Garden thread.

[glenn-k]

Thanks Peter.  You made me feel so much better.

[benevolance]

Between my wife and her mother...I am completely outnumbered around here....

It is like they have earplugs in all the time...I am wasting my breath on the pair of them...

I could tell them that the price of gasoline went up or that the woods out back were on fire....

Might as well be talking to the walls

Passive agressive women.....what  are you going to do?

[glenn-k]

If a man walks into the forest and speaks and no woman hears....


is he still wrong? :-/



Don't ask me who the genius philosopher was who said that.  I could guess but I'd probably be wrong.

[fourx]

...meanwhile, back at the upside down ranch...

I have 40 okra plants in flower, hoping to get in a very late crop before the weather really cools off.
Tomorrow the last of the cool weather stuff goes in- Chantany carrots, purple-top turnips, oakleaf lettuce, cherry tomatoes, beetroot and spring onions.

We are picking a bumper crop of eggplant and green beans, with a load of zuccini almost ready, as well.

[MountainDon]

... 40 okra plants in flower...

Oh dear. Tried okra once and it was a one and only. But I'll raid your garden for all those other things any day.  
The high elevation desert here is just not conducive to outdoor gardens tho'. Maybe if it was a matter of survival... No, I'd have to move down to river bosque level and fight off the infidels.

[glenn-k]

...meanwhile, back at the upside down ranch...

I have 40 okra plants in flower, hoping to get in a very late crop before the weather really cools off.
Tomorrow the last of the cool weather stuff goes in- Chantany carrots, purple-top turnips, oakleaf lettuce, cherry tomatoes, beetroot and spring onions.

We are picking a bumper crop of eggplant and green beans, with a load of zuccini almost ready, as well.

The perfect upside down garden - I hope to put extra effort into ours this year -- if we could only get a bit of that global warming to get them off to a good start -- still too cold here and they are slow.

Try the okra sliced in thin rounds and rolled in cornmeal then fried, Don.  Yummy.

[peg_688]

Spent most of Saturday tilling in this ,



Way to green , to much straw in it made tilling a bear








I hope it drys out more so I can turn it over at least one more time.  

[fourx]

Looks like really great rich stuff- is it from a stable? What will you grow on the trellis? Beans, maybe?

[peg_688]

Beef cattle farm , from a covered area they spent some time in this winter.

Peas go on the trellis , we do bush beans in rows generally.

[fourx]

Do you find a high proportion of viable grass seeds coming through in cattle manure? I have both available, but I only use horse manure now because of the seeds in the cow manure.

[peg_688]

Do you find a high proportion of viable grass seeds coming through in cattle manure? I have both available, but I only use horse manure now because of the seeds in the cow manure.

We'll see   This is the first time I've manured this garden up , I expect some weeds / grass etc .

  This MAY not be so bad  :oas the cows where wintered in these barns so I don't think they where roaming around much , I think he said the young stock was kept in till spring and he just hasn't gotten around to mucking out the barns .  At least thats what I hoped I heard  

[benevolance]

Never tried Eggplant..I suppose it tastes like chicken though

Nectarines are the size of golf balls.... A bunch of the lemons fell off the lemon trees :'(


Going to try to get some vegtables in the ground this week...Been a little busy wanted them in 2 weeks ago...

Oh and I used the ashes for gardening...I mixed the ashes 50/50 with run of the mill potting soil....And it is beautiful stuff

I am going to play around with sandy soil types mostly because my yard more than 3 inches deep is all pure white beach sand....I dig it up and it is dark...Leave it out in the sun for a couple days and it is almost white once dried out...

Drainage will never be a problem I guess :-/

I had half a dozen wheel barrow loads of ashes from burning leaves...I have a small compost pile and I am eager to see if I like the compost better than the ashes for mixing in with soil...

Might drive out to a farm next week and see if I can get a half ton load of manure....I am sure if I give a farmer  5 bucks he will let me shovel a load onto  my truck??? used to get it for free...Nothing is free anymore though.

I am not much of a gardener...So I need fool proof vegetables that cannot be killed...

Potatoes are pretty bulletproof plants...I have had success with them in the past...Corn is hearty as well....Not sure if I am ready for anything like Peas or beans....We love squash...Not sure if we can get er done though...Probably just Potatoes, Corn and Carrots

If I can keep those things alive I will try other next year

I desperately want to make molasses from scratch...So I need to be able to grow Sorghum..We will see

[glenn-k]

Spent most of Saturday tilling in this ,

Well at least you weren't rolling in it like my ol' hound dog, Stinky used to love to do.

