Duck's New Ragtag garden, Version 2020

[ducks4you]

Correction: The "Rainbow Blend" is a mix that may/may not include:
Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Green Zebra, White Wonder or orange Nebraska Wedding tomatoes. Think I will look for a package of Rainbow tomatoes. THOSE are the ones I have grown in the past that always turn out huge and are great for canning.
I will plant the "Rainbow Blend," anyway. 2019 was such a wretched year for tomatoes, I will need all the soldiers I can get. DD's yard is always there for the overflow.

 

[digitS']

NC Tomatoman, Craig LeHoullier may be able to help you with a southern accent, Ducks'. I don't know, just watch him for the captioning .

I try to keep up with his blog posts (click).

He is a nawthener who took his PhD (in chemistry, I believe) and gardening interest and moved south. Heritage tomato gardening must have caught his interest somewhere along the line.

Your "rainbow" heirlooms reminds me of a friend who was trying to sort out a friend's mix of plants last year to sell the excess. I was of no help.

Steve
Oops, there is the link to the NC TomatoMan

 

[ducks4you]

I will try locally. Locally is where I found them in the first place. Regardless, I started the blend seeds, bc you just can't have too many tomato seedlings, ya know.

 

[digitS']

There you go .

If there are 5 varieties and you have 20 plants to set out, the odds are ... uh ... the odds ...

¡ Transcendental ! as @flowerbug would put it. And. To not roll those plants out to the garden would be § Irrational § . I'm sure both law professionals and @Pulsegleaner would agree.

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

Back to the burdock war. North Pasture is almost totally clear of any burdock, thanks to industrious mowing and me going out a few late winters ago to pull those with seeds and burn them.
Now, the SOUTH Pasture, on the Other hand.....
I have loads of soiled stall bedding, so yesterday I took the D2-4 in a new sprayer--last year's sprayer bit the dust--and sprayed a section WITH my wheelbarrow full, then raked it over. ToDay I tilled a section of burdock sprouts growing where I had dumped from the stalls 3 years ago.
I also mowed in the "Inner Sanctum" yesterday with the riding mower and need to hit around the trees with the push mower. Last year I had 3 push mowers. My Vet, whose business is Way down bc of the shutdown, commented on my "horse mowing", so I drove it over to her on a semi-permanent loan. Kinda sounds like bragging, but everybody already knows about it, and I am happy to help.
I still have my kinda old push mower, and my bag mower, so I still have two of them.
Last summer I was mowing with that stupid, plastic discharge chute that is held on by springs and ran over it. Had to buy a new one. Came in last week.
Horses are out on the north pasture for a few hours today. Buster Brown knew I was going to open the gate, and became my best friend, following me and hugging me like Eva is Supposed to do on her leash, but doesn't quite understand.
Don't worry, horse people. It wasn't high, and some parts of it were weeds mowed down, instead of grass. In Fact, just snapped this and the horses are taking a break from mowing it.
DH took a little bit over 2 hours. With the riding mower alone it used to take 5 hours, so the tractor is proving to be a time saver. HE says that the north pasture looks like a golf course green.

 

[ducks4you]

Yesterday I mowed around the cherry trees and apple survivor--over 100 blossoms this, year, go figure!--and I used D2-4 around them all, then dumped from the stalls and spread that on top. ALmost done this. Horses have been out for a few days, but in tonight, so tomorrow's cleanup should finish this deweeding in the "Inner Sanctum." The big cherry tree sits in a corner, so I plan to poison and cover all of the way into that corner. I did that last year, and I didn't have to mow there. Tree got a lot of good compost fertilizer to boot.
I mowed down some burdock where my 2 dogs lay, (16" pavers on top,) and poisoned the big ones and the tiny burdock sprouts. Yesterday I had mowed down the fire pit pavers and poisoned, and then poisoned about 16" around the perimeter.
Mowed next to the fire pit where I have wood stacked, then tilled.
Tomorrow I am bringing the tiller to DD's house and something didn't seem right, so, after it had cooled a few hours, I went underneath to clean what the tines pick up.
I found part of a cotton lead rope tightly wound around the axle!!
45 minutes later I had freed it. I used wire cutters, but it had pulled it tight and crossed the rope around the axle. I must have had an angel helping me, but now it's gone.
I retilled my 3 x 6' bed by the driveway and I cut cardboard strips to go underneath the 2 x 6' sides. Tired of weeding close to the bed. I put my spinach started from seed out on the front step. Rain tomorrow, then I will transplant them there.
Sorta lost my window for cold weather crops, BUT, I have some ideas.
Took Pyg out. Eva forgot and tried to "wolf" with her. NOT YET!!!
So, she got thrown in the chicken run to think about it.
DH says that Eva behaves far better than my SIL's dogs ever had, so there's something.
Pyg was delighted to be "Ferdinand" and sit just quietly and smell the flowers.

