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2020 Victory Gardens
Eric Krewson:
My latest garden experiment; I have planted spinach through black plastic in the past with mixed results. If I had cool weather it did well but with our usual fall drought it did very poorly, the plastic keeps the weeds at bay but makes the ground much too hot for spinach.. To get a marginal crop I would have to replant a half a dozen times, even then it was iffy. I have so many weed seeds in my soil from using barn yard fertilizer that I have to use a ground cover for individual plants.
This year I am trying newspaper held down by T posts to hopefully reflect the sunlight and keep the ground cooler.
Eric Krewson:
I save seed in the spring and have a big bag of spinach seed from 2011 in the freezer that I have planted every year with pretty good germination.
I decided to stratify the seed this year by soaking them in a bowl of water instead of planting it straight out of the bag. According to what I have read the floaters aren't viable seed and the sinkers are. I found that over half my stored seed were floaters.
I planted my newspaper rows with sinkers but laid off another row of floaters just to see if they would come up, the seeds are in the bowl in the picture.
Eric Krewson:
My biggest issue with planting my greens patch is sowing the seed too thick. I have been experimenting with salt shaker type spreaders that make out of pint jars. The size and number of holes can make a spreader that really puts out seed evenly.
Here is one that works well, the other picture is my hand thrown seed, much too thick, with greens seed being so small it is hard to tell how many you put out.
Eric Krewson:
My stratified seed experiment is complete, it worked well, here is a row of stratified seed and the sinkers I planted. In the row of floaters I planted only one seed has come up so far. Some of these will be transplanted to any holes in my newspaper that failed to have seeds sprout, so far almost every hole has a plant or multiple plants in it.
bjrogg:
Interesting experiment Eric. Like the shaker idea to.
I tried something I always wanted to but it never seemed to work out right until today. I know these giant puff balls always grow in this same spot. I usually don’t get the timing right and they are past prime. Tonight I found several. I picked a half dozen. I Cleaned up and sliced up the smallest one. Heated up some butter and sautéed the slices. Cooked them till they got a golden brown edge. I hope they are ok, because my wife daughter and I ate a bunch of them.
Not to bad. Anyone have suggestions for storing them? Dehydration?
Bjrogg
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