Not much to thin out then!
2 Likes
Yes, thanks for asking. It was hot out there, almost 90, even tho we started around 4pm. I planted 6 rows of beans, each row about 30 feet long. My wife planted 10 rows of sweet corn in another plot, each row about 30 feet. In a different plot, I sowed seeds for cucumbers, okra, broccoli, cauliflower and spinach. I didnāt get done until 9pm, although it wasnāt totally dark yet. I love these long daylight hours this time of the year. When does it get dark there in the summer?
Today I transplanted another 10 tomato and a few pepper plants, will try to get those in the ground next week.
Weāre supposed to get some rain today and tomorrow, we actually need some to water in those seeds.
2 Likes
Wow, you and your wife have been really busy!
Your garden is much bigger than ours, but I understand you are retired?
It must be cool to have so much own vegetables to eat and conserveā¦
Right now the sun goes up at about 5:30 in the morning and down at about 9:15 in the evening. On our farm we have direct sunshine from about 9:30 in the morning until 9 in the evening (unless its cloudy like today). I love it, you can get so much done. Right now its rainy but last week we were making hay, perfect weather.
Edit: I just translated Ā°F to Ā°C and holy shit, this is really hot! Iāve seen in the weather thread that there is a heatwave right now over there but this is really hot. We only had about 15Ā°C today, yesterday was 27Ā°C!
2 Likes
Well, we have about 50 acres total, most of it is hilly and wooded, but our homestead is on about 2 acres of cleared off land. We have another 3 acres of treeless pasture land thatās not being used for anything.
Anyway we have 4 garden plots that I plowed, disked and tilled over the last 6 years. The biggest one is about 1500 square feet, the others about 1000 sqft. Our fruit trees and berry plots are scattered over the farm in different places.
I am not really retired, but have been on a break for a few years. But, I have been looking for work for a couple years, but itās difficult finding work here that matches my training and experience. During this pandemic, not a lot of folks are hiring now. I hope to find something soon, as the lockdowns are being lessened.
Thankfully my wife has a job at a local university, and has been able to work from home from April until June, now she has to go in three days a week.
For here, I have never seen it above 95F in the summer, but the humidity can make it very uncomfortable. I lived in Texas for 30 years, and itās common to have 30+ days above 100F. Now thatās some serious heat! You couldnāt really grow much of a garden there in the summer, way too hot.
As I write this, thankfully weāve been getting some rain, we sure needed some, it was getting a little bit dry.
Are you at elevation there?
Weāre in the foothills of the Appalachianās, I think our altitude is only about 800ft, though.
Some pics around the area-
8 Likes
Beautiful country. Youāre a lucky guy.
2 Likes
I was thinking you were higher upā¦ That looks like it could be around hereā¦well except the streams around here arenāt rocky like that. Is agriculture big in that area? Around here you find corn/soybean fields everywhere once you get out of townā¦
Thanks, not all those pics are from our property, the second and third are up the road about a mile from here. We were at my wifeās family cemetery putting down decorations for Memorial Day, and these were some pics around there. I think it is a very serene and beautiful setting. The creek is over at our inlawsā over the hill, still the family farm, but their property.
I have been to your area, about 25 years ago, I took a trip to NoCal, and drove Highway 101/1 from Crescent City all the way down to San Francisco, what an awesome drive. I went out to the Point Reyes lighthouse one day, I had stayed at Petaluma that morning and it was hot, but when I got out the point it was maybe 50 degrees and the wind was howling. But, what a view from there. Not to many people on the beaches that day!
Not too high, but down in south KY the mountains are higher, and itās even more rugged. The real mountains are over the border in WV, you talk about some roller coaster roads, and very remote areas.
Up here in the hills, not a lot of large scale farms, probably the biggest farms grow tobacco, but a lot less of them than recent years. My wifeās family grew it for many years, itās very hard work from what Iāve heard. They stopped because prices dropped when companies started buying more foreign tobacco.
The areas just west of us is flatter, and they grow quite a bit of soybeans and corn, along with lots of horses. Supposedly the high phosphorus amounts in the soil are good for their bones.
We really benefit from marine cooling here. In little Point Reyes Station, itās less foggy, windy, and cold than out at the lighthouse, but it still feels like a different world than nearby Petaluma, Novato, and San Rafael (which we collectively refer to as āover the hillā).
Itās good apple country here.
2 Likes
Interestingā¦tobacco use to be a crop around hereā¦i remember in high school i had a buddy who worked for a guy and they hung it to dry or somethingā¦all i know is it was hard workā¦all that manual labor is expensive these days ==no wonder it all got shipped out.
Where you are you get very little snow? I guess i havenāt looked at averages for that area. I know a guy who fled Wisconsin for Tennessee ā¦mild winters, cheap living. Seems to like it. I worked with a lady from TN and iām pretty sure she was heading back that way after she retiredā¦did not like our winters.
