What are you growing? 2018

We are adding Hawaiian sweet potatoes.

 

Saw Dust in large quantities.

 

asked to move this I think this thread may be a better fit if not please let me know - thanks

uninformed people are going to get a rude surprise when they try their hand aat raising a garden or fruit, there is a lot to understand that many take a few years and proper attention to get a good crop and some years it's a bust, due to no fault of your own. It took 3 years for my vines to produce good tasting grapes at first they were sour and musty after that the 2 main runners (everything else you trim in January here) and that lets the 2 naked vines have all the energy to grow and produce fruit I have vines that run 20+ feet. Last year my blackberries produced a 1/3 of the previous year no rhyme or reason same year figs hardly made a double handful year before got over 15 gallons . It is not a perfect science you can fertilize trim and nurture and nature drops rain in buckets and your crop is minuscule as too much of anything can have a reverse effect. A plant need to exercise as people a lack of water stresses the plant and a good rain relieves that like tension on a muscle and release heat and cool are the plants circulation some thrive in a certain environment but need some change in temps or they don't thrive.

Anyone that has ambitions to grow and not a lot of time passive growing is the best way to start you want fruit trees that suit your climate and know what and when to care for them before you go all in, I would have to say Blackberries and blueberries are pretty durable and tolerate abuse blackberry "canes" do not produce the first year they grow tall and you need to top them to bush or I like to train them to a trellis they will grow 10 foot tall, the next year those canes will produce fruit and new canes will come up after the fruit is harvested over weeks I leave them till late winter and the previous years canes die you need to cut these out with limb cutters or else they will get so thick you can't run a dozer through them.and they don't do anything for the new growth but if you train them they make a good walking stick light and tough they are also good larger tinder once dry.

Every plant has a time Loquats bear in the early spring blackberries I am picking now, grapes and figs in a month or so. I love peaches but, so do squirrels and when they are green so I rarely get any but I do get my share of squirrels so it's a trade off I have no reason now but in a bad time I can take robin redbreast dove and a few other birds that visit my fruit. I doubt I will go hungry again there is a possibility that Yellowstone goes and we have a couple years of nothing and die off happened in Europe in 1815 Mount Tambora eruption the ash reflected or absorbed the sunlight and little grew first starvation many froze to death and then disease waves of flu and colds that turned into Pneumonia and in those days more than likely you died. weather in not something you can forecast there are too many variables volcanoes droughts monsoons in places not known for them alters growing patterns and when crops fail if you do not have a Larder full your going to suffer and if there is a wave of illness in a depleted state your apt to die child mortality skyrockets birth rates drop because of death in the womb and some of the women die from complications, Life is not a graph that wiggles in a range it wild and unknowable

Farmers and ranchers know this, we go for decades ticking along and then it may be weather illness or insects or a combination and your praying you can keep enough alive to have a brood stock plants or seed to start again you have to plant there can be a change you don't expect but you want to keep seed back for another year and there have been times like the dust bowl where farmers and ranchers lost everything. Don't let science or the CO-OP tell you it can't happen because we have new methods because those "new" methods came from unexpected horrors and we learned but not all can be mitigated as the people in Hawaii lava or Mt Saint Helen feet of ash the 80's when the Mississippi basin flooded and took a lot of the top soil, and no crops. Life isn't fair it is not historically traceable hundreds of years with no major problem and like Africa a lake evaporated that supplied 4 countries it happens be prepared or suffer and starve. Don't be a damn fool and eat like your used to better to go on rations and string it out as long as you can Venezuelans thought their problem would not last this long 2002 and every year more decline this year 700% inflation and it is not near over the death rate is almost that of Syria. Those 2 boxes of shells are not going to last that long and peanut butter sucks without bread and jelly. hell they have no cooking oil if you can't afford food and utilities your clothes better last all these fashionistas wearing the wino sheik holes in their pants are going to wish the got a good pair.

 

a form of crop rotation had to look it up, in reverse it adds to or lessens but one growing season is moot if it were a large area rye hay.
Too Much Nitrogen In Soil: Tips For Lowering Soil Nitrogen Content

 

a form of crop rotation had to look it up, in reverse it adds to or lessens but one growing season is moot if it were a large area rye hay, if you don't bale get someone to baie it on shares.
Too Much Nitrogen In Soil: Tips For Lowering Soil Nitrogen Content

 

quote from yard dart ---Can you maybe explain in a separate thread how/what you do with the Sesame?
Not sure what this crop would be used for in regards to food stores..

I'm not that knowledgeable but you can extract the oil and use whats left into flour.

 

Potatoes, Tomatoes few peppers and crawfish in the ditches

 

It's been an extremely long day at the farm. About to hit the hay. I will reply to you tomorrow, as soon as I wake up and start my day here.

 

Better check the crawfish/mudbugs, I think I ate most of them during the H party.
I'll ask for permission next time I cross the border.

 

Heck I lost track of the thread I think Yard dart asked a question about sesame seeds .

most seed like sunflower and sesame can be ground with a tool like this to extract the oils those can be used to cook with. the meat can be used in pemmican or taken a step further and made into flour. Here is the tool a hand crank oil press and where to get one. Lehmans is a great source for specialty items for farm ranch cooking and hard to find nostalgic items.

https://cdn-us-ec.yottaa.net/522783...m/images/large/30340100.jpg?yocs=12_&yoloc=us

 

Tomatoes, potatoes, chili peppers, sweet corn, butter beans, squash, cream peas. I am going to plan peas every too weeks for a while.

 

Butter beans and corn bread a meal everyone here likes, now and again Wednesday night church on the grounds two roasting pans of butter beans and 4 huge trays of corn bread and salad and it's all gone course there is banana pudding strawberry sponge cake w/whip cream chocolate fudge cake and a bunch of different cookies.--well a whole table of goodies then a nice Bible study a a bit of joking around,

 

I have a friend who grows fruit 11 out of 12 months, took him years to get this rotation down.

Gardening is a journey not a destination.

Since I sold the house I have been playing with indoor growing, It's a whole other adventure with a huge fail rate, and I thought I knew how to garden hehe

 

I have spent the last 10 days watering my straw bales and adding nutrients. I have a great crop of straw that has sprouted. I will be pulling all the shoots. I am looking forward to finally getting the plants in the bales. I think this straw bale gardening will be good. I am very impressed at how well it holds the moisture.

 

I'm growing a few species apple trees, some peach trees and pear tree.
Too my surprise the Fuji apple trees are doing the best, apparently the Japanese cultivated them to go in any imaginable post apocalyptic waste land.

 

Ground finally thawed enuf to plant. We put in Zukes, finger potatoes (by golly, I'm going to get 10 kilos a tub this year!)

Sunflowers, and a mess of different kinds of ornaments fill the rest of the gardens....

 

main street seed company for bulk seeds...I like being able to order a quarter or half pound of seed at a time. For plants I cruise local craigslist.

 

kale or rhubarb will suck a lot of the nitrogen out. Rhubarb's a pain to get rid of tho, if you're doing a large area.

 

Tomatoes...jalapenos....limes....a bumper crop of lemons, rocket and other sundry herbs.

The money tree could be a bit more productive than it has been.