August 14, 201412 yr It appears The Sarge got dead seeds. ZERO percent germination so far ... but in nature they usually germinate in July - it's a soil temperature thing. Sarge is gonna wait for the end of the month before giving up and trying again next year. Never give up, never surrender. Easy Peasy Please excuse me if this is too simple a question for an experienced gardener such as yourself, but I was wondering if the Pawpaw seeds received enough chilling to break the germination locks? Best of luck with growing Pawpaw -- custard fruit is sooooo good.
August 14, 201412 yr My god that is some collection sarge, I'm soo envious, everything looks delicious, I would love to grow stuff, especially fruit, strawberries are costing me a small fortune, watnt to grow strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, there are loads of trees were we luve full of blackberries so we get lots of them for free but you have really motivated me to do it. We have only a small front garden and no back garden, any tips on how to get started???
August 14, 201412 yr Author My god that is some collection sarge, I'm soo envious, everything looks delicious, I would love to grow stuff, especially fruit, strawberries are costing me a small fortune, watnt to grow strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, there are loads of trees were we luve full of blackberries so we get lots of them for free but you have really motivated me to do it. We have only a small front garden and no back garden, any tips on how to get started??? Start small. Expand next year. Rinse. Repeat as necessary. Move to a bigger place when the produce outgrows the front lawn. ;) Easy Peasy! Seriously? If you plan on living there a while, start with the perennials (things that come back year after year). A blueberry bush takes 4 or 5 years before it really starts producing, but it's good for a metric crap-ton of blueberries for 40 or 50 years after it's planted. Asparagus takes 3 years before your first harvest, but then it's no work (don't have to re-plant) for the next 15 to 20 years. Sarge started with all the things that are planted once, but keep on going and going and going, year after year after year. Aim for two or three new types of plants each year. This year Sarge planted Goji (wolfberry), 3 types of Honeberry (a fruiting holeysuckle-family perennial), and Paw-Paw trees. The Paw Paw seeds were a failure - failed to germinate seeds. Learn how to save seed and propagate your own. The Hazelnut Hedge (make your own Nutella (hazelnut and cocoa) on the Eastern fenceline of The Sarge Homestead would have cost over $600 to fully populate the first year if he bought all the plants. Instead, Sarge bought 3 individual 1-year twigs for, like, 18 bucks + shipping and over the last three years has been propagating himself. Now he's got a quarter mile fenceline that will produce a couple hundred pounds of nuts every year in ... maybe 3 more years. All for 18 bucks. Google is your friend here, so is youtube. It's a time-sink, too. Don't think you can "set it and forget it". It'll never work if you do. Disease. Bugs. Rabbits/squirrel/dear. Weather. Bad Luck. The neighbor's dog. The neighbors' kids. They're all conspiring to ruin your harvest and your job is to succeed. This doesn't happen passively. Easy Peasy
August 14, 201412 yr Author Please excuse me if this is too simple a question for an experienced gardener such as yourself, but I was wondering if the Pawpaw seeds received enough chilling to break the germination locks? Best of luck with growing Pawpaw -- custard fruit is sooooo good. They overwintered at the recommended temperature and humidity in the Seed Refrig/Freezer for 5 months. Sarge is an amateur orchardist with 80-ish fruit trees of all sorts in the orchard and on the property. Easy Peasy
August 14, 201412 yr Author Sarge, What do you use for pest control? Pest control? Grandpappy Sarge taught this to Wee Lad Sarge: Plant 5 times what you want to haul out of the garden. You will, many years, only get 20% of the harvest for yourself. 1 share goes to the bugs. 1 share goes to the disease. 1 share gets eaten by critters (rabbits, birds, squrrel, etc.) 1 share gets beaten down by the weather 1 share for you - what's left is all yours. This has served Sarge well over the years. Plant waaaaay more than you think you need and you will be fine. (like - 5 times more). Plant just exactly what you think you need and you will be sorely disappointed when everything else takes its share before you get yours. Easy Peasy
August 14, 201412 yr Author Slow day in the garden today ... but even slow days produce something. 5 Cayenne Chillis and a mid-sized Canteloupe. Wonder what Canteloupe tastes like with Cayenne? :huh: Easy Peasy
August 14, 201412 yr Jesus ive never heard of half the stuff you mentioned, im thinking maybe you can only get the, wolfberry, honeyberry paw paws etc over the pond. Right I'm going to start with strawberries because they are costing me too much money and we all love them. I'll go check out you tube and Google, chees for the advice, I'm green with envy over your "garden"
August 14, 201412 yr Author Jesus ive never heard of half the stuff you mentioned, im thinking maybe you can only get the, wolfberry, honeyberry paw paws etc over the pond. After a few decades of adding a handful of items a year, one kinda runs out of traditional garden stuff. You've gotta search out the weird, unusual, rare stuff. Trust The Sarge - nobody on this side of The Pond grows those either and most haven't heard of 'em. Jeezus Beezus!.
