Little bit of heaven, actually a little "bite" of heaven!

[Linstrum]

I have lived all but two years of my life on a farm or in farm country, so I have planted plenty of vegetable gardens and fruit trees. There are no two ways about it, having a garden and fruit trees is a lot of just plain hard work! Fighting those little furry abominations called gophers that eat the exact same stuff I like is an added chore and the best way I have found to fight them is to plant the tree root balls inside a protective wire cage to keep them from the inner roots, but that is only practical for the trees since the cost of the hardware cloth is far too high to plant corn and beans in. You can't shoot the gophers very easily, either, because they rarely come above ground in daylight, although when I have seen a plant stem start to wiggle or the gopher mound start to move when they bring up a load of dirt I have taken out a few with my .30-06. With the right projectile it will stir up the ground deep enough to kill a gopher when hitting just close to one. But that bothers the neighbors I have now, though, so I just try to trap the critters. Birds take their toll in my garden, too, but I use netting to keep them out plus I am a bit more forgiving of birds because I like watching them fly and I like listening to their calls and songs just before first light.

All that hard work in the garden and orchard is pretty much forgotten when the first harvest of the season is taken. That incipient garbage that the supermarkets sell in their "produce" section resembles real home garden fruits and vegetables the same way that a photograph of something like an original 99% condition Colt SA, 1894 Winchester model 94, or a new-in-the-Cosmoline CMP Garand is the same as actually owning and shooting one!

There is nothing on earth that will compare to a big dinner plate full of home grown Illini Chief corn on the cob, Kentucky Wonder string beans, Detroit dark red beets, Burbank new potatoes, and hotdog-size Zucchini squash that have all been cooked just enough, with a side of sliced Beefsteak or cherry tomatoes and sliced cucumber for a salad, and tree-ripened Santa Rosa plums or Ventura peaches for desert. I usually dab my corn and beans with butter and put on a pinch of fresh ground black pepper. A nice slab of charcoal grilled elk, venison, or grain-fed beef is the best way to finish it all off.

Okay, that does it, I’m hungry now, bye!

[Ricochet]

I miss the garden and fruit orchard I had in Alabama! Don't have a good place for growing stuff here. I've grown a few tomatoes in the flower beds. Can't beat 'em fresh and ripe off the vine!

[MT Gianni]

I agree but have had great success with yukon gold yellow potatoes. They taste like they are allready buttered and add some walla-walla sweet onions fried with whitetail loin chops in the side and it's a great dinner. We have a short season but a good one. Gianni.

[Bret4207]

I just finished a set of handles for a Planet Jr wheel hoe last night. That makes 3 wheel hoes, 3 Gravely Tractors, a Fraser Roto tiller, a Mantis power cultivator, probably 5 different hoes and weeders- all for the garden. There stuff I've forgotten for sure. (BTW- anyone with Planet Jr or Gravely cultivator shanks- I'm buying)

I'm into my second plantings now. My first corn is just dismal this year, but I found some 68 day corn I'm going to try (Ecstasy?) Beans got eaten by sheep, but many came back so we'll get a few. No more to be found at these so called "garden centers". My old hardware back home carried seed till fall. You could buy mittens in July too, but I digress. The 'maters are doing fine and they should since they resides in expensive tomato cages. Even planted marigolds between the plants to help with nasties. Asparagus was real light this year, so I have to get a big load of manure on it. Sheep ate the peas, 2nd planting doing good. Zucchini and pumpkins are coming and so are the cukes, all got in late. I still have more to put in if it ever stops raining. Got some Honeyoe strawberrys in, but many died due to dry spell earlier and an aiming error with a Gravely. I also have raspberries coming like crazy. Real good year for berrys, but my wife and MIL established them along the garage wall, so I have to try transplanting cuttings- again. Maybe this year they'll take. I waited longer to get them this year in hopes they'd be stronger.

Fall plans include spreading a LOT of composted bedding/manure. I have to figure out a better system on that as I hate taking a spreader in to the garden itself unless the ground is frozen. I also want to lime and get some other soil amendments into the ground. Biggest thing I have to do is build up the organic content of the clayey soil. SWMBO is starting to take a slight interest now that she's getting back into herbs a little. The kids know what pig weed, dandelion, lambs quarter and a few other weeds look like, they just haven't got this "DON"T STEP ON MY ONIONS!!!!" idea down. You'd think they could see an onion plant 10" tall! But they enjoy weeding now, so I'll count my blessings.

I want 25-50 fruit trees, more bramble fruit, red rhubarb instead of the white (wine) kind I have, a bunch more strawberries and want to get a good lavender bed established for SWMBO, along with some more herbs. It all takes time and energy. Potatoes for instance grow well here. (Love those Yukon Golds MT G!) But when you have a ton of potatoes you need a cool, dark place to store them, ie- a root cellar. I know just where I want it, but building it takes time, effort and some $$$. Plus it has to pass muster with Cindy. She has other priorities, like finishing the bathrooms and such.

