What Did You Do In The Garden?

[flowerbug]

buried more bean pods and weeded more of the garden i'm recovering from the weeds. then i watered that area of the garden down to make sure it was keeping the worms happy.

was happy to see plenty of worms as i was digging.

also weeded/scraped the back squash garden. that soil is very heavy and hard, we do get some squash from it, but they don't do as well back there as compared to the front which is sandy loam over sand (and then the subsoil clay is several feet down). i really need to get more organic material brought in and buried back there to help it out. i'd buried leaves and ashes years ago and that certainly helped but that organic material is mostly long gone, the only things that get buried back there now are the squash plants themselves and a few weeds. i need to do a lot of weeding in the gardens around that patch and those would be very good weeds to bury (trefoil has a high nitrogen content), but i'm pretty sure i'm not going to get to that sort of project this fall.

 

[Zeedman]

I wanted to try Witloof chicory one year and grew quite a lot of it so that I could harvest the roots and "force" them in the basement for winter salads. By the time they should be harvested and carried down, I realized that I was not in the least interested in eating the greens. I should have known better since the radicchio that I was served in restaurants was waaay too bitter for me to enjoy. Anyway, what was I to do with the roots? I roasted them.

I have bought the chicory/coffee blend at the soopermarket and enjoyed that well enuf. And both my chicory and dandelion roots are comparable. Yep .

Here's a TEG thread that I started years ago Think you might need a cup of recession-proof coffee? LINK. Hell yes, we may be right back to those days ... dang!

If the old Photobucket pictures don't come through, here's a couple of them:
View attachment 37114
~ dandelion roots ~
View attachment 37115

Steve

Is the second photo of your roasting method? Lots of wild chicory around here, I've always wanted to try using some... depending upon the answer to @Marie2020 's question. Chicory was almost a no-show this year, but there's always plenty of dandelion around. If the drink from those roasted roots is pleasant, I might let the dandelion in the gardens get a little bigger before digging it out. I'd actually miss the caffeine though.

 

[Zeedman]

a lesson i learned years ago the hard way, to never accept fill/compost without inspecting it first. once they deliver they have no easy way to pick it back up and take it back so they hope that people will just suck up whatever they deliver. always go to their site to inspect what they are bringing. i'm still picking pieces of trash out of my gardens from compost that must have come from a recycled garbage dump, it was that bad. glass, metals, plastics, chunks of chewed up diapers, etc. they must have just put it all through a shredder/grinder to deal with it and then composted what they could, but much of just did not belong in there at all.

Had I ordered that topsoil, I would have been more vigilant as well... but it was excess from DD's landscaping. She offered it to me for free. It's OK for landscaping purposes, but not for a new raised bed. She still has a lot left, I may use some to extend one of my home gardens into a low area.

my experience with pea germination rates here is that certain varieties just hate my soil and gardens. i've tried multiple times with different packages from different companies and they didn't do well no matter what i did. that is why i was very thrilled this past spring to get some large podded variety that actually would grow.

The only problems I've ever had with peas were with purchased seed. The seed this year was from a garden center too, so one would hope that they offered better seed than a big box store. In contrast, the Shiraz planted this year was saved seed from 2013, and had about 90% germination.

This is far from the first time I've had poor germination from purchased seed, more than once I've had 0%. I have considerably more confidence in home-grown seed, and purchase as little commercial seed as possible.

 

[flowerbug]

...
The only problems I've ever had with peas were with purchased seed. The seed this year was from a garden center too, so one would hope that they offered better seed than a big box store. In contrast, the Shiraz planted this year was saved seed from 2013, and had about 90% germination.

This is far from the first time I've had poor germination from purchased seed, more than once I've had 0%. I have considerably more confidence in home-grown seed, and purchase as little commercial seed as possible.

i've had problems in germination and in creatures eating all of them before they get growing. likely chipmunks or groundhogs. this past spring i had garden friends send me some pea seeds to try. some of them sprouted and grew really well and a few barely made it at all even after a 2nd planting. i don't know how old the seeds were that were sent to me.

 

[catjac1975]

The raised bed for the garlic is nearly done. It was harder than I anticipated, due to soil issues. When we went to pick up some of the topsoil DD offered us, it turned out to be full of perennial grass roots. It was good topsoil, but sorting out the roots was taking too long, so we decided to stop using it after the 2nd load. So I ordered 5 yards of "garden soil" mix from a landscape supply, to be delivered next day between 8:00 AM & noon. My intent was to remove one fence pole & fold back the fence just prior, so the load could be dumped straight into the garden. (We couldn't open the fence the day before, too much still growing to risk it becoming a deer buffet.)

