Garden Time, JINMAN ??????

[WayneB]

Reading this post really makes me a bit jealous seeing all of the garden spaces Jim has, his onions all ready planted, Bird talking about BLT’s, **** it was 4 below zero here this morning, and hasn’t gotten out of the single digits today with the winds gusting up to 30 mph at times.

Jim I have heard of people doing what you are doing with the potatoes, but used straw instead of hey, no weed seeds to germinate in the garden.

I usually till the gardens around April 15th for the first time and then continue working on them right up until planting time. Usually requires rock picking for all the boulders that come up with the frost. That’s how we got all of them stone walls in the first place! We don’t grow potatoes we grow rocks!

We will start seriously thinking about gardening around the end of April and plan on planting around the end of May. Some of us push it a bit by planting in the middle of April and then we replant the end of May, after the first planting get hit by a killing frost.

Yep, we have our four seasons, little snow, more snow, lots of snow, and then mud season. Each year brings on a challenge to all of us. Enjoy your gardening!

Added a few garden pictures for you!

 

[jinman]

Hi Jinman..I'm just a little north of you, in Montague county. I tried hay on my garden one year and killed the whole thing "dedder than a fried mule".
An expert told me it was from the weed killer that nearly every one uses on hay. He told me it was still present even after composting. I guess he was right because it was two or three years before I could raise anything on that spot. I tried your tater trick but I used wheat straw. I did ok with the taters . They were easy to harvest!!

I'm starting to feel less and less confident all the time. I never even considered weed killer in the hay. Perhaps that's why no weeds ever grow around our round bale feeder.

Sheesh! I think I'm gonna scrape all that hay off and just put dirt on top of those seed 'tators. I can already see my wife laughing at me, but I can take that too.

 

[Bird]

I can already see my wife laughing at me, but I can take that too.

Yep, if the time comes that we can't take people laughing at us, we'll be in big trouble.

 

[ronjhall]

Sheesh! I think I'm gonna scrape all that hay off and just put dirt on top of those seed 'tators. I can already see my wife laughing at me, but I can take that too.

If you do that, how are we going to laugh at your harvest story. Good or bad.

 

[Egon]

Leave the hay on as an experiment. How else will the rest of us find out.

 

[jinman]

If you do that, how are we going to laugh at your harvest story. Good or bad.

Ron, I got home last night and told my wife I planned to pitchfork all the hay off the potatoes and replace it with dirt. She said that I shouldn't worry about weed killer in this hay because it was cheap "weed" hay she had bought for the goats and donkey. Weed hay?....

So I've decided to leave maybe 1/4 of the patch covered to see what happens and cover the rest with dirt. You'll still have a chance to get a chuckle that way.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Two-three years ago I planted 1200 pumpkins. I gathered about 150 one weekend for family and friends and was going to donate the rest to a youth group at church. That was when a hurricane came up through the Gulf and and flooded the NC mountains. The river washed about 3500 pumpkins down the river. When we went back to the field there was 1 pumpkin in the middle.

For weeks after that I would here people and emergency crews that were blocking off bridges where the water was over them talk about all these orange balls floating down the river . I would just say...yes they were my pumpkins and next year you should be able to find wild pumpkins growing all alone the Catawba river basin

Hunterridge, I knwo it is mean to laugh at people's misfortune, however I was belly laughing reading your post. I could jsut picture a river full of floating pumpkins. I hope because you posted it, you could see the humor in it as well. it is jsut such a visual story you told. Really made me laugh, hope that doesn't hurt your feelings...

Rox,

No problem, we still laugh about it.

 

[txdon]

Jim, I finally got the bushes out of the garden and ten wheelbarrows of roots. I fixed the tractor gate and now it's time to turn soil.

I started off with the 72" King Kutter II tiller and ended with the cultivator. I didn't have the turn areas in the deer fenced area but a little hoe work took care of that.

15 lbs. of potatoes, onions, cantaloupe, and raccoon corn are in the ground. I also found some bed okra plants at Ace Hardware I had to buy before I put in a whole row. I planted my potatoes in the sandy ground. If I did the hay method I would use alfalfa hay - more nitrogen, doesn't grow here in the summer and less weeds.

