Gardening Gardening

My last potato reveal:

The tops were almost done. A potato found under the sink July 4th that had sprouted. SO I planted it in a really big laundry basket that wasn't being used because it was too big . Forgot to count but I got 9 or 10 medium size potato and a bunch of tiny ones.

 

You pay a premium for the small ones in a grocery store. Go figure.

 

Yeah, given the price of fingerlings they might actually be more cost effective to grow in a back yard garden than standard spuds.

 

That’s a nice load of squash! We love butternut and find that it keeps the best. Unfortunately we didn’t have room for any this year. How much space did you give them? I started a hugelkultur bed last November that I hope to be able to plant squash in next year. I still need to get some soil and compost on it before winter.

 

Peppers are off the charts! I’m giving away loads.

Tomatoes aren’t that good. Excessive rain is splitting skins and making the flavor bland.

 

Can't remember what I posted here or not...but here's one of my plots freshly plowed up with the 2 bottom Ferguson.

Here's the other one I plowed up to let the sod settle over the year to be planted next year. Can see the sweet corn and pumpkins in the one behind.

Sweet corn coming along! Some of the far side is tasseled out there. I sell sweet corn and pumpkins out of my micro hobby farm I call it.

And here I am! My corn did well this year. Super sweet variety. Yes, that's sweet corn as tall as field corn! Had good growing season this year. And we'll say the wood ash I spread helps too lol. I grow organically, hence the straw and weeds around. Pumpkins to the right side of picture.

Some bush beans on the foreground there. Electric fence to keep coons out! They got in one night before I had it up and destroyed about 20 plants in one night!

And there's the old work horse for turning dirt and other odd jobs around the place. '61 Oliver 550 gas.

 

I'll try to get a picture of what it looks like now. All of the tilled ground is seeded with a cover crop mix of field peas and oats now. It will be disked in in the spring time before planting.

 

Bare and let them go below freezing. I've overwinter iris rhizomes in an unheated shed for years (they were lost/forgotten). I threw them out at the edge of the woods figuring they were no good, and got a nice surprise when some of them decided to show some life.

 

I have a few kinds of Iris. I always just leave them in the ground just like any other perennial. I don't give them any special attention, covering etc. They come back next year bigger and better. Only thing to watch out for is insect destruction. there is some sort of worm like thing that will eat the rhizomes and wipe them out. for that I recommend planting garlic in with them. Garlic has proven to be my "go to" first line of defence from critters and bugs.

 

I've given them a whole 50x4 foot bed in the past but they only got about 15 feet this year. I didn't plant many and I let the vines go amongst other things. I tried the hybrid types that are supposed to and generally do have shorter vines but they tend to have a lot of crook necks and I'd rather have the no neck squash. They also tend to have smaller squash and I'd rather have fewer but bigger. Pretty sure I planted Waltham this year. I can keep them until about Christmas in my garage but then they'll freeze and rot. My cellar with the wood stove is too warm. I don't need that many for ourselves so I'll keep about maybe 15 (cooking up some and freezing) and drop the extras off at one of the local church run food pantries. I had 75 extra one year. I found spaghetti squash keep fairly well too. I still have one from three years ago but it is light as a feather like a gourd.

 

Okay, gotta admit I was assuming they hadn't been planted yet. If they have been planted, savemoney is correct, just leave them alone.

 

I’ve stored Waltham butternut in a cooler spot in the house, in the 60’s, for over 9 months and it was still good. They have to be perfect though, no blemishes at all.

 

Picked the last of the bell peppers today. Small chance of a freeze later in the week and with the short days and cooler weather they're just not going to get any bigger.

 

...so....again...someone in this group told me to plant my tomatoes
w/the plant to the north and the roots laid out to the south.
I did that. I had a bumper crop of tomatoes. More than I have ever had.

I'm cleaning up the garden last week and pulling the tomatoes and
taking down the trellis. Look at the roots these buggers put down.
You can see the potting root ball and the roots that came out the part
of the stalk that got buried when I planted them...but look at the extended
roots going off the root ball. I have never had tomatoes do that.

 

I would try to put them in a container with some garden soil. Maybe you have some dead potted plants. clean soil up and put in a container with drainage, cover just over the rhizomes and then cover that with some hardware cloth so rodents won't get to them. then set the pots in some sheltered spot, cover that with straw, not hay. pine boughs will do. hopefully they will get snowed on and not do the freeze thaw thing that will destroy the rhizomes.

 

29° forecast for Thursday night, so I'm moving the tropicals into the basement today. Which means reorganizing things down there, so there's room. I'd much rather be splitting wood.

 

They are a motley crew, but comforting in January.

 

Turning compost, my favorite chore. Not. ( and why it often doesn't get done )
Turned three piles today. They start out a 25 foot long 3 foot tall fence ring.

It's a little messy. I don't care, it's compost not stacks of firewood.


This one didn't get turned often enough ( happens a lot ). Toss the clumps onto the yellow wheelbarrow and fork it around to break it up, then toss it through the fence into the black wheelbarrow to get the last of the clumps so I could toss it on the rhubarb, raspberries and strawberries.

Nice big, green, healthy weeds growing on the back side, eh ?