Interesting Interpretation

Not my usual gargoyle Garden Post - but it is kinda farm related

There is a gun touting, conceal&carry (aka C&C), 🔫 prepper dude online who goes by the name TheYankeeMarshall out there who says that guns are less dangerous than tractors ...

Here's his video of it:


Actually I should be nice ... After all my main reason for posting his video here is so I can enter his give-away contest for a belt holster ...

See my hubby doesn't have a holster for his C&C yet ... At least not that I know of ... So I would pass it onto him if I won the contest

Anyhow - the intro was mostly because this guy has a nice sense of humor and I thought he'd get a kick out of it ... although sometimes i have to admit, i wonder why his wife isn't cracking him in the head more 👼 she must be a saint ... Hubby actually is enjoying watching his videos ...

I chose this particular video because I have to wonder what the point of the tractor article was --

I'm guessing that it was in support of the (now drawn back) ban on children working on family farms ...

Um, you know they did find flaw with those statistics right? Well at least the child side of those statistics ...

That's okay -- with the way the Ford tractor has been acting lately we might be having a tractor having a gun "accident" pretty soon

Oh and those who are wondering why no garden up dates ...

DROUGHT

Actually all started fine ... Check out my YouTube channel ... But then summer set in, damn it ... 😭 ... but that's enough whining

Go watch more of TheYankeeMarshall's videos on YT ... It don't cost nothin'

Corn Crop 2012

Well the crop went in yesterday ... Well it's past midnight so 2 days ago

I was able to put down a coating of Hydrosorb over most of the planting area

We only planted 1/2 the triangle field with Serendipity corn - it did very well last year so we thought we would give it another try.

It is a wonderful sweet corn with a short growth cycle which means if the crows eat the plants/seed again we will have time for other platings and still have a crop for selling before school starts in the fall

I am making a video of the planting which I will be imbedding at the bottom of this post ... We had our youngest son walk behind this year - its hard to believe he is old enough to do it now

Greenhouse Update

Here's the latest up date .... Photos were just taken last night

Yes the sun went down fast and the last half of the photos had to be taken by spotlight ...


That's my youngest on the iPad piano - her timing is off .. Well here and there ... But I think it makes it sounds very nice - it doesn't sound anything like the original composition ... I like my daughter's better!

It's getting close to thinning time - as you can see from the tomato trays - but that's a tough time for me ... Not just because I have to "play god" with these plants but mostly because I wasting those plants which were growing so well but are only being destroyed to make more room for the others



There has to be a way to save/transplant these others - I did save a few from certain death last year though

Greenhouse Update

This is aq bit late - I was having some issues with my app that uploads vids to youtube ... but I've got it worked out now and I can use this video as a template each update

Forgive any ads - for some reason YT claims that Vivaldi isn't public domain when it should be ...

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Greenhouse 2012 Update

wanted to give an update of how things are going in the greenhouse this year - we are having a bumper crop so far of squash and cabbages.

Here is a long shot of the greenhouse from the security camera ... even though it is only 60F outside, it is 85F in the green house - thats low, when the sun pops out from behind those clouds you can see the pointer on the thermometer go up to 120F

Spring?

yes there is a question mark there ...

while the east coast had snow dumped on it last week, in MN experienced some whacky weather of our own ...

Temps during the day could get up to the 70s during the day and then drop to freexing or slightly below at night ...
i think we have a pretty good idea of what life on mars would be like ..

but today - right now at 11am - when we are usually beginning to build up our temps quickly as the sun starts to reach its apex ... we are sitting at a whole whopping 40 degrees and its dropping (this 40 is the low since midnigjht)

they predict we will be having rain mixed with snow & ice before the day is through and it was supposed to hit during the very early morning hours - but it 40 is the low then I doubt we be getting any of that and even if we do it won't be sticking around

this is cool

testing out my new ipad cover - it is for the ipad 2 or 3 and comes with a detachable bluetooth keyboard!

this is great - I now have the best of both .... i have the touch screen/portability of the ipad which i love, but now i can use my touch typing skills!

I do have to get used to things again -- i have the great autocorrect feature of the iPad and the ability to now type at my regular speed (well once i get used to the small keyboard) that blows my kids away when I'm on a regular laptop ...

of course i now have to:
a)get used to typing on a keyboard again after being off of one for over a year
b)get used to a tiny keyboard - because as much as i like this thing, the keys are not made for an old --woman's gargoyle's fingers .... the keys are smaller (by a smidge) than the tips of my fingers, and they are thin - like wafer thin - so that they feel like they are hardly there ....

i have to say - that the touch-typing skills that they taught us in high school are finding new life though ... since keyboards these days (computer/laptop/phone/cell) all seem to wear off so quickly from the nature oil on human fingers, I have the ability to type without looking at the keys - which totally blows my kids away - and can actually type and watch the tv or another screen at the same time ...
while many schools teach "keyboarding" these days, they do not seem to have the same incentive to not look when they type - in fact they are developing, I've heard a keyboard that is shaped more like a cell phone so kids can type using only their thumbs

This is an early mother's day gift from hubby ... he was so excited about it that he wanted to give it early ... he's so cute ... either that or he was hoping that i would not like the new cover and then he could have it for his new ipad 3 ...

I know - right?

now i have done something with the keypad inadvertently while typing ... as you can see it is not auto-capping my i's any more ...

time to whip out the manual ...

this is going to be fun - this means that i will be able to blog while in the green house while keeping my ipad in the thermal lined bag so it keeps cool ...

oh - never thought of the foil like lining of the bag -- wonder if that will interfere with the signals?

We Have GREEN!

I am so excited

Went to water my plants and found I have green in the salad table already

New Season Starting

Hopefully the app will work correctly ...

