Corney Comments

My patch of field corn has matured and is beginning to "dry down", or in other words, the corn is drying out so that it can be harvested and stored for the winter. My variety is called "Reid's Yellow Dent", which is a open pollinated heirloom type that used to be grown a lot in the early part of the last century before hybrid varieties became the norm. It may not produce like a hybrid, but I can save the seed from this crop and plant it again next season., which you can't do with a hybrid. I grow field corn in part to supplement the feed that I give my chickens. It's also is good for exercise, and frankly, it's fun to watch corn grow and develop (It shows you what an exciting guy I am!!). Judging by what corn is going for a bushel this year, it has worked out to be quite profitable!

 I have been getting quite a bit of corn smut this year. I'm not sure if it was because of the cool wet spring that we had or what. It looks discusting!

 But this year I have been getting a nice crop of big healthy ears!

Pumpkins for a Little Pumpkin!

Growing pumpkins at my place has always been a challenge. Some years I can set out a bunch of plants in the spring and most will survive to produce a excellent crop and I would have a bunch of pumpkins to pass around. This year was not one of those years. Most of the plants that I put out died during the summer, with only one plant surviving to produce fruit. I was able to give a nice pumpkin to my little neighbor girl, and her smile was worth all the effort and frustration.

I hope that I will be able to either find a variety that won't get the blight and die on me, or be able to protect my plants better. This year the variety that I grew this year was "Howden".

Diggin' Some Spuds

Our potatoes are also doing real well this year.  We have already dug up a bunch, and the remainder are still in the ground waiting their turn. Potatoes seem to grow well in my soil, but they can be a bugger to dig out due to my heavy clay soil.

Aw Shucks!

 We have a excellent crop of sweet corn this year, with plenty of great ears. Here my son Adam reluctantly show off his haul of bi-color "Sugar and Cream" from Mountain States Seeds. This has proved to be a very reliable type, though I think that I like "Ambrosia" better! This year I had four different plantings, and I have had fresh corn for over a month. My kids really like sweet corn, but they hate shucking it for some reason!

When we have a surplus, my wife likes to freeze what we don't eat fresh. She just cuts them off the ear, blanches them in boiling water for about a minute, and them puts them in freezer bags and places them in the freezer. So far we have had pretty good results doing this.

Beets and Garlic

 My first clove of garlic harvested this season. This clove was planted last fall.

We have been harvesting beets for awhile now, and eating tons of it. My wife made a beet salad from the Detroit Dark Red and Golden beets that I grew. My daughter and I have dubbed her salad "Boozy Beet Salad" because of some cooking sherry and wine vinegar that's in it. It was a good salad, but it was more in line with the "girl food" that my wife enjoys so much, and not quite my thing. I think that beets are some of the most useful crops that one can grow, because you can use the whole plant. After my spring crop is done, I will plant more beets for a fall crop.

Ogden Utah Farmer's Market

On Saturdays during the summer, the city of Ogden Utah has it's farmers market, so we decided to pay a visit. It was a very good time with vendors offering fresh produce, herbs, salsa, jams, jellies and all sorts of yummy food. They even have western shootouts and all kinds of food to eat.

 
We were there to buy produce, but my wife Micki could not resist dropping some coin on some watches with decorative bands. We had to go back to get more cash!

My wife and daughter Erianne looking over some fresh produce.

 Some of the selections were pretty darn good for this early in the season. I really enjoy getting some of the fresh herbs that I cannot grow in my garden at the moment.

My daughter Erianne and pup Maya posing next to one of Ogden's semi-famous painted horses that are all around the city center.

What is it with chicks and cowboys?

Garden of Weedin'!

July is the time that our annual battle against the pigweed and it's bretheren commence. Luckly the whole family pitches in,  but at some times more willingly than others. It's a good thing that I'm bigger than most of my kids!

We were able to each pick two rows of corn to weed, and were able to get the chore done quickly, but with the usual whining from the kids. They don't think that weeding is cool for some reason!

