Misc/Chat May 2022 Planting and Chat Thread

[packyderms_wife]

Planting Calendar - Gardening by the moon

This planting calendar helps you pick the best days for gardening tasks based a 200-year-old formula. Our readers swear by it! Learn more.

www.farmersalmanac.com

• 1st – 1st
  Favorable for planting beans, corn, cotton, tomatoes, peppers, and other aboveground crops.
• 2nd – 3rd
  Any seed planted now will tend to rot.
• 4th – 6th
  Plant seedbeds and flower gardens. Most favorable for corn, cotton, okra, beans, peppers, eggplant, and other aboveground crops.
• 7th – 11th
  A barren period. Favorable for killing plant pests, cultivating, or taking a short vacation.
• 12th – 13th
  Favorable time for sowing hay, fodder crops, and grains. Plant flowers. Excellent time for planting corn, beans, peppers, and other aboveground crops.
• 14th – 15th
  Plant seedbeds. Excellent for planting aboveground crops, and planting leafy vegetables.
• 16th – 17th
  Seeds planted now will do poorly and yield little.
• 18th – 19th
  Plant late beets, potatoes, onions, carrots, and other root crops.
• 20th – 21st
  Kill plant pests on these barren days.
• 22nd – 23rd
  Fine for vine crops. Set strawberry plants. Good days for transplanting. Favorable time for planting late root crops.
• 24th – 26th
  Fine for vine crops. Set strawberry plants. Good days for transplanting. Favorable time for planting late root crops.
• 27th – 28th
  Good days for transplanting. Root crops that can be planted now will yield well.

 

[packyderms_wife]

And just like that it's May! Time to start some seeds, it's going to be a weird gardening season this year for sure.

 

[ioujc]

Why do you say it is going to be a weird season??

 

[packyderms_wife]

Why do you say it is going to be a weird season??

Typically by this time I have spring veggies in the ground and they're producing already, ditto for green beans, cucumbers, and squash. The ground is still in the 50's here, which is quite unusual for central Iowa. Still too cold to plant herbs as well. Even my garlic chives seem to be stunted.

 

[ioujc]

Typically by this time I have spring veggies in the ground and they're producing already, ditto for green beans, cucumbers, and squash. The ground is still in the 50's here, which is quite unusual for central Iowa. Still too cold to plant herbs as well. Even my garlic chives seem to be stunted.

Oh....OK.

Here, it can't makeup it's mind......COLD last night
(mid 40's) and last week it was in the 80's!!!

 

[ioujc]

I found some raw, in the shell peanuts that I am going to plant!!

I am thinking I will plant them with my late potatoes, which I got in about 10 days ago. I looked up companion plants and it seems to be a fair match.....

 

[TerriHaute]

I've started working and planting my raised beds but it's still too wet to till the main garden. Local weather man last night said we have only had nine days since April 1 without some form of precipitation. More storms today, but they finally promise that next week will be dry, all week! Most of the farmers around here have not started planting yet. I try to watch what they do and plant when they plant since they are the experts.

 

[anna43]

I've been planting for a little over a week now. Five rows of potatoes, one hill each of zucchini, summer squash, butternut squash, cantaloupe and watermelon, beets, peas, onions, okra and chard. I purchased 4 green pepper and three tomato plants and set them out last evening. Had to replant one pepper and one tomato as something dug them up. I started my pepper and tomato plants late and they are still tiny, but I will set them out anyway in another week or so. I planted zinnias, cosmos (w varieties) and nasturtiums seeds. I also planted some lettuce in a pot that I will be able to move into the shade to hopefully keep it from bolting. For now its in the garden.

I still have sweet potatoes, acorn squash, cucumbers, green beans and carrots to plant. My garden was tilled too wet so the ground is far from idea. Hate that, but when you're depending on someone else to do tilling for you, you just have to go with the flow. I'm really debating on planting carrots with the ground to rough and hard. I could wait and plant carrots later when I plant turnips. Again, I'll just go with the flow and figure it out as I go.

