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applestar
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Re: My 2 rows

...so of course I had to go look up when to harvest flax when growing for fibers :() Maybe you already know all these, but I summarized what seemed interesting :wink:

In a hurried search, found more in Japanese than in English, so I used Google translate for rough copy, then [edited glaring omissions] — you could probably try using Chrome or other auto translating browser.

All of these references mentioned that flax is best grown in cool summer regions like higher altitude or northern countries.

— very often, well-researched blogs are best source of information — the blogger posted photos that may be useful for reference, too
フラックス(亜麻)を収穫しました。 - ながくて風土
I harvested flax — long and climate
https://blog.goo.ne.jp/hudo-mau/e/a791c ... 2f2ae60952

[Apparently Flax stems are cut-harvested] after flowering (about July) when taking fiber. Put it in water to rot the fiber and beat it to get it.

When harvesting seeds, [the flax are] harvested after ripening, and about August is appropriate. I am a little early, but [the seed pods might pop and scatter] and [massed weeds are a getting to be a mess] ...! Seeds can be dried and stored for use.
...According to this website for a flax SEEDS company, DTM for flax is about 120 days
一年草亜麻の育て方|亜麻の里
(How to grow annual flax | village of flax)
https://www.amanosato.jp/news/ama_20160426_01.html

In Hokkaido and the Tohoku region (latitudes 43.2°N to 47.3°N), flowers will bloom even after sowing seeds until mid June or so. In the case of other areas, I do not know because I have not [tried growing], but I think that it is fine if it is about the same time. Because flax is a plant that is more dependent on [daylength] (the ratio of day and night time) than temperature. However, if the season is late, the height is low and the number of flowers tends to decrease.
At one of those ask a question website, I found a long, somewhat discouraging answer to someone asking when to harvest flax for fiber to be woven into a fabric. But a few key points (to me anyway) —
[after] the flowers [bloom] and [before] the stems die, the whole stem is pulled out, 20 to 50 stems are bundled upside down and dried, and then the seed[pods] are [removed].
To [obtain] the fiber next, you need to know the following:

1. There are many species [that can be grown for] fiber from stems, but when taking out fiber from plants, [only about ] 8% to 10% of the weight of one stem
[represents] the fibers [that can be made into] thread.

...

5. Next, [in step 4 (with spinning wheel), one] can only make a single[-ply] thread (tanshi). [To weave a fabric with just a single-ply thread, [there are two methods — applying] Sizing (natural glue = water soluble) [and] twisting two single[-ply threads] into a double[-ply] yarn. If you want a twin thread, [] this can be [made] by changing the direction of rotation of the [spinning wheel].
That last part was particularly interesting to me because I ran into the single-ply thread not being strong enough to weave with before — so that was an “ah ha!” moment. :)

Oh! I’m thinking in Step 5, I might be incorrectly using the terms ‘single-ply’ and ‘double-ply’ as well as the words ‘thread’, ‘yarn’ and possibly missing ‘rope’. But I woke up in the middle of the night and got caught up in this, and now my brains are exhausted just as it’s getting light outside :roll: I’m going to go back to sleep for another hour or so. :> If it was confusing, let me know, and I’ll try to fix that later. Or if you understood and can correct the wording, please do because this is going to bug me. :bouncey:

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PraticalGardener
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Thank-you for the compliments.

I think you might be right applestar that the dropped birdseed can result in some growing sunflower seeds.:idea: Now that I think of it, I wonder if you can intentionally grow a sunflower into a 'squirrel-proof baffle/cone'; although getting it back off of the main sunflower stalk again might be interesting.
The volunteer 'mutt' sunflowers (both single or multiple flower heads) are always popular for the birds here in the garden. Numerous uneaten seeds readily come up as volunteers in this tilled garden. Chickens like the sunflower seeds when I give them the sunflower heads.

Thank-you for putting up some of your research on flax applestar. I understand enough what you were trying to explain for step 5. I did a little of my own research on different websites, but I still have some questions anyways. Still, it's nice to have the information so as not to have to learn it all the hard way, as that would make for quite a learning curve. :lol: :roll:

After a bit of my own light research again, it sounds like I probably do want to 'soak' the flax plants, either by dew or by submersion. My best guess is the step is either necessary or simply makes it somewhat easier to separate the inner 'cloth' flux from the undesired external plant material later on when processing it.

