Here's a site that I look at every once in a while that some of you may be interested in:

Seed Savers Exchange: Passing on our Garden Heritage

 

The way that I have eventually come to sprouting my seeds is to reserve a large planter - the bigger the better, and set small pots in it that will have one seed each placed into them. Rubber laundry tubs work well!

The advantage of a big planter is that the soil will NOT dry out, and will maintain an average level of moisture in a way that a small pot simply can not do...

Each sprout is identifiable because it is dead center of the small pot I put it in, and resembles it's neighbors.

I set the smaller pots down into the soil so that the soil in it is level with what is outside.

If possible - I place the "NURSERY PLANTER" on the side of a window air conditioner where the air conditioner throws the condensation drawn out of the air it is working on. This presents a fine mist that is good for the young plants, and continuously waters the young sprouts. Might as well get some use out of it...

When I pick up a small pot from the larger (and the soil will hold the shape of the hole) I can look to see if roots are coming out of the drain holes in the small pot. When this happens - I transplant them. It is my MARK by which I know they are ready to be relocated to the larger world.

I find this disturbs their growing the least amount, and ensures that I set them out just as they have outgrown what they were originally started in.


THE ROOTS ARE THE ENTIRE GAME!
Mark those words well


And correct thinking about soil (especially the texture of it) prepares the way for gigantic roots...

You want to have LOAM! The absolute most excellent soil of all, even if you have to make it in a very few spots where your vital plants will be.

You shouldn't even try to make the whole garden like that - just the few spots where you put things.


If you take a quart jar (approx. 1 liter) and fill it a third way up with DIRT from parts of your yard, and the rest with water - shake it up!

Then let it stand: You will see layers form.

They can be interpreted by these charts:
https://www.google.com/search?q=soil...w=1280&bih=878

I like this one:


You find your measure of each component on the sides, and read into the center.

Since most dirt around here is pure silt - I had a lot to ammend...


And this is where I think a lot of new gardeners fail - the basic of understanding what soil it is that they have to work with.
Even those who have grown plants for many years may have overlooked this - and it never should be


THIS is where it all begins, make no mistake


If you prepare your soil (or "GROWING MEDIA") right from the start - you won't be disappointed


NO amount of fertilizer will cure bad dirt.


~This is my challenge for this year - I am looking directly at that one thing.

 

Mac: Your seed pack arrived today, along with some lemon grass seeds I ordered (oddly enough, the lemon grass seed came from Singapore)

What is your best guess as to what the bag marked ??? might be?

 

I think they are from some flowers I saw had gone to seed at a friend's house---but I can't remember. I planted some in a pot on the back porch to see what comes up.

I thought you might enjoy a mystery.

 

When I have enough extra soil for a mystery - I will surely explore that!

Curiously - both Celosia and the bushes I have been cultivating seem to push weeds away from the ground under them.

What I thought was some variety of Euonemous has turned out to be what is called a "PRIVET" shrub, and I have heard of that before.

This will call for further research, because Privet gardens are what mazes are made of such as behind the government house in Colonial Williamsburg....

It's an intrigueing notion.

I expect they can be found in any southern woodline, if you know what to look for. I can send seeds anytime - because they bust out with them left and right at certain times of the year. I began the whole shrub idea because I noticed them growing here and there and transplanted a few to control soil erosion in the side yard. They get up to be twenty foot tall if you let them.

Far as that goes - I think I can send live seedlings!

~Wolfie

 

Regarding the above (NOTE)- it is important to realise that you DO NOT have to so develop the entire garden plot!

MAKE HOLES (specific plant locations) that will have good soil. Even if you have to place some kind of a surround around them to prevent mixing with the local soil or dirt.

Why for example should you make prime soil in the areas between the plants where there are only walk ways?

Only build up the spots where the plants actually ARE...

Although the payback is great, waste nothing

CONCENTRATE your efforts


Weeds do not deserve improved soil

 

I have acquired a "CARNIVOROUS PLANT", given to me by Ms. Jaime from across the road - who was afraid she was killing it somehow.

It is a hanging vine PITCHER Plant, and I think the main issue is that it desperately needs re-potting into a larger pot.

*I've also speculated that she kept her house too clean to have enough BUGS in it.

Additionally, they run their air conditioning so high that the temperature may not have been agreeable...


I am going to have to compose the soil for the new planter myself, since it is not a thing that you can buy off the shelf at any store...

60% to 70% peat moss, and the rest pearlite.

(Nitrogen poor)

I have never taken on a carnivorous plant before, though I have entertained the idea for years. What better pest control than a thing you only need to water occasionally?





Count on Ms. Jaime to find a thing like this
"Nepenthes something or other..."

