DANG! That IS GOOD TO KNOW!!!

Also - for those I sent some tomato seeds to, here is a repro of the seed package:
(Just IMAGINE a seven pound tomato...)

 

Killer, you can't over use it is what I like to hear.

 

According to the 2010 Farmers Almanac, these are the predicted "LAST FROST" dates for the following cities in TENNESSEE:

Chattanooga - April 1
Knoxville - April 16
Memphis - March 22
Nashville - April 6

 

The big tomatoes don't have the sweet juicy taste I've grown up with, like the store bought hybrids.

 

You go to the store then - I like them fresh off the vine.

 

Here where I live Tomatoes grow great. Last year my wifes Brother and sister in law wanted to go into making a garden together. Well I did one twice the size I usually do each year. The problem I had was not that they didn't help hoe, they did a few times but the fact they hardly got anything. My wife and I just about worked ourselves to death putting stuf up. We had over 30 rows 100 feet long of everything.

My dads uncle had seeds that made the biggest tomatoes. They had been passed down since before the civil war. I wish I had got some from him before he passed away. As far as growing mellons also grow good here. One year I had some of the best ones that ever grew here. I didn't get many due to june bugs. I got mad one day when I found one ripe and it was filled with them. I got mad at those suckers, picked it up, slammed it down, and covered it up with dirt to kill them. Little to my suprise a few months later I actually got to enjoy them when that mellon I burried had vines to come out and produce.

This year I plan to plant probably the oddest stuff here. I lived in AZ as a kid and cactus was everywhere. So I got use to it and how you can eat them. The state is widening the road here where I live and getting my inlaws house. She has a large prickly pear cactus and I am going to transplant the pads of it and make me a row of them. They make a really good bloom like pod that has a taste similar to peaches to me. They make a really good jelly. Man this post is getting me ready for spring.

 

I always did wonder how to get rid of the itty-bitty spines on cactus apples. A lot of my neighbors in San Diego used to have prickly pear - but the buds on them had really tiny thorns that would get in your skin kinda like fiberglass will. It made me worry about eating them because I didn't want to find I had swallowed a bunch of thorns by mistake...

My house plants this year include some desert plants from the southwest. (And yes - I have the obligatory Aloe Vera). I call it my "Coffee Cup Collection". I've found that most sprouts and small plants do well in ten or twelve ounce clear plastic cups with a hole cut in the bottom for drainage or watering. These little guys came in cups so small they were all the way root-bound right from the store, the Aloe had a coil of center root wound around twice under it - this way you can see when the roots 'HIT THE WALL' on space

Left to right, they are: Aloe Californica, KIWI, Royal Flush, and Brown Bean

The pastel tints these plants gain are a knockout! They remind me of the Painted Desert...

 

The ground is likely drawn out, get some manure, there are farms giving it away, you have to come get it and load it, dad went in the barn and hauled out loads of 20 year old stuff, his plants exploded out of the ground.

 

My Poppa used to tow an old box trailer out to the local dairy and get tons of manure that way. I'm somewhat fixated on that idea - but I'm also thinking about cleaning up my truck bed afterwards....

If you go get manure at (WELL: "LOWES" for one...) They charge a lot, and it is usually half plain old dirt. They call it composted, so that you won't realise they are ripping you off!

But it's garbage....

"COMPOSTED MANURE" - GIVE ME A BREAK!!!

They're full of more manure than their compost heap is!!! I mean, DAMN! How transparent does it get?
It's bad enough that they charge cash money for HORSEPUCKY - but to cut it like a cocaine dealer is AMAZING...

Go get the real stuff - most people that have it are happy that you want to haul it away...

That right there is how I see it - DO THAT!


I refuse to believe that any intelligent person anywhere would spend cash money for 'EXCREMENT'

Oh yeah - then again there are those who buy and listen to "RAP" music...
It must suck to be them.

"But you can dance to it..."

"Shut up, FOOL!"

 

Well I buy it in a bag, I have no truck or trailer and obviously no way to load it or unload it myself, but the bought compost is effective, I am experienced in planting trees and shrubs in my yard, I've planted some that no one else can. I was given some shrubs one afternoon that a guy dug up and left laying in his driveway, no fine roots, just the bigger ones left without dirt, they currently look like the ones people pay high dollars for at nurseries.
Compost is not just manure, it's many kinds of waste, garbage mind you, it has soil in it, but it is not junk. Topsoil is stupid, this is sterile soil, it will not grow anything because it is sterile, that's why they are able to have it in bulk and not have a bunch of weeds in it. Think store bought compost is bunk, I bought a 4' twig that was supposed to be a flowering plumb, planted it in compost, dug a huge hole that tool 15 bags to fill, in 4 years it was a beautiful 13 feet tall. I dug it up, put in a bucket that winter, come spring, it bloomed, full of blooms, like it had no clue anything had happened. I hauled it 200 miles to dad, he put it out in his yard 5 years ago, it towers over his house, full and beautiful, his horticulturist neighbor is jealous of me for being able to grow that.
I really wish I had one of those compost tumblers and a place to put it, I'd do my own, on a farm stuff never was wasted, kitchen scraps had a place too, thank god I got my granny's green thumb.

 

I kinda wonder if Dog Poop can be used.

It seems like it should be the same kind of thing....

What I really need is a big grass catcher for my mower - grass scraps do amazing things for soil.
They turn the dirt absolutely BLACK with nutrients.

(Not bad as mulch, either)

 

Double post.
Just don't bunch grass around trees.

 

I'm planning to rake the yard today...the Spring itch is getting nigh on uncontrollable.

 

I know how you feel. Its not getting my house but its getting at least 5 buildings next to me that my wifes parents have. He is dead so its all put on me to move the stuff. I have been working all winter to clean up around the barn that being taken down so I can get in it. I also have been cleaning up around a barn that is staying so I can move stuff into it. I have probably cleaned up an acre of land this last fall and winter. I am tired of working in the cold and want it to be spring. We have banned the four letter "s" word at my house. We call it soon to be unfroozen water whe we talk about it. Now we use words like spring, summer,swimming.sigheeing and other stuff related to warmer weather. I usually get out on Sunday afternoons and walk around a hour or so around the place. So I hope to being able to do that every weekend now.

 

I'd love some barn wood, as for cold, I need to get my wheelchair lift at a friends house standing up on a pallet, so I can hook it to a battery, to make sure it functions, I need to get it installed in my lift.
I need to get my remote start wired in, I put a T-harness in, so the taps are on my ignition wires without me having to cut in, due to the hand control bracket, installing that was a nightmare, I did not remove that either, think smarter, not harder. I need to tap the horn wire, not found it, and the door locks, but I did the parking lights, that was not a fun item to remove either, way up the dam dash.
I really want to get another rose or two.