Two examples of sources I looked at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFuj7sXVnIU&t=257s
https://wholesomelinen.com/blogs/news/1 ... ural-fiber

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PraticalGardener
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Pictures may be taken a different day than my garden updates, but that's ok.

July 27th:
My best corn plant (unless it is two of them) has 5 spots it is silking out, surprisingly. One of the spots with silks is on the 'tiller'.

Harvested seeds of Tom Thumb Peas, five seeds from one dried pea pod. The pea plant was completely dried up. Unfortunately the seeds are tiny, but they are round and seem healthy otherwise.

The Wando peas and pea pods are getting very 'fat', so the peas will taste bitter if eaten now.


July 28th.
I harvested a few more flax plants, again trying to pull out the shortest ones to avoid saving those for seed.

I tried my first cherry tomato, it was ok, but I might not be much of a tomato fan. I like tomatoes as ketchup though.


August 3rd.
Some of the cherry tomatoes were splitting, probably due to the abundance of rain.


August 14th.
My Country Gentleman corn is ripening. I can guess at the prime harvest time based on clues of dried silks (later) and how thick the cob and husk visually look and physically feels, but the best way to really know is to take one or two ears of corn, shuck off the corn husks/harvest the ears of corn to find out. Smaller ears often need a little more time, but shorter and 'fat' ears can be ripe, so you have to check those ones too.
Dying Wando Pea Plant
Dying Wando Pea Plant
Dying Wando pea plant resized 8-6-19.jpg (145.76 KiB) Viewed 10895 times
Dead Wando Pea Plants, going to seed
Dead Wando Pea Plants, going to seed
Dead Wando Pea plants resized 8-18-19.jpg (155.52 KiB) Viewed 10895 times
Harvested most of my Wando pea seeds a few days ago. The Wando pea plants are either still dying from a pale green to yellow color or completely brown and dry. Wando pea plants always die in order to go to seed.
Flax seed pods maturing
Flax seed pods maturing
Flax going to seed resized 8-6-19.jpg (200.87 KiB) Viewed 10895 times
I can shake the brown flax seed pods and hear the dry seeds rattle in some of them!
A very few flax plants were completely dead, but those were also the same short and shaded plants, so I culled most of them. Overall, my plants are vibrant green with a touch of yellow at the bottom. I didn't want to risk losing all my seeds, so I slowly worked through and pulled out the individual flax plants that had a majority of dry brown seed pods. This way some of the other ones can continue to mature. I put the plants into brown paper grocery bags as they dry out, with the roots sticking out of the bags, until I can process them for their seeds later on.
I can only do this much hand-selection of individual flax plants because I have so small a flax patch. If it were a bigger patch I would just harvest bunches (handfuls) of flax plants at a time.
Some 'mutt' sunflowers throughout the 'wide row'
Some 'mutt' sunflowers throughout the 'wide row'
Sunflowers in 'wide row' resized 8-14-19.jpg (132.59 KiB) Viewed 10895 times
A picture of the sunflowers in bloom. Some were volunteers and some were transplanted volunteer sunflowers. I let some of them grow since my corn didn't do too well sprouting out earlier this season.



August 18th.
Started attempting to harvest flax seeds. It is very time-consuming if I attempt to do it all with only my bare hands. I pulled the seed pods off the plants, gently opened up the seed pods, and helped the flax seeds to fall out. Most of the flax seeds are brown, but a few were almost black in color instead.
Sweet 100 Cherry Tomato starting in full production
Sweet 100 Cherry Tomato starting in full production
Tomatoes of Sweet 100 Cherry Tomato resized 8-18-19.jpg (138.01 KiB) Viewed 10895 times
State Half Runner Bean in bloom
State Half Runner Bean in bloom
State Half Runner Bean resized 8-6-19.jpg (106.53 KiB) Viewed 10895 times
I was a little suprised that the flowers were this yellow.


August 21st.
I harvested most of the remaining flax plants for seed. This time the flax plants had more of a yellow color at the bottom then before.

