Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
Joined: Sep 14, 2004 Posts: 6623 Location: Rural Virginia
Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:00 pm Post subject:
Well, I have 12 nice fat "Sweet Ambrosia" melons. Picked my first one today (the stem slid easily off, which is the test after they turn from green to yellowish). It will need to ripen further for a couple of days, then I cut into it and see what I've got! That moment of melon truth.
One of my fig bushes is covered with figs but they haven't ripened yet. Still hard as rocks. You have to keep watching them because they ripen quite suddenly and inflate like little balloons. Another fig bush isn't producing for the second year in a row, so I'm going to give it the axe.
Dehydrated five gallons of tomatoes yesterday, am dehydrating another five gallons now, and will be doing about ten more gallons after that. Those "sun-dried tomatoes" really go great in many recipes year-round. A value-added food, too; check out the prices for them at the supermarket! _________________ "Actually, humans died out long ago."
---Abused, abandoned hunting dog
"Things have entered a stage where the only change that is possible is for things to get worse."
---Me and my brother
Joined: Nov 18, 2004 Posts: 1136 Location: Central Texas
Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 6:41 pm Post subject: Re: [Food] Production Gardening, General
JJ wrote:
here's our first (and only) pineapple. Man it smells good.
Wow JJ! Looks great! Congratulations and I mean that.
My five pineapple plants are coming along and I'll probably bring them indoors in about 3-4 weeks. Only two years to go before I may see a fruit. _________________ About my avatar: Guess.
Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 6:52 pm Post subject: Re: [Food] Production Gardening, General
PeakOiler wrote:
JJ wrote:
here's our first (and only) pineapple. Man it smells good.
Wow JJ! Looks great! Congratulations and I mean that.
My five pineapple plants are coming along and I'll probably bring them indoors in about 3-4 weeks. Only two years to go before I may see a fruit.
we ate it all this afternoon, it was very sweet. Well, now we'll take all the plants up to the middle school when school starts and put them in the greenhouse there. And my kid graduated college and moved back home; he filled my greehouse with his furniture. (still glad to have him home) His double major is international business and internation economics, and he can't find a job. go figure. (he's working management at the local grocery store, hates it.)
Joined: Nov 18, 2004 Posts: 1136 Location: Central Texas
Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 9:14 am Post subject: Re: [Food] Production Gardening, General
Today I harvested some more bell peppers (354g), serrano peppers (18g), a small onion (38g), a single very sweet purple grape (2g), and more toppings from two basil plants which are booming.
The tomato plants and green beans are making a definite comeback so the fall garden is looking ok.
Eight more limes are nearly ready.
The pumpkin are still blossoming. I've been trimming the oregano and thyme also.
I'm going to cut back a rosemary bush today that is about 4 ft high and over 6 ft in diameter. It's just gotten too big. _________________ About my avatar: Guess.
Joined: Oct 24, 2006 Posts: 121 Location: Pacific Northwest
Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 9:54 am Post subject: Re: [Food] Production Gardening, General
Here's the garden update from DoubleD's garden:
Summer crops are providing a good bounty - but the green beans, cukes, and tomatoes were all so delayed so much this year that my window of time to harvest and preserve is getting quite small. Kind of stressing me out a bit as we live 100% on our garden for vegetables and what we have is what we eat... period.
Fall crops are mostly all in (some for quite a while now really) and thriving. Fall and overwintering crops are as follows:
carrots (two large staggered plantings)
turnips
parsnips
leeks
broccoli (two large staggered fall/winter plantings)
cabbages (one late season varieties and one overwintering variety)
shelling peas
brussel sprouts (two large stagged fall/winter plantings)
kale
swiss chard
lettuce
bunching onions
Yet to be planted - spinach (lots of it), more lettuces, and in October I will plant out next year's garlic, shallots, and multiplier onions.
Here is a pic of some carrots and a head of purple cabbage I harvested on Thursday morning.
And here is the first planting of brussel sprouts - they are about 4 foot tall "trees" and the sprouts are forming well (as can be seen in the second picture).
Joined: Nov 18, 2004 Posts: 1136 Location: Central Texas
Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 10:16 am Post subject: Re: [Food] Production Gardening, General
DoubleD wrote:
Here's the garden update from DoubleD's garden...
Very cool, DD. Inspiring. I'm going to try growing carrots for the first time next season.
