Coronavirus planting?

[reed]

I'm definitely going for more practical food. Lots of dry beans and sweet potatoes. Stuff that usually produces good and easy to store. No squash cause failure rate is too high with it, can't waste the space. Corn but not sweet corn, I consider it a summertime treat, not food. Maybe some melons, cause I do like treats.

I've already planted carrots, radishes, lettuce, and some other stuff. Mustard and turnips overwintered and we're eating the greens, same with kale.

Much more attention to preventing damage from critters this year, got another solar electric fence and coon traps are out. Plenty of 22 ammunition for rabbits and squirrels.

Then we got the ongoing climate disaster and it's rapid increase from loss of the dimming effect. I'm planting earlier than ever, as much as 45 days earlier. A shift of the jet stream might still take it out but I have seed to start over as necessary. 

[reed]

If it was me and if I could do so without interfering with my own food production I would hold to the contract. Otherwise, I'd consider it void.

[flowerbug]

we are changing our planting this season anyways because a lot of space used to go towards cucumbers and we aren't going to need to grow as many. i hope to increase tomatoes so we can put more up for the off season as we're already almost out of them that we put up last year. and then any left-over space we'll plant the usual mix of onions, peppers, squash, beans, peas. i save the beans until i know better how much of what will go where because i use them to fill in any empty spaces i have left. i also have a lot more space this year with an unfenced garden available but it may be hard to get a guaranteed crop from it for the effort put in. i really do want to put a fence up but no luck yet getting Mom to say ok on that.

beans and peas are good dry storage foods as also the winter squash. the garlic is already in as also the bunching/green onions from last season. i've already divided them up to get ready for the growing season this year.

my biggest concern now is that if there will be enough plants at the greenhouse available or not.

[Dewdrop]

What I'm doing for sure is trying to grow my culled (fewer beans per pod) 'string' bean seeds on sunflower and corn plants, hopefully they grow and produce with minimal additional effort.

Edited: I finally transplanted my luffa gourd plants I started indoors.  This way I have a chance of getting more 'pot scrubbers'.  I could eat the Luffa gourds young if I were really hungry.  

Edited again: It occured to me that string may be valued more again, so I'm curious to try different methods to see if I can reduce some of the need for string.  The easy part is using thin wire instead of string to secure my cattle panel trellis to the metal t-posts. 

I had a change of plans from my former string bean idea.  I found some 2yr old seeds so instead I planted 'Gator' bush bean seeds in the corn rows. 

[jocelyn]

I'm going to plant a few more potatoes and squash, as they store well. I might not be able to get meat bird chicks this year, depending on how long the covid thing hangs around. We will have lots of nuts, so that will be local protein if the meat birds don't pan out. Might do some more beets and onions too, as it seems to be an off year for mice...giving the beets a chance.
Cabbages are iffy here, the mice usually get them.

[diane]

Dried beans will give you protein.

[steev]

Dried Beings will give you protein.

[walnuttr]

Tried a short line of sugar-beet this season to replace the imported cane-sugar; Somehow the local flock of pheasants figured the leaves are good to munch down. The first pheasant tastes good after being in slow-cooker; the rest have got a tad people-shy. Still may be worth trying the beet again next season.....if I can source some seed.

Have not figured how to replace imported leaf-tea; the regular pickers may soon be off-work a while.

Too cold for yams or rice. Waiting for some global warming to get effective.
Might have to out-race the rats to collect walnuts this fall.( about next week ? )
sigh.

[flowerbug]

nut trees would be so nice to have. black walnuts will grow here and a few others but as of yet i can't get myself to work too hard on the space which is on the opposite side of the large drainage ditch. at one time i wanted to plant it with cider apple and other mixed apple trees, but it is too hard to find time to get back there and all the work of protecting young trees from the deer is more than i ever have time to do. the most i've done back there is get someone to brushwhack the scrub trees and thorn bushes that were starting to over grow that space. i didn't want that or the shade they'd soon be casting on my main vegetable garden.

[reed]

How are things going so far this year? My tomatoes are doing great, more than enough to fill canning jars for a couple years worth. Corn is doing nicely as well, though not enough of it for much more than establishing a nice seed stock. Sweet potatoes have overwhelmed their planting areas and expect a good harvest although most are new seed grown and I'm guessing around 30% will not make sizable roots. Got a nice selection for taste testing the leaves and shoots and they do well in the south windows for fresh greens this winter. Cowpeas! Wow. I read they were tough and drought resistant and man they are. Got a quart of dry seed off one little patch with only about 15 seeds planted, a bigger patch of a longer season type is loaded right now but not dry yet. Common beans not doing well this year, that's a bummer but we have pretty good stock canned from last year.

The woman talked me into planting winter squash and wouldn't you know it, turns out to be that rare season where they do well, lots of acorns and various others maturing now and still setting new ones. She also talked me into planting some sweet corn, it was a bust. Hopefully enough so that she won't nag about it next year. I hate growing sweet corn.

[flowerbug]

we did our fourth picking of tomatoes this morning and i have the last of them juicing right now (well in a few minutes when they're done). we are short of lids for wide mouth quart jars so we may be scrambling this next week to find some lids or jars or we'll have to use pint jars. if the tally comes right for today it will be about 46 quarts of tomato juice today.

otherwise the beans look to be producing ok and the onions are fairly done, the strawberries did well, i really have no complaints about this year even with the tomato worm and disease issues. the disease issues happen every year, but the tomato worm problem can be few to many, this year it is probably the most i've ever picked off the plants and i'm still finding more new worms each day. i was hoping last week that they were done, but it was just a lull before the rest caught up... it's ok, it just is interesting to me how each year can vary. Japanese Beetles have been more persistent this year too, but now that many of the beans are getting older the plants aren't attracting as many beetles as before.

[walt]

Reed.  Cowpeas are said to have been domesticated in the Sahel, the area just south of the Sahara.  The Sahel is plenty hot and dry.  Cowpeas are still a staple there, where farmers farm like their lives depended on it.  Which they do.
Cowpeas spread across southern Asia thousands of years ago, and adapted.  So there are cowpeas adapted to hot dry and others adapted to hot wet.  There may be some adapted to cooler weather, I don't know.
Anyway, not knocking other kinds of beans, peas, etc., but cowpeas should be concidered for anyone counting on their garden to feed them.
All that said, my garden was a bust this year.  To much else got in the way.

[xdrix]

The cow peas is very good but i note that he is more late than the others beans.

[flowerbug]

yes, the season here is still too short for some crops even if we get a few extra days. the adzuki beans i'm trying to grow are supposedly early enough, we'll see if i can get any crop from them at all this year, but they did get eaten by creatures a few times so they may not do much in time.

[reed]

The cow peas I already harvested came from a trade here on HG. A friend in Minnesota sent them. They are very small plants only about a foot tall, I've never grown them before and was shocked at how early they are given what I've read about them. The next crop is that is maturing now also came from a trade on HG. I think it was philagardener that sent them too me. They have a larger dark red seed and are much larger vines, might have benefited from a trellis. Over all they are productive, no disease issues, extremely drought tolerant. Definitely gonna keep growing them.  Now I just have to learn how to cook em.