Minnesota!

[Cyrus83]

I prefer late season too, once the weather gets cold enough to keep the pretenders out of the slough, I use the first two weekends to get back on target. then I'm ready to smack the big canadian mallards out west in November.

 

[Mistahbue]

Incubator halp?!!!

Borrowed a neighbor's incubator for the guinea eggs. I've got hatching happening on 4 eggs.

It's got an auto turner and the egg trays don't seem to be removable. Got other eggs that aren't as far along

What do I do?

 

[lalaland]

Does anybody here grow garlic? I'm about to plant my first time an I am wondering if I should fence off the patch. I'm afraid the ladies will dig up my cloves

Last fall my chickens did dig up the cloves after they were planted. Probably because the bed was freshly dug and weeded - all that fresh dirt was irresistable. I was pretty unhappy, but more unhappy last week when I "harvested" what little remained.
Ditto to what minniechickmama says about mulching. Not necessary if we get a good snow cover, but...you never know what winter will be like, so mulch! Plus it makes for a nice weed free bed.

You should be planting them 4-6". To do this, punch a whole in the ground rather than making a furrow. So, the birds shouldn't be able to dig them up. We have been growing it for about 15-years. You could even wait a couple more weeks before planting. It is recommended for our area to plant in early October, even though we were just shipped our new seed stock last week. We are starting fresh since ours got fusurium on it. We need to figure out a new place to plant it this year.
What variety did you get? We have German Extra Hardy, Georgia Fire, and Music. We used to grow Killarney Red, which produced large bulbs, and we got a pound of it to do again this year.
If you like more pungent and spice, Red Grain is small but has a big kick. Hardneck does better here than the soft neck varieties.

I have 2 lbs of Chesnok Red that I am going to plant. I am planning to plant this weekend ('just about' is relative I guess

) but maybe I will wait one more week.

Ok, I usually save my own to plant, but this year, due to the chicken excavating project last fall, there isn't anything to save. Where are you guys getting your garlic? I had 15 year old strains of chesnok red that I had been replanting each year, love that stuff.

You know what I love about gardening? When I do things like digging potatoes or digging garlic, and I feel like a kid at Christmas! Same with when we grow Indian Corn and open it. I LOVE IT!

Had family up Sunday and they picked pumpkins. You would have thought I was giving them diamonds!

 

[Cyrus83]

I find pumpkins much more useful than diamonds. Deer and chickens love em, and supposedly their really good for my pregnant DW

 

[KlopKlop]

@lalaland I got mine from a guy near dodge center. He listed on Craigslist and he ships . Look on there for someone in your area maybe?
Stuff starts selling out soon now. I wanted to plant last year but couldn't get any seed stock by the time I moved to the farm

 

[Minniechickmama]

Last fall my chickens did dig up the cloves after they were planted. Probably because the bed was freshly dug and weeded - all that fresh dirt was irresistable. I was pretty unhappy, but more unhappy last week when I "harvested" what little remained.
Ditto to what minniechickmama says about mulching. Not necessary if we get a good snow cover, but...you never know what winter will be like, so mulch! Plus it makes for a nice weed free bed.



Ok, I usually save my own to plant, but this year, due to the chicken excavating project last fall, there isn't anything to save. Where are you guys getting your garlic? I had 15 year old strains of chesnok red that I had been replanting each year, love that stuff.

Had family up Sunday and they picked pumpkins. You would have thought I was giving them diamonds!

We mulch over-winter with straw (except last year), pull it back for the ground to thaw in Spring. Once it is 4-6" high, we re-mulch using the same straw and it cuts weeding WAY down. This year, the weeds got away from us and it just ruined what we had gotten to come up. We had about 10-years of Killarney going when my FIL passed away a few years ago and couldn't get it planted, so we have restarted since then, but then the last couple of years we have had too many irons in the fire, so we need to cut back and try doing fewer things better.

I bought seed stock this year from Seed Savers in Decorah, Iowa, and from Burpee. Another great place to get it from is called Filaree Farm, which has a LOT of varieties to choose from, but they were sold out of what we wanted.

