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Post by susannah on Nov 28, 2020 16:26:58 GMT
Gardening has moved indoors, using the grow light in the basement. The cilantro is doing absolutely amazing. If I had to choose one herb that grew well, it would've been cilantro anyway, so I'm happy. The chives are tall but very, very thin. They do taste chive-y, though. Since they were started in the bay window area, I'm hoping the next batch - 100% grow light - does better. The lettuce seems to be doing well at this point. Basil - which started out good - isn't doing much. I do have tons of pesto cubes I froze from this summer, as well as a lot of basil. So this was more of an experiment for those times when I want fresh basil - like in Thai recipes.
Guess I'd say it's 50/50, then. But it's fun, and I'll keep trying.
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Post by solargeek on Nov 28, 2020 20:31:43 GMT
Still harvesting lettuces and arugula even with nighttime temps in 20sF many nights. Even hit the teens! Love this time.
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Post by mogal on Nov 29, 2020 21:47:05 GMT
Yesterday, I left the goats penned up so I could use the tractor to scoop some aged compost from their lot to put in the bed where I wanted to plant garlic. I got that done but ran out of time and had no mulch except for loose hay in the buck's pen. Back when we had mower with a grass bagger (aka mulch shredder/collector), I'd mow enough to provide mulch for my newly planted garlic bed. I concentrated on the maple leaves that crumbled beautifully going through the mower. This morning, I filled a garden cart with the buck's leavings, being sure to let as many seeds, etc., fall out as possible. As I approached the garlic bed, there was a smallish sparrow looking bird working the surface. Dad-blasted varmint was digging up the garlic cloves I'd planted! I was not happy. I could no longer see the rows but did my best to approximate spacing with the dozen or so cloves the bird had unearthed. I hadn't intended to put the whole load of mulch on that 4' x 8' bed but I did. I just double dog dare that doggone bird to pull up my garlic now! I'm sure a vole or even another armadillo will do the honors this time. ARRGH! Always something, right?
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Post by mogal on Dec 4, 2020 16:33:41 GMT
I moved my worm bin from near the back porch to the veggie hoop house but never thought I'd have an active colony after the freezing nights we've had. On a whim, I threw in some tea bags and scratched them into the bedding. Not only did I have adult worms, I had some tiny little ones not quite a half inch long. YEAAA! I'll probably bag some old hay or leaves to pack around it at night and throw the bags aside during the day to help keep it warm.
I had a big Calendula resina plant that had survived the freezes so far. It was growing in a big cattle supplement tub so I used the tractor this morning to move it into the chickens' hoop house to see if it will survive longer. I hope the calendula isn't attractive to the chickens. I'll watch it and put some wire around it if they are interested.
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Post by mogal on Dec 10, 2020 17:16:37 GMT
It's been literally years since we cleaned out the barn. We'd planned it in fall of '12 but life got in the way every time we tried to schedule it. I've been breaking the manure pack loose and throwing it out the 4' wide doors to a point where I can use the tractor scoop to move it to the garden. This morning I left the goats penned as I mentioned previously and got enough well rotted manure and bedding to cover half the back garden, 30' x 50'. As I dug out each load, I tipped the edge of the bucket down to roughly chop the clumps then when I was ready to dump it, I raised the bucket as high as it would go so the fall would shatter more clumps. Clumps in other piles I've left previously have broken down a bit with freeze/thaw cycles and the bachelor roosters scratching for corn I throw out there for them. Lots of poop left to move out, lots more space to cover as I haven't touched the main garden that's nearly twice the size of that back garden. I hope to haul finer loads to the fruit trees and soft fruits to spread by hand. I have 2 bags of Azomite to put down as far as it goes then plan to get more as I can afford it. This will be the last nice day for the foreseeable future so I wanted to make the most of it by moving that compost. Good dirt therapy even though done from the seat of a tractor.
