First year for celery

I planted celery this year for the first time and it did very well. I don’t know what kind of celery it is but the stalks were dark green down to the ground not blanched like in the market and it lasted in the fridge longer. There is one stalk left in the garden that has survived some hard freezes down to the low 20s and looks great. I wonder how hardy is celery.

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24 th of August and I just picked our 3rd and 4th tomato

24 th of August and I just picked our 3rd and 4th tomato. Every thing else did great but we had several days in the 90s and the tomatoes did not set blossoms until late. The first photo is what I am use to and the second is what I got this year. We still have a way to go though but who knows what will happen next maybe a early Fall.

Winter garden update.

The radishes are doing well and starting to swell and I need to get the second planting started. The Habaneras are doing great with many small ones near the top of the plant.

The carrots look like they are doing well but I really can’t tell. The same with the Parsnips but I have to get in there and thin them out. The Lettuce is near ready to start eating and have to start the second planting also.The Tomatoes (bottom left in the photo) are a little slow but once they reach the upper part of the GH I thing they will do better.

Reputedly a sweet Habanero Pepper

My son a pepperhead acquired some pepper seeds from another pepperhead  and among the seeds there was a container marked Sweet Habanero Peppers. After hearing the background of the source of the seeds, there is reason to believe that is what they are. My son planted a few seeds in his garden and the photo below is of one of those plants transplanted into my GH last week end. I ate one of the green peppers and it was not as hot as some radishes. It will be interesting to see if they ever hit the market.  John

 

Closeup of some peppers.

 

Worlds largest compost operation (at one time)

The photo is from Google Earth and it is of the composting area of the Creek Side Mushroom Co. now defunct. The company was started by the Butler County Mushroom Farms in 1937 and provided 90% of the worlds mushrooms. You probably have seen them on the grocers shelves under the Moonlight Mushrooms brand. The mushroom growing area used 150 miles of abandoned limestone tunnels encompassing 800 acres beneath the surface with production capability of 60 million pounds annually. Creek Side Mushroom Co. downsized the operation and recently closed its doors.

What looks like two sets  of tire marks are the remains of the last four compost piles. They measure 330’ long and were 16’ wide and 16’ high. At the peak of business there were 8-10 rows of compost on that pad.

2010/11 winter garden and 2011 summer garden

I am only a Month late but that was unavoidable. Every thing is planted except two tomatoes that I am waiting for the second set of leaves. There is a total of 18.7 sq ft under irrigation with an automatic fertilizer injector. The injector is set for a weak solution of 20-20-20 every time the system comes on which is one min every two days.

The container closest to the camera has Romaine lettuce planted. The second container has Iceberg lettuce Planted. And the third and fourth containers will be used for the second planting. Later the first and second container will be used for the third planting and so on until the end of season.

The first and second from the left are carrots, the third is celery and the fourth is parsnips. I have never grown these in the GH before so this is pretty much an experiment but I hope they do well.

The container closest to the camera is red radishes.  The second container is white radishes. The third container is basil and the fourth is dill. The buckets on the floor are for the tomatoes.

I guess this is the start of my 2011 garden. In total there are 70 cloves of garlic planted. The ones in front of the telephone pole are soft neck and the ones behind the pole are stiff neck. I was a little concerned about the continuous open space on the outside row but the cloves are well rooted and the sprout is about to break through the surface.

2010 sweet potatoes & winter squash harvest

The temps are supposed to be in the mid 30s this week end so its time to get the SP and SQ into the storage bins.

The squash are Burpee’s  hybrid Butter Bush. They have nearly if not the same flavor and texture as the Butternut squash. We prefer the Butter bush for its smaller size and it has been a constant producer. This years harvest is about 55 lbs.

 

The sweet potatoes are Vardaman and did well for the slips that survived. I bought a pack of 25 slips for about $13 and planted the best 20 slips. Of the 20 slips planted only 12 survived. This problem will be solved by next planting season. I have planted two small potatoes in pots and will take vine terminal cuttings this winter and determine which rooting techniques work best for me.

