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Post by lmonty on Jan 18, 2011 3:13:32 GMT -5
Hi! Found Alans website just recently, and sent him anote with some corn breeding questions. He was kind enough to reply and then invite me to join the forums. Glad to be here! Average gardener, but a few years back DH and I were fortunate enough to buy a little homestead in the Ozarks. Working on raising our own food and feed for the livestock is my next project. So corn, beans- well the whole "Three Sisters" thing is my goal for 2011. That and experimenting with root crops for supplemental feed for our dairy goats and the small Dexter cattle herd we have. Looking forward to learning a lot here  Laura Montgomery Everton, AR |
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Post by iva on Jan 18, 2011 3:28:25 GMT -5
Welcome!!!
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Post by flowerpower on Jan 18, 2011 6:11:39 GMT -5
Welcome to HG, Laura. |
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Post by ottawagardener on Jan 18, 2011 7:03:21 GMT -5
Welcome aboard!
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Post by garnetmoth on Jan 18, 2011 11:12:39 GMT -5
Dexters are SO cute. welcome aboard
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Post by castanea on Jan 19, 2011 0:09:56 GMT -5
Welcome! I've never been to Everton but I've been through Harrison and Yellville and that's some beautiful country and nice people.
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Post by atash on Jan 19, 2011 0:58:20 GMT -5
Pleased to virtually "meet" you!  Music to my ears. For food self-sufficiency, you might want to start phasing out the ubiquitous dent corns and start raising more flour and flint corns. The reason is because it's kinda hard to fractionate dent corn at home; the more specialized flour and flint corns are useful as staples as-is. Might still be some details to work out though; neither has been grown on a significant scale in the USA for a while now. We're working on it. I suggest signing up for our newsletter newworldcrops.com/mailinglist/?p=subscribe&id=1 Also suggest reading Carol Deppe's new book: "The Resilient Gardner". You might also consider potatoes. They are roughly the most productive crop for a temperate climate, and surprisingly adaptable.  |
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Post by lmonty on Jan 19, 2011 6:29:23 GMT -5
Thanks, all! List signed up for, atash! thans much. "Fractionate" dent corn? I'm not familiar with the term. i picked up some Hopi Blue seeds, (chose it for its high protein, drought resistance, and resitance to lodging) and was hoping to mix it with a sweet, and something rather prolific. Havent got a lot of land to work with and all hand or small power equipment-tiller, but no tractor here! So I need to make every stalk and every square foot yield to the max. Deppe's Resiliant Gardener is already on my Wish list at Amazon, hope to pick it up soon- and her very excellent Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties is already on my bookshelf (or coffee table, or car seat, or bedside table...) Have a couple of beds of both locally available red (Norland IRRC) and light skinned (poss Kennebec) overwintering to see how they do- last couple of years i seemed to get better production from volunteer plants and well as much earlier spuds. And no blight. So I left a couple of small beds in and will see how they do this year. Dexters-cute - and tasty too, garnetmoth! I love them since they do so well on our marginal pasture. We seem able to raise more beef per acre on our hillside than the neighbors do with standard size cattle. Gotta love that. But my Nubians are my special treat. Bottle raised goats are like dogs, friendly and affectionate. Just plain fun to be around. And marvelous producers of non burning manure that looks like rabbitt pellets...that can go right in and side dress anything without burning it. Meat, milk and high quality fertilizer with a greta attitude- my idea of great survival livetock! Now I just need to learn how to feed them to help keep costs down and the herds going if TSHTF. I'm avidly reading old threads and my head is spinning- I'll be bugging your guys with a million questions soon enough I may not have a lot of neat seeds to trade yet, but I do make a pretty decent goat cheese |
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Post by Penny on Jan 19, 2011 6:37:06 GMT -5
Hi there and Welcome.
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Post by stratcat on Jan 19, 2011 14:18:00 GMT -5
Welcome to HG. Have fun!
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Post by atash on Jan 19, 2011 14:20:10 GMT -5
As you work out your plans you might consider the benefits of moving them around in a rotation scheme. Reason is that potatoes are somewhat disease-prone. In fact, it's probably also a good idea to replace your potato stock every few years. That's one reason we're promoting true potato seed. The seedling potatoes are vigorous and virus-free for a while, and can be replaced with another batch of seedlings before they build up too many viruses.  |
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Post by cortona on Jan 23, 2011 19:24:25 GMT -5
welcome on board!
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Post by sandbar on Jan 29, 2011 16:25:11 GMT -5
I'm a tad late ... but ... welcome to HG!!
You'll find great folks, great advice and great fellowship here!!
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