Posted on 08/01/2014 12:20:34 PM PDT by greeneyes
Lovely, soft, steady rain today ..... just at a 1/2” in the rain gauge since this morning. There’s more in the forecast over the weekend - we need it. The garden is obviously happy today. :-)
We are having a nice rain all day today. For the last couple of days I was thinking, “got to water the flower garden today,” but I’ve been feeling crummy all week so day after day I’ve neglected the garden. Today, God took care of it for me.
We are having unseasonably cool weather here in NC. It’s the coolest July I can ever remember. I bet we’ll have an early frost.
Was there an old home site where the Pear Tree is located?
Good news for sure.
That’s good. I think I am going to have to break down and water tonight when it cools off a little more.
Glad you’re feeling better; hope it stays that way!
Still in the ‘in betweens’. The cool stuff is finished, and the warm stuff has yet to start producing.
The tomatoes (mostly) survived their ordeal by hail, but weather has been much cooler than normal, so they, and most else, are rather slow this year. The beans mostly didn’t survive the beating.
The Arikara corn is about 2’ tall, stocky, and starting to push up tassels. Each one has several tillers. If it pans out, I may plant a large plot of it next year for chicken feed. The painted hill & Golden Bantam are about the same size, but are on different maturation schedules, so the three won’t cross pollinate each other.
Starting to get garlic, and we’re pleased with it this year. The Spring planted did much better than the Fall planted, in both survival and bulb size.
I came across this since last week, and put one together, sans bucket—I use a trash can instead, so don’t need a lid. Really works well for threshing the rye
.
http://winwinfarm.com/2013/06/diy-bucket-thresher-for-backyard-wheat-growers/
“DIY Bucket Thresher for Backyard Wheat Growers”, with photos, instructions, videos and discussion at link. Most practical thing I’ve found for small plot threshing; working well on the rye. For the trash can, I used a 3’ piece of threaded shaft.
The only drawback is that you do have to remove the heads from the stems, or the straw just wraps around the shaft and stall the drill. OTOH, up to about 1’ of stem is no problem, so I don’t have to be too careful with the deheading: pair of shears on a handful at a time, on a tarp does it.
Ended up with 2 gallons of our ‘sweet’ bush cherries. They make a great jelly or syrup; and are fairly good eating out of hand, though tarter than a commercial sweet cherry. Downside is their size: just too small for a cherry pitter, so pies etc are out of the question.
The tree is on my homestead, where I live. It’s well away from the house, though. (1.4 acres)
How are the Trombettas and Cucuzzi doing? My T's are permanently wilty looking. The Cucuzzi are growing like crazy, but aren't putting on many blooms.
Thanks for the link. That works great. Hubby put his wheat between two sheets and walked on it. It worked, but not as fast as this.
His main trouble is that he harvests it and has no good place to store it so that it doesn’t get rained on. He lost part of his harvest due to rain/mold. The birds liked it though.
How are the Trombettas and Cucuzzi doing?
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Both are definitely cyclical. The T that was wilting every day & looking yellowish (bottom leaves) has just finished a cycle of producing new squash - 9 of ‘em! I used 2 in stew & just peeled and cut up 7 more to make some dishes this weekend.
Have you noticed anything weird about the Trombetta juice? After cutting up a bunch, I had a ‘film’ of juice on my hands that scrubbing pretty hard didn’t really take off. It dried and cracked - could peel it off in thin sheets. I had to wash my hands a couple of times to get it all off. It was also hard to get off the cutting board, some ended up on the granite counter top & required some real elbow grease to get it off .... and it’s a total stinker to get off my peeler. I have to soak the peeler in a cup of hot water with a drop of detergent, then scrub every tiny blade multiple times to get off the T juice that is stuck on.
The cucuzza is a heart breaker. I got one nice one and have had no more. A couple weeks ago, it was all boy blooms. About two weeks ago, I got a boatload of females, but no boys were blooming, so no pollination. The last couple of days, I have both blooming (maybe 4-6 females, couple of boys) so maybe I’ll get another cucuzza before the season ends.
