Pre season

[twild]

I'll get this started. Today I collected soil samples to take and have tested. Also spread 2 wheelbarrels full of chicken turds. Been flippin through the seed catalogs and getting orders ready. What you been doing to get ready, before long it will be time to get taters in the ground.

 

[strong eagle]

i want to recommend some varieties to grow as they worked so well for me. mrs. maxwells tomato, available from the internet. it is a potato leaf tomato, big, early and the best flavor ever. very reliable. for winter squash, cant get any better than pink banana. go to kitazawa seeds on the internet and get lucky dance cucumber seed and armenian cucumber seed, not the striped one. their is nothing better anywheres than these two. if you live at a high elevation and dry climate as i do, do grow everbearing strawberries, they give you good folage but hrdly any berries. grow a good june bearing one in a climate like mine. if you want a consistant producing bell pepper, big bertha. big bertha doesnt drop it flowers as most other bell peppers do at first. i had two average size cattle water tanks filled with compost and fish fertilizer and got 350 big bell peppers to freeze with big bertha. for summer squash get the vining italian trombone kind. they are firm, taste very good and grill very well. just some tasty tips ive learned over the years. ive also got five small apple trees growing in a big pot on a window sill, from seed last fall.i will plant them in a good spot with black plastic under a old tire with a small hole in the black plastic. if you have trouble growing trees as the high and dry elvations like mine is try, sunburst locus. they are a sure thing, look good and you cant kill them.  ponderosa pine and black hill spruce are a sure thing up high and dry also. stay away for any kind of cedar, they kill apple trees.

 

[twild]

Strawberrys is one of the things on my list for this year. Since I don't have a dedicated area for I'm thinking of putting them in wine a whiskey barrels that I've cut in half. II've also got 2 berms down by the pond that are about 4 ft high and 20 ft long. Thinking of putting some on these and just see what happens. No way to really care for those just plant and see if they take off. Going to take 2 halves of the barrels and put asparagues  in them. I've got plenty of ground to plant things but between the chickens and the dogs digging everything up I'll try the barrels. It's a lot less cost than fencing another large garden.

 

[patocazador]

I have trouble finding new dirt to use. All the sunny spots around my house have had gardens before and now have nematodes. Also a #@$%& gopher that eats anything I plant now. He killed off my sweet potato patch.
 
Out in the pasture areas the cows eat everything even if I put electric fencing around it.
I really missed not having fresh mustard and collard greens this winter.

I have a bunch of grapefruit and tangerines that sweetened up enough to eat after our 2 freezes but that's it.

 

[strong eagle]

turdbird, most of my gardening is in containers. it does very well. just make sure you have a drain hole in the bottom of the container, other wise the dirt will get stagnant. keep the watering up as containers can dry out easily. i use a lot of old cattle watering tanks. old boats will due. 15 gallon calf lick buckets from the feed store are good. i dont drill holes in the bottom of the containers, that is what my 45 long colt is for. my local wall mart sells fish fertilizer by the quart or gallon container. it is the best fertilizer you can put on any plants. still winter here but about march 15 the chives are up as well as the garlic. holly hocks come up real early also. wont be long from now.

 

[City Rat]

Nothing yet, we still have snow and more to come.

 

[Smokin' Joe]

Food for thought!
In my last house I had a garden 40' X 60'.  A good third of the garden I dedicated to growing pumpkins. Deer love Pumpkins. In fact they love the pumpkin leaves also.   I grew them for Halloween and afterwards I would cut the pumpkins up in in 4 quarters for the deer.  They would eat 50 pumpkins in no time.  The only thing left would be the large stem.  They never ate that the stem.

 

[strong eagle]

thanks for that, deer also love tomato flowers. they will move into a tomato garden and eat every flower off of every plant.

 

[twild]

I have been very fortunate to not have any problems with deer. Now rabbits are a pain in my ass. I set traps all around on the inside of my fence and still end up getting out of bed a couple times a night to shoot more. I think they are climbing over the fence somehow. I had to replant beans 4 times last year, didn't think I was ever going to run out of the little bastards.

 

[strong eagle]

i have the same problem with mice and rabbits eating my new bean shoots. here how i solved it. went to pole beans, much more beans and taste better than bush beans. now as how i solved it. i have ten poles through black plastic. went to the local nursing home and asked for gallon cans they open for fruit and veg. got a bunch of them, made them open at both ends. put the cans in the holes in the black plastic for the beans and for my winter squash. no more mice or rabbit problems of eating the new plants off.  also i can pour liquid fish fertilizer into the can set in dirt to give my plants a start. win, win, win for me. i get loads of pole beans and squash. as to rabbits for my peppers and tomatoes, they cant climb into my compost filled cattle filled water tanks. no weed in the tanks either. a easy lazy mans way to garden. also i have 5 big round bales that are soaked good with water and fertilizer and rotting in the garden. plant cucumbers, muskmelons and water melons on top of those and no rabbit or mouse problem their either and do they produce. lots of garder snakes in the vines but they dont hurt anything. also of my garden is a no bending down garden and thats good for old people. my five apple trees from seed in a pot in the south window are doing good also. they go into the garden next june 1st. when the chives come up in march we make home made chili and puts a lot of chopped chives on top of the lot. good way to start the spring. any body have any special seeds they want to share? im always interested in something new. i have a bush of choke cherries that produces larger than average chokecherries and they are yellow in color. sent a bunch of seeds to oikos tress to grow and sell. also a local professional gardener is coming over next month to take cuttings to root. they are very rare. if you like pie cherries go to st. lawrence nursery in norther new york and buy their bali pie cherry trees. they are from their own root and their is no need to graft them. they grow fast and even spread so you will have lots of trees in a few years. they produce well and the cherry is tart and sweet at the same time. put them in a space where they can expand and expand.  if you live up north winters is no problem, they come from canada and stand 60 below zero weather.

