|
Post by ferdzy on Jul 25, 2018 9:40:51 GMT -5
Are there any squashes being sold in the local market? If so, where are they grown? That's the first place I would look.
p.s. Welcome to the forum!
|
|
|
Post by ferdzy on Jul 19, 2018 19:09:22 GMT -5
Yeah, mskrieger, I'm thinking keeping Pusa Meghna in the mix is a bad idea. I was keen on it to start with because I wanted seed, any seed. But now that the Goodman are forming nicely I'm seeing a lot of other little cauliflowers forming on other varieties as well. If the weather holds mild into the fall, they should have enough time to bloom and form seeds. I might even be able to rogue out some of the earliest... We'll see. This is the earliest we've ever had cauliflowers forming and it's a combination of much better growing techniques than we've used before, and very hot weather.
|
|
|
Post by ferdzy on Jul 14, 2018 16:40:20 GMT -5
Well diane, I expect to have a fair bit of seed from the Pusa Meghna - they formed quarter sized caulis then went straight to flowering with amazing speed. But since that wasn't our goal, I planted them again. Hopefully the next batch will be more in sync with the rest. There are 3 plants of Goodman, which is forming very decent little heads. This is the first time we have grown Goodman and without having eaten any, I am inclined to think if this seed thing doesn't work out I would just grow Goodman again. In general, the cauliflowers look the best they have ever looked. We started them each in their own pot and somehow they really took off and have done well. No others forming heads yet though. So, semi success, whatever happens next, I guess. But I won't have a final report until November, I don't think.
|
|
|
Post by ferdzy on Jul 11, 2018 9:50:52 GMT -5
I find it very hard to assess change here since we have only been in this garden for 10 years. It is also clearly a micro-climate compared to even 5 or 10 kilometres away. In those 10 years we have had 2 years where it was cool and rainy all summer, 2 or 3 years with high heat and drought, and 5 more "average" summers. I'd say the heat and drought seems to be coming a bit more frequently, but like I said, I can't really pick out a pattern from 10 years.
|
|
|
Post by ferdzy on Jul 11, 2018 9:45:41 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by ferdzy on Jul 7, 2018 19:36:25 GMT -5
We got little under 4 inches rain yesterday afternoon in span of about an hour. Washed most of the gravel off the county road back to our house but it's still travel-able. A low car might have a problem but our truck and jeep work alright. Haven't gone in the garden but it mostly looks fine other than a little more corn lodging. Supposed to have more storms in coming days and going back into the 90s. Very hot, very wet, my least favorite kind of weather. Four inches rain at once! I don't think we've gotten four inches of rain this YEAR. Also it got down below 32°C (90ish°C) for the first time in a couple of weeks finally, but it looks like it's going right back up again in a couple of days. No rain in the forecast. We are spending an awful lot of time watering.
|
|
|
Post by ferdzy on Jul 7, 2018 19:29:58 GMT -5
diane, no that wasn't it. Since no one else is having problems I went back. Ah! I clicked on "Potato Towers Don't Work" to get the warning page. This time I got the article, no problem. So whatever it was seems to be gone.
|
|
|
Post by ferdzy on Jul 7, 2018 5:50:51 GMT -5
That's pretty unlikely. What software are you using? billw, I'm using Firefox. Now I'm trying to remember what happened, exactly. I went to your site... I clicked on something... but not the podcast, because I keep my sound off... I got the page that said I had computer "problems" and needed to contact "them"... I could not close it down. I shut down the page using control-alt-delete and then ran a scan. It seems to be okay.
|
|
|
Post by ferdzy on Jul 6, 2018 5:10:23 GMT -5
Okay, I ran a scan and I seem to be clear. Sorry, not going back to try again though!
|
|
|
Post by ferdzy on Jul 6, 2018 4:52:28 GMT -5
WARNING billw - your site appears to be infected with ransomware. I am currently scanning my computer and will get back to you as I have more info.
|
|
|
Post by ferdzy on Jun 29, 2018 19:14:50 GMT -5
Peas are strangely fascinating, aren't they? For something that has been studied for as long as the study of genetics has existed (!) they are very unruly, I find, and don't abide by the described rules nearly as well as you would think.
I have not had good success growing peas in the late summer/fall. It sounds so logical, but inevitably they get mildew. I have managed to grow them sufficiently well to get seed a few times in emergencies.
Do you have enough of the black peas to have cooked them? I would worry a bit about it turning strange colours as it cooks.
