Francis,
You changed your avatar! I liked your other avatar. It brought back memories of a girl I used to date.
Not much to do in the garden today. My beds are ready fro spring planting. Now I am just waiting for mid January to plant my onions and start my seed germinating for my spring garden. I ordered some more tomato seed last night. I'm addicted. I wonder if there is a twelve step program to break a seed ordering addiction.
Ted
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applestar
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What I WANT to do is cut some holly and other evergreens and make a wreath. As it is, the daytime high has been refusing to rise above the 20's, so I can't cut the branches (both pruning books I have recommends NEVER to cut frozen wood). So I'll have to wait. Maybe after this storm passes through -- we're only supposed to get the northern edge of the snow.
There are several milestones when you begin to question your sanity and it dawns on you that you might have a problem. 1st is when you start running out of room under the lights. But it can be delayed as long as you have money to shell out for more and space to put them up. A subset of this is when you start totaling up the money you're spending on "dirt." 2nd is when you start constantly shuffling the seedlings around and stacking things under the drip trays to even up the top of the foliage under the lights and notice how obsessive you are becoming. 3rd major crisis can occur when you start lugging all the babies in and out to enjoy brief moments of sunshine and warmth and you start paying unnaturally close attention to the temperature and weather forecasts. 
tedln wrote:I wonder if there is a twelve step program to break a seed ordering addiction
There are several milestones when you begin to question your sanity and it dawns on you that you might have a problem. 1st is when you start running out of room under the lights. But it can be delayed as long as you have money to shell out for more and space to put them up. A subset of this is when you start totaling up the money you're spending on "dirt." 2nd is when you start constantly shuffling the seedlings around and stacking things under the drip trays to even up the top of the foliage under the lights and notice how obsessive you are becoming. 3rd major crisis can occur when you start lugging all the babies in and out to enjoy brief moments of sunshine and warmth and you start paying unnaturally close attention to the temperature and weather forecasts. 
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!potatoes!
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not much new info for you on this stuff, I'm afraid. I got the yacon from a local grower (white with purple highlights)...it's good and sweetens up pretty nicely, but I don't have experience with any other varieties to compare.Odd Duck wrote:Dang it! Now there's MORE stuff I've just got to try!!potatoes! wrote:as of saturday:
last harvest: dug my oca, my chufa, and my two last yacon plants. another year of experimentation with perennial rootcrops comes to a close.
It sounds like the oca isn't going to like my heat, though, so that leaves the chufa and the yacon. Do you have varieties you can recommend? I'm reading that it's hard to find anything but the white yacon in the USA.
I'm also reading about the larger, Spanish varieties of chufa, but I'm having trouble finding anything to purchase but the smaller, native chufa.
Where did you get yours, what varieties have you tried (if you found more than one) and which would you recommend (if you've had a chance to find more than one)?
the chufa, I got seed from baker creek heirloom seeds last year. the tubers are mostly pretty small, but a few are as big around as, say, a quarter.
perhaps oca could be grown under a bit of shade in your area? it slowed down in the heat of the summer for me, but never conked out. our seasons here are just a bit short for it (it's day-length sensitive, and needs at least a couple months after fall equinox to fully ripen tubers - not possible here without serious season extension - but it may work alright in you area... just a thought)
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lorax
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Odd Duck, Oca will do fine in your heat, actually - so long as you can provide it with at least 25% shade. That's how it's grown in the highlands here, and it does great (although it's also a native here, so caveat lector...) Generally, it's grown underneath other crops, like Tomate de Arbol, to keep the moisture in the soil.
You could also try out Mashua (Tropaeoleum tuberosum) - an edible-tubered creeping Nasturtium, which loves the high heat. The tubers are pretty tasty, too!
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Today in the garden, I finished a hothouse for my bananas, and I'm just taking a break preparatory to building a new brick raised bed for my herbs and lettuces and whatnots. Depending on how fast I get that done, I may also propagate my hops vines and pot up some tomatoes. And if there's still daylight after that, I'll probably build some more tomato cages - the Cherokee Purples and Pineapples look like they're ready for some support. But only if there's light, because I hate soldering in the dark.
Then I'll harvest some bush beans and fresh zucchini for dinner.
You could also try out Mashua (Tropaeoleum tuberosum) - an edible-tubered creeping Nasturtium, which loves the high heat. The tubers are pretty tasty, too!
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Today in the garden, I finished a hothouse for my bananas, and I'm just taking a break preparatory to building a new brick raised bed for my herbs and lettuces and whatnots. Depending on how fast I get that done, I may also propagate my hops vines and pot up some tomatoes. And if there's still daylight after that, I'll probably build some more tomato cages - the Cherokee Purples and Pineapples look like they're ready for some support. But only if there's light, because I hate soldering in the dark.
