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Post by littleminnie on Jan 2, 2014 14:21:59 GMT -5
I know this doesn't apply to everyone but I only work two days per week all year 'round. Then from April to late November I garden/market about 40 hours per week. So this time of year I don't have much to do from Tuesday-Friday. LOL. What do you other farmers do in winter?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 2, 2014 16:02:31 GMT -5
My main harvests are finished about mid-October. After that I clean fields, and glean, and do fall tilling and planting until mid-November. After that I thresh, winnow, and clean seeds and do germination testing through December. Then I do seed swaps until about March. During December and January I test popcorn, and clean it and measure moisture content to get it ready for the farmer's market in May.
I start peppers in January. I start potatoes and tomatoes in February.
This year I am trying winter-sowing in micro-greenhouses and weed-free potting mix. I haven't decided yet if I want to put them in full sunlight on the south side of the house or in part-day sunlight. Any feedback?
I write. I read. I visit friends and family. I do maintenance on the equipment. I take care of the honey-do's that were put off during the growing season. I go on simple trips (since it's hard to afford even the gas money).
The time I go stir-crazy is in March and April. It's too cold/muddy to do much in the garden and I have to wait for things to warm up, and I've finished all the honey-do's, and I can't go visiting cause I need to take care of the transplants.
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Post by blueadzuki on Jan 2, 2014 18:43:11 GMT -5
Being blessed with neither a climate that allows for early planting or even early maintience (it's a little difficult to turn over the soil and prep it when it's frozen solid)nor a decent indoor setup (I techically have a growing table down in the basement, but the thing is so old rickety and unreliable it usually does more harm to the plants than good (and even when it sort of works okay, I still usually wind up with plants too long and etiolated to last until they can go out (or survive the transplant if they do). So most of the winter is pretty fallow time for me. The once thing I CAN plant (and so do) in the winter are the non-garden things, like the tropical stuff (which usually has to stay in pots anyway so I can yank it back in when it gets cold again). I also use it to get the trees started, since they also tend to do better if they go in as treelets and saplings rather than seeds (especially anything whose seed is large enough or tasty enough to otherwise be attractive to squirrels or birds (where doing it indoors is usually the ONLY way to have a chance of getting a tree going). Other than that, it's mostly passive prep; stocking up on supplies for the spring (like pots and peat plugs)while they are off season (and cheap). doing headcounts of how much of each prospective seed I have, checking that it is still good (I don't have enough of most of my seed to really do germination tests the way I should, but I can at least check to see that anything that has gone moldy or dried out (for things that aren't supposed to, like allium bulbs or potato tubers) gets tossed before it ruins the rest. Planning out what is going where (with my limited space, every last seed's postion has to be put down precisely to maximize space use, run spot checks on the few things (like garlic) that actually DO stay out over the winter and so on.
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Post by tippler on Jan 2, 2014 22:00:50 GMT -5
I have a simple double T-8 fixture with strawberry plants growing from some supposedly large strawberries I got off ebay. Givin the source, I'm keeping my expectations low. But it does let me at least grow SOMETHING while its snowy outside. I'm getting my first blossoms on my biggest plant now. I didn't know if I'd get strawberries until they were outside, so thats kinda cool. I also have a growing pineapple top under the end of the light, and I sprouted a bush bean for the heck of it. The bean is also currently blossoming. I had also planted a few pole bean seeds and they didn't sprout, so I'm not sure whats up with that. I was thinking if they blossomed I could do a cross and have that crossed seed for spring. Guess not. Thats ok though, I found cooler varieties to cross than what I currently have anyway. At least I now know I can do crosses in the winter in the future and it'll likely work, which will cut time way down on bean breeding projects. I didn't know if cheap t-8s would have enough power to do anything more than keep them alive. I'm going to get more lights and set up a rack before next winter. Next winter I'll probably also try to winter some tomato plants as well. I've read that a tomato plant can live for years, but only the new growth will have fruit. So I'm going to cut it way back before potting so the new growth isn't on the end of a 10 ft vine. Who knows, maybe I'll end up with the earliest biggest tomatoes around my area. There are probably unforeseen reasons why it wont work, but its mostly just something to do in the winter for fun.
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Post by rowan on Jan 2, 2014 23:35:15 GMT -5
Even though I can grow things all year round here I don't sow seed in winter because it all bolts as soon as the warmth hits in spring - before I get a chance to harvest it, and the weeds aren't growing so there isn't much work to do just harvesting for markets. Since the work is so slow in winter I use the time to visit people for a few weeks and I also make some money with internet jobs such as writing product descriptions for websites. I really enjoy the holiday. This is the time for hobbies such as scambaiting and fur tanning and some of the other interests I have that I can't get time to do at other times.
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Post by steev on Jan 3, 2014 21:00:24 GMT -5
This being a very droughty year, my normal Winter activities are much curtailed. Usually, I'd have cleared beds, tilled a couple times for weed control, planted winter grains and such, pruned and sprayed, perused the garden porn and ordered lots of seed, and be looking to Spring grains and crops. As it is, only the tree-care and Spring plantings are even making sense, (although I've cleared much and tilled once), and the planting is going to be much restricted, not buying much seed at all. I'll certainly be planning much more rigorously than is my habit, as I really think I'll only run the irrigation when I'm on-site, as I've got to manage the water I have very carefully, to safeguard the pump. This is the first year I've seen NO snow on the western peaks at New Year (what little there was has long-since melted).
Having a bountiful store and supply of mulch is certainly going to be valuable to put to use this year; wish I had as bountiful a source of poultry-poo; well, one can wish in one hand...