This the largest sweet potato harvested at 2#.

These came from one plant at 3.5#.

 

And this is the total harvest from 12 plants At app. 22#. I will let them cure here before  putting them in the bin.

Future Gardener

This is my great grand daughter Macey Monroe. I think she is hooked already. John

Torre Melanzana

http://www.jbest123.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Mantovani-Speak-Softly-Love-Theme-from-The-Godfather.mp3

This is from my son John.

 

I think I get more enjoyment out of my garden than most people.  This is because my wife makes things like this: torre melanzana (eggplant tower). 

 

Some people think eggplant is bitter, and it is, if you don’t know how to prepare it.  There are two ways to remove the bitter juices, depending what is being made.  This dish is sliced eggplant, egg battered and simmered in oil.  Alternate layers of eggplant and mozzarella (fresh or otherwise) are stacked then baked.  On top is fresh bruschetta made from fresh tomatoes,  red peppers pickled from last year, chopped garlic, olive oil, and fresh basil. 

A vacation in the hospital

http://www.jbest123.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/Ernest-Tubb-In-The-Jailhouse-Now.mp3

What caused my trip to the hospital were heart arrhythmias. The symptoms can be a fluttering in your chest, a racing heartbeat, a slow heartbeat, chest pain, shortness of breath, lightheadedness, dizziness or fainting or near fainting and I have every damn one of them. Along with heart arrhythmias comes an increased chance of blood clots so the Doc put me on Coumadin (rat poison). As a result of that most of my other meds have to be changed and fine tuned which requires weekly blood tests, med adjustment and retesting. I feel like a porcupine turned inside out. I have to eat the same amount of vitamin K every day as it affects the Coumadin and could have very bad results. The table below shows various vegetable and the vitamin K they contain. Keeping track of my diet past and planning future diets for the amounts of vitamin K would be a hassle so I plan to avoid vegetables with high levels of vitamin K. As a result I will be giving many veggies away this year.

 

I have started planning next year’s garden as to what to plant where and the spacing and nutrient requirements.

 

Vegetables	Amount	Vitamin K
Artichoke	1/3	Low
Asparagus	7 spears	Medium
Green beans	3/4 cup	Low
Lima beans	1/2 cup	Low
Beets	1/2 cup	Low
Broccoli	1/2 cup	High
Brussels sprouts	5	High
White cabbage	2/3 cup	High
Carrot	1/2 cup	Low
Cauliflower	1/2 cup	Low
Celery	2 1/2 ribs	Medium
Swiss chard	1/2 cup cooked	High
Chives	2 cups chopped	High
Collard greens	1/2 cup	High
Cilantro	6 cups	High
Corn	2/3 cup kernels	Low
Cucumber (remove peel)	1 cup slices	Low
Eggplant	1 cup diced	Low
Endive	2 cups	High
Kale	1/2 cup	High
Leek	1 cup chopped	Low
Bibb lettuce	1 cup chopped	High
Red leaf lettuce	1 cup chopped	High
Iceberg lettuce	1/2 cup	Medium
Mustard greens	1 1/2 cups	High
Shiitake mushrooms	5 mushrooms	Low
Button mushrooms	1 cup	Low
Okra	1/2 cup	Medium
Green onion	2/3 cup	High
White or yellow onion	2/3 cup	Low
Parsley	1 1/2 cup	High
Parsnip	2 parsnips	Low
Green pepper	1/2 pepper	Low
Potato	1 medium	Low
Radish	1 cup sliced	Low
Spinach	1/2 cup cooked	High
Yellow squash	1/2 cup slices	Low
Acorn squash	1/2 cup	Low
Sweet potato	1 cup	Low
Tomato sauce (bottled)	1/2 cup	Low
Tomato	1	Low
Turnip	4 ounces	Low
Turnip greens	1 1/2 cups	High
Watercress	3 cups	High

Soil test is in and I think I will have a BM

After I seen the third year core sample of the raised bed, I just had to get a soil test to see what was going on. I have always known that garden worms were beneficial to the garden. But I did not know just how much work they did.

