Time to start the garden...

tacticalturnip · Apr 18, 2023

You guys have got me wanting to turn up the garden; now I've got to decide if it's worth tearing over the wet lawn to get to it.

DJ54 · Apr 22, 2023

Not planting potatoes here at home this year due to running out of rotation room but did get to plant 300 lbs. of potatoes at our County Parks Smeck Historical Farm Park near Baltimore, Ohio, using my little Farmall 140, and Champion potato planter that was converted from horse drawn, to Fast Hitch by the previous owner. Took longer to cut them, than it did to plant them. Got them planted in about an hour or so. Love this little planter..!!

masseyrider · Apr 22, 2023

It's a rainy weekend here, but if it dries up enough to get the soil worked up I'm going to try to get the taters in the ground by May 1. If so they should be coming out of the ground about the time of last frost danger.
Going to try a few other colder crop vegies at that time too.

jaxs · Apr 22, 2023

A feller could lose body parts riding that tater planter.

masseyrider · Apr 22, 2023

jaxs said:
A feller could lose body parts riding that tater planter.

As long (long hahaha) as his name isn't John Holmes he should be OK.

jyoutz · Apr 22, 2023

Today, I finally plowed and tilled my garden and stretched out the irrigation lines. Planted potatoes today, and going for onions, greens, and peas tomorrow. All the cold weather plants.

masseyrider · Apr 25, 2023

Took a look. Still too cold/wet.
Back to the catalogues and day dreaming.

DJ54 · Apr 25, 2023

I took a close look at where I planted peas, beets and onions last week, still nothing up. We got about 1" of rain on Friday night/Sat. morning enough to get things going. I suspect cool ground temps. are making things germinate slow. Maybe today's sun will help. Need to take my new ground thermometer and see what the ground temp is.

Will get plants out of the shop and back in the greenhouse today for some sun. and to get them watered, then back in the heated shop tonight, and again tomorrow night as there are freeze warnings out. It was 29º at the airport just 7 miles away but was 36.7º @ P-thirty/4:30 a.m. this morning.

Saw 3 new iceberg lettuce plants had come up in the germination chamber last evening, checking coming in from feeding the horses. Hopefully I'll be seeing some cabbage, and other items up this morning.

masseyrider · Apr 28, 2023

Rainy, cool weekend and early next week. Temps. still below average for time of year.
Still just daydreaming.
I had really hoped to at least have the taters in by now.

jyoutz · Apr 28, 2023

masseyrider said:
Rainy, cool weekend and early next week. Temps. still below average for time of year.
Still just daydreaming.
I had really hoped to at least have the taters in by now.

I planted last weekend. But today we have showers mixed with snow and a forecast for 27 degrees tonight. I’m glad that I only planted potatoes, onions and cold weather greens.

5030 · Apr 28, 2023

Not here, ground temp is below 50 yet. Has to be at least 50 for germination.

DJ54 · Apr 29, 2023

Peas starting to P here..!! First one I saw up on Thursday. More yesterday after that warm rain.

Yander · Apr 29, 2023

Not Garden related necessarily but... @DJ54, @LD1 or others in Ohio. Where would you buy grass seed for about 1.5 acres? Do they still sell it at the local elevators?

What's a good mix for Central Ohio yards with almost full sun?

DJ54 · Apr 29, 2023

Depending on your location, some elevators do, and some will sell you the amount you want, not just by a certain sized bag full. One of the best places I've bought seed was the Seed Center Welcome to The Seed Center - The Seed Center He's located on S.R. 36 West of Delaware at Ostrander. He can make suggestions to what you want as an end result you're looking for and can custom blend about anything you want.

I bought seed from him for my hayfield. I got several different types, some was as much as a 50 lb. bag, 20-25 of another, and one as little as 5lb. Heck of nice guy to deal with. He has a huge amount on hand, as he sells to many contractors, and farmers alike.

It was an hours drive for me to get there, but I'd ordered it over the phone, and order was ready when I got there. It was worth it to me and will be my go to place for hard to find forage seeds, and had exactly what I wanted, not just what everyone else uses. And prices were actually a little less than other places I looked, probably because of his bulk buying. Don't know that I've ever seen that much grass/forage/haylage/ cover crop seed in one spot.

jyoutz · Apr 29, 2023

Tomorrow I’m going to plant tomatoes. It’s way too cold, but I use the walls of water mini greenhouses and I’ve had no damage with freezing down to 24 degrees with those things. They also warm the soil and promote root growth during the cool season. I usually remove them in early June. Gardening at 6,900’ elevation has its challenges, but after 30+ years, I have figured out what works (most years).

masseyrider · Apr 30, 2023

I have about a bushel of potatoes left from last year. Most years by now they have started to grow in the boxes and are even difficult to separate.
This year the eyes have just started to grow and kind of grudgingly. I'm at a loss if they will grow if I put them out or not.
I'm going to be buying seed potatoes anyways but I hate to throw these out.
Is it worth taking a chance on these or not I wonder?
They won't be going in the ground soon anyways. Rain and rain. Would be nice if we could save some for the summer drought.

DJ54 · Apr 30, 2023

I'd try them, if they are starting to show signs of sprouting, you don't have much to lose but some time and effort. If where they were stored was a little cooler this year than in the past, that may be the reason they are sprouting slow.

masseyrider · May 1, 2023

this week sucks. Maybe 50 degrees today and mid 40s rest of the week and rainy.
In the summer when we're parched they say 90% chance of rain and we get zippo.
Right now, slight chance of showers and it pours. SOB!

DJ54 · May 1, 2023

masseyrider said:
this week sucks. Maybe 50 degrees today and mid 40s rest of the week and rainy.
In the summer when we're parched they say 90% chance of rain and we get zippo.
Right now, slight chance of showers and it pours. SOB!

I hear ya'. about 10 years ago I mowed hay down, with the prediction of 10% chance of rain the day I was going to bale. I lived 20 miles from where the hay was. Brought up the NOAAH weather site to check the forecast. Still predicting 10% chance. Happened to noticed a small red area on radar in the whole State of Ohio. Yup, right where the hay was. Ended up losing that cutting because rain moved in the next day for several days. Rolled it up, and dumped in the hollow. Made a dandy backstop for target practice though. But let me spread Urea on that field with a 70%-80% chance of rain, and it will rain 2 miles to the North or South of here, sometimes closer. Then sun for a week... All that money evaporated into the atmosphere... After that, sowed a specific Clover to do that job.

masseyrider · May 2, 2023

This morning almost gave me hope that I may start something.
About 40 degrees, blue skies, sunshine.
Then boom, clouds and rain move in.
Don't you just hate when the weather person is right, especially after they've been wrong when it really counted.