Yesterday, DH went to Lowe's and got me an early Christmas present--an LED grow light. My plant stand is a plain heavy resin storage shelf but it serves my purpose well. I saw a video about doing Kratky (sp) hydroponics in WM jars using 3" net baskets that I want to try as well as the Peter Burke method of salad gardening.
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Post by susannah on Dec 10, 2020 20:43:56 GMT
mogal , I hope you like your LED grow light. Ours seems to be doing a really good job. It's been a number of years since we used a grow light ( I know it was more than 10 years, because it was at our previous home) but I don't remember being as impressed with that one as I am with the pink wonder. With my one attempt at winter sowing being a total flop in this colder climate (winter sown plants were absolutely amazing at our previous location), I did decide to try a slightly different take on it. Since if we're going to get temperatures in the -20 to -34 degree range it seems to happen in February, I decided I'm going to wait until well into March to winter sow this year. That should still allow plenty of time for those plants to grow - we had not one but TWO frosts in June this year so to say that our growing season gets off to a very late start is an understatement. But now I'm thinking that I'll both winter sow and start some plants using the LED grow light. In past years, my winter sown plants were much bigger, stronger, hardier than the grow light starts - those were more spindly. I'm curious to see if that will be the case this year.
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Post by princessferf on Dec 15, 2020 18:41:36 GMT
I have to ask a couple of questions about basement grow-light gardening. I would love to try lettuce, but our basement temps are in the low 60's. Even with the grow lights, would that be too cold? All of my seed-starting equipment is stored in the basement, so I wouldn't mind making use of it.
As for winter sowing, I tried it out a little last winter. I put the jugs out sometime in February. Overall I was SO impressed. The tomatoes that started from seed were stocky and strong vs. the leggy tomato plants I start in my portable greenhouse (even though that's in a south-facing window WITH grow lights). The pepper plants were also strong. I got a good amount of Marigolds, too. (I plant lots of Marigolds because they're so easy to grow, harvest seed and the smell reminds me of my childhood)
I'm definitely going to do winter sowing again, and probably more of it. It was so easy and the results overall were great.
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Post by susannah on Dec 15, 2020 19:16:44 GMT
I have to ask a couple of questions about basement grow-light gardening. I would love to try lettuce, but our basement temps are in the low 60's. Even with the grow lights, would that be too cold? All of my seed-starting equipment is stored in the basement, so I wouldn't mind making use of it. As for winter sowing, I tried it out a little last winter. I put the jugs out sometime in February. Overall I was SO impressed. The tomatoes that started from seed were stocky and strong vs. the leggy tomato plants I start in my portable greenhouse (even though that's in a south-facing window WITH grow lights). The pepper plants were also strong. I got a good amount of Marigolds, too. (I plant lots of Marigolds because they're so easy to grow, harvest seed and the smell reminds me of my childhood) I'm definitely going to do winter sowing again, and probably more of it. It was so easy and the results overall were great. Almost all of the time - at this time of year anyway - our basement family room temperature hovers right around 60 degrees. We do have a supplemental heat source (electric hydronic) but I only use that if we have guests staying down there in winter - which has not happened this year. My lettuce seems to thrive in the 60 degree temperature, as does the cilantro. The chives and basil are doing fine, too. It seems as long as they get enough light, they're happy. They did not do well upstairs, despite it being warmer - they just didn't get enough light. Isn't it amazing, the difference winter sowing makes (or at least, it did when I lived in southern Wisconsin). Stocky and strong vs leggy is a great way to describe how my tomato starts were. That's why this year I'm going to try later-start winter sowing because of the lack of sunshine and sub-zero temperatures that happen up here before mid to late March. I'm hoping to get some nice strong tomato plants this year.
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Post by mogal on Dec 15, 2020 19:52:11 GMT
Susannah, the only thing I've noticed under the new LED grow light is that a pot of basil that was leggy before I pinched it back is now growing new leaves that are as closely spaced as the basil that grows outside in summer. I haven't had a chance to actually start any new seeds under it but will try to post as things progress.
