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Post by chrysanthemum on Nov 8, 2022 8:22:45 GMT -6
I just thought that I’d post a picture of the Austrian Winter peas that I seeded about a month ago in a couple of empty beds and of the Crimson Clover that I sowed in the asparagus bed. Both have germinated well, though I can tell that my seeds must have migrated to slight low spots in the beds, so I have clumps with lots of growth and bare patches. Overall I’m pleased with these crops, and I hope they’ll be doing good things for my soil while they’re growing.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Nov 8, 2022 17:57:08 GMT -6
Chrysanthemum, I zoomed in on those photos ... VERY NICE!
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Post by hmoosek on Nov 8, 2022 18:39:38 GMT -6
Very nice!
BUT….. You don't have enough checkers for a decent game. Hahahahaaaa!
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Post by chrysanthemum on Nov 8, 2022 21:10:13 GMT -6
That’s just a small part of my checkerboard. I’ve got 78 in that garden, forty in the other one, five in the cinderblock raised bed and a few in pots. I’m not great at playing checkers as it’s been so many years since I’ve really done it, though I’ve tried to teach my little ones, but I’ve got some supplies. I think it’s the only way I’ve made it through this year with less than 10 inches of rainfall.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Dec 3, 2022 14:58:30 GMT -6
I just thought I’d do a photo update on this thread for the beginning of December. Here is one little square bed of Austrian Winter Peas. I have two beds of these. This is the Crimson Clover interplanted with the Asparagus. You can see that the fronds are finally starting to die down. They didn’t grow very thick this year, and we didn’t harvest much asparagus at all. I’m glad they survived the summer, though, and hopefully they’ve got strong crowns down there. This last photo is a shot of the Daikon radish seed sprouts. I seeded two more small square beds last week as well as a couple of other spots. I think it was Wednesday this week that these started popping up. It was very cheering.
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Post by woodeye on Dec 3, 2022 19:01:27 GMT -6
Outstanding, chrysanthemum. Great pictures of all your crops. The picture of your asparagus reminded me that while I was out there working on the Iron Curtain a couple of weeks ago or so, I happened by the area that my dad had planted asparagus decades ago. It was about 5 feet tall, and I hadn't ever given it any thought this year at all. I'll be checking it next spring though, seems like it usually starts coming up in May...
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Dec 5, 2022 15:05:11 GMT -6
Chrysanthemum,
That was so weird to see those little tomato plants amongst your Austrian Winter Peas. In my mind, those two crops don't occupy the same seasons. Our tomatoes are long dead but our winter peas are just now beginning to sprout.
That was a happy-making photo for sure!
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Post by chrysanthemum on Dec 5, 2022 18:27:17 GMT -6
You’ve got a good eye, heavyhitterokra. Tomatoes and Austrian Winter Peas aren’t really the same season down here either, but things will sprout when there’s moisture. Those tomatoes were seeds left behind in the compost or from last year’s tomatoes grown in the bed that got scratched up when I seeded the peas. In recent years I’ve decided to let a few tomatoes that volunteer in the fall/winter (yes, it can occasionally be warm enough in winter for them to volunteer)/spring grow as a kind of “canary in the coal mine” experiment. It helps me know if a killing frost or freeze has struck. I figure it’s also a sort of chop and drop soil builder. Last winter I had a volunteer come in around the time that I was transplanting onion starts (January). I didn’t give it special protection, but it got protected in the same way as the onions. I know that it made it through a 28 degree night one night under frost cloth just after I had put the onions out. I never had the heart to remove it after it had persevered so much, so it’s a volunteer cherry tomato that is sprawled all over my pepper bed to this day. It’s still loaded with fruit right now, though nothing much has been ripening. I think I’m going to have to let that one stay in the garden until the weather really and truly does it in. I just noticed this afternoon out on my back deck that an “empty” pot I set out there to make room for moving my ginger indoors a while back now has sprouts. I grew a sort of salad mix in it over the summer inside, but eventually the lettuce started to bolt and I let it dry out. I’ve never cleared out the dead leaves, so they are just lying there, but the recent misty weather must have caused some leftover seeds to germinate in there. It looks as though I have some lettuce and possibly some herbs coming up. There isn’t really enough sunshine where the pot is right now, but I just might have to move it once the sun returns just to give these little guys a chance.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Dec 5, 2022 22:01:24 GMT -6
Lettuce ought to survive quite a bit of cooler weather. It might just make it all the way through. That would be interesting to see.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Dec 6, 2022 13:11:46 GMT -6
Ron, you’ve got some good weather for those peas to get rooted in. I’m cheering them on from up here.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Dec 6, 2022 19:15:28 GMT -6
I walked down to the garden right at dusk this evening and saw that several of the Austrian Winter Peas have begun to germinate. We've had ideal conditions for them this week. I don't think I've ever had them germinate this quickly before. I was thrilled to see that!