I've been cutting asparagus for two weeks now. I just have a small patch, but a lot of self-seeded has come up so in a couple years I'll have a lot more. My late dh would not eat it so I never had to share so the small patch was okay. I occasionally will freeze some, but asparagus is something I prefer fresh. I have a lot of rhubarb, but can't eat it (kidney stones) so need to ask neighbors if they want some. I usually do one rhubarb pudding from my grandmother's recipe and that's all for the year.

 

[WiWatcher]

Ok. I am up in Wisconsin. Just, and I mean just, finished getting the garden ready for planting. Sent a soil sample in and needed to amend the soil to add nitrogen and lower the ph. Added urea for the nitrogen and sulfur to lower the ph (target is from 7.7 to 6.0). An initial tilling about a week ago and another this evening to work in the amendments. The sulfur addition may take up to a year to have full affect.

 

[ioujc]

I am so stove up tonight I can barely stand up!! Apparently bending and stretching to reach the middle of the garden beds REALLY works your back and belly muscles!! PLUS, I believe it is going to RAIN soon. The weather man has nothing on me....I always know when it is gonna rain or snow!

Well, planted tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant today, along with another bed of wildflowers.....the kind that has purple cone flowers, daisies, sweet peas, and all the old fashioned flowers, plus bands of marigolds and nasturtiums. Then, I weeded, and weeded, AND WEEDED!! Then put down a cardboard mulch........worms absolutely LOVE cardboard!! If you want to increase the worms in your garden, just put cardboard down as a mulch, or, as I often do, bury it at the bottom of your beds.....you will have buckets of worms!!

I am going to put down all the rabbit and goat manure down tomorrow, the asparagus bed really NEEDS a load of it!! It has been having difficulty putting out spears this year, and the soil has sunk!! So I will have to build it back up again.

Tonight I just ate a bowl of cereal cause I am so pooped....I don't recall being this old previously!! It is NOT a pleasant feeling!! Hopefully by almost killing myself in the garden, I can build back my strength and stamina!!! That is half the fun!! Seeing my muscles pop out of that old lady skin in my arms and legs!! COOL!!

 

[packyderms_wife]

Between yesterday and today we spent half of this paydays grocery budget on live plants. The only plant I wasn't able to find was a Brandywine tomato plant. The sweet one hundreds are huge and have buds on them already, and will go into the ground tomorrow! I'm so looking forward to fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, and greens.

 

[packyderms_wife]

OCs not happy at all. Hey I drag my feet and for good reason when it comes to gardening. The low on Sunday, central Iowa, is going to be 39f. Tonight’s low is 56f, which basil and tomatoes hate. What can I say I’m a jackass wizard when it comes to planting.

 

[packyderms_wife]

The plants and herbs I bought are in the garage, will have to bring them out for some sunlight later, and that's if the Sun actually comes out. Sunday's low has been changed to 38F.

 

[ioujc]

Had a lovely afternoon!! Worked in the garden.....there is always MORE to do!!

While I was out, noticed the grapes are beginning to form on the vines. Still like little pin heads, but I am excited because last year I got NONE due to severe freeze after they were already budded out. I wasn't sure they would recover, because it took out a lot of the growth. But, now they are back again!! Yeah!!

The elderberries are blooming to the MAX too! Should have good crops from both the grapes and the elderberries this year....I HOPE!!

Everything is coming up like gang bangers. Cantaloupes are trying to vine, but not quite ready...

I always get so excited watching stuff grow and produce.....I just LOVE it!!!

My big ole girl Baily came to visit me twice, on HER breaks from watching the goats. She is a WONDERFUL DOG!! I love her DEARLY! She is 6 years old.....they generally only live 10-12 years. I hate having to think about when she won't be here!! She does still want to jump up and put her arms around my neck.....I have keep telling her "No" because I am getting to be an old fart too. So she came out to the garden, while I was sitting down and weeding and crawled completely up into my lap. It is SUCH an HONOR to be loved by such an AWESOME dog!!

I enjoyed today....it was a good, yet relaxed day.....