Time, time, time!

[felix]

Pine bark mulch. Stir that in immediately after harvest, Bret, for a super organic amendment for next spring planting. Add fertilizers along with it, especially calcium for starters, along with your other organic stuff like leaves. Calcium products should include some carbonate and nitrate, depending on how many leaves. The pine bark carries its own nitrogen, but it does not hurt to augment it in nitrate form. The organics should be completely decomposed, via the calcium and nitrogen, by the time of planting. The reason I mention that is because it is likely you have a logging operation around there somewhere and a truckload of bark would be quite cheap. ... felix

[floodgate]

Bret:

"A bite of Heaven, indeed!" I have the "gray thumb", so i am excluded from the garden during growing season (I get to "nurture" the poison oak and blackberries), but I do get to do some engineering in the preparation period (got to run Bev's beloved 7-hp Troy-Bilt over the 2500 sq. ft. plot this Spring, after she had pulled a muscle in her back - OK now - and got to appreciate how much she puts into it).

Anyhoo, we DID come up with an improved way of planting and supporting the tomato / tomatillo crop a few years back, and get great results, with easy picking. We got tired of fighting those stupid conical wire "tomato cages" with their lousy weld joints. We now have three lengths of the welded 1/4" steel rod "Hog Panel" (actually the 52" high x 16 ft. long "Cattle Panels"), laid out parallel, NE / SW, 4' apart, wired to T-stakes at both ends and the middle, and plant tomatoes, etc. along both sides. The vines grow right up to the top, and we can pick from both sides - typically 50+ qts. in a good year. The first year, we learned the hard way that - using the "graduated line spacing" panels, to put the narrow-spaced edge at the TOP; if at the bottom, it is a real chore tearing out the old vines at the end of the season.

This year, we are trying one section out with climbing beans. Had a late, cold Spring, so with our short growing season, had to skip corn this time.

Had the 1" mesh plastic screen laid out over the strawberries to save them from the birds; went out a couple of weeks ago and found our resident gopher snake horribly tangled up in it, and - in a panic - just winding himself in deeper and deeper. I managed to snip him free after a half-hour's work, without injuring him, but he never said "thanks", and sure slithered off mad! I hope he took it out on the gophers....

floodgate

[Blackwater]

DANG! Linstrum and others here, y'all sure do know how to make a man HUNGRY!

Got a question for you all. Have any of you had trouble with a blight or virus damaging or killing your tomato vines? Any info on this would be appreciated. Ain't nothin' like home grown tomatoes! The stuff at the store just isn't as sweet.

BTW, if you've never tried the miniature "Hybrid 100" tomatoes, and you like sweet tomatoes, get yourself some. They're the most prolivic tomatoes I've ever grown, and the absolute sweetest too. They're salad tomatoe size, or about like large grapes or small plums in size. I've gone out and plucked and eaten them off our vines like I was eating grapes. Some KIND'a GOOD!!! Here in Ga., it's nice to eat a cold lunch, due to the heat and humidity in the summer, and those Hybrid 100's sure do add something to a good salad.

Blight or virus help? Our soil may have this stuff in it, and we've had to go to planting our tomatoes in tubs, now.

[Bret4207]

I'd start looking here. Sounds like a blight of some sort.

http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s1-5-16-248,00.html

[Bret4207]

Here's one I just found with great pics. AND it from ORGYGUN, so it's gotta be good!

http://plant-disease.ippc.orst.edu/image_searchResults.cfm?search_str=T&host_alpha=T&host_text=&submit=++Go%21++

And another-

http://www.gardeners.com/Pest-and-Disease-Finder/default/5285.page

[Iceman]

I miss the garden and fruit orchard I had in Alabama! Don't have a good place for growing stuff here. I've grown a few tomatoes in the flower beds. Can't beat 'em fresh and ripe off the vine!

Something I learned from a food inspector in South Carolina a long time ago; He was testing some tomatoes being loaded on my truck, he would sprinkle something from a shaker from his pocket, then eat the tomato. When I asked what it was he replied it was half black pepper and half cayenne pepper, made the taste of the tomato really stand out. He was right.

[Slowpoke]

[QUOTE=floodgate;
This year, we are trying one section out with climbing beans. Had a late, cold Spring, so with our short growing season, had to skip corn this time.

