ethin's doings

[taihaku]

Apr 2, 2017 20:28:10 GMT -5 philagardener said:

I have a very pretty violet cultivar called "Freckles".  It is well behaved - to the point where I wish it would spread more!

Just goes to show how experiences can vary - When we grew freckles it took over and we ended up roguing them all out as we wanted our violet coloured violets back!

[SteveB]

I have the violet colored and at the back part of the property some pure white. I'd love to have sme freckles. The'd match me and blend into the others well....

[ethin]

Planted out brassica and tomato starts. Planted a 3rd double row of corn, actually I guess they qualify as beds now. The corn also has flowers and stuff mixed with it. I'll plant more corn tomorrow and looking at the forecast I could probably start planting everything else.

[ethin]

Finished planting the corn this evening. Had just finished tamping down the last row when a storm hit, ended up running to the house in a down pour lugging seeds and equipment. lol No need to water stuff for a few days.

[steev]

Some people have all the luck.

[ethin]

Monsoon season, rained for an hour this morning so I'm taking a rain day. some pic from a few days ago.

First snap bean harvest

Now for pics of this years crop of biomass

Whats left of the shelling peas

The other spring legumes

The "corn" patch

The beans are doing well

Brassicas are not doing too hot, the aphids are real bad this year. Whats left of the other pea patch

Watermelon patch, looks like I'll actually get some melons this year

"potato" patch, the volunteer corn decided to pick up the slack for the other corn and I decided to let it. Most of the potatoes where dying back from early blight anyway.

[ethin]

The growing season is pretty much over around here, Time for a couple of highlights.

I planted the watermelons way too crowded, not sure what else I could do, trying to bred stuff with insufficient space. Got lots of small fruit, nothing over 5lbs, but there should have been a good mix of pollen floating around and lots of the fruit managed to reach maturity so the population is moving in a good direction. Had some problems, wilt, splitting, blossom end rot, most of which led to self elimination so good riddance.

Frost harvest from a few days ago.


The chickpeas ended up getting too weedy and not producing as well as they could have. Super excited 'cause I found my first hybrid chickpea, the speckled things on the left. Also found a few brown ones that are almost as big as the large tan variety, not sure if their hybrids too but they'll get there own spot next year.

[prairiegardens]

You planted black medic? Here we are told it's a weed, a legume but a weed nonetheless. It's said to prevent other plants from growing and be very difficult to get rid of. I have it spreading through the garden and the yard, all of it volunteer. What was the appeal that you planted it and is it being maligned?

[ethin]

I have it growing everywhere of it's own accord, lawn, beds, containers, garden, even after 40 years of conventional lawn and garden management, yep its a weed. But that's not necessarily a bad thing, four of the main "weeds" in my garden (lamb quarter, common mallow, red root amaranth, purslane) are edible and have more nutrition than the vegetables I grow. I have also inadvertently manged to introduce several kinds of flowers and a few vegetables as weeds in my garden.

The reasons why I intentionally planting it:

1. It's a legume. Legumes are important members of most terrestrial ecosystems even one as unnatural as the vegetable garden.

2. It attracts pollinators and predatory insects. I'm trying to encourage out-crossing in legumes, particularly lentils and chickpeas, so I'm offering the pollinators as much of an incentive as possible.

3. Ground cover. This one's a double edged sword, black medic will definitely smother small and young plants, good for keeping other "weeds" at bay, could be trouble for some vegetables. I found that tilling it sets it back enough for most crops to stay ahead of it, but I would keep it away from most non-tuber root crops, especially onions from seed.

That thing with the onions I learned the hard way this year, planted the onion seed next to the edge of the garden (the garden has no edging, tilled soil strait to lawn). The black medic in and seeded by the lawn had smothered the onions into dormancy by mid season, I was focused on other areas of the garden and didn't get to it in time.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I love black medic in my fields. For much the same reasons ethin described: It's a legume that thrives here. I had one field without it, so this spring, I seeded it into that field. It's low growing, and easily managed.

[steev]

Purslane is my weed-o-choice for those purposes.

[ethin]

I started a new project this year, a landrace of storage melons. Only got 7 small fruit but it's a start.

It was third times the charm for the peanuts, or at least they have pods this year, I'll find out if there seed in a few weeks when they're dry.

[ethin]

Busy day. Harvested sunflower heads and seeds, collected marigold and tree mallow seeds. Chopped up the sunflower stalks. Mowed down the garden, mulched up  leaves and put them on the garden. Half tilled the garden.

[ethin]

And yes I did get mature peanut seed!

[richardw]

Well done getting mature seed.