So imagine my surprise when the driver called me at 7:00 AM the next day, stating that he was there, and where did I want it? I hustled out to the rural garden (its 6 miles away) but there was no time to pull the fence, so the soil had to be dropped in the lawn outside the fence. Fortunately for us, a friend of the property owner stopped by - who stores a tractor with a bucket in their garage. He was kind enough to move most of the pile to where it was needed. The bed is almost complete, I'm waiting on the arrival of the garlic stock to see if the last segment will be needed.

The Garafal Oro, Schwarz Witwe, and Berta Talaska pole beans have all begun to dry. Garafal Oro, though, has thus far produced only pods with undeveloped seed, only 5 good seeds out of about 20 pods. The other two have good seed, I hope the long period of rainfall in the forecast doesn't destroy the ripening pods. Something tells me DW & I will be donning our rain boots.

4 of the 6 remaining soybean varieties have dried down enough to harvest. I cut all the plants of Ohozyu & brought them indoors to finish drying, but was too busy with the raised bed to cut the other 3. Weather permitting, I'll try to get out to the rural garden in time to harvest those plants too.

Several weeks ago, I planted a Fall garden in one of the open spaces at the rural site. I purchased 2 shell pea varieties, 2 snap pea varieties, beets, and kohlrabi. The kohlrabi came up strong, but something ate about 1/2 of the seedlings. Of the 4 pea varieties, only one variety (Alaska) had good germination; the other shell pea had maybe 10% germination. The two snap pea varieties had 6 plants between them - from 3 20' rows. Pretty sorry performance for (supposedly) fresh commercial seed. Only the beets are doing well.

We have found that those guys have a different sense of time. We have been buying some supplemental firewood and my husband aways pays cash. The guy was coming "sometime at the end of the week," and showed up the next day. Husband had to run to the bank. Not a big deal. Just a different way of thinking.

 

[ducks4you]

Got back to the burdock war. DH had used the bush hogger in the south pasture in July, but I hadn't cleaned it all up. Although there is still curly dock to clean up, I decided to focus on the burdock, and I pulled out, cleaned up after and burned 5 large wheelbarrows full of it today. The patch that ran along the north fence of the south pasture (including the gate) is all cleaned up. Tomorrow I hope to saw down any burdock that is still alive with burrs and let it dry out on the tarp in the inner sanctum.
After that I have 2 connected patches on the south and west fencelines and interiors (to the pine trees), kind of a nest of them to clear out.
I was covered, but still managed to get a few burrs in my hair!
It is job that I Hate when I am doing it, but love it when it's done.
The curly dock can wait until after my Salsa Party/Protest bc IT doesn't get trapped in their manes/tails, like the burdock does.
I will probably also mow the 1st year burdock with my bag mower and poison it with Pasture Pro herbicide, bc the horses won't have to wait a month to get back on the south pasture.

 

[flowerbug]

shelled beans, sorted beans, buried bean pods, weeded and scraped around the edge of the north garden, picked more beans, sorted more beans (notice the theme here?)...

 

[AMKuska]

This is far from the first time I've had poor germination from purchased seed, more than once I've had 0%. I have considerably more confidence in home-grown seed, and purchase as little commercial seed as possible.

I usually buy from high mowing organics because the germination is pretty reliable. I've had one instance where a rare melon didn't germinate, but other than that I've had 90-100% germination from everything.

 

[ducks4you]

I usually buy from high mowing organics because the germination is pretty reliable. I've had one instance where a rare melon didn't germinate, but other than that I've had 90-100% germination from everything.

You Are referring to:
https://www.highmowingseeds.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3caQ1qeJ7AIViYzICh1ARgzOEAAYASAAEgImIPD_BwE ??
I was thinking seriously about buying seed from them. Nice to know!
Their prices are reasonable, too.

 

[AMKuska]

You Are referring to:
https://www.highmowingseeds.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3caQ1qeJ7AIViYzICh1ARgzOEAAYASAAEgImIPD_BwE ??
I was thinking seriously about buying seed from them. Nice to know!
Their prices are reasonable, too.

Yes, I get their seed catalog every year and love them. The seeds have always been great!