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Archimid

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #500 on: June 30, 2017, 10:58:21 PM »
Neven, I feel the same way about leafy greens and other colder weather produce. It is simply too hot and they end up tasting bitter. I can never have some of the wonderful produce that you guys post all the time.  I learned that the hard way.
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silkman

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #501 on: July 01, 2017, 10:17:18 AM »
But you have mangoes! I can only dream. I'd swap you for a cabbage any day!

That said, I've just stripped Virginia Creeper off a south-facing wall and planted two vines. Cheshire Chardonnay? Probably not, but given the direction of travel we might we might as well go with the flow.

Clare

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #502 on: July 13, 2017, 03:02:47 AM »
Winter has arrrived & it's cold here, too cold to work outside. So time to look at gardening online:
Here's a pic & link to the Inuvik Community Greenhouse 200 mile inside the Arctic Circle:
https://www.inuvikgreenhouse.com/

Clare

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #503 on: July 13, 2017, 03:09:53 AM »
This doco about Singapore shows some pretty amazing ideas, the future of gardening?
"From vertical farms to living buildings, Singapore is on the cutting edge of environmentally sustainable urban solutions that have the best interest of the country's future at heart."
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/earthrise/2017/05/singapore-asia-greenest-city-170531102946823.html

(I confess to like getting my hands in the soil)

Neven

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #504 on: July 13, 2017, 09:26:04 AM »
Winter has arrrived & it's cold here, too cold to work outside. So time to look at gardening online:
Here's a pic & link to the Inuvik Community Greenhouse 200 mile inside the Arctic Circle:
https://www.inuvikgreenhouse.com/

For a second I thought that was your greenhouse, Clare!  :o
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etienne

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #505 on: August 03, 2017, 02:00:24 PM »
Hello,
I have some kind of white "foam" on the ground and on some salads in one part of my garden. It is in the part I opened this spring in order to plant potatoes. I have placed a lot of grass clipping on the potatoes.
Now that we ate the first potatoes, I planted salads instead and there is some kind of white foam develops itself on the ground and on the salads. when I crush it, it is dark inside. I first though it was birds excrements. If anybody knows what this could be ?
Thanks, best regards,
Etienne

ghoti

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #506 on: August 03, 2017, 08:45:43 PM »
Spittlebugs or Froghopper perhaps?

etienne

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #507 on: August 04, 2017, 08:29:09 AM »
Well, I believe that it goes more in the fungus direction. Wonder if it is not related to rotted grass clipping.

silkman

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #508 on: August 04, 2017, 09:02:54 AM »
Etienne

The photo isn't too clear but it definitely looks fungal to me. I'd be interested to hear how well your potatoes did before you planted the latest crop.

etienne

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #509 on: August 04, 2017, 03:11:57 PM »
Hi,
Here is a much better picture. My mobile only has a VGA quality. The white stuff is still growing and I don't think I will eat the concerned salads.

Potatoes where ok. There weren't too many because of the lack of rain during the spring. A few had small holes that where like rotten, but nothing spectacular. I used mildew resistant potatoes this hear but even so, I believe that some plants had some mildew, it just didn't go everywhere like last year.

This white stuff is only in the areas where grass clipping doesn't cover the ground anymore, which is the case mainly were potatoes have been removed.

If anybody knows what to do about it...

Thank you, best regards,

Etienne

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #510 on: August 05, 2017, 12:03:23 PM »
It does look fungal, have you had a lot of high humidity days or misty mornings? Where I've used bark/woodchips for mulch around blackcurrent bushes the wooden bits develop a similar white mould.
I've had a mouse/shrew family making themselves at home in one of my raised beds, slugs and snails almost gone.

etienne

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #511 on: August 05, 2017, 01:32:20 PM »
Yes, we had a lot of warm wet weather. I also have mushrooms between the tomatoes. I guess fungus will be always more an issue for gardening.

logicmanPatrick

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #512 on: August 05, 2017, 06:07:05 PM »
Since moving house back in February I have a garden.  The soil was thin over chalk.  (We have loads in Kent, wanna buy some?)  In some places I removed the soil down to the chalk, dug out some chalk and then put back sifted soil mixed with shop-bought compost and coconut fibre.

