had enough for two cherry pies...and I'm having a slice for breakfast this morning as I type. Heaven! :)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Diana’s Cherry Pie

Crust for 9” pie pan (make your own or cheat)

1 1/3 cups sugar
4 cups pitted, sour cherries (fresh or canned, drained!)
1/3 cup flower
1/4 tsp. almond extract
2 Tbsp. butter

Make crust and line pie pan.

Gently mix cherries with sugar and flower, put them in the crust. Sprinkle almond extract on top and dot with butter. Put on top crust and pinch. Cut a few slits in the top. (I get fancy with a ‘heart in hand’ cookie cutter that I have.) Dust with granulated sugar if you’d like.

Cover the crust edges with stips of tin foil, or use a crust guard or the edges WILL burn at that temp, but remove it in the last 15 minutes of baking. (Kind of odd, but it works!)

Bake at 425 degrees for 35-45 minutes and juice begins to bubble through the slits in the crust.

Cool and eat! :)

[Gabz]

Morning, Red. I see you’re up and at’em bright and early this morning.

[TSgt]

The rain was relentless this spring so the planting was a week or two late but yes this was also followed by a week of 90’s.

Weird weather this year and last!

Mike

[wastoute]

Thanks! I am making a list and will start the reading program. I just hope I an get up to speed fast enough to feed us before TSHTF. It may be close. My list of questions just keeps growing and growing. I have been reading some of Elliot Coleman's stuff on the internet but his problems in Maine seem different from what I may face in Virginia.

I grew gardens twenty years ago when we lived out west and one thing I could never do is harvest my sweetcorn. I could grow beautiful sweetcorn but just as I got to the point where I told myself, "Tomorrow I will harvest this stuff", that night the raccoons did it for me. I could never get a single ear. Now I have a hound dog and I figure he could keeps the coons out but how do you keep the dog out? LOL. Lots to learn and it will be frustrating and fun I am sure.

Μολὼν λάβε

[Diana in Wisconsin]

It works that way with ANYTHING ready for harvest. Got a PERFECT tomato on the vine? A groundhog will take a nice big bite out of it for you overnight.

Got green beans ready to go? The rabbits will harvest them for you.

How about melons? Gophers just LOVE melons.

Ready to harvest Blueberries? Birds beat ya to it!

Nature always knows where the best treats are. :)

[Gabz]

1/3 cup flower

flower?????????

My dear, I do believe you are spending too much time in the garden!!!! LOL!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

LOL! Flour/flower. Po-tay-toe/Po-TAH-toe. :)

[Gabz]

I would add Jerry Baker to your list of authors. I swear by his book on garden tonics, the majority of which you can mix up with stuff you have on hand!!!

I don’t know what part of VA you’re in, but here on the coast we had been having absolutely weird weather. It’s been great sleeping weather for people like me without central a/c, but over night lows in the low-mid 60s is just plain weird in July.

[DCBryan1]

bean ping

[Gabz]

LOL!!!

I utilized some 11 year old free labor yesterday to grape-koolaid my berries and spray the grapes against Japanese beetles.

One of Jax’ classmates gets off the bus here with her in the afternoon. What a wonderful boy he is, he was all excited to help spray the bushes!!! Maybe I’ll put them to weeding this afternoon!!!