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Gary350
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Re: Tennessee 2020 Garden

I have been cleaning up the garden and making more sun light for the garden. Yesterday I used an 8 ft long Harbor Freight electric chain saw & step ladder to cut off tree limbs 20 ft up. Today I burned, tree limbs, tomato plants, okra plants, corn stalks. I have a lot of firewood size logs for camping. I have a Harbor Freight electric chain saw too. There will be several 5 gallon buckets of wood ask fertilizer for the garden.
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TomatoNut95
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Looks great; nice job!

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Gary350
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Saturday morning I rented a trailer with a lift bucket that goes up 60 feet high. I parked trailer next to the first tree then used rental chain saw to cut tree limbs off as I went to the top of the tree. Gravity put all the tree limbs in a pile around each tree. Then I started cutting top off of the trees as I went down. Tree diameter larger than 6" is slow to cut so I left 35 ft tall tree stumps to speed up the job. I cut 21 pine trees some were 65 ft tall. I also trimmed the shade tree on the patio. I had lift bucket trailer rented for 2 days ran out of time and never got to cut tall tree stumps shorter. Oh well so what tall stumps don't make much shade on the garden and I can cut them and let them fall when I get ready. Today me and grandson worked on burning wood. I built a very hot fire with the dry dead wood then threw on the green pine trees they burn up like diesel fuel very hot & lost of black smoke. We got tired and quit 4 pm. Tomorrow I will use my $59 Harbor Freight electric chain saw to cut all the tree limbs in smaller pieces. When I cut down 4 trees last year I advertised free fire wood & several people came and hauled wood away I was glad it was gone so I will do that again. There is a lot of cutting and burning to do it might take 2 weeks, it is going to rain Wed if we get too much rain it might take longer to burn most of this small wood. We might miss the nice shade in hot weather but I won't miss the shade after dark now we can see the moon & stars.
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Gary350
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I made teargas sauce for dinner. Jalapeno pepper. cilantro, onion, garlic, lime juice, salt, pepper, vinegar. Puree in blender when I removed the lid gas choked us and burned our eyes. We opened doors to left 15mph wind blow threw. Green sauce tastes good but fire sauce is too hot for me. Jalapeno with no seeds would have been a better choice.

I planted about 40 cilantro seeds under fish aquarium in full sun. Wow the whole garden has full sun now that trees are gone. If seeds germinate soon we might have cilantro all winter. 75 & windy today. I sold all my green house windows & doors.

We still have about 15 lbs of red new potatoes & about 7 lbs of white new potatoes.

Several types of, cabbage, broccoli, chard, cauliflower, plants are growing very slow.

Mushrooms grew larger and there are more of them.
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Gary350
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Wife wanted a large sweet bell pepper & sense we have freeze warming Sunday night I picked all the sweet bell peppers on 1 plant. Wife made a gallon of chili in the large crock pot with garden tomatoes & bell peppers.
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Gary350
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We have freeze warning Sunday night so I decided to pick all the peppers today. It rained last night pepper plants were wet so I waited for the 5 to 10 mph wind to dry things off. About 10:30 am lady from Thailand came to pick peppers I told here to pick all she wants because I don't want many. When she picked peppers from Tabasco plant it looked like she was milking a cow. Her hands were going in out in out in out until both hands were full then she put all the peppers in a bag strapped around her waste. She said, no see, feel with hand, pull off peppers, no pick small peppers. She picks peppers many times faster than me. I pulled up both New Mexico pepper plants took them to patio then sat in chair to removed peppers. Thai lady picked all the small peppers from 3 plants lightning quick. I saved only a few peppers for me she had all her peppers in bags before I got pictures. She said, I make you several sauce. I asked her what sauce she makes, she told me some but I don't remember them or recipes. She said, I make you sauce, good on chicken, good on fish, good on other food, I bring you jars of sauce.

The few peppers that I saved I cut up in smaller pieces filled a pint jar then filled jar with vinegar.

I have a tray of several habanero dry peppers they turned yellow/orange color. I ground them into powder in blender. I will give this habanero chili powder to my son.

We ate the last of the chili for dinner.

This new camera was taking good close up pictures but now all close ups are blurred. Old camera completely quit.

