What did you do in the garden today?

[pennyJo1960]

Are these the reddish green things?
View attachment 3024956View attachment 3024957

That is saved keep the ducks out ! Welcome to the thread!

 

[igorsMistress]

Got up this morning and was sitting here watching the sunrise and wasting time on the tube of you and saw that is was 45 degrees out. DH is working from home this week as it is Spring Break at the Uni, and I then noticed there was no wind yet. But I KNEW there was a cold front coming at lunch with howling winds that would be around until sunday.

I asked if he could spare enough time to help me get the main cover for the hoop house up and over. If he could hold it while I stapled and then put up the security rails over that, then I could do the ends and all the trimmings, hardware, and other security rails on my own. He said SURE. Off we went. I was moving slow this morning and it took us about an hour. I then worked on the front around the door and then moved to the back. About halfway done with the back and the winds started up. But since most of the plastic was down, flapping wasn't an issue.

Even as tight as I could get it, I still wasn't happy with the amount of flapping, so I grabbed lunch and headed into the village for some eye hooks and some climbing rope. DH helped me put a chuck wagon rope up and over to reduce the flapping. I'm MUCH happier with it. Green was my only rope choice, I'm not cool with that, but oh well.

I tossed mulch into the walkway.
Added all the hardware to the doors and windows, and put up a thermometer.
I still need to go to the city and load all my old feedbags with composted soil. But then I can be on my planting way!

The hoops for frost blankets will be quick to cut and I'll store those in the barn. I'll just use sheets and bull clips to hold those on.

Lord, what a project.
I thought the arthritis in my hands hurt this morning. LOL. 50 outside and 90 inside with everything closedView attachment 3024942View attachment 3024943

That looks great, and how nice of hubs to help you out.

 

[SheaLoner]

Got it, brown the bones (or scraps), dice the veg, and pressure cook for 2 hours. Good web site!

This might be just my taste buds but Ive always done the bare min of veg if any when pressure cooking stock. I find anything over 30 min with celery and carrots comes out tasting burned to me.

When making chicken stock for myself I will do a carcass and feet/necks and about 1 small onion halved and maybe 2 smashed garlic cloves, maybe a few dried celery leaves. A good shake of peppercorns and heavy pinch of salt. Pressure cook for 35 min. Pour off stock with veg. Refill with water and go for 45 min. The first batch has all the fat and veg flavor. Good for fresh immediate use. The 2nd pass is my bone broth, heavy on the gelatin mild flavor great for canning/freezing.

 

[igorsMistress]

@WthrLady that looks FANTASTIC!! What plastic is that covering it, if you don't mind sharing.

So I got the onions in the ground, 160 of em & gave the rest to my neighbor. I also got the new hoop house up & planted lettuce seed in it. The soil was very workable because they are raised beds. Got that all watered too.

DH is home & we got new gutters up for the birds in lockdown, the way it was I always had a rain barrel catching runoff, but it's still freezing here & I can't put the barrel back up just to freeze - so gutter extensions are up. We decided to add another hoop house to their lockup, heading to TSC this weekend, I need 2 for the garden anyway so I'll get 3. Also added a couple more roosts for them too.


Thank you! I want gooey for sure, I'll start there.

I got the Nesco electric one. I don't want to try it on my glass top stove so I'll start here. I'm not big on canned veggies anyway so bone broth will big the main purpose so 4 quarts or 5 pints will be the max I can do at a time, I think that's reasonable. For now. LOL. Thanks for the link!


Hmmm, I agree with Sally, see if you can see any green shoots, they don't look great to me but you might be surprised! I'd def keep the ducks out if they do make it. But I got my plants as bare roots & the didn't look like much more than what you have there!

That’s a lot of onions! I wish I could store them, it gets too warm here and they rot or sprout.

 

[igorsMistress]

This might be just my taste buds but Ive always done the bare min of veg if any when pressure cooking stock. I find anything over 30 min with celery and carrots comes out tasting burned to me.

When making chicken stock for myself I will do a carcass and feet/necks and about 1 small onion halved and maybe 2 smashed garlic cloves, maybe a few dried celery leaves. A good shake of peppercorns and heavy pinch of salt. Pressure cook for 35 min. Pour of stock with veg. Refill with water and go for 45 min. The first batch has all the fat and veg flavor. Good for fresh immediate use. The 2nd pass is my bone broth, heavy on the gelatin mild flavor great for canning/freezing.

I would have to agree on the veg making stock taste burnt in the pressure cooker. I tried it with carrots and celery

 

[SheaLoner]

I would have to agree on the veg making stock taste burnt in the pressure cooker. I tried it with carrots and celery

Took me awhile to figure out that was the problem. Quite a few batches ended up being hidden in chili.
If you grow celery try drying the leaves like parsley. It gives a mild celery flavor but dosen't "burn" like stalks will.

