coppice
gardener
gardening curmudgeon
Posts: 149
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Post by coppice on Jan 26, 2015 13:33:20 GMT -5
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 26, 2015 13:33:38 GMT -5
Snow? Forgot what it looks like. 70 degrees and sunny. The Bradford Pears are blooming all over town. The first iris of the season just bloomed. For crying out loud, spring in January!
Coppice, pretty funny...I think I'll try it. Do you think it matters that we have a composting toilet, so you can't flush?
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Post by steev on Jan 26, 2015 15:38:39 GMT -5
Composters, being waterless, don't work with aqua-magic; more efficacious is variations on "To every thing there is a season; turn, turn, turn..."
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 27, 2015 3:32:47 GMT -5
Right, turning, emptying...ewwww...gosh is there anything as icky as dealing with your own s**t? No, I guess not.
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Post by philagardener on Jan 30, 2015 21:41:12 GMT -5
10 degrees tonight in the Philadelphia area with wind chills near or below zero. A very cold air mass moving in. Stay warm!
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Post by jondear on Feb 1, 2015 19:38:59 GMT -5
We've got snow now! A blizzard dumped about 2 feet on us then 2 days later, we got nearly another foot. And now they're saying tomorrow we'll get about 8 inches more. I was getting tired of seeing the dead and dried out pepper plants; that is no longer a problem.
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Post by copse on Feb 6, 2015 20:31:45 GMT -5
5C (41F) this morning when I went for my run. It's still summer and I've got visible frost damage on my pumpkin and courgette leaves. Not good!
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Post by 12540dumont on Feb 6, 2015 22:00:31 GMT -5
Sorry Jondear. I hope it wasn't the inside out pjs.
Rain, rain we are finally getting rain. I got the onions planted just before it. Steev must have washed his truck!
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Post by steev on Feb 8, 2015 15:44:09 GMT -5
It's been washed, but not by me. Rained heavily Friday; Saturday morning the farm gauge said 3.4"; dry enough to work Saturday, but rain returned with dawn Sunday, expected to be heavier; unpleasant to hang out in, but water in the well, which is a blessing.
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Post by steev on Feb 12, 2015 22:53:53 GMT -5
The rainy season total, both in Oakland and on the farm, is 15+"; on both it is warm and dry of late, which is not unusual; here in NorCal, we typically have a "camel" season, not a "dromedary", so there is normally a heavy first hump, then 4-6 weeks warm/dry, then lighter rain ~every three days through April. So far, so good, as we're on track for our normal 21/22" total. The problem, of course, is that we are greatly in deficit, reservoir- and aquifer-wise. and the Sierra snow-pack is frighteningly deficient, with no significant cold-season left in which more snow-pack could be added. This is certainly not the longest drought in California's history, but it's the longest since the 1850's, when records were started.
Lucky me; my farm isn't dependent on Sierra snow-melt, nor Central Valley aquifer, so if the rain is "normal" my well is charged and my income isn't dependent on my crops, in any event. Not so much, my neighbors, who've been having to buy more fodder from the Valley every year to feed their critters. The rush to convert field-crop land to orchard/vineyard-crop land goes on apace; I think it's no little bit about establishing water rights before pumping regulations can be enacted.
I hope the normal pattern of rain returns, simply because it would mean my not having to make planting/irrigation decisions that would be early and troublesome.
Nevertheless, I will be planting a large patch of "Steev's Dry Wit" melon, just to see what comes of it, unirrigated.
Joseph: I gave the third melon produced last year to my sweetheart; she saved me the seeds, but discarded the melon, thinking it must be rotten, it was so stinky! I recall she had the same complaint about the Old Original melons that were the very best melon ever ( even she thought so ). It's not easy to re-program people from the idea that melon should have no fragrance, just sugar.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Feb 13, 2015 1:02:38 GMT -5
steev: Now you've done it... Triggered a thought process that makes me want to shoplift a piece of cantaloupe from the Chinese all-you-can-eat buffet, so that I can test it for sugar content. I'd feel embarrassed about testing it right there in the restaurant, so I'd have to shoplift it to conduct the test. I can't stand to eat store bought cantaloupes. I'm not really convinced that they have enough sugar in them to even be palatable.
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Post by steev on Feb 13, 2015 2:41:28 GMT -5
Having realized that what makes food delicious to me is scent, not taste, which is so restricted, I am thoroughly set on the notion that any veg/fruit capable of expressing its goodness by its scent is my desire.
I doubt most seriously that our extreme forebears didn't judge what they ate by its scent unless/until they knew for sure that it was good.
Really, if you can tell whether you want to eat something by the first sniff, isn't that a good thing? The whole notion that we should buy something, solely because somebody else says it's good is ludicrous. I'm not talking about the down-scale merchants; I'm talking about the whole process/concept.
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Post by reed on Feb 13, 2015 6:02:14 GMT -5
I'm getting excited about the possibility of real melons again. Probably the first thing I ever grew, I panted them in the sand at the top of the river bank behind our house and they went wild, literally. You could tell there were ripe ones somewhere in the jumble of driftwood and horse weeds by the smell. You can get good melons here from the flat sandy farms over by the Wabash river but I was starting to think my idea of real ones was more nostalgia than actual memory. People get all excited when the Jackson County melons arrive at the stores. I would rate them at a 5 maybe 6 out of 10.
They won't grow where I live now though. I have had maybe ten ripe ones over the years and they were Minnesota Midgets, pretty good, but... Even less luck with water melons. This year I'm gonna pant my MM seeds with Joseph's and see how it comes out. Maybe eventually they will adapt to this hard packed clay and taste and smell the way they should.
It's ten degrees out there right now so guess I'm gonna have to wait.
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Post by synergy on Feb 13, 2015 16:57:14 GMT -5
We have had cherries blossoming in Vancouver BC Canada in January and highs of 18 celsius here on our farm in January (equivalent of 64 farenheit) . Today is 14c , the catch planting early here is that we could have freezing and snow in mid April kill any young sprouting plants or flowering buds .
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Post by reed on Feb 13, 2015 17:10:16 GMT -5
Here now days if you plant in the abnormally warm weather it doesn't mean a day or two of more normal cold three weeks later won't wipe it out. If you wait to plant at what used to be the normal time you risk getting hit by the heat and drought that usually starts anymore by early June. With some things like green beans I have started panting earlier knowing I may have to start over.
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