WeenieCampbell.com
The Unwound Third => Jam Session => Topic started by: Johnm on June 13, 2009, 12:57:11 PM
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Hi all,
I wondered if any of you Weenies were into gardening. I'm kind of new to it, but my wife has been into it for a number of years. When she ordered ten yards of compost earlier this spring, shoveling and moving it got me into the gardening pretty quickly. So far we've had a good harvest of several varieties of lettuce and have peas, potatos, beans, cabbage, beets and some more exotic vegetables on the way. It looks like we're going to have a lot of raspberries and boysenberries, too. It's hard to grow full-sized tomatoes in western Washington--it doesn't really get hot enough, but I think we might get some this year. It has been unusually dry for the past three weeks or so, and we're hoping for some good rain soon. Is anybody else tending a garden?
All best,
Johnm
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Hi Johnm,
I started to do a little gardening this year. Last summer I took out a diseased elm tree and as a result I have a nice sunny spot for a small garden. the spot needs enriching however, so I started a compost pile in January and have dumped one load of compost on and will do another before putting in a fall garden. In the meantime I'm growing some stuff in pots - tomatoes, jalapenos and various herbs - basil, parsley, chives etc. Not much, but a start.
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I'm very much a gardener, though at present we're only growing flowers, no vegetables - too much shade and too many deer led us to finally give up the last of the veggies several years ago. John, you make me long for a few rows of rhubarb, tomatoes, and lettuce. There's nothing like eating stuff that's been picked an hour ago.
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Living on the 19th floor here in NYC albeit with a small outdoor terrace limits our gardening enterprises, but I love looking at them and eating out of them. My mother's brother, uncle Dave, last of my parents generation, died two years ago but before he did I visited him at his double wide outside of Ellsworth Maine. he had a stupendous garden. I was pumping him for information about my mother's family's life during the depression. They were dirt poor, living in NYC. They experienced real hunger. At one point during the discussion Dave pointed at the ground and said "Ya can't grow nothin' in concrete". Gardening is not only good for the soul, its one of the most essential survival skills.
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My wife has claimed squatters' rights to part of the property behind our apartment and has been faithfully tilling the soil for several planting seasons. She grows various kinds of veggies and some herbs. Some of her hybrids rival those of Luther Burbank. Last year she planted the zucchini and the pumpkins too close to each other. They interbred, with "pumpkinis" being the resulting offspring. She's Chinese, so she knows how to get the most from every square inch of land. And she enjoys the visitors?hummingbirds and flickers came by this morning. At night it's opossums and raccoons.
I know what you mean about the Northwest not having the climate needed for tomatoes and other varieties that those of us from the Northeast grew up on. Being from The Garden State, I really miss the homegrown tomatoes, corn, beans, watermelon, etc. that do so well back there.
In the current economic environment, we often hear about people getting back to the basics and planting their own gardens. I look upon it as a return to sanity and common sense. Where (and when) I grew in NJ, some people would have gardens in their front yards instead of a lawn during the spring and summer growing season.
When you and Ginny are out there working the land, keep in mind the old saying, "Forty Acres and a Mule," but just make sure that you don't end up being the mule!
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"Forty Acres and a Mule," but just make sure that you don't end up being the mule!
Too late Stuart - who do you think had to spread all that compost. :P
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Let's not forget gathering, as well as gardening. In a few weeks we'll be picking mulberries from some of the local trees to make pies, and the black raspberries are almost ready, so we'reabout to make our annual foray down the railroad tracks to bring back a few potloads of them. Sometimes, Mother Nature is the best gardener, and all you've got to do is to go and harvest.
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Another amateur gardener reporting to Weenie Headquarters.
Quite amazingly we have pretty much all the same veggies as Johnm listed. The short and cold Finnish summer somewhat limits the choice of plants, but we do have some cucumbers and zucchinis on some self made cold frames. One sunny wallside is even enough to keep a few tomatoes alive until the first fall frosts force us to gather the green tomatoes inside -they will eventually turn red in room temperature.
The Finnish summer does have it's advantages though -the long luminous nights give a wonderfull aroma to many vegetables -the new potatoes are a national delicacy and nowhere in the world have I found better ones. Also many plant diseases and pests need warmer conditions to really thrive.
As for gathering, it pays to live in summertime in an old house with a garden gone wild; we have plenty of blackcurrant, raspberries and semi-wild strawberries to pick.
The woods have blueberries, and we are just finishing the false morel season, waiting for the first chanterelle to arrive within a month, followed by the porcini autumn fiesta.
Must go now, victim of a sudden hunger pang :P
Cheers
Pan
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Hi all,
dj and Pan, you're certainly right about foraging. You can get some great food and you feel like you're getting away with something. There are a ton of blackberries along a greenbelt trail quite near to our home. I've been a little leery of them because of a creosote wood treatment plant in the same vicinity (I've avoided honey sold by a beekeeper about fifty yards from the creosote plant for the same reason). Ginny has been taking a class from a Native American teacher on edible wild plants and herbal remedies, and we've been trying some of the food, like chickweed, cooked up like greens, delicious.
John D. and Stuart, so far I've been enjoying doing the donkey work. It reminds me of working with my Dad, growing up. I wasn't always the greatest at staying focused on the task at hand, and was accused, on occasion, of sitting there "with your teeth in your mouth and your mind in Arkansas." I generally liked the heavier work, though, and still do. That's easy enough to say when you don't make your living from it, I suppose. I think you are right, though, O'Muck, that gardening puts you in touch with something really important. The food is great but it isn't just about that.
All best,
Johnm
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One English gardener here. I grew up in a working-class family in a village in Yorkshire in the north of England and my Dad grew pretty well everything we needed. Buying vegetables at the shops was something that only "posh people" did. In those days before freezers we stored carrots in dry sand, hung onions from the rafters and stored potatoes in a clamp, known in Yorkshire as a "tatie pie".
We only have quite a small garden down here on the south coast so it is mainly flowers and interesting structural plants. I do have a small veg. plot and only plant what grows easily and the things we like to eat. So, we have runner beans, sometimes climbing French beans, courgettes (zucchini), beetroot, spinach, a couple of tomato plants and a little lettuce/salad leaves. I do everything organically, but have to resort to slug pellets otherwise we would have literally nothing. I'm also a big compost fan and sometimes more interested in making compost that growing stuff. We fastidiously save all organic kitchen waste (right down to used tea leaves) and add this to garden weeds, dead leaves, etc. and some paper/cardboard to open it up and add carbon to the mix.