Only one small patch had previously been used to grow stuff.  I could tell by the fact that the soil was reasonably deep and the things I sowed there grew very nicely into a small salad plot.

I was surprised that my coriander thrives on an as yet untreated stony area.

Although my father grew stuff regularly for the table, I am no gardener.  I just read the instructions on the packet.  Apart from potatoes, which just need earthing up.  I had some small earlies - delicious with mayonnaise.

I've also had a few radishes, carrots and a very few beans,  Slugs ate the lettuce and attacked the beans.  The ants ate the slugs' leftovers!   :'(

Two questions:
1 - what kind of shotgun is best to kill slugs?

2 - what is the unidentified shrub below?








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etienne

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #513 on: August 06, 2017, 12:14:39 AM »
Slugs hunt is a complicated story. I tried many things (planted sage and mint on the main path, beer...) and I spread widely anti slugs pellets (don't know  the english name) that are only harmful for slugs. Widely means at least 1 meter around the plant I wand to protect. The problem of the anti slugs pellets is that it attracks other animals (just like the beer catches many flies and wasps).

When possible like for salads, I don't plant them directly in the garden, but let them grow first in a protected area.

I plant the carrots and spinach as soon as possible, before slugs really are awake in the spring.

Some people say that the garden shoult be watered in the morning, because slugs would be more active at night. Well, when it's raining, they are active all day.

You can buy slugs wall, but a friend of mine told me that is also doesn't work 100% and it is quite expensive.

If people have other technics, please share.

Etienne

logicmanPatrick

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #514 on: August 06, 2017, 01:21:25 AM »
"You can buy slugs wall"

Nah!  Let the slugs buy their own Bl**dy wall!  ;D

Thanks for the tips, etienne.
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TerryM

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #515 on: August 06, 2017, 01:45:38 AM »
"You can buy slugs wall"

Nah!  Let the slugs buy their own Bl**dy wall!  ;D

Thanks for the tips, etienne.


We'll build the wall, but we'll make them pay for it !!
Terry  8)

Tor Bejnar

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #516 on: August 06, 2017, 05:50:49 AM »
Neven,
Have the slugs paid for the electric fence you built to keep the buggers out?
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silkman

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #517 on: August 06, 2017, 08:57:40 AM »
In our experience the battle with the humble slug is never ending. Building barriers just doesn't work, probably because the slimy invaders' eggs are waiting to hatch in the soil. You can see clear evidence of this if you look carefully at the base of even sound cabbages. There's always a baby slug or two tucked away. Lessons for certain politicians here in both the US and the UK.....?

Rule one is to keep your garden neat and tidy and the ground cover, other than what you intend to eat, at a minimum.

Rule two is to grow plants in pots or modules and transplant to the garden when they're more mature - works really well with brassicas and lettuce.

Rule three is not to be squeamish about eating stuff with slug damage........

Both of these are fun:

http://www.slugoff.co.uk/information/list

https://www.amazon.co.uk/50-Ways-Kill-Slug-Gardening/dp/0600608581/ref=pd_sim_14_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=KMY8QRY9P0W43W0VV8A2



« Last Edit: August 06, 2017, 09:05:29 AM by silkman »

sidd

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #518 on: August 06, 2017, 09:09:13 AM »
Chickens eat slugs. But i have had neurotic chickens tear up beds.

Most of them wander about calmly though, pecking all the while.

sidd

silkman

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #519 on: August 06, 2017, 10:08:39 AM »
Logicman

I think the shrub in your last pic is Hypericum:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypericum_androsaemum

We have it in our garden too. It's related to St John's Wort.

Neven

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #520 on: August 06, 2017, 11:13:34 AM »
Neven,
Have the slugs paid for the electric fence you built to keep the buggers out?

