2010 Madness Begins

I did the preliminary lay-out for the garden and bought 15 dollars worth of seeds. Bought the seeds first though bad move. But standing in front of the rows and rows of seeds in their brightly colored packages it felt like spring. I wish Feed and Seed had their bulk seeds in. I still need a few pounds of snow peas and green beans. I have about one more meal of the sweet peas from last summer and I'm afraid to eat them . Because I'm Going to miss them terribly.

I'll have 13 raised bed's 4' x 25' that's 1300 square feet of Growing area. The area I'm tilling will be a little more than twice that. Every year I want to mow and till between the rows to control weeds. but the plants get to "bushy" and I have to use the push mower in between the rows. that is an unacceptable waste of time. I'm labeling the beds 1 - 13 with 1 being the South most bed and 13 being the North most. All beds run East West. Beds 1 ,2 , 3 all get shade in the after noon. Beds 1 and 2 will be heat resistant sweet peas. bed 3 will be cole crops broccoli and cabbages. Beds 4 and 5 mostly tomatoes and Peppers. Six and seven will be beans. Eight will be salad crops , lettuce, spinach , what ever is cheap. Bed 9 will be turnips , beets , radishes , etc. . bed 10 cucumbers and corn. Bed 11 squash and corn. Bed 12 more squash and corn. Bed 13 pumpkins and corn.

I'm modifying the bed garden design laid out in Peter Chan's Better Vegetable Gardens the Chinese Way. So I'll be disturbing the ground much more every year. My beds move a little every year to allow the tiller to really eat and grind in more organic matter into the soil. By not having an official compost pile and just dumping grass clippings, leaves what ever into the low parts of the garden and grinding it in with the tiller robs the soil of nitrogen. But the benefits of loosening the soil out weigh the lost nitrogen at this point .

Not everything was a loss

well I slightly lifted the pumpkin below to place a board under it and pow the stem broke. I guess it was ready . I was hoping it would get a little bigger . It's a little lighter than a half barrel . I can't lift a Half barrel up onto my shoulder without help and I can't get this behemoth onto my shoulder . I need to find a scale that can deal with this . I'm pretty sure it's over 80 lbs since I can hoist the 80 lb bags of water softener salt easier than I can handle this. I've got two more still growing but I doubt I'll get to my 300 lb target for 1 pumpkin but I'll definitely have 300 lbs of pumpkins this year. I'm not touching the other two until the end of October ground boring insects be damned.

Garden end of the year run down.

I have enough green beans, peas, and pumpkins to take me through the winter. The cool summer has been crap on every thing else . I've had a transistor radio in a plastic bag going 24/7 in my sweet corn. but I had another raid . evidently raccoons like country music. I switched to sports talk radio today . I feel it's pretty cruel to subject the raccoons to morons calling in and talking to morons about the Detroit Lions. Don't get me wrong ,I enjoy watching football ,baseball , hockey, and boxing. But listening to PE majors sitting around talking about it is pure torture.

Organic Insecticide Recipes

Taken from:
"Getting the Most From Your Garden. Using Advanced Intensive Gardening Techniques." from the editors of organic gardening magazine,Rodale Press Inc. 1980
I have not been able to find this book for sale even used . But it is available at your library don't forget about inter library loan . Read it take notes you wont regret it.

1 hand full of tobacco let stand in 1 gallon of water 24 hrs . Strain and dilute to the color of weak tea. Use as spray.
Don't smoke your vegetables unless you wash them first. I suggested this to a friend that was complaining about aphids . I was really surprised at the negative reaction. My dads untimely death from lung cancer has me very anti smoking . But I have serious doubts about the nicotine hanging around long term like commercially available pesticides. It has been 20 years since I had organic chemistry. But if this seems to dangerous to you I say " Quit getting your science from television and radio and read an actual book not written by a limousine liberal that failed out of theology school and read a book written by a biologist, chemist, or farmer".


soak 3 oz chopped garlic in 2 tsp liquid paraffin for 24 hrs ad I pint water in 1/4 oz liquid soap mix well strain store in glass jar. Wire worms , cut worms, slugs & white flies.
I haven't tried this but I have tried diluted liquid soap it works great.

1tbs white glue to 1 gal water use as spray.
Never tried it but i"d use the nontoxic white glue if I where you.

3 oz chopped or pressed garlic in 2 tsp mineral oil for 24 hrs. 1 pt water with 1/4 oz oil based soap stir and strain store in glass jar dilute 1:20 parts water spray
I have no idea where to buy oil based soap.

Chop or grind 1 bulb of garlic or a large onion add 1 tbs cayenne pepper and mix 1 qt of water steep for 1 hr strain and store in jar in fridge for up to 1 week.
I've done this it works until the next rain.

spearmint leaves , green onion tops horseradish roots and leaves red hot peppers 1 gallon water 1 cup detergent dilute 1:2 use with sprayer.
Stinky whew...

Rain Rain Go Away

My garden is drowning. since Thursday we easily had 4" of rain today is Sunday. a The weeds are shooting up but whole areas of my garden is drowning . Walking out into the garden involved sinking in the mud and losing a shoe. If it ever dries out I'll be tilling in 20 % of it or so and re-planting. There are some plants taking full advantage of the swampy goo that used to be my garden. the cabbages are heading up . the peas are sprawling out . The beans are growing leafy canopies . The spinach is curling up and dying . The turnips , carrots, and beets are for all intents gone . I'll till that area under and replant if the night rains ever stop. I'm tempted to put on my swim suit and wade in and pull the weeds which I suspect are wild rice , cranberries and lillie pads . I put on my mud bogging boots and actually saw crawfish in between the rows. It's very obvious that I tilled in a couple of tons of manure . The standing water is absolutely foul filled with algae feasting It stinks worse than the manure ever dreamed of .

It's in , well almost.

Final dimensions of the garden 110' X 30' . All the plants I started except for the few I was lucky enough to give away are in the ground . The cabbage is growing so fast it's scary . I guess the unseasonable cold weather is driving it . The broccoli is all dead wtf? I thought broccoli was a cole like the cabbage and would love the 60 degree temps also. The corn is spotty in the back I'll fill in with some more seeds this week to help block the sun and keep the weeds out. I created a 16' X 30 ' area out in the hay field to to take on 40 hubbard squash plants. I tilled the holy hell out of it and raked out as many of the roots as possible. the hubbards will be responsible with controlling their own weeds . I'm going for using the mower and hoe as my main weeding tools along with a thick leaf canopy . 3300 square feet is to much for little old me to crawl around pulling weeds.

The Year Frost Increased my Harvest.

Last spring (Memorial day weekend)I slammed in a quick and Dirty Garden . 10 Tomato plants ,4 Cherry Tomato plants, 8 pepper plants , 8 cabbage . A few days later the news called for a killer frost . I slipped a mason jar over every tomato and pepper . It didn't help every tomato and pepper was sheared off at the ground . Since I planted them all deep only leaving the top row of leaves sticking out of the ground I figured a few would come back. So I went out and bought replacement tomato and pepper plants and planted them in between the corpses of the frozen plants. Well you may have guessed they all came back . I had twice as many plants planted half as close together. It wasn't great for the peppers but the Tomatoes loved it . some of the bumper crop of tomatoes still occupies my cupboards in jars mm . This summer I'm backing off on the number of tomato plants but I'm planting them 12 " center to center the second week of June