I sometimes pick wild blackberries in the fields not far from our house, but have to admit I find it a really boring job.
Not many blues songs about gardening I can think of...
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Would you actually be growing cabbage greens then?
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I live on the side of a mountain in Arkansas and we grow ROCKS in our garden. Every year I dig out big giant rocks and then the next year a whole new batch appears. Seriously though, in between the rock picking I grow almost a years supply of vegetables for us to eat(we are vegetarians). Love Mother Nature and she will show you her love in return.
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I live on the side of a mountain in Arkansas and we grow ROCKS in our garden. Every year I dig out big giant rocks and then the next year a whole new batch appears. Seriously though, in between the rock picking I grow almost a years supply of vegetables for us to eat(we are vegetarians). Love Mother Nature and she will show you her love in return.
You lucky dog! The best thing you could find in a garden is rocks! Way more fun than stupid plants.
Alex (M.Sc. in Geology, 1981)
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Hi
We are in So. Cal. and grow Beefsteak, Best Boy, Cherry and Early Girl Tomatoes in pots. Also in pots are Bell Peppers and Basil. We have Rosemary planted in the ground (more than a lifetime supply). A terrific bonus of the Rosemary is the fragrance which is particularly enjoyable when the plant is trimmed.
John, we were able to grow tomatoes in the winter last year. The varieties were Snomatoes, and Siberian tomatoes. It might be worth a try in Washington. They were mid-sized and pretty tasty, although not as abundant as the summer tomatoes.
One thing to watch for when foraging for berries is poison oak grows among them (in our area anyway).
Green Thumbs to all
Bob
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Thanks for the tip on the snomatoes and the Siberian tomatoes, Bob. I've never heard of them before and it would be good to find tomatoes that grew better up here.
All best,
Johnm
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We have a big yard and always wanted to have a veggie garden but there was too much shade. So this spring, my husband Eric took down a big old plum tree -- he did it with a pruning saw, just a little at a time (it costs a lot to have a professional come in and cut down a big tree!) and then he build a raised bed with the logs, filled it in with a rich mixture of our soil (very clay) and several big buckets of compost from where our daughter Corrina rides horses, plus some compost that we've been making ourselves. Now he's planted a bunch of stuff -- tomatoes, squash, herbs, radishes, arugula, chard, and there will be more. He's planted pole beans in pots, with poles made out of old tent poles that someone was throwing out and left on the street. Myself, I have a black thumb but Eric is pretty good with plants. One time, he took little trimmings from a plum tree and used them as stakes when he was shoring up our front yard -- those little trimmings took root and sprouted!!! He also forages in the neighborhood, for lemons, oranges and (in the fall) persimmons. Having grown up in the Northeast, I still find (even after 35 years) it amazing to be able to grow stuff all year round here!
Suzy
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I've been living on a boat now for better part of 15 years, so can only grow some Rosemary, and thyme on the back deck... But years ago I used to do high intensity sq foot gardening, where you pack lots of fast growing crops (leaf lettice, radishes, beets, peas...) in small raised areas, and harvest and replant as soon as possible. This took lots of compost and care, but the crowded conditions kept weeds out and gave good production out of a small area all season long. Wish I still had access to a area where I could have a garden, it almost gives the same satisfaction as figuring out a new song.
Brian
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I live on the side of a mountain in Arkansas and we grow ROCKS in our garden. Every year I dig out big giant rocks and then the next year a whole new batch appears. Seriously though, in between the rock picking I grow almost a years supply of vegetables for us to eat(we are vegetarians). Love Mother Nature and she will show you her love in return.
I lived in Southern Missouri for a long while. Picked rocks for a rich well digger once. Crappiest job I've ever had....
I spent several years traveling around working on organic farms all over the U.S. (and a lil' bit in Central America and Europe). Now I live in the city and have no place (and no time) to garden. Words can't describe how much I miss it... But my 32 year old body feels like it's 60...
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I learned to garden from my father, who was taught by his father. We have a very large garden and grow garlic, onions, corn, potatoes, squash, cucumbers, beets, lettuce, carrots, peas, southern peas, okra, melons (when we get them planted) herbs, sunflowers, several kinds of peppers and tomatoes, asparagus, tomatillos, all kinds of beans and flowers.
We do it all organically and build soil every step of the way. I eat good for ten months of the year, who am I kidding, I eat good all of the time!
Can sure cut into playing time though when you get as carried away.
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I wish to add my gardening zeal from Edmonton in the frozen north, where the growing season is short. With a quarter acre to absorb hours every day, I devote myself each spring to the exciting challenge of harvesting tomatoes from the vine at the earliest possible date. My record is the third week in July, and if the warm nights persist, I might just beat that date this year. JohnM - my "old reliable" for this cooler climate is the Starfire variety, which is early maturing and delivers large juicy fruit. This year, I have thrown in some heirloom varieties just to see what will happen - Black Krims and Mr. Stripeys. So far, they are doing well - responding to Jobe's tomato stakes and a healthy dose of composted sheep manure, which I add in generous quantities every year. Don't water too often, and heap clean sand in a shallow depression around each plant. As the ground dries a bit and cracks, the sand runs down and provides a conduit to carry water down and promote deep roots. I learned that trick from my old Greek neighbor.
As Guy Clark wrote in "Home Grown Tomatoes":
"There's only two things that money can't buy
That's true love and home grown tomatoes!"
I gave up on all other vegetables (except for various types of squash) and for the past decade, have focused on flowers (perennials and annuals), including a large planting of gladiolas.
Gardening is a fine passtime, whether producing food or beauty or both. It gets you off your butt, outdoors doing work that often leads to perspiration, and is not very mentally demanding - so you can think empty thoughts, or process complex problems. Or try to recall song lyrics as you hum away to your tomato plants! I refer to the flowers as "my girls" - just so that my wife will understand their attraction.
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last garden we had was in the 70's at the parents farm. Since then we've spent 24 years in the Willamette Valley hillside woodlot without enough sunshine to have daffodils bloom.