 

[strong eagle]

we have thousands of thousands of a small winter bird that is along the hiways eating gravel in the winter. they leave for farther north when spring is coming. they have just left. the skunks are coming out of their winter sleep so that is the second sign of spring. early this year. may get a lot of snow now but its not going to be cold any more. nature is telling me that.

 

[patocazador]

I hope you're right. We've had two hard freezes here this winter which is two more than usual. A town about 25 miles from me got down to 16 deg. actual temperature. We had 21 deg.

When spring is coming for sure, all the robins mass up eating what they can. When they leave, there are no more freezes. They haven't left yet.

 

[strong eagle]

today it was in the 50/s and we are quite far north. 135 miles south of rapid city s.dak. when i start seeing motorcycles then i know spring is here. does a lot of your trees die when it gets that cold where you are? i didnt know florida got that cold. when you are at sea level and humid it has to feel a lot colder that it would here at the same temp im at 4000 ft and very dry air. icy roads must be a problem their also, here the sun and dry air usually burns all the ice off of the roads fast. the sun is starting to feel alot warmer also, my plants in the south window sure like it.

 

[patocazador]

No ice on the roads and no snow here but the freezing temps. hurt farmers and grove owners. The tropical fish farms are really whacked too.

It killed the pasture so I have to buy hay for the first time in a dozen years.

 

[strong eagle]

so thats where we send our hay bales. lots of money made by ranchers up here selling extra hay. i get 4 big bales off of my 2 acre pasture which i give to my neighbor and he gives me back straw bales for my garden. it works good for the both of us. bet your bales cost a pretty dime.

 

[patocazador]

$50-65 for the round ones depending on type of hay and protein content. A roll only lasts the cows for about 4-5 days. They waste a lot by trampling it into the dirt. The hay ring stops a lot of it but they tear it apart and step on the edges.

 

[strong eagle]

if you are raising cows you would like my part of the country. as ive said before the average cow herd in this county os 900 to 1000 cows. 15 mile east of me in that county the average herd is 4000 head per ranch. most black angus, some red angus, and a few long horns just for the fun of it. they are worth less, no fat on them, slow growers, and they all are fence jumpers. my friend had 3 to feed out and they took too long too feed out. they would jump a 12 foot high coral and he got so sick of them he took them to the sales barn. angus are good mothers, be carefull when they drop a calf, they will kill you quicker than any bull will. next month they start dropping calves around here. too early i think but this year i think the bad weather is over. the birds and skunks tell me that. when the snakes come out then you know winter is over. rattlers will sun them selves on rocks on cliffs in the winter during miday, then crawl back in their caves when it get cool again. if i remember right central florida is full of rattle snakes. is that true?. today it is just like spring out. soon the chives will come out.

 

[patocazador]

Most of the cows around here are angus/brahma crosses. They are pretty mean. I have limousins because they are gentle and don't try to kill me.

I was raised where there were no poisonous snakes so I don't look for them. However, if I smell a cottonmouth, I'll go out of my way to find and kill it.

The azaleas are starting to bloom but they are stupid flowers that don't know about when it will freeze.    The camillias already bloomed last month. They can take lower temps without a lot of problems.

 

[strong eagle]

the brahma blood is for tolerating heat and insects. they sound like the bulls you see at rodeos. around here the angus cows when they drop a calve get very dangerous. a lot of cattle around here never see humans very much. when i worked in n.dak as a RN a local pastor was helping out at a roundup. a cow came out of the shoot and knocked him down and killed him by jumping up and down on top of him. he was a big man but the cow didnt stop because of it. all those fruit trees of yours is very interesting to me. i bet it is hard to keep critters out of your garden where you live. most of all snakes really love mine. they are a every day occurance for me.

 

[patocazador]

" i bet it is hard to keep critters out of your garden where you live. most of all snakes really love mine."


We have so many raptors plus foxes and coons that the rodents aren't much of a problem. The coons are with corn and melons. The worst problem is insects. I don't like to use insecticides but the bugs and caterpillars get out of hand sometimes and I have to use some Sevin dust.


I seldom see a snake but I don't look for them. We have an indigo snake that lives by the house. It takes care of other snakes and rats/mice.


BTW, I don't have many citrus trees just ones that have volunteered. My wife has a "pet" Japanese persimmon but I don't care much for the fruit.