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#150994 - 06/02/11 12:29 AM Re: Garden 2011 [Re: hikerduane]
Jimshaw Offline
member

Registered: 10/22/03
Posts: 3983
Loc: Bend, Oregon
hail, hail and lows around freezing still (in June!), then snow, since the end of January - this is a high desert... confused Green houses are popping up all over town, or at least here in DRW Deschutes River Woods - if you wondered where all the hippies that moved to Oregon from the Haight Ashbury went - its here. cool Everyone has dreadlocks and goes barefoot and bare breasted grin - not. But its way "COUNTRY" here, and very laid back, and just very counter culture, in fact there isn't any culture, they keep it all down in San Francisco. smile half the people have chickens wink

Well anyway soon I'll post photos but I'm waiting for the next set of plants to bloom, the ones that grow a whole plant before flowering. Today all the flowers where surrounded by hail mulch.

Jim
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These are my own opinions based on wisdom earned through many wrong decisions. Your mileage may vary.

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#151101 - 06/04/11 04:07 PM Re: Garden 2011 [Re: Jimshaw]
billstephenson Offline
Moderator

Registered: 02/07/07
Posts: 3917
Loc: Ozark Mountains in SW Missouri
The weather has been weird here this year too. We've went from 60º highs to mid 90º in a week. From drenching rains to not a cloud to be seen.

This morning I went down into the forest to check on my potato patches and took a few photos with my phone of them and all the wildflowers I found in bloom. You can view them here...

Photos #10 and #11 show a type of plant we have here that responds to touch. In #10 you'll see the leaves open, and in #11 you'll see the ones I've touched closed up. I think it's a relative of Mimosa, but I'm not sure of that.

I think you'll see Camomile, and I know there is Wild Mint in there, along with wild rose (a rugosa I think) and one of them is of my potatoes in bloom wink
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#151103 - 06/04/11 05:06 PM Re: Garden 2011 [Re: billstephenson]
hikerduane Offline
member

Registered: 02/23/03
Posts: 2124
Loc: Meadow Valley, CA
Potatoes in bloom? Mine have not shown their shoots yet.

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#151165 - 06/06/11 05:50 PM Re: Garden 2011 [Re: hikerduane]
scottyb Offline
member

Registered: 05/28/08
Posts: 278
Loc: Texas Hill Country
We had fresh tomato BLT's last night. Picked these yesterday. Sun Golds, San Marzano's, Early Girls, and Better Boys. Beef steaks and Beefmasters are loaded will be ready soon.



Edited by scottyb (06/06/11 05:53 PM)
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Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.... Pericles (430 B.C)

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#151319 - 06/10/11 11:16 PM Re: Garden 2011 [Re: scottyb]
billstephenson Offline
Moderator

Registered: 02/07/07
Posts: 3917
Loc: Ozark Mountains in SW Missouri
Man those look delicious!!

My tomato plants are growing like crazy right now. I have to get out there tomorrow and set up some more stakes to tie them up. There are a few plants that have fruit just starting. Could be eating some in few more weeks smile

I'm going to cut the last of my Cauliflower tomorrow, and harvest some more snap peas. The Cauliflower has done pretty good, and comes in just a bit later than the Broccoli, so next year I'll at least double my plantings of those.

I cut the heads of the Broccoli, but didn't take out the plant. I'd read that some varieties will start new, smaller heads after you cut the first one, and sure enough, they're starting to do that. We'll see how big they get, but that's a bonus!

The cucumber plants are just starting to take off, but they've been slow going so far. A couple of them are short and stunted looking, and they're already starting to flower. I'm not sure how they'll end up doing, but I also have some just starting to sprout now too, so I'm hoping I'll get a succession of harvest that will last longer than last years. I couldn't pick them or pickle them fast enough last year, and then they were mostly gone.

My Dill and Asparagus are looking awesome so far. I've got one dill that's over 3ft tall now from a transplant that we bought, and the seeds I planted from Dill I grew last year are really starting to take root and grow now, so it should be ready to harvest with the cukes for making pickles.

The Asparagus keeps sending up new shoots. It's really hard not to taste any of them, but I'll hold out til next year and let them get as good a start as possible.

I've got some lettuce going to seed now. I'm going to try and save more seeds this year. I never did find any Cucumber seeds at the stores this year, and had to split what I had left from years past with one of my neighbors because she couldn't find any either. I've been accused of being a bit of a hoarder, but I'm sure glad I saved those seeds laugh

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#151320 - 06/10/11 11:48 PM Re: Garden 2011 [Re: hikerduane]
billstephenson Offline
Moderator

Registered: 02/07/07
Posts: 3917
Loc: Ozark Mountains in SW Missouri
Duane, only a few of them are blooming.




