'Sup!

[steev]

I can't believe it's half-past April and people aren't posting lots about what they're doing; you in SoHem, that's understandable, but in NorHem? What's up with that?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

My crops in the field are still too small to see very well with a camera. So here's a photo from the greenhouse this evening.

[steev]

You're lucky to have a greenhouse: mine blew away years ago.

[templeton]

Well, down here its all systems go for the autumn season - greens a-growing, peas a-sprouting, alliums a-shooting. I'll put up some lovely red snowpea pics for you steev, when i get home to the camera.
T

[steev]

Ah, garden porn; my nearly favorite kind.

[khoomeizhi]

as usual, generally too busy with it all to post about it...but here goes.

finally was able to track down and buy a good orchard ladder, so soon (this afternoon maybe?) i'll get to grafting variety black walnut, shagbark hickory, and american persimmon on trees that were already here when we bought the place last year. somehow lost my pruning saw in a 'cleaning' event last month, so had to find a new one of those, too. i think all the pieces are in place now, though. four cultivars of black walnut, three persimmon, and one hickory. also grafted up twenty-some pear trees (mostly asian varieties) now in a nursery bed, to be planted out in the fall. also planted 23 pawpaws with should-be-great genetics (seedlings from a breeding program in ohio) up and down the creekbed. will probably graft known varieties on those too in a few years, but will leave branches of the rootstocks to evaluate their fruit.

the overwintered greens in the unheated greenhouse are rockin', though the turnips and arugula just want to bolt. new spring greens are up but tiny yet. got the first hundred-twenty or so yacon potted up for the their springtime jump on getting in the ground (still not safe for a couple weeks at least, but the bigger the sooner the better). got almost all my giant groundnut pots filled and planted - still need to deal with their trellisses. most of the other annuals (or seedling perennials, new for this year) are still in their little trays, getting dried out in record time every day in unseasonable dry heat.

my nut orchard group (which i've been meaning to make a post about under the 'alternative practices' forum for 'alternative land access ideas') - we just signed our second lease and planted out our second very young orchard - with almost all 'celebrity' genetics: various chestnuts selected from bob stehli's ohio chestnut operation, mostly shagbark and a few shellbark hickories from bud luer's seed, and low-tannin oaks, the origins of which i forget. these are basically 'free' (for now) long-term leases (offering the landowners a share of produce or proceeds when they come in) that dovetail into conservation easements - combining agricultural production with reforestation of a kind. for slightly shorter-term yields we're also interplanting hawthorns and aronias and a few other things for the medicinal market, plus all the old varieties of cider-apples and pears we can find for a cidery we'll probably open in the next decade, on the basis that craft-cider brewing is taking off, but most of the pro's use dessert apples, and then have to cover up the fact that their cider's a little boring with excessive carbonation. so we're going to try to corner the not-boring local market.

there's lot of other little things, but what i've just listed plus working full time elsewhere and playing in a band is most of 'sup these days for me. happy spring!

[reed]

Goodness, where to start. Pear and peaches are loaded with baby fruit, gonna have to thin if some don't abort on their own

Patience dock and sunroots have took off like weeds.

Lots of spring stuff up but needs some rain, radish, arugula, seeded onions, carrots. Cabbage, broccoli, burssels sprouts from transplants with lots of extras to sell. Overwintered seed carrots looking good. Walking onions starting to get their tops, little early for that I think but...

Tomatoes look almost ready to set out with plenty extra of them too.

Woo Hoo, wild beans ( Phaseolus polystachios ) sprouting in the cold frame, nothing yet on the direct seeded ones.

TPS and TGS plants ready to up-pot but skipped that step and set out in the ground. Sacrificed a couple TPS to examine root structure. Odd, looked about the same size, color and growth but one had small roots only about an inch or so deep, the other had long roots all the way to the bottom of the pot. Commercial potatoes Kennebec and Pontiac up nice, planted the TPS right beside.

TSPS not sprouted yet. Got em on a heat mat in south window, figure since they like it hot growing maybe hot is also what they like to sprout.

Overwintered cabbage and brussels sprouts are blooming. Moved them beside each other to encourage crossing. Flower heads and stems of each although smaller than a broccoli head are very tasty as are the leaves. The plants I have been harvesting from keep growing new ones.   This crazy idea is working better than expected. A nutritious crop for raw and cooked greens, planted in the fall and harvested for a long period in spring BEFORE the cabbage worms arrive!

Overwintered spinach and lettuce growing nice but again, need some rain.  

Overwintered turnips making seed pods, I love those raw or steamed. 

Volunteer sunflowers and dill transplanted into their home for the season, more keep coming up. 

Volunteer "cold tolerant tomatoes" segregating into some potato leafed and some regular. Figured they were Joseph's but F2 generation  of a commercial one called Red Rose is doing the same thing. 