This year we found out that our neighbor bought the 80 acre farm across the gravel road and we embarked on the garden adventure. As he said;"well, you got deer, gophers and rabbits to feed"
we thought we'd have a small salad garden....just some lettuce and chard maybe....
here's the link to what's turned out to be a 20*60 8' high antibambi fenced 2" square wire fencing. I cut the poles, bucked the poles, peeled the poles, planted the poles and that was the easy part...
the album is at:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2014553&id=1197035754&l=ce1105c13e
the best part is other than the original tractor rotovator opening up the fescue field is that I'm working the business end of a shovel and hoe. Already have lost 13 lbs this spring.. and there's more to do... course fingerpickin is a little bit more problematic now..
brotherfrancis
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Nice photos brotherfrancis. I think a well-tended veg. plot is just as attractive as a flower garden.
Some people would think we Weenies were crazy, waxing lyrical about photos of vegetable gardens and vintage (and modern) guitars.
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Welcome brotherfrancis - nice garden!
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Thanks for the comments, the garden does have it's own pulse and path and I'm content in finding that spot within me that really enjoys tending the plot. We run water across the gravel road from the house and into the 55 gallon drum for spot usage. I usually do a soaking every third day early in the day. Fortunately between 5:00a.m and 6:30a.m there might be one car coming down the road..
On a more musical note (assuming my attempts at singing could be classified as musical expression) I found myself laughing one day at the fact that the song Went Down In the Valley to Pray is an amazingingly effective field worksong when you have shovel in hand and are looking at a large plot of sod to turn over.
Now if I just could have the clarity of voice of Doc when he sings it.. and I guess if I'm going to ask ... I might as well ask for some of his fingerpickin and flatpickin skills too...
I tried to use BBB"s Hey,Hey as a worksong and liked to kill myself with the shovel...but right now I can't get that song out of my head...
bf
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Hi all,
It's been a busy summer, and I've not had the time to do things as I should in the garden, but Ginny and I have had a good yield in some areas: a huge raspberry crop, probably five to seven gallons, lots of wonderful lettuces and greens (kale and chard mostly), peas (still coming in mid-August, a first for here) and beans. Blueberries are just starting to come in and I think we'll be picking them the next month to month-and-a-half. Cauliflower, cabbage and turnips are soon to be harvested.
I spent a couple of hours this morning on blackberry abatement. The neighbor to the back has blackberries adjacent to our back fence, and they grow over and through the fence and attach to our apple tree. It's a devil of a job hacking them back and getting them out of the tree. In previous years I've kept after them better and they've not gotten so in-grown with the tree. Due to my neglect this summer, some of the vines were as thick as a big toe and of course they have those thorns. It took a while, but they're all hacked back now.
As I approached the potato patch, I was pleased to note that no one had been digging my potatoes, nor trampling on my vine. For picking them, I had a special plan resting on my mind. Last year, through clumsy work with a fork, I had marred several beautiful spuds in the course of digging them. I thought this year to dig them with my bare hands. It worked a hell of lot better, and after going through the patch with my hands, I gave it a second run-through with a fork (more carefully) and found I had missed only a few of the potatoes. Despite best efforts, still managed to mess up two of them. Another casualty of lax garden maintenance was failure to mound the potato plants. As a result, several of the potatoes ended up being exposed to the sun and getting that sickening shiny green cast that lets you know they don't bear eating. We had a couple of the russets baked for lunch, and God, they are good right after they're picked.
Any other gardening tales out there?
All best,
Johnm
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I thought this year to dig them with my bare hands. It worked a hell of lot better, and after going through the patch with my hands...
"Idle hands are the Devil's tools," so it's good to hear that you're staying out of mischief! ;)
It sounds like another great year of gardening, in spite of being busy on other fronts.
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Living on the 11th floor with no garden here.
However, I've got several pots of mixed salad which have lasted all "summer" and a windowsill full of chillies which are just starting to look edible. Mmm... Chillies... Drool etc.
Maybe next year I'll expand my horticultural operations. Maybe plant earlier & in greater quantities.
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Since we sadly lost our cat, Stanley, last year, we've had more birds in the garden this year. Not a bad thing normally (like Wax, I'm a bit of a birder myself), but the little buggers kept nipping off young plants. So I had to plant spinach and beetroot three times - the third time under a net. Also my runner beans and climbing French beans had the tips broken off in a storm and eventually sprouted like crazy. The trouble is they're making more leaf than flower and fruit.
I'm still pretty obsessed with making as much compost as possible.
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This summer we sadly only got to be in our summer cottage for a brief month, so no gardening for us. When we arrived there in mid-July, the weeds were already taller than us. What a sad sight! My wife cleared a spot to plant some pot-grown salad and herbs.
This summer was also exceptionally hot and dry in Finland, so there were practically no berries at all. And this is the first summer ever, when we haven't found a single mushroom in the woods! :'(
Oh well, maybe next year we'll do better.
Happy gardening to all!
Pan
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I love my garden but since Northampton someone got me in to Snooks Eaglin and I have been working through that ^-^
Anyway :D
I am usually not a fruit and veg man in my garden and usually concentrate on my blooms (we do have a plum tree which we will be making lots of Jam with very soon !) , however trying to get decent tomatoes in the UK is a nightmare. (when I say decent I mean like the ones you get from southern Europe that actually taste like tomatoes) The supermarkets are never fresh, even the stuff they leave on vines these days, they are perfectly formed red balls of nothingness. We have to occasional farm shop or "pick your own" farms still they are a bit hit and miss, so I am forced to grow my own tomatoes if I want anything that actually tastes like a tomato.
The summer in the UK started off promising but as the norm of late it has just deteriorated into the mix of sun, rain, wind, cloud, hail and that can be all in one hour.
So my tomato plants were racing skywards and sprouting their fruits up until about early July, but since they have just deteriorated with the weather into a scraggly mess and the fruits are still green one and a half months later with little chance of ripening with the sun only out 5 mins at a time.
I probably need a green house.
Andrew
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I've been debating whether my zucchini belong in the "Giant Hog" thread, but I guess I better put it here (that's a quarter sitting on top). And I used to like zucchini. :P
http://picasaweb.google.com/jtdodson/Garden#5501259057761582626
Tomatoes have been great however -- my cherry tomatoes especially, they went bonkers.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jtdodson/Garden#5501259054912831714
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There goes Slack, bragging again...
A courgette/zucchini is really just a little marrow, so if you leave them on the plant, they grow like crazy.
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I've been debating whether my zucchini belong in the "Giant Hog" thread, but I guess I better put it here (that's a quarter sitting on top).
