What did you do in the garden today?

[GardenTillers44]

NorthTexasWink: Re pawpaw seeds
CapricornFarm, post: "No worries, i can send you some! Pm me your addy."

It helps if you scarify the seeds. I salvage pawpaw seeds from the coon and fox poop and get almost 100% germination. You will get less than 20% otherwise. If you don't want to feed the seeds to a raccoon, you can lightly sand or scar the seed surface with a file . Also, if you want better fruit production, you should plant seeds from more than one location. The flowers are pollinated by flies, which aren't the best at their job. A few years from now when you get flowering pawpaws, you'll greatly improve your production by rolling a Q-tip in the flowers to transfer pollen more efficiently than the flies.

If you need more seeds, I'll have some after harvest in 3-4 weeks...maybe even some certified coon scarified ones (cleaned of course)!

 

[NorthTexasWink]

NorthTexasWink: Re pawpaw seeds
CapricornFarm, post: "No worries, i can send you some! Pm me your addy."

It helps if you scarify the seeds. I salvage pawpaw seeds from the coon and fox poop and get almost 100% germination. You will get less than 20% otherwise. If you don't want to feed the seeds to a raccoon, you can lightly sand or scar the seed surface with a file . Also, if you want better fruit production, you should plant seeds from more than one location. The flowers are pollinated by flies, which aren't the best at their job. A few years from now when you get flowering pawpaws, you'll greatly improve your production by rolling a Q-tip in the flowers to transfer pollen more efficiently than the flies.

If you need more seeds, I'll have some after harvest in 3-4 weeks...maybe even some certified coon scarified ones (cleaned of course)!

Did not know that! So, nick and soak the seeds like you do nasturtiums? I'll take any seeds I can get! Thank you! Let me get my room set up and I'll put out the call and my address.

I'm headed to bed. Sweet dreams sweet peeps.

 

[GardenTillers44]

The flock did a little harvesting of their own today from the herb gardens around the coop.

 

[MommaHen2Many]

For some reason I can't upload any pics right now, but I just did a google search on "Property Protected By" signs and found some funny ones!

oh...gotta do that!

 

[CapricornFarm]

HE pees all over our yard. Maybe why I never see signs of coon, armadillo, opposum or anything else. Even the bobcats have stayed down a few houses. I might Try it once in a while, but the bugs already eat me up. Not giving them a chance at the tender bits!

I almost always wear Cedarcide but i forgot to put it on after coming back from town. Went out to pull some weeds and snap on those plastic wire holders for the electric fence and it was like open season! Had to retreat to the house.

 

[CapricornFarm]

NorthTexasWink: Re pawpaw seeds
CapricornFarm, post: "No worries, i can send you some! Pm me your addy."

It helps if you scarify the seeds. I salvage pawpaw seeds from the coon and fox poop and get almost 100% germination. You will get less than 20% otherwise. If you don't want to feed the seeds to a raccoon, you can lightly sand or scar the seed surface with a file . Also, if you want better fruit production, you should plant seeds from more than one location. The flowers are pollinated by flies, which aren't the best at their job. A few years from now when you get flowering pawpaws, you'll greatly improve your production by rolling a Q-tip in the flowers to transfer pollen more efficiently than the flies.

If you need more seeds, I'll have some after harvest in 3-4 weeks...maybe even some certified coon scarified ones (cleaned of course)!

Good tip! I am not following coons around with anything but a shot gun!

 

[Lazy Farmer]

Two great minds with the same idea! I put a rack of baby backs in the slow cooker after lunch and can smell them now. I had planned to have them yesterday before the excitement happened. I'm going to smother them in sauce, add two baked potatoes from the garden along with a veggie and voila! Dinner!

 

[Lazy Farmer]

Pigs work pretty well too!

we use them

 

[GardenTillers44]

NorthTexasWink, post: "Trespassers are not funny......."

We are now in Southeastern Ohio, very remote in some wild wooded country at the end of a long abandoned dirt road that doesn't even show on GPS. We learned quickly that the neighbors didn't cotton to fences and posted signs and all that I put up were shot or otherwise destroyed. I'm not sure the sherriff or a squad could even find us let alone come help in a timely manner, and we have evolved to handle most things on our own. So we changed tactics and got to know the neighbors, helped them out when we could, swapped services, shared extra bounty from our garden and even though we will always be "outsiders", we have been accepted into the community. We feel a lot safer this way, and have reaped some good relationships. After 20 years, we all watch each other's backs and properties now. The trade-off is we all understand it's OK to take a walk on each other's land (they'll do it anyway) and keep an eye out for anything hinky. We've had no problems with theft, poaching or vandalism since getting on the good side of folks around here. I think everywhere is different. When we lived in Houston, humans stole anything not welded to the house. In the Texas Hill Country nobody stole anything but poaching was a problem, more from non-residents than neighbors.

 

[karenerwin]

I called it quits.

My garden was a disaster this year. Had everything planted right when it should be and the ground temps were up only to have a two week long wet spell with chilly temps set in that took out 3/4s of my onion sets, all of my spinach and about half of my green bean and corn seeds. They rotted in the ground.

Replanted beans and corn. My bush beans did ok. Corn recovered only to have it hit by raccoons which stripped out al of the corn before we had a chance to really enjoy it (think we got 4 ears out of two rows and the coons got the rest) Tomatoes had stem blossom rot with the exception of the cherries that I planted for the chickens to enjoy and they did well. Chickens loved them. Cukes did okay. I had all I wanted and let the rest grow to giant size for the chooks. Squash and sugar pumpkins did absolutely nothing this year. Usually the vines take over the garden and I have more squash than I know what to do with. The only think that did marginally well were my potatoes and the onion sets that I replanted.

Very disappointed. Next year I'm cutting back. Only planting potatoes, onions and squash. I blame the weather more than anything. Too much hot followed by heavy rain, cool and then a return to ultra hot.

So what we did in the garden yesterday was plow and disc for next year, working all the grass and weeds into the soil to decompose.

That is the joy of a garden. If it doesn't work there is always next year.

I'm in Jefferson county Missouri, my tomatoes did marginally. The cucumbers didn't do much at all. My sweet potato vines are growing but seems to be very slowly. The green beans are just now getting flowers and small beans. Onion sets didn't get very big. Kale and leaf lettuce did great! Green peppers are still growing. I think they will continue up until the first freeze. Only got 2 pumpkins and about 6 yellow squash.

Several wild weeds here that I try not to cut, mustard is one of them. Purslane and amaranth also.
Oh and in the spring Miners Lettuce abounds.

Pictures of what these look like would be great!