Someone here told my wife that if you harvest the potatoes two weeks after they plants bloom, they will start another round of potatoes growing. I'm not sure what variety they grew, but they claimed they grew a lot of them like that last year.

Mine don't usually produce much. Down in the forest below our house I've made a couple 15x15 foot patches by piling up leaf mulch about a 10 inches thick and letting it set all Fall and Winter. Then I cut the seed potato, pull back the mulch and scrape a little dirt loose and set the potato, eye up, on the dirt and cover it back up with the mulch.




I don't water those patches at all. I go down there the 2nd week of July and take whatever I can find. Last year I suppose I got less than a couple bushels, most of them smallish.

This year I also planted some in between the raised beds in my garden. I've had ground leaves piled up there for about 3-4 years now and I'm hoping to get a little bigger potato out of those, but I planted them weeks later than I should have, so I'm not sure what I'll end up with.

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#151321 - 06/11/11 12:12 AM Re: Garden 2011 [Re: billstephenson]
hikerduane Offline
member

Registered: 02/23/03
Posts: 2124
Loc: Meadow Valley, CA
Bill, that's not bad for such little work. Have you dumped any manure from your "kids" on your patches? I never heard about harvesting potatoes then waiting for a second crop. I've always gathered new potatoes for a meal when I wanted. Looks like over 80% of my corn has come up, a fair stand. The potatoes are coming out and the beans are cracking the surface. It's finally gotten in the 70's here.

My gopher traps are AWOL, a fox or neighbor dog may have packed them off. Raccoon too maybe. I got my fence charger, so after Friday night pizza, I hooked it up, checked for weeds under the bottom wire, and fixed a couple spots where something came thru, then plugged it in. Works, or at least the light blinks and your can hear it clicking like they do.

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#151336 - 06/11/11 12:05 PM Re: Garden 2011 [Re: hikerduane]
billstephenson Offline
Moderator

Registered: 02/07/07
Posts: 3917
Loc: Ozark Mountains in SW Missouri
Quote:
Have you dumped any manure from your "kids" on your patches?


The patch in the photo, and the plants in the garden are in leaf mulch only, but both have been setting for a several years, so it's broken down and composted, and it really softened up the earth below it, and I've added new mulch each year to them as well.

The photo of the plant in bloom is actually in straw and burro manure that I piled up in late Summer and let sit until early Spring for two years in a row now. Last year the earth under it was still a bit hard, but this year it was soft and there were a lot of worms working it. I'm hoping it will produce better this year than last, but I haven't done any checking to see what's under it yet.

In my garden, I actually dug and loosened the soil about 6 inches deep beneath the mulch and buried my seed potato about 3 inches deep. I really didn't even expect them to sprout at all with a foot of mulch on top of that, but most all the plantings did. What I don't know is where I'll find the potatoes. I've never buried them like that before, so I'm not sure it the new potatoes will grow on top of the dirt and just under the mulch like they do in the other patches, or if they'll actually grow under the surface of the dirt.

When I first dug the trenches to make my raised beds I dug all the decent top soil up. There was only about 12 inches of hard dirt, so that's how deep the trenches were before I started filling them with leaf mulch. Under that dirt was rock hard clay and and rock and grit. It was as poor as any soil I've seen anywhere.

As I've said, I've filled the trenches every year since for about 4 years now. When I planted those potatoes this year I dug through the mulch down to the dirt which is now soft and black and rich, and full of worms, and is about 6-8 inches deep before it hits that hard clay again. It's still got a lot of rocks in it, but it's good dirt. The worms came when I put the mulch there and they've done an amazing job of enriching that soil. I figure in another year or two I'll take some of the dirt out of the trenches and make another row of raised bed with it.

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#151351 - 06/11/11 03:26 PM Re: Garden 2011 [Re: billstephenson]
hikerduane Offline
member

Registered: 02/23/03
Posts: 2124
Loc: Meadow Valley, CA
A lot of work to get where you are then.

Found my traps, my neighbor had hung them up in my apple tree, so they got reset last night using my flashlight. Nothing in them this morning.

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#153257 - 07/30/11 11:06 PM Deer jumping thru the fence [Re: hikerduane]
hikerduane Offline
member

Registered: 02/23/03
Posts: 2124
Loc: Meadow Valley, CA
I got home for the week barely, had some minor vision issue just before I got home. Anyway, with one eye shut, I could see straight. As I was carrying stuff inside from my car, I had to of course check the garden out. Whoa! What happened here? My electric fence was down in two spots. I spent 10 minutes getting it back up and found a third spot where I'm guessing a deer exited thru the fence at a lower spot. My neighbor today told me she heard something like a bleating goat one day. May have been the deer caught in the wire. That oughta teach em. No damage to plants in the garden.