When you say “Spring planted” garlic, was that this Spring (2014) or last year? I have tried garlic a few times but when I’ve planted it in the Fall, nothing happened.
Any tips on what to plant in the areas that will be open once the last of the lettuce and radishes are gone but we still have some time before frost hits?
Our tomato plants are huge and all the fruit is turning red at the same time, so much for planting 5 different kinds and thinking they’d ripen alternatively. I will try sun-drying some of the smaller plum type and might process the excess (I don’t have a pressure canner so I think I have to add sour salt if I water-bath them, I haven’t ever tried before)
I cut a HUGE zucchini that was hiding under the leaves this afternoon, it’s the size of a baseball bat!
Decided to sacrifice my parsley to the black swallowtails — there are about 10 caterpillars of different sizes munching away, but we need the pollinators here badly, so they can eat it all. Next year I’ll plant some dill for them, since we don’t like that as much and they can eat it instead.
We are also getting highs in the 80’s with 60’s overnight, and just enough rain to keep the sprinklers dormant, for the most part. It’s been a really good season for our little garden, much better than last year.
One more thing about the Trombettas. I have noticed multiple bumble bees in the big yellow blooms, way down in the bottom. My brother came by & was chatting at the garden - he looked in a bloom and started laughing, said his wife had noticed blooms with as many as 4 bumble bees down in them. She took the hose & filled a couple blooms with water & the bumble bees crawled out so they’re not dead & seem ok, if sluggish. We’re not sure what is going on .... drunk on Trombetta elixir? Just taking a nap? Something else? It was not happening when the Ts first started blooming, but has picked up in the last couple of weeks.
Then do what sockmonkey suggested earlier in the season
then get a "Q-tip" and infuse it with male pollen , then place in a baggie in the refridge/freezer
until female flowers appear .
That should solve your pollination probem, along with the timeing of amele pollinators .
” That should solve your pollination probem, along with the timeing of female pollinators .”
I cleared out everything in the gound last week. I took cuttings from 7 tomatos to try to start a fall crop. It looks like 4 may survive. I also cut all the peppers and both tomato plants at ground level in my raised containers. My three peppers that were in the ground got dug up and potted. That would be 1 cayenne, 1 jalapeno, 1 chilitepin.
It sure looks different with just mater stakes in the garden now. They seem to be doing better than our maters did this year. We got exactly 0 maters. Thank you Rocky Raccoon or Mr. Crow. You just wait...
Another option is to place approximately one gallon size of heads in a burlap bag ( or sturdy pillowcase->but your wife will kill you )
and treat it like a pinata with a baseball bat, and let your emotions flow !!
Innowing : Absent a suitable wind , empty onto a sheet with a fan set on high, and blow away the chaf
Repeat as necessary !!
Can't help you with the crows, but a good dose of blood meal around your tomatoes (and peppers, if you grow those) should dissuade most raccoons from poaching. Certainly works here (full disclosure: central mtns of Panama, elev. 3000 ft, 9 degress N. Lat., and, yes, we do have raccoons...well, I don't any more, heh, heh, heh...). Some of the locals also mix dog poop into their compost to discourage critters. No info on results with this technque.
One year I grew rye ,sychethed it, shocked it,threshed it by hand, all by hand .
I later used it to make rye bread.
I was never so happy to have paid $1.25 then for a loaf of rye bread , as I now knew what went into it manually.
Thanks for the blood meal suggestion.
On the crows, I think I will remove a screen from the window, and address them with a pellet gun.
The reason I asked is that when I was a boy, in the 40,s amd 50’s I roamed around the country side hunting and fishing, and most old homesteads had pear trees long after the houses had fallen down, or burned down. The remains of chimneys was always a good sign that a pear tree was around. Other fruit trees didn’t seem to have the staying power to survive. The fruit that fell to the ground in the fall would be very sweet, and I was always eager to find it. So were the birds and animals.
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