I was tired and went to bed early. My order from High Country came Fri. and i was trying to get as many planted as I could. Only ordered 8 plants but takes me a lot longer than it used to to do anything especially anything the includes shovel work. I put compost, manure, alfalfa pellets, Planters 2, a little 9-3-4 all in one of my wheelbarrows. Then mix it up, and put my plant carrier, some water, some Yum Yum in a container and off I go to where I want to plant something. After I dig my hole everything is in my wheelbarrow ready for planting.
Donna
Straw Bale Gardening (Part 9)
Rutholive,...
I have a garden cart that looks like a hospital crash cart, when I start planting. LOL : )
Jeanette: 10-4 on the "potato curing" info
Donna: I just watched Roy Underhill from The Woodwright's Shop on PBS build a great looking English Garden wheelbarrow. It was a great design. Would love to have something like that. Of course, I'd have to use some power tools instead of all that armstrong power Roy uses.
Got some mushrooms coming up in a few bales if the wind doesn't blow them off! Man, is it blowing today!
The power went off temporarily a little bit ago after hearing 2 huge booms, like you hear when transformers explode. I rode through the neighborhood but couldn't spot anything on fire, and the substation looked OK.
Gotta go to Bunn Elem. School today and give a short presentation on bale gardening to about 50 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. Wonder what questions they'll ask? I'll let you know.
Kent
Jnette, are you talking about the house I sold last year? Sigh. Sure miss it. But maybe this house will turn out even better!
I didn't know you sold it but you did a wonderful job on it. It was gorgeous. Jeanette
Well, the Bunn Elem. School 3 - 5th grade science class were a joy to meet. It was alot of fun talking to about 50 young people. The girls out numbered the boys by about 4 to 1! Just about all of them had a garden at home and loved working with plants. They were all well behaved and attentive, and asked some good questions, my favorite being "Can you grow apple trees in bales?"
Kent
I wouldn't doubt they may have been pullin your leg a little. lol
Kids are fun. The schools here have raised beds for the kids. Not sure what grades and the Master Gardners work with them. They're starting them early. But then so did my mother. With 5 girls she got us all gardening young.
Yes I look to my mother for my gardening as well as cooking. I wanted to help, I was probably more of a hinderence, but mom was patient. If I pulled a veggie instead of a weed, she told me and I would immediatly replant it. She would jokingly say that I could plant a broomstick and make it grow. And being the youngest at that time she would even take the time to allow me to bake a cake or cookies. I think I would make more of a mess, but every thing always turned out great. Much of her patience rubbed off I guess as I see it in myself as well.
Except when it is cold and snow is still on the ground and it is suposed to be spring lol
Hi all,
Every post is so interesting that i am spending all my time following links!
Summerkid, love your forum!
Got my nine bales started, but my son hid the blood meal.
I am praobably going to overplant my bales, I always try to stuff too much in,....... tomatos, beans, melons, eggplant, squash, peppers, & cukes .
in between at the fence posts I have last years upside down bucket failures holding herbs.
The wind has been horrific the past day & not so bad today.....trying to dry everything out.
As soon as I can figure out how to send you a pic, I'll do it, it's pretty & that darneed freeze didn't deprive me of newly blooming roses...
Foggy
Mama taught me how to cook, how to garden & how to check my temper......she got so mad at us kids mischief one day, she tore a board off the corn crib to whup us with!
Foggy
foggy: 10-4 on the wind! whew! what a day yesterday in Wake Co.
Never had a board torn off to get a whipping, but did have to cut my own switch a time or two! :-)
Kent
My mom just kept a stick at the ready, next to the washing machine.
We always had to cut our own switches.
Mama's whippings won't fun, but I could handle; Daddy's "Prayer Meetings" were another story!
Kent
Well, it's begun. Today I planted my potatoes and direct seeded an assortment of stuff. It was a perfect day, overcast with a breeze, so I could sit out there for as long as it took to get it done, but I had expected rain, so was happy to stay dry. I planted each seed with a bit of compost mixed into the bales, and I'll hope for the best. It doesn't look like I did much, but I sure feel like it! Next comes the transplants, once they harden of a little longer.
Margo
I'm kind of thinking we may have our last frost. It did dip down to 39 last night. That still scares me, but I'm thinking that long cold spell. should have finished the cold weather. It's been in the 80s the last few days. But I too am getting anxious. I have my bales so I could put plastic over the whole thing. so I think I will try a few maters an hope for the best. Started mine from seed so no great loss if I loose a couple.I just put the 10-10-10 on today though. So I may want to water them a couple times first.