Unless you follow my Journal there are three Posts that you should read to get the background on the raised bed soil.

1. First year core sample
2. Second year core sample
3. Third year core sample

Penn State claims a 4-5 day turn around on soil samples. I sent the sample in on Tuesday and received an eMail copy today and a hard copy will be sent via snail mail. I requested the standard test($9) and % organic matter($5) and eMail data($1) for a sum of $15.

I was interested in the PH and Fertility of the soil but I was curious as how much organic material was present since the only thing deposited in the beds was organic but the soil did not seem as it was only humus. As it turns out at 25% organic material, I have just been feeding the worms and they have been building up the soil. John

 

 

Three years of core samples

Four years ago I filled my new raised beds with composted lawn and garden debris rich with horse bedding. My gardening style with these beds has been no till and I top dress the beds each fall with composted horse bedding. As the red worms bring bottom soil and casings in to the beds I have to top dress less and less. The next three photos are of the 1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd year core samples in that order. In the first photo you can see what looks like soil and/or worm casing on the bottom and many recognizable wood chips and pine needles on the top. The core sample in the second photo fell apart when trying to remove it from the mold. It may have been drier or smaller particle size that caused it to fall apart. There was a good bit more material that looked like soil/casing and just a few recognizable wood chips and no pine needles. The core sample in the third photo looked homogeneous from top to bottom with no recognizable material. It fell apart easier than the second core sample and I am more convinced it has to do with particle size and moisture. When this sample dries out (to save on postage) I will send it to Penn State University for analysis. One of there tests is percentage organic material. Since the only thing I have put in the beds was organic, I think I can assume that anything that is not organic is either soil or worm casing. John

Couldn’t help myself, one more potato tower

Last year I built three towers to satisfy my own curiosity about growing potatoes in a tower. The one tower was a complete disaster because of a transparent tower that caused leaf development 10” from the surface. The other two did very well with potatoes developing over a 16” length of underground stem. These were short towers as I was not looking for a lot of potatoes but I did want to see the anatomy of a potato plant and just where the potatoes grew from.

While researching potato towers I found many people claiming success and a few that said that it was not possible. At the same time almost everybody claimed that early potatoes did not do well in towers. Well the Yukon Gold is our early potato, and the Kennebec is our mid-season potato, so I went with the Kennebec for my test.

After I harvested the broccoli and cabbage it opened up a pathway to a volunteer Yukon Gold potato plant and I decided it was time for it to go. That crazy plant had lifted that bed about three ins.

 

Later when I was cleaning up the debris I noticed that there were potatoes growing on that part of the stem that was above ground. If you look close at the lower most potatoes you can see leaves growing behind them and they are below the potatoes above.

 

Now when someone talks about potato towers this photo pops in to my mind and I wonder why Yukon Gold potatoes do not do well in a tower. I figure the only way to get that photo out of my mind is to have another experiment so here goes another tower.

There is a Yukon Gold with four chitted buds planted at least 8” deep in the base as you see it.

 

The tower was then filled with amended potting soil which puts the seed spud about 15” below the surface. I will fill the tower as the weather compresses it keeping the soaker hose about 2-3” and the seed spud about 16”+ below the surface. Wish me luck, John

An easy way to plant tomatoes

This is my grand daughter Jessie, she planted a 4th of July tomato and is just finished planting a Gardeners Delight cherry tomato. I suspect that these will get a little extra care this summer. John

Zone 5 and I have to get pro active

Its going down to 34 tonight and 33 tomorrow night but it looks safe after that. The potatoes have been planted, the spinach is up and looking good, onions, asparagus and garlic are also looking good. Come Monday I will plant lettuce, endive and more spinach and onions. On Tuesday I will plant four tomato plants and keep the hot caps handy. Toward the end of the Month, I will plant the peppers and eggplant. Still to come are broccoli, cauliflower, summer squash, winter squash, sweet potatoes, carrots, parsnips, rutabaga, beets and several herbs. After the garden is planted I will re mulch the path ways, plant posies and re mulch the posy beds. In the mean time the grass is growing like a wild fire and there is about two years worth of fire wood piled in front of my compost bins. 

