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Gary350
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Re: My 2017 garden

I planted 243 garlic bulbs.

I wish I did not have to wait until April to buy onion sets.

Last year I planted 3 kinds of onion seeds none of them grew.

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Gary350
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Wife is cleaning out the freezer she made Chili 3 days ago, we have been eating chili for 3 days. I ate chili for breakfast this morning and we still have some chili left. Lots of garden vegetables in this, a whole quart of tomatoes, garlic, onion, herbs, beans. Sometimes it has green beans. Sometimes it has the white beans inside the green beans.

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Wife made vegetable beef stew today this is the best one so far. She found a pack of stew mean in the freezer it went into the crock pot with onions, garlic, and 2 cups water with a pack of Swedish meat ball seasoning right after breakfast. After lunch she added carrots, 2pm she added potatoes & celery. 4pm add, corn, peas, stir in a pack of country gravy mix with black pepper. Add salt.

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I planted pea seeds yesterday, tomorrow I am digging up all the pea seeds and throwing them in the yard. I need a different variety of pea that will produce a larger harvest.

I made another small batch of cinnamon rolls I had to try out, peanut butter cream cheese frosting, it is very good. Before I could get the camera 2 cinnamon rolls were gone. LOL

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Gary350
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It was 31 degrees this morning with a light frost. It warmed up to 65 and I planted onions today. There are crops that do good in 25 degree weather, there are crops that do good in 15 degree weather, there are crops that do good in 5 degree weather, I have them all planted, Carrots, garlic, onions, Kale, broccoli, bok choy, Russian kale, beets, mustard greens, turnip greens, cabbage, Napa, peas, others. I have them all planted.

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applestar
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Wow no one commented about those adorablenesses? Let me — (as my DD would say) SOOOOOOOO CUUUUUTTTTTTTE !!!!!!!!

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Gary350
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My grandmother & mother both had 1 of these gizmos I had a lot of fun in grade school turning the crank to make garden sliced, carrots, potatoes, cabbage and other things.

Vintage copy $29.50 free postage on Ebay. It makes, potato chips, french fries, hash browns, coleslaw, sliced carrots, sliced celery, sliced apples, graded & sliced cheese, sliced onions, more.

I made Potato chips with 2 potatoes to have with chicken salad sandwiches for lunch. Chips are deep fried 375 degrees in good healthy organic heirloom oil until golden brown, about 10 minutes. LOL.

Next time Alice needs, sliced, graded, chopped, vegetables, onions, carrots, potatoes, for, stew, soup, salad, etc. I am turning the crank. LOL :)

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Gary350
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I have skinny plants in the garden. I started these from seed in August not sure why they are so skinny they look like they need fertilizer but plants grew fine in this same row April to August. When weather he is 100 degrees tomatoes suffer really bad. Planting tomatoes so they get cool morning sun and full shade after lunch works miracles for a while until temperature reaches 100 degrees. I think the shade is what caused my plants to have aphid problem that killed several of the plants. Tomatoes rarely have a bug problem planted in full sun but plants produce few tomatoes in 100 degree heat. We have been having a lot of rain, clouds, over cast weather maybe that is why my tomato plants are so skinny. New plants have been making small ripe tomatoes and doing slightly better than the 6 old plants that I managed to save that were planted in April. A few days ago it got down to 32 degrees 1 night tomatoes got frost bit in the tips ends of a few leaves. Crazy weather it was 80 yesterday and suppose to be 82 today. I sure do hope I get a few ripe tomatoes before the next cold spell I want to know what these tomatoes taste like so I can decide if I am planting my spring garden with these seeds or buying new plants at the garden store. I usually plant 6 varieties of tomatoes very year no matter what the weather does we always have ripe tomatoes, I planted all Big Beef this year heat and aphids killed most of the plants. Cherry tomatoes seem to do much better in hot weather.

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Garden, 243 garlic plants, onions beds not planted yet next to garlic, about 500 onion seeds in pots, bell peppers with no more peppers, kale for dinner every day, Rhubarb looking good, large boc choy, peas are coming up, napa and boc choy in rows, tomato plant with 1 ripe tomato that makes 2 total. Cat follows me every place I go she has to inspect everything.

