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Post by richardw on Oct 16, 2017 23:23:15 GMT -5
Ive got one aster thats nearly a metre tall now, wont be long before i will plant them out, they are outside in pots waiting with lots of other frost tender plants, still just a bit early yet even though there's been no plant killing frosts since the last week of winter.
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Post by reed on Nov 5, 2017 20:06:02 GMT -5
I discovered my first NEW vegetable or at least new to me. It's a turnip! or at least I think it is. The root isn't anything like a turnip and has no taste at all. The leaves are extra amazing delicious, sweet mildly turnipish and a little hot bite. Incredible, there are only 1/2 dozen of them so I'm having to restrict haw much I munch in hopes they live through till spring and make seeds.  I don't know where it came from, the only turnip I have grow is purple top white globe which I have encouraged to basically go wild the last few years. Only thing I'm aware of it might have crossed to is wild mustard which I think is the same species. Anyway it is an wonderful amazing garden snack and in salads. All parts of the leaves and stems of all sizes are good. A couple of the plants are a little fuzzy on the leaves but they all taste the same. Am I mistaken? Is something common I might have planted and forgotten about or maybe came mixed in with some other seed. That second thing doesn't make sense though cause I haven't planted any new purchased seed for a couple seasons. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Nov 5, 2017 20:38:03 GMT -5
Bok choi perhaps? Same species as turnip. I might have shared seeds with you...
Edit to add: Wow! I see that micro bare foot in the photo. What a wonderfully huge plant!
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Post by steev on Nov 5, 2017 22:42:50 GMT -5
C'mon, joseph; you're just impressed because your feet are so large; put your feet in those patches so we get a real sense of scale.
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Post by khoomeizhi on Nov 6, 2017 4:00:15 GMT -5
Sure looks like a mustard.
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Post by reed on Nov 6, 2017 7:02:49 GMT -5
I think it must be a turnip wild mustard cross. It came up volunteer from turnips that seeded this spring. Some wild mustard was growing near by and I took it out before any seeding but I did let it bloom. I hoped for some crossing but never expected something so good to come from it.
I also have a big choi patch but I didn't put it in till a few weeks ago. It is doing very well, considerable attack by the cabbage worms when first planted but finally had an actual freeze about a week or so ago that put an end to them. Hopeful at least some plants will winter over and seed in spring. I'll just let them cross with the turnips and the turnip/mustard. I know the turnips are winter hardy here, if I can get everything mixed up good I can just let it go wild and pretty soon have my fall/winter/spring greens, immune to the worms cause it grows in weather too cold for them. If they want to eat the leaves of plants going to seed, I can live with that. Plus I noticed they had definite preference for some plants compared to others, they don't seem to like pure turnip. Once the new crop is nicely established in a semi-wild state I can start selecting just by removing anything I don't like.
My radishes are already established, I have them in pretty much all stages of growth from fresh sprouts to great big ones currently tilling the soil and at the same time providing lots of delicious seed pods. I expect it might be possible to push them into winter hardiness. A young doe in maybe 100 lb range has taken to hopping the fence in the back garden and eating the tops. I don't mind sharing some, venison stew and jerky isn't a bad trade.
My brassica crop isn't doing as well. I bought seed of about 20 kinds of cabbage, sprouts, broccoli and the like and planted about 500 in cell packs to transplant at the same time I started my choi. Only got about 15% germination where the Lofthouse choi was easily 90%. I know I can pull off my winter brassica by including a lot of kale but we don't like kale too much so I want to get a lot of other stuff mixed in there as well. Collards are the exception to the poor germination in this project, got lots of it, keeping fingers crossed that some overwinters.
[add] My lettuce that overwintered last year also reseeded good. It is a plain green leaf type. I planted a bunch of new kinds this spring and let it all go to seed and come up on it's own as well as saving seed. Lots of it is going strong right now. The one from last year isn't harvest-able in winter, it died down but sprouted back up and was way ahead of what I planted this spring. Hopefully some of the new kinds will do the same thing.
I'v consistently failed with carrots and chard but optimistic that can be remedied.
I like winter gardening, no bugs, no watering and everything that is sometimes strong or bitter flavored in hot weather tastes great.
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Post by richardw on Nov 6, 2017 12:25:23 GMT -5
So what do you put the failing with carrots and chard down to. And how cold do you get there in winter?