Now this is a family oriented website, Son. If you can't follow the rules, then you're going to have to post elsewhere. :P
Last year, one of the local mallards got into the zucchini patch. Here's the photographic evidence:
[attachment deleted by admin]
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Here in Scottish climes we've had a bumper year for plums/cherries/rasps/strawberries/red currants and white currants. The tatties were OK but not brilliant. As far as division of labour is concerned, I cut the grass and Maggie does everything else. Oh, we've also got great herbs and, for the first time this year, brilliant coriander. Next stop apples, which look like they're going to be good too! Getting back to the red currants, Bert Deivert was over from Sweden last year and gave us a great recipe for red currant cordial - great with water, better with vodka!
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I'm still pretty obsessed with making as much compost as possible.
PP I can just imagine you doing that.
As for your other interest in watching the birdies, do you dress up for it? Over here there are many fanatical twitchers (as they are known) who invariably walk around on Sunday mornings with huge boots and large green lumpy objects on top of enormous tripods. However there is one bloke who eclipses everything else as he turns out in what looks like any army type camoflage suit at a distance... but when you get close it is actually made to resemble camoflage feathers so when the wind blows his feathers flap - it's true :-\ Needless to say he looks an absolute anatomy and I have yet to see him when I have camera handy, but I live in hope!
Generally though I'm with the Prof as regards gardening, I'll cut grass and do a little light watering!
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Great plum crop for me, been eating them for a couple weeks, but the tomatoes are sad this year. Still hoping for some more extended heat to ripen them up. We bought one plant with two tomatoes already on it - they ripened but we got no further fruit. Other plants we started ourselves are way late with fruit. Apples will be small but edible, but I may have to fight the raccoons for them.
D.
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I'm still pretty obsessed with making as much compost as possible.
PP I can just imagine you doing that.
As for your other interest in watching the birdies, do you dress up for it?
Generally though I'm with the Prof as regards gardening, I'll cut grass and do a little light watering!
Richard you should get into compost! You may develop the same fascination for it that you have (quite rightly) for Casey Bill Weldon.
No I don't dress up (flamin' cheek). I'm not a twitcher either - I keep no lists, but just take a general interest in the countryside around me.
Cutting grass and a little light watering! - You big girl's blouse. Get making some compost!
By the way, it's interesting to note how many Weenies grow a few fruit and veg in an era where everyone is supposed to buy them from the supermarket. Keep growing, Weenies!
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I'll agree with that. Compost is very satisfying. Though sometimes I get odd looks around the hamlet where I live, as I'll scoop up likely-looking earthworms to throw on the compost pile. You could do that too, Richard. :D
It's been a bad year for gardening in the Northeast US. Very hot and very dry. In spite of watering almost every day, we've lost a lot of plants in the garden. Even the ones that love dryness and heat are giving up and burning out. And the generally bad growing conditions have forced deer out of the woods and into town, where they're eating anything that hasn't succumbed to the weather.
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Apples will be small but edible, but I may have to fight the raccoons for them.
You better first get your affairs in order, Dave, 'cause it's a fight you can't win. We have 10+ (7 are kits) that come around and peaceful co-existence seems to be the best that we can hope for.
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Hi all,
A note of caution for any of you who have fruit trees: I was picking our Italian prune (plum) tree today and reaching to my left and the ladder that I was on flipped out from under me. I was fairly high up on it and was quite lucky in my landing--more or less full length on my left side. No broken bones, pretty scratched up on both arms and I think the back of my right calf really struck the ladder hard as I landed. It happened so fast that I had no sense of falling, only hitting the ground.
I had thought I was being very careful in the placement of the ladder. A resident of our town who ran a wine bar that our trio had played at died from a fall from a ladder about three weeks ago. Ginny and I decided to get a proper orchard ladder. They're much more stable. I feel very lucky right now. I guess one thing to bear in mind when you're on a ladder is that too much reaching to one side or the other distributes your weight across a wide space and causes your feet on the ladder to push in the opposite direction from the side you're reaching towards. That's what happened to me. It's much better to move the ladder more frequently than to try to get too much done from one ladder placement. Also, don't assume that grabbing a tree branch will brake your fall. This brittle old tree didn't slow me down a bit, it broke instantly and scratched me up on the way down.
Anyhow, I hope you'll all take special care if working from a ladder under whatever circumstances.
All best,
Johnm
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Hi John:
I'm sorry to hear about this, but glad to know that you didn't get seriously injured. I've been on more than a few ladders in my day, and I'll be the first to admit and agree that there is a tendency to overreach. Stability and safety are paramount, and with it's wider stance, an orchard ladder is the way to go--"The right tool for the job," as the old saying goes.
Take care of yourself and get well soon from your bumps, bruises and scratches.
My Best,
Stuart
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John - you could say that "the ground broke your fall." You are indeed lucky that your fall was the only thing broken, other than perhaps your pride.
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John, glad you're more or less OK, and that it was not worse. Sounds like a nasty fall!
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You lucked out John! One of my friends fell down a stairwell while painting the ceiling above it on a ladder - shattered his elbow on the bannister on the way down, lucky he did not kill himself! Both cheap lessons in ladder safety! glad you are OK!
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Thanks for your good wishes, guys. I'm fully aware how lucky I was, and lay in bed last night thinking about it. A fellow at the coffee shop where I stop on the way out of town told me after I told him about the fall, "That's your mulligan!", so maybe that is my one freebie. I'm certainly not going to look for more of this type.
All best,
Johnm
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Take care of yourself, John and I wish you a speedy recovery.
One of my guitar-playing buddies fell over running for a bus recently. He didn't break anything, but ended up in hospital for over 6 hours and has had delayed concussion since. He's getting better slowly, but it's a frustrating process for him.
Seems like the message is 'be careful' - especially when you get to our kind of age...
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I'm very glad to hear you didn't hurt yourself too badly, Johnm!
A few years ago a friend of mine took one of these new lightweight foldable aluminium ladders out, to climb and fix something on the roof of their house. Unfortunately he forgot to secure and lock the joints of the unfolded ladder, and while he was climbing up, the ladder folded, and he ended up smashing right through their livingroom window along with the folding ladder! Quite miraculously, he came up with only minor cuts and bruises, with all that shattering glass he could easily have been killed!
Needless to say, I always double-check the locks and joints of any ladders nowadays!
