Year of the Patriot: Gardens

[Eric Krewson]

My girlfriend had really poor germination in her garden, I had 3 hills of watermelon without the first seed coming up, I started round two for both of us today, a sure fire way to get healthy plants. I tried some rooting compound on some of my best varieties of tomatoes' suckers to see how fast they root.

[Eric Krewson]

Update;

I am trying squash on a trellis, you have to prune and tie up the plants according to youtube, this is just an experiment.

My cucumbers are producing, almost pickle time, that is dill in the foreground.

[PaulN/KS]

Gettin' hot here in the middle of the Mid-West so need to go out this morning and pick what spinach that I have . Beans are starting to blossom so should have some to pick by the 4th. 

[Eric Krewson]

Anybody have any experience with cotton gin waste as a soil builder? There is a gin about 15 miles from the house that gives it away for free, a friend says it is better than manure.

My only concern would be the defoliant they often spray on the cotton prior to combining it to get rid of the leaves on the cotton plant to have less crud in the picked cotton.

[HH~]

Thought they combine blows it back on foeld and they burn it. What they do in MO.

HH~

[Eric Krewson]

They do with the stubble, the gin waste is what is left after they run the cotton through the gin, short fibers, seed hulls and any trash that comes through from the combine.

[HH~]

If it rots you may compost it and get a ph on it. Prolly take a ton of water to compost it. Whomever disposes of it should know what its good for i would think Eric.

HH~

[bjrogg]

Eric around here dairy farmers use to feed the cotton seeds to their cows. They stopped because of the weed seeds. The had some nasty weeds. I’m afraid that’s all the information I have about cotton waist.

It’s been a while but I got my crops planted.

Spring started early here and lots of sugar beets got planted in March. Most of those are looking really good now. I waited till 4-7-21 and planted my first two fields in what seemed to be perfect conditions. They were just pushing out of the ground when it got down to 19 degrees here and stay cold for three nights. That was very bad timing for my early beets. They can handle the cold , but they our very delicate as they are emerging from ground and still don’t have their leaves opened up. I had to many at that stage and had to replant my first two fields. I planted my second batch starting 4-17-21 and those all came up great.

It’s been dry. And either to hot or to cold this spring. Late April and early may turned cold again and I waited to plant corn. Started Planting corn 5-13-21 in very good conditions and hot. The corn emerged in a week with perfect stand and  very even emergence. Then my soybeans. Then we got another light frost that dinged the corn. Fortunately it didn’t hurt the soybeans. The corn grew out of it the soybeans wouldn’t have if they had been injured.

Memorial Day I started planting Navy beans.
Still dry, but enough moisture for germination. Hot which navy seed likes. I planted them very deep as no rain in forecast to amount to anything. That was a good call and my Navy seed came up perfect. Even as deep as I planted them they were up in 6 days.

We are still dry dry. Our wheat is really hurting. The rest of our crops are small enough so far that they are hanging in there pretty good so far.

Got sweet corn planted and up in garden. Watermelon I started in containers. That stuff took forever to sprout.

A few strawberries ripe.( that’s pretty early for here) asparagus was good but could have used more rain. Rhubarb to.

Don’t have many pictures but I’ll try to post a couple.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

First picture is sugar beet plant ready to emerge. When they freeze hard at this stage just starting to emerge it’s a crap shoot. Some make it and some don’t. Unfortunately I had to many that didn’t.
Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Here’s field of sugar beets I planted 4-17.
They take awhile to get this size. Once they get here they grow pretty fast. They will soon be needing some rain.
Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

This is first field of Navy Beans. This field can be very challenging to get beans up in. Heavy ground . I don’t think I ever got them to come up this even in this field before. They are off to a good start.
Bjrogg

[HH~]

Wet here and cool. Wet and cool is no good for some garden stuff. Our wheat wiill some out soon as we get some dry weather. Our corn is behind a  a bit but with all this rain we are catching up.

Was at Pappys on Friday and it rained like monsoon season in Laos. Next thing ya know a wall of water came down the hillside. Thought we was gonna lose the pik-a-nic tables under the over head. Was nuts. Had dive in a save some hide tanning stuff going down the gully. Almost slipped into the gully. Water was doing 40 mile per hour prolly. It tore chit up purty gud.

We've had feet of rain this year. Was dry early but lately rivers are way up. Hope we dont get two months of no rain. That would be bad.

Them some flat fields, cept for color of dirt looks like the west bank of the mighty Mo in Iowa BJ.



HH~

[bjrogg]

Yup definitely flat landers here. Although we do have a lot of fall towards the big lake. The water really moves fast towards the lake here to and can really wash stuff out.

The field with the Navy Beans is really flat. One of the things that makes it so challenging to farm. It was my grandpa’s farm. It’s really good dirt but you just don’t get away with farming it even slightly on the wet side. If you do get everything perfect and then get a big rain it likes to have water laying over entire field and most crops (especially Navy Beans) don’t like that. So far so good.

We have been using a lot of cover crops for several years now and it is changing our soil structure. They do cause several problems and add a lot of extra challenges of their own. We are pretty dedicated to using them now though and they are really gaining popularity in this area.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

This is my Rye cover crop seeded after harvesting sugar beets late last October. The picture was taken late February as soon as snow was gone.

I let it get about a foot and a half tall then kill it before I plant my Navy Beans. I plant my sugar beets right into it while it is still growing. It is a good way to keep wind erosion from blowing off my small sugar beets. I also plant my corn and soybeans into it. Sometimes killing it prior to planting and sometimes after.

The wildlife love it. I saw deer, Fox, coyote, turkey, pheasant, rabbit and of course groundhogs enjoying it.The soil loves it. It captures nutrients and holds soil in place. The residue incorporated into the soil helps the ground perk.

It does take a lot of management though. Getting it planted. Deciding when to terminate it. I’m glad I killed it when I did this year. If it’s dry it uses up your moisture if you leave it to long. If you terminate it and it gets wet it makes a mat that stops your ground from drying enough to plant.

It’s just another challenge in a already challenging job.

Good Luck with all your gardens. I always enjoy seeing your work.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Forgot the picture
Bjrogg