Happy New Year, Jen. I seldom make resolutions, but, as always, I want to try a new veggie, and try a different method. I am sitting here wanting to get out in the garden to work a little, but the temp seems to show a low of 26, and presently 34, so it is a little cool for me to enjoy being outside, but I am planing on the temp to get up high enough for me to blow some leaves with the mower, or do a little cleaning in the garden.

I got some Yellow Wax bean seeds yesterday, I don't remember growing them in the past. The wax beans may be a good product to try in the pasture garden, it was just started this year, with no amendments, so it may be a good place to try peas and beans.

I did some yellow wax beans some years back. Even canned some of them. They're ok but I like the green beans better.

at least you can see them better when picking. Same for the purple beans.

It's something different to try anyway.

And Happy New Year!

Rick

Happy New Year!
Already planning our New Year's dinner. We grew some really tasty collards this year (still standing). Also kale. My brother loves spinach, won't eat collards. I doubt he'll eat black eyed peas, either, but we have a hoppin john recipe to try. I'm sure he'll eat cornbread and ham.


Larry, the Experimental Farming Network (EFN) has some interesting seeds. They also have green mountain multiplier onions, if they're in stock. Several things I would have ordered were out of stock. I guess I should hurry up and order some of the Welsh onion seeds.
I looked at seeds yesterday but couldn't bring myself to actually buy any. I should do it today, last year prices went up after the first of the year. But EFN's catalog doesn't come out till the 9th.
Thanks for starting the thread Jen.
I'm not fond of yellow beans either, but I've never grown them, only seen them in 3 bean salad my mom made from canned beans. I've grown purple, I didn't like the flavor of the variety I grew. Blue coco pole beans I liked and were easier to see. Plus they survived the summer under the tomatoes and produced again in the fall.

I'll have to go now, almost lost this post.

XOXO

Amy , my spring collards are still going.

they look like palm trees on a beach , but they're still putting out leaves.

They were just glistening in the morning frost yesterday morning.

I hope they keep going through the winter but I fear some bad arctic front will come down sooner or later and take them out. I usually have some frozen collard greens from earlier in the summer but didn't get to it this year. Covering might save them but , of course , maybe I can't be there at the right time to cover them.

Perils of long distance gardening.

Rick

Here's another place with interesting seeds. https://www.farmacieisolde.com/

Happy New Year’s Eve. I am still plugging away at my inventory. So many things I want to grow. I need acres to plant all the varieties I have. Found weevils in several containers. I filled them all with hot water washed out the containers. Set me back a little but it’s okay. I have most of the day and all day tomorrow. I was sick over a week and just feeling better. Larry I too am chomping at the bit to get going. I will begin winter sowing when I plant onions at the end of January. Looking forward to this year.

And from the other thread welcome back Rebecca

Thanks for the links, ladies.

I am experimenting in the kitchen. Madge does not feel well, so she is not trying to chase me out of the kitchen.

I went to check on things in the kitchen, I should gave gone in there sooner.

I saw a video last light of a guy roasting turnips in the oven, they looked so good that I wanted to try some today, but I did not want to fire up the oven for one stinking turnip, so I got a skillet with a lid and figured I could do the same. Well, my skillet must be faster than his oven, by the time I went in to check on them, I had a bunch of burnt turnip slices and burnt green onions. I had to destroy the evidence, so I quickly dumped the turnips, green onions and sweet potatoes on a plate and ate them before Madge could get up from the couch and go looking for what was on fire. I will have to say that those were the best burnt turnips I have ever eaten.

I chased all of my experiment with a salad of spinach, arugula, chopped green onions, raw turnip slices, raw sweet potato slices, and 6 tea, spoons of canned jalapeno juice, it was great. And, Madge is still asleep.

Larry , lately i've been slicing my turnips up , dipping them in flour and frying them.

almost like fried squash.

Just don't let them burn.

Rick

Thanks, Rick, I have a lot to learn.

Thanks Kim. Good to be able to think about gardening again. My guy got my new beds put together, and its kicked me into high gear. Will cost me a fortune to fill them with good stuff, but I”ll start with the root veggie beds, then potato, then warm weather beds. i have veggie scraps to throw in to get the worms going.