I dug up all the white sweet potatoes there was only about 10 lbs from all 4 plants. We kept 2 lbs & gave the rest away. I only planted white sweet potatoes 1 other time about 4 years ago 3 plants made a lot of potatoes about 30 lbs but I kept the weeds out and took care to keep vines growing in a small circle. This year I did absolutely nothing potato crop was full of grass and vine spread out 25ft by 30ft. Tomorrow I will pick a large bucket of sweet potato leaves to eat like spinach. I picked and ate several sweet potato leaves while digging potatoes. Thai lady said, no wash sweet potato leaves, no get wet they freeze good you eat later.
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Gary350
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I boiled several sweet potato leaves then chopped them in small pieces. Then I poured 1 tablespoon of my chili pepper vinegar over the greens. Wow these are good I will never waste my time growing any other type greens that are hard to grow in TN when I can have sweet potato leaves all summer. I will plant sweet potatoes just for the leaves. Now that I have tasted the vinegar from my mixed peppers it needs more flavor. I will add 1 garlic clove shopped, some onion & salt. I'm not sure I can ever match the good flavor of Louisiana hot sauce it has the best flavor of any hot sauce I have found and not fire hot like Tabasco sauce which has no flavor at all. Weather man says it will be 28°F tonight I need to get busy picking sweet potato leaves before dark.
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Wife made a pizza for dinner, pepperoni, salami, Ragu pizza sauce, cheese, & garden chili pepper mix. I put my chili pepper vinegar mix in the food processor to chop into tiny pieces, habaneros, tabasco, jalapeno, not sure what the other pepper is something that someone recommended that makes multi color peppers very hot like cayenne. Peppers have been soaking in vinegar several says. I sprinkled tiny chopped peppers everywhere over the pizza then sprinkled on cheese. I was worried it would turn out fire hot too hot to eat but it turned out perfect just enough heat to know it is there. Mixed peppers make the most amazing good flavor. Not very long ago I was reading how mixed peppers have a much better flavor than any 1 single pepper.
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Gary350
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We had frost but it did not hurt any of the cabbage family of plants. Cauliflower seeds have not germinated yet it has only been 2 week. Forecast sunny in mid 70s all week for 7 days. Wife baked 3 of our potatoes, cut open, add butter & sour cream, fill with pulled pork, top with BBQ sauce, cheddar cheese, chives. Pork roast only cooked 3 hours in crock pot.
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Gary350
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Is anyone else having record breaking warm weather, it was 81° yesterday & suppose to be 81° again today. Cabbage related plants are growing very slow, Napa, Red Kale, Broccoli are growing faster than other varieties but still very slow growing even in this warm weather. Cabbage plants are a month old and only 2" tall. Cauliflower is just starting to come up from seeds. When cold weather finally sets in I don't expect plants will grow at all, some will die when it gets colder than 28°, 25° 20°, 15°F. A few years ago it was strange to see Russian Red Kale growing in snow with ice frozen to the leaves it survived all winter. When it gets cold & stays cold plants that live won't grow until it gets warmer about April. Sometimes we have crazy warm weather in winter, one year we had 80° weather for a week in Feb. The only herbs that survived the 31° freeze is, parsley, thyme, fennel, cilantro. Chickweed is still trying to take over I need to till soil again to kill it. The whole garden has full sun now that trees are gone. I dug up about 20 lbs of sweet potatoes and gave away most of them. There could be more sweet potatoes but I'm not digging them up. I have done nothing to my mixed peppers but after aging about 2 weeks in a jar of vinegar flavor is much better.

