BYC gardening thread!!

[yinepu]

My dad has that type of composter, and he says it works well. What a steal!

I'd heard of Fedco, but had kind of forgotten about them. I'll look at them again.

Ordered a grab bag of seeds from Annie's Heirloom seeds last week. A nice deal and got quite a nice selection. Between what I have in the freezer and what I got, I should not need to order seeds....but you know how that goes, lol.

What did you get in the Annie's grab bag?.. I ordered one earlier today and I'm hoping for a nice selection..

 

[SunnySkies]

What did you get in the Annie's grab bag?.. I ordered one earlier today and I'm hoping for a nice selection.. 

Several tomatoes, yellow ones.
Book choy. Never tried that one before.
Variety of lettuces
Peppers, a couple hot ones and a mild one
Turnips
Mustard greens
Chinese cabbage
Onions
Kale
Escarole
Basil
Chives
Dill
Tomatillos
Parsley (hamburg
Artichokes (I hate those)
Melons, 2 types
Cucumbers
Eggplants

 

[marktoo]

Some seeds are super easy to save, and they don't readily hybridize. You need to start with open pollinated seed. I have an absolute favorite pole bean called Fortex. It's very hard to get the seed from seed companies, so I've been saving my seed for over 10 years. Squash and cucumbers are real easy to work with. Then if you're not terribly concerned, just save the seed from your best fruit/plants. If you're a purist, all you have to do is wait for a female flower to open, pollinate it with a male flower of the same species, then cover it with a bag to keep the bees from visiting it. Label that resulting fruit, and it'll be pure. Tomatoes are very easy. They generally self pollinate. Lettuce is super easy. Let your first planting go to seed, then harvest the seeds, or just pull the plant up and lay it where you want the next crop. I save flower seeds, and am not too proud to scavange them from public plantings. With all of the GMO stuff going on, I think it's a good idea to be able to at least provide some of my own seed, as well as having some to share with neighbors. I saved seed from a neighbor's squash last year. I bought the biggest butter cup squash he had, and saved all the seed. This year, I grew 185# of squash from a single hill. Ironically, the squash he had out for sale this year was tiny compared to mine!

I'll pass on the rhubarb lady! Don't need a potty mouth cluttering up my brain! I had a hawk try to take one of my chickens today. It had actually landed on the ground behind my coop! One of the girls didn't stop growling for a half hour!

Congrats on the composter. I have one, have a love/hate relationship with it, but if I found an other one for $25, I'd buy it. Broadfork is on my wish list, I've actually been toying with the idea of what it would take to make one.

Thanks for the info. Come to think about it, my wife is about to start a Master gardener program (the lengths she'll go through to get out of working in our garden..jeeez) I suspect she'll be saving all sorts of seed before she's done. The biotech companies & their GMO seed, herbicides, pesticides have got our attention, we're doing all we can to avoid their trash.

Ha! The Rhubarb Lady apparently became infamous over night, catching the attention of some of the late night talk shows, had I known the videos content before hand I may not have watched it either. Glad she's not my neighbor!

We had a Cooper Hawk using our bat box as a lookout post the other day. Didn't seem to take much notice of our hens, it was too busy looking out across the field behind us. The hens on the other hand were very much aware of the hawk, they were all huddled in the corner of the run closest to the hawk gawking at it, like they had never seen one before. Stupid birds! The run is covered with bird netting but that won't stop a determined hawk. I suspect they would retreat to the coup once they realized the hawk meant them harm, I don't think the hawk would like the 10' of chunnel between the run & coop much either.

I think you can find plans for a U-bar or broadfork online, at the very least you would need a welder.

 

[lazy gardener]

Hubby was campaigning for a welder a while ago. I told him that the cost of it would include making me a broad fork. Haven't heard much about it lately! For now, I'm just using my little stainless steel garden fork... slow but steady.

 

[marktoo]

Hubby was campaigning for a welder a while ago. I told him that the cost of it would include making me a broad fork. Haven't heard much about it lately! For now, I'm just using my little stainless steel garden fork... slow but steady.

Well, if he gets his welder this winter you could have a broadfork before you're able to work the soil come spring.

I often use my garden fork for small areas.

 

[lazy gardener]

I'll not hold my breath!

 

[SunnySkies]

I was looking at the front field this morning, and the grass where the hoop coop was during the summer is very thick and very green. Hrm. Next year, maybe I raise the meaties in the garden...

 

[yinepu]

Quote:
NICE!

I should be getting mine any day now...

 

[yinepu]

I was looking at the front field this morning, and the grass where the hoop coop was during the summer is very thick and very green. Hrm. Next year, maybe I raise the meaties in the garden...

lol.. yup we see that here too... between the mini equines, goats, emu and poultry we have lots of manure to go around.. just wish the neighbor's dogs hadn't taken out all of the rabbits...

 

[lazy gardener]

I was looking at the front field this morning, and the grass where the hoop coop was during the summer is very thick and very green. Hrm. Next year, maybe I raise the meaties in the garden...

I'm so looking forward to seeing what kind of enhancement the girls do to my garden this year! I got chickens more for the value of their manure and weed/pest management abilities than I did for eggs/meat!