I sometimes find euro coins in the garden, but they may have dropped out of my own pockets.  ;)

The fence keeps out most slugs (especially the big ones), but like silkman says, just one small slug on the inside in autumn, and you'll have dozens in spring again. Also, the fence needs to be maintained, which means weed removal and checking the wires don't touch anywhere. At some point I will build an improved version. Of course, the slugs will have to pay for that one too.

One mistake we made, was keeping a couple of fixed plants like oregano - and we left some coriander standing - within the vegetable garden perimeter. Even though I had dug the garden when it started freezing at night (not happy about that, as I like the no-till philosophy for optimal soil fauna), the little buggers returned in early spring. The small white ones, not the big brown ones. Especially the coriander offered refuge, it seems.

They are mostly a problem during April, May and part of June, when seedlings are small and vulnerable. The slugs also seem more hungry and active then, and so we went out every evening with a flash light to kill as many as we could find (dozens of small ones). Then, at some point, we removed all the hay mulch, did some more hunting for three evenings, and then put new mulch in. That really helped a lot.

Now that most of the plants are big, we don't check as much. There doesn't seem to be any major damage. Flea beetles and caterpillars are more of a threat now, so we focus more on keeping them in check. We've learned a lot from last year, especially my wife, and so we recognize pests earlier, which really makes a difference. Damage seems a lot less this year.

For next year we'll remove all the fixed plants, probably do some tilling to further improve the soil, and then do the same with replacing the mulch at some point.

Speaking of hay mulch, the potatoes we planted in them were more of a success than expected. I wasn't sure if the layer of mulch was thick enough at some point, and as there's no electric fence around the potato plot, there was an orgy of huge brown slugs every evening, to the point that the plants didn't even have flowers. I checked once under the hay and there was only a hull of a potato, so I figured the harvest would basically be zero.

But turns out I was wrong. We planted 5 kg and got 40 kg out! One third of the potatoes had holes in them, some of them still containing burrowing slugs, but the rest looked pretty sound. Too bad we don't have a good way to store them. Looks like we'll have to build a small root cellar at some point.

Next year we'll use even more hay mulch, and maybe get some ducks. I'm quite pleased this works, as digging potatoes is quite a lot of work.
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silkman

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #521 on: August 06, 2017, 12:07:08 PM »
Excellent job, Neven!

Just remember the old joke - What's worse than finding a slug in your salad?.......... finding half a slug!😉

FishOutofWater

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #522 on: August 08, 2017, 02:36:03 AM »
Not a garden yet, but these are the first two mangoes from my tree. I'm proud of them and wanted to share them with you.

they look like cut from a spanish bull LOL ...SNIP

They sure weren't cut from The Donald.

My Haden mango tree didn't produce fruit until it was about 10 feet tall when I lived on Kauai. It's bizarre having such large mangoes on such a small tree.

Archimid

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #523 on: August 09, 2017, 01:27:53 AM »
Yeah I was surprised too. The tree is only 2 years old, but it is a grafted tree. Maybe that's why it fruited so young.  But I'm not complaining, they were delicious.
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Bruce Steele