Anyone thinking grow lists yet, beyond Kim and I? I have some hardy perennials already started.

Good to see you post, Rebecca. I'm excited for you and your new raised beds! I have two Vego beds that I'm filling up right now with kitchen compost and chicken droppings. I'll top them with soil in a couple of months. From the other thread, I am interested in trying winter sowing. I might try a few things--flowers--this year.

It's going to be a busy year for me, so am trying to keep it simple.

Did you put anything down over the grass? I just did layers of cardboard.

I do have a list in a planner somewhere--I think. Maybe I don't. The months run together. Last year at this time, I had a pretty solid list together. I've been distracted this year with a lot of things. Son moving, daughter pregnant, 2 trips to Oregon, the turnpike/OTA, job roles have changed. Anyway....I'm a bit off right now.

Larry, it's fun to experiment in the kitchen. I hope Madge feels better soon.

Kim, Rick and I usually try to remember to put the peas in the freezer because of weevils.

I pretty much ignored the peas this year. It feels like I ran out of time to deal with them. Honestly, I don't even know where they are. I still have about 30 jars in the pantry, tho.

I also forgot about a wheelbarrow of tomatoes. Tom and I were trying to clean up some stuff yesterday and I saw them. They went to the chickens because they were starting to get yucky. Overripe and all.

Rick, I have those collards in the KG. I should grab some to cook tomorrow along with the southern peas. I'm gonna cheat and use the ones we canned in past years.

Amy, I don't remember ever eating yellow beans. You always find the most interesting sites for seeds.

I haven't looked through my seed catalogs yet. Other than Dixondale because it came so early. I might try Patterson again....and Texas Legend and Red Creole.

I had a plan that I wanted to put the long day one in a bit later to see what would happen. I might still do that. Even if they make smaller bulbs, I don't care if they store better.

As far as tomatoes go, Rick is in charge of the SG tomatoes. Maybe just one row this time instead of two rows. I won't be canning tomatoes this coming year. I have so many from this year (almost last year now).

I have the heirloom tomato seed that I saved seed from. I'm going to do maybe two from each variety....and a couple of Sungold. I'll probably pick up a red cherry tomato from a nursery.

I'll do Karjari melons, Persian cucumbers, maybe Armenian cucumbers, jalapenos this year.

The lettuce and kale seed need to be freshened up, so I'll be purchasing new seed for those. I have some varieties I want to try. Also, new pepper varieties. It's so odd how the peppers really did not do well the past two years. The years prior to that, they were so productive. And here I am being ambitious with them.

Some new ones I want to try: Sugar Rush Peach, Mad Hatter, Marconi, Shishito and Carmen. And some others that's not coming to mind at this moment. I'll probably spend most of my seed budget on peppers!

I am hoping with the time not spent canning this year, I can finally work with my herbs. Does anyone have a freezer dryer? All the cool homesteaders seem to really enjoy theirs. Man, are they expensive, tho!

I still have not filled/planted my Greenstalk. So, that's another thing I want to do. I might do everbearing strawberries in this one. Eventually I would like a second one for greens/herbs. There is a small flowerbed behind my house. It has a miniature rose in it. I want to find a pretty, smallish shrub or two to add to it. Something that can take sun. I don't care if it's a non-native. This bed will be for my enjoyment. It's next to the patio. I have lots of things for the critters in many other places. I would rather these shrubs not be eaten by the critters.

The pantry is still very full of tomatoes, brown beans, black beans, green beans, jellies, peas, greens, veggie soup and other things. In part, that's why I won't be canning this year. Honestly, there's not much space to store things. We are going through the jars, but not as quickly since it's just the two of us. I'm not often making large batches of soups/chilies/casseroles that take those items. Plus, we're trying to do the "whole 30ish" style of eating off and on. Beans aren't allowed on Whole 30, other than green beans. But, during the off times, we are using them.

Speaking of....we'll be starting that back beginning Wednesday. I've had way too many cookies and snicky snacks this past month.