 

[ducks4you]

Let's talk about my "friends" the pasture weeds, that I fight every year.
Field Pennycress

http://www.co.stevens.wa.us/weedboard/other%20weeds/fpen1.JPG

It grows EVERYWHERE I till, so I think it came with the property. In the Spring, like right now, I can pull it out by the roots before it goes to seed. After it goes to seed I burn it. I have a friend, lives Now (used to be my neighbor) in a small town and she thinks it's great and that it's edible. Fair enough. SHE can harvest as many as she likes. I try to pull it/keep it mowed down and replace it with something else.
Dandelions
I don't consider them a weed. In my north pasture, which the original horses that I brought here seeded into pasture grass, since it had been cultivated in corn until we moved in. In 2012 we were in the middle of a drought and about 1/3 of the north pasture got overgrazed. The bare spots are finally starting to fill in. DH has mowed there twice. It looked like I was cultivating dandelions, but knocking their seeds down means that they will fill in. My horses really enjoy tender dandelion leaves, so I leave them.
Burdock

http://mtnhp.org/thumbnail/defaultGen.aspx?itemid=278071&maxWidth=1024&maxHeight=768

Burdock is a 2 year crop, and it is said that monks grew it for the medicinal purpose of their leaves. I feel comfortable pulling the leaves out, since they don't damage your skin. The roots can go up to 2 ft deep, and 2nd year plants are impossible to pull out until they go to seed, and even then, not until the next year
I am, as you all know, pulling out, burning and poisoning burdock on my property with D2-4, but I have to be smart about it, since my biggest burdock problem is now in the South Pasture, and my horses do/will be grazing there. What I started this year, it to attack the 2nd year plants by mowing, and I have been taking my giant wheelbarrow after I clean a stall, spray an area, then dump fresh manure and urine soaked pine shavings and sometimes, straw, right on top. My horses will NOT want to eat there. There was an area where I dumped from the winter some 4 years ago and this year there was a crop of baby burdock, 3 inch deep roots. I tilled it, and will continue to till it all of this year.
I still have limbs to clean up from last year. I use my outside "1 hour rule" bc it is a Big job. I can clean up between 2-3 of my 25 ft tall pine trees at a time, then quit. I burned a wheelbarrow full yesterday. Would have done more, but I get a 5 or 6AM dog wake up call (and Pyg medicine alarm on my phone, with a happy little "Pyg" tune,) and this week I have to give Pyg a 10PM medicine dose. Kinda tired. After she gets her surgery staples out next week, I might be able to get up early and take a short afternoon nap.
NOTE: DON'T mistake burdock for rhubarb, which has a reddish, sometimes whitish stem and the leaves are shorter and much curlier.

Rhubarb - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Curly Dock

https://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/weedguide/single_weed.php?id=39

My hayman harvests from many different fields. Somehow he has sold me a batch with curly dock. FORTUNATELY, I can feed it exclusively in their stalls. EDIT: My horses refuse to eat curly dock seeds. I collect the reddish seeds, which always form on a woody stem, and throw them in the trash. I have had to use my reciprocating saw to cut them down to size in the past, no fun, but I think I will have fewer this year bc they aren't going out to be fertilized by used bedding.
Horse nettle

Horse Nettle (Solanum carolinense)

www.illinoiswildflowers.info

Illinois WILDflower, my foot!!! I am lucky bc I have very little of this. If you don't wear leather gloves these will rip out your skin when you pull. The roots aren't deep, and the "fruit" looks like orange holly fruit. I collect it in a wheelbarrow, where I find it, and take it right to my fire pit to be burned.
Thistles
We all have these in our lawn, (unless your name is @ninnymary , who probably has the most manicured garden here!!) If you take a shovel, dig down 4 inches, you can pop them out and they don't generally come back. After it dries out I fill in the hole with grass clippings, preferably those with seeds.

 

[ducks4you]

Had to post this for all of you to enjoy:

INSIDE SUCKS Woven Dish Towel-www.hoofprints.com

www.hoofprints.com

INSIDE SUCKS Woven Dish Towel

 

[ducks4you]

Back on my computer. DD cancelled, TOO MUDDY, and it is now pouring at her house, light rain at mine. Got some of the garage cleaned up. Think I'll start drinking early today....

 

[ducks4you]

How about these?