2013 - How Does Your Garden Grow?

[Watchman]

New year, new life, and beautiful seed catalogs!

[Watchman]

I got my first seed catalog in the mail - from Totally Tomatoes. It is a good catalog with a big mixture of heirloom, open-pollinated (and hybrid) seeds and the illustrations are mouth-watering. Please keep in mind that every time you buy a packet of hybrid seeds you are supporting giant cross-national agri-giants like Monsanto who are slowly, but surely dominating the food supply. I'm not sure I have the patience right now but I'm going to FORCE myself to save seeds and get in the habit of doing so. Farmers and gardeners have been doing this for untold thousands of years and why fix it if it isn't broke. God does not make mistakes [when He invented plants and their seeds]. Though I will undoubtedly pore over the Totally Tomatoes catalog I will probably settle on a seed variety that is more in tune with this norther desert climate.

[Toepopper]

The process of saving tomato seeds is time consuming and will wear on your patience. I have started to dry the smaller tomato's picked at the end of the season and then plant the entire tomato in the spring. Lots less work and it worked well in last summers garden. Many plants will pop up out of the ground from a single tomato so they must be thinned down to the most vigorous, healthy looking plants. Non hybrid tomato plants may also be transplanted from the compost pile. These volunteer plants are always hardy and produce excellent fruit.
I spent 4 hours yesterday pulling popping corn from the cobs from last summers harvest. It took a full 10 weeks to dry out hanging on a wire in my house where the heat from the woodstove worked its magic. I have about 9 pounds pulled off the cob so far but my hands need some time to heal up before I finish whats left.
Looking forward to next year, I have raked up huge piles of maple tree leaves and wheeled them into the garden beds and started turning them into the soil. By May they will have broken down and turned into topsoil looking stuff and helped to break up the existing soil. Leaf mold is a great natural soil booster and mother nature provides it for free.

[SS5R]

You should watch “Vandana Shiva, The Seeds of Change” I started getting serious about saving seeds two seasons ago. I leave a few plants of everything I plant for seed. I have saved Shallot, Onion, 3 varieties of Lettuce, 2 varieties of Garlic, Coriander, Basil, Fava Bean, Spinach, 3 varieties of Tomatoes, 3 Potatoes, Zucchini, Summer Squash, Peppers, Endive and Green Beans so far. All saved from organic seed plants. “It’s your duty to save seeds”.
March 2010 the seed count at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault passed half a million (500,000) samples, I guess they are just a bunch of crazy Preppers up there.

Vandana Shiva, The Seeds of Change. Link TV.
Airdates: Pacific Time.
Tuesday, Dec. 25th 5:30 pm, Wednesday Dec. 26th 1:00 pm, Monday Dec. 31st 5:30 pm
Direct TV Channel 375, Dish Network Channel 9410

[Watchman]

My big question on saving seeds is what is the germination rate? A guesstimate. Have you used any of them yet?

[SS5R]

Yes, I have used many of them. Last year about 50% of my garden was from saved seeds and it was one of my best years. My saved lettuce seeds sprout sooner than new packaged seeds, I would say over all the germination rate is 95 to 98%. What I have done in the past is plant one row of saved seed next to one row packaged seed of the same variety to compare germination, yield and hardiness, labeling each row. My thought is the plants will become more adapted to your microclimate if you use seeds from those plants from year to year thus becoming hardier.

[Watchman]

Thank you SS5R! That is some of the most useful info I have seen in a long time.

[Toepopper]

Last week it went up into the 60s so I found my shovel and started turning in more leaves from last fall. I had piles of them laying on top of my raised beds so it didn't take long to turn them into the soil. I added lots of leaves to my potato patch to help loosen up the soil and hopefully get larger spuds this year. Also built 2 more 16' long by 4' wide raised beds and have filled them up with maple tree leaves. Must locate some good growing soil and wheel barrow it up the hill to these new beds and mix it in with the rotting leaves along with some fresh steer manure (a freebee) and some rock phosphate to get the mixture activated. Can't wait to start planting things in the ground.

[Toepopper]

The weather for the late winter of 2013 has decided to co-operate and warm up to 70 degrees every day for the last week. I have removed all the dead plants from last years garden and turned over the soil, mixing old leaves and other composted materials into the soil in my raised beds. I managed to plant "White Cloud" cauliflower, Savoy cabbage, sugar snap peas and Iceburg lettuce and the plants are all doing well. One cold crop I cannot find is broccoli but as soon as they get the starts in at the local Grange I am ready to plant them in the ground. I am still wheel barrowing piles of leaves and dumping them into the 2 new raised beds I have constructed and will mix them in with some goat manure from the goat herd at the farm down the road. Goat manure is very high in nitrogen and helps to grow big healthy garden plants and all I have to do is drive over there and shovel it into the truck and take it home, for free. All my fruit trees are budding out and we expect to see flowers this week if the weather remains warm.

[Toepopper]

Thismorning I got up early and went out into my garden expecting to pick the first batch or ripe strawberries and have them for breakfast. Earlier in the year I built a 4' x 16' raised bed and filled it with composted leaves and topsoil, then transplanted the strawberry plants. I was kind of surprised to get berries so soon after transplanting. Some critter beat me out of the first batch as thismorning all the ripe berries were gone and there were tracks in the soil of the raised bed. Must be either a fox or a racoon so now I must go to the extra trouble of enclosing the strawberry patch in hardware cloth and figure out a way to pop off the top to get at the plants and pick the remaining berries when they ripen. What a pain, right when you think you have something, wham, no fruit and more work to keep the critters out.

[Watchman]

As much as it pains me to say this, we did not put in a garden this year.

[Toepopper]

Many people have not planted this year, just not enough time to get her done with all the other things that need to be taken care of.
My garden is doing good again this year. Brocoli, cauliflower and snow peas are almost done and the cabbage is almost ready to pick. I have lots of tomato's on the vine but they will not ripen with the unusually cool weather we have been having. Green beans will be ready in a few days and we have been buried in red raspberries which have produced a bumper crop this year. We planted an extra raised bed full of potato's this year because they are easy to store and will keep all winter.

[Watchman]

Water! Even though I did not put in a garden this year, I'm kind of interested about the water situation for gardening where you are located. Do you have adequate resources for your garden? Are you making use of waste water in any way? This past winter snowpack in this area of Free Wyoming was about 97% of normal, which bodes pretty good for irrigation. Though it is hot as hades, the municipal water supplies have not been limited. I have a well and am okay. Yesterday we had a severe 20-minute hail storm but it was dried up within minutes afterwards.

[Toepopper]

Although we only received 39" of rainfall this year and had a light mountain snowpack, our water supply is still good and we have been able to water our garden regularly without draining the well. As fast as we use the water, it runs back into the well and it has remained topped off. The fire conditions here are still considered "Low" but in eastern Oregon they have been having dry lightening storms that have caused many wildfires. Water is much harder to come by once you go east of the Cascades.
We have never had to utilize any waste water.