Ooh let us know how that works out with the potatoes next year gary350 I think it just gets too cold here, and so far every "little" extra protection I've tried has been gleefully occupied by some kind of burrowing animals. Sometimes its just moles and I don't mind, but chipmunks and voles have loved any tuberous crop as extra winter offerings
If I ever have the extra budget for it, I'll try lining a boxed area with hardware cloth or burying large containers with drainage holes secured with hardware cloth.
...too cool that you have red ripe homegrown fresh tomatoes for Christmas
I only planted sweet potatoes before. What are the requirements for regular potatoes. Can I plant it in a large container? Do they crawl everywhere like sweet potatoes? I know I can eat sweet potato leaves but since potatoes are nightshades, the leaves aren't edible, right?
I planted a few things I've never grown much before and am glad I did. Even though they are what I call 'One and done" plants, I did put in 8 cabbage and 6 cauliflower plants this year and they are really producing nice heads. I've picked 3 cabbages and they must each be about 12 inches across and the cauliflowers are about the same. We're having a baked ham with cauliflower casserole for dinner tomorrow night. And for the New Year's day dinner we are having the traditional meal of black eye peas with ham and a smothered cabbage with corned beef. They are for bringing luck and money for the new year. Truth is, the only thing they bring me is gas-----yeah, I said that. LOL
Everything else is going great in the garden. Salad greens are so plentiful that I simply can't eat it all, so friends, neighbors and family get their share. The wife and I got out in the garden this morning and I picked a dozen turnips, about 60 habanero peppers, enough collard greens to make a very nice batch with enough to eat and some to put up in freezer bags for later.
We also picked a good 30 green tomatoes that had to come off the fast fading vines or they would have gone to waste. We ate some fried for lunch and I'll use most of the rest to make some Salsa Verde for later use.
Now, if I had a way to not have to deal with all this oxalis that is growing like nuts right now. I can't wait for the first few frosts, if we get any this year, to kill the oxalis.
imafan26 wrote:I only planted sweet potatoes before. What are the requirements for regular potatoes. Can I plant it in a large container? Do they crawl everywhere like sweet potatoes? I know I can eat sweet potato leaves but since potatoes are nightshades, the leaves aren't edible, right?
I tried some potatoes in some large containers this year. They really didn't do all that well, but I'm not well versed in container gardening. They do really well for me in the ground. Any potatoes I've ever planted make a bush, not a long vine like a sweet potato vine. I don't think I would eat regular potato leaves. I think you're right about that.
Gumbo -- you always post deliciousness for holidays. Everything sounds great!
Imafan, regular plants are equivalent to determinate tomatoes in vigor and height. Similar issues, too. Lots of side branches/vines. Some bloom, some don't. I always have to put up some kind of support -- 3-4 ft high chicken wire works well because I can use that to make "silo" to hold the mulch (pine needles, leaves, hay/straw, compost) but if I don't use a fencing, I use stakes and string corral.
I do think you should be able to grow them during your coldest season -- harvest is usually 90-110 days from planting tubers and there are early, mid, and late varieties.
jal_ut wrote:My garden has about a foot of snow on it today and its still snowing. Guess when it quits, I can go start the Big Green and go clear the driveway.
This is what I mean by "Big Green"
60 HP John Deere doing tilling.
For snow removal we take off the tiller and put on a blade.
I want to have a piece of property big enough to actually need something like that to prepare my garden. But I'm getting a bit long in the tooth and can't see me living rural for at least another 5 years or so since the wife is still working and not close to retirement. But, one can wish.
All this week we will have grandchildren staying with us. Next weekend will be the family Christmas celebration. After the first of the year comes the planning stage for mainly tomatoes and peppers. With nearly 200 varieties in inventory it will take a while to whittle the number down to 35. I try to have 5 or 6 new to me varieties or maybe a few more since folks send me a few varieties to either grow out or try. This is the year to re-bulb the lighting system.
In-between planning and preparation for spring I hope to knock out a couple or three short stories to submit to my favorite science fiction magazines.
Thanks for the info on the potatoes. I did not realize they required cooler weather. I probably will stick to the sweet potatoes since they are more suited to the tropics and I do like them.
It is a sunny Christmas day, if it stays dry, I think I will take another stab at whacking the weeds. I got another electric weed whacker. The gas one is stronger but much more tiring to use. I don't like weed whacking and the electric one just gives me fewer excuses to use it on the places I have already cleared with the gas weed whacker. The only real humbug with it is that it has a curved shaft so it is harder to edge with it. I just got three loads of laundry and cleaned the house so now it is time to do something more fun.
I have one six inch pot in the living room. That is all I am growing. So I feed the birds and sit around and play on the internet. Here is a pic for you.
"I want to have a piece of property big enough to actually need something like that to prepare my garden."
I grew up on a farm. My Father had 150 acres and farmed it with a team of horses. I bought the farm from him. Some of the acreage has been sold but I still hold 90 acres. It is a mountain pasture. My current lot where I live and garden is 2 acres so having the tractor is a good deal for tilling the area. In winter I can mount a blade for moving snow off the drive.
Today it was shovel snow. Supposed to be more coming tonight. Present temperature at 8:45 AM is 19 degrees F. I was happy to clear the walks and come in and warm up.