I harvested 3 ears of corn from my best corn plant. They had a few mature kernels, so apparently one corn plant alone wasn't adequate for full pollination. Not surprisingly, the corn had some yellow kernels from cross pollination, from the yellow sweet corn in the same garden. I nibbled at the tasty kernels at lunchtime.

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PraticalGardener
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Ok, my tentative 'game plan' is a 'wide row' again. I will wait to show and tell what I have until I actually plant the seeds, because I keep revising my plans until planting day (and still adapting afterwards). :roll:

The other day I helped to get most of the garden tilled. Today I finished tilling, partly to 'square up' the garden abit. It was beginning to look like a parallelogram once it was brought to my attention. :)

I'm gaining experience, or in other words, learning from my mistakes the hard way. :lol: Next time I will remember to set garden markers in a straight line, namely by remembering to use the string. You do the corners first, then tie string to them or beside them, and take most of the slack out of the string. Then you can set your row markers in a pretty line, otherwise they tend to meander. :roll:
I may have forgotten this step in the other day due to my minor oversight. :roll: Luckily the plants won't mind. :lol:

Edited since March 30th:
April 1st, 2020
Today I planted most of my Sugar Magnolia snap peas. I planted 20 seeds so far, at 1" deep, which is half a thumb deep for me. I didn't plant them as thickly as the directions said, but that's ok. Since it just rained last night, the garden was well watered. :mrgreen:

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Image
Picture of Garden tilled, with the very right side smoothed out again by using a garden rake. Facing North.

Image
Here is my left trellis (facing East) with my planted Sugar Magnolia Snap peas. I planted four more seeds today.

Image
Here is my right trellis, with 23 Extra Early Pedigree (shelling?) pea seeds planted today. I have some weathered baler twine hanging on the middle of this trellis.

My sister and I planted some 'mutt sunflowers' seeds that I saved last year, into the 'first' garden row (it was an extra row) :) , which is beside my 'wide row'. She sowed them thick as she pleased in the back :D , on the left side, I spaced out the remaining 'mutt sunflower' seeds along the rest of the extra row. My plan is to have string or runner beans climb on the sunflower stalks. We even have some volunteer sunflower sprouts along the row.
The 'first' row shows up nicely since it was watered, so the wet soil is a darker color behind my 'wide row' with both trellises.

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PraticalGardener
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I finally looked in the garden yesterday and noticed some of the sprouting pea plants. I have 4 Early Pedigree Peas and 16 Sugar Magnolia Snap peas sprouting up so far. The Sugar Magnolia Snap pea sprouts have a more reddish hue on the stems and leaves.

Image Early Pedigree Pea sprouts, with a penny next to one of them.

Image Picture of a Sugar Magnolia Snap Pea sprout, with a penny in front of it. The 'sticks' were sections of an old sunflower stalk. The other 'large' green plant sprouts are the 'mutt sunflowers' sprouting, which I will have to weed out.

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PraticalGardener
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I thought I would get around to putting up pictures of this years garden, but to be honest it's not nearly as much to look at as my previous years. The garden was inadvertently neglected when it could have used more weeding, I had a couple of months with lots of overtime hours, in addition to my long commute home. It was after the corn started to sprout out of the ground. At this point I will give a description, and might skip the pictures until next year.

I set up two rows, and still had a third row by the time the garden rows were marked out with wooden row markers.

From right (to the north) to the left (to the south), I planted Cascadia Peas on a cattle panel trellis, which is overkill. I planted some Country Gentleman white sweet 'shoepeg' corn alongside the pea trellis. The left half of two rows I planted German Butterball Potatoes.
I started some of my leftover Spagetti Squash seeds indoors under a growlight and transplanted them outside into the initially unplanned third garden row.

I did 'play around with' a grow tunnel this year on my third row. It was a number of U-shaped bamboo poles and a layer of white fabric. I wasn't surprised that I had to work at keeping it weighed from the wind. My intention was to transplant the Spagetti Squash under it until in Spring the threat of late frosts were past.

