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Our garden isn’t looking very good plants are yellowing from all the rain and we are looking at another week of rain coming up. I’m just wore out with mud! My little grow room is doing fantastic though I have 6 plants growing in different stages and will be starting a couple more this evening. That should max the area out when the plants get size on them.

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On the way home from a recreational outing today, we passed a farm moving out/garage sale off the detour road.

They didn't have much left, but there was a big pile of horse manure mixed with shavings off to the side. They didn't spray their fields so I am going back on Thursday with the truck and trailer and he will load it up for me, before the tractor leaves.

It's only going to cost me a six pack of Miller beer and a trip into town to buy it. They are on the town end of the road so that won't be too bad.
 
I watered in the dark this morning. On a break I checked and right now I have quite a few of my first spring planting of beets ready to harvest, the second planting is now about 4" tall, and the 3rd planting has just sprouted. The volunteer potato plant is putting on flowers and the so are the onions...

I harvested a lot of salad greens yesterday morning and then replanted some heat resistant lettuce. I think I will get just one or 2 more small harvests off the spring spinach this year. I harvested 2 cabbages and have a nice bunch of sugar peas, but they are going slowly. I have some bell peppers showing and I have egg plants ready to move outdoors.

Transitioning into summer I have okra just starting to sprout and the paste tomatoes are now about 2' high.
 
Went out to the beds after work. I fertilized on late onions with a 40-0-0 Urea Blend. They like nitrogen until they start to bulb. Also fertilized my maters, peppers, and cukes with a mix of stuff I read about a few years ago. Works very well.
Pulled the last of my lettuce and spinach. They all bolted. Also pulled the snow peas. The worked some on training the maters and cukes up the cow panels. Maters are blooming and I've got some small tomatos coming on.
Messed around a little while weeding, pulled 3 nice size carrots, 2 parsnips that I thought was just one, a yellow onion that was a double, a red onion with a nice little bulb. And the biggest surprise, when I pulled the peas and cages out it uncovered a yukon gold potato. Dug around a little more in that hill and got 6 from one hill. I was surprised they were as big as they are this early. It's been less than a month since they bloomed. Here's a pic of the harvest.

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This morning as I was watering and checking the garden I noticed my shaded sugar peas are putting on pods and have grown to above my grape vines(about 6' tall). I'm trying to judge my onions, they are not large, but they have all started to flower and the leaves are brownish, I'm not sure if I should just pull them all up be done with it. The pole beans are now about 7' high and I am having to work to keep them from growing onto the house. I have noticed that they are shading the bottom 1/4 of the south side of the house and it is reducing the heat load we normally get do to sun exposure.

75% of the okra I've started in the house have sprouted, as expensive as the seeds are I was hoping for better, but I need to give them a couple more days. I figure I will wait till they are 4" tall before moving them into the raised beds. I may start a second tray of them this weekend.

As I walked around today, considering the harvests I'm getting (they are good) it becomes very apparent that if I wanted to truly live off this I would need to at least triple my growing area. This is becoming important to me, I figure I have less than 2 years before I just give up and retire, the wife's health is such that her home health care nurse is concerned about losing her (I fear she will not make it till I can retire). The question becomes should I keep trying to get this place paid off or shift my focus on finding a larger place in the Midwest where I could have a larger garden and a smaller house? The only thing holding us here is my job and the wife's array of specialty medical personnel. The one thing I would hate to give up is the public hunting lands that I have access to now, right now in 15 minutes I can be on 10,000 acres of nice hunting, but I can see that going away as the cities encroach them....
 
There's hunting land in the midwest. Guess it depends on what you're hunting, too. We have hunting areas where we are, it's not all farming. Except for bear. People usually cross over to Colorado or New Mexico for bear. Many farming families had smaller houses and lots of acres. It amazes me that in our house there were the parents, sometimes 10 kids, and they'd rent a room to the teacher when the schoolhouse was across the road. That was before our add on bedroom.
 
UrbanHunter said:
This morning as I was watering and checking the garden I noticed my shaded sugar peas are putting on pods and have grown to above my grape vines(about 6' tall). I'm trying to judge my onions, they are not large, but they have all started to flower and the leaves are brownish, I'm not sure if I should just pull them all up be done with it. The pole beans are now about 7' high and I am having to work to keep them from growing onto the house. I have noticed that they are shading the bottom 1/4 of the south side of the house and it is reducing the heat load we normally get do to sun exposure.