100% germination of the peppers in 14 Days

The seeds were planted on March 15 and today the last Red Bell poked through the surface. From left to right there are; 6 Picante, 3 Sweet Banana, 3 Poblano, 12 Red bell and 12 Big Dipper. The first to sprout were the Poblano about 8 days ago. The humidity domes were not removed for ventilation and there is no sign of damp off or fungi of any kind. The containers in the back are Eggplants and Tomatoes. The Romas began sprouting about 4 days ago.          John

 

I have been taking to much credit for my garden

As it turns out I have had a lot of help through the years, like 24/7/365. The photo is of an area under huge maple trees and the grass is very sparse because the trees are taking all the water and sun from the grass. I chose this area because the worm casing showed up in the photo very nicely. The photo is about 5-6 sqft but representative of the hole yard and garden. From late summer into winter, there is no sign of worms. They are somewhere between here and China. But as soon as the snow pack melts the casings are everywhere they must move up to just under the freeze line or snow and are active all winter. John

Down but not out!

The last two weeks, we had some beautiful weather and I was able to get my trees all pruned and sprayed. It was the first time I had to use pruners, loppers, compound loppers, bow saw and a chain saw to do the job and I hope I never have to do a hard prune again. I also planted peppers, tomatoes and eggplant seed. During this time I had infected sinuousness which infected my lungs and turned to viral pneumonia. The same thing happened last Fall and it required six weeks to get back to normal. I hope that is not the case now as I have emails and Skype calls to catch up on as well as some posting and gardening of coarse. John

Another one of those storms

Thursday I was planning on pruning my apple trees soon.

Later that day, the National Weather Service was predicting a winter storm from Friday noon till Saturday noon with an culmination of 6”+. Later they changed it to 8”+ and later yet they changed it to 8”-12”. At that point I went to bed and this is what I woke up to.

Fortunately Number 3 son showed up to do some snow plowing. I panicked when I seen the GH roof the center looked like it caved in but it was fine and all the plants inside were as snug as a bug in a GH.

Well everything is cleared and we can get out easily but there is nowhere to go. Oh well I think I will wash wine bottles tomorrow. As usual all comments are welcome. John

One thing leads to another

2009-05-17

 

The trellis in yesterday’s post is 15’ long and I used 16’ hog panels which gave me two12” pieces of scrap panel. I wanted to try growing summer squash vertically and needed to come up with a trellis to grow two summer squash plants on. I had some old fence posts on hand and some outdoor electrical cable ties and the two scrap panels was all I needed. Now if I can encourage the Zucchini to grow up the trellis, I will be in Hog Heaven.

 

Tonight will be the second night in a row with freezing or below freezing temperatures. I gathered up enough containers to cover the veggie plants but the apples are in jeopardy. All I can do now is to hope for the best. As usual, all comments are welcome.   John 

  

A trellis for winter squash

2009-05-16

I was calling my trellis the ‘Mother of all trellises” but that was being a little presumptuous. The cyclone fence around the garden was four feet tall and I thought that would be a little small for summer squash. My DW and I love the Butterbush squash and it vines about five or six feet so I wanted to increase the height of the existing fence to six feet high. The problem was the fence producers do not make couplers to extend the height of the corner or line post. I knew there had to be something out there I could use.

 

What I found was automotive tail pipe couplers and since line/corner post came at a minimum of six-foot lengths and I would be scraping two feet, so I also used two-foot lengths of tail pipe.