PS these are not raised beds, garden is under water usually March to May soil needs to be 3" higher than water to keep onion & garlic plants from rotting. If boxes hold water like a pond wood will need to be removed.

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Gary350
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Boc Choy, Russian Kale, Tomatoes, garden salad. It was so good I ate 2. I never ate boc choy before I didn't know it was so good. Boc Choy is so easy to grow, frost will not kill it, online says freeze down to 15 degrees will not kill it.

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It’s really great to see you getting all these wonderful harvest from your garden.

About the skinny tomato plants — I remember you mentioned that in another thread, too. I was thinking
- did you add more nutrients to the soil? Maybe the previous crop depleted it?
- after August, the sun gets lower in the sky and loses intensity, more shadows are cast so overall less sun. If this is the same location that the summer tomatoes produced well in, its possible you need to plant tomatoes in sunnier location for the fall crop?

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Gary350
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applestar wrote:It’s really great to see you getting all these wonderful harvest from your garden.

About the skinny tomato plants — I remember you mentioned that in another thread, too. I was thinking
- did you add more nutrients to the soil? Maybe the previous crop depleted it?
- after August, the sun gets lower in the sky and loses intensity, more shadows are cast so overall less sun. If this is the same location that the summer tomatoes produced well in, its possible you need to plant tomatoes in sunnier location for the fall crop?
I broke 1 of my own rules this year, I planted only 1 variety of tomato. I usually plant 4 to 6 varieties so no matter what crazy weather does we get 150 lbs of tomatoes for the pantry, lots of tomatoes to eat summer and fall for the kitchen table, and have tomatoes for Christmas dinner. Big Beef made a lot of tomatoes this year but they did not do well in 98 degree summer heat plus they had a aphid problem that almost killed the plants. I planted a dozen new tomato plants from Big Beef seeds in the locations where other tomato plants died the new plants just never took off like spring plants do but they are producing more tomatoes than the old plants that survived. I don't fertilize very much, I give spring plants about 1 small hand full of 15/15/15 stirred into the soil around the plant and nothing else the rest of the year. I learned from past experience fertilizer can kill plants if temperatures are above 85. The new plants I planted from seeds in pots only got a tiny sprinkle of fertilizer but nothing after planting them in the garden. Hot August weather is not a good time to plant new plants they need water every day for about 2 to 3 weeks to get them established, watering the garden is something I never do it makes grass and weeds grow too. When weather turns hot 3rd week of June the garden has no grass or weeds all summer. 5 of the new tomato plants died and 7 very skinny plants are still making tomatoes. A light frost last week killed a few tomato leaves but the plants are still doing good. Now that we are having cooler weather I can fertilize but its a bit too late we might have a killer frost next week. I do fertilize my tomato plants with wood ash all summer about every 3 weeks it is loaded with lime and potash. I give other plants wood ash too it is great for BER in, tomatoes, melons, peppers, squash.

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This is my spring garden planting map. Corn rows are 30" spacing and others are 36" spacing. Plant location depends on several things, how much sun the plant needs, how much shade the plant needs in the hottest part of the day, how soon crop is harvested and gone. I already see 2 mistakes but so what you get the idea melons need to swap places with tomatoes so tomatoes are closer to the house back door since they will hopefully grow from April to mid November and Melons need more full sun than tomatoes and tomatoes like shade after lunch. OH poop I forgot the bell peppers looks like 6 plants will fit at the south end of the 35' long tomato row..

Left to right G is 243 garlic already planted and room for about 80 more plants. 3 ft wide patch 18 ft long.

Next 0 = Onions 3 ft wide patch enough room for about 320 onions when sets are available March.

SP = Sweet potato patch 9 ft wide 18 ft long this should produce 125 to 180 lbs of potatoes depending on weather.

M = Watermelons & CA-= Cantaloupes we should get about 25 melons from each patch, 12'x35' patch.

P = Russet Potatoes I have no clue what to expect for this but we hope to get 150 lbs of potatoes 3'x35' patch.

T = Tomatoes 1 & 1/2 rows 150 lbs of the pantry and tomatoes for dinner table every day until Christmas.

B = Green Beans 3'x18' patch. 8 rows of seeds, row spacing 3" apart, seed spacing 3", this always works good.

