New Year's Gardening Resolutions

[macmex]

It's almost a joke to talk about New Year's Resolutions, as we are so prone to NOT keeping them, but here's mine.

I am purposing to allow my wife to help me organize and will cut back on varieties, while seeking to succeed with what I do plant. This will mean that I'm going to have to adapt a bit, as our styles are different.

I'm hoping to continue with sweet potatoes, albeit planting only two long rows. We will plant beans, though perhaps only two or three varieties. We'll plant a good amount of Warsaw Buff Pie Pumpkin, as this is an important preservation project. We also want to grow Stewart's Zeebest Okra and AfricanX Okra, some Roselle, Mesquakie Indian Corn and winter melon. Jerreth is really big on potatoes and onions, so I know that'll be in the picture and, I must grow some hot peppers, probably Chile Rayado and Murupi Amarella. We'll see if anything else finds its way into the garden but I'll be tickled pink if we manage this.

What about you?

[heavyhitterokra]

I'm gonna try my best to grow some okra.

[woodeye]

My New Year's gardening resolution final decree for 2024 is now ready for publication.

Cowpeas, sweet potatoes, okra.

There, I said it...

[FrostyTurnip]

Warsaw Buff Pie Pumpkin
Oklahoma Red Sweet Potatoes
Green beans for Bill (Do we have a focus on variety for seed saving?) 

Oh and sunflowers. The chickens are going to grow sunflowers, fer sure. 

[rdback]

My New Year's resolution for the garden is pretty simple to say: "Be more selective, and grow less.". Easy to say, MUCH harder to do, lol.

[amyinowasso]

Oh, I hear you George. I am a jungle style gardener. The lack of rows and other delineation make my husband twitch. He originally wanted to do square foot gardening and lay out an actual grid on the bed. Since he's doing all the work, we have both had to compromise.
We plan to plant fewer tomatoes this year. Neither of us enjoys canning. He wants to do a 3 sisters garden. He also wants to do more containers. He doesn't use big enough containers, though, so we'll still be butting heads. I impulse bought more Asian greens at Kitazawa than I can probably find room for. I've decided not to start native plants from seed like I have been. I can't keep up with them and the grass in the bed will make him tear it out eventually. The rest of my planning will depend on how much rain we get. Not planting ornamentals if I can't keep them watered.
The collards and kale we put out in fall are still standing and the collards taste great! We're having collards, black eyed peas, cornbread and ham tomorrow, so maybe it will be a lucky year.

[heavyhitterokra]

amyinowasso,

I've been using old cattle supplement tubs to grow potatoes and tomatoes in. They hold about 25 gallons of soil so they are a good size for our hot summers, as they don't dry out quite so fast. I buy mine at the Farmer's Co-op. The most I've ever paid is $4.00 per tub, so the price is pretty reasonable too.

I'll attach a link with a Facebook marketplace photo for reference.
www.facebook.com/marketplace/item/671406966964255/

[galina]

Happy New Year all with health and happiness for you and yours!

Well one of my resolutions has to be to grow several or all seeds of the very exciting bean and pumpkin collection from you, George, that I have been given a share of. The seed packet is still in England and we will fetch it (hopefully) soon. No longer so easy now, unfortunately, with Brexit. Hope we can get them here ok. They are waiting together with my share out from our seed saving circle. Thank you George and thank you Triffid.

We will see how these unique and entirely unknown to us, varieties do here. Last year I received the Barksdale beans. They grew well enough with large yellow wax pods, but sure could do with a little more adjustment to the entirely different climate here. They sulked following several days of heavy rain later in the season towards autumn, after a really promising start when it was hot and sunny. I got to save seeds and eat some of the beautiful yellow pods too, but the real test will come at the next grow-out, from seeds produced here.

