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Post by darwinslair on Feb 27, 2011 17:11:45 GMT -5
I posted it all on facebook last year, but maybe if I have my own blog I will be better at taking photos and giving updates. I will try to be as complete as I can on it. We will see how it goes. threedaughtersfarm.com/wp/Tom |
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Post by darwinslair on Feb 27, 2011 20:57:42 GMT -5
Friend of mine has offered to set it up so I can blog from the website I own (threedaughetersfarm.com) but have never set up, so I might be moving it before i really even get it started.
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Post by darwinslair on Aug 12, 2011 15:52:01 GMT -5
Damn. Wanted to thank all of you. I am up to nearly 10,000 hits a month and almost 4000 people following it.
I appreciate it!
Tom
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Post by spacecase0 on Aug 12, 2011 16:41:31 GMT -5
that is great, blogs are so much better than facebook
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Post by seedywen on Aug 23, 2011 10:45:48 GMT -5
Looked at your blog for the first time. Informative. Great photos.
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Post by stone on Jan 30, 2012 8:13:37 GMT -5
I like the Photos button. I look at garden sites for the photos, only reading the text when the photos are interesting.
Your beautiful soil breaks my heart.
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Post by darwinslair on Jan 30, 2012 13:11:45 GMT -5
the soil breaks your heart? Why? Every site I have, the soil is different. Some is really sandy loam, other is heavy and clayish, others are full of gravels and rock. Much of it is heavy in weeds.
Tom
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Post by stone on Jan 30, 2012 14:19:03 GMT -5
You are spoiled, Tom.
My present garden is in pure white sand that goes all the way down.
My previous garden had some clay under the sand, which helped a lot.
When you are cussing your annual weeds, my heart breaks for you... not knowing what it's like to deal with the perennials that take ever wider chunks out of the garden, the ones that the extension service talks about waiting until bloom time, when it's susceptible to being poisoned, and even then, talk about percentages killed...
The super weeds are coming your way, courtesy of round-up ready cropping.
Yalls beautiful soil is washing down the river as well, it's just taking longer.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 30, 2012 15:03:54 GMT -5
The super weeds are coming your way, courtesy of round-up ready cropping. Regardless of how much roundup my neighbors spray on their fields, a super-weed will never grow in my fields: Because a roundup-ready-weed is exactly as susceptible to a sharp hoe as every other weed is. And since I prefer labor to poison, I'll always grow only plain old weeds. No super-weeds for me. |
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Post by stone on Jan 30, 2012 19:25:38 GMT -5
Ok... But we have weeds down here that are encouraged by cultivation. You can spend days trying to dig out every tuber and bit of root, and in a week, it will all be back! Florida betony is one such. Nut sedge is another. johnson grass can be difficult as well... Although, I don't think it's quite as tough as the first two... |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 30, 2012 20:43:10 GMT -5
Ok... But we have weeds down here that are encouraged by cultivation. You can spend days trying to dig out every tuber and bit of root, and in a week, it will all be back! I weed six hours a day from early spring until late fall, so they all eventually get weeded out, or left for next year. For three years in a row, I have planted my early crops in the same section of garden. This year I am moving the location of the early crops so that I can adequately deal with the Johnson's grass. Three good weedings about a week apart starting in mid-May will effectively remove it. For Johnson's grass I use a hook for weeding. Drag it through the soil so that it picks up the rhizomes and lifts them to the surface where they can dry out and die. I aim for about 80% weeding... If I get 80% this week, and 80% next week, and 80% the week after that's good enough for me. |
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 30, 2012 20:46:12 GMT -5
Joseph, that math didn't add up to me....or maybe the weeds are growing faster than you can hoe them?
They are here. 2 weeks ago all my garlic and onions looked perfect. Today they are sprouting hair! The grass is here!
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 30, 2012 20:57:16 GMT -5
Joseph, that math didn't add up to me....or maybe the weeds are growing faster than you can hoe them? They are here. 2 weeks ago all my garlic and onions looked perfect. Today they are sprouting hair! The grass is here! There are always weeds. Even if I attempted perfect weeding every time I weeded, I would still miss some of them. And sometimes I can cut off a weed, and it looks just like it did before, but it will look dead tomorrow. So I aim to get 80% of the weeds whenever I weed. Getting that last 20% is way too much effort: I'll deal with them next time, or the time after. Wow! Grass already... I'm still about 7 weeks away from snow-melt, and maybe 12 weeks away from when the grass gets going strong. |
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Post by stone on Jan 31, 2012 6:16:57 GMT -5
Ok... But we have weeds down here that are encouraged by cultivation. I weed six hours a day from early spring until late fall, so they all eventually get weeded out, or left for next year. You the man, Tom... C'mon down , I have a coupla patches of weeds I'd like to turn you loose on... The florida betony is like mint on steriods... Mechanical cultivation doesn't work on it. Maybe you'd like to plant some as a food crop? They actually used to sell the stuff in seed catalogs... |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 31, 2012 12:26:13 GMT -5
Mechanical cultivation works on every species that I have encountered in my garden. As far as I can tell, every species succumbs to weeding if the nutrient supply in the roots is exhausted by frequently severing the leaves from the roots. But two weedings a year isn't going to do it. It takes consistent vigilance: perhaps even keeping the ground fallow for a growing season so that it can be completely weeded once a week, or once in 10 days.
Plowing, double-digging, and mulching are great, because they may bury the rhizomes so deep that they exhaust their food supply before leaves are able to break the surface. Solarizing is really clever for dealing with rhizomous plants: cover the plot with black plastic in mid-summer and let it bake.
I really like rototilling, and then walking through the field every day for a few weeks with a hook to bring any sprouting rhizomes to the surface.
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