peas to beans

it is going to be about 100F for a few days in a row,
and the peas are already showing signs of fading,
they are a cool weather crop and don't like the heat much,

beans take a few days to come up,
so I am going to plant a bean between each of the peas in the row,
and as the peas die off, the beans will come up.

no wasted space or time in my garden.

now time to go find my fans

tiller falure

I tilled up most of my garden plots,
it is how I break up the soil for a first year garden,
I found out later that tillers are not meant for that, but it works if you do it correct and is cheaper than getting a tractor
I also use my tiller to mix things into the soil, like wood chips and leaves.
but I had something happen to me when I was one garden plot away from finishing getting the ground set,
a pin fell out that was holding on one of the tine sets

and it was shoved by the other tine set into the seal on the gear box,
and it is break the seal,

if you can make out the picture...

so it started leaking gear oil and making lots of noise,
I figured out what had gone wrong with it and knew I did not have the time to fix it (mainly waiting for the part to show up) before the plants needed to be planted.

I had no other way to do all that work in the amount of time I had,
I should have at least had a broad fork, it would have been very doable with one if not preferred over the tiller, but without proper hand tools I was stuck.
thankfully someone used a tractor and broke up all the ground for me
and I got to borrow a tiller (after fixing it, it was not that hard to fix it) to mix in the wood chips and soil in the ground.
by the way, I always drain the extra fuel out and run the motor dry on my tiller when I am done for the season, and that makes it start every time I need it, the one I borrowed had the fuel left in it, and that is why it would not run at first, and why it was not easy to fix)

so I did get everything planted in time, 
but it would have been way nicer to have a good backup plan and not have to count on others saving me.

now I ask my self when using anything, what will I do if it breaks.

I have fixed my tiller now, so I am all set for next year.
and here is the gear box for my tiller removed and ready to be taken apart

and the 2 halves of the gear box after I took it apart,

and the new seal

new seal installed and the case put back together (RTV silicone is used between the 2 halves to keep it from leaking)

and here it is all done and ready to go.

now time to do another blog post (it will be up in about 3 hours or so)

Blue Lotus

water plants are fun,
now that all the major food planting is done,
I am off to play with some other neat plants,
the first one I am trying is the Blue Lotus
got seeds here,

for water plants you will need something that will hold water,
so I happen to have a cast iron pot that is 3 foot across,

I could plant directly in that,
but then I could not move the plants if I wanted to,
so I am putting them in a pot,
and they make special pots for water plants that have holes all in them, but not big enough to let the dirt out

the blue water lotus likes rich clay soil,
so I got fallen leaves and clay soil, mixed them together and added about 1/2 inch sand over the top.

now I take a few seeds,
I am going to try 4 of them,
this should give them enough space if they all come up, but not be bad of one or two do not.

now if you just plant them you might have to wait several years for them to come up,
but if you cut the seed coating open they will come up in just a few weeks
and if you try it with sand paper it is going to take you hours for each one,
so use a big sharp file (like for woodworking)

and you want to go down to where the seed starts getting white,
but don't go into the white part of the seed,
you only need one spot, you don't need to do it over the entire thing, 
my camera can't get good closeups so I have no picture.

then I filled it up with water and put the seeds in the sand, but still over the clay soil,
and filled up the water level to about an inch over the dirt, teh leaves like to float on the top of the water, so I will bring the level up later.
and here it is.

now I have to decide to screen it in, or add a fish to keep out the mosquitoes
but the cats will eat the fish, so I would have to screen it in anyway,
maybe I will just take the pot with the plants in it out of the cast iron pot and change the water once a week...

now time to put the rear seat of my car back in (took it out to move the cast iron pot) 

rice

rice is pretty easy to grow and gets you big harvests,
even if you don't have much room it works well,
you can grow it in 5 gallon buckets of a kiddy pool
here is my rice growing

I took an old kiddy pool and added about 4 inches of fallen tree leaves (to add nitrogen)
then added about 4 inches of the local dirt,
filled it up with water, 
then stuck the rice seeds in 

I should have put the seeds in first and then added the water as it is hard to keep track of where the seeds are under water...
but I later replanted the spots I missed

the goal is to put in the rice on 5 inch centers, or 2 inches apart if planting in a row,
and 6 to 12 plants total if you are using a 5 gallon bucket (you can make the soil deeper in a 5 gallon bucket than you can in a kiddy pool).

the neat thing about rice is that you can just flood the rice,
that makes it super easy to water, and you are not going to over water it,
and most weeds can't take being under water, so it is very little work to take care of,

I have been told that the 5 gallon bucket can get you 5 pounds of rice, I know it is productive, but not sure it is that high,
I will report back when mine is done,

there are 2 kinds of rice as far as were you can plant them,
one kind needs flooding,
the other can be grown in regular garden soil (they call this upland rice),
I planted the kind that does not need flooding
it is called blue bonnet,
rareseeds.com has it
http://www.rareseeds.com/rice-blue-bonnet/
it is a 120 day growing season kind
and they have another rice that needs flooded and is 150 days
it is carolina gold

there are other places that have other rices,
http://www.kitazawaseed.com/seeds_japanese_rice.html
 but I know nothing about them,
will have to look them up or grow them to find out