August 15, 201412 yr After a few decades of adding a handful of items a year, one kinda runs out of traditional garden stuff. You've gotta search out the weird, unusual, rare stuff. Trust The Sarge - nobody on this side of The Pond grows those either and most haven't heard of 'em. Jeezus Beezus!. Ah I see was wondering because I had never heard of them even when I worked in the states, Very curious now to see what they taste like, intrigued so I am, Hey I've an idea you should give me 1% of your "garden" bet it would be bigger than our house lol
August 15, 201412 yr Author Ah I see was wondering because I had never heard of them even when I worked in the states, Very curious now to see what they taste like, intrigued so I am, Hey I've an idea you should give me 1% of your "garden" bet it would be bigger than our house lol The Garden, proper, is about 50 feet x 100 ft (smallish for where we live in rural, agricultural Ohio).... but we fit in food crops everywhere we can and where most don't - for instance the "landscaping shrubs" around the front are Blueberry bushes, the flower pots have Peppers growing, the flower boxes have Herbs and Spices,the "ivy" growing up the fences is /are Runner Beans, the hedges in front are Hazelnuts the Shade trees are fruit trees, etc. Even the pretty flowers are edibles (Sunflowers and Sunchoke ( Jerusalem Artichokes)) When we plant trees in the woodlot (we heat with wood) every year (we try to do 10 to 12 new in the orchard, and 50 in the woodlot) we do mostly Sugar Maple (syrup, anyone? ) or edible nuts like Walnut, Chestnut, etc. But ... when you add in The Orchard, The Vinyard, and the Perennial Patch ... there's just under 3 acres of The Homestead dedicated to food production... so ... yeah - pretty big for a hobyist. There's still 6 more acres of yard, 4 of it "tillable" and available - Sarge will let you garden there for free if it means he no longer has to mow it every week. ;) Easy Peasy
August 15, 201412 yr Yep that's a deal, I'll happily mow your billion acres for a slice ;) Seriously should be soo proud of yourselves that is some achievement, you should be entering and winning lots of competitions for all your hard work and fab fruit and veg, You could make a fair few bob teaching courses , you say it's just a hobby but you could be cashing it in by teaching and entering comps.
August 15, 201412 yr Author My "cash in" is at the dinner table and The Docs office (good numbers from healthy eating and exercise in The Garden) It is all the cash in I need. Easy Peasy (1st person Sarge)
August 19, 201412 yr Sarge, I need your help...! (or anyone else who knows the answer) I've never grown 'food' in my garden before (at least, not on purpose). So now my wife wants a pumpkin patch... and advice on that? Sun or shade, how much space, when to plant, etc? I realise I am being vauge with my questions, but I really have no idea what I am doing here, lol. Thanks in advance
August 19, 201412 yr Author Sarge, I need your help...! (or anyone else who knows the answer) I've never grown 'food' in my garden before (at least, not on purpose). So now my wife wants a pumpkin patch... and advice on that? Sun or shade, how much space, when to plant, etc? I realise I am being vauge with my questions, but I really have no idea what I am doing here, lol. Thanks in advance Space. Square footage. Pumpkins eat space for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. With most stuff, you can go vertical on a trellis if space is short, but watermelon and pumpkin really don't work on a trellis. Also timing. Where Sarge lives, it's too late to start pumpkins this year (middle of June at the latest here in Ohio) ... but you can work on pulling sod, tilling/hoeing/weeding, and improving the soil for next year. 6 to 8 hours of sunlight a day, about 100 square feet per plant (10 x 10-ish, depending on variety) If space is tight, you can prune it to run between other rows in the garden, or around trees and shrubs, etc. They're pretty carefree here, but powdery mildew runs rampant. Baking soda and water sprayed will lower pH to where it gets under control. Can't get rid of it here, but can be managed well. Easy Peaey
August 19, 201412 yr Space. Square footage. Pumpkins eat space for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. With most stuff, you can go vertical on a trellis if space is short, but watermelon and pumpkin really don't work on a trellis. Also timing. Where Sarge lives, it's too late to start pumpkins this year (middle of June at the latest here in Ohio) ... but you can work on pulling sod, tilling/hoeing/weeding, and improving the soil for next year. 6 to 8 hours of sunlight a day, about 100 square feet per plant (10 x 10-ish, depending on variety) If space is tight, you can prune it to run between other rows in the garden, or around trees and shrubs, etc. They're pretty carefree here, but powdery mildew runs rampant. Baking soda and water sprayed will lower pH to where it gets under control. Can't get rid of it here, but can be managed well. Easy Peaey Thanks Sarge, that's really helpful. Going to have to have a look at the garden and see if we have enough space that gets enough sun! Will let you know if we decide to 'go for it' or not ;)
August 19, 201412 yr Author Today was "Orchard Expansion Day, Fall 2014". A whole mess o' Black Walnut in somebody's future (Not Sarge's - He'll be about a-hundred-and-four years old before these are in peak production years). 16 Black Walnuts planted in 8 holes ... hoping to net 1 or 2 Black Walnut seedlings in Spring/Summer 2015. The ones that don't pop on their own and appear dead will be filled in with White Walnut (English Walnut) saplings purchased from the nursery next spring. Nutty Buddy
August 27, 201412 yr keep the pictures coming sarge its really great to see the fruits of your labour, very envious!
August 27, 201412 yr Author keep the pictures coming sarge its really great to see the fruits of your labour, very envious! You can check the album any time. It's updated regularly. https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.745171265503443.1073741840.100000317292043&type=1&l=235fd942e5 Easy Peasy
September 17, 201411 yr Author 2 ponds (just over an acre underwater), don't fish. Wouldn't eat a thing that comes out of 'em. Too much runoff from neighboring farms - chemicals/pesticides and whatnot. Had chickens for a few years, too many predators. 14 laying hens taken one summer. Gave up. Easy Peasy
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