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Post by mskrieger on Apr 27, 2020 13:15:11 GMT -5
I really wish I'd been able to move to the farm already; being in the over-crowded Bay Area makes me a tad fearful of "buying the farm". The odds of catching it outside are apparently a lot lower than indoors. So I think your odds are pretty low, friend. But take care when shopping!
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Post by mskrieger on Apr 23, 2020 17:56:44 GMT -5
Glad to hear you guys are alright, at least. I actually work in a university medical school and hospital. I live in the part of Connecticut directly adjacent to New York. And I can tell you, this pandemic is no hoax. There's lots of people dying, lots and lots of people getting really, really sick. The university hospital I work for isn't overwhelmed, but it's been all hands on deck for more than a month now. Way more ventilators in use than ever before. People dying every day who seemed pretty healthy two weeks before. I can guess that a lot fewer death certificates say "heart disease" or whatnot because everyone with a weak heart etc. who gets covid dies. But the death rate in general is much, much higher than normal. And that's with everyone who can staying home, and those who can't are all wearing masks and staying far away from others as much as possible. Stay safe and stay well, and count yourself lucky if you live in a lightly populated part of the world and don't know anybody personally affected by this virus.
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Post by mskrieger on Feb 20, 2020 13:39:50 GMT -5
I'm all about the dual purpose ducks, myself.
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Okra
Jan 27, 2020 12:30:05 GMT -5
Post by mskrieger on Jan 27, 2020 12:30:05 GMT -5
Never grown Okra. Have a packet of Mike's grex. Anyone preserve Josephs strain? Hey William, In my experience, okra isn't hard to grow unless you really, truly lack heat. I suspect in your garden it will do fine, from what you say about your weather. I have dry gardened it in a dry year and it just keeps on truckin', much like cowpeas. If you want to buy a big diversity of seeds and start your own grex, check out Southern Exposure Seed Exchange www.southernexposure.com/categories/okra/ they've got a huge assortment of okra varieties.
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Post by mskrieger on Jan 27, 2020 12:19:36 GMT -5
Just went through the seed for this coming season and I have am very excited to finally have an F1 growout using seeds saved from the best tasting melons over 3 seasons of trial! (Actually from 5 years tho--in 2018 the weather was terrible and then the squash overgrew all the other cucurbits, and one year I was super pregnant and didn't manage to plant my melons. Was too busy growing two other little melons ). My longterm plan is continually grow a landrace and save seed from the best tasting fruit, but this is the first season I'll actually be growing from my home grown seeds. Wish me luck!
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Post by mskrieger on Dec 3, 2019 14:29:36 GMT -5
Saturday, going over the pass to the farm, there were sleet-balls falling; that continued well into the night; Sunday morning it was 3" deep OTF, all Sunday into noon Monday there was light rain, but still patchy fluffy ice all over. Fairly impressive at <1200'. At first I read that at 3 feet of sleet balls. And I was like darn straight that's impressive!
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Post by mskrieger on Dec 2, 2019 17:07:28 GMT -5
Sleet and snow and freezing rain, all the good stuff. I finally made time to plant the garlic Sunday midday, just as it began to hail. If it weren't for impending doom/inclement weather, I might never have gotten around to it...
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Post by mskrieger on Dec 2, 2019 17:04:25 GMT -5
I tried the less ripe Long of Naples squash. It weighed in at 39lb, truly a "monster piece of plant genitalia" as a friend referred to it. It had an amazingly thick (3 inches+) layer of flesh. Sadly the chunk I tried in the oven was not ripe enough to bake well; got a lot of watery juice and some stringy flesh with no flavor. However, the rest of it has been keeping well in the cold room, and it cooks up into very pleasant flavored zucchini style dishes (but bright orange color!) The other Long of Naples (equally enormous) has been turning that butternut color in storage and I hope it will have better flavor when baked. Meanwhile, I cooked up one of the large Seminole that had a spot of rot and it was really quite good, good enough that the toddlers were scooping bits of it up with their fingers to eat right out of the shell (let it sit in the oven all night after we turned the heat off, and the edges caramalized a bit.) Made a delicious pie with Carol Deppe 's recipe. I haven't tasted the single Violino Rugosa squash we got. A few spots on it appear to have something like brown resin drips? But no soft spots or rot. Its skin is quite rough but not wrinkled. I'm curious to taste it.