X = Peas I never planted peas in spring so we will see how it turns out.

C = Corn, row spacing 30", seed spacing 7", 360 plants, 72 day crop. Harvest mid July replant and harvest again Oct. Plant 3 beans between each corn plant to provide nitrogen for the corn plant this has worked good several times.

I almost forgot row S north end of row X is 6 zucchini plants.

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Wow! But I’m gonna be right there with you planning next year’s garden as soon as this year’s is really done for. Hard freeze — low 20’s maybe even dip down below 20 this week end will put a finish to my garden too.

But I was surprised to see you planning to grow Russets next year. You’ve mentioned several times that they don’t seem to do well in Tennessee garden....

Subject: When to plant potatoes relative to last frost?
Gary350 wrote:Red Pontiac potatoes do very well in TN they don't seem to mind the 100 degree hot weather but we like white potatoes much better than Red potatoes. I have had potato tops killed by frost several times it never seem to hurt the potato crop maybe smaller tops require less energy so more energy going into making potatoes not tops. I use to grow a wonderful large crop of potatoes when I live in Illinois now I live in TN and my potato crop always seems really small compared to IL, I think this is normal for TN it is so much hotter here than up north. I have planted potatoes in September several times cover them with 8" of soil so they don't freeze and 2" of straw the tops freeze off and the potatoes set in the soil all winter Dec to April and there is always a good crop of potatoes. I have grown a lot of different type potatoes some do better than others in this hot weather. I have come to believe TN is to hot for most potatoes. My Red potatoes usually grow the size of a tennis balls a 20 ft row will fill a bushel basket full, my white Russet potatoes 20 ft row will fill a 5 gallon bucket. Russets probably do much better up north in cooler weather. Experiment growing different potatoes where you live and don't worry much about tops that freeze off they always grow back.

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Gary350
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applestar wrote:Wow! But I’m gonna be right there with you planning next year’s garden as soon as this year’s is really done for. Hard freeze — low 20’s maybe even dip down below 20 this week end will put a finish to my garden too.

But I was surprised to see you planning to grow Russets next year. You’ve mentioned several times that they don’t seem to do well in Tennessee garden....
I talked to several people at Farmers Market they all said, there is too much rain in TN you have to keep potatoes out of the mud. 1 person plants his potatoes on the side of a hill. Other people said, shovel your soil up into a mound plant potatoes above the water.

Plan A shovel soil from both sides of my potato row into the potato row so the soil in the potato row is 6" higher than the rest of the garden.

Plan B buy seed potatoes March keep seed potatoes in the refrigerator until about 2nd or 3rd week of May, being a 4 month crop plants will have to deal with about 2 months of 98 to 100 degree weather and very little rain.

Plan C is build planting boxes 3'x35' then buy a pickup truck load of soil at the garden center to fill the boxes. Plant potatoes in March.

Plan D keep seed potatoes in refrigerator 4 months plant them in the garden 1st of July harvest in Nov. If this will work potatoes can be planted where corn was.

In about 2 weeks I need to mark all my rows then put in the planting boxes and fill them with soil to have them ready for March.

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Garden vegetable chicken pot pie wow this is good. Put 2 chicken breast, 1 can cream of celery soup, 1 can cream of chicken soup in the crock pot then add any garden vegetables you like. We put in, green beans, corn, potatoes, carrots, peas, onion, garlic. Cook on high 9 am to 4 pm. Fill Pyrex dishes with the filling then cover the tops with pie crust. Bake 350 until golden brown. Let cool about 20 minutes before eating. I made another Pac Choy Salad with Russian Red Kale.

Weather report for tonight 34 degrees but no frost warning? Weather report tomorrow night 31 degrees but no frost warning? How can it be 31 with no frost? Only thing in the garden I would like to save from frost is tomatoes but it is time to let them go, I am not into covering plants up every night to save them for a few more weeks. Not sure I believe there will be no frost 31 degrees will kill them anyway.

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I harvested 41 green tomatoes and 2 bell peppers from the garden. Wife puts several of these green tomatoes in the refrigerator then takes some out once in a while to get ripe on the window seal. We will have ripe tomatoes for Thanksgiving dinner and maybe for Christmas dinner too it is only 6 weeks away.

