Ducks Ragtag 2019 gardening

[ducks4you]

I LIKE that!! Makes for lovely pictures!!!
Actually I planted 3 rows and staggered them. I think that is why they grew well, even though I was warned that I grew them too close, and that they might all be small. The pumpkins died, except for the one with runners next to my okra (and blue dent corn) on the west side of the garage. DH ran over one pumpkin, but if I trim the grass before he runs the riding mower I should be able to save the other one. I still have seeds saved from 2017, so I am not too concerned.
Next year I am devoting the whole big garden bed to corn and I INTEND to plant every 2 weeks to see if I can keep the harvest growing. I froze corn today, only 3 1/2 quarts, but I am not disappointed. DH didn't think I would have ANY to eat, even though he walked by my corn every day.
Big surprise!! Ha, ha!!
I have tried planting a LOT of vegetables, herbs, flowers together to help with the weeds. My nasturtiums grew well with the tomatoes and then I read an article later that suggested just that. I transplanted the extra tomatoes that I started into the bed where I harvested potatoes, and I threw in asters and carrots en masse. I waited to let today's storm water them.
THAT, I think is very important bc the seeds didn't get wet, dry out, and then die especially with those seeds that you barely cover, like carrots.
I am going to use my loppers and chop in 1/2 the corn stalks that have been harvested, feed that to the horses and start some more beans at the base of the corn. I have some of those foot long purple bean seeds, and others, so we'll see what happens.
I also havec blue dent and "Indian Corn," the multicolored type growing, and I will harvest them when the farmers harvest their field corn.
I am starting spinach soon in a big planter on the north side of the house. If they grow well I will transplant them in late September and see if I get a crop. We go from cold, to nice to really hot here in the Spring, as YOU KNOW, and in 2012, when we didn't HAVE a winter, I was harvested 2011 spinach in March.

 

[Prairie Rose]

That sounds lovely....half of the reason I am itching to clean out the roma tomatoes is so I have room to maybe get a fall crop of peas and a little lettuce and maybe some kale before it gets too late. I also need to make sure I plant my garlic this year...I kept putting it off last year because it was still so warm, and then we got busy at work and the next thing I knew it had snowed...I actually stored my seed garlic under my christmas tree for quite a while, lol.

I have some bloody butcher corn, and two other kinds of dent corn I would love to plant, but I don't have any room to devote to a grain crop atm. There is a farmer's field roughly 30 feet from three sides of the house, and I am also a little worried about cross pollination. When the fields are corn, we call it our privacy fence; it keeps the traffic noises out as well as blocking anyone driving down the road from being able to see in half the windows of our house. Next year the fields should all be planted in beans, so I will just have to plant my own privacy fence! Might take me until spring to talk the family into letting me till that big of a strip in such a random way, but I have time and an idea.

Do you feed your cornstalks to the horses still green? I thought cornstalks were prone to a mold that is horrible for horses; the stable I used to keep my horse at was always trying to send bales back when cornstalks popped up in the hay.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Next year I am devoting the whole big garden bed to corn and I INTEND to plant every 2 weeks to see if I can keep the harvest growing.

I did that in Arkansas. My growing season let me get five different plantings. I'd plant it in two rows 12" apart, skip about 32", then plant two more 12" rows. If I did three double rows (six rows total) maybe 10' long I'd eat some, can 18 pints (all my canner would hold), and have some left over to freeze which I used in soup. This is when it did good. Usually something would happen where one or two were not that good. The later in the season usually the more insect damage I had. It was amazing how much damage one raccoon can do in one or two nights before I could trap it. Seed, you have my sympathy.

Down here I've gone through six plantings with three more to go. In one raised bed I planted 15 seeds in rows 6" apart with five plants in each row maybe 5" apart, planting in a way so the early plantings did not shade the later plantings. I hand-pollinated most of them when they were in the silk stage. The first harvests were really good, nice sized corn. The later harvests were not as good. Some plants did not even silk or grow that well. I think it may have been the heat. Hope that was it anyway. I side-dressed it with high-nitrogen fertilizer every two weeks, every time I planted a new batch. My soil in the raised beds has sand so it drains well so I water often. That causes nitrogen to leach out.

