2016 Gardens

[SONNY]

Anybody thinking bout their garden plans for this year?---I added some "extra ground" to mine last fall! LOL!! I want to try sugar beets, sweet sorghum and hulless oats this year if I can,--gotta improvise a extraction method, still looking for an old cane mill, but none around here., the oats, I can plant them with my IH grain drill and combine them with the 4400 combine, so got that covered , beets will be try and see what will work! Need to find large cook pan to boil the juice down in to get syrup.

We have been bombarded with seed catalogs , but have most of our seeds/plants on order. hope to use our home saved seeds as much as possible to cut down on seed cost!---I think I have enough pre-emerg chemicals to do for this season.
seed germination testing will start in a month or so.
We still have tatoes (regular and sweets) in storage to get taken to the mission and a few onions left.---have been eating tatoes and onions at a high rate since harvest, also have taken over a thousand pounds to the mission so far.

I need 4 bearings to put in my disk and also got one of them arm chomper "flex harrows" to pull behind it. Used the disk some in October to disk before I plowed.
Trying to get over the ground faster this year!
Will have to work fast to get equipment ready as soon as the weather warms up enough that I can work outside again.

Please post your ideas, plans, or thoughts on here!! LOL!!! thanks; sonny

[Eugene]

Going to open up part of the old garden at son's house and plant water and muskmelons. Also going to expand the strawberry bed. Reseed some of the asparagus beds with giant asparagus seed. Will plant some radish, sweet peas, string beans, and cucumber.

Haven't ordered seeds as of this date. Thinking about adding some raspberry plants to the order.

We are over whelmed with blackberries and asparagus. Just give away the excess.

Don't have a lot of garden space. Also have farmers markets in town 3 times a week. Can purchase what we need from whats in season.

Have very little top soil on hill tops and sides in this part of Missouri. What little top soil there is is mostly clay, so I have a problem raising some typical garden vegetables.

Talked to the wife about this years garden. Wife said to plan what I wanted to take care of. Guess she got tired picking strawberries when we had a large patch.

I'll put in a couple of small garden plots. I'll call it recreation and much needed exercise.

[v w]

About the same as last year. We are no longer going to pick and sell asparagus. Getting too old and the patch is 16 and 14 years old but still producing well. Last year was cold and wet so was a bummer for warm weather stuff. Warmed up from September on. Wife picked spinach Christmas day. She likes it better than I. We will grow enough to eat and to can/freeze. Geraniums should have been planted three days ago. Seeds are here just haven't done it. Wife has started cuttings for zonal geraniums. Seeds not yet ordered for garden but catalogues are here. Sweet potato plants are started, I will cut the vines in mid April. I cleaned and tilled the garden last fall. I also grow and sell a couple thousand tomato plants which I call part of my gardening. Have starting equipment on a sun porch and a couple small greenhouses. I think greenhouses are very much a part of the gardening experience. Weather forecast is for cold for a few days and I'm getting anxious to dig a few parsnips. Will plant more. To gardening. Vern

[pickerandsinger]

Added a patch about 75 by 125 to plant some more strawberries..Hopefully it'll be easier to pick them in a row instead of a bed…Ed ( forum member) sent me 25-30 thornless blackberry daughter plants last year and I built trellis's and he even supplied the wire…Met him at Cecils and we swapped some stuff…They grew to about 6 feet tall over the summer and then I detached them from the trellis and covered them with straw and fabric to protect them over the winter from the Lake Ontario winds etc….Hopefully they'll survive and we'll have a good blackberry crop…I have a TC that needs rebuilding ( its here in Florida with me till April) on my garden plow etc tractor, a loader that needs putting on my 48 that I rebuilt after the Cub Tug, and a A mowing tractor that needs attention….So I'll be busy from the 1st of April when I get back to Upstate NY….Maybe I'll expand just a little more if I run out of things to do…. Dave

[danovercash]

Just got the garden turned under between the rains. Too dry when it needed it, then too wet. We have had over 16 inches of rain since October 29. Basement flooded twice because drain clogged. Much to do. Not sure about garden for spring. Must have tomatoes. Last year was a bust. Good luck to all!

[John *.?-!.* cub owner]

While you all are expanding yours we have been cutting ours back due to my health and my wife's. Down from 6,000 square feet to 4,000. Got it turned and winter wheat plated just before the rains started, and have a nice stand of winter wheat now. Nothing to do now till late March or April, then

[Eugene]

Nothing to do now till late March or April, then

I've been incorporating kitchen vegetable scraps into the tiny garden plot behind the house for years. As long as the ground is not frozen, I will continue the process.

Last two years have been the pits as far as gardening. Crappy weather. Also for a good portion of 2015 I have been unable to physically maintain a garden. Feel much better and more physically able now. But reducing the size of the garden to limit back pain.

Just had another conversation with wife on garden size and vegetables. Garden is a no go on her part. So now rethinking what to plant and how much to plant.

Did you know that deer like dill weed? Planted dill weed in the small garden patch behind the house and it's still green in early January. Have deer hoof prints in the turned up soil.

[SONNY]

I have heard that stupid deer will eat EVERYTHING!! LOL!!---That's why they are so destructive, and the ones we have here are NOT afraid of anything, to make matters worse, so repellants don't work!

Today we got the sorghum and sugar beet seed in the mail! The 1 pound of beet seed is pelletized seed too, making it easier for my stiff fingers to plant! LOL!!
Now I need to write down all of the seed that we have on hand,---but I think we have everything except sweet corn seed.---
Virginia thinks that we may need to get a few pounds of Pontiac and kennebeck seed tatoes to plant besides our saved tatoes!---may do that!

Still have a BUNCHO work to do on the equipment before I can hit the gardens! ---Buddy just dragged me a harr-a-gater over to use, It's a nice one too, nice long spikes on it!--one tire leaks down fast, so gotta fix that and I have an extra hyd. cylinder to use on it
I want to make a transplanter attachment for the front of the creeper and also use the bar to clamp a couple of real light cultivator units on it to cultivate the small delicate crops with until they get tall enough to withstand the bigger cultivator unit!

Not super sure of what the physical abilities will be at that time, as that and weather will dictate what I can actually get done! Glad to hear what your plans for the season are!
Didn't think our maters were going to do much last year either, but late in the season they did give us a big crop!---2015 was a very strange year here too and looks like this winter is even stranger!---Right now it turned to all snow, ground is white, and wind getting up, temps. dropping like a rock, too! thanks; sonny

[Eugene]

Snow on the ground, temp is just below freezing, shoveled snow, bored, and thinking about spring.

I have one 11-28 rim with part of the bead removed and I think a beat up 11-28 ag tire. Thinking about bringing them into town and using them as semi-raised beds for strawberries or perhaps flower beds.

[Bob McCarty]

Sonny, You should be happy the sugar beet seed is pelletized now. The summer after my junior year in high school, the feds delayed the arrival of migrant farm workers from Mexico. I spent 3 weeks on a crew thinning sugar beets with a hoe. Good motivation for higher education.

Bob

[SONNY]

I have to get the seeds spaced so no thinning is needed if I can! LOL!!---I have good luck growing regular garden beets, but the seed was plain and a bit hard to plant with stiff fingers!---I think they should grow here and make some good syrup!
I have test grown sweet sorghum here and it gets about 8 to 12 feet tall in my test area!--so we will see how the sorghum does as well!
Also the hulless oats have did good here except wind knocks them down kinda bad!---I have 25 pounds of seed to plant and hope to get enough to roll to get me a bowl of HOME grown oatmeal,--sweetened with either beet syrup OR sorghum syrup! LOL!--all home grown! thanks; sonny