I think climbing accidents are among the most common household accident.
Pan
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I'm glad you came out of that ok, John - careful! there's only one of you!
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Ouch John, glad you are ok!
My tree is so low (I try to keep it trimmed well) that 70% of the fruit I can reach without a ladder - also due to the low rock retaining wall beside it. Then I bring out the kitchen stool, which sucks, but is right at hand, then the ladder. I'll keep your incident in mind though.
Dave
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I suggest that we only climb on pentatonic or blues scales!
My best John.
Eric
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Hi all,
We've been waiting for the ground to dry out in Bellingham to do our planting, after over 6 inches of rain in March. After three or four consecutive dry days, I turned six beds this morning, getting a couple of big rocks out of one bed that required some deeper digging. It tuckered me right out in a pleasing way. Ginny already put in potatoes, turnips, beets, carrots and some others, after having planted peas three weeks or so past. It felt good to finally get back into this process.
All best,
Johnm
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John,
The taters are up as are the lettuce and spinach and beets. The rain has been good here in the upstate of SC but it seems a dreaded pattern is starting to reveal itself. The rain seems to stay to our north and track through the mountains around Ashveille then head up to VA. It this happens again it will be the 6th year in a row we deal with a drought. Even gardening organically won't help when the temps rise into the 90's for six or eight weeks and no rain comes. Last year the potatoes went the whole route of growing, flowering and dying by the end of June, not a tater in the ground over the size of a golf ball and precious few of them. The reason? Too hot, too dry.
You are blessed with other weather challenges on the opposite side of the states, but at least you have a shot at a garden. the NOAA forecast for the next several decades for the SE region of the US is for ever drier conditions.
Oh well.
Bob
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I'm sorry to hear that, Bob. It sounds as though the best you can do is plant and hope they're wrong about the long-term prospects of rain. That's a tough one.
All best,
Johnm
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I planted some Numex Twilight chilli seeds in a propagator yesterday. My Thai chillies from last year have survived the winter and fruited constantly since October. Mmm... Chillies... Drool...
Actually, how exactly does one spell Homer's drooling noise?
Discuss.
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I've gardened almost my whole life with some acceptations when I lived in apts for a couple of years. My peppers do extremely well in the hot, dry conditions with some irrigation and I have started growing some Southwestern varieties of corn that do better in drought. Irrigation, drip type is the thing that saves most of my plants. Will be putting out tomatoes beginning this week.
Carol Deppe has a new book about resiliency gardening ( I think that is the title). Good food for thought for climate change rigors that seem to be gripping this region.
Bob
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This is the first Spring in our new house and also, therefore, our first Spring with benefit of a greenhouse.
As of yesterday a dozen seed-grown tomato plants were settled into the greenhouse, along with some Jalapeno and Habanero chilli plants. Not sure whether the latter will thrive even in the greenhouse, but we will see. A couple of cucumbers went in there too and I planted some courgette seeds.
We now have to wait to see what the various soft fruit bushes in the garden actually produce- we won't know what they all are until thjey start to fruit, so it will be a surprise.
I'm also looking into the purchase of preserving jars and a cider press as Im not convinced we'll be able to consume everything that grows fresh!
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Chiles sound like a great idea, guys. We'll have to try that.
All best,
Johnm
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I've got my soil tilled, but nothing in yet. The safest thing to do is to wait until April 15th to avoid a late season freez. so, this coming weekend, I'll plant tomatoes, peppers (bell, jalapeno, maybe habaneros), beans and snow peas. I also use drip irrigation attached to an automatic timer at a hose bib. Very, very dry here in the southwest - farmers will get reduced water, about 1/3, for irrigation this year.
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Hi all,
Hearing Bob and John D. talk about water shortages made me realize how fortunate we have been. For one thing, our water usage is not individually metered, though it would be if we made any renovations to the house. Thinking about it, though, we've had some real drought conditions in recent summers, too. Two summers ago, between the first week of June and the first week of September there was only 8/100ths of an inch of rainfall in Seattle, the driest summer on record there, by an order of magnitude, and barely enough to measure, as you can imagine. People who pooh-pooh the effects of global warming tend not to be people who try to grow things from the earth.
All best,
Johnm
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Hi all,
We've been harvesting lettuce for almost two months now. Ginny had a brainstorm to pick individual leaves off of the lettuces rather than harvesting a head at a time. This method is much easier to process and wash, and it seems like it keeps the lettuce from bolting so soon. We had our best strawberries ever and gallons of raspberries and a lot of black currants. Shelling and snap peas have been coming in, pretty late due to the wet and cold Spring. Carrots, turnips and beets have been great. I never ate a turnip in my growing up years and have found that I love them. Unfortunately, worms do too, so they require a bit of trimming and cleaning. I dug our potatoes a couple of days ago with my bare hands so the potatoes wouldn't be marred. It worked, but I don't think I'll do it again that way, it wasn't too hand-friendly. Kale and Swiss chard have been coming right along, too. Tomatoes are always a bit iffy where we live, it doesn't really get hot enough, but we may get some grape tomatoes later. We planted fava beans for the first time, and harvested just a few. I'd never had them before, they're pretty great, sort of what lima beans aspire to be.
I hope the weather holds the way it is right now for Port Townsend--sunny, high sky, a beautiful breeze and not too hot, probably mid to high 70s.
All best,
Johnm
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All sounds pretty good John.
Our efforts have met with mixed results :(
Potatoes caught blight, though most of them were salvaged early enough and very tasty. Some of our outdoor tomatoes are succumbing too, although the greenhouse ones are doing really well and providing a good ongoing harvest at the moment.
A badger (believe it or not) appears to have dug up most of my carrots, eating some and leaving others to rot! Slugs attacked my courgettes and artichokes, though I now have the courgettes in tubs and should get a decent crop by the end of August. If I can nurse the artichokes through, surrounded by slug pub traps, hopefully they will make it through winter and offer us something next year.
Garlic and onions doing very well- harvest fairly soon.
Lots of rhubarb, late season turnips look hopeful, and a bumper crop of grapes looking good so long as we get autumn sun to ripen them. Biggest success has probably been the two cucumber plants I grew from seed in the greenhouse. They've been fruiting prolifically for a couple of months now and show no sign of slowing down. We've been giving the things away.
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... regretfully I gave up gardening some years ago when both kids hadn't the nerve to go there any more ...