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300 Chive seeds came in the mail today. I will plant these is a fancy flower pot in the kitchen then move them out side after they germinate and get larger. I have 8 large flower pots of little green onions in the grow room soon as they germinate and get larger they go outside too. I built a tiny grow room inside the shed.

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I made a mistake picking my tomatoes in the dark with a flashlight last night it only got down to 40 degrees not 34. Tonight's forecast has change 33 tonight not 31. It is warming up next 5 days 67 to 69 degrees & 40s at nite. I looked in the garden today there are 9 tomatoes that I missed with the flashlight. I had a good salad with dinner, chili and garlic bread too.

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I was surprised today to find my little green onion seeds are germinating about 30% are coming up. It looks like it is plenty warm enough for onion seeds to grow.

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Frost killed the tomato plants & potato plants last night. I dug up the volunteer potatoes and harvested 8 potatoes. I put the Onion planter boxes in place next to the garlic now I need a pickup truck load of top soil to fill them up. I staked the garden rows for next springs garden and put the potato planter boxes in place too. Planter boxes will keep potatoes and onions out of the spring mud.
I made a new garden map, I moved the melons next to the corn and gained an extra row because corn will be gone before melon vines reach them. Potatoes will be gone about the same time as corn because potatoes get planted a month before corn. Beets germinated and are coming up. Onion seeds germinated and are coming up. All of the garlic plants have tall green tops.

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Today I mixed organic material with garden soil to make 50/50 potting mix. I filled up 8 pots all 2 gallons each. 1 pot is now planted with 300 chive seeds.

Dinner tonight was vegetable stew. Peas, corn, carrots, potatoes, onion, garlic, stew meat, can of cream of mushroom soup, can of french onion soup, black pepper, 2 tablespoons flour to make a gravy, cook all day in the crock pot.

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Gary350
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2018 Garden revised again. Squeezing 6 rows of corn into 2 triple rows of corn gave me 2 extra rows in the garden. I have grown corn like this before it work good. I always put 3 bean plants between each corn plant this provides nitrogen for the corn. I finally got everything I want squeezed into the available space. Pantry may need to get larger this year 420 ears of sweet corn will need to be frozen or canned in Mason Jars. 150 jars of tomatoes, 50 jars of green beans, 243 garlic, 400 onions, 100 lbs of sweet potatoes, 150 lbs Russet potatoes, 25 watermelons, 25 cantaloupes. Garden is planted now with 65 beets, 400 carrots, cabbage, napa, kale, pac choy, broccoli, peas, swiss chard, onions & garlic. I'm still not sure if I want to plant strawberry berries 100 plants in 3 rows 18 ft each will cost more than buying berries at the grocery store. I need to think of something different to plant beside strawberries. Lima beans would be nice but they might cross pollinate with green beans. I have 6 rows if Blue Lake Bush beans plants in a 3 ft wide 18 ft long patch, this gave us so many beans last year I had to give beans away then I let the plants go to seed, I have 2 lbs of seeds. I have peas planted now and more pea seeds on the way to plant and see how they do. By the time the watermelons, cantaloupe, sweet potato vines reach the corn and potatoes the corn & potatoes will be harvested and gone. I went out to the garden to move in row marker stakes it turns out I have 1 more 35 ft row that is not on my garden map, this is good now I need to decide what to plant in that row. I have a lot of flower seeds on order I will have the garden full of flowers next year.

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Last night I watched an Irish cooking show. Tomorrow morning we are having an Irish breakfast. Today I made Irish Parsley Butter & bread. I like it best toasted in the toaster oven just enough to be a bit crispy on top. I would love to travel to other countries just to eat their food. I could probably spend a year in India. The easiest way to try other country foods is find restaurants in the USA where you can eat foreign foods like, China Town, Cuban food southern part of Florida, certain areas of the USA were settled by people from other countries. I should have eaten more Louisiana food 20 years ago when my stomach could still handle hot spicy food. I like to eat Mexican food 18 miles north of town a family runs a restaurant in a 1 room house it is take out only they have picnic tables in the yard. They no speak English and I no speak Spanish but they know what the word chicken means when I order lunch and ask for chicken. They ask me several things and I just keep saying, YES no comprenday which is Spanish for, no understand. I have no clue what I order each time I go there but Wow it is always good, well worth the 18 mile drive for lunch. Their bright red hot sauce looks like it would kill a cow but its not very hot just the best flavor anyone can imagine. Tonight dinner is vegetable potato soup, make broccoli cheese soup and potato soup in the same crock pot, add onions & celery & your favorite vegetables & German sausage, Wow this is good. Tomorrow night dinner is, India Tikka Masala with rice and vegetables.