It is cutting out our major seed provider which is not pleasing me one bit!

Okay - Friday hubby took off work a little early so we could go get the major crop seed (sweet corn) and some of the other stuff that we should be able to sell at the roadside stand ... We visited Jordan Seeds for our major stuff - check them out, their prices are really good and they WILL ship (but I don't know how far since they are only minutes from us)

••••••

I have gotten the first of the seed orders in the mail already ... From Territorial Seed Company ... I have a wonderful rate of germination with their seeds and haven't been too dissatisfied , they've got good customer service though ... My order arrived very quickly considering that I just ordered it last week and most of it was plants that won't be here until the last week in April ...

I ordered them for delivery a couple weeks earlier than usual - not because of the warm weather, but because I wanted to make sure I was home when they were delivered and not out of town ...

The last few years they have been getting delivered on Fridays after we leave town so that when I get back on Sunday night they are looking mighty stressed ...

This year I plan to transplant them and include some of the water storage gel so that they will not dry out for the few days we are gone (although it has happened where we were only gone for the day because of other things going on)

I'm not sure when Gurneys will be sending me my free potatoes - I am hoping that they don't "run out" before they get to my order ... I have not had very good luck with Gurneys before - neither seed nor plants - so the fact that didn't have to pay anything (not even shipping) for these spuds is the only reason I decided to give them another try ...

anyhow ...

I will be putting up a video on my YouTube channel about our greenhouse - the first one will be about how messy it tends to get in the winter time, but then I will be doing some on
• how to make paper pots without having to purchase those wooden makers that cost an arm & leg,
• planting carrots and other small seed,
• working your salad table,
• transplanting,
• discouraging deer& crows,
• Working your fields
• greenhouse temp control
plus hopefully many more

We are going to do some experimenting with low cost methods around the farm so I hope to document those as well

Hopefully I can talk hubby into letting me record some stuff with him as well so we can get some maintenance items up too ... Hard part is, he is shy but he is a great source of info since he grew up on the very farm we are working now

Well it's very late - and I still have to edit my first "seed video" of the season - its a rant about misinformation being out out about modern seeds & farming on YouTube which people are taking for gossip ...

I will imbed it into a post here in a separate entry ... As you saw from last season - I was having a tough time keeping up with the photo page, that will likely go by the way side

USDA CHANGES HARDINESS ZONES

MichiganSnowPony, over on YouTube, pointed out that the USDA has changed the way they are doing the planting zones so people need to really go check their new zones ...

See their interactive map here

I had not seen this yet in any of the ag related news sources I get yet so it must still be new news!

I go to Jordan's here soon for our seed order so I will have to ask if they've heard the news as well ... And take photos too - they are such a quaint place!

What has happened is the USDA decided to narrow the planting zones by 10degree increments - pulling in new data from recent (blundered) temp info from these last few decades they have narrowed things down ...

For instance my state USED to have 3 zones ... The majority of it was zone 4, next was zone 3, and two small splatterings of zone 2

Now they have changed it to range from zones 3b to 5a ... It isn't that we've gotten any warmer, it's jut that by splitting things up first many states will suddenly LOOK warmer than they were before - some will actually look cooler too since they also changed the COLOR system

Compare the photos - starting with the old system (from Gurneys.com website) to the main new USDA chart to the new charts for our 5 state region plus a couple of extra states which have always fascinated me ...

Dang - this app won't let me rearrange the way the photos are coming up

The old chart is made of dark toned colors - the newer chart is more blues & purples ... Texas is large enough to be split into two halves ...

Future of crops

I saw this at the "DTN:Progressive Farmer" online magazine (geared towards the small farmer with acreage, but as a small farmer with little acreage I still find plenty in its pages)

$4.829 Million will be spent to try to find which genes are responsible for increasing the yield of soybeans - in order to keep up with population growth ... It will be a three year program

They are hoping to increase the average yield from 43.5 BPA (Bushel Per Acre) to 59.5 BPA by 2030

Not only used for Feed & food, it is also used for fuel and fiber ... And with an increase of population there is going to be a great need for the bigger yield


I will update this post as I learn more

New Growing Season Begins!

Well the first order for the growing season has gone in ...

I had a $25 coupon from Gurneys.com (I swore I was never going to order from them again but here I go again) and it was enough to not only cover my product but my shipping as well (at least that's the way things stand now)

I decided that if they were going to pay for it, then I was going to grow something I've been itching to try but didn't want to invest money in, in case it were a flop

POTATOES

I ordered two varieties

Purple Viking - an early tuber with a healthy spreading action ... They are supposed to be about 3 inches in diameter and produce about 10 times their weight .... I got 2# which was the smallest I could order

Dakota Pearl - these are a main season potato and are supposed to be a heavy producer - about 15-20# for every pound planted. they are supposed to grow upward and it sounds like they like to open pollenate - I don't know if this is normal for potatoes ... I wonder if they are like corn, where if you accidentally get cross pollination instead of getting sweet corn you end up with "field corn"?

Wonder what you get with potatoes?

I would have tried sweet potatoes but I wasn't sure I would have a long enough growing season - and they were over twice the price of the white potatoes!

We have a few ideas of how to grow them - from big tubs where we can build up mulch around them and make even more tubers, to paper sacks, to raised beds, to straight planting into the ground ... I'm even considering a wheelbarrow configuration so I can start them in our greenhouse and wheel the cart in and out if the weather starts to get too cold during the day (like it did last summer) - since they only need 3-5" of soil to start it shouldn't be too heavy if I don't make the run too big ... Of course once he mulch starts to build up this might be impractical

It's an experiment - which I will be spending a minimum amount on