What Did You Do In The Garden?

[seedcorn]

In soybeans, the optimum pop is around 120,000/acre. Much thinner than most are comfortable with.

Corn ear size varies on sunlight, nutrients, and water.

Soil can only support so much. IF you make it support more plants, then less nutrients can go to making ears or what we are interested in are weight of kernels. Truly impressed with ear size he got. Curious how large of kernels were on the cobs.

 

[ducks4you]

Gee WHIZ am I behind in my planting...then we have had several days of deluge.
The only thing I did today was clean stalls and put horses back in. I tried to get them back inside 2 days ago, beFORE the heavy rain, and 2 of them made me chase them, close gates and trick them into their stalls.
So... I watched and laughed as they spent 2 days in the mud...in the 50's and 60's, so not really cold.
ToDAY, they were cooperative.
Got a long list this week...we'll see what I get done.

 

[Dirtmechanic]

Wow! I hope you are able to post a photo when blooming starts... it should be spectacular.

Maybe I can. It is at Petals From The Past. https://petalsfromthepast.com/

 

[Ridgerunner]

Curious how large of kernels were on the cobs.

Big.

Basically normal size. I would not be embarrassed to compare to anybody.

 

[flowerbug]

I've seen walking onions, but wandering garlic? What's next, triffids???

when i first was given this garlic from my friend Josephine, i planted it in a few places and then within a few years i had plenty of bulbules and planted them in a few more places. after that some of those were moved around when the gardens were weeded or the layout changed and a few tiny bulbs got moved along with some of the dirt.

and then a few years after that i had thousands of bulbules that i scattered in my green manure patch. oh boy was that a mistake. trying to weed it all out since then. currently the green manure patch is being mowed. as much as i want to have that planted now with other things i just haven't been able to get it turned quickly enough. i have weeded out the garlic from it (eaten it as green garlic or garlic). i've also tried to make some various garlic dishes (sweet and sour garlic relish is really good but very very strong) and had several buckets of more garlic bulbules and tiny garlic cloves. in the end some of it i dug deep holes and buried it to rot. down deep enough with newspaper or cardboard over it and it could not regrow.

this early spring i did dig up some of it to eat again as green garlic too. but it is pretty tough to dig garlic from the roots of alfalfa and birdsfoot trefoi in mostly clay soil. the soil itself is very good fertility, i now get a great crop of grass back there. i really want to get it planted with beans. probably not going to happen this year at the rate things are going. other projects need to be done this coming week.

been raining cats and dogs, now we have flood warnings out. went from dry for a few weeks to too much rain. gardening. heh. you do what you can and hope the weather cooperates...

i do still have my original garlic patch still there, but i don't pick any from there any more. it is my backup patch just in case all the others fail.

 

[Zeedman]

Behind my rural garden, there is a very large "wild" garlic patch. I only noticed it a few years ago, when the grass wasn't tall yet & all of the scapes were held high. It turns out that all of the bulbils I cut off & threw out of the garden (and into tall grass) actually took, and after years of dropping their own bulbils, have now formed large colonies. It just looks like thick grass, until you step & sniff. This happened before I lost all of my garlic to disease, so those plants come from good stock. There are some artichoke type plants growing next to the house too, from a long forgotten experiment with stem bulbils. So I still have plenty of "backups" should I decide to grow garlic intentionally... I just won't know what they are.

 

[Zeedman]

It is fortunate that I was able to till all of the gardens to 6" depth Friday & Saturday, because we had about 4" of rain since then. It was a slow soaking rain, which doesn't appear to have broken down the surface structure; so when/if it dries, it should still be OK for planting. I had considered planting some beans & soybeans before the rain, but glad I didn't... since the forecast for 1.5" was seriously underestimated, and the seeds would probably have drowned. Been there, done that, quite often in recent years.

Until the soil dries out, I'll be starting a lot of transplants. All of the peppers, tomatoes, and eggplant have been moved to the greenhouse (where the heater has kept them healthy), so there is now room under the lights for Round 2. Most of the seeds I am planting this year are old, so I would have started them as transplants regardless. I planted the squashes Zuccetta Rampicante Tromboncino (2009) and Australian Blue (2014). Also a whole tray of Crest soybeans, an attempted rescue (since they are from 2010). Planted soybeans Gardensoy 12, Jewel, and Ohozyu - because they have a DTM just barely within my growing season, and are always a challenge to mature before frost.

