What Did You Do Today?

[JW_Halverson]

I have found that things like pole beans germinate and grow better if they are planted through a strip of landscape fabric. I am putting more and more strips of landscape fabric down the planted rows. I put black plastic on the bare spots to keep the weeds down. Plants like okra, squash and tomatoes like black plastic, I think this is so because these plants shade the ground from the Alabama sun. Spinach will only have a germination rate of about 10% or less if planted through plastic but does really well planted through landscape fabric.

I experiment with different planting techniques every year just to see what happens. A couple of years ago my yellow squash grew into my electric fence, there wasn't a bug or stalk borer on any of them all season, the vines grew out for at least 12 ft. I have been trying to figure out a way to put this finding into practice.

Ever experimented with running squash vines up a trellis? Really saves on square footage and they grow fruit just fine! I used to run my squash up the hog panel deer fencing around the garden I used to have years back. At first, I thought I'd need to rig little hammocks when the squash got some size to them, but that was not the case. They just grew a slightly more robust stem to support their own weight. Ya might not get that same result if you are growing champion sized punkins or big watermelons, though!   

[Eric Krewson]

I tried vertical squash with standard straightneck squash, it wasn't a success, I tied the growing squash to a cattle panel. Next, I bought highbred Burpee squash called "rise and shine" which was modified to grow up and not out. What I found when I try to grow squash vertically is I get a few normal sized squashes then the higher up the vine they grow the more dwarf the squash get until they are tiny.

The first picture is of my failed vertical squash, not much production and tiny squash; the second picture is of how they grow in my very rich garden if I let them run on the ground.

[Eric Krewson]

The garden is complete; the okra and beans are coming up.

I had 9 squash plants left over so I took an old piece of plastic over to my neighbor's garden and planted him some squash and a row of okra through the plastic. He is going to be out of town for weeks and hasn't put a garden in. I did the same thing last year when it was time to plant greens and he was out of town; I covered half his garden up with kale and collards. Because I have a tiller on my tractor this is usually a simple job, a couple of passes and I am good to go.

This picture shows my re-cycled landscape fabric in the foreground; I use this piece to plant my winter spinach every year. This year I plugged the extra holes with newspaper and planted 5 cantaloupe plants through it. If you look a little further back, you can see two rows of okra planted through the same landscape fabric for my other spinach patch. This is commercial landscape fabric, very thick and will last forever, I dry it, I fold it up and store it in my shop until next year.

The bare plastic next to the cantaloupe patch is for the vines to run on, they will completely cover this area and produce about 50 cantaloupes.



 

[Eric Krewson]

Garden update; I finally got it mostly finished except for putting a little more newspaper around the bases of the plants to keep the weeds at bay. My second planting of beans is coming up; the second planting of okra hasn't come up yet.

Tomatoes and butternut squash in the first picture, squash, peppers and beans in the second.

[bjrogg]

Garden is looking good Eric.

My sugar beets are up good now. They are still very tiny and you won’t be able to see them from the road for a couple weeks yet.

The rye we tilled and planted the sugar beets into is very green again. It’s not what most people would call a “pretty” field. Completely weed free and tilled like a garden.

I’m sure some of the neighbors still see a disaster, but I see 40 ton beet. When I terminate the rye the sugar beets will thrive in the healthy soil. The worms will take the residue underground. The organic matter will benefit the soil and the crops

Good luck with your garden.

Getting a good start is always a win looks like you are off and running

Bjrogg

[JW_Halverson]

The almanac says that the last killing frost here in Rapid City is usually around May 9, so I decided to jump on planting.

I laid in a line of snap peas, a line of pole beans, a few rows of French breakfast radishes, a hill of Parisian gerkin cukes and another of cherry tomatoes. I had some volunteer onions start last fall, so I eased the random bulbs out of the ground and spread them out a little.

