Amy, thanks for starting the thread. I really don't have anything to talk about either. It seems as though every time I go out side it is to go to the doctor, I am getting tired of that.

It is a pretty day here. My min/max shows 57 degrees. I need to get my PJ's off and go outside and check to see if I still have greens left. I expect the greens are still OK. We had lettuce for lunch that was picked a few days ago, but this time of the year everything grows very slowly, and we can easily eat them faster than can grow.

Madge and I are still spending a lot of time going back and forth to the doctor, I have another appointment tomorrow.

I still have a bag of cull onion sets lying on our dinning room table that I still need to plant, I cant understand why I can't just throw them away, but that is just the way I am. I do understand one thing, which is, as you get older you just run out of time, and cant keep all the reject plants growing, and all the junky equipment repaired. To make matters worse, it seems as the house starts falling apart, and you are too afraid falling off the ladder. All of this seem to happen about the time your kids have grand kids of their own. I bet that there may be others on this forum that know about the difference in the amount of fun of playing with the grand kids and repairing a roof for pop, poor old pop had better suck it up and climb that ladder anyway.

Well, I did get out and plant a mineral tub with those cull onions I was talking about. I also fertilized most of the stuff that I have growing. As I was rolling up the empty fertilizer bag I noticed a tag stuck to the bag saying that the bad had a misprinting, which I think that they just screwed in the bagging process. Anyway I put what looked like 46-0-0, which Is Urea on all my plants. This is the second time I have used out of this bag, and I had noticed what looked like a nitrogen shortage, that is the reason I gave them a second dose.

This my not be of any interest to anyone other than Rick, but I have taken a picture of the onions and garlic to show what an overdose may look like on onions and garlic. I don't know what, or at what percentage of fertilizer I placed around my plants, but I expect everything will be OK, I will just hope a lot of it will leach off by spring.

You may notice that the leaves seem a little long, but they seem a little yellow also, this could be from giving them a little too hot fertilizer. I have never grown this type of onion or garlic before, and really dont know what kind of growing habit they have.

You would think that a guy would read the labels before using a product. Its sad, but I am the same way with instructions, I only read them to find out where I screwed up.

These types of fertilizers I use mostly on food plots. My gardens normally stay in good enough shape that very little fertilizer is needed.

I just mainly use cow manure that I put down through the winter. It's free for the scooping and hauling.

I try to stay away from horse manure especially if it's fresh. Too much ammonia.

Rick

I used to get Buffalo manure and make the best tea. The years I used that I had the best crops

Larry, better watch those ladders. We were on ladders hanging lights this weekend. Shop lights, not Christmas lights. My husband has lost most of his vision and we’ve had to replace all the lights with the brightest LEDs we can find

He is 76 and I am 72. Im still waiting for a back ablation from falling off a ladder in June. We have kids and grandkids who help when we ask but they have busy lives too. On to garden stuff - I still have a few potatoes alive, we had several night of 26-30°. The greens are a little burned but still growing. I just heard the north winds hit the Windchimes on the north - they are heavier chimes than ones on the south side. Looks to be a nice week especially considering its December.

Farmgardener, I am a believer in LED lights. We have changed out several 4 foot fluorescent lights for 4 foot LED, but using the old fixtures seems to be a pain. I dont see well either, so it is hard for me to see well enough to change, or rewire the fixtures. I have some new Harbor Freight 4' LED's I want to try. I hope to just hang them like shop lights. I have been using some much like them on my grow shelf a few years and I am happy with them, but they are very bright.

Madge and I both have problems with vertigo, and we are dangerous enough just standing on the ground.

Rick, I have the P & K so high in my soil that I am afraid to use much of any fertilizer. The county agent tells me it is from using too much organic matter. i am not sure I agree with that, but all my soil test just say to use nitrogen as needed, and they don't even test for nitrogen The only way I have been able to bring the P & K down is to grown corn, and then harvest the stalks after I harvest the ears, then feed the stalks to the cattle. The cows liked it, but it was a ton of work for me.

I need to get more soil test made, but I am sure the P & K is still too high. The soil tests from the south garden, where the onions and garlic is, was P 239ppm, and K was 324ppm 10 years ago.

Congratulations!!! I am so excited for y’all. It might be too early to get that baby in the garden 2024 but 2025 is going to so fun.

Baby may have to do a lot of the gardening! I do most of my gardening like a baby now. I am pretty unstable on my feet, hurts to bend, and its hard to see what I am doing when I am on my feet, but, on my hands and knees I am a ball of fire, but to get back on my feet is another story.

Jennifer, you are entering a stage in life where things will be happening really fast, just hang on and enjoy the ride, but all of it wont be worry-free, but enjoy each minute, you only get to live them once, the rest is only memory, but you can take your memories everywhere.

It looks like a really nice day here, 33 degrees, low of 28, its sunny and clear. I hope to take soil samples when I get back from the doctor. My breathing is better, I doubt that it will ever be good again, but I am thankful for the improvement.