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The results were that I didn't weed and water the corn, and I didn't get to plant my string beans to grow up my corn plants. Granted, the corn might have been shaded to much by an adjacent row of tall sunflowers, which helped it in a way. The corn didn't thrive as well as it germinated, due to the lack of weeding, and it grew so unevenly and I didn't get any corn harvested. Granted, I was trying to space the corn plants more this year than my previous years, so they would be all the more wind-dependent for pollination without my help to 'rub the tassels together' to drop the pollen onto the corn silks.
My peas did fantastic. The pea harvest was fantastic, and they tasted sweeter in comparison to Wando peas. They have to get really big before they turn bitter. I barely squeezed in the time to blossom-bag them, with the intention of saving them for seed. That turned out to be a big mistake. With the plentiful rain for about two weeks, they grew well. The first learning curve was you want to bag the flower blossoms, not the 'branches' and pea tendrils that keep growing in size. My next lesson was that the little blossom bags (which are actually wedding favor bags) protected some kind of tiny pest, so almost all of my pea seeds or pea pods were compromised.
I used up the last of my leftover Spagetti Squash seeds from the other year. I started them indoors under a grow light, and later transplanted them outside into the third row. I put the grow-tunnel over them, but the tunnel was made for twice as long a row than I had. I doubled the fabric over and used over half of the poles. I weighed the fabric down very well, considering the wind and my previous experience with wind and putting long hay tarps on round haybales. I avoided using rocks alone, in order to spread the weight out much more evenly to avoid the fabric tearing. Then with the timing of my overtime, I only spot-weeded twice and had a bit of a more through weeding once. I think two layers of fabric 'protected' the plants from the rainfall too, so next time I will cut it. I was curious how it would do. The spaghetti squash flowered, but I didn't even have time to prune off the first blossoms to encourage it to focus on growing more. The plants didn't get very large, just a foot tall with a couple of leaves, and wouldn't have been enough to use a trellis yet. This may not be a bad thing in hindsight though, since I didn't have time to remove the grow tunnel until much much later, much less put up the trellises.

My German Butterball potatoes grew well, especially at first when I had time to weed them, but produced poorly. Luckily, I planted them two ways, half of the potatoes 'planted' on the tilled level soil surface, 'buried' under two feet of straw, which was later supplemented with more straw about halfway through it's growing season. The rest of the potatoes I did the way I grew up with, putting them into a tilled row, and covering them in soil. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to weed them, nor to hill more soil onto the planted potatoes.
Thus the ones in the straw did better, since the extremely think straw layer suppressed the weeds, whereas the other ones were surrounded by weeds. I think they were watered once or twice earlier, especially before all the overtime hours.

So the results in short were plenty of peas, no corn, never planted my string beans, no Spagetti Squash, a poor harvest of German Butterball potatoes I still need to test taste, and a bit more experience. I guess it's not too bad considering the situation with all the overtime hours for a few months at that timing during my growing season, I'm not surprised with my harvest.

Vanisle_BC
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@PraticalGardener: Peas almost never cross spontaneously, so bagging the blossoms should be unnecessary unless you're doing some serious genetic experimenting. Could maybe even be detrimental; what variety did you grow? I think they ALL taste sweeter than store-bought!

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PraticalGardener
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I grew Country Gentleman corn this year. I was hoping to continue practicing seed saving out of the garden, but my next opportunity will be next year.

I was wondering if the local bees would cross-pollinate the peas, that's why I tried to blossom bag them. The same garden had some other pea varieties, including Wando peas.

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I forget the whole explanation; have to look it up, but it's something like: The pea flowers have already self- pollinated before they open, so insects don't get at them. I grow several varieties and always save seed with no evidence of crossing.

Have you tried 'Oregon Giant' snow pea? It only grows to about 3 or 4 feet high and has huge pods you eat whole, with the young peas still inside.

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PraticalGardener
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Thank-you, that's good to know. I have not tried Oregan Giant snow peas yet.

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Here's Oregon Giant:
OregonGiant.JPG

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April 16th
Today my family and I finally started to 'play in the dirt' again. :D We tilled the whole garden once, and marked our rows with wooden stakes. I used the push-plow/cultivator three times for each of my rows, just in case we receive any rain later. The soil was dry on the surface, but very moist underneath. My family and I planted the family potatoes of Kennebec (white) potato and German Butterball (yellow inside) potato, and onions.