My parsley plant in the garden is doing fine this will make a lot of Irish Parsley butter bread and other things like very good spaghetti. My thyme plant is 2 years old I have no clue how cold it has to get to kill it. Most likely the parsley plant will not survive the winter.

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Gary350
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Reading all the information I can find online it says, Peas grow best in 50 to 70 degree weather. That totally goes against what everyone says around here about growing peas. Spring garden peas get planted in April.

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Weather man says 27 degrees tonight. I'm not sure I believer it they are very often wrong. I harvested 20 kale leaves to put in a zip lock bag in the refrigerator. The rest of the kale stays in the garden I hope it survives. I sure hate to loose my kale. I have had kale survive 21 degrees and had kale die at 28 degrees.

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Gary350
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Garlic is going good. I kept garlic in the refrigerator almost 3 months then planted it. There is about 300 garlic plants there. The box is just to hold 3" of soil to keep garlic out of the mud in spring. Boxes on left will be onions in March. Boxes in another place will be potatoes in March.

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Gary350
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27 degrees this morning kale feels like ice I hope it is not dead. Boc Choy is suppose to be good down to 25 they feel like ice too. Russian Red Kale is good down to 15. Tomatoes and peppers are probably dead now. We have a large bowl of green tomatoes in the kitchen some are almost ripe we will have 7 garden tomatoes for Thanksgiving dinner. We are still hoping to have garden tomatoes for Christmas dinner. Herbs are fine I picked parsley and thyme for the crock pot.

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It went down to 30 last night here, there was frost on things this morning. I haven't been out yet to check on my broccoli, kale, chard, but I have seen them survive a lot worse.

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Gary350
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Kale, Boc Choy, Chard, onions, garlic, peas, Rhubarb, Herbs, are doing good after 27 degrees. Tomatoes and peppers are dead.

Dinner tonight.

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Tikka Masala dinner a few nights ago.

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I have 100s of tiny plants coming up in the garden. I bought seeds on Ebay from China & Ireland 99¢ per pack free postage for 250 to 1000 seeds. I tossed seeds in patches like grass seed several weeks ago. 100 tiny Russian Red Kale baby plants caught my eye in the garden early this morning. Other plants are coming up too, carrots, beets, cabbage, mustard greens, collard green, cilantro. I don't see Swiss chard yet. I think there will be too many greens. Oh well it will be fun to watch them grow this winter.

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My friendly mole family made 16 of these little volcano looking mounds around the oak tree this seems to be where the mole family lives. There are tunnels all over the garden, back yard and front yard. There are little volcano mounds scattered several places around the yard & garden. I'm not sure what these little piles of soil are for maybe it is there living room. LOL.

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Russian Red Kale, Boc Choy & ripe garden tomatoes salad.

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We love our garden pantry. Wife made the best garden vegetable soup today I have ever eaten. We bought a small Honey Glazed Spiral cut Smithville Ham a weeks ago. We cooked the ham in the crock pot for Thanksgiving dinner. Wife saved the bone and the drippings. 6 am this morning, ham bone, 1 quart of drippings, 1 quart of garden tomatoes, 1 large onion, 5 cloves of garlic, went into the crock pot. About 12 noon potatoes, carrots, peas, corn, green beans go into the crock pot. About 2 pm I put in 5 sprigs of garden Thyme and about 3 tablespoons of chopped garden parsley. About 3 pm I tasted it, WOW......LETS EAT. Alice heated up some garlic bread and the 4 of us we ate. It is almost gone only 2 bowls left. If I get hungry about 6 pm 1 of those bowls will be gone.

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I saved the seeds from 2 grocery store Acorn Squash 2 of these seeds will be planted in the 2018 garden.