I bought a bag of rye grass seed yesterday. Its a little late, but I think I will plant a little in the lawn, then try to make a food plot for the deer, late winter and early spring is often a little rough on the critters.

Hmmmm

I don't even have any hostas to feed the deer, if they wont eat turnips, arugula, spinach, lettuce, or mustard, I will just have to put out some cookies.

I dropped my soil samples for the 3 house gardens off in Ft. Smith yesterday, I should get test info in about 2 weeks. I expect the test to say add a little lime, a little nitrogen, and maybe a little more P & K in the pasture garden.

Kim, thanks! I hope he likes to garden. I just wish we didn't live an hour and a half round trip. It could be worse, I know. Future babies in Oregon will be especially hard.

There was a house for sell near them earlier this week. It is nearly identical to the size of our house and sits on an acre. It was remodeled nicely, but it had no shop, but does have a double garage and a shed. It is something we could afford and those don't come up very often when they are this nicely remodeled. I do like our house better, tho. But, it's gone after 3 days. I knew it wouldn't last. It's not even pending...it's just gone. Probably someone who sold to the OTA had the cash to buy it.

But, we aren't ready to sell our house IF we decide to go that route.

Larry, I've never been worry-free. It's just how I am.

I haven't been outside much this week. I watered a few things in the front beds and the pots on the porch. Things are still alive--haven't frozen yet. I picked up another bucket of pecans. The crazy wind today should knock the rest of them to the ground.

I've been doing extra stuff at work--filling in for people so that gets me home a little later--nearly dark.

Kim, I saw that meme on FB and laughed. :D Reminds me of when Ethan was little and we sprinkled oatmeal on the yard for the reindeer. And with Mason, we left carrots out for them.

I've always been fascinated by reindeer. Even as a very small child.

I'm pretty sure Tom purchased a piece of jewelry for me for Christmas. Does anyone watch Jonna Jinton on YouTube? She has some very beautiful videos. (This years videos haven't been as much because it's mostly remodeling her new studio). ANYWAY, she lives in northern sweden and the Sami people bring the reindeer down for food in the winter. She finds their antlers in her forest. (Both male and female reindeer have antlers. The males lose theirs in the autumn and the females in late winter/early spring. This is why Santa's reindeer are female! ;) ) ANYWAY AGAIN, the antlers she finds inspired a jewelry line and I'm pretty sure I'm getting silver antler jewelry for Christmas. I have a silver reindeer necklace I wear all December every year.

Tomorrow I'll try to get home in time to water the hoop house. I can do it in the dark, I guess. Just take a lantern with me. Really, that's all the gardening I'm doing right now. I'm excited to look through the seed catalogs when I have a chance. Try, try, try to NOT start too many seeds next year. I did better last year and maybe I'll do even better this year.

Jennifer, I have never been worry free either, I think that is one of my largest downfalls. I am not sure if worrying can be traced back to a lack of faith, insecurity, of being caused by a 100 other things, but It can mess up your mind and health. I was always afraid that I might not be able to do for my family, and I seemed to think that I had to work all the time. I am not knocking a person for working a lot, but there needs to a balance.

I went down to my neighbor's house and brought my cyclone seeder home for repair. I just have too much junk to keep repaired. I need to out and unhook it from the tractor and sit it somewhere I can work on it. The sad thing about a sit-up like mine is that by the time I get my seeder repaired, someone will want to borrow it again.

There is not much gardening being done here either, but I did try to clean and weed some of the henbit out of the south garden today.

So I did a thing. The round robin forum on here does a christmas card exchange every year. I really don't need anything as I'm still trying to clear out pre-2020 seeds, so I put my great nephew down instead. He got interested in gardening when he took an after school program 2 years ago, and now he and his mom have a garden at their home. I asked my niece what he wanted for Christmas and she said "more seeds" (I gave him a shoebox last year -- oops, think I created another seed hoarder!). So I plan to have Christmas with them later in the month and give him whatever cards I get, then open my hoard up and let him pick whatever he wants.

I have a broccoli or cauliflower plant still growing. Not sure which, the leaves smell the same to me. It isn't forming heads, just leaves so I've been harvesting the leaves and using them in my salad like lettuce. Gives a nice broccoli/cauliflower flavor. And the cilantro I planted last month is looking a bit frostbit, but still mostly green. And I pulled a couple of carrots that were split and inedible, so I dehydrated the leaves for my jar of "seasoning". I dehydrate vegetables and fruits, then grind them and use it as a flavoring. Great way to get picky 5 year olds (or even pickier husbands) to eat their vegetables. So I am getting some fresh veggies (sorta).

Garlic is a couple inches tall, and needs another layer of mulch over top. I planted a bunch that was leftover from last winter (kept in my fridge and got a bit gunky). I have bare spots in the bed where some didn't sprout, so I may need to plant more.

We had the lights in the shed changed to LEDs when we rewired the electric. LEDs are great as far as cost, but I'd prefer regular old tube lights that warm up for seed starting. Since my seed box is out in the shed, I need all the warmth I can get to keep them from freezing once we hit those frigid days.