Here are the bell peppers harvested in the last couple days:
Yesterday evening a storm came through delivering about 1.6 inches of rain with strong wind gusts . The smaller peppers shown above were not really ready but the branch was ripped off by the storm.
I'm down to my last 100 unshelled pecans from last fall's harvest as shown. I have a few pounds of shelled pecans in the freezer. _________________ About my avatar: Guess.
Joined: Oct 24, 2006 Posts: 121 Location: Pacific Northwest
Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 10:53 am Post subject: Re: [Food] Production Gardening, General
The peppers look great peakoiler! I have a few on the plants - but all of our warm season crops are way way behind schedule this year - peppers included. _________________ Check out Our Modern "Victory Garden" - http://www.freewebs.com/kitsapfreedomgardener/
Joined: Nov 18, 2004 Posts: 1136 Location: Central Texas
Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 1:56 pm Post subject: Re: [Food] Production Gardening, General
I wanted to add that one of the bell pepper plants is in it's 3rd season of producing peppers. I transplated the pepper plant from the garden into a pot and brought it into the house for the winter, then put the scraggly plant back into the ground in the spring and it recovered to produce more peppers. The stalk base of that one plant is over 1" in diameter. _________________ About my avatar: Guess.
Joined: Aug 30, 2008 Posts: 6 Location: the green mountains
Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 3:51 pm Post subject: Re: [Food] Production Gardening, General
Hi new to this site, but everyones veggies looked great. We have had alot of rain in July in Central Vermont and my green pepper plants pretty much croaked. The garden has some shade cover which we plan of getting rid of this fall. More wood for the stove though. But our potato's did outstanding as well as the broccoli we planted. I am planning a bigger garden next year and will be trying some veggies we have never tried before. This year was devoted to making a root cellar and I am starting collecting glass to make a green house for next year hopefully, lots of people giving windows away on craigslist as I don't have a budget for one. Any info on greenhouses would be appreciated.
Joined: Oct 24, 2006 Posts: 121 Location: Pacific Northwest
Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 4:11 pm Post subject: Re: [Food] Production Gardening, General
peakoiler - I am intending to do that with a two different pepper plants this year... so I am glad that actually worked for you. It is a real struggle to get hot climate crops to produce where I live (mild maritime weather - no real weather extremes) so any jump start with peppers is a big bonus. _________________ Check out Our Modern "Victory Garden" - http://www.freewebs.com/kitsapfreedomgardener/
Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 7:03 pm Post subject: Re: [Food] Production Gardening, General
peakoiler:
Does that pepper produce in the winter? When it goes back out in the spring, how long until it begins to produce again? What is the production volume relative to a new plant? _________________ If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever."
-George Orwell, 1984
Joined: Nov 18, 2004 Posts: 1136 Location: Central Texas
Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2008 7:35 pm Post subject: Re: [Food] Production Gardening, General
kpeavey wrote:
peakoiler:
Does that pepper produce in the winter? When it goes back out in the spring, how long until it begins to produce again? What is the production volume relative to a new plant?
Not really. It loses most of it's leaves but survives. I keep them close to a well-lit south-facing window but a plant light might work better. I just don't want to use any electricity for the plants. I harvested one very small pepper in February and that was it. The plant was just bigger than newer ones of course (about 4 ft tall) in early spring, so it's way ahead of new plants.
I noticed I entered 8/31 instead of 8/30 in the workbook. oops. I'll correct that. All of the peppers harvested were from the over-wintered plants.
One can see the effects of 100+ heat in June and July in that graph. _________________ About my avatar: Guess.
Posted: Sun Aug 31, 2008 1:20 pm Post subject: Re: [Food] Production Gardening, General
Question for all the experts:
I bought some packages of seeds from a grocery store in Ontario(Zehrs/Fortinos for those in the area) Most things appeared to be going well. TONS of lettus which was nice, all my tomato plants were getting huge and massive. Same with peppers. But then in mid July we got nothing but rain for about 4 weeks.
So, I had 10 tomato plants and they were huge, with at least a hundred tomatos, all just massive. But, they were all green so I left them. Finall we got some sun, and they ALL split open and rotted....
Did I do something wrong? Should I have not let them ripen on the vine when they were the right size? I am thinking it was no sun and wet whether as they sat for a good 2.5 weeks at full size and green.
What do you think, could it be the seeds that sucked?
It was very discouraging since it was my first garden. But, I'm 24, lots more years to learn and adapt I suppose.
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. The smaller peppers shown above were not really ready but the branch was ripped off by the storm.