Had the 1" mesh plastic screen laid out over the strawberries to save them from the birds; went out a couple of weeks ago and found our resident gopher snake horribly tangled up in it, and - in a panic - just winding himself in deeper and deeper. I managed to snip him free after a half-hour's work, without injuring him, but he never said "thanks", and sure slithered off mad! I hope he took it out on the gophers....

floodgate[/QUOTE]

We have used the cattle panels for a few years now for climbing beans and cucumbers.

We found if we raised the panel about a foot off the ground the beans did better, 52 inches is a little short for happy beans in our experience.

We fenced our garden with the panels as well but attached 24 inch poultry wire to the bottom of the panels with hog rings fist. Then in late fall we take the panels down to work the ground for spring planting, they go back up quick in the spring to keep the deer and rabbits out. I set a 16 foot 4x4 in the ground and keep a trap set on top for the crows, then when a crow hits the trap we leave it hanging and the crows stay away for a long time. It works good for wayward Hawks and OWLS in the poultry yard as well except we get them down and buried right away.

good luck

[Crash_Corrigan]

Ok I figured out MIL was supposed to be what your wife will look like in 25 years but what is SWMBO? Should I have one of these? Did I? Would I like it if I did?
Confusted in Vegas, Dan:confused:

[C A Plater]

I have a SWMBI now but SWMBO is She Who Must Be Obeyed. The "I" in SWMBI means Ignored as in Ex. :):drinks:

[Bret4207]

Crash, I'd lend you my SWMBO, but I hear that doesn't work out so good.

[Linstrum]

Alright, CA Plater!

Hey, there, Crash, how ya doin'?

Yup! A SWMBO is an added feature of marriage that most NBMYM (never-before-married-young-men) quite unfortunately, and regretfully, think is either a myth or something to dismiss as just hearsay. Only after it is far too late to escape is the sad truth only just discovered!

Oh my! :roll:

There are so, so many of things related to the SWMBO phenomenon that come as a complete shock and surprise right out of the clear blue sky that will lambast a young still-innocent just married young man right between the eyes!

:bigsmyl2:
Forty-some years ago one of my buddies from work was bragging about his wedding plans and speaking loudly so it could be plainly heard by many older and wiser men who were within earshot that he was looking forward to getting married because then he would have all the intimate relations he wanted when he wanted! The roar of laughter that it immediately evoked from the crowd of older and wiser men could be heard at least five miles away! My friend’s response to that was amazed puzzlement, he asked loudly of the group of guys just exactly what it was he said that

was so darned funny! :violin: One older grizzled, long-time veteran

of marriage spoke up, saying not to worry! My buddy would find out soon enough, saying that finding out the sad truth about the difference between imagined expectations of married life and the reality of it would be like finding out what being seasick is like if you’ve never had it before. Darned hard to describe but when you’ve got it, you REALLY know it!

By the way, there is a glossary of terms that includes SWMBO that is a “sticky” thread up at the front here somewhere. It is not hard to find and if anyone sees something they don’t understand, go look. Or if somebody asks for an explanation of your obtuse terminology please enter it in the glossary of terms. There is nothing quite so irritating as being left out in the cold when everybody knows what somebody is talking about except you!

[Crash_Corrigan]

I had a SWMBO but she died. Then I found another SWMBO and she after 20 years of married bliss decided that I was spending too much time and money on reloading and shooting and her status changed to SWMBI. We are still fighting over the remains of the wrecked marriage and the marital residence. Anybody know of a decent reasonably priced bottom feeder who can help me? I think I am going to become a switch hitter and try guys as I am a failure with women. However, I am not giving up scrounging for lead, smelting lead, casting lead, reloading, collecting molds and guns or shooting. I intend to incorporate the aforementioned in a pre-nuptual agreemeent if I even think about tying a knot again.

[MT Gianni]

Crash, before you try again do the shooters version of pre wedding infedility. Bring home $1000 worth of guns or gear, tell her how much you spent, how good it felt and how important it is to you. Watch her reaction closley. Gianni.

[Bret4207]

The cattle panels work great for peas and beans for sure. They also make great dog kennels, compost bins, etc. We use a lot of them on the farm.

Getting the organic matter for the garden is easy. I just clean the barn. It's getting it worked into the soil in a timely manner and getting it where I want it that eludes me. I have one section that lies a little low. I've been raising it a spreader load at a time for 10 years. It takes a long time to build heavy/hungry soil up. 12" of bedding/manure mix deteriorates into about 1/4" of soil by the time nature takes it's course.

The local lumber yard gets sheetrock units that use sheetrock for stickers the units rest on. Wish I could cut adeal to get all their stickers and broken sheetrock. Grind it up and spread it on the garden/fields and you've just added land plaster/gypsum. That is supposed to cause clay to stick together in little bundles and allow better tilth. Plus it's limey and is supposed to be high in calcium. Good stuff if it's true and there aren't scads of nasty chemicals in there.