HJ, I noticed last year the henbit here popped up in Dec or so and lasted well into spring. And my gaillardia have always stayed green almost all winter.

Congrats! I forget, is this your first grandbaby?

Worry free? Ha! I have already started planning for our Christmas crowd, while Cliff is telling me "Today's only Friday, why are you worrying about what'll happen on Sunday?"

Jen, it sounds like you are in a happy time.

I like my LED lights, but I have them in my center bedroom. I also have 6 fluorescent tubes on the bottom shelf, then I have 6 LED tubes on the second shelf. I also have some heat mats to use if needed. I can see where you may need more heat, and the heat mats may be something you may want to try.

My garlic is still spindly, I expect that it may straighten out by spring. My onions are still going, but this is the first year I have ever tried to do anything with the bunching, or Egyptian walking onions. The first year I planted Lisbon bunching onions, we did not eat many of them, but because they were so productive and easy to grow,I just kept growing them.

About the time I started growing the Lisbon onions, I also started growing Egyptian walking onions, they are even more productive, but I have not learned how to get full use out of either of the onions. I am sure there is a way to easily manage both of these onions, but I have not found it.

At this point I am thinking that it would be nice to be able to plant them at different times so I could keep young onions at all times. Of course a lot of the year can be covered by the use of bulbing onions, but at this time I am unable to cure the bulbing onions to last all winter.

I dug a couple of bunches this morning to restock the chopped onions that I have in the house.

I chopped 1 to 1.5 inches from the onions and replanted them. All the onions to the right have been harvested and replanted this fall. The onions just above the onion "stubs" were the last onions I harvested and replanted. Those stubs, and the stubs you see were planted just below the soil surface, I have not had a chance to harvest any of the later planting to see the quality of onion they reproduce.

Jen, that's really cool that you did that for your nephew. Nothing wrong with hoarding seeds.

You know, henbit is easy to pull but there's always just so much of it. It's not an ugly plant either but takes over. Apparently, the gaillardia does too.

Yes, this is a first grandchild. I'm holding Tom back from buying all the toddler tractor sets and tool sets, etc. But, I found myself looking at cute Christmas coloring books with stickers and realizing that he will be too little to color next Christmas. haha. And, I also found myself telling Tom to settle down on the toys while I was shopping for my first grandmother jewelry. LOL

And, I know ALL the old people say this....but it really feels like Ethan was just this age.

Today is Lane's death day. It's the first year in 24 that the little bear that I put on his marker isn't playing. It will if I push it really hard and hold it, but even then it doesn't sound right. But, for 23 years it played loud and clear--several Christmas songs. That little bear sat outside during rain, snow, and even a blizzard. It's just odd that it stopped working the year that we'll have a new boy in our family.

Yesterday, I watered the hoop house, the hinged hoop, and the radishes, beets, and turnips. that's all the gardening I've done lately.

Larry, are you going to do bulbing onions this year too?

Jenifer, let Tom go wild on the tools and tractor toys, I have 7 grand daughters and did not get to do the grandson things, probably a good thing, I could easily ruin a grandson.

I do plan on doing bulbing onions, just not as many. I am unable to cure them well enough to get long storage. I also would like to try a type called" Potato onions", I had not heard of that type of onion until this year. I know nothing about the potato onion, I will just have to order some an try them. I did try one of my replant. and one of my "New to me" bunching onions today, I was happy with both. Madge is not wild about me fooling with all the different onions, she would be happy to just use bulding onions, but I like playing with things that I can grow right here on this place that I can store or harvest all year long.

Jennifer, {{hugs}}

I grew potato onions a few years back. They're small ish and are fall planted like garlic. Where you plant one, the plant grows 4 or 5 in a circle above the original , harvested the same time as garlic . Look them up at southern exposure seed exchange. Now, 10 years ago I got actual seeds for some. Named maybe Green mountain? But I don't think the source has them anymore, I'll check . My chickens destroyed the seedlings so I never saw the end result.

Multiplier onions, potato onions, perennial onions:

Out of stock now

https://store.experimentalfarmnetwork.org/products/andys-green-mountain-multiplier-onion 

https://www.etsy.com/listing/765557524/green-mountain-potato-onion-seeds-and

Has a picture of how they grow. https://skillcult.com/blog/tag/Green+Mountain+Multiplier

Order them in early summer for fall planting.

https://www.southernexposure.com/products/yellow-potato-onion/

https://www.southernexposure.com/perennial-onion-growing-guide/Multiplier onions, potato onions, perennial onions:

Out of stock now

https://store.experimentalfarmnetwork.org/products/andys-green-mountain-multiplier-onion 

https://www.etsy.com/listing/765557524/green-mountain-potato-onion-seeds-and

Has a picture of how they grow. https://skillcult.com/blog/tag/Green+Mountain+Multiplier

Order them in early summer for fall planting.

https://www.southernexposure.com/products/yellow-potato-onion/

https://www.southernexposure.com/perennial-onion-growing-guide/

Wonder why that pasted twice. Sigh.

Hugs Jennifer.