the little wild kingdom

[flowerbug]

garden club meeting went well. three of us regulars were there. i took some beans to sort through and for show and tell. other topics were deer, groundhogs, fences, peppers, walnuts, apples, potatoes, and squash. maybe we'll do a small seed swap next spring possibly also a plant sale.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Sounds like a productive meeting!

 

[flowerbug]

with the dreary rainy morning i could get the worm buckets all checked on and fed and also added some more garden humus because they seemed to not be doing as well as i'd like. also i'm thinking of getting some more composting worms because it just doesn't seem like there's much going on and there should be by now. i may have killed them off or gotten rid of them all by accident when taking buckets out to the gardens. and my messing up the pH. some lessons you learn the hard way...

 

[Mini Horses]

Do you all discuss how to get starts at your meetings? Like sweet potato sprouts from your own, potato starts, pre sprouting hard seed, etc? Saving seeds and such. It would be great for newer gardeners! Maybe they need to bring a friend & get them gardening!

I don't know of more than a few close who even try to garden now. Some elder, most just not interested. We who grow & preserve are a dying breed in some locations. Sadly.

 

[flowerbug]

Do you all discuss how to get starts at your meetings? Like sweet potato sprouts from your own, potato starts, pre sprouting hard seed, etc? Saving seeds and such. It would be great for newer gardeners! Maybe they need to bring a friend & get them gardening!

there's no fixed format or topics, so if someone wanted to talk about plant propagation techniques we'd just talk about it.

so far two of us regulars tend to grow pretty much the same things and then the one other person is trying all sorts of plants in their gardens.

i don't do a lot of seed starting or plant propagation any longer as i just do not have room in the house for house plants like i used to have as a kid, but i'm familiar with many of the techniques for different kinds of plants.

seed starting is one thing the other person does a lot of and that is how i got the Beaver Dam peppers last season and they did well so at the garden club meeting i asked if it would be ok to give some of those seeds to the greenhouse for them to try out. all ok, so i talked to the greenhouse guy about peppers and he said he'd take some. so they will do starts for me too. it's not really a good place here to do pepper starts, cold and not much light and again, just not enough room.

I don't know of more than a few close who even try to garden now. Some elder, most just not interested. We who grow & preserve are a dying breed in some locations. Sadly.

people get stuck inside and then out of habit that's all they do. watch tv, computer stuff, which is why i try to encourage people to get out and garden. it really helps you learn a lot more about nature too and that is also sorely lacking these days for a lot of people. and of course getting some fresh air and exercise and growing goodies.

 

[flowerbug]

rains too much recently. frost predicted for Sunday evening.

finished up the last bag of the Yellow Eye bean shelling and think i have between 8-10lbs total for the season, so a nice harvest there of those. Mom always says "Yummy!" when i show her those (and i agree!).

three more bags of Purple Dove beans to shell out.

 

[flowerbug]

i was hoping to find some composting worms at the bait store in town, but no luck there. they are much nicer worms if i can get them (as they will use both the dirt and the organic materials) but i'll go out today and flip some pieces of wood and see if i can come up with a few dozen red wrigglers instead.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

I'm a bit disappointed in my worms right now. I've got 5 bins and while the worms are doing ok, I was hoping for reproduction. Maybe it just takes more time?

 

[flowerbug]

I'm a bit disappointed in my worms right now. I've got 5 bins and while the worms are doing ok, I was hoping for reproduction. Maybe it just takes more time?

yes, it does, they have to get big enough and have enough food. you can tell when they're getting big enough when they get the ring around them.

i found about a hundred worms today when putting up the gardens and those are now in one of my buckets right here. they have plenty of food to munch on so i hope they'll get right to work.

it was a bonus day for me outside as i wasn't sure there was dry enough ground anywhere to get any gardens done, but two of them were fine. nice when progress finally can happen.

 

[flowerbug]

hard frost last night. sunshine this morning. probably should be able to get some more gardens done today so they're ready for winter. also i have buckets of wood ashes to use up so i will be able to do that. not much breeze out there.