Ducks4you for 2022

[Rhodie Ranch]

I'm actually in 8b. But higher elevation, so this place gets some snow once in while. Ask me my fav veggie and my answer has always been brussels sprouts. Steamed, roasted, BBQ'd, cold, hot.

 

[heirloomgal]

When to Start Seeds: Your Guide to Fall Planting

The beautiful weather of fall makes it perfect for extending the harvest and growing more food. This fall guide covers planting times for 17 popular crops.

www.tenthacrefarm.com

How to Have a Productive Fall Garden (in 5 Easy Steps)

Would you like to have a high-yielding fall vegetable garden? Follow these five easy steps for a smooth transition from summer to fall.

www.tenthacrefarm.com

Year-Round Gardening: It's Easier Than You Think

Extend your harvest to all 12 months of the year with a year-round gardening plan. Are you ready to take your garden to the next level?

www.tenthacrefarm.com

I love the cold frame idea in #3. Always wanted one of those.

 

[heirloomgal]

@heirloomgal is right, I DO like to study. Just signed up for an email gardening course and I wanted to share the some advice for mid summer gardening.

How to Have a Productive Fall Garden (in 5 Easy Steps)​

"Make Space #4: Clear out Spent Plants
Harvest the seeds of any healthy crops or flowers that have gone to seed. Then chop and drop the plant matter directly onto the bed as mulch. Rather than pulling it out, cut the plant matter back and leave the decaying roots to feed the soil.
If you miss any seeds while harvesting, then you’ve just reseeded the beds for next year with little effort!"

How to Have a Productive Fall Garden (in 5 Easy Steps)

Would you like to have a high-yielding fall vegetable garden? Follow these five easy steps for a smooth transition from summer to fall.

www.tenthacrefarm.com

I will try anything that makes sense, until I discover it doesn't work. Certainly leaving the roots keeps the soil broken up where the plant has already broken it up, something I had not considered. It also goes along with no tilling.
Any thoughts?

Ontario bean growers turn all plant matter back under, I couldn't believe the estimates they gave for how much nitrogen that returned to the soil. Also the little nitrogen fixing nodes that develp on the pea and bean roots are great for the soil, and future growing.

 

[heirloomgal]

Also:

How to Get Started with No-Till Gardening

Have you heard about the ecological benefits of the no-till garden? Replace your old habits with these essential steps for getting started with no-till gardening.

www.tenthacrefarm.com

This has been very popular in the last while, so I tried it one year. I don't doubt there are great benefits of no-till, but I had a real increase in cutworm attacks that year. I found it was a lot more work too, and I'm a lazy gardener, lol.

 

[heirloomgal]

Not to comPLAIN but my knees/legs have been recovering from an old injury. I have had LOTS of trouble walking, but I have really improved in the last 2 weeks. DD just got me a gym membership. It is in the oddest location, off of a main intercounty route, in a town of about 1,000, 5 minutes from Her house, 20 minutes from mine. MOST IMPORTANT, safe from the gunfire becoming more common in the 3 cities 25 miles NE of us both.
ANYTHING I have done gardening in 2022 has been by ignoring pain, so my successes have been Very sweet.
I moved another wheelbarrow of used stall bedding from April to cover the soil between the fencelines I constructed in 2021 for tomatoes. Don't know about YOU, but 25 hours worth of construction is nothing to sneeze at, and I intend to get YEARS out of them. The chicken wire and the supports were free bc I had them on hand.
Might not work well for tomatoes, but I tied up about 8 corn stalks to the fencing that blew over with yesterday's rain, and anything that wants to climb has a support.
Yesterday I checked on my cucumber planting and noticed that it was very uneven. I took a hand shovel and moved some of them, soaked them with the hose afterwards, and discovered that they had recovered. 1st is the mass of cucumbers that I left, the 2nd and 3rd photos are the recovered cucumbers, then a picture of the full row this morning.

Gunfire!?