Although we are still learning as we go, this time we 'planted' potatoes by mulching with about 8" of hay/straw deep, 'part' or 'make a path' through this straw down to the bare soil again, cut the potatoes into pieces with at least one live eye, 'plant' the potato pieces cut-side-down, and cover them up with straw again. We also happened to have a nice rain shower on the garden afterwards.

I have not planted my two rows yet, but I did look through my leftover mailed-in seeds and garden-saved seeds again. :) (Edited)
Last edited by PraticalGardener on Sun Apr 17, 2022 8:49 pm, edited 2 times in total.

imafan26
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It has been awhile. How big is the family garden? How many gardeners in the family?
Your two rows is still a big space.

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This year the garden is 35 feet wide, and the rows are 30 feet long. Each row is about 25 inches apart this year. We have 3 interested gardeners. :D

April 17th
Today my sister and I set up two 16 foot 'cattle panel' trellises for my Eastern (right side) row, which we overlapped in the middle of the row. I set up a small folding trellis between my rows and planted 21 'old' Wando pea seeds, which arrived in the mailbox in 2019. :D

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May 15th
Due to the recent rains, our garden is a very wet soil, so I guess I am planting in 'mud' this time around. :lol: The weeds are 'poking out everywhere like crazy'. I see plentiful 'mutt' sunflower volunteers, and very plentiful Lamb's Quarter, which is sometimes considered a weed.

In the 'wide row' the overlapped trellises are now sowed with Spagetti Squash seeds, 5 old 2019 mailed-in seeds and one new Tivoli compact hybrid Spagetti Winter Squash seed planted at the northern end. I 'nicked' the seed coat and sowed them a little over a thumbnail deep.
I hope to start a few more Tivoli Spagetti plants indoors to 'fill in the holes' in case some of the seeds don't germinate in the garden, since nothing is guaranteed.
In the front of the 'wide row' on the southern end, one of my siblings and I set up the repurposed section of a 'cattle panel'. It was previously an improvised sheep hay feeder, which worked so-so in practical use. I have not sowed anything alongside this little trellis yet.

I only had one Wando pea plant poke through, potentially because I failed to water them, or perhaps because I sowed them too deeply. :?
I sowed some garden-saved flax seeds from 2019 alongside the trellis. :D I 'sprinkled' the flax seeds onto the ground, gently patted them into the loose soil, used a one-ply paper towel to cover them, and weighed it down with several small rocks. These seeds were painstakingly saved from pods with 7-9 seeds per pod, which I can only pull off on such a tiny scale.
Towards the South, I planted my snapdragon flowers I purchased from a local greenhouse. :)

We had 3 'extra' rows (not for long! :hehe: ) at the end of the garden, due to how it was tilled this year.
I was allowed to claim one of the 'extra' rows this year, so I set up a bent 'cattle panel' trellis.
I sowed 3 Spagetti Squash seeds I had mailed-in back in 2019. I also planted about a dozen seeds of Painted Lady beans half a thumb deep that I had mailed-in last year, to enjoy their pretty flowers at the southern end.
Apparently having cattle walking on top of a 'cattle panel' doesn't do the panel any favors. :?

I have plans to plant more seeds, but my plans are still subject to change until I get the seeds sowed into the soil. The next question is whether I can maintain it all or not. :roll:

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applestar wrote:
Wed Apr 17, 2019 9:15 pm
Chickweed is supposed to indicate a certain amount of soil fertility. I want to make a skin salve and keep looking, but all I’m finding so far are mouse-eared ones. What Chickweed there are, are still tiny. I did harvest violets.

I tried to grow some soapwort (from seeds) but have not been successful....
My TN soil is 6 ph and AZ soil is 8 ph. Chickweed & other weeds & grass look the same in AZ but are genetically different than TN. Weed Be Gone and Round up will kill TN weeds but not kill AZ weeds. Gasoline, Kerosene, used motor oil will not kill AZ weeds. Boiling water won't kill AZ weeds either I assume boiling won't go deep enough into the soil to kill the roots. Mexican people harvested chick weed they eat it like lettuce. AZ & TN chick weed is good on tacos & good in salad too.