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Gary350
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I think garlic likes this nice 65 degree weather.

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Green tomatoes are still getting ripe.

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Gary350
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I am getting my potato beds ready, 3 ft wide 30 ft long filled with a mix of tree leaves, pine needles, broken dead sticks, and 5 gallons of wood ash. I hope wood ash will make the organic material compost by last week of March. I am also planning to shovel all the soil from each side into the wooden frames.

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Gary350
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What is a realistic amount of potatoes to expect to harvest per plant?

I think I have screwed up it rained all day yesterday leaves are wet and matted down like an old wet carpet. I have seen this before roots can not get through a thick pile of wet leaves. I wish I had a way to grind up leaves and mix it with soil.

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Don't know about potato harvests, but if you have cleats on any sport shoe, they'll break up the leaves a bit, or maybe mix it up with a scuffle hoe.

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Gary350
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My 400 organic carrot seeds arrived from China today 55¢ free shipping. China does not charge 5 times extra for the word organic. You can't get service like that in the United States. I buy a lot of my seeds from China, Ireland, Netherlands, Ukraine, on Ebay, never been disappointing. I'm all stocked up for spring gardening.

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REAL Italian Pizza Pie seen on Bizarre foods from Italy.

Recipe from TV Show called Bizarre Foods. Use a large diameter deep dish pan, put in the crust so it goes up the side of the pan, then bake in the oven about 7 minutes just enough to cook the crust a little bit but not crispy. Cover the crust with 2 layers of sliced Smoked Provolone cheese plus big hand full of mozzarella cheese. Add Italian pork sausage, onions, pepperoni, herbs parsley, thyme, oregano, then pour a jar Pizza sauce over the top. Bake in the oven 375 degrees for 30 minutes.

First time we made this we had no smoked provolone cheese and still have not found it at the store yet. We used non smoked provolone cheese 2 layers plus 1 small bag of mozzarella cheese, plus fresh picked garden herbs parsley & thyme cooked Italian sausage, onions, pepperoni, dry oregano from grocery store then poured pizza sauce over the top. Baked 375 for 30 min let cool 20 min WOW best pizza we ever had. This makes 6 slices it feeds us both 3 times.

Today we made pizza pie again. Wife decided to add Italian pork sausage plus left over Italian chicken sausage too. Everything else same as before except we added a left over 1/4 pack of Monterrey Jack cheese too. It turned out very good but a little too much meat. If we had added more sauce extra meat would have been ok. Grandson is here tonight so we have 3 slices left over for tomorrow.

I will find smoked provolone I know Kroger use to have it I bought it there once.

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My Thyme plant survived last winter and doing good this winter it has been 22 degrees several nights. I had another Thyme plant that died it was in the garden. The one that lived is in a flower pot. Both are English Thyme. My oregano died. Parsley is going good. We sure are loving these herbs they do very good in winter.

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Gary350
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My parsley and thyme are looking very GOOD in this cold weather but they do not grow any larger, they did all there growing in warm weather. We have been eating a lot of herbs the parsley is about 70% gone. Next garden season I need to plant 3 parsley plants.

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Gary350
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Chicken vegetable pot pies are so good. Corn, peas, carrots, green beans, potatoes, onions, garlic, parsley, thyme. I finally managed to get pictures this time. Last 3 times they were gone before I could go get the camera.

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Joined: Mon Mar 23, 2009 1:59 pm
Location: TN. 50 years of gardening experience.

My plants are frozen it is 22 degrees outside. I sprouted Broccoli seeds over a month ago, I have been keeping them outside under glass. Plants would get plenty of sunlight if we had some, it is mostly over cast every day this time of the year. Water & soil are both frozen. Plants are not looking good. LOL. We just got home from Florida beach been there since Dec 26th it was sunny and 50 degrees. Local people say it is usally 65 to 70 deg all winter. We camped on the beach $28 per night. We took food to cook but Waffle house is only 2 miles away and lots of good sea food restaurants $5.99 to $7.99 for lunch and dinner. We ate sea food for every meal. I harvested some more herbs for another pizza pie parsley is almost gone. This is last day of Dec I guess there won't be any more posts after this one subject line says 2017 tomorrow is 2018.

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