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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 19, 2011 23:14:20 GMT -5
Here's what my CSA baskets looked like for today (October 19th). The basket contained: Tomatoes (vine ripened - hard to believe they haven't frozen yet), sweet peppers (also fresh picked), cantaloupe and cucumbers (picked today, but vines long since frozen), broccoli, sunroots (clone), carrots, cabbage, beets, beet greens, green onions, dried beans (that I finished threshing today), turnips, and wheat/rye blend.  The yellow tomato is from a Face-of-the-Earth landrace, and may be the biggest tomato that I ever grew, but it didn't make it into my landrace due to being way too long season for my garden. The wheat/rye is in fulfillment of my pledge that I'd raise a crop of wheat and sell it at the farmer's market. Perhaps I cheated by putting it in a CSA basket, but I procrastinated winnowing it until today. These 8 bags represent 1/2 hour of labor for harvesting with a pocket knife, thrashing with a piece of PVC pipe, and winnowing in front of a fan.  After growing 4 years in my garden, the turnips are very well adapted. These fall planted turnips are bigger than my watermelons were!!!   This is the last baskets I am putting together for the year, and today was also my last farmer's market. I was the only grower to show up at market today and for the last two weeks. I am mostly done harvesting. I need to finish harvesting the popcorn. I still need to harvest apples, plums, cucumber seeds, sunroot tubers, sunroot seeds. I need to move the seed beets to their winter home. It would be really clever if I tilled before it snows. Our winter snowcover is expected to arrive in about 2-3 weeks and stay until the end of March.  It would also be really clever if I split one strawberry row into two rows. |
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Post by steev on Oct 20, 2011 0:40:14 GMT -5
That's one fine turnip. I've not started pulling mine (Vertus Marteau), and got some more just sprouting (Red Round). I think it's not gotten colder at night than ~50F, and days are still hitting ~80F. Greens and Brassicas are growing well. Had a nice braise of mixed chard, Japanese mustard, wild mustard, and sour dock for dinner veggies.
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Post by 12540dumont on Oct 20, 2011 1:42:51 GMT -5
St. Joe, Today our CSA was finally different: Posole Corn, Ground Polenta Corn, Pear Butter, Tomato Sauce, BBQ Sauce, Tomatoes, Dried Tomatoes, Dried Beans, Bell Peppers, Anchos, Anaheims and Jimmy Nardellos, Eggplant, Pomegranates, Eggs, Basil, red onions, Pumpkin Butter, Pie Pumpkins, Cabbage and Green Beans. One more week to go, if my grinding arm holds out. Unfortunately the Gourd Seed Corn is not dry and the Italian Polenta Corn is still in the field till Friday. So, what to do? Hold it over and start the season with it? Darn pigs, I'd have gone 3 more weeks and had much more over the season without their help. Tomorrow I have to harvest peppers and tomatoes, beans and cabbage. So much more work. So much more planting to do. I still have the leeks to plant and the rest of the cabbage. I have 20 beds to till and plant root crops. Well, you won't hear from me for awhile. Thanks for your ideas, with the thresher...o wiley genius, as soon as I get to the milo/sorghum you'll see what I've come up with. Can you send 20 turnip seeds? In your spare time? I don't have that bed tilled yet, I'm still harvesting melons! Rain and frost soon, hurry hurry, scurry scurry. What a season! What a year! Thank you for your help. And all my blessings. Attachments:
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 23, 2011 21:25:46 GMT -5
A harvest I never expected:  |
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Post by ottawagardener on Oct 24, 2011 8:05:36 GMT -5
Why, you didn't plant them  What varieties? |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 24, 2011 8:19:01 GMT -5
I didn't plant them... I haven't grown sweet potatoes before thinking the season was too short and cold. We had 7 weeks longer hard-freeze free growing this year than last.  Variety unknown: a family member ordered a sweet potato sampler. Two plants survived out of a dozen that arrived as slips. (I'm headed to the garden today to pick the last of the tomatoes that are still growing uncovered.) My sister has a row of Irish potatoes growing in her garden that she didn't plant. We are still trying to figure out who the potato fairy is. |
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Post by bonsaioutlaw on Oct 24, 2011 17:43:46 GMT -5
Do you plan on saving these and planting them out again in the Spring?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Oct 24, 2011 19:49:29 GMT -5
I saved the smallest sweet potato rhizomes: Put them in the basement with my Irish potatoes. I'm intending to plant them in the spring.
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Post by 12540dumont on Oct 26, 2011 19:17:05 GMT -5
Last CSA of the season. Whew. I'm beat. Joseph, take a gander at this tomato. This is the Herman's Special I keep raving about. While many of the tomatoes have just fallen off in either production or quality, this one just keeps on a going. You have to try this next year. Attachments:
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 1, 2011 23:14:59 GMT -5
I romanized (tilled) one of my fields yesterday.  However, I am now naturalizing my yard, and the corners of my fields. I'll use those as training grounds as I struggle to understand and adapt another way of life. It will be easier to work with natural ways out in the desert, since that hasn't been tilled before, and I'm not dealing with so much peer-pressure. (Poor me, can't deal with the neighbors.) My goal this fall, or next spring, is to establish a few planting hills in areas where there is slightly more water than elsewhere, at the base of cliffs, etc... |
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Post by steev on Nov 2, 2011 0:49:53 GMT -5
If you're going to be desert gardening, playing hooky from your romanish ways, you may want to invest effort in ditches along slopes to catch and direct water to basins in which you plant, rather than planting on hills as do those who receive frequent rain. Think Mesopotamia, rather than Brittania. Hopi, rather than Pequot.
That peer-pressure can be a drag; I have a neighbor who's gone batcrap loony on me because I refuse to be driven by his insecurities and obedience to orthodoxy; I've known him 30 years, and he's started blaming me for stuff that's been stuck in his craw for 40 years. All because he's devoted to Roman ways, believing that will win him respect, as he tries to eradicate the last weed on his 20 acres, burning diesel in his tractor as he battles the forces of chaotic Nature.
Oh, well. It's true my own efforts slid backward awhile after I sold my half of the tractor to him, to be shut of him, but I'm reclaiming lost ground by altering methods and timing to fit a less mechanized farming paradigm. Hence my interest in a very broad range of crops that satisfy as much as possible of my needs, at the least cost of time and labor.
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Post by turtleheart on Nov 2, 2011 5:23:35 GMT -5
broken roots and dead mineral accumulators do not help a frozen soil keep together for spring planting. it also leaches the available N and other nutrients. rooted soils and mulched soils retain the most fertility through winter.
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Post by turtleheart on Nov 2, 2011 5:31:33 GMT -5
non-human-compacted soils will become more fertile and more ideal for plants roots, after it has been rooted by other plants, and some of the other root systems are decomposing. complex combinations of diverse root structures and purposes (N fixation or accumulation, balancing your guilds) and diverse fungi colonizing their roots to lessen stresses and pollution damage and increase plant health and yield, a thick layer of living mulch and/or rotting mulch everywhere in the garden protecting and feeding the soil, these are the things that keep your soil from degrading physically and chemically.
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Post by turtleheart on Nov 2, 2011 5:33:28 GMT -5
do you till again in spring?
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Post by Earl on Nov 2, 2011 7:04:35 GMT -5
sweet potato slips make it in Northern MI, I'd advise you try them  |
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What varieties?
Variety unknown: a family member ordered a sweet potato sampler. Two plants survived out of a dozen that arrived as slips.