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#156258 - 10/24/11 07:52 AM Re: Garden 2011 [Re: billstephenson]
scottyb Offline
member

Registered: 05/28/08
Posts: 278
Loc: Texas Hill Country
Well the bees are doing well and the tomatoes and jalapenos survived the worst drought and hottest summer ever recorded. There will not be any honey this 1st year and I have been using 35# of sugar for syrup every two weeks to get these new hives going. In a normal year it should not have been necessary beyong the 1st month or so.

Tomatoes are setting again and now it's a race to beat the 1st frost. Jalapenoes are loaded and I picked about a gallon of them yesterday. We got 3" of rain a couple weeks ago, bringing the yearly total to 7.6". Normal to date is 26". Long range forecast is for La Nina to continue through the winter and spring, which usually means below average rainfall for us.
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Just because you don't take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you.... Pericles (430 B.C)

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#156260 - 10/24/11 08:38 AM Re: Garden 2011 [Re: scottyb]
hikerduane Offline
member

Registered: 02/23/03
Posts: 2124
Loc: Meadow Valley, CA
No frost here in the mts of N CA, getting tomatoes good now, dug potatoes on Sunday. Should get my rotortiller from the shop today, they replaced some belts on my 11 year old Troybilt Pony. Thai Hot peppers are turning red, just need to get the nerve to put some in something now. smile
The electric fence only deterred deer most of the summer, not something that keeps them out of the garden and away frm my fruit trees totally.
Duane

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#156415 - 10/27/11 10:07 PM Re: Garden 2011 [Re: hikerduane]
billstephenson Offline
Moderator

Registered: 02/07/07
Posts: 3917
Loc: Ozark Mountains in SW Missouri
Well, I got a bunch of green tomatoes to bring in, and a bunch of jalapenos, but I'm holding out til the next frost. We had a little rain here, so that should help the `maters grow a bit more and cool down the peppers.

I've been neglecting the garden again. The heat of summer kicks my butt every time and I'm just not as inspired to get out there in the Fall. That's backpacking season! laugh
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"You want to go where?"



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#157248 - 11/11/11 09:33 PM Re: Garden 2011 [Re: hikerduane]
billstephenson Offline
Moderator

Registered: 02/07/07
Posts: 3917
Loc: Ozark Mountains in SW Missouri
A couple days ago I gathered three full plastic grocery bags of tomatoes, mostly green, but a few ripe ones too, and another bag filled with Jalapenos. Plus a few more green peppers and I even found some potatoes to boot. Probably close to 30 lbs of produce all told.

The tomatoes are a real blessing since we didn't harvest any at all this Summer. I don't know what I'm going to do with all the Jalapenos. I think I'll just puree them and put them in zip-locks and freeze them for now.

Plus, I went out there today just to pull some weeds and I found a mess of new lettuce growing from seed cast off from what I'd planted this spring, and some tiny dill plants sprouting too. That's way cool! I'll get at least one more salad out of that lettuce and I'll cut the baby dill and dry it for our spice shelf. Both of those should start growing again early next Spring too.

The soil in the garden is better than ever. It's so loose and rich. I'm really kind of stunned at how much it's improved again this year. All that leaf mulch from last Autumn has been worked in by the plants and worms and it's getting close to as good as I've ever seen anywhere. Next year should be pretty good again.

I still have about 24 quarts of pickles in the fridge. We've given dozens away too. I gave three quarts to Ulhiker's wife. One when I met her about a month ago, and two more when Ulhiker and I met to go hiking. (I'm pretty sure she's hooked now wink

Since I can't hike for the next week or so, (deer season starts tomorrow) I'll spend it cleaning up the yard and garden. I mowed the front yard today. Last time I'll do that this year, and gathered a trailer full of leaves and branches that had fallen. I'll grind them into mulch to cover the garden in a couple more weeks and with that the season will be over.

Except... I might put a visqueen row cover over that lettuce. It's possible that some more seed might sprout there and I'd love to see how long I can keep it growing. I've never tried that before, but that lettuce is looking strong smile



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"You want to go where?"



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#157395 - 11/14/11 01:35 PM Re: Garden 2011 [Re: billstephenson]
hikerduane Offline
member

Registered: 02/23/03
Posts: 2124
Loc: Meadow Valley, CA
When I finally put my garden to bed for the season a few weeks ago, I threw onto my compost pile, half a wheel barrow of green and partially frost damaged ripe tomatoes. The yard is done for the season as of a week ago, with leaves raked up and all. I'll have to climb my cottonwood that is close to the garden and prune it back again as well as an Alder and willow that are casting too much shade on my garden. The service that keeps the lines clear of trees for the power company was in our neighborhood last week and left firewood here and there. One neighbor sent me an email and said I could have the wood on his property that was left. Just what I need, more firewood. I have about a three year supply now.
Duane

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