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June 12th:
I finally 'made time' to replant my spagetti squash. None of them grew the first time. In hindsight, I planted the seeds upside-down. :roll: Next year I'll make sure to plant them pointed side down for the roots. Anyways, the soil was just dry enough to work, so I loosened it throughly, then hilled it by hand, and planted the seeds flat-side down this time, since I didn't really have time to look up which way to plant them online.

June 17th
This time I have seven Tivoli (hybrid) Spagetti Squash sprouts, out of 8 planted seeds. :D Two of my four growlight Tivoli Spagetti Squash have sprouted, and are very leggy (long stems).
I am still playing catch-up on weeding my 'wide row' and the 'extra row'. I have 5 Painted Lady bean plants left, I suspect two of them were accidently smothered by adding thick mulch on the 'walking path' alongside the row. That's ok though, because I mainly planted them for their flowers and to save their seeds.

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I have an update. I am expecting to move, and there is no obvious vegetable garden at the new location, in the same state. Therefore I want to create a new vegetable garden from scratch. In the meantime, the family garden will probably downsize again.

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That sounds like it's going to be a new opportunity!

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It certainly is. I am finally moved into my new home. I have a garden spot tentatively picked out for this year. My main concern will probably be what kind of fence to use to help prevent the local wildlife from eating the vegetable buffet, I mean my garden.

So far I've observed whitetail deer, rabbits, a grey squirrel, at least one groundhog, and some birds.
Last edited by PraticalGardener on Sat May 06, 2023 11:02 pm, edited 4 times in total.

imafan26
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Yea! Nice to have you back in the community. I guess you may have more than 2 rows in the future.
If you are planning to plant sweet corn try
Honey N' Pearl (bicolor 1988 AARS winner, tight husk, good disease resistance package) 76 days, Montauk (tight husk, bicolor) 79 days, Peaches and Cream (bicolor, long ears) 70 days, Bodacious (yellow super sweet corn ) 75 days, Silver Queen (white corn) 92 days. Silver King corn (White corn, sweeter and larger than Silver Queen, stores longer and shorter days to maturity) 80 days.

In the earlier post you mentioned how to tell when corn is ready to pick. I usually check them 10 days after the tassels appear. You can feel through the husk if the kernels are filled.

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PraticalGardener
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Thank-you. I am tentatively planning on a comparably short wide row/bed this year. I read about Grow BioIntensive gardening, and am interested in giving it a try. I might not 'get it right' this with the Grow BioIntensive method this year, but if I can successfully save the sunflower seeds, then that should help me get in the right direction.

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PraticalGardener
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My plans for this year have changed. Because it is so late to plant an outdoor garden here by now, I will try starting with at least one container garden. Hopefully next year I can try out a biointensive garden plot.

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applestar
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You know, it’s time to start soil-prepping for the FALL/winter garden.

Mark out the planting area, deal with weeds, dig and loosen, dig in longer decomposition materials… think about irrigation needs.

…Are you doing the double-digging prep kind of bio-intensive gardening?

To start a bio intensive, you will likely need to consider what you will plant as cover crop over the winter.

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Instead of biointensive, look into no till gardening. No till eliminates the need for the double digging. It all depends on the quality of the soil you have. If it is hard pan and poor in organic matter, tilling once is probably necessary. The other advantage of no till or low till gardening is that you will disturb the soil web the least. Every time you till you destroy some of the soil structure and channels and kills some of the denizens of the soil. No till, works with row planting. Most of the no till commercial farms practice wide row or the opposite of wide row which makes a row only as wide as you can straddle. It depends on what you want to plant in it. I have found though that while it is unnecessary to till regularly, the soil compacts over time, so I have switched from no till to till once in a while.

I agree, that while it is not the best time to plant anything. It is still a good opportunity to prep the soil. I like to start with a soil test so I know what needs to be added and how much. Build the soil over winter so it will be ready to plant next Spring.

https://www.growveg.com/guides/no-till- ... y-to-grow/

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PraticalGardener
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Location: Potomac Highlands region, West Virginia, USA (Zone 6a?)

Thank-you everyone.

Yes, I'm interested in the Grow BioIntensive. In hindsight, I'm wondering about the benefits of double-digging🤔. Mebe forage radishes can help loosen up the deeper soil too.