Then I'll harvest some bush beans and fresh zucchini for dinner.
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Francis Barnswallow
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rainbowgardener
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lorax
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Ted - Soldering (ie using solder and flux to join metal), not Soldiering (ie tromping through the bush).... I don't like to solder in the dark because I tend to burn myself with the iron or with falling drops of hot solder. It has nothing to do with snakes - I'm in the highlands at the moment, and they're not an issue here.
I use hops for brewing as well. This means that I also malt my own grains for mashing (because home brewing of beers is unknown in Latin America). It's a fun hobby, and it allows me to indulge my passion for stouts and bitters, which are flat out not available here. I don't do lagering, though, for reasons that should be fairly obvious.
I did indeed get the tomato seed, and I thought I'd pm'd you but obviously not. Such things occasionally slip my mind, and for that I apologize! I'll be starting them in the next cycle (since I've currently got 15 plants going and no room for more).
Odd Duck - I don't know from named varieties, lol!
For Ocas, the red-tubered type is probably the best heat performer.
For Mashua, I've got no clue - Nasturtiums in general love heat, and the orange-tubered kind are tastiest (the other variety has white tubers, which I find kind of insipid). The orange ones are pleasantly sweet, with just a hint of peppery goodness.
You should also look into Melloco (Ullucus tuberosum), since they're less day-length dependant for tuber production, and perform better under really punishing conditions. They're also hardier than Oca. I have no idea where you'd source them, though.
I use hops for brewing as well. This means that I also malt my own grains for mashing (because home brewing of beers is unknown in Latin America). It's a fun hobby, and it allows me to indulge my passion for stouts and bitters, which are flat out not available here. I don't do lagering, though, for reasons that should be fairly obvious.
I did indeed get the tomato seed, and I thought I'd pm'd you but obviously not. Such things occasionally slip my mind, and for that I apologize! I'll be starting them in the next cycle (since I've currently got 15 plants going and no room for more).
Odd Duck - I don't know from named varieties, lol!
For Ocas, the red-tubered type is probably the best heat performer. For Mashua, I've got no clue - Nasturtiums in general love heat, and the orange-tubered kind are tastiest (the other variety has white tubers, which I find kind of insipid). The orange ones are pleasantly sweet, with just a hint of peppery goodness.
You should also look into Melloco (Ullucus tuberosum), since they're less day-length dependant for tuber production, and perform better under really punishing conditions. They're also hardier than Oca. I have no idea where you'd source them, though.
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cherishedtiger
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Francis Barnswallow
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rainbowgardener
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Francis - Out of curiosity I checked the website you mentioned. Turned out to be a p o r n site of decidedly non-ugly but provocatively naked people. Don't appreciate that... what if I had been on my work computer? What if kids tried it? This is supposed to be a family friendly place, please don't refer us to (bleeped) sites!
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Francis Barnswallow
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rainbowgardener wrote:Francis - Out of curiosity I checked the website you mentioned. Turned out to be a p o r n site of decidedly non-ugly but provocatively naked people. Don't appreciate that... what if I had been on my work computer? What if kids tried it? This is supposed to be a family friendly place, please don't refer us to (bleeped) sites!
I haven't been to that site in years, and the last time I was on that site, it didn't have any EDITED material on it. I wouldn't have posted the site if I knew it had EDITED on it. My apologies.
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applestar
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It was 15ºF outside when I woke up this morning, but I'm still puttering around inside. 
I had some tulip and crocus bulbs left over so I potted them up and put them out in the garage to "chill". They'll provide nice late winter/early spring color when I bring them in to grow and bloom later on.
Back on Dec. 1, since I have the soil heating pad going for the pepper cuttings, I put a smallish white sweet potato I bought before Thanksgiving from Whole Foods (conventional not organic) in a clear plastic beverage cup from a fastfood place filled halfway up with water. The straw opening in the lid was perfect for holding the stem end and suspending the potato in the water. Well, today, I noticed that 1" roots are growing out of it!
(Good to know this wasn't treated to suppress sprouting )
I had some tulip and crocus bulbs left over so I potted them up and put them out in the garage to "chill". They'll provide nice late winter/early spring color when I bring them in to grow and bloom later on.
Back on Dec. 1, since I have the soil heating pad going for the pepper cuttings, I put a smallish white sweet potato I bought before Thanksgiving from Whole Foods (conventional not organic) in a clear plastic beverage cup from a fastfood place filled halfway up with water. The straw opening in the lid was perfect for holding the stem end and suspending the potato in the water. Well, today, I noticed that 1" roots are growing out of it!
(Good to know this wasn't treated to suppress sprouting )