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.
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Gee, I hope that the weather clears up for you!
This winter I tried propagating some cuttings from blueberries and blackberries. I want to use blueberries out front where my hedges should be (previous owner had some plants that attracted some type of wasps, which also liked to make nests over my front door), and blackberries along the fence in the back yard.
The softwood blueberry cuttings failed completely. The hardwood cuttings are still in the fridge. The blackberry transplants I put out in the yard all rooted, but aren't showing any other signs of life. But three of four root cuttings are just starting to grow.
Here we have a nearly focused picture of one of the parent blackberries flowering.
Which can only lead to one thing.
First time I've ever seen citrus trees for sale at the nursery is this year, and I am determined to add some next year. Lemon, lime and probably a satsuma or two. Keeping them in the house would certainly protect them, but ours is under old growth oaks and pecans and we get very, very little light inside. Don't think they would make it. I have trouble keeping my closet plant healthy. :)
Before he left, we had a storm with horrible winds and almost 100 acres of our wheat was blown flat on the ground. It had headed, but not begun the milk stage yet, so the tops were not really heavy. I tried to point out that the stems didn't seem to be broken, just layed-over, so I thought it would stand back up after the sun came out for a day or two. He strongly disagreed. It was so much fun to call him several days after he arrived in Bozeman to tell him that the wheat field looked just like it did before the storm. Every last stem had stood back up!
I picked some wheat heads a couple of days ago that are, I kid you not, 5-6 inches long. If it fills out those kernels, that is going to be some great wheat!
Good luck with your taters! 50 lbs. of seed? My goodness, you are industrious. I also love it that you're still using the old Ford tractor. We have a IH 856 that is older than me that still goes strong. We had the engine overhauled 3 years ago because one of our field hands ran it out of oil. It is a pain to shift, etc., after driving my new John Deere with the hydrastat. I like one pedal for forward and another for backward.
I love plumeria! That one is very pretty. Good luck with the berries. Blueberries will make a fantastic hedge of shrubs, especially some of the more compact varieties. I planted tifblue and climax, both good varieties in the south.
Glad to hear your wheat recovered...with a vengeance.
We got the tractor, and a set of tire chains for it, last fall in barter for a large load of scrap metal. I needed it, since the old JD tacked dozer died beyond any economically sensible recovery, to clear snow in the winter. I sold the dozer to a JD hobbiest who does his own work, and used part of that money to buy a new distributor, carb kit, boom-pole, middlebuster, and drag blade for it.
The dozer buyer did get it running...and promptly threw a rod though the side of the block. We had bought it on eBay some years ago, and had driven to Mountain Home, ID to trailer it home. I used it to repair/rebuild our ranch roads; drag logs; and clear snow, so we got our use out of it.
Did she pick out the spot for his highness effigy at Rushmore?
We are into Day One of the April Drought of 2012...
Beautiful!
Lovely pics! Thank you.
Well, he actually drove through Rapid City. (I see where I didn’t explain that!) My BIL lives in Bozeman and they shared the driving down, and BIL went on over to Dallas to visit his kids and grandkiddos. I did enjoy the Moochelle rundown though! Sounds like you did a good trade. :)
I believe that was the actual reason for the visit.
It may not look like much yet, but this is 5 weeks early! Around here March set a record as the warmest March ever. Normally we see temps like this in May.
You’re too darn funny! Our A/C went out Friday night and can’t be repaired until Monday morn when the parts supplier will be open. I’m really hoping they don’t have to order it. Man, is it miserable in here. Thinking about spending the night at deer camp where the A/C works fine and we still have satellite TV.
Very nice!!
Thank you, I wondered....
I don’t know the name of the weed, but has small leave and it sticks to everything. I’ve been pulling it up, everywhere. I’ve never seen so much before and thistles, everywhere. I had a devil of a time getting a thistle out of my english ivy.
EEEE Gads, I could have had the whole back berm in celery, if I’da known about this before. Thank you MissMagnolia. I’ll never throw another celery root away again. We go through them like gang busters. In fact this evening, one will be sitting in a saucer of water.
Our Lowes give hubby and me vet 10% discounts so does Home Depot.
We just show our Lowes and Home Depot clerks our IDs and we get our discount.
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