Christmas decor is put away. I wanted to leave it up until tomorrow, but our Christmas tree lights stopped working on the upper part of the tree and it looked sad, so I took it down. What is the deal with lights now-a-days?! My Mom has tree she purchased maybe 10 years ago at an estate sale. It's from North Pole City and is probably 25/30 years old. It's still going strong. We saved our money at the last house to buy a 12 ft tree. We got maybe 2 years out of it before the lights stopped working in places. This tree we've had for 3 or 4 years. So irritating. I'll buy one more pre-lit tree (just because next December is gonna be busy and I need easy), and then I'll go to an unlit tree after that one inevitably goes out after a year or two....and I'll wrap lights on it. Even house lights are crap nowadays. Four years ago we changed up our lights. They lasted 1 year. Chunks of lights were dead and there was no way to fix them. We bought more last year. Same thing. We might not do outdoor lights any longer OR dig around in the shope and see if I can find some of our older lights from years ago.

Anyway...nothing to do with gardening.

It's so dark and we are supposed to go to our old neighbors' house for a party. It's in Shawnee. We won't stay long, but just stop in for a couple of hours to say hi to everyone.

Anyone else doing anything tonight or going anywhere?

Test post.

Happy New Year

Rick

Jennifer has been trying to reply back but her posts are not showing up.

i'm just testing for her.

Rick

Okay....this is a post that I made 15 hours ago. It shows up for me on one of my devices. I copied it and will see if putting it into a new post works.

Good to see you post, Rebecca. I'm excited for you and your new raised beds! I have two Vego beds that I'm filling up right now with kitchen compost and chicken droppings. I'll top them with soil in a couple of months. From the other thread, I am interested in trying winter sowing. I might try a few things--flowers--this year.

It's going to be a busy year for me, so am trying to keep it simple.

Did you put anything down over the grass? I just did layers of cardboard.

I do have a list in a planner somewhere--I think. Maybe I don't. The months run together. Last year at this time, I had a pretty solid list together. I've been distracted this year with a lot of things. Son moving, daughter pregnant, 2 trips to Oregon, the turnpike/OTA, job roles have changed. Anyway....I'm a bit off right now.

Larry, it's fun to experiment in the kitchen. I hope Madge feels better soon.

Kim, Rick and I usually try to remember to put the peas in the freezer because of weevils.

I pretty much ignored the peas this year. It feels like I ran out of time to deal with them. Honestly, I don't even know where they are. I still have about 30 jars in the pantry, tho.

I also forgot about a wheelbarrow of tomatoes. Tom and I were trying to clean up some stuff yesterday and I saw them. They went to the chickens because they were starting to get yucky. Overripe and all.

Rick, I have those collards in the KG. I should grab some to cook tomorrow along with the southern peas. I'm gonna cheat and use the ones we canned in past years.

Amy, I don't remember ever eating yellow beans. You always find the most interesting sites for seeds.

I haven't looked through my seed catalogs yet. Other than Dixondale because it came so early. I might try Patterson again....and Texas Legend and Red Creole.

I had a plan that I wanted to put the long day one in a bit later to see what would happen. I might still do that. Even if they make smaller bulbs, I don't care if they store better.

As far as tomatoes go, Rick is in charge of the SG tomatoes. Maybe just one row this time instead of two rows. I won't be canning tomatoes this coming year. I have so many from this year (almost last year now).

I have the heirloom tomato seed that I saved seed from. I'm going to do maybe two from each variety....and a couple of Sungold. I'll probably pick up a red cherry tomato from a nursery.

I'll do Karjari melons, Persian cucumbers, maybe Armenian cucumbers, jalapenos this year.

The lettuce and kale seed need to be freshened up, so I'll be purchasing new seed for those. I have some varieties I want to try. Also, new pepper varieties. It's so odd how the peppers really did not do well the past two years. The years prior to that, they were so productive. And here I am being ambitious with them.

Some new ones I want to try: Sugar Rush Peach, Mad Hatter, Marconi, Shishito and Carmen. And some others that's not coming to mind at this moment. I'll probably spend most of my seed budget on peppers!

I am hoping with the time not spent canning this year, I can finally work with my herbs. Does anyone have a freezer dryer? All the cool homesteaders seem to really enjoy theirs. Man, are they expensive, tho!