What in the world is the deal with all these advertisements there are several of them. I don't trust advertisements anymore, I refuse to buy anything I see in an advertisement that forces me to look at it.
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Getting smarter every day. A few weeks ago after eating all the Savoy cabbage I took the core = stump to the garden, put it in a hole and covered it with about 1" of soil. We have had rain several times, cold weather and hotter weather & today I notice the savoy cabbage stump has already grown a cabbage head about 2½" diameter. The cabbage stump is growing faster than seeds I planted. I have tried to grow cabbage cores in hot summer weather it never worked very well. This is the first time I ever planted the core deep enough to cover it with 1" of soil in cool weather. I wonder if grocery store broccoli will grow? What about celery? Lettuce & other cabbage might grow like this? We will see how it turns out.
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Today I bottled my Blackberry Wine. I picked 10 gallons of berries then squeezed out about 4½ gallons of juice. I made sure there are NO seeds in this wine because seeds give wine a bitter flavor. I added enough sugar and water to make about 5¾ gallons with specific gravity 1.086 for 12% alcohol. I only use recipe as a guide so not to forgot something. Add extra bentonite it makes wine clear faster & better. No acid blend until wine is finished if wine is too acid its not easy to remove. When fermentation stopped a month later there was 2" of sediment in the bottom of the 6 gallon glass jug. I removed sediment from wine then added 1/2 cup of oak chips for aged in oak barrel flavor & Isinglass to clear quick. Wine has been ageing for about 4 months. Today I used PH paper to check my wine it reads 4 ph perfect right where it should be. Specific gravity is .990. I have 26 bottles and it tastes GOOD. I have been making this recipe for 25 years I have gotten much better at it. My home grown berries are Cumberland Black Raspberry wild & native to the south, TN, AL, GA, NC. Blackberry & Raspberry are in the same family and taste identical only difference is Raspberry is ripe ready to pick 2 weeks before Blackberry and Raspberries are about 10 times BIGGER than Blackberries with 60% less seeds. I am tried of removing old factory labels from used bottles I will write new wine name on old labels. I use to have white color stickers but ran out. This wine turned out excellent best blackberry I ever made it won't need to age much but if you ever tasted 6 year old blackberry it is worth waiting for. I fermented wine with Cabernet Sauvignon yeast. Tomorrow is Friday 13th my good luck day.
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TomatoNut95
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Gary, how can I tell when my okra pods are mature enough to be picked off the plant? The pods I'm saving for seed have been on the plants for over a month now but are still green.

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Gary350
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TomatoNut95 wrote:
Mon Nov 16, 2020 6:17 pm
Gary, how can I tell when my okra pods are mature enough to be picked off the plant? The pods I'm saving for seed have been on the plants for over a month now but are still green.
When green pods turn brown & dry out on the vine they are ready to pick. Keep pods in the house about 3 months or if pods start splitting open its time to remove seeds. Each pod has about 75 seeds.
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TomatoNut95
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I guess my pods aren't going to mature then. They've been on the plants for over a month now and they're not turning brown. It's turning colder and it'll probably frost before the pods mature. How long do your pods take to dry on the plant?

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Gary350
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TomatoNut95 wrote:
Tue Nov 17, 2020 11:55 am
I guess my pods aren't going to mature then. They've been on the plants for over a month now and they're not turning brown. It's turning colder and it'll probably frost before the pods mature. How long do your pods take to dry on the plant?
My pods are 8" long & 1" diameter. They need to be a month old before they are old enough to start turning brown it takes 3 or 4 more weeks to be all brown and somewhat dry then it is time to pick them.
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Today we finished burning a 150 ft row of tree limbs from 21 trees it has taken about 2 weeks to burn all those tree limbs. I only saved 10 buckets of wood ash from the last burn I only had 10 empty buckets. There is still wood ash to pick up & there will be more wood ash tomorrow from todays burn. I have 2 trash cans 30 gallons each I can fill up 1 of them. I advertised free camping fire wood people have been hauling it away free.

I was watching a garden TV show last night they were talking about how DRY raised beds are. The taller raised beds are the drier the soil is. Raised beds will work you to death watering plants, you need a automatic irrigation system or you can never go on vacation. The woman talking to the Bare Food Gardener,, the 5" raised beds are very dry, 8" is dryer, 12" is much dry & the 24" beds use 80 gallons of water each every night. I knew she is in TN too it is 100° and almost no rain June 15 to Nov. I wonder if people in other places have this problem.

My cabbage plants are growing very slow. At this speed there won't be anything to harvest until June. Sun low in the sky = 1/2 the sun light as summer. Days are 7 hours of sunlight shorter. Total of about 75% sunlight in winter.
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Wife & I have been having FUN with this fire after dark. We have 2 chairs facing south at the Fire & Moon, a bottle of wine, popcorn & a good Star show. 7pm we watch the moon over the fire, Jupiter & Saturn can be seen to the right of the moon. It is relaxing like going camping but in our own back yard. Trees are gone we can finally see the sky in our yard for the first time. Sunday night moon will be 50 minutes later 7:50pm central time. I will save some of this wood we can have a fire anytime we want. Moon is 50 min later every night.