75% of the okra I've started in the house have sprouted, as expensive as the seeds are I was hoping for better, but I need to give them a couple more days. I figure I will wait till they are 4" tall before moving them into the raised beds. I may start a second tray of them this weekend.

As I walked around today, considering the harvests I'm getting (they are good) it becomes very apparent that if I wanted to truly live off this I would need to at least triple my growing area. This is becoming important to me, I figure I have less than 2 years before I just give up and retire, the wife's health is such that her home health care nurse is concerned about losing her (I fear she will not make it till I can retire). The question becomes should I keep trying to get this place paid off or shift my focus on finding a larger place in the Midwest where I could have a larger garden and a smaller house? The only thing holding us here is my job and the wife's array of specialty medical personnel. The one thing I would hate to give up is the public hunting lands that I have access to now, right now in 15 minutes I can be on 10,000 acres of nice hunting, but I can see that going away as the cities encroach them....
Click to expand...
You always have to look forward and consider all possibilities!!
 
Yesterday I was checking what I thought was the 3 rows of wheat. It's gotten pretty tall (over 4ft) seed heads have emerged and still very green. Well come to find out, yes there is some wheat, some barley and a whole lot of rye, along with red clover, and other stuff in there. I had tossed out a bunch of ground cover seed that included the rye & clover last fall that didn't do anything, then seeded over with the wheat & barley. Since all of it took off this spring, it's going to be interesting trying to harvest the seed heads and keep each variety separate. The chickens may get the most of it, and that'll be fine by me.
 
We are enjoying the birds, I have feeders in the garden where the wife can watch the birds, we have baby birds who have trouble flying, they do it in short hops, fun to watch. We are now seeing humming birds too. We are getting regular visits from about 8 different kinds of small birds, the large birds (robins and doves) are also welcome. I do step out or harass the black birds and mocking birds. I have a squirrel that liked to climb onto the supports and down the chains to the bird feeders, that was until I sprayed them with PAM and he fell a couple of times.... That was fun to watch too, in an evil kind of way.....
 
I went out and harvested some onions per the wife's instructions, after I cleaned them up I realized that I had a little extra, red onions, white pearls, green bunching onions, and GARLIC, nice big cloves... wish I could remember planting garlic..... It sucks to get old and have mother nature playing tricks on you....
 
Backyard garden has been watered lately.

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Walking onions

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Elder berries out growing the sugar maple trees.
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Since the birds have found my grapes I decided to get some clones started.

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I added some safety wire to support the vines under the weight of the clone spheres.

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Hopefully I will be able to keep clones moist.

Ben
 
A friend of mine brought me a sickly looking little plant tonight. I could tell he was really proud of it. I didn’t say anything but as soon as he left I cut the top out of it and cloned it. He told me I would be lucky to get 3oz out per plant out of my indoor grow. Guess we will see about that. 😆

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Wife wanted some garlic and onions for supper. So I went and pulled a bulb of garlic. Its still a little early, only got 3 small cloves, but there were others just forming. Still tasted good.

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Urban. Wait till your onion tops mostly all fall over before pulling, other than just for eating right away. If they are still standing tall like Neb's are they are still growing. Once they've mostly fallen over they stop growing and start setting up for storage
 
Bacpacker said:
Wife wanted some garlic and onions for supper. So I went and pulled a bulb of garlic. Its still a little early, only got 3 small cloves, but there were others just forming. Still tasted good.

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Urban. Wait till your onion tops mostly all fall over before pulling, other than just for eating right away. If they are still standing tall like Neb's are they are still growing. Once they've mostly fallen over they stop growing and start setting up for storage
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Do the young plants taste as strong?
 
Thanks for the guidance @Bacpacker, there is still a lot of garlic and onions in the ground, but that space is also along the south wall, the future home for okra. If I have to choose between harvesting large onions and planting my okra... well I think you and I know who will lose that fight... ;)
 
I understand. Here is a link to where I buy my onion slips, shallots, and leeks. There is a lot of info on the site on planting, fertilizing, harvesting, and curing.

Home - Dixondale Farms

I've learned a lot about growing onions since I started following their guidelines. Last year harvested enough and stored them from September/October to eat on until mid/late March. We eat on them thru the summer while growing too. So we only have to buy between say March to May.
 
UrbanHunter said:
Thanks for the guidance @Bacpacker, there is still a lot of garlic and onions in the ground, but that space is also along the south wall, the future home for okra. If I have to choose between harvesting large onions and planting my okra... well I think you and I know who will lose that fight... ;)
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At the least snip off the scapes to encourage bulb growth. Scapes can be used in salads.

