Michigan Thread - all are welcome!

[saysfaa]

Yes, sort of. It is more harvest as soon as it is big enough than wait to harvest just before the flower.

Leaf lettuce like your varieties can be harvested by cutting the whole plant an inch or teo above the ground. It will grow back if it is happy (cool enough weather, enough moisture, enough food, ... ). I prefer an alternate method - picking one or two outer leaves per plant every few days.

It will stay happy longer in light shade or in a pot that can be moved into the shade on warmer days.

 

[1muttsfan]

Since lettuce prefers cooler temps, it grows better early in the spring. It grows in the fall too, but since the days are shorter they grow more slowly and do not get as big.

You can seed lettuce early in the spring, even when there is snow still on the ground. Then seed every 2 weeks to extend your harvest. The seeds are very small and hard to see. When you plant them every 2 inches, and if they sprout well, then as they grow you can thin the plants out and eat them as they grow - first as microgreens, then young plants, then fully grown. I pull the whole plant up and cut the roots off right in the garden. Wash them well to remove dirt and bugs. I store them wrapped in damp paper towels in the fridge.

When lettuce bolts it grows a tall stalk, flowers, then produces seed. As soon as it bolts the leaves on the plant become bitter. No longer good for human consumption, but the chickens love them.

 

[saysfaa]

I had a little company while working on the remote garden yesterday. The first picture shows the stakes I put in before I saw him - maybe five feet from him. I certainly don't want more around but he is really cute.

I have only about a third of the spaces cleared for the tomatoes. It is going well, I just have other priorities too. Thankfully, I still don't know how digging poison ivy out might go (much less how effective it might be) as I didn't see any. I plan to keep going with clearing spots with the shovel instead of getting the rototiller out to it. It isn't much slower than the total time of mounting the rototiller on the tractor, driving it back there, and so on.

I think I will try to get the fence up next, though, before clearing more spots. I couldn't get woven wire garden fence so will try reusing short pieces of high tensile pasture wire for most of it.

 

[1muttsfan]

Awww!

 

[RaZ]

Both ducks are sitting on the nest. The drake just wandering around the yard like he is lost or something. He seems lonely without his girls. Not sure if one or too hens are broody or not. Every time I try to gather eggs there is always a couple of hens sitting in the nest box.

I had a handsome visitor this morning.

He was strutting and displaying for a small group of hens.

 

[Dreamzchaser]

So much work in two days and with a pain that VA only advised me to go to the ER. Have not gone but the pain is intense. The girls were out with us but they were not helping. They rather were having frozen blueberries left from last year.

The cilantro is in the box.

The basil and Italian parsley seeds are in.


The Greek oregano seeds are also in.
One part of the box is empty but ready. My sister is sending me recao or Vietnamese culantro,yay!

Put some poles up around the garden and cover it up with the orange stuff I used to retain the chickens when they were little.

The sun is too hot. My sister from Florida said that I looked like a migrant worker, lol.

I also had a scarf,long sleeves shirt, gloves,long sweats,and boots. Surely left Florida but didn't go north enough,

 

[Sally PB]

I wear long sleeved white crew necked T-shirts when I go outside. And long pants. My reward for this is sweating my pores clean, I guess. Also, no sunburn. When I have my yearly physical, the doc always says how good my skin looks, that I have very little sun damage.

I have a few more things to plant, mostly just because I have some space that I don't want to weed all the time, so I'll fill it with a few bean or kale plants.

My potatoes are looking good! Only about 5-6 out of 72 hills have nothing at all. Some need hilling up, and I saw flower buds on one! Even the very last ones I planted look strong and robust, even if they're only a couple inches tall. I am very much looking forward to trying the new varieties.

The tomatoes are doing well too. Some of the plants are still very small, but most are in the 5-7" range. I plant them deep, so the stem can send out some more roots. They seem to sit there for a week or so, and then they really take off.

 

[Dreamzchaser]

Baby mama has not laid an egg in weeks since stopped being broody. Today she sat on an egg inside the coop and Pitbull was with her lol

 

[Dakota8472]

hello from holly michigan between flint and fenton. I got 2 or 3 silkie roos in this bunch i hvae and i was wondering if anyone would want some free roos.

 

[1muttsfan]

Pretty little guys. I'm sorry I can't take on any more roos myself, but good luck finding them homes.