Is This Corn?

It's a little over my 5' waist in height. It's about 3' high at the most. It has tassels and silks. If it had been 6' or 7' tall I would have believed it to be corn. But. I dunno. I'm talking about my five lone plants in my corn patch. These are the five planted corn seeds that survived the chickens and the dogs out of twenty seeds that sprouted.

Getting them to grow to this stage has been a constant battle. The have been knocked over by the animals and storms repeatedly this growing season. I dutifully propped them back up trying to will them to survive. It's April's and May's unseasonable cold spell that I blame the stunted growth on. I've never seen corn so short. It will be amazing if the ears fully form. I did my usual bag pollination as soon as I notice the pollen falling to enhance a possible yield. There's only one ear per stalk though so I'm not holding my breath. It remains to be seen.

My straight neck yellow squash has put off showy male blossoms but no female flowers yet. Watch them be sterile. Now my zucchini is just the opposite, all female and no males. I've watched the fruits go unpollinated, turn brown and fall off the stems. The good news is that everything has survived the onslaught of Japanese beetles and so far, no sign of aphids nor squash beetles. But then, I've seen great flurries of ladybugs and lacy wings. I've even seen a few praying mantes. They have to be eating something. Since we've not been able to keep the grass mowed, I figure there's an abundance of food for them in the weeds. So far nothing has touched my tomato plants.

I had to water the plants this week for the first time in months. We've actually had a dry spell of dour days without rain! Although the ground is still moist a couple inches below the live ground cover (clover) they were a little thirsty and limp so I gave them some out of the rain barrel. With barely a cup and a half per plant, they stood taller and happier. The thunder rolling off in the distance tells me I won't have to worry about it tomorrow.

The heat index is in the 90s finally with the lows in the low 70s. It's definitely summer. I think I'm going to plant some more cucumber seeds tomorrow. It looked like stem rot or cut worms are nibbling the bases of my six plants.

Mel lost interest in her experimental garden when it didn't instantly didn't take off and it developed weeds. Sigh! I pulled the weeds, scratched in some bone and blood meal, and then added some organic 4-4-4 fertilizer to each bucket she planted. There's no such thing as a "no work" garden. It needs love and attention. The added boost has produced about a foot of growth in her experiment. She had planted wild flower seeds with the cucumbers and the have robust growth. 

In Mel's partial defense, she has building the new coop and run in the orchard. First she had to cut down the 5' weeds in the spot she wanted to place it into. No mean feat with only a hand sickle and no power tools. She picked up the wrong canisters at Lowes for our weed eater. She has since rectified it so the second coop and run will be easier. But loading sand and concrete cap blocks have to be done manually down to the second terraced level one load a a time in the cart. The cap blocks are the flooring for the 4'x8'coop and 4'x8'feed/straw storage building. Some 40 blocks later, they are all leveled and sanded in. The walls and the rest of the coop is just wood working, and for Mel, a piece of cake. She's definitely getting her exercise going up and down the 6' drop between tiers with first the blocks and bags of sand, and then the cut lumber. After the building goes up, she'll be digging the post holes for the 2x3 fencing for the run. It will be covered on five sides for the ultimate predator protection. We've got enough lumber and fencing around the homestead for the first one and egg sale money for the second one. The chickens are now laying an average a dozen eggs a day. We've set

aside monies for the next purchase of breed specific15 chickens for the coop nearest the house for a grow out area until they start laying. Then, the second chickens will go into the the coop and run on the third tier. By keeping two roosters with the 13 hens, we should have a good fertilization ratio to let the first batch of hens go broody. For of them have already tried to brood some eggs, but with no rooster with them, it was a wasted effort. The coop and run nearest the house will become the brooding/chick house. The chicks will either be sold or allowed to become layers. That's the plan, anyhow. So Mel's Poultry Farm is finally on it's way, and will continue to grow a bit smaller than she first thought, but it's going.

That's our update for the week...

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

New Adventures in Gardening for Me

I don't know anyone who enjoys pulling weeds. Do you?

In the orchard area, we simply lay down cardboard, rough compost, and straw/hay every fall. We are still conditioning the soil in that area from hard, compacted, clay soil. We sow orchard grass seeds in the spring, and deer forage in the fall. We've tilled it all under once. Each year the weeds we don't want grow less and less as the plants we do want produces more and chokes out the weeds. Our orchard area is 1/4 acre of terraced hillside dropping a total of 300 ft. There's no way I'm hand pilling unwanted weeds there.

My 2020 garden experiment

In our summer garden in front of our house, we are trying something new I saw on YouTube, landscape fabric. I know we've tried it before with little to no success, but we'll be trying a different tactic, as Living Traditions homestead does. To try it out, I bought a heavy duty landscape fabric like they did. It's 4'x50' and much heavier than we've used before. After Dave's grandson tilled the garden, we let the rains settle the soil a bit. We laid two 25' rows of the weed cloth down. We pinned it down about every  8"-12" and overlapped the edges about 6," I burned holes in the fabric every 2' for the transplants to go in. So it looks like this. The black area is the landscape fabric. I'll put 6 cattle panels anchored by T-posts between the two rows of tomatoes to support them. I'll also be putting a drip hose line between the rows and on the outside edges, so 3 lines total.