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #524 on: August 31, 2017, 08:15:32 AM »
It seems kinda trivial to talk about gardening with all the misery going around but it has been harvest season around here and there have been several days of good drying conditions with 97 to 102 F continuing for at least another week. The early corn gets smoked and sun dried , it's called chicos. Added to a batch of beans and soaked overnight it returns to sweet yellow corn in a batch of bean soup. Corn has passed milk stage ( and chicos corn ) and I have been picking and drying a bushel  a day. Watermelons are ripening but they are summer garden fare and don't keep.
 I have a very nice stand of black-eyed peas and they are so very good picked green and cooked up into Hopping John. I planted the black-eyed peas for dried beans and I have plenty extra to pick for a couple southern born chefs I know. Strange how simple things are so cherished.
 The pepitas, hulless squash seeds, are a pile of work to scoop out and dry but they offer up a huge calorie source for later in the winter. The piggies are enjoying the leftover pumpkin meat.
 As it turns out drying all this produce is way more work than growing and weeding the garden. I still have many bushels of corn, another hundred+ pumpkins for pepidas , black beans, black-eyed peas , and Limas to thresh and dry.
 So no fossil fuel for plowing and cultivating, solar electrics for water pumps and hot sunny days for drying results in lots of food for winter and plenty of food for summer fare. When it's all done and dried I'll make some attempt to weigh it and get some calorie calculations . Acorns will be starting soon and I will be using piggy bio-diesel in the truck I use to go collect them. The tractor is still happy running on the piggy bio. I will be using it to plow and prepare pastures for the rain season. About three months of work to go.   

etienne

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #525 on: September 02, 2017, 12:30:57 PM »
A funny thing about slugs is that they seem to hide under the bigger salads and go out at night to eat the new ones that just came out of the ground. As long as you have new salads, the "older" ones can grow without being eaten.

logicmanPatrick

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #526 on: September 04, 2017, 02:46:40 AM »
A funny thing about slugs is that they seem to hide under the bigger salads and go out at night to eat the new ones that just came out of the ground. As long as you have new salads, the "older" ones can grow without being eaten.

That explains why I got about 3 lettuces from a whole packet of seeds.

I also got 3 cauliflowers - still growing.  There were caterpillars on the caulis but as there has been a decline in butterflies around here I left them to their free lunch.  First signs now of three cauliflower heads and caterpillars have presumably pupated.

A small patch of dwarf tomatoes looks promising.  Some trusses have 10 or more small toms on them.
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morganism

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #527 on: September 11, 2017, 10:18:25 PM »
neighbors having bees removed just now, and reminded me that elephants hate drones, because they think they are a bee swarm. Has anyone heard if deer are the same?
Can we use drones to keep the deer out without fencing?

edit: and youtube delivers a no!

« Last Edit: September 11, 2017, 10:29:15 PM by morganism »

logicmanPatrick

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #528 on: September 13, 2017, 01:30:42 PM »
neighbors having bees removed just now, and reminded me that elephants hate drones, because they think they are a bee swarm. Has anyone heard if deer are the same?
Can we use drones to keep the deer out without fencing?

edit: and youtube delivers a no!


:)
My niece is a licenced bee remover.  You wouldn't catch me anywhere near that stuff.  I was stung by a swarm aged about 4 yo.  Last year I was stung on the tongue while cycling fast when my mouth flew onto a bee.
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silkman

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #529 on: October 15, 2017, 08:11:43 PM »
Here in NW England, ex-hurricane Ophelia apart, the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness is upon us. It's time to harvest the gourds and squashes ahead of Halloween and winter soup.

It's been a mixed season for us this year. Our staple squashes, Crown Prince and Barbara, cropped poorly due to lack of sun over the latter part of summer but we had some fun trying out some American "heritage varieties" including Hubbard and Long Island.

Here's the haul. It's the highlight of our harvest. They store well, eat well and are very pleasing to the eye. At least I think so.

It's on to the parsnips, swede and sprouts now.
« Last Edit: October 15, 2017, 08:20:19 PM by silkman »

Clare

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #530 on: October 19, 2017, 03:17:57 AM »
What a beautiful selection! Here at the other end of the world my pumpkins (buttercup squash) are just at this early stage:


Regards & admiration to you & Mrs Silkman

Archimid

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #531 on: October 23, 2017, 07:25:23 PM »
I still love my mangoe tree, but the hero tree after Hurricane Maria is the Mulberry tree. 32 days after being pressure washed for 26 hours the tree just yielded 2 cups of delicious ripe Mullberries. And there are so many left.