😅I still need to gather compost ingredients. In the meantime, I am still learning how to compost in a bucket.
Based on my weeds, my soil is towards the alkaline/'sweeter' side.

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PraticalGardener
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Location: Potomac Highlands region, West Virginia, USA (Zone 6a?)

In hindsight, I may need to terrance some or all of the garden beds. Most of my land is sloped. :?

I learned online about raised row gardening, including planting veggies among winter-killed cover crop roots in wide garden beds. It also seems to encourage mulched walking paths and to minimize soil disturbance.

Now I'm curious if I can basically do biointensive gardening, but with a (more like no till?) different initial garden soil preparation, even though it's on a terrance. Perhaps forage radishes can help? I now also hope to learn to integrate planting veggies among cover crops roots too.

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applestar
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Location: Zone 6, NJ (3/M)4/E ~ 10/M(11/B)

Depending on degree of slope, you could just do wide raised rows with swales as paths — Permaculture, Natural Farming, etc.

I wonder if some of those videos I used to watch are still up on youtube — Emilia Hazelip, Ruth Stout, et. al.

Found Emilia Hazelip —

Emilia Hazelip - Synergistic Garden (95)



It’s interesting — even though this video was prominently titled “Permaculture”, Emilia Hazelip I don’t think was actually Permaculture — rather, some of Permaculture derived from HER methods, just as her methods were derived from Masanobu Fukuoka’s. (I’ll link the video nevertheless since it’s a better quality one with her speaking in English)

Permaculture and some of these others turned into a — you have to get training at certified workshops — kind of movement and I strayed away from them after a while, but I still utilize elements that seem to work for my postage stamp sized garden …. (I also “realized” some of those techniques are not going to be possible due to the small size — I think it’s like aquariums and ponds, compost piles, container gardening — there needs to be a certain volume for the natural biological activity and cycles to work effectively — in my garden, certain amounts of human -my-input/intervention become inevitable).

Haven’t looked at them in a while but we have some good discussions archived here—
(Natural Farming/Agriculture)One Straw Revolution - Masanobu Fukuoka - HelpfulGardener.com

Permaculture Forum - HelpfulGardener.com

Gardening techniques are really timeless.

In Japan, Natural Agriculture “movement” is apparently still continuing and I’ve been watching some dedicated folks posting videos about their methods and results. Recently, an elderly, gentle looking “master” was giving a talk and saying it takes 4-7 years before the land is sufficiently converted from conventional agricultural practices to achieve the conditions that no longer requires fertilizers and other inputs.

I watch this channel sometimes— he spends last part of his videos discussing his philosophy or just observations in general, so it’s a lot of talking (in Japanese) but it’s clear he really just plants by cutting into grass and weeds — sometimes started plants, sometimes just seeds. He doesn’t hesitate to expose the failures and difficulties he has encountered and discusses what has worked, what needs to be tried next year, etc.

“Natural Farming on an Island”
島の自然農園
https://youtube.com/@user-rx5wc1wy4w

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PraticalGardener
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Location: Potomac Highlands region, West Virginia, USA (Zone 6a?)

Not much of an update yet. I have yet to determine where the most ideal location is for the vegetable garden. Some of the trees are in 'just the right place' to shade areas I didn't anticipate in the late evening. :? I will continue gathering information, planning, and gather the materials as I am able. I will have to try again at composting. I do have an idea on how I want to fence the outdoor vegetable garden, to exclude deer and rabbits.
:? I did not get around to doing my own outdoor vegetable garden this year. I did manage to luck out on a Urban Bloomer Low Garden Bed container on sale. :) I filled it up with root media (it's not real soil). I tried to grow Tom Thumb peas, but in hindsight I suspect I shaded them too much indoors, and I may need to water them more frequently. They grew nicely initially, then died off. I reshuffled stuff to relocate it into a sunnier room. I will try planting more of them later later.

In hindsight, I will try to check the list of invasive plants in my state before planting. In hindsight soapwort/'Bouncing Betty' is considered to be invasive in WV, and spreads by roots and seeds. :shock: To my knowledge, it didn't come back after being tilled in the garden.



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