For the other two rows of Roma tomatoes, I'll do it the same way I always have. If this works, I'll buy more landscape fabric for the other areas of the garden. This should make it easier to work smarter, not harder in the future. None of us are getting any younger. FYI (for your information), I rotate where I plant my vegetables every two years. I planted my tomatoes where my 3 sisters row is in 2018. I planted them a foot apart and that was way too close together so this year I'm giving them 2'. Even after all these years of organic gardening, I'm still trying new things to make it better, There's no absolutely right way to garden. You can read dozens of books but until you get your hands dirty, get out there, and do it, you'll never find what works for you. You take the basic principle, tweak it, and make it your own.

The only bit of bad news is that our last remaining angora died. I believe the same parasite that killed Buddy Baby was the reason. So we are out of the rabbit fiber business. There goes my instantly usuable rabbit poo tea and time release fertilizer. Well, we've got plenty of chicken manure. It'll just have to be composted first.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo

Mel's Garden Experiment- 5-Gallon Wicking Buckets

As I've already stated in here, Mel's idea of gardening is for fresh eating and mine is self sufficiency. At times, never the twain meet. She's more for experimenting and mine is tried and true. Don't get me wrong, I'm not above trying something new. I've done it quite often, but I demand results. Show me how to get the same results and I'll go for it with you.

Each year, Mel tries something different in the garden and I'll let her. Last year the garden was all hers. It was a bust and all the hard work, I'd spent ridding weeds from the gardening areas was laid to waste. But it wasn't a total waste. You see, all the rime and money I had put into building great soil wasn't wasted. It's still there under all those weeds.

Best yet, all the earthworms and red wigglers are abundant for vermicompost. I can't lift a spade full of dirt without disturbing a few. They are happily breaking u the soil pooping out their "golden" fertilizer, reproducing, and loosen the soil without me lifting a finger. Ya gotta love that. Added to that rabbit manure, composted chicken waste, and  leaves and their molds, and I have soil with block busters to grow things without adding chemicals. It was 4-5 years in the making to get here.

Mel hates weeding. Because of this, my almost weed free garden went to the weeds last year in an explosion. They choked out all the vegetable plants. Those that weren't choked out struggled and were impossible to harvest because they couldn't be found. Disgusted, Mel left it alone. Enter Jo this spring. We need the vegetables so I'm taking the garden back. Mel will be allow to experiment, but only in a small section.

Over the winter, Mel watched a YouTube video on self watering wicking tuns and high tunnels. That's the answer to a no wedding garden she thought, so she planned the garden and was going to build a high tunnel over the garden area. I wasn't about to spend another cent on a "hair brained scheme" no matter what everyone else said about it. I know Mel. I watched several videos and was on the fence about the plan.

 

I told Mel to try it first. We had enough stuff on the homestead to make them for nothing. What homestead doesn't have surplus 5- gallon buckets? We have bags of empty soda cans. The aluminum recycling place is closed due to the county lockdown because of COVID-19 so the soda cans are adding up. For the fill pipe, we repurposed scraps of PVC and support legs from some cheap storage racks. And for the fill "dirt" we recharged raised bed "soil" and compost. We didn't use the chemicals Leon did in the video. Instead we used the compost with blood and bone meal. 

Mel didn't want to place the buckets on the ground so she built stands a foot off the ground. She used scrap lumber, scrap bricks, (leftover from the porch and other building projects) and already purchased wire shelves. I had bought the previous year for rabbit cages and food pantry shelves, but didn't use them. So my cost for this venture was zero. You gotta love that!

It ended up looking like this.

So Mel can piddle prattle in the garden this year with her buckets. Here's hoping it works out well for us. She's testing out bush green beans, corn, cucumbers, and beefsteak tomatoes. I planted oregano in with the tomatoes. She argued with me, but I did it anyhow. We're breaking down the elevated raised beds of  oregano, sage, lemon balm, and lavender this year. I may transfer those into some wicking pots too, but we'll see how many I can plant around my heirloom Roma tomatoes. Did you know these herbs are perennials?  Plant them once, watch them self sow, and multiply. 

I firmly believe in companion planting.I planting peas or beans, and parsley in my asparagus patch each year, Oregano, basil, and garlic with my tomatoes. My potato plants are surround by dill weed. These are just a couple of examples. They combat predatory insects and diseases. They have a symbiotic relationship where each supports the other for the best possible outcome plus it doubles or triples what I can harvest from the same spot. When you have a small area to plant, this is paramount.

So Mel can be happily conduct this year's experiment and I can garden for the short and long term. We both win.

Y'all have a blessed day!

Cockeyed Jo