I know what you are thinking,
if you grow the rice you will need to take the hulls off before eating it,
and that sounds hard,
but here is an easy project to make a rice huller,
http://www.savingourseeds.org/pdf/grain_dehuller.pdf
and the rest of the website is also good
http://www.savingourseeds.org/

so start growing rice,
there is likely still time to start this year.

now time to fix the rototiller

cactus

often you don't want to store food, but still want backup food,
cactus are great at that, and some grow down to -25F and lower, and that is sure colder than it gets here.

now these are all small, but I have seen them get as big as a truck (I collected the pads I am growing from plants that size), and having many tons of food around seems like a good plan to me

they have fruit that is tasty
here is one developing now, it is a yellow one and should get to be 3 to 4 times the size it is now, 
I have not yet tasted one like it, so I don't know how good it is.

and here is one from last year that is still on the plant (although half has rotted away) and they taste like spicy watermelon

you can also eat the leaves, just burn off the spines (something the deer and racoons can't do) and chop them up,
some people remove the skin first (this is what I would be doing), but not needed (or so they tell me),
the young pads are going to taste better, but you can eat them all.

they are cactus, so water them once a week in the hot dry weather,
you want them to totally dry out before you water them,
if they have weeds growing in the pot, the weeds should die before you water them,
lots of people don't water them in the summer,
but they only grow when it is hot and they have water,
so give them water and they will get very big very fast.

and if nothing else the are pretty

now time to fix a web forum problem (I know, not gardening related...)

creative cat food

to start, cats on a farm area  great idea, they catch some gofers, but not to many, they catch even more mice and snakes, so they are great on the farm, but how would I feed them without the store ?
we should be practicing for the possibility, I am trying to run a survival garden here,
so they should be trying as well.

so here is the cat's food dish

and there were ants in the dish this morning,
I did not put the ants in the dish, but still the I figure the cats should be eating all that free food that wondered into the food dish,


anyway, here are the cats lying around and not practicing for future survival (and not eating ants),

asking the cats to eat the ants failed,
they will eat crickets happily,
and they love gofers, but I can't catch that many, and I will only hunt for them while protecting my crops,
just think of the chaos in the natural order that would be caused by be hunting for the cats daily...

anyway, tuna was the solution 

the cats will eat anything covered in tuna water (the actual tuna being to valuable to feed to the cats)
so the cats finally did eat all the ants very happily.

I wonder if they will eat other bugs covered in tuna water,
tests will be reported on this blog.

now time to watch the laundry dry

grocery store gardening

there are all kinds of plants you can grow from the grocery store
it is a very easy and low priced way to get a garden going

here is turmeric I grew from the fresh turmeric I got in the store

 the tick is to get it "organic"
this is because irradiation is not allowed if it is organic,
so it should grow,

here are what they look like at the store (imagine it without the dirt)
and this is ginger, but the turmeric looks almost the same

it might take them a few months to come up as they may have been growing in a place out of season with where you are. they grow up to be very neat plants that will get a few foot high,

you use the plant in cooking by taking ribosomes (kind of tuber ish roots) and peeling them,
then grating it small, then add that to what you are cooking (like rice)

potatoes work well from the store,

but might have bacteria and viruses that can make them not grow so well,
so you clean them up by taking a 6 inch long sprout from the potato and cutting off the last 4 inches,
you then toot that in water,
plant that out in your garden for small potatoes the first year,
save and plant the tiny potatoes the next year, and the second year you will get full size and production,
you can replant potatoes for 6 years (I am pretty sure it is 6 years) in a row before having to clean them up again.

winter squash is another good one

the seeds in them will grow new squash,
some times the plants are a hybrid and that is usually ok, they will not grow precisely like the original one,
but they will make squash you can eat, just save seeds from the ones you like to replant the next year.

sweet potatoes and yams are also easy (ish)

you get the tuber in the store,
and the plant will grow whatever it does not have,
so the tuber will grow vines,
and the vines will grow tubers,
so you plant the tuber and get vines from it,
you then cut off the vines and root them in water,
then plant in the garden,
the vines planted with no tubers will grow tubers
get it ?

garlic is an easy one

just take the garlic heads apart into smaller parts

and plant them in the ground,
here are the ones I planted in super early spring (should have been planted in the fall)

they will all grow there own garlic head

sometimes beans and other seeds will grow well from the store,
remember that organic are likely to be living sold as food, so it has a higher chance of growing.
get raw (like peanuts)
and plant a few and see what you get.
my fenugreek seeds just came up last nigh and were sold as food at an indian grocery store, 
but the navy beans I planted 2 weeks ago did not come up (likely from irradiation or heat) 
so it is kind of hit or miss, but you can get some very neat things just from what you are already getting at the store.

now time to go look at my fenugreek and peanuts from the store that are just sprouting