 I reinstalled the original top rail on top of the extensions.

  

The trellis will be holding about 110 to 120 pound of squash so I added a line post in the center of the span.

 

I added cross members also to tie in the seams of the panels.

 I checked Tractor Supply’s web site and they claimed to have cattle panel on stock. After driving 20 miles I found out they only had hog panel. The hog panel is made using the same gage steel and the same size, 36” X 16’ so that is what I used. I wish I had taken a photo before I unloaded the truck. Can you imagine hauling 16’ long panels in a Ranger with a 6” bed? You can see at the far end of the trellis where I added a diagonal support to the corner post. When I finish the fence and gates at the open end, I will also add diagonals at the corner and on the line post. We get some strong summer storms with high winds so a little support will not hurt. As usual, all comments are welcome.    john

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

While sitting on the porch having a BM

2009-05-13

While sitting on the back porch having a BM and waiting for my butt to catch up with me, I was recapping my accomplishments of the day. I mowed the lawn, planted the sweet potatoes, Peppers, eggplant and ran some errands. I started to plant with the sweet potatoes; I remembered a post by Granny about using vinyl floor tile for a template to space plants in a RB/SFG bed. Ok I made my template, now what do you do with a floor tile with a 2 ¼” hole in the middle and a 2” auger? You plant plants of course.

 

I cannot believe the condition of the sweet potato slips when you receive them. It is amazing that they survive the ordeal. Next spring I will be saving some of the smaller tubers and try to root them in time for planting. I need some information on how and when to try it though.

 

Last year a pesky wabbit wiped out the sweet potatoes after it was too late to buy replacements. As a result, a fence was installed until they are big enough not to be destroyed by the wabbit.

 

The eggplant came next; they are planted at one plant per 2.7 squares.

 

Then came the peppers also at one plant per 2.7 squares. Tomorrow I will plant the Cole crops. That will leave only the squash and the continuing planting of the salad bed. As usual, all comments are welcome.   John

 

My cobbler cobra

Sinfonian had commented about the watering system in my potato tower and I realized that, that post did not get transferred from the old journal to this one. I wish I had access to the old journal to see what else is missing. Anyway here it it again While converting the rest of my garden areas to RB/SFG, I decided to try potato towers at the end of the pathways that would be wasted space. As I was roughing in the plumbing for the irrigation system, the back half of my pea brain was thinking about the water requirements on an elevated potato tower. The base of my towers will be 10″deep and each addition will be 6″ deep.

My solution was a plumber’s nightmare. The soaker hose will be just below the surface where I plant the spuds. As I add height to the tower, I can move the soaker hose just below the new surface and repeat for each height increase. All I need to do now is learn to play the flute so the hose will rise to the new height it self.  As usual all comments are welcome.        John

Chitting Potatoes among other things

About twelve days ago, I removed the Kennebec seed potatoes from the fridge and placed them in a standard nursery flat and covered them with another flat upside down.  

 

This photo taken yesterday shows the sprouts starting to grow. 

 

As you can see, the spuds are forming many sprouts. After all the sprouts are formed, I will remove all but the two nicest ones in an effort to reduce the number of small potatoes. It is claimed that this will increase the size of the remaining potatoes, we shall see.

 

Speaking of potatoes, I added four inches to the top of my sweet potato bed, bringing the depth to twelve inches (11”). 

 

Some of the plants are on the way to there new home. I have several to get rid of yet and mine will be planted this week or next. The GH will then be closed down until mid to late August when I will start the winter garden. 

 

As usual all comments are welcome.     John

Soil Block Recipe–Again–And–Again

Time is running short and I have to get some seeds in the SBs.  My trials to date have been;  In the following photo the SB on the left is 50/50 CS/compost. The one on the right is 100% compost.

