oldmobie's Doings

[oldmobie]

More salad greens today. Red lettuce finally big enough to harvest a little.



Planted herbs in south concrete blocks at west end of garden Tuesday. Parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme & purple basil. (I know. I used to listen to the oldies station. That may be the song that broke me of it. Or "Monday, Monday". Or "Walkin' on Broken Glass".)



Planted flowers in south blocks on east end today. Marigolds and moss rose. All from seed, except for WinterSown moss rose from one jug. No pics.

Boys and I went into the old chicken pen, tossed around some buckwheat seed and cut all the weeds and sassafrass saplings down. I want to start using buckwheat as a smother crop. The plan is to use the chicken pen as a seed increase area. Since I don't garden in there, if it becomes a self seeding nuissance, it doesn't mean I have to fight it in the garden.

[oldmobie]

South blocks at west end: added oregano today.

Cattle panel arched trellis (AKA "the tunnel"): attached landscape timbers horizontally to bottom of panels, to prevent mulch from spilling into sidewalk. (Trellis runs above an old sidewalk, forming the floor of the tunnel.) Now we can mulch up to the panels, and keep the mulch in place.

Planted 6 tomatoes at south end of tunnel.






1)Yellow slicer*
2)Yellow Pear*
3)Yellow slicer*
4)"Roma"*
5)Yellow slicer*
6)Beef Master

*I WinterSowed these, not knowing the compost in the mel's mix I used was contaminated with seeds. All of my peas and peppers, as well as some of my moss rose, broccoli, cauliflower and collards looked suspiciously like tomatoes and lamb's quarter. These tomatoes were transplanted from the jugs where I sowed yellow slicer, Yellow Pear, and a tomato that was kind of an oblong blimp kind of shape I decided is a roma. They'll be tomatoes at any rate. Next time I buy walmart compost, I think I'll sterilize it.

The Beef Master is store-bought.

Each planting hole amended with compost and powdered eggshell. My wife read somewhere that tomatoes love calcium.

[steev]

Walmart; feh!

[oldmobie]

Finished planting the tunnel today. Triumpho Violetto beans X 6, Rattlesnake beans X 2, Top Crop X 8, Contender X 8, Kentucky Wonder beans X 8, my own saved cucumber (Boston Pickling / Burpless, grown together and allowed to cross.) X 1, Joseph's landrace cucumber X 1, my own saved watermelon (Black Diamond / volunteer, grown together and allowed to cross.) X 1, Crimson Sweet X 1.

Started taming the pasture area annexed for the new garden today. Staked off a 12' X 50' plot and mowed it (and the area around it) to the ground with a "DR" type trimmer. Sowed a pound of Dutch White clover seed. (I should probably google the recommended rate for that!) Plan is to plant it tomorrow with sweet corn 18" apart in rows spaced 36" apart.

While teaching my boys to use the trimmer, my 10 year old uncovered a rabbit's nest with it. Can't imagine how we failed to kill any. One got scared, ran out of the nest, spotted my son, and ran repeatedly into the back of the trimmer while I yelled for him to shut it off. I can't imagine the trauma / drama to a 10 year old boy from having a baby bunny die bloody at your own hand! So as a precaution, I put 3 more stakes around the nest so we wouldn't kill the little fellas. On the other hand, they gotta go! Here's hopin' the mother moves 'em to quieter digs tonight.

[oldmobie]

Still got the bunnies...

Planted 4 50' rows of sweet corn 3' apart.
Row 1: (on the north) Golden Bantam Cross on the west, assortment from a GardenWeb trade on the east (Stowell's, Hooker's & True Platinum)
Row 2: My own saved seed from Peaches & Cream and Ambrosia, grown together and allowed to cross
Row 3: Astronomy Domine
Row 4: (on the south) LISP Ashworth

I'm hoping to cross up all of my sweet corn genetics and start building myself a landrace. My wife wants a seperate planting of the P&C and Ambrosia to have a harvest of all SE. I'm planning a seperate, similar planting of decorative corns (pop, flint/ flour, dent), as well as a mass cross planting, my red/ white/ blue popcorn project, and an attempted cross between an Oaxacan flour corn and a short season sweet corn.

[oldmobie]

May 18, 2014 17:00:11 GMT -5 oldmobie said:

Still got the bunnies...

Scratch that. Dog found 'em.

[flowerweaver]

This is the year for bunnies here. I have them fenced out of the various plots but they have found a way into the corn. They don't seem to be interested in it but are eating the clover and small forbs growing between rows. My tomcat brought one home for dinner that was almost as big as himself. They are getting so used to me they don't even flee now.

[oldmobie]

First half of the day spent fixing the hydrant the old garden is built around. More time consuming than hard, since my wife did most of the work, mainly needing me to tell her what to do. The steel pipe was cracked below the elbow, and I was afraid we'd have to dig out the whole pipe, or get a plumber who could re-thread it in the ground. Turns out it was a 3" nipple coming from a tee. If the hydrant was in the ground as deep as it was designed to be, or a shorter one was installed, the parts wouldn't break. There's just too much leverage. But I last dug it around 20-25 years ago. If it lasts that long this time, my boys can dig it next time. To hopefully help stabilize it, we picked up a u-bolt and about 2 feet of slotted angle iron for a sort of anchor. I put it parallel to the pipe that the elbow screws to. Not sure if I should have turned it. Or added another, 90° to the first.



The carpet and wood chips for the butterfly garden were finished today. Lost the light. May post a pic tomorrow.