 

[igorsMistress]

Afternoon gardeners. I dunno why I replied separately, brain is in don’t think too much mode I guess. It’s a beautiful day here, our high will be 82ish today. I have the doors and windows open and there’s just a light breeze. All I’ve done outside is water the onions and elephant ears. Yesterday I planted more borage in a couple of pots, I kept forgetting to water what I put in the ground.

I have a question for you…I want the chaste trees to remain potted to limit size, but I want them to grow to about six feet tall. What size pot do you all think I’ll need? I want to get those set in place once and have hubs build some shade for the pots with all this lattice we have laying around.

ETA I did some reading about the pros and cons of using grow bags and found a blog from a person here in AZ who uses them. I also found some useful info on another site that actually recommended using saucers under the bags and of course mulch. Plastic just doesn’t work here for me, it never has. Not terra cotta or any other hard surface pot either. I have several succulents I need to transplant that I’m going to use 1 gallon bags for, got some not being used, and try a mixture of coco coir, soil and perlite. I’m going to try the same combo in 75 gallon grow bags for the chaste trees. If they need to be transplanted later that’s fine, but the size should buy me a few years anyway.

 

[WthrLady]

@WthrLady that looks FANTASTIC!! What plastic is that covering it, if you don't mind sharing.

So I got the onions in the ground, 160 of em & gave the rest to my neighbor. I also got the new hoop house up & planted lettuce seed in it. The soil was very workable because they are raised beds. Got that all watered too.

DH is home & we got new gutters up for the birds in lockdown, the way it was I always had a rain barrel catching runoff, but it's still freezing here & I can't put the barrel back up just to freeze - so gutter extensions are up. We decided to add another hoop house to their lockup, heading to TSC this weekend, I need 2 for the garden anyway so I'll get 3. Also added a couple more roosts for them too.


Thank you! I want gooey for sure, I'll start there.

I got the Nesco electric one. I don't want to try it on my glass top stove so I'll start here. I'm not big on canned veggies anyway so bone broth will big the main purpose so 4 quarts or 5 pints will be the max I can do at a time, I think that's reasonable. For now. LOL. Thanks for the link!


Hmmm, I agree with Sally, see if you can see any green shoots, they don't look great to me but you might be surprised! I'd def keep the ducks out if they do make it. But I got my plants as bare roots & the didn't look like much more than what you have there!

It's heavy duty 6mm nylon string re-enforced.
I'm ticked that there are 3 pieces bonded together to make it 20 feet wide. It was not advertised as such and the stuff they are using in the store hanging from the ceiling for construction purposes all 50 feet long of it, doesn't show any pieced widths. So we'll see.
https://www.menards.com/main/paint/...809-c-8188.htm?tid=4543399562278810504&ipos=1

 

[TJAnonymous]

Afternoon gardeners. I dunno why I replied separately, brain is in don’t think too much mode I guess. It’s a beautiful day here, our high will be 82ish today. I have the doors and windows open and there’s just a light breeze. All I’ve done outside is water the onions and elephant ears. Yesterday I planted more borage in a couple of pots, I kept forgetting to water what I put in the ground.

I have a question for you…I want the chaste trees to remain potted to limit size, but I want them to grow to about six feet tall. What size pot do you all think I’ll need? I want to get those set in place once and have hubs build some shade for the pots with all this lattice we have laying around.

ETA I did some reading about the pros and cons of using grow bags and found a blog from a person here in AZ who uses them. I also found some useful info on another site that actually recommended using saucers under the bags and of course mulch. Plastic just doesn’t work here for me, it never has. Not terra cotta or any other hard surface pot either. I have several succulents I need to transplant that I’m going to use 1 gallon bags for, got some not being used, and try a mixture of coco coir, soil and perlite. I’m going to try the same combo in 75 gallon grow bags for the chaste trees. If they need to be transplanted later that’s fine, but the size should buy me a few years anyway.

I've used grow bags for potatoes with mixed success. The first year was great growth above soil but not below soil. Potatoes were small and I had springhoppers or some kind of pest in the soil which ate most of the potatoes. Tossed that soil completely. The 2nd year, I had less growth on top and bigger potatoes but fewer of them. The 3rd year, my potato starts got about half way along and all died. Not sure why....

This year I've decided to not use the grow bags at all... I'm going to try my potato starts in tires instead.

 

[WthrLady]

I've used grow bags for potatoes with mixed success. The first year was great growth above soil but not below soil. Potatoes were small and I had springhoppers or some kind of pest in the soil which ate most of the potatoes. Tossed that soil completely. The 2nd year, I had less growth on top and bigger potatoes but fewer of them. The 3rd year, my potato starts got about half way along and all died. Not sure why....

This year I've decided to not use the grow bags at all... I'm going to try my potato starts in tires instead.

Did your soil have too much nitrogen or did you fertilize?
They are heavy nitrogen feeders for the first couple of months and then for the last 60 days before harvest, you need to go higher in a potassium feed.