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Post by reed on Nov 6, 2017 20:07:02 GMT -5
So what do you put the failing with carrots and chard down to. And how cold do you get there in winter? Well ya know, it's hard to to find good help. The fella that was in charge of getting chard seed was impatient and took the fact they hadn't sprouted in spring to mean they hadn't made it through winter so he tilled the spot up and found lots of healthy looking roots or chunks of roots. Ya woulda thought he learned from that but did the same thing the next year. Similar story with the carrots but he has promised to do better from now on. |
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Post by reed on Nov 7, 2017 11:51:05 GMT -5
And how cold do you get there in winter? It can get pretty cold here, the coldest I have ever seen was in the neighborhood of -30 C. That was decades ago in late 1970s in what I named the real winter. We had a period of a few weeks where daytime highs didn't get above -15 C. The Ohio River froze solid, you couldn't walk on it though cause all the barges and Coast Guard in days and weeks before had been keeping it broken up so when they finally had to give up and let it freeze, giant chunks of ice had piled up on one another. I enjoyed that winter but hope not to see it again, one was enough. In last couple decades -20 C or colder is both common and uncommon. What I mean by that is a "normal" winter now is long periods with highs in say the 0 C to 10 C range or even warmer but punctuated a couple times a season with a day or two of the -20 C stuff. Plays hell with cold weather crops that put on a lot of growth and then have a single night nip it down. Things that might like it fine it if got cold and stayed cold can really take a hit that way. Planting in March or April when it can now sometimes easily hit 30 C is risky cause it still might fall to -10 C for a night or two in May. I do it though in order to try to get a crop harvest before the near 40 C temps and weeks long dry spells arrive in June. I't kinda developing into a two season, season. December and January being too cold and wet. July and August too hot and dry. I'm adapting to growing in the four month spaces between, pushing the old normal in both directions. Planting in March or even February, harvesting in October and November. |
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Post by reed on Nov 16, 2017 19:04:32 GMT -5
Got another new turnip?/mustard? It has skinny leaves that taste good but are kind of stringy. Some of it has made seed pods which unfortunately are also kind of tough and stringy. The flower heads and the stalks are tender and very, very tasty, raw or steamed. When you pick one to eat the plant quickly grows some more.  I suppose it is another turnip x wild mustard, it sure is good. I hope it lives through and blooms some more in spring, I'm afraid the blooms it has now won't set seed,especially if they depend on insects. Here is part of my choi patch. So far so good we had a couple nights in low 20s F and it's still growing. I'm fine with it crossing with the turnips and mustard, assuming it lives and blooms next spring. I can select for specific traits once I have my new semi wild winter / spring greens.  |
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Post by richardw on Nov 16, 2017 23:24:33 GMT -5
And how cold do you get there in winter? It can get pretty cold here, the coldest I have ever seen was in the neighborhood of -30 C. That was decades ago in late 1970s in what I named the real winter. We had a period of a few weeks where daytime highs didn't get above -15 C. The Ohio River froze solid, you couldn't walk on it though cause all the barges and Coast Guard in days and weeks before had been keeping it broken up so when they finally had to give up and let it freeze, giant chunks of ice had piled up on one another. I enjoyed that winter but hope not to see it again, one was enough. In last couple decades -20 C or colder is both common and uncommon. What I mean by that is a "normal" winter now is long periods with highs in say the 0 C to 10 C range or even warmer but punctuated a couple times a season with a day or two of the -20 C stuff. Plays hell with cold weather crops that put on a lot of growth and then have a single night nip it down. Things that might like it fine it if got cold and stayed cold can really take a hit that way. Planting in March or April when it can now sometimes easily hit 30 C is risky cause it still might fall to -10 C for a night or two in May. I do it though in order to try to get a crop harvest before the near 40 C temps and weeks long dry spells arrive in June. I't kinda developing into a two season, season. December and January being too cold and wet. July and August too hot and dry. I'm adapting to growing in the four month spaces between, pushing the old normal in both directions. Planting in March or even February, harvesting in October and November. Wow, you do have extreme ranges of temps , we never ever have a day where it wont warm above freezing. And thanks for converting to Celsius to, but i am ok with Fahrenheit, its only when it gets into the -F's i need to go to a convert page. |
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Post by richardw on Nov 16, 2017 23:32:43 GMT -5
oh and here's how your Asters are looking, just four plants that spent the winter in my tunnelhouse, sorry i didnt down size the photo  |
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Post by reed on Nov 17, 2017 8:14:22 GMT -5
It will be fun to see how the asters do. I have never grown them like that. If I see a nice wild one I stop and dig it up but I think I have about all the variations from the area collected now. After they bloom in fall I just cut the dried stems and shake the seeds off all around the edges of they yard. I think the way I do it they often take two years to bloom. I hope you get a nice range of colors and large sized flowers. I pluck out any of the small flowered ones.
Yep, our weather is pretty extreme in temp range. Problem is used to be it was a somewhat predictable and gradual change in spring and fall. Now spring and fall can be way warmer than they used too be but still have intermittent periods just as cold as it ever was. trees and other perennial things don't like it. For example some trees commonly have their green leaves frozen off both in fall and spring. Happening over and over stresses them out and they eventually croak. Some of my spring daffodils are up right now, they will likely be frozen down before long.
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Post by steev on Nov 17, 2017 9:05:05 GMT -5
That temperature ripshaw has been a problem on the farm, costing me many seedlings; persimmons and walnuts, mostly; when I'm more on-site I hope to be able to deal with it.
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Post by richardw on Nov 17, 2017 13:25:37 GMT -5
Yes persimmons have been tricky to get going here too, keeping them in pots for two years works better than one year, for the life of me i can never understand why a plant will survive winter better outside in a pot than planted in the ground? reed So the leaf/plant shape looks the same as your asters? i reckon every seed came up, ended up giving sooo many away to gardening friends, so between us all we should see some interesting plants hopefully. |
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