Started watering the corn in the new garden. Turns out I had enough hose. At that distance, the pressure is terrible. I'm watering about a 15' circle. I'll have to reposition the sprinkler 4 times to finish the 4 rows of corn. I'm trying 2 hours per position. I'll have to put out the rain guage and see if I'm watering an inch or not.

Planning to plant watermelons tomorrow next to the corn. Seriously considering pumpkins and/or squash in the walkways between the corn, but wonder if I shouldn't wait to plant them until the corn is up a bit. I'll research it first. Think I'll soak my watermelon seeds overnight.


Edit: a google search indicated that watermelons don't like long soaking. Apparently they can drown, or be more susceptable to fungus? So I soaked 'em 1 hour. We'll see how that goes.

[steev]

I so hate galvanized iron plumbing; when it's old, you break a piece and it just keeps going up the line. Oh, well, so few of us are worth a damn after fifty years on the job.

[oldmobie]

After 1 hour and 10 minutes of sprinkling the 3rd location of the new garden, we went out to plant watermelons and found this:



I should have anticipated (but didn't) the water leaves the hydrant at the same gallons per hour, but arrives at greatly reduced pressure, sprinkling a much smaller area. Same volume, smaller delivery area = faster accumulation (per square foot of ground). My watering duration per location will have to be much lower. I'll just have to move the sprinkler more often.

The watermelons got planted. Eleven "hills" in one row. Three seeds per hill.

Crimson Sweet: hills 1 & 7
My cross (Black Diamond X Volunteer): hills 2, 4, 6, 8 & 10
Yellow (no name given): hills 3 & 9 (4 per hill)
Black Diamond: hills 5 & 11

My own saved seed in every second hill to maximize crossing.

[oldmobie]

Put out a 4 pack of kohlrabi In the 2 northern most concrete blocks at the east end. I've always meant to try it, but it died on me when I tried to grow it from seed. When I saw the poor little root bound things at the lumber yard for 78¢, with little "turnips" the size of my thumbnail already on 'em, I figured it was my chance. If we like 'em, I really should get seeds again and try WinterSowing 'em.

Spent most of the last hour of daylight cleaning fencerow, so we can put sheep wire over the barbwire. Where we keep the sheep and goats is eaten down to bare dirt, they have to be let out each day to graze. They graze the pasture that is becoming my new garden, so we're on a deadline: make the fences adequate in the new pasture and get 'em relocated before corn and watermelons get outta the ground!

Saw new growth in the squares where I planted the peas. The spinach-mustard, collards and salad greens are already coming up. I thing the spinach is starting, but can't be sure until I see true leaves.

[steev]

Already far too late for spinach, for me; s'pose I should start some NZ spinach.

I'm gonna get a solar electric-fence charger so the neighbors, who're pasturing horses on my back ten, can fence my other un-used six acres of knee-high weeds for their pasturage. They run goats, sheep, and horses, and did for years on that land before I bought it; no harm to me if their critters turn those weeds into poo; given the current drought, they need pasture (the cost of fodder going up); given my age, I need obligation and community integration; looks like a win-win situation to me.

[oldmobie]

May 20, 2014 23:01:14 GMT -5 steev said:

Already far too late for spinach, for me; s'pose I should start some NZ spinach.

It's about 50-50 odds that it's too late here, too. Our weather's pretty variable this time of year. But I'm impatient to see some landrace crops grow. I shouldn't get my hopes too high, though, as my climate is quite unlike Joseph's. I'll probably have to rebreed and reselect to make it my own, but at least he's saved me years of gathering the diversity.

May 20, 2014 23:01:14 GMT -5 steev said:

I'm gonna get a solar electric-fence charger so the neighbors, who're pasturing horses on my back ten, can fence my other un-used six acres of knee-high weeds for their pasturage. They run goats, sheep, and horses, and did for years on that land before I bought it; no harm to me if their critters turn those weeds into poo; given the current drought, they need pasture (the cost of fodder going up); given my age, I need obligation and community integration; looks like a win-win situation to me.

I'm finding that sheep and goats make great companion grazers. They turn weeds and brush I don't want to cut into usable meat. (At least the sheep do. Haven't tasted goat yet.) Here's the official first domestic disagreement that I shall reveal to this community: I informed my wife that in order to clarify the duties of our first goat, his name would in fact be Poulan. Sadly, to date, that name remains un-official.

As you say, no harm comes from responsible grazing. Just don't let them eat to the dirt, like I did, unless you'd like to grow something else in that spot. I bet following a "scorched earth" grazing with a cover crop would be pretty effective...

[oldmobie]

Planted first row of sunflowers for butterfly garden today. Mammoth Russian, Giant Grey Stripe, my own saved seed from both (hopefully crossed), anf Joseph's Landrace (extra large seed) alternated to maximize crossing. Also planted a red mandavilla by the swingset, right where the slide used to be.

Side by side comparisons of landrace crops vs whatever seed I had of the same species are coming along. For the spinach and peas, Joseph's landrace seeds are slightly ahead. (At seed leaf stage) I'll keep track as they grow.

Spinach:



Joseph's Peas:



Mixed store-bought Peas:



Red circles indicate possible additions to the landrace. They certainly have gotten started quickly. I'll compare growth and production. Should I rogue the stragglers, or see what they produce?

The kohlrabi I put out yesterday:

[steev]

I tried goat a few times: tacos in Mexico, very good; skillet-fried by me, off-putting; I think it wants grilling, so the fat drains off.