tinyHomestead

Have you ever had one of those bad gardening years, where hardly anything goes right and youre not sure why you started gardening in the first place? Im almost to that point.

it got hot last summer, and not just hot but unrelentingly hot. and I was stubborn and didnt just buy starts when my tomato seeds didnt thrive. so the gardening season was mostly a bust. We had some turnips and greens early, a few carrots here and there, my heirloom beans for the Appalachian Seed Savers Assn. went poorly.

This fall, we got chickens, and weve been composting their dirty litter. weve weeded and raked the beds, and seeded annual ryegrass for a winter cover crop. weve moved the worms into the garage for the winter, and they are doing OK.

My citrus in pots did fairly well, ive got meyer lemons, calamondins, and meiwa kumquats all trying their best in pots indoors. Kept a few cherry bomb peppers alive too. Gave up on the Nana Pomegranate, she was pretty, but the fruit were useless.

So, all is not lost, but it was definately a tough gardening year. 10+ bags of leaves and several bales of chicken-manure-laden straw will add to the organic matter in the beds. If this weather keeps up, I should have finished compost soon!

Posted by Kelli Ann Ploeger at 10:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yep. not tomato cage. potato cage. I wanted to try to grow potatoes this year, but didnt know if I wanted to dedicate a lot of bed space to them. Ive read about growing them in tires and stacking as they get taller, and ive heard they can be grown in really poor substrate like old straw. We had some leftover chickenwire from an ill-conceived compost bin that was a bit too gnarled to use for carpentry. I folded it over to be double strength (with much gyrating and stomping and amazement of passersby) and filled it with old hay and leaf mold from the neighbor's leaves we scrounged this fall. They look great. They are Austrian crescent fingerlings, and Yukon golds. I wonder how many potatoes Ill get without wasting precious bed space?!

Posted by Kelli Ann Ploeger at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Both the Barnes Mt. and Leona Dillon beans are starting to send up shoots and grab hold. I planted another set of the Barnes, as the first were damaged by snails.

Barnes Mt. in the front yard

Leona Dillon in the back yard

Posted by Kelli Ann Ploeger at 7:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

These are Milan turnips. I dont remember how long ago I planted them, but not much longer than a month. The package said they could be ready for baby turnips at 15 days past germination. They definately grew fast. they were really tasty, rich, not corky, and the greens werent too bitter. Weve got many more to enjoy! They are about 3" across.
I picked some sage and thyme, and Jerry made sausage patties from our CSA ground pork. He added some fennel seeds. We also had some canned black beans. Maybe we'll get enough beans this year to dry some.....

Posted by Kelli Ann Ploeger at 7:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

The beans have not been a total loss in this wet spring, only seven or so of the Barnes Mt. have made it up. I saw a lot of snail activity around them, hadnt noticed how bad the snails were in the front. I gave the horrible bushes in the front a serious trim- it was like a snail housing complex in and amongst all the fallen leaves. I need to remember to buy some cheap beer to lure them in for a swim... Ill wait another week or two to clean up snails and let the weather warm up a bit more, then plant again.

In the back yard, 21 of the Leona Dillon beans are up. much better turnout. Ill probably plant another five just to be sure.

Posted by Kelli Ann Ploeger at 8:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

So, I planted my beans, and we had about 4 bad days of rain, a few dry sunny days, and more rain this week. Desipite all this, some of my beans are coming up. There were a fair number of the Barnes Mountain, and a few of the Leona Dillon. Very glad I saved some seed back for a second planting.

My lima beans next to the Barnes Mt. have not come up yet, I might go looking for some more seeds before its too late. The cowpeas and yardlong beans in the back yard are doing just fine. I have picked these "neighbors" for my saved-seed beans because they are different genus and will not cross.

Posted by Kelli Ann Ploeger at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I decided I wanted to join the Appalachian Heirloom Seed Conservancy, KentuckySeeds@hotmail.com , after seeing Brook mention it on Garden Web. I was a renter with no garden the year I found it, so it waited for another year. Membership is quite affordable.

I have long considered joining a seed conservancy, but I am a novice gardener, this is my 6th year gardening, but 2 years have been interrupted by moving for college. I’ve read a lot, and experienced a lot, but I’m not an expert gardener by any means. I don’t want to “mess it up”, but I believe in seed saving and decided I should get involved. I bought Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth; it’s a manual describing how to save seed by genus and specie.

Upon opening my package of Leona Dillon (P. vulgaris) beans, I poured them into my hand. They are a bit strange. They are slightly folded, like all the beans have Sickle Cell or are amoeba shaped. Mr. Elliott told me this is called "creaseback". They are the same light reddish brown with brown spots color as many other beans, but not the same pattern. They have their own bean ladder on the right side of the garden. They share the back yard with Yardlong beans (V. unguiculata ssp sesquipdalis)

The Barnes Mtn. Cornfield (P. vulgaris) beans look like a regular green bean, but some seeds are smooth and some are slightly wrinkled. I’m not sure if this is a trait or a side effect of how they were dried or age at harvest, but I’ve made sure there are both smooth and wrinkled in the planting. They are slightly different than my other green bean seeds, being a bit thinner and more rice-shaped. I will grow them up a tipi opposite my Christmas limas (P. lunatus) this year, in the front of the house. (Note, Brook Eliott states that they should all be smooth, some wrinkles might be due to how they dried)

Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth suggests minimum of 20 inbreeding plants for seed saving. Twenty plants are also listed on the conservator’s agreement. The agreement is a simple form explaining that stock seed was provided for free, the conservator will do their best to ensure pure seed, and return at least half the seed.

The packets were probably 50 seeds, I didn’t count, but I’ve planted about half. I put 25 in now, and saved the rest in case of crop failure. Seed to Seed also recommends culling any plants that come up and do not appear true-to-type.

I am always excited to plant seeds, but these had a little extra special feeling to them. I planted them yesterday and it rained before bedtime. I anxiously await their arrival and will document the process!

Happy Gardening!

Posted by Kelli Ann Ploeger at 10:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)