 

[summerthyme]

Ioujc... consider buying some grape bags on Amazon, and bag the bunches assoon as you can see which ones are worth the trouble. I used to sew bags for apples and grapes, but I couldn't beat China's prices! Bagging them early prevents almost all bug and bird damage.

When it's harvest time, you just snip the stem and either strip the bag off in the field or when you get back to the house.

We had major bird issues on our farm, to the point where they'd often eat all the elderberries while still fully green! Grapes were a delicacy. In 2020, my last harvest, I got 8 bushels of perfect Concord grapes off 3, 3 year old vines. I canned gallons of grape juice... IIRC, the bags were under 15 cents each st the time. I bought 500 Apple bags and 200 grape bags... they're holding up very well.

Summerthyme

 

[WanderLore]

Hey Summer I think I will try this with the peaches. Would that work? Its a nice tree my son bought me last year and its full of tiny peaches.

 

[ioujc]

Ioujc... consider buying some grape bags on Amazon, and bag the bunches assoon as you can see which ones are worth the trouble. I used to sew bags for apples and grapes, but I couldn't beat China's prices! Bagging them early prevents almost all bug and bird damage.

When it's harvest time, you just snip the stem and either strip the bag off in the field or when you get back to the house.

We had major bird issues on our farm, to the point where they'd often eat all the elderberries while still fully green! Grapes were a delicacy. In 2020, my last harvest, I got 8 bushels of perfect Concord grapes off 3, 3 year old vines. I canned gallons of grape juice... IIRC, the bags were under 15 cents each st the time. I bought 500 Apple bags and 200 grape bags... they're holding up very well.

Summerthyme

I have some and used them on my peaches......but each one I bagged shriveled up and dropped into the bag.....was it too early?? They were about the size of a nickel, or am I just that much of a CLUTZ!!

 

[Wildwood]

I finally have the infrastructure of my garden done this year. I do over 50% vertical gardening...I find it's easier on my aging bones and I like the way it looks. After about five years of trial and error, I've finally got all my trellises upgraded and arranged the way I wanted them...that's the infrastructure lol. It's mostly cattle panels and t-posts. I've also got two big raised beds and the only addition I see me doing is maybe two more some day. I'd like to have one just for potatoes and one for strawberries. I have one of my current beds planted in all sweet potatoes after they did so well for me last year. The other is just a mixture of more tomatoes and peppers among other things.

I've got most of my direct sewn row crops planted...purple hulls, greasy grit beans, cucumbers, kajari melons and a row of zinnias. I put the zinnias on the outside row closest to the the road so everyone that drives by can enjoy them too. I just have my experimental row left to direct sew and it's new stuff I want to try. This year it's cream peas and stringless climbing green beans along with three beit alpha cucumber seeds. I grew them last year for the first time and loved them at first but they didn't produce as long as my national pickling and got hard to handle toward the end so I'm planting those three seeds to see if I was right or to give them another chance if I was just tired and overwhelmed. So many others love them. I got one row of my tomatoe starts planted today and I'm going to try and get the other row planted tomorrow.

ioujc I notice the old lady muscles too. My legs get much stronger every summer. I'm also trying to regain what strength I lost to covid and I think it's working. I am feelig the pain a little on the mornings after I've overdone it in the garden and this is the first year for that. Your dog sounds like a great companion. I know you've said before but I can't remember what kind it is. My guard dog is getting old and the heat is hard on her. I may need to be thinking about getting another one since I'm out by myself so much of the day.

 

[anna43]

We had a frost warning for Saturday, so I had to cover the tomatoes (3), peppers (4) and a tub of flowers. I don't think it frosted though. I use yellow kitty litter buckets with the bottoms cut out and tops removed for covers on tomato and peppers. I have the tops and put them back on for frost protection. Sunday it was windy and then we had one huge blast of wind which sent the covers flying. I put them back on and put stakes around to hopefully keep them in place -- so far so good. I'm amazed at just two days with the buckets how much the plants have improved. Don't know if it's the yellow or the protection from the wind, but difference was marked. I will put buckets over the rest of the peppers and tomatoes when I plant them.