The tree is amazing. Maria striped the whole tree to bare branches. there were few leaves left on the lower part of the tree but they  were all burnt. Two days after maria it sprouted new leaves. Two weeks later the whole tree filled with fruit. Now I'm enjoying them. Awesome tree.
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etienne

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #532 on: December 08, 2017, 02:23:49 PM »
If somebody is looking for some winter vegetables, I really recommend Brussels sprouts.
This year, I really have a great harvest. Don't know if it is because it growed just near the potatoes or if it is because it was in the new extension of the vegetable garden.
Some look better than other, but the inside is always good.
Home grown are much better than the deep freezed version. It's worth trying.
To be honest, Brussels sprout and potatoes are my only real success this year, but I'm still learning and next year should be better. Other things like salads, carrots, kohlrabi and leeks were ok, but in little quantities.
Chard went well, but nobody want's to eat them anymore here. Maybe in the winter, they seem to support the cold weather.

Neven

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #533 on: December 08, 2017, 11:26:13 PM »
That looks great, Etienne. My wife also planted around 10 Brussels sprout plants this year, and they did well. Unfortunately, she was too busy lately (as was I), and the weather has been pretty rough here, rain, snow, freezing temps, sunshine, so when I peeked in the garden today, most of the Brussels sprouts decided to go and lie down.  :'(

We had lots of chard this year and kale is also a great plant for the winter time ('boerenkool' - farmer's cabbage - is a Dutch specialty).
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silkman

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #534 on: December 09, 2017, 10:33:06 AM »
Etienne

Those are fantastic. Much better than ours this year. We'll have enough to go with the turkey on Christmas Day as is the law here in the UK but that will be about it.

It's not all bad though. We have a good crop of parsnips and swede and the purple sprouting broccoli is looking good for the Spring - assuming I can keep the pigeons at bay!

Bruce Steele

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #535 on: February 24, 2018, 05:56:00 AM »
I have been enjoying field corn from last years garden. I prepared some called chicos corn. It is dent corn harvested at milk stage, smoked with the husk on . It is then shucked and air dried in the sun.
https://www.localharvest.org/ark/chicos
I also harvested about a hundred lbs. of dent corn dried on the stalk. I have been treating the corn with hydrogenated lime, a process called nixtamalization. The resulting corn is what is used to make tamales and tortillas. I treat the corn, rinse it well, then sun dry it. Once dried I run it through my flour mill to make masa harina. Nixtamal corn makes niacin more available and adds calcium. It also smells very good and makes the resulting corn flour a darker yellow.  It also reduces mycotoxins . It is also softer and easier to run through the mill.
http://www.cooksscience.com/articles/feature/transforming-corn/
My next experiment will be hominy, corn treated with lye. Kinda scary.
Potatoes are in the ground and the garden cover crop is getting plowed in . Spring is around the corner
and I still have lots of bean and corn from last years zero fossil fuel garden. I can only run the tractor on very warm days because the piggy bio needs to be warmer than 50F . 

Clare

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #536 on: February 26, 2018, 09:36:35 AM »
Thank you Bruce, I v much enjoy hearing the news from your farm.
My corn patch hasn't been a great success this year. I made the mistake with my '2-3 sisters' planting by sowing the beans at the same time as my chitted corn seeds, so they both came up together. Then a self sown pumpkin came up in there so I thought 'great', I'll try having all 3 sisters. Well the beans continued to climb & twine & tangle the corn & then the pumpkin grew & grew along & up & up & over the top of it all! It looks a right jungle now. I have harvested a good lot of beans & there are some pumpkins lurking in there too but the corn crop has been a bit sad. Next year I'll try to do this better,sow the beans a bit later  & maybe cucumbers will be less vigorous! ;D
Clare in NZ

