Sunday, May 3, 2009

GARDENING THIS AND THAT

Well, Happy Sunday to you all! If you are like me you will take all the happiness you can find. The blogs are especially good today. So many people I read had good things to say today I cannot begin to single them all out for praise. But it seems to me that if you write about growing food and prepping, you will get a lot of favorable responses. More and more people are becoming amendable to the idea of surviving the bullshit we are going into deeper every day. A week from today will bring our frost date and we can get to planting. It certainly looks like we won't have any more frost this Spring but you never can tell. And I would hate to be the guy who got folks to planting early every year and then a late frost takes their crop when they cannot afford to lose it. I was reading about frost dates on Google yesterday and people who knew the score advised not violating them. So, forewarned is forearmed. And don't worry! You will get plenty of work this Summer! About the time I start getting able to touch the ground with my fingertips it will be time to sit down and start shelling beans. I could get weeks of long days shelling those devils this year. I'll take it! Those full gallon bags of Cranberry beans going up to the big cans just warms my heart something fierce.



You know, I used the advice of that crazed southern woman, Charli Gribble of Alabama last year, on preserving my beans. She said to bag them and then freeze them for a few days and they would do just fine. And she was right! I just froze them and let them thaw on the kitchen table and then took them to the big cans. And we thank you Charli Gribble for that very good tip. We also used her advice of putting Bay Leaves in the bag with the beans. Vermin critters don't like Bay Leaves. Makes them take off and go someplace else.



I gotta get tuned in on planting tomatoes by seed instead of transplanting. That transplanting of tomatoes came along about 50 years ago and no one knows how to plant them directly into the ground anymore. Robbed and enslaved again! Damn! You think we would learn. One of the stores in town had a tomato plant that actually had a couple of small fruit on it. The price tag read $15. This is ridiculous. I am going out and put my tomato seeds in the ground and try to grow tomatoes. Same with my cayenne peppers. The seeds are going in the ground and the peppers will be expected to show up as if they were supposed to be there. Anyone who knows how to do these things without buying transplants is surely welcome to tell me how it is done.

Stay alive.

Michael

mboone@rtccom.net

4 comments:

VIPvc said...

The only consideration when planting tomatoes from seed is time...

When you plant a tomatoe seed in a garden near the end of May it takes quite some time for the plant to grow to a size where it begins to flower and produce fruit.

Plant your seeds in a peat pot (or whatever) about six weeks before your frost date and then transplant to the garden when conditions are right. If you live in an area with no frost or an early frost date, go ahead and put two or three seeds in each garden space and thin to one plant when they sprout. Cooler soils will resulting in longer sprout times.

That's all there is to growing tomoatoes from seed.

VIPvc said...

Although I didn't specfically mention it...when starting tomatoe seeds 6 weeks prior to planting in the garden, I did intend for you to sprout and nuture them inside until planting day. :-)

daddynewton said...

Scarecrow has it right. Last year i found some heirloom tomato plants at walmart.I must have got 75 tomatos off those two plants.I saved seed and kept in freezer this past winter. I put seed in a big pot month ago.There looks to be a hundred tomato plants coming up. Ive been setting them in sun during the day and back in the house at night.Seed Savers Exchange is another good source i found on internet.I got a pot of their red bell peppers coming up also.good luck and happy gardening

Bullseye said...

Michael, looks like these guys have it right. I start my seeds inside too, in a seed starter tray. They do great. Just sit them in the sun during the day and back in at night. I have already got 20 tomato, 20 banana peppers and 20 bell peppers started that way and then replanted in larger pots and started on the 2nd batch. The 2nd batch has sprouted and are about 2 inches tall, these will be my 2nd crop. Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Bullseye
Code Name "Bullseye"