 

[ducks4you]

Yesterday I threw some old flower seeds in one of my seed storage containers, the ones that used to hold store bought herbs, shook them up and planted them in the East bed north of the garage, you know, the ones with the African daisies.
Here are the seeds that I document, in the case that some/all come up:
1) portulaca
2) white allyssium
3) purple allussium
4) dwarf phlox (mixed colors)
5) cilantro (also planted on the west bed)
I had been trying to grow tobacco seeds in a container. Only 3 came up, and I have started to clean up my porch, so I carefully lifted them from the container and dumped out the rest of the soil. Some of the cilantro got planted there, too.
THIS morning I planted:
WEST bed north of the garage
1) 12 cloves of garlic
2) 2 packages of thyme
3) 2 packages of tarrogan
EAST bed north of the garage
1) savory
2) lettuce
3) two packages of mixed "heirloom" flowers
I will take a picture of That package, in the case that some germinate.
I had purchased a hanging basket with white, red, red & white, and blue petunias.
Two red petunias were transplanted, east bed.

 

[ducks4you]

I am recovering from the extreme heat, which is why I am posting.
I began weeding the sweet potato bed and I have planted, like I said, plants that may/may not produce fruit, but will vine and hopefully choke out some weeds.
1) cucumbers
2) cantaloupe
3) okra (I Think, bc I took the label off of the jar!! , but I am SURE that they are vegetable seeds!)
more...hopefully today before the 4PM rain
I finished weeding the tomato beds and tying up my tomatoes. Good thing, too, bc I had to toss some rotten fruit sitting on the ground.

 

[ducks4you]

Went out about 3:30 and it was getting cooler. T storm started about 4:10. We are supposed to have several days of good, soaking rain, and WE NEED IT!
I finished weeding the sweet potato bed. I left about 8 volunteer turnips (from 2020-2021) same area, and 2 volunteer tomatoes. It wasn't hard to pull the crabgrass, purslane and other weeds and I threw them outside of the bed. I have about 8-10 sweet potatoes. The number is sketchy since I transplanted the two that had been growing in a plastic bag!
I emptied Lots of seeds and raked them in. Here is what I planted:
1) some kind of large orange pumpkin about 12 seeds
2) 2 cups worth of white pumpkins
3) 2 tablespoons worth of zucchini with some other squash seeds, maybe cucumber?
4) handful of marigold seeds
5) 2 teaspoons worth of mixed flower seeds
6) 3 teaspoons worth of turnip seeds
The seeds are ??? old. I covered the bare spots between the sweet potatoes and the volunteer turnips.
Got my gardening seat AND the seed containers AND the ice cream buckets put away before the rain started.
Guess I'll take a look on Saturday and see if anything sprouted.
ALL of my garden areas are being well watered, as I write.

 

[ducks4you]

SO TICKED OFF!!!
So the repairman comes to check out my BRAND NEW washing machine.
HE tells me that my hot water pressure is too LOW for this machine to handle, and that it why it shut off.
I can ONLY use Cool or Cold.
My on demand water heater produces really hot water and we shower just fine with it.
I asked if I could heat up hot water on the stove and add To the machine.
He said THAT would break the sensors and it would shut off.
Dunno WHY I didn't repair the old one and really shop around.
There Has to be a washing machine to doesn't tell me HOW to do my wash.

 

[ducks4you]

Enough. I will have to live with it.
***
Back to gardening. Self Sufficient Me is one of my favorite gardening You Tubers. I was perusing this one and delighted to see that he subdivided his video so that you could scroll forward or backward and just look at what you wanted. All I wanted (today) was the link and the list, so here they are. SOME of these won't grow outside for me bc HIS garden is Tropical, but it's an interesting watch.
21 Herbs and spices you should grow
1. basil
2. cilantro
3. kaffir lime
4. lemongrass
5. turmeric
6. ginger
7. galangal
8. oregano
9. thyme
10.lemon verbena
11.dill
12.parsley
13.bay leaf
14.mint
15.chives
16.curry tree
17.rosemary
18.chilli peppers
19.mustard
20.fennel
21.garlic