My garden is the flower bed on the south side of the house and it's just a few square feet. By growing a tomato that prefers to trellis upwards and by training my cukes to go vertical I am able to make good use of the space. Over the next week I'll have to run out into the forest and cut some 8 ft jackpines to make a couple sets of trellis. I reckon I'll cut some extra to I can add netting to keep the deer out of my goodies. While I planted nothing last year, the year before I just did not feel motivated and I let the deer have at my peas and pole beans. Lord love a duck but those hooved rats just flat got after them!!! According to game camera shots they were in there in that half hour before dawn, right about when I was in the shower and couldn't modestly chase them off.

I am most eager to try these French breakfast radishes. They are more finger shaped than globe, so they may work better on my beloved butter and radish sammiches. Anyone else eat radish sandwiches?

[Eric Krewson]

Because of the mild winters here most of the time, I plant Daikon radishes, if it gets down below 20 degrees they usually burn up but planted around the first of September I get a good crop before the really cold weather hits.

These are very mild radishes, I cut them up into spears, dip them in salad dressing to eat with my sandwiches or in a salad. They are my potato chip replacement, nice and crunchy and a whole lot healthier.

 I noticed the seed catalogs sell this seed for up to $99 a pound, the local feed and seed stores call this radish "deer radishes" because the deer love them and people plant them in their food plots. The local seed stores sell daikon seed for $4 a pound, a pound will last me 5 or more years.

Not all of the plants make big radishes, it is like planting turnips, some get big some stay small.

The big Daikon radishes are a handful; they keep for a long time in the frig much like turnips.

 

[Eric Krewson]

After years of fading peeling paint, I had my deck and kitchen cabinets painted. At 77 I decided doing it myself would take me forever and result in a substandard finished job so I got off my wallet and hired some pros.

They worked for a week on the job, I had them paint the deck top and bottom, they sprayed the bottom and hand painted the entire top of the deck and rails.



They sprayed all of the cabinet doors and hand painted the drawer fronts; everything got at least two coats of paint.



They did an amazing job!



So, what did I do, I took everything off the deck and underneath it, these items filled half my large basement, I cleared the kitchen countertops and took everything out of the drawers including the infamous "junk" drawer. 

It is surprising what one will throw in a drawer and forget over 24 years, some of my drawers were packed full; after looking at the items that hadn't ever been used, I threw them in the trash, most of my drawers are half full now. This was like an archeological dig.

I am only half done with the kitchen and haven't started putting stuff back on or under the deck. I have to seal the granite while I have it cleared and install under the cabinet lighting.

[Eric Krewson]

With a new looking deck, I decided to replace my old gas grill with a new Weber. When I ordered it the order form looked like I got free shipping, a $40 veterans discount and free assembly, not so on the assembly, FedEx brought it in a sealed box.

No problem though I, I can put anything together. The instructions were a joke, very vague, every part was packed separately, none of the screws matched the part they were packaged with, the instructions said to cut the box apart to retrieve the parts.

I started assembling the base, with a lot of back and forth trying to figure out what the instructions, which consisted of poorly drawn pictures only, no text, were trying to say.

I noticed that one of the support walls was crimped in a strange way, it was so bent I thought it had to have a special function until I tried to align the holes for the screws and realized it wasn't supposed to be bent at all.



It was on a Saturday, I called customer service, the nice lady said to box it up and bring it back to Home Depot for an exchange. Seeing as how I followed the instructions and destroyed the box getting to the parts, I told her boxing it up would be impossible. She said call back Monday during business hours and I would be directed to where I could get a replacement part.

No boxing this back up;



I don't know if it is just me but just about everything I buy on line has some flaw in it, or fails quickly after I buy it.

Another thing, the lady asked for a serial number, I couldn't find one only a QR code, I don't have or want a smart phone so the code is useless to me. I suspect this will be a stumbling block to me as well when I try to get replacement parts.

[bjrogg]

Good luck Eric

The fresh paint looks great.

Did a little painting inside our house lately. It does brighten the place up.

Bjrogg