I thought about trying this light or another when I can get one in our basement but it's in the 50's down there. We heat with some passive solar on ground level (house is a raised ranch so all of the basement is below grade. We also use a woodstove upstairs so the central system that also heats the basement seldom comes on long enough to make any difference.
Princessferf, did you see my suggestion of Peter Burke's Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening? It deals with producing food rather than starting plants for the garden but a lot of good info on topic.
I did some winter sowing last year and year before and want to do more IF I can figure out a way to keep our female Pyr away from that project. Her philosophy of life is that anything she can carry in her mouth is a toy. I've seen her carrying firewood so heavy that it twists her head. Only problem is that she doesn't put her toys away when she finishes playing with them.
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Post by princessferf on Dec 16, 2020 18:45:36 GMT
Susannah, the only thing I've noticed under the new LED grow light is that a pot of basil that was leggy before I pinched it back is now growing new leaves that are as closely spaced as the basil that grows outside in summer. I haven't had a chance to actually start any new seeds under it but will try to post as things progress. I thought about trying this light or another when I can get one in our basement but it's in the 50's down there. We heat with some passive solar on ground level (house is a raised ranch so all of the basement is below grade. We also use a woodstove upstairs so the central system that also heats the basement seldom comes on long enough to make any difference. Princessferf, did you see my suggestion of Peter Burke's Year-Round Indoor Salad Gardening? It deals with producing food rather than starting plants for the garden but a lot of good info on topic. I did some winter sowing last year and year before and want to do more IF I can figure out a way to keep our female Pyr away from that project. Her philosophy of life is that anything she can carry in her mouth is a toy. I've seen her carrying firewood so heavy that it twists her head. Only problem is that she doesn't put her toys away when she finishes playing with them. I did see your suggestion of Peter Burke's book. I will have to check it out. Thanks! We have about 1/2 acre of our yard fenced in for our dogs. I didn't keep my winter sowing in that part of the property. I placed them outside of the fence where the dogs couldn't get them. Their only risk is when the free range chickens are out, but they never bothered the winter sowing jugs.
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Post by susannah on Jan 8, 2021 14:54:28 GMT
Indoor garden update (and hopefully a picture or two): EDIT: I've been told the pictures aren't showing up so I'll re-take them this afternoon using my camera rather than my phone. The first planter of lettuce is growing like crazy, despite cutting it several times for salad greens, or lettuce to use on salad. I'll be cutting again today because it NEEDS it - and we can always find uses for super fresh lettuce in winter. The basil didn't do well at all, so I yanked it all out, dumped that dirt outside, cleaned the planter, added fresh soil and planted two mini-romaine seeds. I have no idea how well it will work, or if it'll work, but nothing ventured nothing gained. There's one little shoot in what looks like...a pot of dirt. We've cut cilantro for pico de gallo numerous times, and I cut a bunch to cook up with the meat for tacos last night. It continues to do very well. After not doing well upstairs - they grew, but were very thin - the chives seem to love the LED grow light. They've plumped up and are growing like weeds. Again, they've been cut back numerous times, often for use in some potato dish.
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Post by susannah on Jan 8, 2021 14:58:57 GMT
New attempt.
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Post by Woodpecker on Jan 8, 2021 16:08:05 GMT
Pictures don't open on my computer susannah, and I was so excited to see it all, the pink glow too!!!
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Post by susannah on Jan 8, 2021 16:55:15 GMT
Pictures don't open on my computer susannah , and I was so excited to see it all, the pink glow too!!! Oh, wow. Can anyone else see the pictures? They show up when I look at the posts, but then again, I'm the one who posted them. I took these with my phone, and I've never attempted to post pictures from my phone before. If people can't see them, I'll re-shoot with my DSLR because I've posted from that camera before and the pictures always show up.
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Post by farmerjack on Jan 8, 2021 17:37:06 GMT
Sees nothing, but then again it could be something I am doing or not doing. Am not to bright on the computer stuff.