(https://weeniecampbell.com/yabbse/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wirz.de%2Fgrafik%2Fgarden.jpg&hash=ef251a3d00a872a643c53315115fb955cdcf2078)
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Congratulations on another successful garden, John. It sounds like you have quite a variety coming in. By any chance, was the inclusion of fava beans inspired by our man Bo Carter's mention in his song?
For those of you living where the growing season is short--or just want to get an early start, the following link may be of interest. Friends in Montana use have used their clear woven poly product for their greenhouse for a couple of decades with good results.
http://www.northerngreenhouse.com/
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Huge drought in central Texas right now so Slack I'm totally in awe of your success in W.Tx, you must have a good irrigation system, right? I'm happy when I can get cuttings to sprout roots before wilting, and that's with native plants.
I'm kinda into flowers (big hummingbird fan) more than veges these days, after the cutworms wiped out our magnificent squashes the first year. Grrrr! What to do?! Great soil, just too dry. I think I answered my own question, irrigation planning is the key.
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Hi all,
It's kind of late in Summer for a first gardening report on the year, but that's how it goes sometimes. We had nice potato, turnip, fennel, pea and lettuce crops early--also boysenberries, raspberries and rhubarb. Later plantings are coming up well with carrots, a couple of kinds of squash, and many, many beans, mostly shelling beans for drying. Not real good yields from fruit trees this year. I've made a discovery, too--walking into cobwebs, face-first, two or three times a day is not my favorite thing to do. I know they are our friends, keep pest populations down, blah, blah, blah, but they're really pissing me off!
All best,
Johnm
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...I've made a discovery, too--walking into cobwebs, face-first, two or three times a day is not my favorite thing to do. I know they are our friends, keep pest populations down, blah, blah, blah, but they're really pissing me off!
Self-cleaning flypaper, John, self-cleaning flypaper. Watch where you're walking as a lot of work goes into those webs! ;D
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Potatoes were good, and the sweetcorn is doing us well at the moment. Leeks are growing fast.
Broccoli bolted and is no good, but the Sprouts are going to be good for Christmas.
We've had a very good year for apples, a stack of which have been ready early. I spent much of last Saturday crushing and pressing, and have a couple of gallons of cider fermenting nicely in the kitchen!
Big Blackcurrant crop too- a good six months worth of jam in the fridge. Chilis doing well.
Pretty good year all told- though my artichokes were once again a resounding failure.
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great thread!
Here in Israel water is not in abundance and cost quite a bit, so home gardening is not really a viable economic choice. As for a nice way to pass the time, with a set of twin boys now in their fourth year, I really need to insist on having an hour a day to practice my guitar playing, no chance to have a second for gardening work! I am lucky to have the time to check out the wise words you guys are spreading! But man would I love to grow a mahogany tree and send it to Tod Cambio for a little tweaking. once I do that i'll try tomatoes.
be well,
Zohar
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Great to see so many weenies are into gardening. If all goes according to plan we're moving to a farm in the northeast US come April. Building a hoop house for off-season veggies is on the agenda for year 1, along with a lot of other research projects designed to give us enough information & experience to be able to make enough $$ to keep our ag exemption in year 2.
I like the idea of raising pasture-raised pigs, cattle and poultry, among many other opportunities. Cheryl wants to start a serious sheep cheese operation complete with cheese cave. There are enough sugar maples on the property to be able to produce a few gallons of syrup a year. Mushrooms are a lifelong interest of mine so I'll be trying to cultivate woodland varieties like shiitakes, oysters, etc
Plus I will get to bomb around on a big ass tractor with all the gears and hopefully a 4x4 ATV, assuming there's any spare money left by that stage. If there is I daresay it'll all be gone by 2015 but what the heck. :P
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This sounds fantastic...and a cheese cave sounds like something out of my dreams that you have to eat your way out of to escape ;D. Is a hoop house what we would call, on this side of the pond, a polytunnel..ie big metal framed hoops covered in plastic that you can walk into to give crops an early start or protection from wild weather? My own growing is far more modest, having a plot on the outskirts of Edinburgh. Were lucky with a great summer this year though and had loads of soft fruit and the first year that the plums and apples have given us anything. Usual staples of tatties, kale & onions did well too. Am I the only person that can't get Bill Broonzy's 'Digging my Potatoes' out of my head while I'm lifting the tatties?
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Yes Ned, polytunnel = hoop house. Usually, but not always, unheated. The hoops over here tend to be PVC electrical conduit. This has the benefits of cheap material cost, easily available standard fittings like various connectors & clamps etc, tough and easy to work with.
Plus if a chicken happens to rest its eyeball up against a hoop in midwinter it won't immediately freeze and cause the chicken to pull its eye out in its struggle to get free, I understand this has actually happened with metal hoops. Kinda like the story of the ski guy who stuck his tongue out to touch the up-bar of the chairlift and had an uncomfortable centrifugal exit (cue velcro sound effect) at the top of the hill. Yikes. Why would anyone do that anyway? (rhetorical question, no answer required)
We will need two hoop houses, one for extending the veggie season and a second for overwintering chickens that will be out on the pasture the rest of the year. I'm thinking perhaps we should rotate them, so the overwintering chooks fertilize one for veggies the following year.
Intriguingly we also have two large ponds and adjoining wetlands on the property. The ponds are stocked with bluegills, largemouth bass and catfish. I won't know what the pond balance is like until we move in but the current owner has a lot of fishing rods stacked up in the workshop so that's a good sign. I've attached a picture of the upper pond below.
We continue to be very inspired by the writings of Joel Salatin (http://www.polyfacefarms.com/) and Eliot Coleman (http://www.fourseasonfarm.com/). I'm optimistic and realistic at the same time, and am talking to local farmers about this, all of whom have been extremely helpful, human and willing to share their experiences. How refreshing in this day and age, I look forward to becoming involved in the community and reciprocating. Farmers are just regular people with all the diversity that implies.
I like to think we're going into this with eyes wide open and a realistic budget. Year 1 won't be cheap but we will not be under-capitalized either, having been working, saving and investing for several years to get to this point.
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Re. cheese caves and generally aging cheese, this is the most definitive study (https://mail-attachment.googleusercontent.com/attachment/u/0/?ui=2&ik=6a9a12d519&view=att&th=141fb3cd544420bb&attid=0.1&disp=inline&realattid=1450076147423379456-1&safe=1&zw&saduie=AG9B_P9oWZTIu6TcT8mD5CXH_28G&sadet=1383450696048&sads=MrkBZH6zS0GTvoS7quuqdvw9-lE) we've found so far and is well worth reading even if you're not planning to do it anytime soon but are interested nonetheless.
