that’s how I felt about them toward the end. They were cute, but their usefulness outweighed them being a pain in the ass.
For me it is about utility. I seriously do not understand the whackos who keep house ducks or coo and aww over them. They are fuzzy and cute when babies but scream bloody murder at you unless you handle them a LOT. I get a ton of high quality fertilizer and amazing egg production throughout the year. They pay for themselves due to the high resale value of their eggs. And I plan to try selling a small number of ducklings next spring to make some extra cash. They have quantifiable purposes. They are not even close to being pets. We will cull if we have extra males. But as far as small meat animals go, I think I'd rather breed rabbits. We keep small weight egg layers and they just don't produce much meat on their carcass.
Good thing I covered the plants last night, that frost would have wiped them out for sure. It's supposed to be our last, I hope the weatherman is correct. Usually Memorial Day weekend is considered the "safe" weekend to plant around here. I put in some onions, something I've never tried before. We use a ton of them. Also have a whole bed devoted to Yukon Gold potatoes. I have always had enough from the previous year's harvest to plant, and the extra I threw under a pile of hay where they'll grow nicely. No kidding, as I was digging holes for the spuds yesterday I found a perfectly good one that I missed last Fall. I left it for seed, but could have easily washed and eaten it. In other garden related news, I got one of two compost piles cooking good and hot. I thought with the hay the goats waste I'd have an easier time getting good compost, but hay is a miserable material unless you break it up with grass and dead leaves. If I keep it good and hot it'll be ready to add as mulch the potato bed when the time comes.
Do you have any tips or advice on long term storage of potatoes and onions? I've heard you can bury them in sand to prolong their life. I guess you can just keep them in the ground too, and they won't rot/still be edible? I won't do onions here because I just use so many, the number I would get for the space they take isn't worth it to me. I have thought about doing a potato tower though, especially for little reds. We don't eat a ton of them on a routine basis but if I grew them and could store them some kind of way it wouldn't be a bad thing to try. Thoughts?
All I do is keep them in wooden produce baskets in our basement which stays pretty cool, especially Autumn and Winter. Nothing special. I don’t know if it matters or not, but I don’t wash them until it’s time to use them. I do the same with onions, just keep them in the basement where it’s cool. I recall reading an article where someone dug a hole in the ground below the frost line and put them in a garbage can lined with straw. I’ve never tried it because I haven’t needed to.
Just be sure to not keep onions and potatoes close to each other, as the onion off-gasses will cause the potatoes to sprout faster/sooner. I store both in a basket, but put a dish towel over the onions and it makes all the difference.
Same with apples, only I read they cause other produce to spoil. We keep them separate in the cellar as well.
Yea I think the not washing is key. we got about 50 lb of free russet potatoes at a community giveaway about a month ago The potatoes are covered in fine dirt and all of them are super fresh still. I didn't realize onions offgassed so much but it makes sense. I've had whole batches go bad before and it probably started with 1. I use offgasing to my advantage with bananas. They will ripen anything around them. I put green pineapples and kiwifruit with them. I've tried it with avocados but they seem to ripen faster and better in a warm bright window.
the rows of okra all came up overnight. So did the 6 zuchinni and 6 squash I planted for my wife. Might have gone overboard on the okra because I got it on amazon from a random place and didn't trust that it had good germination rates. There must be 40-50 seeds over three rows and in one night I'm guessing 3/4 of them broke the surface. We're gonna be eating a shit ton of okra, and fortunately I'll be able to give away a bunch as well. Put some toy snakes in the garden to curb the squirrel problem, lost two tomato plants to them already but I'm not terribly concerned since I have a dozen of them. Also, a .22 is a good solution as well. Had extra realistic toy snakes on hand because I loved to scare the crap outta my wife. Gonna be raining pretty heavy over the next week, garden should love that
With squirrels you'll have better luck with a capsicum spray. If you reapply often enough they'll remember to avoid those plants.
What with the 'rona and all, the wife and I are getting a small 2x4x1 raised bed and trying our hand at setting up an herb garden. We both know nothing about gardening so stuff that is probably laughably obviously to you is new info to us. We'll be putting the box in an unused flower bed that's been recently mulched. We're going to be using a "soil-less” mixture of aged, screened, black-fir bark; sawdust and biosolids to fill the box. My question to you folks is the other stuff that goes in. Should I put down a thin layer of gravel between the bed and box? Should I put a layer of top soil on as well? If so, how much?