In the dirt now, I put in about 300 onion sets yesterday and a row of peas. A lot of time today with DWs eye exam and get a few things while in town, so I used a little time to put the poles and the cattle panels up to tie up the vines .
I really wanted to try useing a cattle panel on the sweet potatoes. I don't know if it will work or not, so I may try a few that way, and the rest let run all over. Has any body tried this before??? I think it should work as the SPVs are usually on a trellis and they make potatoes. Oh well I can be a guinney pig.
Kent, The Woodwright's Shop is one if dh's favs! I've cut my own switch many times at my dads parents. Don't know if those stingy switches or daddy's belt was worse. Ooh, that fly swat was pretty painful too! I believe in most cases time out and taking away privelages works. Of course most parents didn't know about this when I was little.
A sweet man on DG is sending me a bunch of different heirloom tomato seedlings. I need to find some red and green bell pepper seedlings, yellow squash, zhuchinni(sp?), onions, green beans... :~)
Lana
Russ, I want to see pictures of whatever you do with the sweet potatoes. I don't think we grow them up here. Have never heard of them here anyway. Not that we don't eat them. Do they grow underground like regular spuds? What do you mean by running all over the place? Are they a crawler like squash or cucumbers?
You can see my imagination is running wild. LOL
Jeanette
Well I know it is still too cold here to put tender annual things outside. The frost fans are running again this morning, it has been just at 31 or below every morning so far this week. Gets up near 60 for daytime temp. which of course sounds pretty chilly to you 80 degree people. But I love the April greens, all the different shades in the trees and shrubs.
Donna
Jnette, could you at least put a state in your profile? I have no idea where you live that you don't have sweet potatoes!
how long does it take for the bales to start getting hot?
DS hid my bloodmeal again so I put a little compost starter on til tonight to help keep things going...hope it doesn't hurt anything
Foggy
Russ, I grew up in your neck of the woods, near Sioux City & i well remember a blizzard on May the 4 back 50 years ago, Didn't melt all the way til almost June....are you "skeered" now?
Foggy
Jnette. Yes sweetpotatoes are a vine.There vines will run 15-20'. I try to control where they run, but it still takes a lot of space. The potatoes grow under ground just as regular potatoes. The thing I was wondering was that they also have the tendancy to send down roots along the vine at various places and sometimes do make another hill of S/Ps. My other concern was that they like humidity. Which they would have next to the ground. but running up a trellis, the vine would loose some of that high humidity.
You would be able to raise S/Ps in 5a, altho the further north you go the shorter your growing season gets. I am sure you would do fine with them.
I haven't set any out yet as we could still have a killer frost. But I am anxious to get all the plants out of the kitchen DW would like that too.
I will try to take pictures at different intervals with them, and how they do both ways. let run and using a trellis.
Right now we have a bunch of plastic drink cups with S/P plants growing out of them. I've got around 40 rooted already. but I am taking some to the IARU, in Cedar Rapids . I plan to put out around a dozen for us. I figure that should give us a couple bushels of tubers. with some to spare for the neighbors.
Foggy, Dad always told of spring of 1936. he had been planting corn. He had un hitched the teem from the planter and left the planter in the field and that night they had a snow storm, and a snow drift covered the planter. That was May 10th.
I didn't happen till the next spring, so that was Dad's story but I think I can stick with it.
Ofcourse now if we leave Mr. Gore alone he has us in a global warming pattern.
Why- - -we might even be able to set tomatoes out in December. (Right Al )?????
foggy: depending on the type of bale, temp, moisture, other variables, the bales heat up at different rates; like I mentioned earlier, my bales last year went to 125; this year, my oat bales barely got past 85; it's been very cool here; ordinarily I just now be getting my bales started this weekend when the temp is supposed to hit high 70's
Russ: you cracked me up with the Al Gore remark. I still am beholding to him for inventing the internet. :-)
Donna: I agree with you; I like the shades of green from the Spring growth.
Kent
Kent; Chicken Little told us a story too. And it was all started by a NUT ((*-*))
russ: sometimes you feel like a nut!!!
(can anyone say that without singing it?)
KR
p.s. - I'll start Part 10 tomorrow since we're in the 100's now. I'm on my laptop at the present.
I can't and my singing is terrible! :~)
Lana
Kid,
I'm in Washington state. Northeast corner. I will change my profile as soon as they tell me how. Can't remember. Yes, we have a real short growing season. Most people when you say Washington state, think of Seattle and that is a zone 8. But, we are inland and farther north. There is a mountain range between us and the coast.
Actually, I have never seen sweet potatoes growing othr than in a glass in my kitchen window. That probably sounds funny to you Russ and the rest of you. That is what we used to do when we were kids. I know when you order them you would get plants.