The link contains 56 pages of invaluable information straight from the school of hard knocks.
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Thanks for the links Rivers, but the cheese link doesn't seem to be working. I'll bare what you say about the poly tunnels in mind, if I ever get one. Hadn't realised they could be such a hazard to chickens!
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Could be an urban legend. I'm now leaning toward metal tube.
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Thought I might get this thread going again. Mostly becuase here in the south West UK we had an extremely wet winter and now we are having one of our better summers in memory.
As a consequence, my garden has gone crazy (including weeds). In particular french beans and tomoatoes are going to last sometime. The flowers are amazing but because the hot spell the summer flowers are already going past their best (this would normally start late August for me)
How is everyone else getting on this year ?
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Lots of potatoes, lots of beetroot, lots of broad beans.
Only doing small tomatoes this year, nothing ripe yet. Also doing Tomatillos which are going well.
Artichokes havent really got going, hopefully I can get them to survive the winter and get a crop next year.
Cucumbers keep turning yellow for no obvious reason, which is driving me nuts!
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Hi all,
Our garden seems to get bigger every year. So far, we've had lots of lettuces (Parris Island Cos is a terrific Romaine variety), carrots, beets, turnips, potatoes, kale, cucumbers, onions and chard. Squash, tomatoes, peppers, bush and pole beans are yet to come. The squash plants look like something out of Star Trek--they're huge! Raspberries and boysenberries are coming on.
All best,
Johnm
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Must be nice to have water :(
Done gone fallow this year.
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Six months ago this county was half underwater! Not much rain recently though.
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We had tomatoes until November in 2013. This year my only tomato plant would be easier to smoke.
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Great programme on Channel 4 here in the UK last night - "Amazing Spaces: Shed of the Year". One of the category winners was a wonderful shed housing an artist's studio and a music recording studio. It also had a roof garden with a difference - it was a wonderful "allotment" on which the owner grew loads of vegetables.
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Lots of rain here in the upstate of South Carolina. Veggies and fruits abound. Third crop of sweet corn coming on.
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Saw this earlier--Home grown tomatoes as anti-anxiety meds. Hah! I like it...
"Cook Those Blues Away"
"...I was out talking to the tomato plants this morning, watering them in the still, dank humidity just after dawn, willing them to continue to thrive. It was my intention to have that quiet experience power the rest of the day, to allow the memory to make bearable a workday commute in high-summer New York City. My urban pastoral: tomatoes as anti-anxiety meds..."
--Sam Sifton
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/24/dining/cook-those-blues-away.html
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"Gardening" seems like an apropos topic for posting this link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/nyregion/long-island-vegetable-orchestra.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=mini-moth®ion=top-stories-below&WT.nav=top-stories-below
About half-way down there's a 25-second video of someone playing a vegetable, not to be missed.
If your interest is piqued by that short video, then there are two websites that are calling for you:
http://www.vegetableorchestra.org/index.php (I like the video titled "The Vegetable Orchestra recording the album ONIONOISE".)
https://www.facebook.com/londonvegetableorchestra/
The facebook page seems to have a commercial that uses the London Vegetable Orchestra to sell a brand of refrigerator. I've enough Brit friends to know that it's likely a hoax, but . . .
There's a blues joke somewhere in here, but so far it eludes me.
Lindy
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Maybe not a joke but perhaps a good hokum blues title? "My Potato Lost It's Whistle" :D
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From today's NYT:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/06/07/opinion/sunday/dan-barber-seed-companies.html
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Aii Yii Yii. This has to stop. My immediate concern is neonicotinoid pesticide treatment of seeds, and the specter of untested GMOs. Both are implicated in CCD (colony collapse disorder) that has decimated honey bee populations in "developed" countries. Not to mention other pollinating insects like butterflies.
A neighboring farm grows corn. They seem to have no clue about the reality of what they're planting and what they're spraying (atrazine, glyphosate). Roundup, a glyphosate so-called herbicide, kills bees (https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/new-study-shows-roundup-kills-bees). Atrazine kills everything, including people. GMOs... nobody knows, yet.
It really is incredible how we got to this. I have no answers, only a seething anger at implicit stupidity and greed.
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On a more positive note... :)
We have garlic, planted late fall and covered with hay mulch for the winter, going great guns. It just came up through the hay after the last snow had melted. 100% yield, 72 cloves planted, 72 came up. I'm very pleased about that.
Planted last week alongside the garlic, 75 strawberry bare root plants, a bit late but spring was a long time coming. Not expecting fruits this year, we'll pinch-off the flowers, let them grow and hay mulch for the winter.
Marigolds planted in another row alongside the strawberries. I love marigolds.
12 blueberry bushes went in this week in an artistic zen pattern, random groups of three, mixed varieties in each group.
Earlier we planted 4 chinese chestnut trees in the top terrace to the north. In May I did much pruning of our concorde grape arbor, blackberries and raspberry canes. All was way too late but spring was pretty late as well. I learn more every year and have learned to just get into it.
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I don't know if this film has been mentioned before, but if so, consider this a bump. I ran across "Seed: The Untold Story," checked it out from the library and watched it this evening. Here are a couple of links:
https://www.seedthemovie.com/
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/seed-the-untold-story/
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Update on our place. Hoop houses are still aspirational, but getting closer.
We're totally into mulch gardening, having tons of square-baled hay in the barn. Sad to say dairy farms are going out of business hand over fist in upstate NY. We stashed the hay we'd baled in years 1 to 3 and are deploying them as mulch and shelter / structure around the garden.
Successful plantings this late spring include blueberries, dill, basil, thyme, sage, oregano, corn, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, beans, squash. Picked several pounds of cherries this morning, big fun with the tractor loader. Last fall's garlic plants are not ready to harvest yet but are getting huge.
Bees are going crazy. Added a honey super & queen excluder to the strong hive yesterday. Found small hive beetles in the weaker hive today, which finally explains why it's always been weak I guess. Figuring out treatments, I need to do a full inspection and look at all the frames.
Have built a swarm trap to go up in a big maple on top of the hill, tomorrow or Friday depending on when my posse decides to return to work, I'm very flexible on hours. I have three really good employees, two millennial guys and one older guy. Working very well so far.