After drying for a couple of days, I split the blocks like you would a ripe Georgia peach.  This photo shows the 50/50 block split in half with little fragmentation. I think much too dense for seed starting.

The 100% compost block, split but did not just fall apart. I think it would be acceptable for starting seeds.

In this photo the block on the left is the two blocks from the first photos crumbled and a third block made from that material. It would be about 25% casing. The block on the wright, has more compost added bringing the casting down to about 15%.

This block is about 25% casing.

 

And this block is about 15% casings.

At this point, I think that since the top several ins of my RBs are compost, the percentage of casings are irrelevant. The seedlings will be growing through 100% compost before reaching any worm casings. On my next go around, I am going to use 100% compost, you probably knew this is where I was headed. As usual all comments are welcome.    John

Soil Block Recipe Continued

This morning I got 16 core samples from eight beds just like the one in an earlier post. I put them in a homemade tumbler for 10 min along with about a dozen #3 river rock. The coarse compost on top of the core sample must be structurally week because there is not much sign of it now.

 

I then put the blocking soil in a microwave for 15 min. to kill all of the weed seeds and any living critters that might do the seedlings harm. This is what the soil looked like after nuking.

I made one test block to see how it would hold together. It is more porous than it looks in the photo also; I am considering using some vermiculite to make it a lighter soil.

 

As usual, all comments are welcome.     John

Daaah—-Soil Block Recipe

The soil blocks are doing fine except the Cole seedlings. With the dried blood, they are just too eager to grow. I have been thinking of using 100% compost and trying different things to bind it together, after all that is what they will be growing in when planted in the garden. The right side of my head said yes do it while the left side said, no, you already have the answer. It was something somebody said in one of the comments but I could not remember. I do not know how many times I scrolled through the journal reading and rereading the comments on all the soil block posts. I just could not find it. In a deep sleep at 2:00 this morning, my eyes popped open and I said to myself “Core Sample”. You know that was the end of my sleep, I came down stares and looked up the Core sample post and there it was. And here it is:

 

Sinfonian says: March 12, 2009 at 5:31 pm  (Edit)

Cool idea John. And yes, it does look like a soil block. Maybe when I make more I’ll just do it in the garden pulling mix from the beds. Hehe.

 

The core samples will contain worm casings, garden soil that the worms brought up and all stages of decomposed compost. To produce 100 SBs I will need 16 cores, guess what I will be doing today? Also the SB composition will be the same as the garden.

 As usual all comments are welcome……John

Composting 2009

I was not planning on Bloging about this today but decided it would be of interest to composters and soon to be composters. I finished shredding yesterday, last falls garden debris along with grass clippings, a few leaves, all the annual flowers, 11 hanging baskets, about 15 rotting pumpkins and 4 bundles of corn with ear corn attached. I thought I would have enough shredded material to fill one of my 3 X 3 X 3 bins and was planning to add some urea to get it to heat up. This morning, about 36-38 HRS after I started shredding, I was going to build my compost pile. To my surprise there was steam vapor coming off like crazy. I think I was grinning from ear to ear. Now I am planning on letting it set until it cools to about 120 DEG then add some urea and fill my bin.

I inserted my compost thermometer and sure enough, it was at 150 deg. I am hoping that, adding the urea and the aeration from filling my bin, it will reach or exceed 165 deg to kill any weed seeds that may be present.

SFG core sample

While I could not take, it anymore and just had to see what is going on down there so I took a core sample today. The SFG bed is 8” deep so I cut a piece of 3” drainpipe 8” long and drove it into the bed. I then sliced the drainpipe length wise to free the core. I was not surprised when the top portion just fell apart. I was surprised though when the bottom portion had a smeared surface. It had a good percentage of organic material but there seemed to be a material that was like plain old garden soil. Could it be worm casings?

 

I broke up part of the bottom portion just to look-see. There were several wormholes that did not show up on photos but they were active. I still cannot believe that they could make that much casing in a year’s time.