About 8 inches of snow came last night. On top of what we already had, that is gettin pretty deep. Its been some time since we had a deep snow winter, but looks like this is going to be one of those good old fashioned Snow Winters. I went out and cleared walks. Pant, pant. Still snowing as I write this.
Last edited by jal_ut on Thu Jan 05, 2017 11:43 am, edited 1 time in total.
I never have a shortage of things to do any time of the year. It is 29 degrees here and snowing a little, I am restoring an old vintage 1964 FAN camper trailer. I stripped it down to the frame, cleaned the rust off, made some repairs, then painted the metal. Cleaned out old wheel bearing grease, packed wheel bearing with new grease, new bearing seals, new electric brake parts, tested brakes. Built a wood floor on the frame, now I am building walls. Sunday we are going to Florida to hang out on the beach for 7 days. I have trouble finding seed potatoes in Fall and Winter. We had grocery store potatoes growing in the pantry so I cut them in smaller pieces and planted them in pots, they grew tops 2" tall, they have nice green leaves but for 2 months they have not grown at all in the house in a south window. I am not thinking about gardening until April.
Nice work buddy. Taking something like that all the way down for a ground up restoration is a task, but I like your work space. Looks like you have plenty enough room to get things done without being cramped. Be sure to post pics when it is all back together and on the road.
Gary, what are your plans for insulating this thing, or are you planning to? If I may suggest. before putting the outer shell on the body, staple some Tyvek across wood framing then apply the metal body work. That way you can use that expandable foam spray to fill the voids in the framework and the Tyvek will keep it from adhering to the outside metal in case you have to remove outer panels in the future.
Foam insulation would really help in keeping things quiet in the camper and help keep it warm in the winter and cooler in the summer. Just a thought in case you haven't considered it---------------but I'm betting you have.
Winter project is coming along nice. I work on it when I feel like it. We took a week vacation in Florida 2 weeks ago. Sometimes I work on the camper trailer 1 hour per day and sometimes 3 hours per day and sometimes 0 hrs. I finished these 2 walls after returning home from Florida vacation.
I have been poking along slow 1 to 2 hrs work per day. I finally got insulation in the walls and 1 sheet of 1/4" plywood on 1 end.
I finally got the electric wires in 1 wall and all the plywood cut to fit. Window in the front framed.
Now the back end of the trailer is framed in and the cargo area is almost finished just have to hold off installing insulation until the bathroom is framed and the kitchen table and 2 seats are framed several of the screws that hold it all in go in through the outside wall.
It was 22 degrees this morning I checked my onion seeds nothing has come up yet. If seeds do not germinate until spring there probably won't be any onions this year from seeds. We had 2 weeks of 70 degree weather still no onions growing from seeds. The yard is looking nice and green I am glad it got cold again I am not ready to mow grass. Weather man says, 60 degrees Sunday, 70 Monday, 40 Tuesday. LOL. Still not time to plant the garden.
I don't have a green house and am not big on planting things in the window sills. Though I do have one ice cream bucket with a couple of pea plants and some radishes growing in the window. What we do is read, research, visit forums, visit, learn, make plans, order seed. Here its 41 degrees today and expecting snow tonight. Won't be doing any planting for a month or so. Plot is under 2 feet of snow.
I am setting here thinking about what life was like 59 years ago when I was a kid growing up on the farm in Illinois. My grand parents planted a 1 acre garden for the whole family, 6 aunts, 6 uncles, 14 cousins, we all helped work the garden. Every Sunday after church we all gathered at Grand parents house for a big feast, we all helped, pick corn, pick tomatoes, the women cooked and we all gathered around several tables of food for Sunday dinner. Memories are never lost they are just covered up some where in your mind until one day something triggers a memory that you had not though about for 50 years. One thing I remember the most is how simple life was and how much fun life was then. There was a small vegetable market in town that would buy excess vegetables from anyone's garden so Grandpa had me collect, tomatoes, melons, apples, peppers, squash, grapes, peaches, blackberries, corn, potatoes, etc. and put them in the pickup truck then we drove 8 miles to town. I can still remember how good the vegetable market smelled and the sound of the honey bees buzzing around the fruit. I carried in most of the vegetables while grandma shopped for a few things and grandpa talked to the store owner. On the way home we would stop at the Dairy Queen for 5 cent ice cream cones then stop and filled up the gas tank, $1.34 filled the tank, gas was 9 cents per gallon then. I loved riding home in the back of the pickup truck on those dusty gravel roads it was fun to look at everything as we drove, lots of cows, pigs, chickens at everyone's house, everyone had a clothes line full of clothes in the yard just like us, a pond in the barn lot or field, tractors in the fields some bailing hay and some cultivating the crops. When we pulled into the driveway the dog would come running up always glad to see us return home. Several of the 26 cats would look up then go back to sleep. I would get a bucket of water at the well for grandma then run out across the field to the pond with the dog. I had a lot of fun catching fish in that pond then throwing them back and catching them again. Grandma would honk the truck horn when it was time to come eat, wow the smell of fresh baked home made bread and fresh black blackberry cobbler sure was good and we always had a table full of fresh garden vegetables. .
I think it just gets too cold here, and so far every "little" extra protection I've tried has been gleefully occupied by some kind of burrowing animals. Sometimes its just moles and I don't mind, but chipmunks and voles have loved any tuberous crop as extra winter offerings 
Still snowing as I write this.