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Hi all,
A very good gardening season so far in Northwest Washington. Plants that like cool weather--shelling peas, onions, garlic, lettuces and potatoes have been very happy, since it has been a cool, wet Spring for the most part. This past week had a couple of hot days (for here), in the high 70s and 80s to help the beans and tomatoes, which really like the hot weather. Ginny has found some tomato varieties that thrive out here in recent years, and I used to think you had to live in the East, Midwest or South to be able to grow good tomatoes. Other plants, like squashes, Delicata and Potmarron, are coming along nicely, as are cucumbers. It looks like we'll have a bumper crop of strawberries, too.
Kidding season has been occupying us lately, and we're both pooped. Jasmine had to have a C section, but her buckling, Nugget, is a beauty and a sweet little guy. Last night between 2:00 and 3:00 AM Lulabelle gave birth to a doeling, Nettie Lu, who had a leg back, so it was a strain for Lulabelle, but she came through like a champ in her first kidding. I'll attach a picture of Nugget.
All best,
Johnm
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Congrats on the newborn kids John! A C section and a leg back and at 3am.... exhausting indeed. I'm glad everything turned out A-ok.
Good year here for tomatoes... which is about all I do anymore. I got them in early and we have plenty of hot weather for them... my plants are 6 ft tall and I've harvested a couple of dozen tomatoes so far.
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Thanks, Slack! Wow--6-foot tall tomato plants, you obviously have the right climate for tomatoes in El Paso. And already harvesting them--we're a long way from being there. Do you make sauce or salsa? It sounds like you have enough to do that. Congratulations!
All best,
Johnm
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Johnm, vine ripened tomatoes are like gold... salt and pepper is how I like them (and we have plenty of fresh salsas on the border). I took extras to Marfa for a gathering this past weekend and they do not last long. I do like to make Chow Chow in the fall with green tomatoes if I have them. Most of the sauces I make are pepper based. Salsa macha, made with dried peppers, is a favorite, I have also recently subbed to reddit's r/hotsaucerecipes - which has some very interesting recipes, both fermented and fresh, using a variety of fruit, hot peppers, veggies, spices etc. ... I plan to branch out to some of those.
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Hello Nugget!
Congratulations on the successful gardens all.
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Thanks, Harriet! Our second goat, Lulabelle, kidded Saturday night, around 2:15 AM, a little doeling named Nettie Lu. I"m attaching a photo of mother and daughter. NOTE: For some reason the site software rotates the photos. If you rotate your computer 90 degrees clockwise, you can view the photo as it was taken.
All best,
Johnm
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Thanks for posting Nettle Lu and Mom' picture - I think it displayed correctly on my computer - exciting time for you and Ginny I would imagine.
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Yes, exciting and tiring! I'm not used to the all-nighters. But it's wonderful to be around new life. And these baby goats' coordination develops so quickly, it's amazing. Nugget is a week-and-a-half old and he's tearing around the paddock and jumping up and down off the play structures. In a little bit Nettie Lu will be able to join him in the romps. And then the moms can concentrate on eating.
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1977 or 78 I was working on a project in a small farming community in Eastern Washington. A couple of friends I made owned a sweet little goat ranch, about 20 acres in the foothills of the Cascades.
They came into some inheritance money and decided to treat themselves to a late winter canoe trip in a warm place. They asked me to take care of the property, warning me that three of their goats would likely give birth while they were away. But they said 99 times out of a 100 the goats take care of everything on their own and wouldn’t need my help except to clean up the mess and make sure the mama had access to water laced with some iodine.
This Staten Island born-and-raised 20-something, who never had a pet growing up, had to deal with a 1-percenter, 2 or 3 in the morning, during a howling blizzard, near-zero temperature. Same as Lulabelle, her kid had one or both hind legs bent backwards/sideways, and mama was screaming in pain.
My friends had warned me, “And sometimes you just have to reach in there and pull ‘em out.” What a mess! I had to somehow secure mama so she wouldn’t thrash all over the place.
That’s enough detail — believe it or not, youtube has many vids of goats giving birth if you need a visual aid. Mama survived, kid survived, somehow I kept the contents of my stomach down. Thankfully the other two births didn’t require anything on my part.
A great memory for a city boy.
Lindy
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Wow, I don't envy you that experience, Lindy. That was a kind of cavalier thing for your friends to do, leaving you in the lurch like that, with no previous experience. I'm glad it turned out okay, but time sure slows down in those circumstances, doesn't it?
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I never felt that way, John. Of course, I’m leaving out lots of details, like my friends giving me the phone number of a neighbor who was also raising goats, in case I needed help. But she lived 10 miles away, and I wasn’t up to rousting her out of bed in the middle of the night and asking her to drive in whiteout conditions.
Something else I learned during my time in that community: ranchers, farmers, their kids, and their kids’ friends see death on a regular basis, and have a different attitude toward it.
I need to be careful about making sweeping statements — goat ranchers have different ways of relating to their animals than beef cattle ranchers, and family farmers react to animal deaths way differently from corporate farmers. But overall, reactions to losing animals in small family farm communities are very different from what most of us are accustomed to. One of many lessons I learned there.
Lindy
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Yep it's a different world out here on the farm. We had somewhat romantic notions before landing here. We soon found out that everything is trying to eat everything else, and/or steal their food. That includes foxes slaughtering the poultry, goats eating your herb garden, chickens eating the ducks' food, etc etc. It's frickin' endless.
You need a totally warped sense of humor, so I'm very fortunate in that respect.
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This year I decided it was time to extend the short growing season up here in the NE USA so I resolved to build module #1 of a high tunnel. Then I realized there was no flat ground on our south-facing hillside where I could put it. We went ahead and built it anyway, it's been lashed to the big barn for the last two months. It's 14 ft W x 16 ft L x 11 ft H
Meanwhile I've been working on leveling a good spot for it to live. This required construction of what has become known around here as "The Great Retaining Wall of China". My retaining wall construction knowledge was zero when we started so I did a lot of research and quickly became more confused than I already was.
The wall is now almost complete, the plot will be level and the high tunnel set in two weeks or so. All earlier germinations we've been transplanting to bigger pots for easy management, a strategy I totally recommend if you're behind schedule as we gardeners often are.
I'll try to remember to post some pics when it's all set up.