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Post by susannah on Jan 8, 2021 17:48:23 GMT
Mistake is probably my own - I will re-shoot the pictures with my DSLR this afternoon and try this again. Sorry about that.
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Post by mogal on Jan 8, 2021 21:02:11 GMT
Susannah, I can't see it either.
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Post by susannah on Jan 8, 2021 22:17:32 GMT
Susannah, I can't see it either. I think I'm going to have to give up, at least for today. Thinking the issue might have been due to posting pictures from my phone, I re-took the pictures with the same DSLR camera I've used for over 10 years. Then I uploaded them to the same photo/image hosting site I've used for almost 10 years. But the link that's created when I attempt to share the pictures does not work. Since I posted pictures of my house back in July exactly the same way - and those WORKED - I tried posting one of those again. Only to find out that now I can't even post those. I keep thinking there's something I'm missing, but I'm starting to give myself a headache so I'm going to step back and sleep on the problem overnight. Maybe a light bulb will come on in my brain and I'll find a work around that...works. Or maybe I'll wake up tomorrow to find that everything works for me like it used to, without having to do anything different. Stranger things have happened...
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Post by mogal on Jan 22, 2021 17:44:56 GMT
I've had some good results growing in cattle supplement tubs and big nursery containers I got through Freecycle from a lady who was landscaping her new home. I can leave mine in one place and don't have to move them as Susannah does hers. I decided to try more so contacted my neighbor who has a lot of mama cows about getting tubs from him. These are about 2' in diameter, 18" or so tall. I got a text from him this morning that they have a bunch and will drop them off on their next passing by our place. I told him I'd be happy to get even ones that were split. A few years ago DH drilled paired holes on either side of a top to bottom split on a couple of tubs then I used plastic baling twine to stitch the edges together. The tub weathered and broke at another spot after a couple of seasons but the stitching held just fine.
Also started my winter sowing yesterday and ordered more medicinal and culinary herbs this morning. YEAAA! We've had 2 days of relatively warm sunny weather so I could work on the hoop house. SO therapeutic.
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Post by manygoatsnmore on Feb 2, 2021 5:14:38 GMT
mogal, I'll have to try your idea of stitching the split pots back together! Might work better than trying to duct tape them. Thanks!
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Post by mogal on Mar 3, 2021 22:43:19 GMT
After the extreme cold of 2 weeks ago, it was SEVENTY degrees here today. It's too early to take the covers off the hoop houses but with that kind of heat and full sun, the temperature inside them was between 95-100o. We have 2 pieces of shade cloth so both went on the chickens' house. If well watered, plants growing in the other hoop house can tolerate the heat better than the hens can. I also planted some presprouted carrot seed in the veggie hoop house as an experiment from a video I saw on You Tube. I'm sure there is a learning curve with the technique but I wasn't particularly impressed with it. We'll see when/if the carrots come up. I'm pretty sure I'll still have to do a lot of thinning. There were 6 rows across the 4' wide bed.
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Post by dodgesmammaw on Mar 9, 2021 3:39:20 GMT
We built two more raised beds. Got potatoes and onions planted. Got thick cardboard put down on walkways topped with mulch.
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Post by solargeek on Mar 9, 2021 4:08:30 GMT
Bought 10 more sets of 2 of 4'x4' raised beds so 20 more. Can assemble to make more 4x8 or 4x12 beds in our square food garden. As we may be altering our garden to be bigger and anchored on one end with a green house (maybe this year maybe next) I may just place these beds over our 10 "ground raised beds" which are hardware cloth, cardboard then straw then dirt. Look like graves but work very well. These new beds could just be lowered into place to keep the ground beds neat and tidy till we expand (or not).
Either way, that is 360 sq ft more of garden for us.
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Post by grannyg on Mar 9, 2021 16:38:25 GMT
First time I have ever had to pull up and discard my collard greens...the deep freeze killed them all...we keep container tubs full all fall and winter, love collards...the onions in some of the containers made it, some are completely gone...this is a stange year...but on the bright side, I have a few peas up, and some white radishes...<3
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Post by solargeek on Mar 30, 2021 15:41:22 GMT
Raising this thread again as most of us start our seeds or gardens.