 

[jinman]

Don, it looks like you had good luck with your tiller too. Your soil looks nice and fluffy. I don't have as many sweeps as you do for your cultivator, and actually I'm thinking of taking a couple of mine off and just going with three to lay out rows and two on the sides to bed up for melons. Last year I made hills and that was a lot of work that I don't think I really needed. By using the sweeps to throw up a center ridge, I should be able to do the same thing with a lot less work. Now if I just had three tractors with different implements, I could do all this without having to swap out all the time.

Your garden is looking great. I envy you that wonderful Lee County sandy soil. I just bought two different kinds of manual row planters to try this year. I'll have to post some pictures of them and report on how well they work. My garden just isn't big enough to justify a planter for the tractor.

 

[txdon]

Jim I know what you mean about another tractor. In two days I went from my BH to the box blade, to the tiller and then the cultivator. I'm looking forward to seeing those planters.

 

[Bird]

Don, I had this Earthway planter that I bought from a farm and ranch store in Hillsboro when I was raising a garden. And I got the extra 5 plates so I had 11 seed plates. It was a pretty handy little gadget.

 

[txdon]

Interesting Bird. Thanks. I guess planting the corn by poking a hole with the hoe handle and dropping in a couple of seeds is kind of hard on the 'ol back.

 

[billbill1]

Bird, I have an Earthway also that my folks bought probably 40 years ago. It works good but when I do corn, I always go over each row two times to fill in the bare spots that I always seem to have. Corn gets stuck sometimes and you have to watch and make sure each hole gets a kernal.

 

[Bird]

Bird, I have an Earthway also that my folks bought probably 40 years ago. It works good but when I do corn, I always go over each row two times to fill in the bare spots that I always seem to have. Corn gets stuck sometimes and you have to watch and make sure each hole gets a kernal.

Bill, when planting, I was in the habit of pulling a string between two stakes to mark the row. Then for many things, I'd go up one side of the string and back down the other side. So I did a double planting a good part of the time. Seed's cheap and I figured it was easier to thin anything that was too thick than to fill in any blank spots later.

 

[jinman]

Don, I had this Earthway planter that I bought from a farm and ranch store in Hillsboro when I was raising a garden. And I got the extra 5 plates so I had 11 seed plates. It was a pretty handy little gadget.

Bird, I bought the Earthway planter too. Amazon had them for $79. I also bought a Wolf Garten planter that looks to be just the thing for small seeds like turnips, carrots, and radishes. I didn't buy the handle because I had a fiberglass one from an old hoe I busted and I was able to adapt it perfectly to the planter. I'll show some pictures later today or this weekend.

What I like about the earthway is it has a "plow" foot that allows seed to be planted just below the surface, and it is adjustable. I think I may need to add a few lead tape-weights to the wheel to give it a little extra weight though. I'll give it a try first. It may not need weight since I'll be running it in a row I've already layed out with the tractor.

Wolf Garten Seed Master

 

[Bird]

Jim, I've never seen one of the Wolf Garten planters, with all the plates for the Earthway, I used mine for even the smallest seed. I guess one good thing about small seed is that you usually want them planted close together anyway.

 

[jinman]

Bird, the Wolf Garten planter comes with three seed wheels. Two wheels are stored on the back side while one is in use. If it works good for larger seed, I'll post some pictures. It's so simple and lightweight that I hope it works as well as I want it to work.

 

[jinman]

Well, here are some pictures of my planters. We planted English peas, Bush beans, Kentucky Wonder beans, and more turnips and radishes today. The only thing I didn't use the planters for was some cucumbers because we planted them in hills.

I really like the Wolf-Garten planter for the small turnip seed. It really planted them sparingly with good control. I don't think I'll have to thin as much as last year. With turnip seeds all I had to do was walk the row and water them in. With the larger bean seed, I had to come back and cover the seed using a garden rake. That's more due to my soil than anything. If it were sandy, the Earthway plater would put them 2" deep.

The picture titles tell most of the detail. I'll be happy to answer any questions.

 

[hunterridgefarm]

Jim,

I have that same kind of planter, just a different name brand. Works great and I have about 6 different plates for it.

One thing I did on the peas, beans, and okra was to tape up every other hole on the seed plate to keep mine from planting them so close. It keeps me from having to go back and thin them out. You know getting older and bending over thinning those rows out gets to the back . I told my wife I was going to get one of those grabber things that you can reach down and pick stuff up with, modify it and use it to pull weeds .

David

 

[Bird]

The Wolf-Garten was something new to me, and my Earthway looked identical to that one except mine was red where that one's black.