Give them an inch and they'll take 1.8 liters

Watering plants is a complex exercise where many variables come into play. What's your soil? What is the variety of plant? What time of the day is it? Do you feel like watering when it's hot and ... please the complete post at my new blog: Grow and Tell. Thanks!

Flower Noob

Although I am getting somewhat comfortable with growing vegetables from seed, growing flowers for me it’s a different story. The only flower I have successfully...read complete post at my new blog: Grow And Tell. Thanks!

Wind-blown Sunday

It rained yesterday. Around 4:30 pm or so we even got tiny hail briefly. Today it was sunny most of the day but very windy. Still, it was a good day to work outside.

First I set up my 35 gallon rain barrel. I bought this rain barrel some... please read the rest of this post at my new blog: Grow and Tell. Thanks!!!

Tomatillo News

I am growing Tomatillos for the first time. I chose a giant variety and a regular green variety. In case you've never heard of tomatillos, they are used primarily to make the salsa verde you may have eaten...read the whole post at my new blog; Grow and Tell. Thanks!

Apple watch

Although I planted this apple tree three years ago, I still know very little about apples in general. I think this is a Golden Delicious but I could be wrong. The id tag fell early last year and I don’t remember. I know it’s a yellow apple of some kind. Anyway, I dutifully planted another apple tree in the mini...read the complete post at my new blog, Grow and Tell. Thanks!

Pears!

You will be forgiven for rolling your eyes at my excitement but you would understand if you knew that this pear tree has not grown one inch since I planted it three years ago...read the complete post at my new blog: Grow and Tell.

More and more

It seems like the more I get done the more there is to do. The potatoes are ready for more soil already but I did not get it done. It’s on the list. The carrots...read the complete post on my new blog; http://growandtell.wordpress.com/

Thanks!!!

Hail AND High Water

The first murderous hail storm of the season descended upon...read this post in my new blog at http://growandtell.wordpress.com/

New Blog

I am moving my blog to Wordpress. It seems I have more control over my blog than I do here.
Anyway, I will post abbreviated versions here for a while until I completely switch over.

My new blog is http://growandtell.wordpress.com/

Monsoon Season

The Monsoon season has begun. Torrential, driving rain; howling winds; stem-breaking hail, thunder, tornadoes. From here on out until Summer my vegetables will fight for survival. It is a miracle that they make it at all.

Not that it is all bad. When I started growing plants, I noticed that my plants were a little brighter and stood a little straighter after heavy thunderstorms --heavy on the thunder that is. Now I understand that a certain amount of Nitrogen gets fixed from the air by the tremendous energy of lighting and it gets delivered to the plants via the rain.

BOOK

I am reading the book Just Food by James E. McWilliams. What an eye opener! McWilliams is an Agricultural Historian and he makes a good case for not concentrating solely on food miles when we look for sustainable agriculture. There is so much more in the book though. I am terrible at book reviews but when I am done I will attempt to review it here.

AND WHILE I'M ON THE SUBJECT...

I have this fantasy rolling around my head that I can produce vegetables at mega-farm prices in my yard. I've been doing some research on the Internet (it is amazing how much info on farm production there is online) and, at least for tomatoes, I need to make my plants produce anywhere from 8 - 20 lbs (3.6 kg - 9 kg) per plant. Of course, I have to get that at a profit if I was to sell my tomatoes.

The next stage is to grow 50,000 lbs of tomatoes in one season, which is the output of many tomato farms.

Then I would like to grow various crops, not just tomatoes.

Naive? Maybe, but even if I can't do it, failure is such a wonderful teacher that I am bound to come out ahead.