Raised beds are the best way to grow any root/bulb type plant, but they are a pain to set up if you don't have the right equipment. We started our new Strawberry beds in raised and they are much easier to work than just rows on flat ground. I am hoping we can build some wood sided raised beds to do our veggie gardening closer to the house in the future though. That way we can do more intensive gardening and do some companion plantings in them too.

We had a boatload of apples this year, but they are mostly buggy since we never sprayed. We need to find something organic to use on them. They are also very dry. I wish I could find the map that tells us which trees are which too!

I know I put it on a map of the property, but that was a few years ago, and I have no idea where I put it. I am sure it is someplace that I put it so I would be able to find it later. LOL

 

[Cluckies]

[quote

Wow! I have major coop/run envy! That looks wonderful!

@Cluckies
, Can I move in? I love it! I "adopted" two new birds and will be picking them up soon - I wish I had a nice separation like that. I don't know who is going to be more stressed out.....me, the new birds, or my current flock of girls. 

Thanks, the UPS dude liked it too, I was mowing Friday (still no takers?) He flagged me down just as i was finishing to talk coops/chickens. He says his wife wants chickens. I, of course, said go for it!

MinnesotaNice, what kind did you get?

 

[lalaland]

klopklop, thanks fo the craigslist idea. Found a bunch of choices, including one on my route home. Probably will have armenian, chesnok, and german planted by this weekend.

minniechickmana, lucky to have the apples. Dry and wormy, they still make great apple jalopeno jelly, your own apple cider vinegar, and....what I am craving now, old-fashioned apple butter. My apple trees drowned a few years ago when we had that wet spring that lasted months....and I havent replanted.

 

[KlopKlop]

We mulch over-winter with straw (except last year), pull it back for the ground to thaw in Spring.  Once it is 4-6" high, we re-mulch using the same straw and it cuts weeding WAY down.  This year, the weeds got away from us and it just ruined what we had gotten to come up.  We had about 10-years of Killarney going when my FIL passed away a few years ago and couldn't get it planted, so we have restarted since then, but then the last couple of years we have had too many irons in the fire, so we need to cut back and try doing fewer things better.


I bought seed stock this year from Seed Savers in Decorah, Iowa, and from Burpee.  Another great place to get it from is called Filaree Farm, which has a LOT of varieties to choose from, but they were sold out of what we wanted.


Raised beds are the best way to grow any root/bulb type plant, but they are a pain to set up if you don't have the right equipment.  We started our new Strawberry beds in raised and they are much easier to work than just rows on flat ground.  I am hoping we can build some wood sided raised beds to do our veggie gardening closer to the house in the future though.  That way we can do more intensive gardening and do some companion plantings in them too.

 
We had a boatload of apples this year, but they are mostly buggy since we never sprayed.  We need to find something organic to use on them.  They are also very dry.  I wish I could find the map that tells us which trees are which too!   I know I put it on a map of the property, but that was a few years ago, and I have no idea where I put it.  I am sure it is someplace that I put it so I would be able to find it later.  LOL

I have a plot that I double dug then piled on composted chopped leaf and chicken poo bedding mixture and tilled it. That was a few weeks ago and I covered it all with carpet scraps to attempt to 'solarize' it and keep back any grass trying to come back up.

I have some dirty old straw in the top of my grainery that I plan to mulch with too

I would add a photo of my awesome seed stock but since I updated my iPhone to the new IOS it is too buggy.

We wanted to do more than 2 lbs but I talked myself into starting slower. Quality over quantity if all goes well we may add more kinds next time. We enjoy Music garlic

 

[duluthralphie]

Incubator halp?!!!

Borrowed a neighbor's incubator for the guinea eggs. I've got hatching happening on 4 eggs.

It's got an auto turner and the egg trays don't seem to be removable. Got other eggs that aren't as far along

What do I do?

Disconnect the tray. stop it from turning. There must be a way to shut the tray off and not the incubator.



Are you planning on house guineas this winter?