I raked up all the wood ash in piles then scooped it into 5 gallon buckets & took it all in the workshop for now, I'm not sure yet where to keep it all winter. 10 buckets of ash on the floor, 6 buckets in the 30 gallon trash can, 4 buckets in wheel barrel, = 100 gallons of wood ash potassium & calcium organic garden fertilizer. I can not use this on potatoes they do not like calcium. Tomatoes & pepper plants like potassium for making many blossoms and large fruit, plants love calcium for prevent BER. Next season I can till 25 lbs of wood ash in the tomato row & pepper row. I'm not sure if corn & beans like wood ash fertilizer I might give them some anyway to us it up.

All the cold weather crops are growing slow. We are having 75 to 80 degree temperatures during the day, no rain, sun is low & days are short = about 70% less sunlight this time of the year. April 20 plants will get tilled into the soil if there is no crop yet it will be time to plant, corn, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers.

Next year garden will be smaller. This is the 1st year I have kept good notes how much I harvest was for each crop. Next year I know exactly how much to plant for the quantity we want. This year was a terrible year for tomatoes, not so good for peppers, but a good year from corn & beans. I never get 2 & 3 lbs of potatoes from each eye like I see online I think the reason I only get 1 lb per eye is because, potatoes are a 4 month crop, last 2 months is 100°F every day with almost no rain soil is dry as desert. Next year, no squash, no okra, no melons, no sweet potatoes, no herbs, no carrots. I should plant about 30% more than we need just incase 2021 is a bad year for certain crops.

Chickweed has taken over the garlic & garden. There is volunteer cilantro in with the garlic. This year was worse year ever for chickweed. I tilled the soil to kill chickweed. I need to till soil as often as possible all winter to kill chickweed. I hope we don't get 6 months of none stop rain like last year.
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Gary350
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Maybe my cabbage plants are not growing fast because I am not feeding them nitrogen? Garden is muddy from yesterdays rain I have to wait for dry soil to walk in garden to feed plants. Yesterday after lunch it was a very dark over cast day with slow rain all day & still raining harder at 8 pm.

I made a pancake for breakfast, I don't usually eat pancakes in the morning they screw up my blood sugar all day from not enough protein. I made a scrambled egg pancake too it is under the flour pancake. I put 1 tablespoon of home made blackberry jam on top. Jam is very low sugar I left out about 70% of the sugar it has a very good blackberry flavor.

Sun is coming up it looks so nice. It was 30° F this morning & going to warm up to 54° with no rain today but rain in forecast Wed & almost every day for a week. I hope rainy season is not starting, I hate 6 months of rain. I wish I could be someplace else with no rain for 6 months then return here April 20 to plant the garden. Our sun will be at 34 degree angle Dec 21. I watched the weather only now TV is off I am not watch anything bad I'm tired of it.
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Now I want to make some pancakes! :D I don’t like white flour pancakes though — I’ve been eating whole grain and whole grain mix for so long that anything 100% white flour is too doughy (in my mind, I think playdough :>)

It does help Nutritionally, to add higher protein flour — “graham“ (while wheat), buckwheat, millet ... or you could try but flours like almond (if you have no allergies). I also like adding chopped nuts — usually pecan or hazelnut.

Love the blackberry jam. I have some syrup left somewhere.... :wink:

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Gary350
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applestar wrote:
Mon Nov 23, 2020 10:26 am
Now I want to make some pancakes! :D I don’t like white flour pancakes though — I’ve been eating whole grain and whole grain mix for so long that anything 100% white flour is too doughy (in my mind, I think playdough :>)

It does help Nutritionally, to add higher protein flour — “graham“ (while wheat), buckwheat, millet ... or you could try but flours like almond (if you have no allergies). I also like adding chopped nuts — usually pecan or hazelnut.

Love the blackberry jam. I have some syrup left somewhere.... :wink:
I have a good pancake recipe, I have been lazy so I made 1/4 cup of pancake mix for only 1 pancake. You can do this recipe with any flour mixture you like it makes about 6 pancakes. I have substituted 25% of the white flour for, whole wheat, corn meal, crushed graham crackers, oatmeal & other things it always turns out good. You must use the whole batter right away it is no good 2 minutes later, baking soda & vinegar mix makes big fluffy pancakes. Cook pancakes slow or they burn on the outside before inside has time too cook, 350°F until golden brown on both sides. Pancakes should turn out like fresh baked bread. My electric griddle with thermostat makes much better pancake than a skillet with no thermostat.