2 Likes
Yeah, my wife grew up on this farm, and all of them were involved. This is how she explained it to me-
The planting, fertilizing, doping (insects really get after it), cutting, staking, hanging and curing, then taking it to market was really hard, nasty, dirty work. Especially in the hot, humid late summer, when you cut it and haul it, the stuff would get all over you. But, after itās cured it had a very nice smell.
Afterwards, they would strip and bale it, and load it up in trucks and sell it at the big tobacco warehouses in Morehead. Theyāve torn them down in recent years, but I remember them, huge warehouses, like hundreds of thousands of square feet. Buyers would inpect it, grade it and it would be auctioned off. She said they grew it and processed it themselves for maybe 15 years, then after her dad passed they leased it out where someone would grow it on their land, and they would get a percentage of the sales. They last grew it about 20 years ago.
I stake up my tomatoes with the tobacco sticks, theyāre about 4ft long wooden stakes that the stalks would hang on up in the barn rafters. My neighbors, who used to grow tobacco, but now donāt, gave me a couple hundred of them, for free. Very nice gesture. Believe me, I use just about all of them on the 'maters.
The last four winters have been wet, but not a lot of big snows, nothing over 3in. Lots of rain, but not too much frozen stuff. The temps have varied, this winter lowest temp was 11, last year about 0, but it didnāt last. Iāve been here now 6 years, the biggest snow was about a foot twice in 2015, and the worst cold, it dropped to -8 one night, and -14 the next. For someone who lived in Texas for 30 years, the cold was a shock to the system, but I have gotten more used to it.
We get lots of rain year round, average is about 43 inches. August may be the driest, but April thru June is the wettest. Our tomatoes blight out by August because itās so blasted wet and humid in the summer, even tho we mulch and prune. All the rain makes things super green, but it comes with a price.
1 Like
@subdood_ky_z6b, Iām catching up with posts after a break. Lost all of my fruit also due to early blooms and multiple late freezes. Some berries possible. best of luck to you.
3 Likes
Thanks, itās been a tough year for a lot of folks. The big orchard we go to outside Lexington posted a message stating that they will not have any tree fruit this year- apples, pears, peaches, cherries and plums. So sad to hear that, they have hundreds of apple and pear trees, so thatās got to be a blow. They do have blue, black and raspberries and veggies to sell, tho.
But, at least our berry plants seem to be setting a good crop, and hopefully weāll have a good veggie harvest this year.
1 Like
Spectacular looking land. Love the creek.
I canāt believe you are just getting your tomatoes in. I never wait until the beginning of June, and Iām in Michigan. I figured in Kentucky youād be planting by the end of April
Scott
1 Like
Thanks, it is nice here. While we were slaving and sweating away this evening digging trenches for our taters, the sun was down over the hills behind us, but across the valley you could see the trees still lit up on the opposite hillside. Made for a nice backdrop. This time of the year, every thing is so lush and green.
Regarding our gardens, we had to wait until the freezes were over in April, then most of May it was so wet I couldnāt get the tractor out to plow, and then disk. After it dried out enough to till, the plots were hard as a rock, it was brutal running the tiller thru almost hardpan, and we have 4 big plots! My neck and back are still sore from that.
We sowed all of our above ground crops this week- corn, beans, cukes, okra, cole crops. And today we did potatoes. Tomatoes and peppers will go in the ground in a few days, Iām still hardening them off before they go in the ground.Due to freezes and then rain, we usually plant them out around Memorial Day, so weāre a week or so behind.
1 Like
I find pine bark fines to be equally as hydrophobic as peat.
I have never had a problem with either. Itās all my blueberries get pine and peat.
The pine bark I use is rather well composted, that helps. In my potting soil mixes I add compost, and that seems to help too. Not really an issue for me. DE is added to my mixes too and that retains a lot pof water in the soil and tends to keep it moist, at least longer than without DE the size of perlite. I add one part potting soil to balance the pH better, and add some perlite. For blueberries though pine and peat and sometimes DE.
Not sure how this is on subject?
Pine bark drains well, peat if dry runs off to the sides. never had that with pine. Water always runs right through it.
1 Like
Please expand on āā¦well composted, that helps.ā Not sure i follow.
Composted pine bark is the main component in my mixes. Primarily for its durability, but also for porosity, low pH and capillarity. I tend to not allow substrates to fully dry, tho, always keeping some moisture. IME, peat breaks down too quickly. My potteds average over three years between refreshes.
IE, I have a couple Eureka seedlings that are 3.5yrs along and potted in a 5:1:1:1 mix, bark:pumice:compost:de. Gets challenging during our dry triple digit summers, but they love the max comfy. Iād planned to repot this past April, but didnāt. Have no issues waiting til next year if I canāt get around to it before fall.
This year Iām trying a nursery poms that will eventually go in ground. Plan is to establish for a several years in pots before transferring to their perm location. Will use similar mix. O, alost forgot, I do dose with dolomite during initial hydration to mitigate low pH issues.
Iāve been toying w the idea of using coir, just havenāt thus far. Seems to have similar longevity, tho not too sure it can compete cost-wise in my area. Would be gud to have an alternative for times of low availability.