The key points I want to make if you are staggering plantings and planting it that close together, pay attention to sunlight and side-dress it as corn is a heavy nitrogen feeder.

 

[ducks4you]

Planted a beet bed. We are expecting more rain, so it's a good, good.

 

[baymule]

Wow your garden is really nice. Lots of good things to eat!

 

[ducks4you]

I have some bloody butcher corn, and two other kinds of dent corn I would love to plant, but I don't have any room to devote to a grain crop atm. There is a farmer's field roughly 30 feet from three sides of the house, and I am also a little worried about cross pollination. When the fields are corn, we call it our privacy fence; it keeps the traffic noises out as well as blocking anyone driving down the road from being able to see in half the windows of our house. Next year the fields should all be planted in beans, so I will just have to plant my own privacy fence! Might take me until spring to talk the family into letting me till that big of a strip in such a random way, but I have time and an idea.

Do you feed your cornstalks to the horses still green? I thought cornstalks were prone to a mold that is horrible for horses; the stable I used to keep my horse at was always trying to send bales back when cornstalks popped up in the hay.

Hard to mold when it is still alive and vibrant. I am not worried, bc when I have tried growing corn in the past, and the horses could reach the stalks, they helped themselves.
Don't think that in 34 years I have ever fed a bale of hay with cornstalks in it. Sounds like cattle hay.

 

[ducks4you]

I did that in Arkansas. My growing season let me get five different plantings. I'd plant it in two rows 12" apart, skip about 32", then plant two more 12" rows. If I did three double rows (six rows total) maybe 10' long I'd eat some, can 18 pints (all my canner would hold), and have some left over to freeze which I used in soup. This is when it did good. Usually something would happen where one or two were not that good. The later in the season usually the more insect damage I had. It was amazing how much damage one raccoon can do in one or two nights before I could trap it. Seed, you have my sympathy.

Down here I've gone through six plantings with three more to go. In one raised bed I planted 15 seeds in rows 6" apart with five plants in each row maybe 5" apart, planting in a way so the early plantings did not shade the later plantings. I hand-pollinated most of them when they were in the silk stage. The first harvests were really good, nice sized corn. The later harvests were not as good. Some plants did not even silk or grow that well. I think it may have been the heat. Hope that was it anyway. I side-dressed it with high-nitrogen fertilizer every two weeks, every time I planted a new batch. My soil in the raised beds has sand so it drains well so I water often. That causes nitrogen to leach out.

The key points I want to make if you are staggering plantings and planting it that close together, pay attention to sunlight and side-dress it as corn is a heavy nitrogen feeder.

I think I dodged a bullet by planting close together. Next year I will give them some more space.

 

[flowerbug]

...
Next year I am devoting the whole big garden bed to corn and I INTEND to plant every 2 weeks to see if I can keep the harvest growing. I froze corn today, only 3 1/2 quarts, but I am not disappointed. DH didn't think I would have ANY to eat, even though he walked by my corn every day.
Big surprise!! Ha, ha!!
...

you must not have raccoons around there? here, without an electric fence they will take down sweet corn. possibly can grow corn for corn meal, but i haven't tried it yet.

 

[ducks4you]

...more

 

[Ridgerunner]

you must not have raccoons around there? here, without an electric fence they will take down sweet corn. possibly can grow corn for corn meal, but i haven't tried it yet.

One year in ten I had a raccoon destroy one if my plantings of corn. That was out of 40 to 50 plantings. Even once was memorable as it was total devastation. I had very little damage in the garden I could blame on raccoons, as much as i dislike raccoons. Most of my problems with with them were around the chicken feed. In the fenced-against-deer garden my battle was with rabbits, rats, and groundhogs.

We did not have a shortage of raccoons as hard as I tried. I'd trap and dispose of anywhere to 6 to 15 a year, mostly around my compost pile which acted as bait, though some were caught close to the chickens and chicken feed. If I remember right I only trapped two out of the garden and one at the blackberries in those ten years.

Just because they are around does not mean they will always get your corn, but I do favor managing the population. Raccoons will cause problems somewhere. Did I mention I kind of dislike them.