oldmobie's Doings

[flowerweaver]

Hmm...where did you get your seed? My Michihili looks like it's supposed to pretty early on. I think my seed came from Baker Creek.

[oldmobie]

Apr 10, 2015 10:27:56 GMT -5 flowerweaver said:

Hmm...where did you get your seed? My Michihili looks like it's supposed to pretty early on. I think my seed came from Baker Creek.

My Michihili? It came from a GardenWeb trade. It may not have been very good seed, but I plan to try the seed I saved from it, along with planting it out after my last expected frost.

[flowerweaver]

One of mine already started to bolt, I pinched off it's flower yesterday. My spring planted greens never do as well as the fall planted.

[oldmobie]

Seeing lots of growth in my WinterSown jugs, so much so that I took the tops off just now. I seem to have healthy plants in every variety of tomatoes except Hilbilly. Several of my TPS are looking good. Carrots, onions, tobacco and celosia. Everything came up except the grapes and ginko.

Oh, we also bought a new weed eater a week ago today.

[DebTheFarmer]

AH! Too cute! Love goats

[oldmobie]

Today we put in a bed going down each side of the sidewalk/ "tunnel". Hopefully deeper, fluffier, fertilized soil will warm faster and give my beans an easier time rooting. Planning to let the pole beans grow up enough to start climbing, then plant bush beans next to them.

[oldmobie]

Experimental tomato planting today:
    A combination of ideas demonstrated here and here. We piled straw mulch about 3"-4" deep over an area about 4'x8'. I set three large flower pots about 2' apart down the middle. Then we planted the tomatoes all around the perimeter and in between pots. They're planted really close together, maybe 8"-9" apart. (33 plants total) Then I put about five shovels full of manure from the sheep/ goat barn into each pot. After running the sprinkler a while, I filled the pots with water and left them to trickle manure tea into the ground.
    The possible downfalls I see are fertilizer burn, (which I hope will be avoided by the foot or so of space between the roots and the manure) and complications from overcrowding. I hope they grow into a tomato jungle, but time will tell. I also hope to trellis them up, for easier picking and better airflow.
    It got too dark for pics, besides which the tomatoes are almost lost in the straw. So I sketched it instead. Green lines represent where tomatoes are planted.

Edit: Went back in daylight and took a "before" picture. "After" will be when the plants grow up, visible above the straw.

[oldmobie]

Bought two new railroad ties and used them (with the five already forming the north border) to annex an addition to the garden, adding about 50% to the space. After mulching, the new (north) section will probably become home to my peppers and sweet corn.

[templeton]

Nice panorama, O. Good to see how others lay out their gardens.
T

[flowerweaver]

From what I've heard, sheep and goat manure--and all pelleted type manures--won't burn your plants and are considered 'cold' manures. It's the non-pelleted manures like horse and cow that must first be composted because they are considered 'hot'.

[oldmobie]

[oldmobie]

Planted sweet corn today. Right up the middle we put two rows non-sweet, marked to be detassled. There's indian corn and dent corn chosen because the stalks get bigger and stronger than my sweet corn, because of large ear size, lower incidence of bug damage, (tighter or tougher husks?) or in a few cases, very dark red color. I plan to taste 'em, but I doubt they make good sweet corn this generation. I may detassle and back-cross to sweet until I get good sweet, then mix 'em in tassles and all. What I've read here on the forum leads me to believe it should take 2-3 years?

[reed]

Ha, I'm trying the same thing and already ran into a problem. All the Indian corns sprouted immediately and the sweets that are supposed to supply the pollen took their sweet time about it. Today I'm going to pluck some of the Indian plants out and plant new ones to try to increase chances they will flower at the same time. Did you save back any Indian seed so you can stagger planting a little?

I'm also wondering how long it will take.

[oldmobie]

May 10, 2015 4:36:33 GMT -5 reed said:

Did you save back any Indian seed so you can stagger planting a little?

Yes, I have plenty of seed to redo this small planting several times. This patch is only 144 plants. Quite possibly gonna plant another in a couple weeks.

[oldmobie]

I set up a head to head taste test today, to help determine what I'll be planting out. Seven one-cup jars in the crock pot. Each jar got 1/8 cup of seed, 1/2 cup water, 1/4 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon pepper (Should've used ~ half as much.), and 1/2 teaspoon olive oil.

Dry beans:

• Joseph Lofthouse's landrace came out on top. The whole family picked them first. I liked the texture, and they even made a tasty broth.
• Second was the teparies. (Also Joseph's.) My second favorite for texture, good taste. I also like the seed increase I got from them. I only planted five seeds, to find out how they grow and taste. I still have 1/3 cup of the harvest left. I'll be planting a bunch more this year.
• Carol Deppe's Resilient was also tasty, and had good texture, but just didn't grow as well for me.
• The beans I got from planting store bought, every type I could find. They were edible, but taste and texture were inferior to all the rest. I put them in the pantry for cooking. These won't be planted.
  

The other three jars contain dry corns. (Indian, dent and sweet.) About ten hours on high, and not tender. Starting to think they won't get tender. Should I have pre-soaked? Pressure cooked?  Should I alter my expectations?