Bruce Steele

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #537 on: February 27, 2018, 12:12:42 AM »
Clare, I planted a block of corn , a block of beans and sandwiched them between squash plantings, also in blocks.
Fresh vegetables were planted in another area because I needed to be able to dry out the three sisters before I harvested them. It is very important to do a very good job of keeping your corn weed free when they first get started. After they get big enough to start shading the ground things get easier.
 The fresh vegetables need to be kept wet so keeping them separate from the crops that need to be dried out is important if you are trying to produce dent corn and dried beans. You don't want mold on either . It doesn't rain around here in the fall so drying a crop is relatively easy when you shut down the irrigation.
 Thanks for taking an interest in my garden efforts. Every year produces it's own unique challenges.
I put potatoes out and then the weather got cold with several nights down to 25F.  The potatoes seem fine but the new shoots got frozen. They will come back I think. Potatoes are a challenge here because soil temperature above 80 F shut down growth. There isn't a lot of time between the last frost and hot soil temperatures.

Neven

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #538 on: March 09, 2018, 10:03:11 PM »
We've decided to go the Silkman Route from now on. ;-)

It was nice to try out the Ruth Stout no-work gardening way, but we don't have enough hay/straw mulch, too many slugs, and we compressed the soil too much by walking around. We have a better overview now, which should make it easier to rotate from year to year. I've also made the cold frames portable.

My wife, Elisabeth, says she feels a bit more confident this year, getting the hang of things more and more. I think we'll do a bit better again this year, increase soil fertility some more, while the bushes and trees grow and produce more. Let's hope there's no late frost this year, because day temperatures will be around 15 °C in the coming week, and so everything is going to start budding.
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E. Smith

silkman

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #539 on: March 09, 2018, 10:49:21 PM »
Neven

I'm flattered!

I hope it works for you.

Up here in the direct line of fire of the Beast from the East we're still waiting for Spring.

We lost a willow tree to the wind last week that was a part of our family history - three kids and five grandchildren used it for rope swings and hide and seek - sad!
« Last Edit: March 09, 2018, 10:54:28 PM by silkman »

etienne

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #540 on: March 11, 2018, 10:08:22 AM »
Looks great. I have to say that I am very happy with that type of structure. I find it easy to install, easy to maintain and also easy to transform if one day I change my mind about how I want to use the different areas of the garden.

I wanted to start yesterday in the garden, but the soil was still frozen in some parts. So I just prepared it and sow early things (carorts, geen peas, some early salads). If I had looked at the weather forecast, I think I would have only prepared the soil.

When plants have to be protected from cold, I prefer mini greenhouses (like here, that model is an expensive one https://www.elho.com/fr/notre-collection/product/8711904194307/green-basics-plat-de-cult-s-living-noir/ you have to wait for the picture above the product). So if freezing is announced, I can put the plants inside, and if I put them on a table, I have less problems with slugs - birds are still an issue.

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #541 on: March 11, 2018, 09:55:12 PM »
I put flax in today. It doesn't seem to mind a bit of cold.

Archimid

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #542 on: March 12, 2018, 03:24:49 AM »
This is the second Pumpkin I harvest from my Maria Pumpkin, hands of a 2 year old for scale. It weighted like 40 pounds, I think.  My  next door neighbor, who works at a dairy farm, gifted me a generous piece of a pumpkin he harvested growing wild in the farm. It was huge. He told me that pumpkin had been going for many years so I had to try to grow it.

I had a good spot for them. I have been covering a corner of the house with my yard clippings for a while now and the pumpkins seemed the perfect plant for that spot. I used 15 seeds in 3 different locations. They grew almost immediately and soon were spreading over the yard and I had to carefully move the vines in the direction I wanted. Then came Maria.

My pumpkin patch was covered in sheet metal and branches from my savannah oak and other trees. By the time I cleared the ruble there was nothing but the yard clippings I used for ground cover all mushed up in corners. As I moved the mulch to even up the ground I saw it. There was a little green stalk with a baby leaf under the clippings. It was alive!

I cleaned it up, set up the iguana defenses and weeded the surroundings. All that rain that made the recovery efforts so difficult fed my pumpkin well. The vine climbed the fence towards a now empty lot that used to be a cow farm. It loves growing were the weeds are. In fact, I've only seen fruits where there are weeds. This week I owe it some TLC.