I still have not filled/planted my Greenstalk. So, that's another thing I want to do. I might do everbearing strawberries in this one. Eventually I would like a second one for greens/herbs. There is a small flowerbed behind my house. It has a miniature rose in it. I want to find a pretty, smallish shrub or two to add to it. Something that can take sun. I don't care if it's a non-native. This bed will be for my enjoyment. It's next to the patio. I have lots of things for the critters in many other places. I would rather these shrubs not be eaten by the critters.

The pantry is still very full of tomatoes, brown beans, black beans, green beans, jellies, peas, greens, veggie soup and other things. In part, that's why I won't be canning this year. Honestly, there's not much space to store things. We are going through the jars, but not as quickly since it's just the two of us. I'm not often making large batches of soups/chilies/casseroles that take those items. Plus, we're trying to do the "whole 30ish" style of eating off and on. Beans aren't allowed on Whole 30, other than green beans. But, during the off times, we are using them.

Speaking of....we'll be starting that back beginning Wednesday. I've had way too many cookies and snicky snacks this past month.

Christmas decor is put away. I wanted to leave it up until tomorrow, but our Christmas tree lights stopped working on the upper part of the tree and it looked sad, so I took it down. What is the deal with lights now-a-days?! My Mom has tree she purchased maybe 10 years ago at an estate sale. It's from North Pole City and is probably 25/30 years old. It's still going strong. We saved our money at the last house to buy a 12 ft tree. We got maybe 2 years out of it before the lights stopped working in places. This tree we've had for 3 or 4 years. So irritating. I'll buy one more pre-lit tree (just because next December is gonna be busy and I need easy), and then I'll go to an unlit tree after that one inevitably goes out after a year or two....and I'll wrap lights on it. Even house lights are crap nowadays. Four years ago we changed up our lights. They lasted 1 year. Chunks of lights were dead and there was no way to fix them. We bought more last year. Same thing. We might not do outdoor lights any longer OR dig around in the shope and see if I can find some of our older lights from years ago.

Anyway...nothing to do with gardening.

It's so dark and we are supposed to go to our old neighbors' house for a party. It's in Shawnee. We won't stay long, but just stop in for a couple of hours to say hi to everyone.

Anyone else doing anything tonight or going anywhere?

Sometimes lengthy posts get put on hold. I have noticed many time s that a post shows up later and I know I didn’t see it earlier. Of course I check more often than most. I have lots of time on my hands. That’s why Amy posts short and sweet.

Also I think I need 10 acres. For planting

I suspect it's the Dawn-type of long posts that are now causing issues for Houzz.

But, I did speak to everyone who has posted on this weekly thread. I also copied the original post and tried to post the entire thing again. I won't try to recreate it because it will be too long again. Maybe it will eventually show up. I'll keep my posts much shorter in the future. It was nice to read everyone's posts. Hey Rebecca. Good to see you posting again. Excited for your new raised beds.

Kim, I expect that I check the forum for new post more often than anyone else. This is the only forum that I post on, or even read. I have a lot of time on my hands also. I wish you had your 10 acres and lived next to me. I could break up the land for you, but I doubt that both of us together could care for a 10 acre garden, if we did, you would have to do most of the work.

I have problems with long post also, especially if they have pictures in them.

Some weeks back someone mentioned about someone in their family having sweet potatoes that had sprouted, and I commented about I saved the end of the sprouted sweet potato to start slips from. Several years ago I grew less sweet potatoes ( I think I was growing Beauregard sweet potatoes at the time ), and I was having a harder time curing them out, and I most often had some sprouting by Christmas.

I tried turnips and sweet potatoes again today. Madge is still not feeling well, so I got to play in the kitchen while she rest.

This is what I would ask Madge to save for me when she was making the Thanksgiving or Christmas meal. We had larger crowds back then and Madge would make larger sweet potato dishes.

I had 2 plastic rain gutters cut to fit in the kitchen window. I had the ends of the gutters sealed so they would not drip water down the window. I placed potting soil in the rain gutters and would plant the potato ends in the potting soil. I would have plenty slips saved by planting time. I have a light shelf and heat mats so I can make slips much faster now.