Just use topsoil as a filler with compost amendments. Not sure why you are choosing soilless mediums? You have to feed more fertilizers to make up for the nutrients not in the soilless mix (though people love to test and find the right combinations of fertilizers like the hydroponics people do). Ive read wood heavy mixes in the ground, like working last years wood mulch into the soil to decompose throws off the big three nutrient balance and it would take a few years to even out. Soilless mix for containers works out because it's fairly cheap and light weight and you can just throw it out once the wood chips decompose too much. Herb gardens are dead ass easy. Ive just worked some bags of potting soil into the shitty ass clay soil I have and everything Ive planted thrives. I think thyme can grow anywhere. Sage, with looser soil booms too. I like both of them because they are perennials even though people suggest tearing them out after a year or two before they turn woody Ive had mine for 4-5 years now and I dont taste the difference. My thyme bush is plucked year round. If anyone is looking for soilless mix for containers "Al's 5-1-1" container mix is the gold standard. Pine Bark Fines 5, peat 1, and perlite 1. Ive had good success with it for peppers which prefer quick draining soil.
Yep, what Kubla said. Herbs don't anything fancy. I've grown them in a pretty wide variety of soil conditions and they flourish. Things that fruit require a lot more in their soil to be successful. Just get some basic raised bed soil and use that as your starting point.
Yeah, depends on the herb. Cilantro is a bitch, but this year I'm growing 2 huge pots indoors that are kicking ass.... you can have a hard time transferring them from a pot to a bed because of the whole taproot thing, but I've taken to just having 2 big indoor pots that I'm using now (killer Covid Guac) while I just last night planted new seeds in a big outdoor herb bed for the next crop. (I've found cilantro doesn't regrow well,, so you harvest it, and then move on to the next crop before the current crop goes to seed). Also, it can be hard to get the proper strong taste in cilantro if you don't keep it somewhat cool and don't drown it. (I'm still working on that, but I've been doing some testing and have seen a difference). Same with basil... had some amazing salmon tonight where I made the rice with a shit-ton of cut up basil and some coconut in it, using avocado oil (in the rice cooker), and just did simple salt, pepper, and lime juice on the salmon... fried skin down in a cast iron pan (again in avocado oil) then under the broiler for a bit to crust up the outside, and it was some of the best salmon I've ever had. The basil made all the difference. I've got 2 huge pots of basil in the laundry room in the seed-pod I've built out, and I've just planted fresh seeds outside last night to grow some fresh stuff once this is all used up in the cooking. My oregano is SUPER slow to grow from seeds, but man, does last year's crop do a great job popping back up early (and huge) outside, having survived the winter weather. My outdoor oregano patch is insanely huge, thick, and incredibly aromatic right now. Sage I've had issues with, but I think it's because I have to treat it like a shrub, not an herb I put in a box or pot. My neighbour has a sage shrub that must be 7 feet tall... I'm going to try and get the same thing happening for me. Fennel grows quite well... And catnip... I have it everywhere... but the indoor crop right now is insanely potent, according to my sister's cat, and my neighbour's cats, and my cats. I'm hoping the outdoor crop catches up once the weather starts to get hot.
what’s the trick for growing fennel? I understand it’s more a cold weather thing right? My wife and I use it like crazy, but it’s a bit expensive at the grocery stores around here. Do you use the whole plant? Or just the leaves? I think the bulbs are the best part but that would require planting and harvesting them almost on a schedule correct?
No trick... I find I just plant the seeds into a seed starter, transplant, and it grows like crazy. I harvest the whole fennel plant including the bulb, so generally have a finite amount to use during the summer... fennel with mustard or rosemary with beef is super tasty.
Update on the garden: they REALLY like this soaker hose. Have it going off for 30 minutes twice a day, at 4:30 am and pm. And since I put the fake snakes on top I haven’t seen a squirrel anywhere near the house. Pictured is the cucumber, okra and pepper bed. Also have a bed for tomatoes with a pyramid trellis thing for squash and zucchini
It’s looking like my experiment with heirloom varieties is turning into a complete flop. The ones I started are the sickliest looking plants and I’m tempted to just yank them and start over. I’ve also planted seeds direct to the ground so we’ll see if I goofed something up with the started plants. I don’t think so, but maybe. Could be the temperature swing hasn’t helped any. It’s gone from unseasonably cool to hot as Hell in about a week.