 This is a close up of the bottom portion of the core and it almost looks like soil blocks. Does that mean that through time the beds will fill up with worm casings? As usual, all comments are welcome.

 

 

Got Peppers

All of the garden seeds are planted and all of the heated sand bed is occupied. Next will be the posies which I dislike planting because they are so tiny. They are like dust and you cannot plant just one.

About 15 peppers stuck there heads out this morning and when they are all sprouted and develop there second set of leaves, they will be moved to the greenhouse. They have been under the humidity domes for 10 days and you can see they are still very damp.

 

For seedlings, I like using misters. They do not beat the seedlings down and each mister cover’s app. 24”dia. I have a mister every 12” of shelf length so the coverage overlaps and insured good coverage. After about 2-3 weeks in the greenhouse, I will transplant them in to 4” pots.

 

Gardening Survey

 

I screwed up and broke the link between the survey and the database located on the host. If I try to reconnect, I may lose all the data. I only received a hand full of votes in as many days out of 165 votes, so I will just let it end here.

John

 

 

 

What style of garden do you have?

The Traditional row garden replies surprised me; I thought they would be a large majority. In addition, I should have supplied more answers like Wide Row, Lasagna, and container.

Answer	Replies	%
Traditional row garden	53	32
Raised bed with sides	51	31
Square foot garden	31	19
None of the above	30	18

 

 

How long have you been using your current style?

The last answer on this question should have been, More than 10 years.

Answer	Replies	%
1 year	30	19
2 – 5 years	61	38
5 – 10 years	44	27
None of the above	27	17

 

 

What type on media do you use for plant growth?

I think the none of the above replies on this one probably uses lasagna style or a commercial media of some kind.

Answer	Replies	%
Traditional garden soil	84	52
SFG recommended mix	13	8
Modified SFG recommended mix	14	9
100% compost	21	13
None of the above	31	19

 

 

How do you prepare the bed for planting?

Some people that responded as none of the above did not think that spading by hand was tilling.

Answer	Replies	%
No till just plant	54	34
Till in the spring	41	25
Till in the spring and fall	45	28
None of the above	21	13

 

 

How do you amend your soil?

The number of organic replies surprised me; also, some do not think fertilizer as being an amendment. I think anything added to anything, is an amendment. 

Answer	Replies	%
Organic	118	73
Synthetic	2	1
Combination organic/synthetic	36	22
None of the above	5	3

 

  

 How do you irrigate your garden?

I just asked this one out of curiosity.

Answer	Replies	%
Automatic	21	13
Manual	118	74
I do not irrigate	17	11
None of the above	4	2

 

 

What best describes your over all yield?

I think I asked this one out of devilment since there is no standard to judge by. Data that you can find is usually geared toward the commercial farmer and is very conservative.  

Answer	Replies	%
Below average	11	7
Average	81	49
Above average	70	42
None of the above	4	2

 

My favorite hobby

Gardening has always been my favorite hobby. It was those pesky ancestors that got me started in the first place. I have enjoyed gardening and the thoughts of those ancestors all my adult life. It was gardening that got me browsing the internet for information, where I have met many people and I consider most of them my friends. However, as usual I get too many irons in the fire, epically in the spring and fall of the year. Lately I have been thinking why I started this damn journal in the first place. Well I came up with several answers, to further communicate with my friends, collect all my posts in one location, to get more information and most important ( forgive me friends) to give my grandchildren some insight in to there Pap. Three of four children are gardeners, and I think the fourth will be when he gets his landscaping finished. One of ten grandchildren is married and is a gardener. The rest of the grandchildren are ether too young or single yet and not ready for the domestic life. I am very proud of all of them and the number of gardeners. I hope that one of my descendants will print and save my journal for there descendants to read, although they will probably think, what kind of fruitcake was he? I hope that this winter and next summer, I can devote more time to the journal and not let it become stagnant also in the spring and fall to keep it more current. Thanks for reading.   John