Corn + Ammonia Nitrate = Shazam wizbang bang boom!

[CrealCritter]

That corn sure is pretty! Your whole garden is gorgeous! By comparison, I have some bodacious weeds!

I thought I saw you laying down some cardboard. Does cardboard help with weeds?

 

[CrealCritter]

Recipe/directions

Results, 20 pints (all jars sealed)

This concludes this year's sweet corn harvest.

It'll be nice to crack open a jars this winter. Warm it up in a pan with some butter. Good stuff.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

That looks great!

 

[GettysburgGarden]

Curious from a cost analysis standpoint approximately how much was the fertilizer and does it degrade with time? Interesting about $20.
https://standishmilling.com/catalog/fertilizer/50-lb-46-0-0-fertilizer-urea/

 

[GettysburgGarden]

We're getting in a second round of

beans, peas, and beets. We live on a mountain less than 4 miles from a ski resort with lift, etc.. near Gettysburg, PA. We do a terrace garden and as you can see the soil is red allot of clay, but after many years now become much more organic. We maintain fencing to keep deer, bear, ground hogs, and rabbits out. I wish I had an Amish neighbor who cooked bread. Think Appalachian farming, we are less than 5 miles from the trail.

 

[CrealCritter]

I've gardened in red clay while in North Carolina. I found that a lot of organic matter tilled in to break up the clay balls and liberal dosing of lime at the start of the season really helped. But perhaps the most important thing is to never allow red clay to dry out. It's very difficult to rehydrate again since water doesn't penetrate it very well at all when it's dry. In order to get my tomatoes and peppers to take I actually had to mound up the clay to form a trench with plants in the middle. I damed up both ends of the trench and filled it a few times a week with water until the transplants took hold.

Here in southern IL it's completely different gardening. Here you want to do the exact opposite mound up the rows and set transplants on the top of the mounds so they don't drown.

 

[CrealCritter]

Curious from a cost analysis standpoint approximately how much was the fertilizer and does it degrade with time? Interesting about $20.
https://standishmilling.com/catalog/fertilizer/50-lb-46-0-0-fertilizer-urea/

Yeah about 20 bucks, my experience is it's good for 2 seasons of gardening. Although it's hard to tell what if true or not because there is so much conflicting info on the internet. Those pro and cons and all points in-between. If your soil is low on nitrogen, supplementing with high nitrogen fertilizer is a good solution at least it is for me. Of course natural / organic would be best but my garden it pretty large and that would be a ton (literally) of chicken poop to spread out, which is totally unfeasable for me.

 

[GettysburgGarden]

Yeah about 20 bucks, my experience is it's good for 2 seasons of gardening. Although it's hard to tell what if true or not because there is so much conflicting info on the internet. Those pro and cons and all points in-between. If your soil is low on nitrogen, supplementing with high nitrogen fertilizer is a good solution at least it is for me. Of course natural / organic would be best but my garden it pretty large and that would be a ton (literally) of chicken poop to spread out, which is totally unfeasable for me.

Really interesting stuff here, great site. Doers not dreamers. Yeah the first year the soil cracked, looked like a dry riverbed.. we use a 1/4" screen mesh to work out the gravel and have used straw tilled in the soil in the fall along with some lime.. we are now seeing earthworms and genuine organic properties. People have no idea the years that go into getting soil correct for sustainable gardening. Our first year was still Ok we had the topsoil mixed in, it was the 2nd and 3rd which were the challenge. We toss everything in there from egg shells, (lots of controversy there) but fine with clay, gypsum, coffee grounds, any and all organic trimmings.. for compost. If we need dirt in the yard we pull from it, and then replace with quality organic replacement.. even the cow manure sold at lowes has a high sand ratio.. so really we focus on the soil. We watered once all summer but are getting flooded in PA this year. We'll get a second crop of beans, chard, and beets.. I let the fall beets go into November, the Swiss chard will last the winter, be the first thing up in the spring.. I use that as an indicator for soil temp and planting.. On the eastern shore of MD they spray nitrogen to kick start the corn when they plant. On a mountain if you don't terrace it all ends up downhill. You have to also terrace to keep water from collecting in a clay pan and going anaerobic. At the bottom gravel and have a clean slope. We truly farm on a mountain. We also use allot of pavers and grow vertical.. we use the planting cloth and surround with bricks to keep the ground moist, we do all our squash and cukes like that now. We get good years and bad years tomatoes, too much water this year (for real). We always have enough for table/salad/sandwiches but getting enough to truly can.. on and off. The soil is still too pebbly to do carrots... grow ugly carrots up here.. But I'll post the last beets this fall, and they will be stellar. The first couple years we cutout Spackle bucket bottoms and did tomatoes, did ok It keeps getting easier, fence better.. soil better.. it's a hobby and keeps us connected to the earth around us. Thinking about trying to grow in bales, just looking for some at a good price.

 

[CrealCritter]

Looks like I just might get some okra off these huge okra plants after all. That is if I can get to it... I may need a machete, it's a freaking jungle in there.

And finally after I took care of this green bean plant eating machine, it looks like I'll be picking green beans soon too

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Silly bunny!