Posted on 07/04/2014 12:43:46 PM PDT by greeneyes
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It’s amazing, nutrient-rich compost, and when mixed with topsoil or even clay soils, it grows some wonderful crops. By itself though, it’s almost too nitrogen-rich. It also takes some serious CAT and JD machines to turn it/move it around. I miss the place.
Ha! I wish! I actually don’t have a compost pile, although I have threatened to start one on many occasions. I think that not planting the garden area every year, plus good soil, plus tilling in the old plants, plus a very rare application of cow manure is what has sufficed for me. After I retire I’ll probably look into a fixing up a good compost pile...unless I get distr...Look a squirrel!
Strawberries finished for now, and so am I: hit 98 today.
Temperature; not me! LOL
The (backordered) greenhouse cover finally arrived yesterday, a little late for spring seed starting.
Stuff is growing; potatoes are flowering; I’m sitting in front of the A/C, and all is well with the world, if you discount & ignore....
LOL!
Yep. Just about as good as it gets considering.....
Blossum end rot was my first thought too. Then I looked closer, and saw it was mostly on the stem end. I don’t know if blossum end rot happens on the stem end.LOL
Yeah, corn doesn’t seem to have that deep of a root system and, when I pulled the old stalks out of the containers last Fall, none of the corn plants seemed to have reached the bottom of my containers and I would describe my plants as exceptionally vigorous and healthy.
...don’t know where you live, but there still could be time to get some corn going. A farmer around here for years has been planting corn around the 4th of July and he always seems to have a decent crop. But he grows the corn for silage and so maybe he isn’t as concerned about what kind of crop he gets as he might be if the corn were for human consumption.
I’m in the northeast. I wonder if it’s too late. Certainly to get seed going.
We are lush here. I mean lush. Just north in the I-80 corridor they have severe, scary flooding. We were dry last year, had lots of rain, but less than north of us this year, and it’s about perfect. Almost jungle like, kinda like going down south when we were kids. Not too hot so far, once we warmed up it’s really been a near perfect summer so far.
Got onions and carrots, the tops of which are almost 2 ft tall. Everything is oversized and going crazy. Corn growing over a foot a week. One of the best gardens I’ve ever had.
Nothing worse than a limp pickle :O
I made an oil crust years ago and it all went into the trash because I didn't know how to manage the wax paper. Mrs. Winter shows how. But there is a recipe that calls for a little more flour (I like plenty on the edge to trim and crimp).
I'm tired, hadn't eaten all day, made some American style chop suey, loaded it up with stuff I needed to use up, boy is it good; Now I'm too full for anything else. I've learned so many ways to cook things better from blogs and yt.
Yep! I figure I'm at least three weeks away from the first pick - although if this weather holds that may shorten up a bit.
Oh, and FTR I think I'm in zone 7
I liked to explore the roadsides. I found just a few stalks of wild asparagus and my Grandma cooked it for me. My grandfather died when I was almost 5 and in their barn, there was still corn in a small bin, a sheller, and a coffee grinder. I loved shelling that corn and making corn meal. My grandma would make corn meal mush and we'd put syrup on it. The only thing I did to really help my grandmother was dry the dishes and put them away. In later years I do not know how she kept that house so clean, big Victorian, when my aunt would come in the summer from teaching, she would help.
Grandma had an acreage on the edge of town and 2 farms. In later years, she almost never went anywhere. When she died, my dad sold the house for $10,000 and this guy was converting it to apartments, a fire started, and there was too much damage. He sold off 2 lots in the back where there are houses. And built himself a fine new house where Grandma's had stood, never the same to me. My dad was so good about things. He'd do all the chores like changing storms to screens and back, get the dog under the porch for winter, whatever needed fixing, and the worst job he had a trailer and he'd shovel all the clinkers into the trailer and we'd take them out to a ditch adjoining one of the farms and dump them.
My mother didn't like me in the kitchen particularly but would let me cook and she'd tell me what to do. But she wouldn't do it for me. She was a control freak about her cooking. I don't think she wanted anybody messing with it. I'm kind of like that, too.
It would probably take some years to bear fruit but it would be fun and wouldn't require too much work. I saw somebody on yt or the web who had a bunch of seedlings to transplant.
OH MY GOODNESS…We have a winner!
Some great looking gardens out there!
Very hot & muggy early this week (Philly suburbs), then we had some needed rain and it’s cooled down a lot.
Pulled all the radishes — decided to quick-pickle about half of them ... opened a jar today and phew! it was quite pungent, almost kimchi-like. I thought something went wrong, but did a quick internet check and evidently they just do that, and were actually quite tasty. Going to reseed the empty section with more radish seeds tomorrow, and then space in more in 2 weeks, so we aren’t overwhelmed with so many, all at once.
The first tomato is starting to turn over to orange & there are a ton more on all 5 plants ... we picked a couple of nice green ones to fry up and they were good, but the corn-meal crust was too crunchy/dry/bland (recipes would be appreciated).
Lettuce & herbs are doing great, anything we’ve cut is coming back fast & more abundant — the 1st zucchini’s are almost ready, cucumbers are going well, peppers have picked up a bit & the watermelon vine has several flowers. Grapes and berries are doing their thing too. Fun!
:-)
I just got in a 9 hour workday on my land. I love holidays :)
If I’m lucky, I might still be able to walk tomorrow.
I got my flint corn planted, checked on the other plants, and put a fishing-line fence up. I had a whole $10 to spend on fencing for a 2000 sq ft garden, so that’s what I went with. Supposedly, deer don’t like it when they can feel the string but not see it, and I think it’s the deer that have been doing the most damage to my corn. We’ll see if it works.
I also picked almost a full quart of black raspberries! I could finish out the quart if I picked the ones from the back yard, but dad’s been home for a few days, so I don’t dare.
With my backyard garden, I’m pretty much limiting myself to things that either can be skinned (like peas), or which I know dad will be eating too (like tomatoes). Berries are off limits. That hurts, I love berries. Berries are my favorite summertime food. But after Strawberrygate, I’m doing what I have to do.
On my way to the land I found a self-storage place. I wanted to get their prices but nobody was there and it isn’t on their website. I’ll call on the phone tomorrow.
I’m thinking that if I do things right, I can get most of my stuff moved out before dad realizes I’m moving. He’s gone most weekends lately, so that helps. But at the same time, my bad shoulder limits what I can lift, so the moving process is going to go slowly no matter what.
I’m making a list to prioritize things. Seeds and homesteady gadgets go first, followed by homesteady books, followed by other tools and gadgets, followed by other books, followed by everything else.
I found the cheapest rent on an apartment in the whole state, and it was still too much. So now I’m looking at how to turn the back of my truck into a camper. There’s lots of websites with directions for that. Catch is, it’s illegal to live full-time in a camper on my land. I’m going through the fine print on that, it might be that if I move the camper often enough, it won’t count as “living year-round”.
Which leads to catch #2: My old truck. The thing is 20 years old and has to have major repairs every few months it seems like. It won’t make that long trip from my land to the office much longer. I’m watching craigslist for something smaller and easier on the gas, but nothing I could afford yet. Unless I want to dink around on an electric bicycle all winter.
This whole thing is a mess.
All I can offer is my Prayers for you E...
Pumpkins are looking better this week but they are still late…
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