Posted on 03/31/2012 4:00:04 PM PDT by JustaDumbBlonde
Good evening, FRiends and gardeners! I deeply apologize for the delay in posting this week's thread ... this is an extremely busy time here on our farm, and when you've got just a handful of folks farming 3,000 acres, there are times when it is all hands on deck all night long. The rain has been spaced exactly right to be wrong, and we were down to the wire getting our corn crop planted.
With that out of the way, how in the world is everybody doing with their gardens and plans for gardens? We have so many members with interesting projects underway that I'm looking forward to details.
For the most part, I'm going to direct sow my garden because it is certainly warm enough to do so. I have a few tomatoes that I seeded in newspaper pots, but mostly flowers. This week I will plant about an 1/2 acre of sweet corn and a 1/4 acre each of various cow peas and butterbeans. It is my intention to have several plantings of each, about 10-14 days apart, so that all of my harvest doesn't come at once. It is already too warm for the sweet peas to make, so those will be a fall crop.
Now that I am spending so much time in the beeyard, I've decided to plant a full compliment of veggies for our personal use and canning, but only sell 5 or 6 different things. Those will be sweet corn, a few varieties of peas, speckled and green butterbeans and okra. Those are the least work with the greatest reward. I will also be selling honey.
So far this spring, I have planted 2 pear trees, 13 red raspberries, 10 gold raspberries, 5 blackberries, and 5 blueberries. My last order of fruit trees came in yesterday and includes 3 additional mayhaw trees (we currently have 5), an italian white fig (I already have 2 brown turkey figs), an elberta peach to compliment my other 2 peach trees, a bing cherry, and a montmorency cherry to go with my stella sweet cherry that I planted last year. I ordered these from Ty Ty Nursery in Ty Ty, Georgia, and they are about the best looking stock of trees that I've ever received! We are very excited.
The most fun I had this week was a trip to a local nursery where I found ... get this ... a dwarf redwood tree!!! It was amazing to me that there was a redwood tree that would grow in Louisiana! It is about 8 ft. tall now that I have it in the ground and is supposed to be very fast growing. Final height will be somewhere around 70 ft. Label reads that it will grow in zones 6 through 10, and we are in zone 8, so I have high hopes.
Have a great week, and I hope to see y'all all on time next week.
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 ... there is no telling where it will go and that is part of the fun and interest. Jump in and join us!
As I posted late in last week’s thread, I got the results back on the soil tests. Friday I talked with the Master Gardener on staff at the Farm Bureau. In a nutshell, the soil is not as bad as I thought. The 2 biggest problems are PH and it can use more organic matter.
Today I (almost) finished my shopping for garden stuff. I bought mushroom compost for the organic matter. A sulfate additive to knock the PH down 1 to 1-1/2 points lower.
And I ordered online some bulk SAP (Super Absorbent Polymer). The 10 pounds I ordered should be enough to treat all the gardens here. If it works as advertised it should drastically reduce the amount of watering I have to do.
Now I can get busy getting all this crap in the ground and get the gardens ready for planting.
Yes mam. It doesn't produce any fruit so there's nothing to pick up. We could still have a frost here on the high plains so I only have a little lettuce and some garlic planted in the vegetable garden so far. I did add a 6 foot chain link fence around the vegetable garden over the winter. Last year the hungry-thirsty critters devoured it. Hopefully the fence will slow them down some.
Whew, know what you mean about the high temps today. Please don’t let this summer be like last year! I was on the road this morning and with the new leaves, it’s becoming more evident (like we didn’t already know) how many trees died last summer. We’re still, and years from now, only a tossed cigarette away from a brush fire.
Something cut two of my tomatoes off right at the soil. I haven’t seen any worms or ants but it’s a clean cut. WARNING - hell hath no fury like a gardener with damaged tomatoes, grrr!
Everything else seems happy. I had bought some organic delicata and sweet dumpling squash last year at the store and saved the seeds. Their little sprouts are doing fine so we’ll see if and what they’ll produce.
The service guy this morning was impressed with the garden and was asking what this and that plant was. Patting myself on the back. The big thing has been working on the over abundance of weeds. Never seen the like of weeds so have been hoeing and pulling this week so it’s looking good... for now. Of course, fingers crossed it doesn’t burn up in the heat like last year’s garden.
My tomato plants are about a foot tall already and some have bloom sprouts. I planted all my seedlings about two weeks ago and they love the ground.
Has anyone ever harvested lettuce seed? I have two plants I decided to let go into the seed stage, and the pods are just starting to form.
Yea, my wife has been busy, I try to stay out of her way and get a honey-do done or two, except when she hollers for help. She loves digging in the dirt. She has to plant something somewhere every weekend till cold weather shuts us down.