We found these eggs tucked in our field corn!

My wife Micki and son Adam working in the corn after sunset.

Microburst 1, Hoophouse 0

Turkey Tracks Through the Pepper Transplants

I saw these turkey tracks going through my pepper transplants the other morning.

Garden Shots June 2011

A few random photos from the garden

We finally had a few good days show up in June, so I was able to get caught up with my planting.

The potatoes are looking good.

The onions seem to be progressing well.

 I finally got the main crop of my tomatoes in on June 11th, almost a month late, and my transplants were not too happy about the delay. I actually hope I get something out of these this year!

 The garlic I planted last fall has really enjoyed the cool, wet spring weather.

 My beets are doing well.

My carrots really sprouted well with all the wet weather, I was able to thin them out last weekend.

 My overwintered sweet onions are beginning to bulb out, and should be ready sometime in July.

My outside main crop of peas are starting to bloom. We have been harvesting peas from the crop in the Hoop House since early May, so we have plenty of peas this year!

We have been harvesting some heads of cabbage from the Hoop House in the last few weeks, and they were really good!

Planting Onions Is A-Peeling

Even though it's about three weeks late, conditions were right on May 15 to finally get my onion transplants into the ground. My onion transplants have been sitting in the Hoop House all raring to go, but the ground has been to wet to till, so I was glad to finally get a day to do some garden work! I have a interesting way that I have developed to plant onions, that by design is supposed to cut down on the weeds that always seem to come up in my onion rows. Onions are a shallow rooted plant, and it is very easy to damage their roots during cultivation.

 

The first thing that I do after determining where I want to plant onions, is to lay down a generous helping of ammonium sulfate, which gives onions a jolt of nitrogen which they love, and some sulfur, which helps lower my soil PH, which makes the nitrogen and other elements in the soil more available to the plants. 

Then I till it into the row with my tiller, Aimee Mann.

I purchase some newsprint remnant rolls from my local newspaper. They only charge a couple of bucks for a roll, and a roll can go along way. This is much cheaper than buying paper mulch from the garden center. Garden center paper mulch is okay; it is a little thicker gauge, is wider, and a darker color for heat retention, but costs about fifteen bucks for a 3'X50' roll.

 After I work forward with my front tine tiller, I pull it backwards along the row, which really pulverizes the dirt clods and mixes in the amonium sulfate really well. It also makes a perfect row which fits the paper quite nicely, and has ridges of dirt on each side that can be pushed down onto the paper edges which holds it to the ground. I do believe that pulling a front tine tiller backwards to be safe, but it sure is a workout! Pulling a tiller backwards for over fifty feet can be quite exhausting!

 I run the roll of paper up and down the roll about three times to get a nice thick mulch layer.

This is the part where you pray for no gusts of wind to come up! The paper is quite brittle and tears easily.

 

After pushing the dirt ridges onto the paper edge, I'm ready to lay out my onions.

 I simply cut a hole for my onion plant with a blade, and plant the onion into the ground. I try to keep the hole  for the plant to a minimum.

 As the onion plant grows, and as the bulb gets bigger, it simply expands the hole as needed, and makes a tight seal preventing weeds from getting a foothold around the plants. The paper is thick enough to prevent a lot of weeds, but is thin enough to let in air, water and nutrients.

Soon after I get the onions planted in the row, I will put over the paper lawn clipping or other mulch to help hold the paper down in the wind, to keep the onion roots cool and to keep the soil from drying out between watering. I did this for the first time last season and it really worked well. The paper for the most part will

disintegrate during the season, and what does not can be tilled into the soil, or just burned if that is legal in your area. 

The onion varieties that I am growing this year are, Walla Walla, Utah Sweet Spanish, Candy and Copra. The first three are sweet onion types, and the latter being designed as a storage onion.

Hoop House Update

Even though it has been cool this spring, the plants in the hoop house have progressed quite well, and we have been harvesting turnips, lettuce and cilantro. Some peas and cabbage should be ready in a couple of weeks.