I am currently looking through my beans to decide which need seed renewing and which I want to grow regardless. Garden jungle, packed too tightly oh yes. Happens here too. You can plan really well and have it worked out to the last foot - and I don't. I don't have specific areas for things, but crop rotation happens, because I interplant. And I carefully avoid planting the same crop in the same place as last year, but that is it. As I had so much vole damage in the specific large area set aside for squashes, I will split that into several smaller areas too, even though that risks overrunning adjacent beds. Larger single crop areas, rather than a mixed growing area, risk beasties more.

'Learn more and grow better' is the motto this year too, to cope with the different climate here. But more and more varieties can now be grown from seeds produced here and that makes a difference. Had a bit of an adaptation success with day length sensitive Giant Bolivian Achocha last year. And the 'old' new year's resolution for every year is still in operation too - observing better and making better notes, seed saving and sharing, following up on my pea crosses and other interesting things.

Wish you all a great, productive and trouble free garden in 2024!

[macmex]

Rick (Rdback), I'm with you on that one. 

Ami, I can see that you DO understand! Yes, I'm not much of a row gardener, preferring to sort of "fit things in" where they "fit," so to speak. However, this year it will not be "my garden." It will be "our garden." After two years of great frustration I'm ready to be content with some success rather than mostly failure.

Galina, I find it so humorous that the Barksdale bean only really prospered during a hot spell, there in Germany! Here, I think of it as a cool weather bean, doing alright in the heat but only really setting pods when it cools down. Climate varies so much between locations, especially when one thinks of Europe and North America. I remember reading about European settlers, when they first started settling in what is now New England. It was not uncommon for a person to remarry as many as five times. They were generally faithful to their spouses, but ... spouses would die, due to the harsh conditions. Our forefathers adapted, as plants can do as well.

A lot of times, when I step out the door, here in Oklahoma, I think back, say 200 years and wonder how people survived here without modern housing and climate control. During the heat of the summer I'm only able to be really active in the garden for about 15 minutes at a time, due to the heat and humidity. This time of year, the wild fluctuations in temperature and humidity are a challenge. I do better this time of year because I can dress for it and then, when necessary, hunker down in my rocking chair by the wood stove.

Hopefully most of those beans will adjust. Another thing I've caught glimpses of (and heard even more about) is how some plants seem to have a "genetic memory." They've been grown somewhere else, with very different climate. When one moves them back, even if it be hundreds of years later, they seem to remember and revert. Mesquakie Indian Corn was originally (as far as I know) grown in the Upper Midwest of the USA, in a very different climate than Oklahoma. Here, I generally get a good crop. I'm happy with it, but the ears are only of average size. One time I sent a sample of the seed to a seed saver in New England (Northeastern USA) and they reported back that this variety produced "HUGE" ears! Fortunately, the one constant I've observed with Mesquakie Indian Corn is that it is very vigorous and resilient. 
 

[heavyhitterokra]

Quote from George's post above, "One time I sent a sample of the seed to a seed saver in New England (Northeastern USA) and they reported back that this variety produced "HUGE" ears! Fortunately, the one constant I've observed with Mesquakie Indian Corn is that it is very vigorous and resilient."

I think the word, "Huge" might be relevant to one's location.

I remember working in the Northeastern United States back in the mid-1980s and comparing the fish we caught back home to the ones we caught up there in that much colder climate. One day at work, the guys were all excitedly talking about catching and mounting a 'HUGE' Widemouth Bass. I was all ears, expecting to hear that it weighed in at 12 pounds or something like that. I was really disappointed to hear that it only weighed 6 pounds. When I told them we ate bigger bass than that and never thought twice about it, I think they thought I was pulling their leg.

The record weight for a Widemouth Bass was set back in 1932 by a guy named, George Perry. It weighed in at 22 pounds and 4 ounces, but it sure wasn't caught in the New England area.