I tilled them under about 2" to 3" inches this time. That's deeper than I normally till them in; thinking the extra depth might help them survive colder temperatures. Hopefully, the weather holds out long enough for them to get a good root down before the ground freezes solid. I sowed seeds in October too, but they all failed, due to the lack of rain that month and the weird 90° weather.
Last year, I just raked them under about 3/4". They just barely germinated and we got such a hard freeze right about that same time that they were all killed by the ground freezing solid.
Freezing won't hurt them once they're established, but first, they have to get their roots down deep enough not to be killed.
Here's a photo that I took right at dusk, of a sprouting winter pea seed. Everywhere I dug, I found more just like it. What a happy-making thing that was!
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Post by chrysanthemum on Dec 6, 2022 20:58:12 GMT -6
I wonder if any of the peas you sowed in October just sat dormant in the dry soil and will germinate now that conditions are right. It’s great that you’re seeing sprouts. That’s happy-making for me, too. I’m so glad you’ve got another shot at cover cropping.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Dec 6, 2022 23:24:11 GMT -6
Healthy fresh seed handles the deeper planting just fine in my experience. True also for English peas. Sure wish I would have jumped out there and planted some English peas.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Dec 7, 2022 10:02:19 GMT -6
I doubt I'll find any surviving winter peas from my first planting, as I've plowed out there way too many times since then.
I'll bet I've planted a solid pound of turnip seeds this year as well, and have yet to see a single sprout of any of those seeds anywhere.
I first sowed a quarter pound of turnip seeds at the beginning of September, right after the 8" or 9" inches of rain that we received during the month of August.
Then, Mother Nature, being the spiteful, vindictive, erratic, crazy, lady that she is, decided to make a return visit to the second 'dustbowl cycle' of the year.
I kind of think that first quarter-pound broadcasting of turnip seeds succumbed to the mid-90° and high wind days of late September to mid-October.
When it finally rained again, I sowed more turnip seeds; once again, not a single sprout... That was the end of Round Two.
Because of that, it has now been confirmed by, 'experts, out, standing, in their field', that as many as 110,000 turnip seeds may have been sacrificed unduly, by being broadcast in an untimely manner, during two separate episodes of conditions not conducive to their combined ability to survive...
In other words, I somehow managed to kill a second quarter pound pack of turnip seeds in only one planting season.
When I saw favorable conditions recur in early December, after multiple November deep freezes, and two light falls of snow, I decided to sow turnips for a third time.
This time, no doubt feeling I needed all the help I could get, the Farmer's Co-op just dumped all the turnip seeds they had left into a single bag and handed them to me.
I broadcast them everywhere I could find bare ground, about half a pound of seeds in all. So, unless those seeds were just not viable, I believe I'll be seeing little turnip sprouts popping up around here like toadstools before too much longer.
Hopefully, sometime around February, I'll be happily passing those around among friends and neighbors.
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Post by woodeye on Dec 7, 2022 16:39:56 GMT -6
heavyhitterokra , I was first going to write that I hope we are not entering into a turnip famine, but decided to make sure there hadn't already been such a thing. After a short time of researching, I found that you could say that there has been one before, it was just called a "Turnip Winter". It was news to me.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnip_Winter
Anyway, I hope your turnip seeds are viable and you are blessed with a multitude of these hallowed, tasty root vegetables...
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