Foggy,
What's the deal with people stealing your bloodmeal??
Russ and Kent, don't you guys knock Al. He gave me an early out.
Jeanette
LOL, Jeannette my eyesight is poor & I don't leave the farm anymore so my son does all the purchasing......his idea of where things are stored somehow always differs from mine
.......they don't call me Foggy for nothing! so when i can't find something, i always claim he hid it from me......no theft involved!
yeh!! don't knock Al you guys!
Russ, this blizzard was in 1949 or 50 & it didn't just cover things, it was 10 feet deep in the ditches...10 neighbors got stuck at our house
Foggy, that blizzard was in NC?
No, it was in NW Iowa/NE Nebraska, Darius
Boy I sure don't want a blizzard here this time of year. It is still frosting every night/early morning. The orchard frost fans just now shut down at 8:00am. The water is frozen in my lawn hoses. But least the wind isn't blowing yet. The flowering trees are very pretty and I know spring is springing.
Summerkid, I went in to change my profile to add Washington state but it was already in there. So, maybe it won't show it? Anyway, now you know I tried. LOL, Jeanette
Kent, I posted a freecycle ad here to look for spoiled hay bales. No offers but a lovely email from someone who also wants some. She turns out to be someone on your mailing list and since you and I both recommend DG, she's looking into subscribing. Good work guy!
jnette We have a grandaughter and GSL. They live at Goldbar ( about 40 miles up from Seattle) but that sounds like you are on the other side of the mountains. GD came back here to show off our newest GGS. We dream of making the trip out to see them. but then they raise the price of gas so you have to get a loan for one fill.
We may just have to grit our teeth and do it though.
Being in the North Eastern part I do understand. You are listed as 5a because of the last frost date. but that says nothing as to when the first frost date is. Right??
Oh also your location does come up now.
Foggy Yes I remember the winter that year. We wern't near Sioux City then.
We were South of Jefferson IA. We has a snow drift that started from the middle of the garden (we had an out house then) past the front of the out house and right up over the fence into the barn yard right on up to the top of a light pole in the middle of the barnyard. Some where in the family we had a picture of me sitting on top of that pole with my feet on the drift. My younger brother and I made a lot of tunnels in that drift. We had a lane that we shared with a neighbor He was 1/4 mi from the road we were 1/2 mile from the road. That was one reason I remember as my next older brother and I had to shovel that intire 1/2 mile by hand so that our neighbor would not get stuck. It wasn't 100% covered but it did have some drifts that were over our heads. Dad was one to make sure us boys didn't have idle time. You see Dad had the use of the boss's jeep to get over to the main farm place to help with the chores there in addition to what was at this farm. well the jeep was light and he could drive over most of the drifts. The neighbor tried to do the same with his Oldsmobile. heh heh I needn't go into the difference of weight.
My brother laughed about that , and that is why we had to shovel it by hand.
Here's a snowstorm stat for you guys:
January 10, 1949 - snowstorm in Los Angeles, 1" on the beaches and on the City Hall lawn (sea level) in downtown L.A. I was living in the foothills above L.A. at about an elevation of 700-800 feet, we had six inches of snow that stayed on the ground for four or five days. I was in the first grade, and we built a snowman in the front yard.
1949 must have been a bad winter/spring all around.
Karen
yup and I guess - - -you gessed it - - - Global warming must have kicked in right after that. I think as I was checking some weather stats I found that, in 1865 I think. They had Ice forming in the Gulf of Mexico and the news media hype was;that an ice age is coming.
I just went to that file and it said a mini ice age started in 1850 and ended in 1950.
I don't know if I can transfer that file from my documents to This forum or not. but would try if any body was interested.
Russ
Russ
I would be interested. I'm not sure I believe in the "global warming catastrophe" idea. I suspect that the scientists who say we have always had periods of warming and periods of increasing cold and that this is just part of the pattern are correct. Same thing with the "holes in the ozone". If we couldn't see those holes before satellites were invented, how do we know that there haven't been periods where there were holes in the ozone and then periods when the holes closed up and now the holes are coming back?
I just saw today that the National Arbor Foundation has moved my hardiness zone to 8b, from 7b. Frankly, that tallies pretty much with what I am seeing, and I've looked the stats up back to 1968. USDA hardiness zones are based on 1974-1986.
Here's a link to the new Natrional Arbor Foundation map:
http://www.arborday.org/media/mapchanges.cfm
BTW: Historical weather data can be looked up back to 1948 on Weather Underground. Although, they are missing data on a day here and there, you can pretty much look for the high, low, rainfall, record high, and record low by day, month or year. http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=35406
Karen