Bee~ Journal of then...

[Beekissed]

Taters are up and got corn planted today...and it is raining cats and dogs! We really need these rains! Also got Candy Sweet onions in the ground this week, so the garden is started. Also planted numerous nasturtiums, sunflowers and zinnias on the ends of the rows and near where the squash and such will be planted.

Tried to create some biochar in some of the rows to experiment but wasn't too successful...too windy of a day yesterday for that to work.

Only planted two 60 ft rows of Ambrosia sweet corn....if they all come up and they all make three ears, that will be 720 ears of sweet corn from two rows. Will trellis sugar snap peas, a few green beans and some pole beans in this corn. The CX tried very hard to help me plant the corn today and I felt like the Little Red Hen that finally had friends that would help.

I was going to trellis the squash and cuke vines on wire fencing but for some reason my mother just couldn't get that concept through her mind and I just gave up trying to explain it and we will just do it the way she has always done it. I'll plant a couple of pumpkins just for the chickens and already have a row of BOSS planted for them as well.

I have a bucket on the inside back porch with a toilet seat attachment for the collection of urine for side dressing the corn and will be getting some epsom salts for the garden this year....I've tried it before but I don't know that I used enough. It sure did work on my green peppers....had huge boxes full of them and they were BIG~both the plants and the peppers.

 

[Gypsi]

Neat stuff. I've had tomatoes and potatoes in since early March, finally got last year's corn patch out from under the compost pile, but it's not turned, and nothing is planted there yet. Will be yellow crookneck squash and zucchini, sweet peppers, maybe a pumpkin vine or 2, and sweet potatoes interplanted when my starts come. The urine side dressing is a neat idea. But I've got so much compost that came out of fish ponds, extra nitrogen is probably the last thing I need. Will get a couple of BAGS of epsom salts to work in, or I'll have all leaves and no fruit. Which is what happened to my winter onions again this year. They are edible, just the bulb is very slender in proportion to giant leaves. I will put swiss chard in the bed I take them out of. On chard, I want giant leaves.

Hope to get some seed in Thursday if not sooner. Not planting sweet corn this year, it's too thirsty for the fruits of my water bill. I'm not a huge corn fan anyway, but the bugs sure were...

Gypsi

 

[justusnak]

Hey Bee!!! Long time no chat. Sounds like the garden is coming along great!! We finally was able to get some work done in ours as well....just before the rain. 2 - 30 ft rows of green beans, 24 tomato plants...today I picked up 12 pepper plants, 240 onion sets, and 10 pounds of potato seeds. The beets are coming along great.....planted them a few weeks ago. 2 1/2 rows 15 ft long. About the Epsom salt...how do you use it in the garden? Work it in the soil before planting?? I will be putting peppers in later this week...if the rain ever lets up!

 

[Beekissed]

Wow...lucky you, Gypsi, to have all that fish water....lovely stuff! Isn't it exciting to start growing things again??? I simply thrive on gardening...don't know why but it thrills me to death!

A friend of mine tried something interesting last year and I want to try it. They put garlic powder on their corn silks and said not an ear had worms and in the past they have had trouble with this each year. They also did this on cabbage..same results. No worms.

I'm going to try this on broccoli as well...hate those little worms that get inside the florets. I'm also going to make some up in a spray and do the undersides and tops of my potato leaves....tater bugs are rampant around here. Going to sprinkle some in the soils when I plant my cukes and squash also to see if that will help ward off vine borers.

 

[rebecca100]

I'm going to try that garlic thing! I have garlic that was given to me this spring planted around my garden, but it's elephant garlic and not the real stuff. Last year the worms ate my cabbage so bad I just gave up on it. This year I started them earlier.

 

[Beekissed]

Hey Bee!!! Long time no chat. Sounds like the garden is coming along great!! We finally was able to get some work done in ours as well....just before the rain. 2 - 30 ft rows of green beans, 24 tomato plants...today I picked up 12 pepper plants, 240 onion sets, and 10 pounds of potato seeds. The beets are coming along great.....planted them a few weeks ago. 2 1/2 rows 15 ft long. About the Epsom salt...how do you use it in the garden? Work it in the soil before planting?? I will be putting peppers in later this week...if the rain ever lets up!

JUST!!!! Where ya been so long, girl???? Sounds like you are putting in a great garden...what ya gonna do with all those onions?

The epsom salts...I just side dressed with them but somewhere once I read that tomatoes and peppers absorb the nutrients better through their foliage and that some folks make up a solution and spray it on. I never did that. I do know that I never before nor have ever since had peppers that lovely, strong and productive as those that I used it on. Don't know why I didn't try it again the following year...who knows? I've tried so many things that they all get lost in the shuffle!

Do a Google on it and there are scads of articles and studies done on it, how to do it, why to do it, why you shouldn't do it, etc. Seems like sandy soils are more magnesium, phosphorus, potassium deficient and really benefit from it and acidic, clay soils like Mom's don't need it as much but could benefit from moderate usage. So, I'm using it moderately here! My garden had sandy soils, so it probably was more beneficial there.....only time will tell if it helps Mother's garden.

 

[rebecca100]

There's a farm stand here that I get my plants from and that's where I was told to use Epsom salt. I asked how they got their plants so green and healthy. I mean really green and healthy looking. Not like the packs of veggie plants you usually see at big stores. She told me they use Epsom salt in the soil.

 

[Beekissed]

There are many benefits from using it....it helps plants utilize nutrition better by improving the cell walls, it helps produce more chlorophyll, it helps improve root growth, helps the plants take up more moisture, etc.

 

[justusnak]

Bee I could write a BIG boring book on all the things that has been going on here....but wouldn't want to bore anyone. LOL Just seems like there are not enough hours in the day..... to get the things done I need to!
As soon as the garden dries out a bit, I will get those peppers in, with Epsom salts on the side. I wonder if that will work on potato's?? 200 onions isn't really that many...after I thin them out eating green onions..then dehydrating some....I will hang the rest in cool storage....hoping to make it through winter with them. Since last years garden didn't hold us over...I double planted, just in case we have another weird weather year. IF it all comes on blazing....I will have a small vegetable stand out front.

Wow, Bee, I can't believe you are still here. It has been so long, I thought you were gone over the pond by now! SO GLAD your NOT!!!! I have missed ya tons. Hows the bat?? Hows the boys?? Oh I have missed so much!!!!!

 

[Beekissed]

I didn't get to go over the water and now I'm living with the Bat temporarily, trying to work on my own big, boring book and other projects. The Bat is fine and so are the boys....I miss them and never get to see them now. Lots has happened and nothing has happened...does that make sense? Big changes but not the ones I had hoped or expected.

I'm still here....actually, I'm here more often than I've ever been lately because I have more time on my hands(long story). I miss you much as well....so very good to see one of the old screen names on the radar grid! How's your sheeples?