hot

extra post for the day,

it sure is hot out,
I just finished eating the cucumber pictured in previous post,
very good,
I love my garden,

so even the kitties are wilting now, I would water them but I doubt they would like that :(

I can take another 20F on top of the 103 it already is (and it is only 1pm)
but I suspect that not much else could take that kind of temps.

now time to have some sweet corn.

hand tool care

I left one of my small shovels outside as part of a gopher trap setup,
here is the rust on the end that it got on it after 2 days

I did dig some dirt with it in an effort to take the rust off,
but could not get it all off (as seen in picture)

here is a shovel the is owned by someone else and lives in the garden outside,

it is totally rusted and the wood is decaying,
only took it only a few years to end up that way (I am pretty sure it was 3 years).

this shovel is a year older and used way more

no rust and perfect handle (as in no chance of splinters when using it),

my secret to keeping my hand tools from wearing out pointlessly early ?
it is washing them,
drying them if needed (only in winter),
and putting them in my shed.

just rinsing them off and keeping them out of the rain and sun will do a huge amount for longer life for them,
my tools they will be 10 years old when others have replaced what they have 2 times, and mine still look and work perfect

now time to eat my first cucumber from the garden !

potato lessons

so the potato patch seems to be a total failure,
here is the post on it from before
http://coarsegoldsurvivalgarden.blogspot.com/2013/05/potatoes.html

5 to 10 plants were gone today,
they just look like holes where a plant use to be

so I went and looked closer, decided that the gophers were taking way to much and I better harvest what I can as fast as I can,
but found out that the gophers ate the plants because they ran out of potatoes to eat.
there were tunnels around each plant
so the wood chips are a failure from the point of view of not being able to trap the gophers at all,

next issue is the plants growing in the wood chips,
here is what color the plants should be and it is growing in dirt

here is one growing in the wood chips and the leaves are yellow and the plants are not doing that well

and the other issue with growing them in wood chips is that you can't reach in and harvest the potatoes without hurting the plants like you can if they are in leaves

so the lessons are:
don't let anyone convince you that rotting wood chips are just like rotting leaves,
plants don't grow well in just rotting wood cips,
you can't trap gophers in wood chips,
and you can't harvest the potatoes without hurting the plant like you can if you use rotting leaves.

and here is a kitty that was looking at me as I walked by today

seed saving

choosing what seeds to save for planting next year can be hard,
just think of plants like self programming nano technology (they likely are)

here is a wonderful study done by people in china (they don't care about our "laws" of biology)
http://www.new-holistic-medicine.com/eciwo-seed-selection.html
and it shows how the plants self program, or at least how to take advantage of it.

the neat thing about this study is that it matches what seed savers do already for best results
things like saving corn seed from the center of the cob only,
and saving beet seeds from the bottom and chard from the top...
so even if that study in china is wrong (it is very likely correct), it is at least a great way to remember what seeds to take and what not to.

remember that you want to save seeds from the plants that did the best,
if you eat the best plants and save the seeds from the junky plants, then every year you will get worse and worse plants,
and what defines the best plant ?
you define it, you get to choose how ever you want.
when you save seeds you are guiding what the plants will be like,
they will shift with or without you,
so choose wisely the direction you want them going.

for the other parts of seed saving there are a few things to keep in mind,

one is inbreeding depression, some plants have it, others do not,
so find out what population size you need in order not to have it happen.

the other big idea is how you process the seeds, there are only a few process methods, so just find out what one to apply to your plant.

most of it can be learned here
http://www.seedsave.org/issi/issi_904.html
they know what they are talking about and it is easy to understand,
but if that is not enough, here are other people with good info, and by the time you read 3 of them you will get the idea of how it all works and why.
http://realseeds.co.uk/seedsavinginfo.html

and maintaining purity is not that critical for a home gardener, 
mixing things often gets you better foods, so keep that in mind when reading this one.
http://www.nativeseeds.org/resources/seedsaving

also good info
http://survivingthemiddleclasscrash.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/how-to-harvest-process-and-store-vegetable-seeds/

ground cherries

ground cherries are great,
they are yellow berries that grow inside little paper lanterns,
don't eat them when they are still green or it will make you sick to your tummy,
but when the paper shell drys out they have usually turned color and are sweet and tasty
mine are still green and not dry

and some are still blurry, but they should be in focus by the end of the season. (I need another camera for close up shots)

anyway,
they are a nightshade family and grow lots like tomatoes or potatoes, so easy to grow.
when I first had one I was so very happy with it that I wanted to just farm them for a living,
so I ordered 10K seeds for them and started planning, I started sharing them with friends and co workers,
then I found out that only about 1/3 of the others out there really liked them like me...
I do get excited about things early and often

they self seed very well and you will likely only have to plant them once to have them every year,
I have not planted them in 4 years and have had lots every year, and this year is no exception

there are lots of wonderful foods that just are not currently very popular in the USA,
but people in russia and india can get them at bakeries, so they are out there in the world,

if you leave them in the paper after you harvest them, they will last for quite a few weeks,

here is where I got the seeds
http://www.seedsavers.org/onlinestore/groundcherry/Ground-Cherry-Aunt-Mollys-OG.html
and many other places have them,
and there are other varieties of them out there (I have 3 others)
but this one is very good and grows well

and now for a pile of sleeping kitty picture

type or variety

the type or variety of a plant can be very critical,
and it is a topic that many people do not even think about,