Pretty radical looking, aren't they? Each holds a small amount of water, they drown bugs after attracting them. There is no sticky substance that they use

I wonder where my hobbies and interests will take me next?


*Note '40 ******* model in BG


"Mess with me, and I will find a way to reckon it up!"

 

Very cool! I do not have the patience for carnivorous plants, but think they're pretty neat.

I've got pumpkins! This is the first time that they've grown bigger than softball size. I have 4 of them (very green at this point) wit several more forming. Soup, bread and pie forthcoming....

 

Very cool, Mac. I did pumpkin one year, and they took over HUGE areas before it was all done. Next year I'd like to take another stab at mellons, but it's far too late and I don't have any choice seeds anyway.

I was considering using an old aquarium I have around the place that has a crack halfway up one of the corners as a terrarium - and I may still do so. It's about a ten or twenty gallon tank

Aside from 'skeeters and flies that get indoors from time to time there are moths that annoy me to no end...
I began work looking for a way to make a bug attracting "LIGHT DISPLAY" inside the thing some time ago, but other priorities caused the project to be passed up.
A light of some kind beneath the clear glass bottom and some glass rods or other objects set inside the tank will carry light up through whatever soil I put inside it - and bring bugs right into the middle of the carnivorous "Forrest" I'd like to culture inside of it!
Sneaky of me, isn't it?
At night - it will be a beacon that draws crummy little nuisances from all over the house!
* For this same reason, I keep a light on above the Nepenthes plant all night long


Oh and by the way - the shrubs I have been taking from the local environment turn out to be what is called "PRIVET" and are native to this area. I have heard of and read about "Privet Hedges" in the south for decades - but I never made the connection!


** The Nepenthes must be watered ONLY with one of these:
1) Distilled Water
2) Well water
3) RAIN WATER! - I now have several jugs and funnels dedicated to collecting "Gods Water" whenever it rains, which has been a lot lately...

 

Saw "blue beans" mentioned earlier. Just harvested the three rows of beans we tried this year. Pic #1 is a tray of shelled beans drying. Pic # 2 is a close up of the beans. Pic #3 is the odd part - about 1 bean in 75 or 100 was blue. Sometimes a whole pod would be blue, sometimes only one bean in the pod was blue. Anyway, saved out a handfull of the blue ones to plant by themselves next year.

As an aside - cucumbers did marvelously, picking by the bucket full, wife has about 20 pints/quarts of three different kinds of pickled done up already. About 15 pints of tomatoes, (just getting started), and will do spaghetti sauce too.

A word about tomatoes - for the two previous years we bought plants from the local stores, and while we got tomatoes, we had a lot of blossom end rot. Last year, probably 2 out of 3 tomatoes rotted on the vine. This year, we started our own plants from seed. No end rot, a plethora of tomatoes.

 

It sounds like you had some hybrid beans that were part "blue" and mostly other. It will be neat to see what kind of beans you get from all the seeds next year.

Seems the cooler wet weather is not ideal for the peppers & tomatoes here this year---only had so-so results. Cucumbers though are an entirely different story.

 

What you should do is conserve the blue ones as seed - and see if the number of blue ones is higher each year.

This is called "Enhanced Natural Selection"

Dr. Carl Sagan in the documentary "COSMOS" presented the story of the "HEIKE CRAB" ( or "Samurai" crab) which is a similar idea

If we preserve those things which have preferrable characteristics - it is possible that they will breed for the trait we select for, and this is why domestic animals and plants no longer resemble those found in the wild.

DOGS for instance, no longer much resemble wolves or coyotes, do they?

 

[quote=Greywolf;13445584]What you should do is conserve the blue ones as seed - and see if the number of blue ones is higher each year.

quote]
That's the plan - the blue seeds were separated out, will be planted by themselves next year (not near any other beans) to see if they come up all blue, or predominantly blue, what ever. If they come up predominantly blue, a couple more years should provide plenty of stock....if not, well, nothing ventured nothing gained.

 

The deer are enjoying mom and dad's garden, everything from beans to the okra, not a good year, they have devastated the Roma beans, the only string less beans planted. The groundhog had gotten the garden for 2 years in a row, he's been beat out this year, there really isn't anything that can be done, would be different if someone lived out there, movement would run them off.

 

Maples----have they/you thought about installing a pest-repellent? If deer were an issue for me, I would buy a motion activated sprayer. They run on solar power or batteries and only spray when approached by anything. Hooked up to a hose, you just shut the water off before you or your parents get to the garden. Even deer don't like to get sprayed with water. Here's an example:

Pest Control | Animal Control | Havahart® Spray Away Motion Activated Sprinkler 5266 | B875770 - GlobalIndustrial.com