On Tue, 21 Jan 2014 11:39:20 -0500, Derald wrote:
The Cook wrote:
The seed catalogues have been coming for some time now. The
gardening column in our paper said it is time to start onions, leeks,
broccoli, etc. inside. I bought fresh onion seed and need to get the
planting trays out and cleaned up.
Thank goodness, I received only one catalog this year and that from
a particularly hard-headed vendor. I have no interest in them and the
coated stock on which many are printed isn't even good for starting a
fire! Did receive what should be my only seed order for the spring
season last week. Still looking for a suitable "French" filet bean to
replace the Delinel variety that I grew for so many years, so this
year's package includes two "new-to-me" varieties. Down here, bulbing
onions generally are transplanted in December. Those grown for their
tops only may be planted in all but the hottest months because, even
under the best conditions, they'll never make bulbs down here—not even
"global warming" is going to change day length. This past fall, I
direct seeded the cooking onions in one bed and they are doing as well
as the transplants so that's what I'll do next fall. The onions seem to
be getting along with the garlic, carrots, lettuce, cauliflower,
broccoli raab and bok choy with which they're sharing beds and (most of)
which will be long gone by the time the onions are ready.
My garlic is still standing up despite 20° F weather.
Serious questions:
What does that mean?
What would it otherwise do and—assuming a relationship to
temperature—at what temperature range would you expect the garlic to do
it?
I'm inferring the absence of snow cover; if cold weather usually kills
the tops h ow cold does it have to get and for how long?
As far as I remember, the cold here has never killed the garlic. It's
just that 20°F is miserably cold. The garlic was planted in last
October and is about 6" tall. I buy garlic from Costco and use the
largest cloves for planting. After this year I will start again to
save the largest cloves for planting. I had been doing that for
several years but last year was such a flop that I started over.
My garlic (a warm climate "Creole" variety) spent two months in the
'fridge at ±33° before planting and is growing apace: The first
planting is now approximately 28" tall (measured it this morning) and
the second, set out two weeks later, is not far behind. Down here,
temps in the low 30's are occasional (and of short duration—hours);
those in the 20's, unusual. I cover the garlic when expected overnight
lows would harm the mustard and the turnip greens (near freezing). Can
I assume the garlic in full flush to be hardy to those temps? If so,
I'll stop wasting my time, then. I don't have enough planted this year
to "test" but next year I'll set some in a container that will remain
exposed.
If it gets warm enough one afternoon soon I will get out and prune off all of the dead
branches on the herbs. Maybe I will keep some of the leaves. Should
be the same as drying them.
Lemme know how that works out. I'm pessimistic. Freezing ruptures
cell walls (not necessarily a "bad" thing) and does not destroy the
chlorophyll. Proper low-temperature drying reduces moisture,
concentrates flavor, mellows volatile aromatics (chew a fresh bay leaf
to see what I mean), leaves cell walls intact (not necessarily a "good"
thing) and destroys chlorophyll, which is harsh and bitter.
I just dumped them into a container that will go to the compost box.
I have a program that tracks my seeds and keeps records like where did
I buy them, when did I start them (in the greenhouse or in the
garden), when did I set them out and when did they start producing.
Wow. Now, I feel absolutely primitive. I still use a spiral-bound
notebook to track that info, with the addition of harvest dates and
yields plus the date each vegetable is removed from the garden. Seed
sources are not an issue because I buy from only two sources.
I use a fairly sophisticated computer graphics program to record
and reference my garden. The base layer (virtual overlay) holds a
to-scale outline drawing of the entire garden. Each major planting
("season") gets a layer of its own on which I can enter (text), planting
date, number planted, emergence, first harvest, removal in the
respective beds or containers. I also record whether I had to fill-in
or replant. My gardening "year" starts with February "spring" planting.
Each year is an individual file that contains the complete history to
date. Sounds complex but isn't and really makes it easy to keep up with
rotation. At least I am not (yet) obsessive enough to import actual
photos of plants but I can see where doing so would save some typing.
My biggest problem is that the company went out of business a few years
ago and every time I change computers I have to go through and fix a
bunch of stuff.
Fix the same stuff each time? Shoot, fix it and write the whole
ball of wax—or, at least, the fixes—to a CD, maybe?
Win 7 is not as easy to deal with as Win XP was. Once I remembered
that backed up files were read only, I changed them and things started
working correctly.
--
USA
North Carolina Foothills
USDA Zone 7a
To find your extension office
http://www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension/index.html