First patch of Hoosier Daddy sweet corn in the ground with more to be planted soon. Borrowed garden across the road is read for flour / flint / field corn to go in soon. 

The woman's green house is overflowing with herbs and flowers for her to sell. I started some by seed and she buys plugs on Ebay  .

Supposed to cool off a little and rain next couple days, not looking all that hopeful right now on the rain. 

Melons, squash and peppers and who knows what else will be going in soon. 

Grapes leafing out and trying again to root cuttings. !!!!Got a few fruits on the honey berries!!! black and raspberries looking good. 

[mskrieger]

khoomeizhi Someday I am going to have to come out and see your nut orchards. Jealous of the useful hickories you are grafting. Mine are all gorgeous, mature, and utterly inedible. And reed, glad to hear the frost didn't take out your peach fruit set.

My crab apple just began blooming this week, and the sour cherries look set to do so next week. Both will be a week+ earlier than usual. I have been utterly negligent in spraying them, due to pregnancy, work schedule, planting new trees and dealing with potatoes. My husband found a bag of small potatoes I grew last year, sprouting in the cold room. I have no memory of saving them for seed, but figured I might as well plant them. Then Fedco just shipped me a whole 'nother box. So I gotta dig this weekend! Dig through that nice healthy zoysia sod in my front yard. While five months pregnant. This was easier when I was younger...each subsequent kid degrades my abs a little more... ah well. Whenever we visit my husband's hometown I see all those Amish ladies digging in their gardens with their 8+ kids running around and I know pregnancy sure didn't slow them down.

[ferdzy]

Apr 21, 2016 0:05:02 GMT -5 steev said:

You're lucky to have a greenhouse: mine blew away years ago.

Yeah mine too.

First peas are planted; peppers, eggplants, and tomatoes are in pots; onion and celery seedlings are doing; squash, cukes, and melons should be started right about now but will be done next week due to the fact that we are hoping to sell a large chunk of my fathers licence plate collection this weekend and Edwin is up to his eyebrows in cataloguing and pricing. And it's not like this is looking like being an early planting season.

Possibility of snow flurries later this week.

Me, I've been cleaning up the perennial beds and perusing peony porn. I think Dad's collecting gene is starting to express itself in me...

[khoomeizhi]

Apr 21, 2016 9:50:31 GMT -5 mskrieger said:

khoomeizhi Someday I am going to have to come out and see your nut orchards. Jealous of the useful hickories you are grafting. Mine are all gorgeous, mature, and utterly inedible.

someday it'll be worth the trip. somewhat underwhelming at the moment, with no hickories above about 8"! in orchard #1, they're not even hickories yet! (using pecans as rootstocks there)


just got in from grafting hickory and persimmons. walnut will have to wait another day at least.

my ladder is everything i'd hoped for.

[steev]

What sort of ladder is it? I'll never buy another orchard ladder except the welded-aluminum Japanese ones; they're spendy, but so much lighter than others; regrettably, they only seem to come at 8' and 12'; I'd like a 15'.

[richardw]

Here in 'even further downunder' bugger all happens from now on, just sowing wheat as green crop and broad beans for wintering over and spring seed production, garlic is in and up growing nicely, apart from that i'm now working on building a heat storage mass inside the house which is heated by a newly in stored wood oven, the heat storage mass been made of stone means walking the river bed looking for flat sided stones.

[mskrieger]

Apr 22, 2016 5:13:18 GMT -5 richardw said:

 apart from that i'm now working on building a heat storage mass inside the house which is heated by a newly in stored wood oven, the heat storage mass been made of stone means walking the river bed looking for flat sided stones.

Are you building a kind of masonry stove? That is cool. So desirable. So expensive! Lucky you to have good rock for it nearby. I assume you're building it on slab, because it's so heavy? I live in the land of basements. Basements are great...unless you want to incorporate several tons of heat storage mass into your main floor.

[steev]

My house had a central masonry fireplace built from the basement up into the living-room.

[flowerweaver]

Now that I have nursed one old dog through two major surgeries (eye and disc), the other old dog has slipped into liver failure. A recent blood test showed a 20% regenerative turn around in 10 days through my healing regimen. Both are very alert and interested in life, so I continue doing what I can. Caring for these two is taking quite a bit of my time. All this is to say I'm greatly delayed in planting so it's probably going to be another bad gardening year, even though it's a lovely spring.

I got the beans planted 2-3 weeks late, and the recent rains have ensured a good sprouting. There was 3.7" a couple days ago, and .3" before that. My tomatoes are unfortunately still in 3" pots waiting to go into the ground. The poor potatoes came back a third time after the two freezes, only I forgot and left the plastic over them one hot day and they appear to have baked to death. More room for something else should I find time for planting more!