1 cups of All purpose flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 cup milk
1 tsp vinegar

Have griddle or skillet hot before mixing this. Baking soda & vinegar mix reaction is slow enough you have 30 seconds to mix it then pour onto a skillet to cook. If you wait too long soda & vinegar foaming action is gone then pancakes are flat.

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Gary350
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How Tomato Sauce is made in Italy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CsZN_Mtyc8

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Gary350
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This morning everything was white with frost but only 31°F. Cold weather plants have not frozen yet. Savoy cabbage core is growing a head of cabbage. Cilantro seems to be experiencing unnatural growing conditions under the fish aquarium, plants are tiny & continue to stay tiny. Fish aquarium needs to be gone. Cilantro in other places is doing better. Cilantro at the end of garlic bed is being taken over by chickweed. I tried to pull out chickweed but I keep pulling up cilantro by accident. When it gets cold enough to kill Savoy cabbage head I will cover it with the fish aquarium at night maybe I can save it. I tilled soil again to kill chickweed it tills up like potting soil the 10,000. lbs of mulch I put on the garden a few year ago has finally become perfect soil. I gave plants a tiny sprinkle of nitrogen yesterday I'm not sure how much they need.
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TomatoNut95
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Chickweed is trying to take over my garden as well. Nasty, invasive stuff.

Yep, I'd give that cabbage nitrogen. If you want big leafy greens on it, nitrogen would be the best thing.

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Temperature was 18°F last night, clear sky, no clouds, full moon. I took pictures about 7am & again at 2 pm. No damage to, green cabbage, red cabbage, savoy cabbage, Napa cabbage, red chard, boc choy, broccoli, russian red kale. My $75 very accurate thermometer said 18° same as TV weather forecast. My notes say all of these plants should be dead except Russian red kale. Freeze temperature Information online is wrong.

I cut down the last 2 tree stumps today they were all about 35 ft tall. I have been cutting wood into smaller pieces all day. Several people came yesterday evening & hauled away 3 pickup truck loads &1 trailer load of wood. My market place AD says, Free camp fire wood, bond fire wood, party fire wood, this saves me a lot of work not having to haul wood away myself or burning all of it. I am using a $49 Harbor Freight Electric chain saw with 150 ft of extension cord. I often take this chain saw camping with 400 ft of extension cord State Parks allow anyone to cut DEAD wood only.
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Some words of advice for better winter crops is if you can start your seeds earlier say late Aug or get them at the store to give them a jump start would be better than starting seeds this late in the season in ground. The 2 reasons being, the days are getting shorter so there's less light for the plants, and 2. With those shorter days makes for cooler earth which somewhat shocks the plant. Your plants should start taking off after the first of the year. This has been my experience growing broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels in central CA. Maybe this will help? Good Luck
https://extension.tennessee.edu/publica ... -OkTvsUxZM

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Gary350
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greenstubbs wrote: Some words of advice for better winter crops is if you can start your seeds earlier say late Aug or get them at the store to give them a jump start would be better than starting seeds this late in the season in ground. The 2 reasons being, the days are getting shorter so there's less light for the plants, and 2. With those shorter days makes for cooler earth which somewhat shocks the plant. Your plants should start taking off after the first of the year. This has been my experience growing broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels in central CA. Maybe this will help? Good Luck
https://extension.tennessee.edu/publica ... -OkTvsUxZM
We had a terrible year for bugs & blight. I planted a few cabbage seeds outside early but bugs ate them all. Maybe screen wire over the 2 gallon pot will keep bugs away until first frost kills bugs then plants can be transplanted. I wonder if bug eggs are in the soil. Cucumbers had 1000s of bugs I wonder if cucumbers attracted all those bugs, maybe that is why the rest of the garden has such a plague of bugs like we never had in 43 years of gardening in TN.