I am growing out 8 yellow when dry peas that showed up in St. Hubert, which is a traditional Canadian dry green pea, for green pea soup. I have at various times also grown out Zeiner's Gold, which I believe is a selection of Golderbse. I like the flavour of the yellow ones better, but the green ones produce at least half as much more. I am hoping for the flavour of the yellow peas and the productivity of the green ones. However, I am already perplexed - they are flowering already, at one foot high! The St. Hubert get to 5' or 6' and need trellising. Is it because it is so hot and dry? But everything else is taller and growing well. You just never know what you are going to get with peas.
|
|
|
Post by ferdzy on Jun 27, 2018 16:28:55 GMT -5
Late to the party here, but:
From the consumer/culinary point of view, we like shelled green peas the best, with snap and snow peas also getting eaten in fair quantities. We mostly eat the shelled peas in the winter because we process them in large quantities and freeze them. We freeze some snap and snow peas too but they don't freeze quite so well as shelled peas so we are more likely to eat them fresh. The only coloured peas we are still growing are Sugar Magnolia and Golden Sweet. None of the others we have tried have had the flavour to justify continuing to grow them. The Golden Sweet are nice mixed with green snow peas, but I find them anemic looking on the plate by themselves.
Likewise, we freeze large quantities of Blue Lake green beans for the winter because they freeze well and we like the flavour, and are more likely to eat more adventurously yellow/purple/other green beans in the summer. For dried peas and beans, we grow an assortment of beans which get used in recipes according to the type of bean. I do tend to like white dry beans, I have to admit. They have a neutrality that lets them take the background to other flavours which makes them versatile. However, we grow some other beans that I really like too: a big Italian borlotti for instance.
We are just getting into Limas, not traditionally grown here. Also a few cow pea types, but again not traditionally grown or eaten around here. Broad (fava) beans are not really common either. I didn't grow up eating them, still don't, and I have rarely if ever seen them for sale.
From the point of view of gardeners, we like Strike and Knight peas. Specifically, they start producing in just under 60 days and are finished in 2 weeks. This allows us to do the pea freezing mentioned in the previous paragraph, then plant other dried beans or vegetables to follow them. Knight is the better pea of the two, we think, but it does take a few days longer. Then we grow longer season peas as well, the excess of which may get frozen but which are more for eating fresh. We trellis these later peas and mostly grow fairly tall ones, but we choose them to produce over a range of time.
We've grown some dried peas, but not a lot. Mostly in the traditional Canadian yellow or green, to make the traditional Canadian pea soup. I'd like to branch out more but space is an issue. Spanish Skyscraper gets planted some years. It's a very late pea so can get starchy if the weather is hot and dry. Fortunately in that case we can just leave it to dry and it's a decent soup pea.
We have bean anthracnose in the garden so number one criterion for all beans is a fairly high degree of resistance to it. I wanted to grow Flageolet beans but had to pull them out halfway through the season as they were in such terrible shape. The Lima and cow pea types are more resistant than the p. vulgaris, which is partly why we are growing them more.
I'm also interested in plant breeding so when crosses show up... I grow them out! There are a few interesting things coming along.
I don't mix varieties of peas or beans. They do have different requirements in cooking, or in the case of peas in particular being picked at the optimum moment, and I don't want to lose control of those requirements.
A few other thoughts on peas: modern peas have mostly been bred for processing requirements and looks. I get the processing requirements thing; it's the only thing that makes them commercially viable. They are one hell of a lot of work. We would eat 2 or 3 times as many shelled peas as we do, but damned if I'm giving up that much of my life to shelling the little buggers.
The looks thing is more peculiar. Marketers have convinced people that small, dark green peas are young and tender. It's true that any particular variety of pea is likely to to get larger and lighter as it ages. However, just because a pea is small and dark green does not mean it is good. When my MIL moved out she left a packet of peas in the freezer. We ate them at one meal and put the rest in the compost. They were beautiful! So small, so bright green! Also so starchy and tasteless. Still, it's going to be a hard sell to convince people that a large, pale pea is tender and tasty, even when it is.
|
|
|
Post by ferdzy on Jun 13, 2018 21:30:49 GMT -5
We are in CDN Zone 5 (US Zone 4?) and missed potatoes are actually getting to be really annoying weeds. Disease does not seem to be an issue, so much as they provide a launching pad for Colorado potato bugs to attack the main crop.
We have tried planting potatoes in the fall a few times and have generally had 80% to 90% show up in the spring. Usually we could then harvest them 2 to 3 weeks earlier than spring planted potatoes, but some of them are still not ready until the usual time.
Our soil is very well drained which I suspect contributes to their ability to survive and reappear each spring.
|
|
|
Post by ferdzy on May 21, 2018 12:32:01 GMT -5
Thanks.
Eggs are now gone. So did they hatch, or were they eaten? Googling shows that hatchlings are moved to a new site within 24 hours so could be that they have hatched. NO sign of eggshells, or anything. I guess in a couple of weeks I will know if there are baby turkeys around or not.
|
|
|
Post by ferdzy on May 19, 2018 7:48:30 GMT -5
We have a wild turkey nesting right next to our garden! I'm kind of excited to see it, but I'm nervous about my babies... by which I mean my VEGETABLES! Does anyone have any experience co-existing (or not) with nearby wild turkeys? If so, please tell me about it.
|
|