Ben
 
Bacpacker said:
I understand. Here is a link to where I buy my onion slips, shallots, and leeks. There is a lot of info on the site on planting, fertilizing, harvesting, and curing.

Home - Dixondale Farms

I've learned a lot about growing onions since I started following their guidelines. Last year harvested enough and stored them from September/October to eat on until mid/late March. We eat on them thru the summer while growing too. So we only have to buy between say March to May.
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I would like to have enough to store, but last year Hubby put nearly all of mine into his salsa!!! I try to grow more each year and it's still not enough 😂 My garlic is looking like it's about ready. I'm antsy to pull it and hesitant too 🤪 Have everything in and now it's a matter of tending it and keeping the few rotating things going in a good rotation. This is the first year I've really been up to doing any kind of rotation gardening. Need to pick lettuce. Collard greens and kale won't be far off.
 
Bacpacker said:
I understand. Here is a link to where I buy my onion slips, shallots, and leeks. There is a lot of info on the site on planting, fertilizing, harvesting, and curing.

Home - Dixondale Farms

I've learned a lot about growing onions since I started following their guidelines. Last year harvested enough and stored them from September/October to eat on until mid/late March. We eat on them thru the summer while growing too. So we only have to buy between say March to May.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the information, they are not shipping now but I found the sight very interesting.
 
I went out and cut off all the flowers forming on my garlic and onions this morning. I harvested more peas and am trying to decide it I want to harvest my potatoes, they are showing flower buds and the leaves are big and dark green so I am tempted to let them stay a little longer but I do want to know whats in the ground. I also have 10 new potato plants waiting to go outside (they are between 8 and 12"s high), so it's not like I will not have potatoes growing. Based on the number of large beets that I am seeing, we may need to can a flat of them soon. The wife is going to need to can several types of quick meals as they are being depleted rather quickly. My first starter tray of Okra is now about 90% up I am thinking that they will be moved outside before the first of July.
 
UrbanHunter said:
I went out and cut off all the flowers forming on my garlic and onions this morning. I harvested more peas and am trying to decide it I want to harvest my potatoes, they are showing flower buds and the leaves are big and dark green so I am tempted to let them stay a little longer but I do want to know whats in the ground. I also have 10 new potato plants waiting to go outside (they are between 8 and 12"s high), so it's not like I will not have potatoes growing. Based on the number of large beets that I am seeing, we may need to can a flat of them soon. The wife is going to need to can several types of quick meals as they are being depleted rather quickly. My first starter tray of Okra is now about 90% up I am thinking that they will be moved outside before the first of July.
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If you leave those potatoes until after they flower and the plant dies back, you'll probably have a better harvest
 
UrbanHunter said:
Thanks for the information, they are not shipping now but I found the sight very interesting.
Click to expand...

They have a window they ship in and you can pick the week you want. I usually do early March, then another on the last week they have. We've got them to eat on thru the summer, then some to store thru the winter.

Lady L, you need to double or triple your production. If we do salsa, I'll generally plant everything we want to use in one area. then the rest is for everything else.
 
This morning I moved a starter tray of okra out to the protected area of the garden, they will get some sun out there and are protected for the most part. That move gave me room to start another tray inside the house. I spent yesterday evening on making a watering arrangement for the sweet potatoes, I have room for a long run of containers but I need to be able to water them and keep their water levels under control, the plan is to install watering line in the bottom of the container with "pop ups" that will act as siphons between containers. It has taken me a while to figure this one out but I think I am there. The wife wants to be more involved in the watering, but she can't do stairs to go outside. My solution is simple enough, let her control the remote for the power inverter that runs the water pump. If I leave the valve feeding the pump open she can water the garden by just turning on the inverter, she can see it from her window and can be involved in the garden.
 
We had heavy rain and high winds last night into today, my corn is leaning at about a 45 degree angle. I am debating going out and bringing it upright and the providing some sort of support, first thought are to use 2 or 3 strands of garden twine tied to supports at the end of the 4' row, kind of like a wire fence with a set of strings in between each row of corn..... is it a waste of time or not... trying to think this thing out some of the corn is starting to show tassels.

My Roma tomatoes are now about 3' high and half the plants are showing lots of blooms. I have a few volunteer plants that came up and I have 6 "spare" Roma Tomato plants that I may need to dispose of. I staked my bell pepper plants, I have lots of blooms and about a half dozen peppers moving towards harvest.

The wind really messed with my sugar peas, I don't know if they will recover. The pole beans and the beets on the south side of the house were protected from the wind and they needed the extra water, so all good there.
 
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