Thanks for my weekly garden fix. 3 days of heavy rain is a little much even for the damp far north coast. Seedlings are doing GREAT in our little hovel greenhouse. Lady Bender is a Whizz with her many flower seeds. My Sugar Snap Peas are up in the styrofoam cells and will go on the cold frame in a week or so. The pea patch was spaded but the rains may be a problem as I wouldn’t even venture into the garden the last few days...
Thanks for the re-growing celery link. I am going to try it out!
The new zone map has us at zone 6. I think I’ll talk to Hubby about planting a couple of dwarf redwood on our 20 acres north of us.
I have been reading about planting trees to sell for Xmas, and fire wood etc. Ways to make money on a wood lot. Also thinking about dividing it into 4 lots and selling 3 of them.
We are busy getting new raised beds built and the others refurbished with new compost, as well as leveling some of them a little better.
Still eating from the winter lettuce garden. Tomato starts fizzled. Most of the plants we ordered earlier were back ordered. So not much planting finished yet.
Outdoor orchard has blooms and the kiwi has lots of blooms, too bad the male tree didn’t survive the winter. In door fruit tree has about 11 marble size lemons, and is finally sprouting some new leaves. I honestly was beginning to think it would not survive the winter.
I am still working on Spring cleaning, painting, and reorganizing and purging/selling stuff ( Think trading spaces type stuff, but with only 1 person who already has plenty of stuff to do). Decided to concentrate on one room at a time, and try to do 2-3 feet per day. With the finished basement apartment and storage areas. we have 20 rooms. It’s going to take me a while. I hope to be finished by Thanksgiving. LOL.
Have a great weekend. God Bless.
Sat Mar 31 2012 17:00:19 GMT-0600 (Mountain Daylight Time) by JustaDumbBlonde
Really weird; this just NOW came up on my pings page, despite several refreshes earlier tonight.
Oh, well mysterious are the ways of Free Republic; blessed be the servers!
Despite having decided NOT to plant potatoes this year, I bought a 50 pound sack of Yukon Gold seed potatoes Friday evening. A Rapid City farm & ranch supply just opened in new, much larger quarters, and while checking out their new digs, I saw the sacks of current-year seed spuds ON SALE for 30 cents/pound less than other local sellers of the same certified seed supplier's stock.
Today, I put the new middle-buster onto the old 1944 Ford 9-N, and broke some virgin ground for them, so TECHNICALLY, I won't be planting potatoes "in the garden" this year!
That tractor is a couple years older than I am, but still does an honest hour's work for an hour's worth of gas.
Also got a source for all the free, untreated grass clippings I want. We got a 4 X 8 trailer load, then spring cleaned another 2/3 trailer load of chicken bedding & rabbit manure out of the chicken/rabbit house, and built a compost pile. After 3 days it is too hot to insert my hand more than 4-5 inches inside of it. ANYTHING to keep too busy to plant stuff 7-8 weeks before Last Frost Date!
The winter wheat looks like it suffered about 35-50% loss thanks to the offbeat winter & spring weather. That weather is a two edged sword, though, since it has brought out wild honey & bumble bees early enough to pollinate the apricots that are starting to bloom. Our local beekeeper won't place less than multiples of 4 hives--a pallet--and we couldn't support more than 1 or 2 hives, so that was out, which had only left hand-pollinating as an option.
Speaking of rabbits, we have a 4-week old litter of 8, and another litter born last night; they won't get counted for a few days. One of the four-week females was marked & sold today, when neighbors brought by their property payment; they'll pick her up in a couple of weeks.
I will enjoy helping folks.
I overheard the local Lowes manager denying a vet any discount and telling him it was for active duty members only. I thought that was wrong when I heard it.
HOLY SMOKE!!
I knew you had a farm. I didn't know it was THAT BIG! WOW!
We’re all over here Tilly
We grew Kiwi at our “summer home” with good success. You need a male for pollination of 4 or 5 female vines. We sold the place in 1993.
I have a friend that makes excellent muscadine wine. You will , no doubt, enjoy that endeavor.
Giving the lime a chance to make its changes is a good idea. You could do a fall garden, which for me always grows better than a spring garden anyway.
Planting a beneficial cover crop this winter will help with the organic matter. It is a great practice.
This year’s Simpson black seed lettuce was all from seeds I saved last year. I just let them go until they looked like dandelions when they get all white, then put the seeds back in the original seed packet (a plastic sandwich bag type thing with a zipper seal).
Right now I have broccoli, cauliflower, arugala, and some other type of green going to seed with hopes for next year.
It’s probably time I drop another hint about the need for a thread dedicated to seed saving.
I knew Lowes had a discount for Active Duty Military, I did not know they had a Veterans Discount. How does one go about getting that? Even if it is just for two days a year it could be helpful especially if buying any big ticket items.
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