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Post by mskrieger on Oct 17, 2019 10:59:05 GMT -5
True seeding for transplant is safer steev, but I'd argue that transplanting reduced the plants' ability to deal with subsequent drought. Directed seeded melons are pretty drought tolerant otherwise. If imgrimmer can manage it, I'd say direct seed dry, unsoaked seed. Then irrigate thoroughly (1" or a little more), then wait for them to sprout; then water thoroughly one inch once/week if there is no rain. Once the seedlings have a couple real leaves, they will have good enough root systems to not need irrigation except under extreme circumstances (assuming from imgrimmer's location that he's in a place that is generally well watered, drought being relative).
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Post by mskrieger on Oct 17, 2019 10:53:25 GMT -5
In the middle of a beautiful nor'easter, skies grey, leaves crimson and golden flying everywhere. Trees down here and there. About 2" of rain fell last night, typical for such a storm. However today is two days past average first frost and we have, once again, not had a frost, nor is one predicted yet. Harvested 8 red ripe peppers two days ago and stuffed them, and it looks like we might have more yet to come!
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Post by mskrieger on Oct 17, 2019 10:46:58 GMT -5
Hey william pretty sure the seeds will still be viable from the moschata, as long as the fruit was ripe. I have volunteer squash every year from fruits that get missed and spend our harsh freeze/thaw winter on the open ground. I haven't tasted any of my home grown squash yet--I've become convinced it takes 6 weeks after harvest for moschata and maxima to develop their flavor potential. I did figure out what that super aggressive, productive moschata in my garden was: Seminole. It produced fruits much larger than the last time I grew it (which was in a compromised location with worse soil.) I didn't find the flavor that great the first time but I guess my thinking was that I'd plant a single hill and hope it would share its vigor and productivity with the rest of the moschata in subsequent generations. We'll see how well that pans out. Meanwhile, I have a truckload of Seminole squash to eat, as well as two absolutely enormous Long of Naples and a single Violino Rugosa. Joseph Lofthouse I'm giving some of your maximoss seed to friends who suffer terribly from squash vine borer. I'll have them report back on the success/failure of the growout next year. I know you don't have the bug where you are. You may not need to do too much tinkering--the maximoss I grew last year didn't seem to suffer from borer at all (though my yard is not a hotbed of it.)
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Post by mskrieger on Sept 26, 2019 7:53:50 GMT -5
Hi william, sounded from the weather thread that you harvested this weekend, but my advice would be: tomatoes don't develop good flavor at those temperatures, so by all means bring them inside and let the greens ripen on the vine indoors where it's warmer. Squash might still be growing sllloooowwwwwllllyyyy at those temps if the soil is still warm. And obviously cool weather greens and roots will be happy. Dig potatoes if your root celler is cold enough (digging potatoes in October is miserable. The CEO of a corporation I used to work for told me once that growing up in Scotland, all the highschool students got two weeks vacation in October to dig the potato crop in the freezing rain. His Worst Job Ever, he called it. ).
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Post by mskrieger on Sept 26, 2019 7:46:38 GMT -5
That's good news imgrimmer that you have some sweetness in your melons! Hopefully you have another fruitful breeding season next year
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Post by mskrieger on Sept 26, 2019 7:42:37 GMT -5
Sorry about the squash carnage MsKrieger. It'll be fun to taste your mystery squashes and see if you can guess what they are. How are the days to maturity on yours? I've been shrinking days here, as first killing frost is unpredictable this far north. The Hubbard influence and the Hopi Green influence really lengthened days, but brought in lots of disease resistance and a hard rind to deter the mice. There was a slight bitterness in the Hopi Greens, which I think I might have bred out. Final taste testing won't happen till late Oct and last a month or so. I'll freeze some of the pieces after cooking, as Hubby doesn't like squash. It takes me alone quite a while to eat a big one. Frozen pieces zap OK to warm up later. I think the squashes liked the stone raised bed we made, all that extra heat and thermal mass to store it for the colder nights. Hi Jocelyn, that stone raised bed sounds like a dandy idea for cold nights! Days to maturity isn't a big focus of mine, as we have a realistic 125 day growing season for cucurbits planted on Memorial Day weekend. This year was a weird one, as June warmed up very late and August cooled down very early, but that's relative to our typical season (you'd probably find our weather this year to be a fine warm summer!) Sadly I can't grow maximas well around here, squash borer and squash bugs are both hard on them. This was my first year growing out a big diversity of moschata--I'm going to try to do the same thing I do for melons, and select for taste and productivity. I'll check in on taste later in October/November. I hope to hear your report then, too!
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Post by mskrieger on Sept 25, 2019 17:27:54 GMT -5
Wow, reed, sorry to hear of the loss of your autumn. That's what's predicted for your part of North America as "the future" of climate change. The future is apparently here. We are lucky in New England, the climate is really stable. Went camping in the Catskill in NYS last weekend and the colors are shaping up to be glorious. It's been dry here, but nothing like what you describe.
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