I put fish aquarium over the savoy cabbage and 1 other tiny cabbage plant. It is very over cast today 33° F outside and 65° inside the green house fish aquarium. All of the cold weather plants that germinated from seeds are doing good. 5 of the 8 cauliflower seeds germinated & 4 of the 5 plants are about 3" tall & looking good. Information I found online says cauliflower is good down to 25° it has already been down to 18° & cauliflower is doing good. Napa is looking best of all the cold weather plants. Day time temperatures have been up in the 40s & 50s, todays high is predicted to be about 35. Next few days it will warm up in the mid 40s. Wife use to grow cauliflower in Michigan she said, it grows good in 4 ft of snow, when snow melts in June cauliflower is ready to harvest 1st week of July. My family never grew cold weather crops & I never learned how. I removed about 60% of the chickweed by hand then it rained so maybe if it stays dry for a few days I can hand pull the rest of the chickweed.
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TomatoNut95
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What kind of cauliflower did your wife grow? I need a really cold hardy type to grow here I think because the last I got frostbitten too easily.

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TomatoNut95 wrote:
Tue Dec 08, 2020 5:17 pm
What kind of cauliflower did your wife grow? I need a really cold hardy type to grow here I think because the last I got frostbitten too easily.
Wife said, that was 55 years ago. She bought seeds for white cauliflower at a local store, planted them in the house, when they were bigger she planted them outside. Last frost is about June 6th in MI transplant a month before last frost. She also planted seeds directly in the garden July 30. First frost about Oct 1 and first snow about a week later. She was in northern Michigan. She said, she did not know there were different types of white cauliflower.

I did online research 4 months ago mostly YouTube videos of people growing cauliflower. I was looking for something that can take frost & cold weather. My 200 seed pack for 99 cents says, Self Blanching cauliflower. My Ebay auction is long gone Ebay deletes auction history after 30 days.

I found a lot of conflicting information, some say cauliflower can stand cold weather down to, 28°, 25°, 20°, 15°. Very few videos tell the name of what people grow. Then I did Google Search for cauliflower, not much good information, no names, no information when to plant, no info about frost or snow, Most people said, I planted it, it grew and this is what I harvested. LOL

Some where I found info that said, white cauliflower is more cold hardy than red & yellow cauliflower,

I have several old seed catalogs some of them have good information like how cold hardy plants are.

I made notes on my seed package, 60 day crop. My seed catalog says SNOW BALL is a 60 day crop. This is probably what I ordered on ebay. The other cauliflower is called AMAZING it is 70 day crop.

I use seed catalogs, Youtube, & Ebay to find seeds I want then order from ebay because prices are cheap usually 99 cents free postage. I buy from Ebay sellers with good feedback.

If I can grow cauliflower in TN you should be about to grow it in TX. I grew very good cold weather plants in AZ it was common to have frost & temperatures down to 25 to 21 degrees at night in February only. I grew Napa cabbage heads that weighed 18 lbs.

Order some cauliflower seed varieties, plant them all, see what happens. Put a good accurate thermometer in your garden. It was 18° F here and everything lived.

My best seeds come from China but it takes 2 months to arrive. No hybrids just good seeds 100% germination.
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greenstubbs
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Gary350 wrote:
Tue Dec 08, 2020 11:00 am

We had a terrible year for bugs & blight. I planted a few cabbage seeds outside early but bugs ate them all. Maybe screen wire over the 2 gallon pot will keep bugs away until first frost kills bugs then plants can be transplanted. I wonder if bug eggs are in the soil.

Didn't you add a truck load of soil a year or so ago that you questioned about? Do you know where it came from and the quality it was? It could be the problem? The struggle continues! Good Luck

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Gary350
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greenstubbs wrote:
Thu Dec 10, 2020 4:38 pm
Gary350 wrote:
Tue Dec 08, 2020 11:00 am

We had a terrible year for bugs & blight. I planted a few cabbage seeds outside early but bugs ate them all. Maybe screen wire over the 2 gallon pot will keep bugs away until first frost kills bugs then plants can be transplanted. I wonder if bug eggs are in the soil.