The vegges in the picture are part of what we had for lunch, but, the two turnips may not have tasted the same, some of the pieces had a much stronger taste. I expect that the larger turnip was the one that taste stronger, the other one very sweet and mild? The sweet potatoes taste great, these are Red Wine Velvet, I think they are the best tasting sweet potato I have eaten, but I have not learned how to make them have a longer shelf life.

Hey, HJ! Hope you get your posting figured out. I tend to have trouble when I'm on my phone. I type a word, hit space, then that word deletes. But if I type the word and use the auto suggest thingy, I can do it that way. It gets annoying so I tend to not reply for a while.

I'm not sure about a grow list but I pulled all of my old seed out and am working on planting them. Either I'll have gobs to plant...or nothing will sprout because they're old seed and I didn't really plant them properly. But I'll have cleared them out, so more space for new seeds! Currently going through tomato seeds, and holy buckets do I have more than I can plant! I'm doing all the old stuff first, then will pick (maybe) a few others if I'm missing any. Right now it looks like I have a nice assortment of sizes, shapes, colors, and times to maturity.

Today I started on the wintersowing stuff. Got cherry, redbud, maple, and golden rain trees; columbine and frostweed flowers. I had hopes of getting more done last week but between the crowd of dogs and the temperatures, I didn't really feel like going outside. And now work begins again and the weekend weather looks to be about as chilly.

While I was out there I noticed the dill and cilantro I planted in August finally sprouted. They're only a couple inches tall, but they're doing well considering I haven't watered or done anything to take care of them. And the peas I planted (only 3 plants survived) are starting to form pods. These are all on the south side of the building so my guess is they have plenty of shelter to keep them going. And the broccoli/cauliflower that I planted last spring is getting huge. Still no heads forming but the leaves are tasty. And I have about a dozen or so carrots left to pull, but they still seem pretty tiny so I may let them go to seed. I noticed I'm low on seed so I need to replenish some.

Has anyone ever started blackberry from cuttings? When I did my research I think it said to do the cuttings in fall, but I was curious if anyone had success doing cuttings from dormant canes in the winter?

It's weird. Because Jen and Larry just made long posts and they are showing up for me. I usually make long posts on my laptop because the phone is a nightmare.

I'll just read along and make an occasional short post. It's just so frustrating that I can see my posts--both the first one and the copy. But, Y"ALL can't see it.

Jen, have you tried root pruning? 30+ years ago I grew some great blackberries, root pruning seemed to be the easiest way to get new plants. I would just stick a shovel into the ground the plants and cut some of the roots, and new plants would come up, then that coming fall or winter I would move the plant to where I wanted it.

I had (have) some blackberry plants in my north garden. I tried to remove then this past winter/spring by using the bucket on my tractor. I removed the large vines, but where I cut the roots I had new plants come up. I have not tried to clean that part of the north garden this winter, but it looks like I may have to spray the berry plants to get rid of them.

I think the berries I grew only produced on new canes, I would try to cut the old canes out, they just seemed to make the plants too thick and harder to pick the berries.

HJ, have you tried typing your message into another program, and copy/pasting it here? Amy does that sometimes, I think.

Been poking around on the Reddit gardening forums. Its interesting seeing whats going on in southern hemisphere gardens Basically, the same stuff we deal with here.

Making a focus on growing only heat/disease tolerant tomatomatoes this year. Some old faithfuls, some new. So that means researching.

I’ll make a new post for the garden beds

The beds arent in their final places. Hoping for a slighly warmish day next weekend to do that, and start filling them. I have 3 grow bag beds that I’m just going to place the new beds over the top of, and cut down the sides so they lay flat. Between that and cardboard bottoms (need to tear down Mt. Amazon in my living room), the weeds should be minimal. I”ll be trolling for a few more feed tubs, though.

Oh Rebecca those are nice beds. Where do you get them

Thanks for the suggestion, Larry. I'll have to try that. The ones I have are growing in a not good spot. There's this space, about 8ft wide, between the shed and the barn and it's full of blackberries and poison ivy. I want to clear the entire space out ( might have to break down and pull out the brush killer for this) but I want to try moving the blackberries to another location first.

