Baymule’s 2021 Garden

[Finnie]

I open a furrow with a hoe, hand drop the seed and cover with the hoe. Estimating 660 corn seeds. I wanted a big patch this year for the cornmeal, I never have enough. I have a grain mill and we mill the corn into cornmeal. After this gets a good start, I’ll plant sweet corn, so they don’t cross pollinate.

Hi Baymule! I was reading somewhere last night, must have been an old thread somewhere and now I can’t find it. But you had written that you were planting corn in peat pots to prevent crows from eating the seeds. Does that ring a bell?

My neighbor is having a hard time with crows eating his corn when he plants it. Maybe I should tell him to try that. Did you just start the corn indoors and then set out seedlings? Did it work to save the corn? He said the crows look for the sprouts, but once the plants get a few inches tall, they leave those alone.

Obviously that’s not going to work for 600 plants, but my neighbor’s patch looks small enough.

 

[baymule]

Yes, I have done that to thwart the pesky crows. It worked, they transplanted just fine. This year I just planted seed, but kept an eye out.

Yesterday I planted some Thai long green beans and my speckled Black Cattle beans that aren’t black. We’ll see what they are this year.

I have volunteer Amish melons coming up, I’ll take them! Going to plant squash hopefully today, supposed to rain. Again. Rivers are in flood stage, will it ever stop?

 

[Finnie]

Yes, I have done that to thwart the pesky crows. It worked, they transplanted just fine. This year I just planted seed, but kept an eye out.

Thanks, I will tell him. What I’m not planning to tell him is that I have been feeding the crows on purpose!

5 crows started showing up late last summer, and I think it was because the neighbor had put in this new corn patch. Well, crows won’t allow hawks near their nesting area, so I was very happy to see them, and I wanted to encourage them to nest near here. And protect my chickens from hawks. So I’ve been throwing out a feed scoop of seed corn in my driveway every couple of weeks and the crows have been eating it. I’m pretty sure I know which tree they have their nest in. And I think it’s working! I haven’t seen any red tails around my chickens this year! I’ll see an occasional small hawk fly past, but those just pass through without slowing down.

I’m sure the neighbor hates the crows, but I care more about my chickens than his corn.

 

[baymule]

There are crows here, they land in the yard and poke around. There is also a large hawk that is patrolling, swooping low. The crows aren’t bothering the hawk and vice versa. My chickens are cooped. Sorry girls!

I planted a row of yellow squash and a row of zucchini. Then I pulled a few of my galloping growing weeds for the sheep and rescued the onions beneath them.

That’s all I got done, it started raining hard. It’s a drizzle now.

 

[Zeedman]

My neighbor is having a hard time with crows eating his corn when he plants it. Maybe I should tell him to try that. Did you just start the corn indoors and then set out seedlings? Did it work to save the corn? He said the crows look for the sprouts, but once the plants get a few inches tall, they leave those alone.

Believe it or not, the main threat to my corn seedlings here is not crows, but sandhill cranes. Several years ago, DW & I arrived at our rural garden just in time to see the sandhill's strutting out - with nothing left in the corn patch but the de-seeded green sprouts laying on the ground. They have been hanging out in the neighboring corn field for several days now, about 100' away on the edge nearest our garden. Who knows, this might even be the same pair... I get the impression they are eying our garden, waiting for the first sprouts. It's not just the corn I'm worried about... 20 different beans & soybeans will be germinating in a few days.

I anticipate starting corn in pots next year; not to avoid birds, but to get ahead of the nearby corn fields. I intend to save seed; if I do this with an early flour corn, hopefully it will tassel & be pollinated before the nearby GM field corn comes to tassel.

No need for corn transplants this year. I planted the Painted Mountain (thank you, @baymule ) in one of my home gardens, far from the farm fields. It is a rather small planting (28 hills of 3 plants each), but nearly every seed germinated, and the seedlings look healthy.

 

[Carol Dee]

There are crows here, they land in the yard and poke around. There is also a large hawk that is patrolling, swooping low. The crows aren’t bothering the hawk and vice versa. My chickens are cooped. Sorry girls!

I planted a row of yellow squash and a row of zucchini. Then I pulled a few of my galloping growing weeds for the sheep and rescued the onions beneath them.

View attachment 41097


That’s all I got done, it started raining hard. It’s a drizzle now.

Those onions
look great

 

[baymule]

I planted 3 bundles of onion sets, we ate most of them as green onions. Thanks for the compliment @Carol Dee

@Zeedman im glad the Painted Mountain corn is doing well. It tassels quickly. Combined with starting your corn in peat pellets, you’ll beat the GMO corn. You might have to do row covers to keep the cranes from feasting on your sprouts.

We got an inch of rain. Just what we needed. The pigs are happy, they have several large puddles to play in. I haven’t had to squirt them with water to cool them down at all-so far.

 

[Rammy]

Have you sent any of those Thai beans out yet? Looking forward to adding them to my seed collection for next year.

 

[baymule]

Have you sent any of those Thai beans out yet? Looking forward to adding them to my seed collection for next year.

I'll get them in the mail to you.

 

[henless]

Glad you are getting things planted Bay. It's so wet here everything stinks! We were able to get the yard mowed this morning. Had to cut it twice in some places since the bahia is so tough.

I've got squash running out of my ears. I should have enough green beans to can in a couple of days. The tomatoes are doing really well. Lots of green ones & a couple are starting to turn red.

I will say that if we had our garden in the ground there would be nothing left of it. It would have all rotted.