Didn't you add a truck load of soil a year or so ago that you questioned about? Do you know where it came from and the quality it was? It could be the problem? The struggle continues! Good Luck


2 years ago I rented a dump bed trailer to haul 10,000. lbs of mulch from the local recycle center to my garden. 5 tons of organic material changed my garden soil from 6 ph to 8 ph & nitrogen was very low. Corn would not grow & beans did not like it. I poured 1 gallon of vinegar on each of the 5 corn rows & a gallon or more vinegar on the beans that changed ph to about 7.5 that was enough to make corn & bean plants grow. I gave corn & beans nitrogen and they grew. This spring soil tested 7 ph garden plants did good except for bugs & blight. Next spring ph should be lower maybe 6.5 or 6 ph. City of Murfreesboro TN has trucks that drive around town picking up dead, trees, bushes, leaves, grass, they run it through a large grinder machine then bulldoze it into BIG 20 ft tall piles to age. All the compost material they make 2020 will age for 1 year. Compost made 2019 was given away this year starting January & it will all be gone by May. 40 years ago I use to get organic material from the city for my garden it took about 2 years for the whole garden to look like potting soil.

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Gary350
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I have several jars of sliced jalapeno peppers in vinegar like I see on grocery store shelves. So far I have not found a good use for these sliced peppers so today I opened all of the jars and poured them into a pan. Jar lids were stuck tight so I got my car engine oil filter wrench from Harbor Freight to remove lids. This wrench stays in the house from now on it gets more us in here than it does the garage. Its the best hard lid opener I ever had. I have an equal amount of Red color & green color Jalapeno peppers. I pureed peppers with vinegar that was in the jars in food processor after chopping them I boiled them for 10 minutes then puree them again in food processor. Online videos, how to make hot pepper sauce shows they filter the juice out to remove the pulps and seeds so I did that too. I put the pepper sauce in 3 wine bottles. Flavor is very good and not too spicy hot about like Louisiana hot sauce. I will keep 1 bottle then give the other 2 to my 2 sons. I have about 1 pint of jalapeno pulp this might be good to flavor soup & stew or other things. This hot sauce is about 20% vinegar with 1 teaspoon of salt.

It is interesting 50% red & 50% green turned out to be a red color & not green color. I bottled hot sauce with wine corks like I do wine. I have about 6 dozen more clear glass wine bottles next summer they will all be full of hot sauce.
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Gary350
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Yesterday I went across the street to the construction site an got free scrap lumber to build this shelf for mason jars. It holds 9 quart jars per shelf plus 10 on top shelf. It won't win a beauty contest and we don't care. Our small kitchen needs to be better organized. I did just enough searching to find 36 quarts to fill the 36 quart spaces plus odd size jars on top shelf. Rain season is here to stay for 6 months if rain stops for 30 minutes I will get more free scrap lumber that I can use in the garden. I found enough Bread & Butter pickles that I won't need to grow cucumbers this year, this is good I don't what to grow cucumbers anyway. We talked about tomatoes an decided we only need 12 quarts this year we have 17 quarts from the past 2 years. There could still be, tomatoes, pickles, beans, lost some where in the pantry. Quart jars were removed from taller wider shelves that wife needs to store larger items that are now taking up space in the pantry. Now pantry can be organized better.
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pepperhead212
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Great way of saving money, as well as saving more filling from the landfill!

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Gary350
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Cold weather plants were snow white this morning covered with frost in 21° temperature. I fed dog & cats and petted them, black color dog makes a very good hand warmer she feels like she is 100°. Gray cat feels like 80° & white cat feels like 70°. At 11:30am it had warmed up to 40°. Plants show no signed of not liking this cold weather.

I decided this year I need fertilizer specific for each crop. 0-20-20 is for, potatoes, tomatoes, onions, garlic. All these crops also need about 5% nitrogen.

Peppers do best with 15-15-15 and they need more K & calcium for BER they will get that from wood ash.

Tomatoes can use more K & calcium they need wood ash fertilizer too.

Corn need N and trace elements plus P & K about 1 lb of Urea & wood ash a week before planting corn, Urea & 15-15-15 when corn is knee high, Urea when corn silks appear on the ears.

Beans do very well with nitrogen fixing and 15-15-15.

At the moment I don't plan to plant anything else but these 5 items in the garden this spring. I might plant carrots again, wait & see.

After looking at my fertilizer bags I decided to take pictures. I never really paid much attention to what is written on the bags. I learned that P is made from ground up powered rock it is natural. Powder rock is soaked in water then rock removed and water evaporated to make a more concentrated fertilizer in pellets.