[macmex]

That's a point well taken, Ron. I've noticed that bass are much larger on average, here than in New Jersey, where I was raised. Still, that Mesquakie Indian Corn did grow much ,much larger ears in Maine, than it does here. Probably a similar situation to that of bass, only in reverse. The corn manages more nutrient intake and growth in their milder summer than it does here and the bass do the same, only they not only have more to feed on, but also a much longer active season in which to do so.

Actually, in thinking about it, I don't know if my original illustration was so appropriate. I need to think on it. Maybe I can remember a better one.

[hedgeapple]

I have a lousy track record with New Year’s resolutions; however, this time of year is good for reflection on things that did and did not work for me last year.

Last year I almost didn’t have a summer garden at all. Was busy with work and traveling, but ended up putting a small one in out of sheer stubbornness in late April. It will probably play out that way this year as well. If I am able to do so, I’d like to plant a few old favorites and a few newly created hybrids to see what happens. 😊

[MRH]

Welp, yesterday I sent an order in to Sandhill Preservation Center. I ordered your
 
Baker Creek Heirloom Tomato, "which I hope is good"...     

Old Timey Cornfield Pumpkin, "Dutch Fork"    

Tennessee Cutshort

Frank Barnett, which you sent them, so I'm thinking is the cutshort, though is not listed that way. 

Barksdale Bean. 

I can't remember if there was anything else. 

After reading your posts and stories, I can't wait too try them.... 

I don't know if I'll get a garden out this year, depends on if I find a place?  My allocated spot was filled with 3 softneck and 1 hardneck Garlic, Elephant Garlic and Shallots and Bunching Onions.... I did this incase I found a place next year so I'd have plenty to plant next fall...

I don't know what I'll do without my Cantaloupe, I'd skip breakfast and lunch and go out and eat till stuffed as often as I could. Yeah, they like too ripen all at once.., I picked up a Cantaloupe in Berea from a guy, and there were only 5 or 6 seeds in the pack, he didn't have many so I got just the one, all he would say is, it's a football shaped melon. I was thinking Old Time Tennessee or Banana, but seen a picture on Sustainable Mountain Agriculture's website, in Frank Barnetts photos page, there was a big ole football shaped melon, so now I'm curious..

This year is gonna be a strange one, and I'm pretty sure I know whats gonna happen, and I don't know how too prepare.. I have a Tiny Tiny amount of preps, but beyond that Befuddles me.  This is probly for another thread. LOL  

Anyways, Happy New Year Everyone, from the new guy..... 
 

[galina]

Welcome MRH, Hope those melons will do good for you and the other types too.

Genetic memory, oh yes, most definitely. If you look at Cherokee Trail of Tear beans for example, they had a journey, followed by many journeys because their growers tragic history moved folks in several continents. Who knows what their journey was before they got to us here and mine were now moved again. But whoever grows them, they seem to do well for them. They have so many tiny mutations in them from their long and varied history that they can 'call up' whatever genetic memory they seem to need in a new location.

With every new location micro mutations are needed for better adaptation, or needed to be called up from genetic memory. It is just possible that your cooler weather coincides with our hotter summer weather better, but in years to come we will see how the Barksdale adapt. Then they will (hopefully) be able to do very well in both locations.

I can certainly work in the garden in summer for considerably longer than that, it is often hot, but much drier. In Britain it was much more humid and unpleasant although cool. Quite often it was also fully cloudy, without rain, but also without any sun. Your summers sound quite difficult to take MacMex. We now have the wood stove going daily and there are prolonged periods of really harsh frosts some year. So far this winter we only had one really cold spell, but because we also had a good snow cover at that time, a surprising amount of veg survived that. It is always worth leaving some things standing just in case. We also have fluctuating temperature and quite often get a very warm wind coming from the South, over the Alps, and that can give us temperatures in the fifties F. We had 12C yesterday, which is very warm for January. And another really cold spell is forecast within a few days, again with snow.

But it will take until the middle of May, before anything tender can go out, I guess you can sow and plant much earlier maybe?

[FrostyTurnip]

Welcome, MRH !!