Many more transplants to start tomorrow.

 

[digitS']

I hardly know what 4" of rain in 3 days would be like - it has been a very long time since I have lived on the "wetside" of the West.

We have been in a "rainy" time for about a week and it continues. The garden has received additional water several times because there are transplanted broccoli and cabbage out there. Even the tiny onions and leeks would have suffered from the "dry" rainy days if they had not received irrigation water. I am a little exasperated with "less than a tenth of an inch" forecasts.

We have picked up 1/3 of an inch the last 2 days which allows for almost exactly 1" total now that the month is 2/3rds over. Probably another 1" has been added to that by irrigation. It's only adequate because the temperatures are cool and the plants are tiny with roots close to the surface.

The clouds continue to roll by and the forecast looks okay for leaving the irrigation valve closed. I'm concerned that ground may have to be gone over again because days and days are passing since it was cultivated with no transplants or seed going in.

There's @flowerbug busy sifting rock out of his garden soil. It would take days with large construction equipment for me to free the top 6" of gravel in my garden. I'm not even sure what I'd have left. Much passage of tractor and truck tires over this glacial till would turn it into something like a paved parking lot. I've come to sorta imagine plant roots creeping under each bit of gravel as they grow downward. It seems like what they are doing. There is no possibility of straight, downward growth. Ah well, water drains easily

Steve

 

[digitS']

Put 4 cherry tomato plants in large pots and 4 beefsteaks in the soil.

These aren't in the distant garden and I'm hoping I don't get into trouble. Four potted tomatoes spent days wrapped in 2 tarps last year during cold nights. We only have like 41°f forecast after, I guess, these rain clouds blow away. That is colder than the plants will appreciate and it's usually a couple of degrees cooler in my yard than forecast. These tomatoes are well hardened off, however.

The eggplant and peppers are a long way from going out. They have been out of the greenhouse once for several hours in the shade. I think that there is a good chance that I will put many of the peppers in the ground in the greenhouse after carrying out the benches.

Of course, this kept me from the South Wall sill replacement last year! Dang, both winning and losing with some of these warm-season crops. Guess that I need two greenhouses ... one for extending the growing season. The other for needed maintenance, then cool-season crops. Hey. Maybe 3 greenhouses!

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

Dug up the aggregate, irregularly shaped cement border in the bed by the back door. Dug a little deeper to lay down cardboard, then placed Most of them back in their spots. While digging up Lily of the Valley marching next to this area I found 2 MORE cement pieces, buried 3 inches down and Under the LOTV! Soooo, couldn't finish laying them all back down bc I will need to extend the border. Most of the 20 potatoes in that bed are up. Eva thought she would help me dig and dug one up, BUT it wasn't sprouting, so no loss.
I also dug up most of one hosta and 1/2 a dozen 2 ft tall ferns on the north side of the house. Drove the LOTV, hosta, ferns and a couple of mint pieces over to DD's house, where we got 1/4 of the area to the north of and including an unneccesary tree, Very Shady area, planted. We dug up some of her plants and moved a columbine, a coral bells, and I discovered that bleeding hearts separates very easily. I WISH the hosta had separated easily! NEXT time I separate a hosta I'm going to let it sit in water for awhile. I had to twist and turn the work the muck out of the roots. MANY hosta leaves are now turning into compost in this bed.
We learn something new every year!
DD is home today and hopes to plant the rest of the LOTV that I brought over. She was worried that they would die in the muck bucket. HA!!! LOTV is SOOOO hard to kill. I also told her to plant any white roots bc they will make MORE LOTV!
I have studied shade plants, but I had forgotten about some of them. She planted the LOTV between 6 and 12 inches apart. There is room for adding more perennials and some annuals, like coleus and impatiens. I will take pictures when the bed is done.
I transported all of the plants in these large tubs, horse owners know them as "Muck Buckets." ("Mucking" means cleaning soiled horse bedding.)

I have 3, a pink, a purple, and a blue, and I have bought them for as low as $6/each. They are 40 (forty) quarts, and sturdy enough to hold a lot of weight, easy to dump with sturdy handles. I store my heated hose with it's extension cord in one of them, which I emptied to transport yesterday.