The pumpkin in the picture is the second one I've harvested, and the largest one in the vine. I gave a big piece to my neighbor. Almost all my family got a nice chunk to take home. My wife made pumpkin pie and a delicious pumpkin soup. There is one large pumpkin almost ready to go, and at least two smaller ones that need a few more weeks, maybe months.

I'm excited about this plant. Just need to make sure it gets enough water and I might be set for a while in terms of pumpkins.
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silkman

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #543 on: March 12, 2018, 09:15:31 AM »
Archimid

What a great story of the recuperative power of nature in times of adversity.

Enjoy the fruits of your labours - I do hope your two year old likes pumpkin soup!

It all puts the very modest challenges I'm facing in a cold, damp Northern European early Spring into context.

Respect!

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #544 on: March 12, 2018, 09:25:43 AM »
That is a large pumpkin! - and a survivor.


Very different from the varieties I'm familiar with grown in Ontario or in California. Is it a typical of Puerto Rican specimen, or is there a chance that it's related to something that early aboriginals might have brought with them and planted?


Terry

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #545 on: March 12, 2018, 09:28:49 AM »
Nice, Archimid! It's so big, are you sure it's not a Body Snatcher pod?

Meanwhile, over here in Austria, we've got big frost coming this weekend, up to -8 °C at night and -4 °C during the day according to the forecasts. But first we've got a couple more days of +16 °C. I hope and pray nothing buds too much... :(

My wife doesn't know what to do with her beans. She can't leave them in the house, as the containers are too small. If she plants them out now, even in the cold frames, it's not sure they'll make it through the frost. I said she should plant them out, but immediately plant a new batch in the containers.

Decisions, decisions...
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E. Smith

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #546 on: March 12, 2018, 10:25:44 AM »
Hedging your bets when gardening is always a good idea, Neven.

If the first batch survives then you'll just have more beans!

SteveMDFP

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #547 on: March 12, 2018, 02:27:14 PM »
Hedging your bets when gardening is always a good idea. . .

But what if you don't want to grow hedges?   ;-)

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #548 on: March 12, 2018, 03:34:38 PM »
Hedging your bets when gardening is always a good idea. . .

But what if you don't want to grow hedges?   ;-)
Hedges are good windbreaks and bird habitat. You should want that. In gardening, too much will to power leads to frustration. I like to let the plants decide what they want. I provide them opportunity and some nudges. And then I work with what they give me. Luckily my wills and wants are flexible. Often my intended harvest turns out as mulch. That's also good, and perhaps the basis for a surprise harvest gift from other plants.

Archimid

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Re: Gardening
« Reply #549 on: March 13, 2018, 01:37:36 AM »
Enjoy the fruits of your labours - I do hope your two year old likes pumpkin soup!

He certainly does!

Quote
It all puts the very modest challenges I'm facing in a cold, damp Northern European early Spring into context.

I think the climatic differences in agriculture are fascinating. You cold weather folk have to beat  the cold and lack of sunshine. Us tropical folk have to beat the heat.


Very different from the varieties I'm familiar with grown in Ontario or in California. Is it a typical of Puerto Rican specimen, or is there a chance that it's related to something that early aboriginals might have brought with them and planted?


I would say it looks and taste very similar to pumpkins that I would find in the farmers market or the many  local produce carts that pepper the island. They have thick, green skin, very "meaty" and a mild but sweet flavor.

I think the fact that the mother vine grew in the wild at a dairy farm for years make it perfect for me. I'm looking for resilient and perennial food sources. This one wants to grow. The first time I pruned it I left the pruned bits in a corned to mulch them later with my lawn mower. When I went back a week later the roots dug themselves into the ground an they were growing again.

I really don't know  if that is typical behavior or not, but I like it.

Nice, Archimid! It's so big, are you sure it's not a Body Snatcher pod?
If it is, body snatchers pods are delicious ;)
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