I have 95 gallons of wood ash that contains lots of charcoal.
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Gary350
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I have a lot of garden hot peppers sliced & packed in jars filled with vinegar. Today I decided to make Taco Sauce. I watched several Mexican people on YouTube making taco sauce then I checked ingredient list on several taco sauce bottles from the grocery store. I started out with 1/4 Red color jalapeno peppers, 1/4 green jalapeno peppers, 1/2 tomatoes. After removing seeds I cooked sauce on the stove while I added, 6 garlic cloves, 1/2 onion diced, 1 T oregano, 2 tsp cumin, 1½ tsp salt, vinegar from pepper jars, sugar. After tasting sauce I made a few recipe adjustments then tasted it again several times then added a small can of tomato paste. After boiling the sauce 15 minutes I puree the sauce in food processor then filled 5 empty wine bottles. This turned out to be very good taco sauce. I will give some to my 2 Sons they love Mexican food. We eat a lot of tacos it is quick easy fast food, it won't take long to use up the taco sauce.

I still have several jars packed full of peppers in vinegar, Tabasco, Habanero, red & green chilies & more red & green Jalapeno. Tabasco has the best flavor I need to do something good with them.
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Gary350
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Now that day temperatures are only 45° to 50° F winter cabbage plants are not growing. Cold temperatures have not killed any plants. So far there is nothing to EAT & if is stays cold until April there will still be nothing to eat. Information online says, plants do nothing at 50° & colder they wait for warmer weather to grow. We have crazy warm days in winter sometimes we have 80° for 3 or 4 days in Feb & March. Boc Choy is looking good maybe I should put fish aquarium green house over certain plants from time to time to help them grow faster. Warnings online say, most of these plants go to seeds above 70°F. I think a winter temperature controlled green house would be good to grow these crops if sun could warm them up to 65° every day.

I pulled up a stick, it turned out to be the stem of a frozen potato plant. I pulled up 6 ping pong ball size white potatoes. Wow 6 potatoes on 1 plant, I can't do that is spring/summer weather, I only get 1 potato per plant. I think TN is too hot & too dry for a GOOD spring potato crop.

I gathered up all the plastic jugs and plastic & glass bottles we have to make green houses for small plants. 1 gallon milk jugs work good for larger plants. Maybe sun will warm plants up enough to grow. I always have very good luck with Chinese Napa cabbage it never gets too cold to kill it but it never makes heads, only leaves. Maybe Napa needs nitrogen I never fertilize anything in winter. Sun is at 34° angle 3 more days it will be shortest day of the year.
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Gary350
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Today I removed green house bottles this defeats the purpose of my test. I was try to warm plants up yesterday but today they get on rain & no fresh air. No more bottles now matter what mother nature does. Lots of mud.
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applestar
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One thing I’ve been meaning to try is to get the coil of I think 9 gauge wire you see in the fence section and cut them up into arch supports (hoops) for low caterpillar tunnel over each row. You need deep stakes on ends to secure the plastic ends , and hooked tie-down stakes at base of alternate hoop legs to hold the plastic strap that goes over the plastic cover to keep from flapping in the wind.

- You can open the ends or bunch sides up, held with straps against the hoops to create ventilation.
- This can collapse under snow load but sometimes you can upgrade design with one or more full-length strings tied at top and sides of hoops to create ridge line, etc.

There are other designs. That youtuber I referenced regarding peas has an innovative design for short rows that he’s used for years, but he uses materials for the hoops that are hard to find/obtain in the usa.

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Gary350
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applestar wrote:
Sun Dec 20, 2020 12:44 pm
One thing I’ve been meaning to try is to get the coil of I think 9 gauge wire you see in the fence section and cut them up into arch supports (hoops) for low caterpillar tunnel over each row. You need deep stakes on ends to secure the plastic ends , and hooked tie-down stakes at base of alternate hoop legs to hold the plastic strap that goes over the plastic cover to keep from flapping in the wind.

- You can open the ends or bunch sides up, held with straps against the hoops to create ventilation.
- This can collapse under snow load but sometimes you can upgrade design with one or more full-length strings tied at top and sides of hoops to create ridge line, etc.

There are other designs. That youtuber I referenced regarding peas has an innovative design for short rows that he’s used for years, but he uses materials for the hoops that are hard to find/obtain in the usa.
Good Idea. 11 gauge wire is very low cost at Farmers Co-op mostly because it is a high volume sale item that most farmers use often on fence corner posts and gate posts in 50ft & 100ft rolls. Most tomato cages are made from 11 gauge wire.



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