I once had someone tell me that corn failed on them and it was not possible to grow were they were,
so I asked what variety of corn they had planted,
they told me "corn"
so I asked what kinds of corn they had tried growing,
they replied with "corn" again...
I dropped the topic at the time, but later found out they had only tried a triple sweet corn,
and they are the most fragile corn possible, and his chickens sure did not need that kind of corn to live on,
they would have been way happy with dent or flour corn.
but even within the flour corns there are many many varieties, and same with the dent corn, or popcorn or any of the other kinds of corn
the most durable variety I have ever seen is the White Mohave Flour corn (and most of the searches you do on it is info posted by me, I find this kind of sad there are not more people that like it) but it is not a high producer, but it will thrive in very harsh conditions.


there are varieties of plants that are made to taste good, and some that are good at living under the weather conditions of a local area, and many other traits

so it pays to look at what any variety is going to get you,
now most seed companies refuse to say anything bad about any seed,
so they often will not tell you if something can't take heat, or does not taste good, or can't be shipped well, etc...

here are some things to look at when making a decision,
genetic diversity helps plants grow better, but most of the time people get rid of genetic diversity when breeding for good taste, but this is not always the case,
the long island seed project would breed for good taste and for plants that could take harsh conditions, and then back cross them to the original seeds and then reselect for the good traits, and this gave them some of the best plants out there in every area,
so if you see any seed that says "long island improved" it is likely a very good one, and there are many of them out there sold in hardware store and seed companies everywhere.
http://www.liseed.org/

another company specializes in genetic diversity, the idea is that you get seeds from them and then you save seeds from what does well in your area and you will have a local variety that does fantastic in a very short amount of time,
and they are adaptive seeds
http://www.adaptiveseeds.com/

looking at something like beet seeds,
there is the standard red one, and it tastes great,
there are the ones with the fancy white and red rings in them and they look fun, but are really not that good for taste,
then there is the Cylindra (or Formanova) Beet and many people love them the most,
and being that they all grow about the same, the taste is about all there is to decide on that one,

my point is just because you tried "corn" and it failed does not mean that another variety is not going to do fantastic.

here is an over 12 inch wide leave on a squash and it is a big plant that set flowers faster than most of the ones I am growing,

and another variety growing right next to it the only has 5 inch leaves and is lots more yellow leaves

no idea what kind of squash I will get from each one,
but that is why I grew over 20 varieties of it this year,
I am testing what works better in my area and what I like more to eat...

watering depth

how deep do I water each plant and why,
the answer is how deep the roots go on each plant,
find out how deep the roots are and you know how deep to water,
for example, 
corn and squash have deep roots,
onions have shallow roots
the shallow watered things are going to need water more often,
my onions need water once a day (24 hours or so, not 36 or 47.999 hours)
and if you spend lots of time and water to deep water them you still need to water them the next day,
but the corn you can water deep and it will not need water for 2 days or more.


the next usual question is how do I tell how deep I have watered,
and answer is to dig down and look.
just water an area of example dirt, then dig down and see how deep the water got,
you can also tell how deep the roots of a plant are by digging down and looking, but that hurts the plants, so likely best to just look it up.

here is the example of looking it up for beans
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010137veg.roots/010137ch20.html

good luck on your watering adventures
and I think I fixed the issue with people not being able to leave comments 

and the index for the linked book is here for people that can't figure it out
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrary/010137veg.roots/010137toc.html

garden update 1

so there are good and bad things in the garden,
here is an update,

so my garden was growing along, all this squash growing and not really seeming to do anything, just getting slightly bigger.
but now I am seeing actual things start to grow all over

here are the grapes growing

here are grape leaves drying out and dying on the end of the grape next to the previous one, but the grapes are still growing on it (I think a gopher ate roots and that is why it has a hard time getting water)

here is the last grape, doing very well with green ends and lots of new growing

here are the potatoes that are not fenced and growing in the wood chips and dirt,

seems to me like this is somewhat of a failure, if not a total failure by the time I try to harvest,
they need to be growing in leaves, I can't trap the gophers in this plot and they are not growing particularly well, some show signs of the wrong things in the soil...
the lack of a fence appears to be not bad,
tops of some are chewed off, but clearly it was not liked due to most still being there,
anyway, if using this method of planting, use leaves and rotting leaves !

the squash is massive and covering the ground entirely in some areas

and it has squash on it now

and very little squash hiding all over

the sorghum is just growing slow

the water lotus have put cute round leaves that float out

and here are the roots and leaves growing out of one of the seeds (black) under the water

here is the first tomato out of the garden,

here are the beans coming up from under the dried peas

here are the beans that were planted somewhere else

I had tried to cover them from the insects, but it was to late for all but one

and I covered it again so it will be safe

I found one inch long cucumbers growing

and one on another plant

here is a runner bean actually making a bean

the tops of the onions are starting to fall over everywhere in the garden, so harvest time is near for them

here is a very happy potato flowering that is growing in regular dirt (got it from tom wagner before he had a website to sell things http://www.newworldcrops.com ),

other potatoes in the regular ground are doing just fine

the radishes are starting to dry out and finish up making seeds (hopefully)

I have no idea why I took this picture
(picture not posted due to being pointless)

what we thought were cherry tomato seeds were not,
they are a striped green tomato

and there are a few of them growing

the southern peas that did get to grow at all are doing well with flowers all over

the flour and sweet corn plot is doing well with tassels  and silks all over

the flint corn plot is doing fine

the sunflowers are 2 times the high as the corn and way taller than me

the rice is doing well

one of the mountain yams got all but one leave ate...

it is likely going to be just fine, but good thing I grew backups

the wonderberry is big

with lots of small black fruit that looks just like belladonna, but you can eat them safely

the sugar cane (plant on the left, bay tree is to the right) is looking pathetic as usual

the chuffa is doing well all the places I put it

and the cats sort of like old corn tortillas, they did drag them all out of the food dish, but have not finished them all yet (bet they will by afternoon though

I have spent 2 hours posting all this, I know I missed some things, but I am not going back out in the rain to fix that,
yes it is raining here, so odd and fun !