Today I planted lettuce, radishes, carrots, cucumbers and green beans. I'm praying we get the rain forecast for the next two days so the seeds germinate. It's starting to feel like we're going to have another drought year. We're still considered in drought, but I don't know where on the scale. We've been in the extreme range the last three years. The day last week that it rained all afternoon, we got less than 1/4 inch and the ground under the trees was completely dry. Last year we got little rains just when we needed them to keep the garden alive, but it did not thrive. I'm hoping this year is better.

 

[ioujc]

I finally have the infrastructure of my garden done this year. I do over 50% vertical gardening...I find it's easier on my aging bones and I like the way it looks. After about five years of trial and error, I've finally got all my trellises upgraded and arranged the way I wanted them...that's the infrastructure lol. It's mostly cattle panels and t-posts. I've also got two big raised beds and the only addition I see me doing is maybe two more some day. I'd like to have one just for potatoes and one for strawberries. I have one of my current beds planted in all sweet potatoes after they did so well for me last year. The other is just a mixture of more tomatoes and peppers among other things.

I've got most of my direct sewn row crops planted...purple hulls, greasy grit beans, cucumbers, kajari melons and a row of zinnias. I put the zinnias on the outside row closest to the the road so everyone that drives by can enjoy them too. I just have my experimental row left to direct sew and it's new stuff I want to try. This year it's cream peas and stringless climbing green beans along with three beit alpha cucumber seeds. I grew them last year for the first time and loved them at first but they didn't produce as long as my national pickling and got hard to handle toward the end so I'm planting those three seeds to see if I was right or to give them another chance if I was just tired and overwhelmed. So many others love them. I got one row of my tomatoe starts planted today and I'm going to try and get the other row planted tomorrow.

ioujc I notice the old lady muscles too. My legs get much stronger every summer. I'm also trying to regain what strength I lost to covid and I think it's working. I am feelig the pain a little on the mornings after I've overdone it in the garden and this is the first year for that. Your dog sounds like a great companion. I know you've said before but I can't remember what kind it is. My guard dog is getting old and the heat is hard on her. I may need to be thinking about getting another one since I'm out by myself so much of the day.

She, and her daughter are both Great Pyrenees. I fell in love with the breed when I saw my first one.....who was Bonnie Boo. To me their beauty is UNPARALLELED!!

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[WanderLore]

Maple seeds by the thousands. Omg.

 

[WanderLore]

I went and got non-hybrid corn so Levi and I can plant the last four rows in that and be able to save the seeds.

 

[Wildwood]

She, and her daughter are both Great Pyrenees. I fell in love with the breed when I saw my first one.....who was Bonnie Boo. To me their beauty is UNPARALLELED!!

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They are gorgeous! My son's best friend that we practically raised came by to see us over the weekend and he had the prettiest puppy with him. He said it was 3/4 Anatolin and 1/4 Great Pyrenese but I think he got that backwards because she was a snow white fluff ball with longer hair, a light tan ear on one side and spotted tan on the other and one baseball size tan spot at the base of her tail. She stayed in the house with my six year old granddaughter several hours and was really well behaved with no accidents. I got the impression she wasn't the right dog for him so I may talk to him about her.

 

[ioujc]

I will warm you....they have a mind of their own, and tend to be willful!! However, they are almost unerringly RIGHT!!

They seem to be quite capable of detecting the intentions of others......some who I have stupidly trusted have turned out to be quite evil....and my girls are able to determine this at first sniff!! Good people come around and they don't object at all, but then others, one will get in front of the creep and one in back....they are quite able to tag team a prey.....same thing they do with coyotes or other predators. They are only territorial if they think someone is up to no good.....otherwise, it's live and let live.

If you get one, you need to establish yourself as Alpha, otherwise they tend to do whatever they want to do. If you are in what they sense as danger......they will go after whatever or whoever is what they see as a threat. They also (or mine anyway) do not really like folks who have been drinking alcohol or doing drugs.....I have noted this repeatedly.

Overall, they are far and beyond, my favorite breed, and although they will defend you at all costs, they are typically very gentle with any kind of babies....humans goats, even chickens if they are raised with them!!