ethin's doings

[ethin]

Sunroots


Marigolds, the three puny ones on the left are some store bought "improved" industrialized ones, the huge one on the left that takes up half the image is a family heirloom.


Basil harvest.


"Weedy" Chickpea row, still harvesting chickpeas. The chickpeas only got watered enough to keep them alive but the flower weeds still manged to do there thing.




And here is some fall color.

[richardw]

Lovely photos, what are the red trees in the last one

[ethin]

richardw: Most likely Acer grandidentatum(canyon maple, Bigtooth Maple)

[flowerweaver]

Lovely, ethin. It's nice to see the Aspens turning.

Believe it or not, we have Bigtooth Maple way down here in our canyons, remnants from the last ice age. Everyone calls them 'lost maples' because of that, and there is a state park nearby named Lost Maples. The center part of my maple was felled onto the house by the tornado, but I still have a substantial part of the tree.

[ethin]

Squash harvest for this year.

[philagardener]

Nice looking apples too!

[ethin]

Thanks philagardener.

[ethin]

Garden report\summary 2015.

Uh, lets see, where to start...

Watermelon:
So last year, 2014, was a good year for watermelons, that was most likely due to the fact that the part of the garden where they were grown, to my recollection, had never had melons grown there before. I planted 7 hills and harvested somewhere around 30 melons that I figured where good for eating.

This year was not so good. I had 16 hills, 10 where last years seed and the other 6 where 3 new varieties, most of the seed from the first planting rotted due to weather and had to be re-planted, Half the hills died before flowering, all the hills where dead before summers end. I got 2 melons that where edible and a few more that made some seeds.

Edit: 17 hills, I keep forgetting one. It was planted separate from the rest of the patch and was seeds from store bought seedless watermelon fruit. Got 1 fruit from that hill, most likely self-ed, and it had seeds!

Muskmelons:
Crenshaw: 2 hills, got planted a little late, 3 weeks later or so had an unfortunate run-in with the tiller and had to be re planted, got 1 small fruit very very late season.

Cantaloupe: 6 hills, most of the seed from the first planting rotted due to weather and had to be re-planted, ok harvest, all fruits where on the small side.

Honeydew: 8 hills in the new part of the garden, some hills had to be re-planted planted due to weather and cats, got 40-50 fruits, gave a dozen away, still have almost a dozen left to eat. Found a plant that the fruit fell off the vine when ripe, saved seed separate.


To be continued...

[ethin]

Garden report\summary 2015. Part 2.

Cucumbers:
After 2 strait years of cumber crop failure since taking over the majority of the gardening I seem to have learned enough to get them to do well enough for our needs and them some. Had to be re-re-planted due to weather and bugs. Also trying my hand at saving seeds from them for the first time this year.

Squash:
I have pics of the squash patch and how much it produced in earlier post so not much more to say. However I think the number of flowers I plant between the hills still needs reduced.

Corn:
Bad and good year for corn. Had two patches of corn this year.
1. One was mostly store bought seed and was planted in a poorer part of the old garden (bad planing on my part), it was the larger patch and was for food. It did rather badly, only producing enough for fresh eating but not for freezing.
2. The other one was Astronomy Domine from Joseph, it was planted in the new garden and was meant for seed. No surprise it did really well, enough seed to plant both gardens in nothing but corn for the next 5 years or so and 2 gallons of dry corn for eating.

legumes:
Dry Beans: I grew "Dry Bush Bean Landrace" and "F3 Dutch Brown Cross" both from Joseph, and some pintos and black beans.
1. The beans from Joseph were planted in a single 30' row, 20' Joseph's Landrace 10' Dutch Brown Cross. Both had to be re-planted due to hail the day after most of the seed came up, I think I lost some of the diversity in Joseph's Landrace. Got a good increase in seed from both but not enough to feel comfortably with eating any.
2. The pintos and black beans were from a bean soup mix I grew last year with everything all mixed up in the same row. I had one row of each planted in two separate rows of Astronomy Domine, one bean per hill of corn (1 seed every 2' = 15 plants per row). They both did well, should have planted them thicker. Found two naturally crosses in the Pinto row.

To be continued...

[ethin]

Finally finished threshing the sorghum, 2.5 lbs of seed from a dozen or so plants that where an afterthought to fill some space. Now that that's out of the way maybe I'll get to that tarp full of radish seed.

[richardw]

Do you have problems with mice getting into the radish pods as i take it its being a while since you harvested it

[ethin]

I had them stored in the outbuilding that most of the cats use as winter lodging, so no rodent problems. Doesn't work so well for grains as the cat seem to prefer straw to most other bedding.

[ethin]

Proof that I'm growing stuff this year.



Transplants, mostly flowers, some matos, peppers and basil. Also some TPS tatos.


Early season stuff. Peas(shelling, snow, soup, inter planted with grain and some early flowers.), chickpeas, lintels, spinach, radishes, lettuce, onions, garlic, parsnips.
The brassicaceae are being grow as transplants because the ants like to cut them down if their direct sown.
Early Mid season stuff. Beets, tatos, carrots.


Mid season stuff. Corn, I doubled up the rows so less space would be taken up with paths, I'll see how much trouble that causes. Also planing to plant Lima beans, cow peas and dry pole beans with them.


Some early flowers.



And for you plant experts some bushes to identify, if your game.

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Also, some of you might remember this weird head of rye I found back in 2014. as it turned out unlike 90% of the other rye I've grow it is a true annual, a bit longer season than other spring planted grain but it grew quick and produced good, no need for a winter dormancy to induce flowering.

[ethin]

The weed matos are up, the forecast looks ok, so I planted out the mato starts and some basil, also direct sowed some of both. I think I'll wait on the peppers.

[ethin]

Started some jicama seeds.