I have to type longer messages in notepad, then copy it over. If I try typing in houzz directly, it seems to not work very well. Plus I'm scrolling back and forth, and then hit the wrong button and poof! my message disappears into the void.

Jen, if I had berries that I liked in a brushy area, I would back my brush hog over the area to chop berries and brush down, use the bucket on the tractor to up root the berry plants and replant them where I wanted them. The old canes will not regrow, but new shoots will come up from the root ball. If I could not manage the brush when it started coming back I would spray it with brush killer. A lot of guys have that stuff on hand, and might even do it for free.

Larry I want a few acres for cows one acre for pumpkin patch and one acre kitchen garden. Even if I couldn’t manage it would be fun trying. Not sure if I’ve ever shared here. Of I did just skip ahead. When my kids were growing up I had very little money. I saved for Christmas but that was about it. We would go out to eat once a year when tax return came. My three little always always wanted to go to a pumpkin patch. I couldn’t afford it so we would go to Walmart and they picked out their pumpkins and I paid with food stamps. I made it fun but every year my daughter was especially sad because we couldn’t afford the pumpkin patch. So when I learned how to grow things I began dreaming of the day when I could grow a huge pumpkin patch and do all the fun things for kids for free. So I have saved over 5000 pumpkin seeds so far. So that’s the crazy pumpkin story. I have ideas of so many things when I get a little piece of earth.

Kim, I hope you can live your dream. So many times by the time a person can have the land, and the time, their body is so worn out that it is hard to live the dream.

The first time I grew a lot of pumpkins, I kept all I wanted and gave the rest away. One of my grand daughters is a school teacher, she took a pumpkin for each of her students to paint, another daughter and grand daughter took a bunch to give away. The rest of the pumpkins were piled at the end of the driveway with a "FREE" sign over them for people to haul off. It is easy to get more squash and pumpkins than you can use.

Rebecca, I've been thinking about you filling all your beds. We used the lasagna method for our last beds. The first year they weren't very deep, but I planted potatoes with a deep straw mulch over them. The straw eventually composts down. OR fill them with straw and use the straw bale method like Lori Darling on Facebook does. I THINK straw is cheaper than garden soil, but inflation has effected the price of everything. I suspect you've already considered these options, but I thought I would throw them out there.

I've enjoyed reading y'all's posts. Won't comment, tho, just in case this won't post.

I can see all of my posts--the long and short ones. They show for me. It's just other people that can't see them.

Pumpkins! Love your idea, Kim. I tilled an area when we first moved here just for pumpkins. But the squash pests....

Love those new beds, Rebecca.

I butchered my last 2 winter squash that I harvested 15+ months ago, they were starting to get soft. I saved seed from both of them. I expect the seeds are still good, I plan on planting some seeds tonight or tomorrow to test the germination. I think these are some squash that may be a Seminole/butternut cross, but what ever they are they produced a good squash.

Kim's comments made me want to go back across the creek and plant some pumpkin, I will have to check my seed supply to see what type of pumpkin seeds I have. I still have an orange pumpkin in storage, but I want to plant the best eating type. One of the bad things about planting any type of pumpkin that I have ever grown is, you really need a lot of space, and I have never made a pumpkin patch look nice, that is one of the reasons I want to hid it back behind the timber along the creek.

Kim, got them on Amazon. Paid my yard guy to put them together. I’m not handy like that.

Amy, the deeper beds will probaby have various methods to fill them up. The less deep ones im planning for onions, carrots, and beets to start, so probably lots of compost. Time to research. Since I cant just have a truckload of garden soil delivered, I need to price it out good.

Rebecca I had a load of dirt delivered and it took 3 years of amendments to prosper and still isn't as good as the lasagna beds.

Not to mention the work involved to move it to the beds. You might find someone with a sturdy pickup to go to Miami for mushroom compost. https://youtu.be/c82tTg1ql8E?si=ikqlcQe6VLpt-LYs

Video was interesting.

