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)

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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