Very stiff from yesterday’s activities. Planted about 150 seed potatoes in various beds that I had prepared. A lot of bending stretching covering, bending stretching covering. All with 50 mph gusts of wind. Since the soil was damp it was OK but very hard work. Also got my seed trays ready and they are so heavy when you wet them down the first time along with the Burpee tray system that keeps them wet for 10 days.
I am way behind and getting my seeds started but since central Wisconsin has had 2 in a row very cold and damp Mays, some of the seedlings I planted early because I was on time last year and the year before getting the seed trays started, had fatalities. Ended up having to replace them with spare seedlings.
Planted 400 tomato plants last year which actually lived, and this year plan to plant about 150. Planning on lots of greens, beans all the regular crops.
I use the Craig LeHoullier method of 35-50 seeds planted in a 4 in.² pot. Cuts down on the number of pots you have to prepare for initial seeding.
If I’m lucky, I don’t even have to transplant them. Often times I simply rip them apart & then put them in the ground and they live. He shows that you have to transplant them into a bigger pot. I am living breathing truth that laziness sometimes works! I do make a large hole for these ripped apart seedlings filled with a little bit of the same potting soil I used initially. Maybe that’s the reason they do OK.
So today is all about seeds!
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Post by mogal on Mar 30, 2021 19:17:33 GMT
In the next 3 nights temps are supposed to be down to 37, 27 and 32o so the trays of pepper seedlings in the hoop house will come indoors. They really liked the growing conditions out there! The tomatoes, tomatillos, moringa, red and black goji berries and roselle are all still inside under lights.
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Post by gran29 on Mar 30, 2021 22:58:08 GMT
Our temps for Thursday and Friday mornings are forecast close to the freezing mar k; I have lettuce and spinach in tubs to cover but a row of broccoli is a little harder to deal with. We have styro cups which hopefully will cover, a few large coffee cans for the bigger plants. Just do what we can
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Post by mogal on Mar 31, 2021 11:35:54 GMT
It looks like I called that one right! We have these 3 cold nights that I mentioned earlier. I'm a real weather geek so checked my phone's WX info--temp was listed as 35o but that was taken about 30 miles SW of us. I checked our home weather station. THIRTY DEGREES! I brought those peppers in from the hoop house at dusk last night. Even so, I noticed some purplish coloration on the older leaves, an indication of poor magnesium uptake due to cold temps.
Next week we're supposed to go into the mid and upper 70's. Ah, Missouri. If you don't like the weather, just wait a few minutes.
Last night, DH asked me what this would do to the trees. One plum tree and the Nanking cherry are in full bloom but the apples, pears and peaches haven't even shown color in the buds. Fingers crossed as they are too big to cover.
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Post by mogal on Apr 1, 2021 11:54:41 GMT
26o this morning. The peppers are inside. Cat chewed 2 but they should put out new growth from what's left, pulled a third completely out of the pot. She regurgitated what she ingested and I got to clean up the mess. Thank you, Little Kitty. ARRGH!
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Post by gran29 on Apr 1, 2021 13:24:52 GMT
We were at 30o this morning. Broccoli plants were covered and tomato, pepper and eggplant starts moved into the garage. Forecast tonight is 29o so we'll cover broccoli again. Ready for warmer nights. We had hoped to set out a couple of early girl tomatoes the first week of April, will just have to wait and see how it goes. I am so ready for those fresh tomatoes!
Two granddaughters have expressed an interest in gardening this year - the 22 year old just took 4 tomato plants yesterday to put out later. The 23 year old wants tomatoes and peppers and plans on other veggies also. She has a little one and is pregnant with #2, both her and her DH work full time, and they are also planning to get chickens. Pretty optimistic but they are young and I am happy to see their interest.
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