What did you do in the garden today?

[jnicholes]

Hi guys,

You may believe this, you may not. I went through my grandparents storage unit, and found a whole bunch of vegetable seeds. I do not know how old they are, and because of dementia, they don’t either. However, I did a test with one of the seed varieties by planting it in a pot, and they did germinate.

Those seeds are still good.

I need to figure out how to use some of the varieties if I’m going to plant them.

The following is the list of the seeds I got from the storage unit, and the quantity of seeds for each one.

Lincoln peas

Long Island brussels sprouts x1000

Bibb lettuce x2800

White sweet Spanish onion x500

Golden bantam corn x31

Green sprouting broccoli x2000

Copenhagen market cabbage x2000

Golden Acre cabbage x2000

Roma tomato x465

Top Mark Canteloupe x120

Noble Giant spinach x600

Prize head lettuce x 11200

Danvers carrot x2400

Sugar pie pumpkin x58

Blue scotch kale x938

California wonder pepper x140

Table queen squash x68

Parris Island Lettuce x5600

Fordhook Swiss Chard x188

Straight eight cucumber x128

Black diamond watermelon x60

Black beauty squash x75

Marglobe tomato x500

Champion Radish x650

Sawtooth Mustard x1500

 

[TJAnonymous]

Hi guys,

You may believe this, you may not. I went through my grandparents storage unit, and found a whole bunch of vegetable seeds. I do not know how old they are, and because of dementia, they don’t either. However, I did a test with one of the seed varieties by planting it in a pot, and they did germinate.

Those seeds are still good.

I need to figure out how to use some of the varieties if I’m going to plant them.

The following is the list of the seeds I got from the storage unit, and the quantity of seeds for each one.

Lincoln peas

Long Island brussels sprouts x1000

Bibb lettuce x2800

White sweet Spanish onion x500

Golden bantam corn x31

Green sprouting broccoli x2000

Copenhagen market cabbage x2000

Golden Acre cabbage x2000

Roma tomato x465

Top Mark Canteloupe x120

Noble Giant spinach x600

Prize head lettuce x 11200

Danvers carrot x2400

Sugar pie pumpkin x58

Blue scotch kale x938

California wonder pepper x140

Table queen squash x68

Parris Island Lettuce x5600

Fordhook Swiss Chard x188

Straight eight cucumber x128

Black diamond watermelon x60

Black beauty squash x75

Marglobe tomato x500

Champion Radish x650

Sawtooth Mustard x1500

Nice! You may find some seeds remain viable longer than others... Still a nice find!

 

[TJAnonymous]

We've had a very wet spring... And yet our water levels just seem really low. Anyone else noticing that where you live? The drought monitor seems to indicate this as well. I wonder what might cause such a scenario? High evaporation maybe?

 

[jnicholes]

Nice! You may find some seeds remain viable longer than others... Still a nice find!

Thanks. I will definitely have to try each type of seed I have, and see if they will germinate, then. If what you say is true, some varieties may not sprout. For my test, I used the champion radish seeds.

 

[jnicholes]

We've had a very wet spring... And yet our water levels just seem really low. Anyone else noticing that where you live? The drought monitor seems to indicate this as well. I wonder what might cause such a scenario? High evaporation maybe?

View attachment 3490232

I haven’t noticed anything where I live. Then again, I haven’t been paying attention.

 

[LifeSimpleAndSweet]

I ran my irrigation system this morning for the first time. I wasn't very impressed. The ground doesn't seem very wet. I'm using 6" dripline, 12" dripline, and button emitters (1/2 Gph, 1 Gph, and 2 Gph). I may need to figure out how to up the pressure?

There is no way for me to run drip lines, or anything that relies on pressure here. My hose, on full blast sends out a wimpy water stream about 12 inches before free-falling.

I've built pressure tank systems before for a window-washing business. It is what would have to be done for good pressure here. :/

 

[LifeSimpleAndSweet]

We've had a very wet spring... And yet our water levels just seem really low. Anyone else noticing that where you live? The drought monitor seems to indicate this as well. I wonder what might cause such a scenario? High evaporation maybe?

View attachment 3490232

Reports tend to come in late on these types of things. Perhaps it's behind?

 

[gtaus]

Wow, it would be a full-time job just trying to keep up with all the posts on this thread! I've been busy outside and have started sifting my chicken run compost and top filling my raised garden beds. I posted this following update on the thread Show Me Your Pallet Projects!. Would love to hear from anybody on that thread on their pallet projects related to gardening, or any other uses of pallet projects.

Just a quick update on some small pallet related projects with my chickens and gardening. Yesterday I sifted out 18 cubic feet of chicken run compost in my cement mixer compost sifter. Rough estimate of value is a big 2 cubic foot bag of compost costs $5.00 (or more) at our big box stores. So, I sifted out about $45.00 worth of chicken run compost in a few minutes yesterday.

Note: The pallet platform I constructed for the cement mixer compost sifter is working great. The ground is not completely 100% level, so the top pallet was starting to slide a bit off the bottom pallet. I fixed that with a couple of scrap pieces of 2X6's which I used to screw the 2 pallets together on the backside. Now the pallets are locked together.

Initially, I thought I would have to screw some lag bolts down into that front leg support into the pallet wood. But I found that the compost sifter did not move around at all when I put it into use. The operation is rock solid now and it sifts out the compost as fast as I can toss stuff into it.

Having said that, I don't shovel into the sifter all that fast anymore. Still, it only takes me about 10-15 minutes to fill up that Gorilla cart with 6 cubic feet of sifted compost. At that rate, I'm still making sifted compost at $60.00 per hour, or more, even at my slow pace.

For those of you that might know about the cement mixer compost sifter, here is the working end of the system. I use a pitchfork to toss in the compost litter while the drum is turning. The sifted compost falls through the wire screen in the barrel and drops into that black Gorilla cart under the wire. All the stuff that is too big or not yet fully composted, gets rejected out the front end and into the garden cart in the front of this picture. I typically just toss all that rejected stuff back into the chicken run for more composting, but it also makes for great top mulch later in the growing season when the plants have been established in the garden beds.

I managed to top off 4 of my raised bed gardens with that (3 wagons full) sifted chicken run compost. Looking good. Where I live, we don't plant most things until after our last frost date of 29 May. In the meantime, I'm planning on building some more pallet wood raised beds this spring. I'll be posting some pictures after the build. I'm thinking of using a different design this year. So, stay tuned...

 

[CNJ]

Another windy day with fire hazard. Still waiting for just right weather. Thinking of fishing. I do a Memorial weekend fishing trip every year. Mid May starts getting good for sunfish spawn and through end of May early June. So much needs done outside.

I saw a video of someone putting a piece of fish in a planting hole with lime and grew massive won bok with nothing else. He put the lime to mask the smell, so animals don't dig it up. Have you ever tried that?

 

[jnicholes]

I saw a video of someone putting a piece of fish in a planting hole with lime and grew massive won bok with nothing else. He put the lime to mask the smell, so animals don't dig it up. Have you ever tried that?

That’s very interesting. I like to do science experiments in the garden, so I might try that.