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Post by templeton on Jan 4, 2014 8:41:54 GMT -5
Unlike many of you other folk my gardening is an indulgence - my failures just mean I nick off from work early to set them right. My climate is a bit like Rowans, with no snow, and only a slight slow down over winter. I'm looking forward to a bit of a slowdown over midsummer - spring crops have finished, and the deluge of harvest is yet to begin. The last week of SH summer holidays has been spent drying down spring grown pea seed, and collecting lettuce seed, and I'm just starting to do tomato crosses. I'm toying with the idea of selling seed. The last couple of days I've been documenting all my pea cross growouts in front of cricket on the TV - lucky cricket is such a slow sport! Picking apricots and berries, watering from time to time (we've got a lovely cool summer, which relieves the stress a bit).
Winter for me is only a mild slow down - autumn pea trials need to be assessed dried down and packaged, compost turned, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant melon, squash seed packets sorted, shuffled, dismissed, re-assessed, late orders from NH suppliers made, slightly later visits to the barber to set straight the torn tufts of hair when I realise there is no room for everything I've been sent, seedlings started and nursed in July, lettuces and greens and late-sown root seedcrops weeded and maintained, And reality intervenes and my cash job needs some heavy maintenance...
Minnie, do you get snow cover/freeze where you are? T
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 4, 2014 19:39:32 GMT -5
As Steev says, it's been too dry to farm this winter so lots of work has been put off. I'm sure it will be hectic later!
So, I've been sorting seeds, I spent 30 days knitting and sewing. I've actually made 3 quilts this season! I'm working my way through the "Bread Baker's Apprentice". I've been playing with all the flour corn making new things.
I'm still cleaning seeds. Today Leo and I went out to the back 9 and started pulling out the fall beds. It's been so dry, I was reluctant to pull anything. I guess I shouldn't have watched "Dust Bowl", it scared the heck out of me. Tomorrow we'll start pruning
Besides cooking, I've down some serious cleaning and sorting in the barn. Still tons more to do. I have 15 days left before it's time to start seeds again. The next few weeks I'll be sending out seed to anyone who requested seed from me. (Cortona, still waiting for your seeds to come from the company).
I actually spent some time visiting with friends and hope to squeeze in one more dance concert and short travel trip before I'm trapped here till July!
My lettuce and spinach froze this year (along with the citrus), so I had to BUY greens today. So I went to the farmer's market!
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Post by ferdzy on Jan 5, 2014 9:44:04 GMT -5
Just reading Holly's activities makes me tired. Me, I have to admit: I've been playing an awful lot of Fallen London, in between inventorying the seeds and drawing up a plan, and making a list of what I want to order in the way of seeds. Which is more than you would think a person with 4 large cookie tins full of seeds should be ordering. But seeeeeeeeeds!
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Post by richardw on Jan 5, 2014 12:48:48 GMT -5
Winter is the wettest time of year here and light snowfalls happen most winters,though last winter there was none,deep falls(20cm)which we can except about once every three years normally disappear in open areas within a few days.So our climate doesn't totally restrict access to the garden but its more of a real slow down period,there's about a 6 week where there is little or no growth so this is the time i like to dig up of the carrots and parsnips,sorting out the ones to go straight back in for seed,for this job i like wait till periods of NW winds off the mountains it helps dry the soil out enough to make the job a bit more pleasant,other times its too muddy to go anywhere near the garden apart from maybe needing to get a carrot or a parsnips,,pick a few kale leaves to add to a salad,all other salad greens are in tunnelhouse or growing wild in the orchard
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Post by synergy on Jan 5, 2014 17:13:39 GMT -5
12540dumont pay attention to that worry, these stalling and disruptive air currents with these weather systems may be the new norm . I like Steevs acquisition of mulch and I should think a little resourcefulness he might make some contacts , a hatchery perhaps where he can get free chicken manure . Besides animals and kids , I have an almost addictive vice developing , thrift shopping ,even once a week is bordering on addiction . I can garden in linen, silk, furs and real pearls cheaper than I can buy a polar fleece retail. I am sort of wondering what is crazier, people paying retail and discarding this stuff or me buying it to wear to the barn and garden in.
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Post by copse on Jan 5, 2014 18:19:49 GMT -5
Last time I went into a thrift shop (i.e. Salvation Army) here in New Zealand, some of the prices were higher than buying fresh unused items would have been down the road. Maybe I should have tried haggling with them.
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Post by ozarklady on Jan 5, 2014 19:10:53 GMT -5
In winter, I enjoy reading catalogs, catching up on forums and in general learning more for next season. I also enjoy ordering new things to try next year.
You have to know your thrift shops here, at one: clothing is higher than the retail stores, but other items are really cheap deals; in another one: most everything is a dollar, so that is good, but they don't seem to have much inventory on hand.
Hey, if you enjoy wearing something to work in, and can afford it, used or otherwise, then go for it! That is like, "don't save the good china, use it now!"
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Post by littleminnie on Jan 5, 2014 19:15:21 GMT -5
I have been watching way more tv and movies. We got a Roku system and Netflix and Amazon Prime. Quite a waste of time.
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Post by steev on Jan 5, 2014 21:58:47 GMT -5
Feh; this is supposed to be "mud-season", but it's "dust-season"; when my neighbors to the south and west drive on their road, it's a rooster-tail cloud behind them. It's gotten to the point that I check the breeze direction before doing some jobs, to keep from breathing dust.
There is literally nothing sprouting anywhere on the farm that hasn't been irrigated within the past month.
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