Amy, that is an interesting video. I use to buy compost that came from Miami, OK, but it has gotten a little expensive for me. I am about 175 miles away, so my hauling cost would be a little high. I can still buy compost from Mulch and More in Ft. Smith, which use to come from Miami OK. The price use to be $75.00 a yard, but I am unable to unload it now. The bagged stuff from Ace Hardware, which at the time came from Miami was $1.00 a bag, now I expect is 3x that cost, plus, I am still unable to unload it. So I am left with trying to make compost here, which is still a lot of work, and I end up with sorry compost, but at least I can do most of that work with a tractor. Any way you slice it, getting good soil is expensive for most of us.

I think I should go out and blow up some leaves and grass with the mower, which I will toss on the garden, it seems to help the soil, plus I can get millions of grass seeds, which will give me something to do on those long hot afternoons this coming summer.

I now have 32 mineral tubs!!! So much planting space. I am going to get a load of soil/compost. I will go pick it up in some of these tubs.
I have gone through the inventory and listed all the things I want to grow. It’s a lot but I always have big lists.

Also Ace hardware in Denton just got the Dixondale onion starts in. I am going to pickup 2 bundles. My bed is already prepped and ready with rabbit manure. It’s 30”x10’. It should hold half the onions and some carrots.

Kim, you are ahead of me, but you may be q 100 miles south of me also, so spring may hit you a little sooner.

32 tubs are a lot of tubs to fill, and of course you know how heavy they can get. Some of my tubs have onions in them, and the last time I checked they were doing well, but they are not bulbing onions. I have been using my perennial a lot, try to get Madge use to using them. I even used some winter onions, jalapenos and sweet potatoes in kraut and weiners at lunch, it sounds sickening, but it was good. I did not put the sweet potato slices in till everything else was about done. The sweet potatoes were still crunchy. I used the Red Wine Velvet sweet potatoes, which are pretty sweet.

Madge is very kind to me, I like to experiment with everything I do.

I have been out raking leaves to put on the garden, I wish they were shredded so they would stay in place better.

Amy, you know I’m limited in what i can move too. I’m limited to bagged stuff too, but I think It’ll be better quality than getting a truckload. I’m sure my yard guy could pick it up in his truck and unload it, but that would cost too. I think it would be about the same by using a variety of bagged soils and composts. Going to try to get started this weekend.

I’d like a couple more mineral tubs too. Most of my tomatoes will stay in those. The new beds are for everythingelse.

Jan., 5 2024 gives me the first snow of the year, but it is no more than an inch, and the roads are clear here at 32 degrees. I plan on taking my sweet better half to Ft. Smith for lunch.

I have about 1/2 mineral tub of potting soil in the center bedroom ready to start seeds, although my test seeds of my saved winter squash have not come up yet, I need to fire up the heat mats. I know that it is too early for this, but a test run is always good to see what is missing, or broken. I would like to build another light shelf, but I need to downsize in that area also.

I have 4 more mineral tubs, I think that I need to get them ready for tomatoes also. I tried a determinate bush type of tomato in a mineral tub last summer and was happy. also onions, not so much with sweet potatoes.

Weather boy says 7* next Sat morning , about a week from today.

Might want to check yer antifreeze and warm yer pipes.

Rick

How about a 15 year old thread bump , about beans , starting out with George and Dawn:

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/2100381/beans-for-oklahoma

Rick

Thanks Rick. I need to spend more time looking at the old threads. I got my onion slips today. I will plant out in two weeks I hope.

Larry it sounds like magic is feeling better if you were taking her out to lunch. I have been sick since Thursday before Christmas and I am really tired of this. I am actually going to plant my onions out tomorrow because one of the big gardens local already has theirs out I have hoops and recover so I should be good.

Larry that was supposed to say Madge

Kim, Madge does not feel extremely bad, her right leg and ankle are swollen and hurt, she has been to the dr. for x-ray, and has an appointment for more test the 15th.. I am trying to keep her off her feet, but she minds about like I do.

I am glad you are able to plant your onions this early, but I still have too much cold weather ahead of me to risk planting anything. I am however going through seeds, and have 8 squash seeds planted for a germination test in the house, they are not up yet, and may not come up, but I will test again before planting time if these seeds don't come up. I want to have seeds ready as soon as weather permits planting.

I am trying to get some of my junk cleaned up from around my "Nest", as I call it. I even found a few packs of seed as I was going through my junk. Its just like Christmas all over as I am going through my junk.