[peg_688]

Might drive out to a farm next week and see if I can get a half ton load of manure....I am sure if I give a farmer  5 bucks he will let me shovel a load onto  my truck??? used to get it for free...Nothing is free anymore though.

Mine was free   8-) Ron said he'd always wanted to give me $hit  

Boy was  my back sore  :'( Must be gettin old   two I B profins and a hot tub soak have helped  8-)

[glenn-k]

Young trees naturally drop some fruit the first year - sometimes all of it.  They recommend thinning it pretty heavily too  if it doesn't.  

Horse manure is the perfect mix for composting.  If it has bedding straw, etc, add chicken manure (heavy on nitrogen- needs carbon).  Add water till damp  and air - turn it weekly and in a bit over a month it will all have turned to dirt.  Watch out for the white smoke - it will stick to you and make the girls avoid you. :'(  Try not to overheat it and burn it up.  There is a perfec ratio of carbon to nitrogen for composting - plain horse manure is it.

I did about 150000 lbs of it about 3 years ago.  Smell and flies will stay down if you have some that is done already to cover it with or use dirt.

[benevolance]

Glenn

Wow thanks for the tips...

Dunno about composting 15,000 pounds of manure....Half a dodge pick up truck load will be fine for me for a couple of years...I have a massive pile of leaves composting as we speak and a bunch of left over ashes from burned leaves..

Mixing all that in with the sand I have...I should be okay...

[glenn-k]

For composting leaves, use chicken manure to add to it for the proper carbon to nitrogen ratio if you can get it.  Chicken needs more carbon so will help the leaves decompose faster.  Important to turn weekly and keep damp for the bacteria to have their way with it.  This will do the deed in about a month if the mix is right.

Careful - it can catch fire.
 

[MountainDon]

Careful - it can catch fire.

I've never had that problem, but my curiosity led me the leave a steel concrete form stake impaled in the center of my compost bin once. It was cold and the pile was steaming a bit. The next day when I puled it out it was too hot to comfortably hold bare handed.    Quite impressive. I turned the pile right then.

[benevolance]

I wonder if there is anyone out there using this as a source of heat or hot water for their homes...

Think about it...Pack the leaves and manure all around the outside of the house where the top of the cement foundation is exposed.... Sorry glenn talking normal houses here.

Would provide a great source of heat...

Or you could run the water pipe outside and bury it under the manure compost pile.... Instant unlimited free hot water!

[glenn-k]

My mom mentioned they used to pile manure around the foundation of their house in Wisconsin to help stay warm.

Her brother claimed it got so cold in Wisconsin, that they used to have to wet the bed to stay warm.    :-/

From what I gather from that, I don't want to live in Wisconsin.

Jean Pain - France has an entire heating and gas production system worked out.

Check this article out - just found it - google Jean Pain compost heat gas for more.

http://www.permacultureactivist.net/PeterBane/Jean_Pain.html

[benevolance]

impressive... one hectare of forest can produce 4000 litres of Methane gas and all that soil and energy in hot water...

And at the end of it the forest in better shape and of better health than before...

Pretty slick

[glenn-k]

I started collecting wood chips to try that, but that is as far as I got.  He built his own special chipper to make smaller chips.  I think I would have had to add chicken do-do to get the pile to heat up.

When you compost the horse manure you want to keep it a bit below the overheated stage - seems it was around 125.  Hotter than that makes ash or could burn.  The heat is what breaks it down so fast - controlling it is fun.  You don't exactly smell like a bouquet of flowers after the white smoke hits you.

[glenn-k]

Looking at gold mines yesterday we came across an old pioneer house foundation with a batch of wild gooseberries in the gully behind it.  We ate a few and dug a few to plant hoping they will survive.  May be one of those things you get and wonder if you really want it though.  Pretty stickery.

[Amanda_931]

One of my aunts in Iowa had a gooseberry patch.  On the Old Home Place.

Pies and jam.

[glenn-k]

I planted the stickery little gooseberries under the planter water runoff - fairly out of the way and maybe they will grow.   I read that the ones that turn red are not as common as the green ones, but they are pretty small though.  Maybe 3/8 or so.  Not many bigger - but these were not getting much water at the location they were in.

Also got the drip irrigation started on the two rock planter areas - the big ones that weren't done.  Never can tell when I'll go to work away for a while and things will die -- then I'll be in deep doo-doo. :'(

So now we can get after planting and later just try to fix problem watering areas in the new section.