Derald wrote:
"Terry Coombs" wrote:

I have her book somewhere , but remember the basics . Next summer I
will be embarking on a no-till project
I am a great fan of "no-till" gardening but, unfortunately, I must
shake up my beds at least once/year and dig them every third-or-so
year due to incursion of native tree roots. I read Ms Stout's first
book in the mid-'70s and, IIRC, she minimized the fairly significant
fact that she _already_ had a thriving truck garden before she
decided to stop digging.
Unfortunately, new gardeners who see her book and/or who give
credence to the great mass of "Pollyanna" (and largely fictitious,
IMO) BS that abounds on the W3 about "no-till" and "lasagna"
gardening often conclude that all one need do is pile a bunch of crap
into a bed and wait for magic to happen. Well, the "magic" is
(almost) certain to occur, in most climates, but the expectant
gardener could be long dead. I am a strong advocate (and long-time
practitioner) of
chemical-free, wide-row gardening, especially for new installations in
areas with less than perfect soil texture-that is, most of North
America;-) Toward that end, I found early issues of "The Mother Earth
News" (first five or ten years) as well as Dick Raymond's _The Joy of
Gardening_ (1982, Garden Way Inc.) informative. Raymond's _Dick
Raymond's Gardening Year_ (1985, Linden Press) is also quite useful
but one must adjust the relevant dates to conform to ones latitude.
FWIW: Garden Way is the company that manufactured and sold the
"Troy Built" brand of gasoline powered rotary tillers and which also
sponsored Raymond's teevee "infomercials". However, regardless of
ones view of rototilling, the principles and information remain valid.
Through it all one cannot overemphsize the importance of succession
planting (so-called "relay planting") and of crop rotation. If you
don't already do so, start a garden journal that at least record
planting dates and location, 80% germination date, date of first
harvest, date of removal from the garden. After a few seasons, that
information will prove useful in planning companion and succession
planting.
The URLs following are sites that offer companion planting
guidance, much of it redundant, and all to be taken with the
proverbial GoS: One should always, always, take the evidence
perceived by ones own lying eyes over _anything_ some unknown-to-you
"expert" presents as "gospel", although it might pay to determine why
any divergence between your experience and The Truth exists. The
following are valid a/o this writing.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/companion-planting-guide-zmaz81mjzraw.aspx#axzz2nTqprCoo
http://www.burpeehomegardens.com/VegetableHerbGardening/_CompanionPlants.aspx
http://naturewiseplants.com/documents/CompanionPlants.pdf
http://homeguides.sfgate.com/compatible-plants-onions-garlic-22804.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companion_plants#Vegetables
http://www.the-gardeners-calendar.co.uk/Companion_Planting/companiontables.asp
http://www.sgaonline.org.au/companion-planting/

All of the above links are from my W3 bookmarks. However, IMO,
contents should be regarded as largely anecdotal and inherently
unreliable when used in any specific application. Although it seems
obvious, that "companions" must have common nutrient and water
requirements often is overlooked. Failure of individual varieties to
thrive when interplanted in a community garden might be interpreted as
"antagonism" when the cuase really is nutritional deficiency or
imbalance or even disease. We gardeners seem to have a bit of the
gambler's fallacy about us but, then, would a pessimist be gardening
in the first place?
Finally: Nothing to offer about when to start seeds in your part of
Arkansas(?). As a rule, all I start in pots (and not indoors) are
tomatoes, peppers and eggplants and that's usually some time in
February. I do so only because the juveniles don't survive well in
the wild down here. Seedlings are extremely effective cutworm and
grasshopper bait until the stems toughen a bit and for a while
thereafter the leaves remain at risk.

Thanks Derald ! Lots of good info there . My biggest problem here is that
I've let what decent soil I have get washed downhill . Thus the terraces ,
and heavy mulch to help keep rainwater from washing what I do have left
away - and to get that organic stuff into the soil . I will till this year
to incorporate what organics I have into the soil and to be sure I start
with it loose . Also to finish defining the terraces .

--
Snag

Terry Coombs wrote:
....
Thanks Derald ! Lots of good info there . My biggest problem here is that
I've let what decent soil I have get washed downhill . Thus the terraces ,
and heavy mulch to help keep rainwater from washing what I do have left
away - and to get that organic stuff into the soil . I will till this year
to incorporate what organics I have into the soil and to be sure I start
with it loose . Also to finish defining the terraces .

sometimes people dig up the soil at the bottom of the hill
and haul it up to the top again.

is the cold weather getting down your ways?


songbird

songbird wrote:
Terry Coombs wrote:
...
Thanks Derald ! Lots of good info there . My biggest problem here is
that I've let what decent soil I have get washed downhill . Thus the
terraces , and heavy mulch to help keep rainwater from washing what
I do have left away - and to get that organic stuff into the soil .
I will till this year to incorporate what organics I have into the
soil and to be sure I start with it loose . Also to finish defining
the terraces .

sometimes people dig up the soil at the bottom of the hill
and haul it up to the top again.

is the cold weather getting down your ways?


songbird

Up here they call it "ass-bitin' cold ". It was around 15° this morning at
3 when I was outside trying to get the generator running because the power
was out . With around 2" of fresh snow on the ground ...

--
Snag

On 1/18/2016 5:07 PM, Terry Coombs wrote:
songbird wrote:
Terry Coombs wrote:
...
Thanks Derald ! Lots of good info there . My biggest problem here is
that I've let what decent soil I have get washed downhill . Thus the
terraces , and heavy mulch to help keep rainwater from washing what
I do have left away - and to get that organic stuff into the soil .
I will till this year to incorporate what organics I have into the
soil and to be sure I start with it loose . Also to finish defining
the terraces .

sometimes people dig up the soil at the bottom of the hill
and haul it up to the top again.

is the cold weather getting down your ways?


songbird

Up here they call it "ass-bitin' cold ". It was around 15° this morning at
3 when I was outside trying to get the generator running because the power
was out . With around 2" of fresh snow on the ground ...

39F this morning upon rising, now it's lots of sunshine and in the low
sixties. Winter here should be over in a few weeks, maybe sooner. Almost
time to put in the spring garden. Have a couple of huge cabbage heads to
harvest very soon, harvested a six lb cauliflower head last week, good
thing my wife likes the stuff. Her cauliflower soup does manage to stink
up the kitchen. Bah!

George Shirley wrote:
....
39F this morning upon rising, now it's lots of sunshine and in the low
sixties. Winter here should be over in a few weeks, maybe sooner. Almost
time to put in the spring garden. Have a couple of huge cabbage heads to
harvest very soon, harvested a six lb cauliflower head last week, good
thing my wife likes the stuff. Her cauliflower soup does manage to stink
up the kitchen. Bah!

sounds wonderful!


songbird

Terry Coombs wrote:
songbird wrote:
....
is the cold weather getting down your ways?

Up here they call it "ass-bitin' cold ". It was around 15° this morning at
3 when I was outside trying to get the generator running because the power
was out . With around 2" of fresh snow on the ground ...

uhg! that's about what it has been today. night time temps
are in the single digits. we've sometimes been able to get
out for some walks but i hate it when the eyelashes freeze
together when you blink.


songbird

songbird wrote:
Terry Coombs wrote:
songbird wrote:
...
is the cold weather getting down your ways?

Up here they call it "ass-bitin' cold ". It was around 15° this
morning at 3 when I was outside trying to get the generator running
because the power was out . With around 2" of fresh snow on the
ground ...

uhg! that's about what it has been today. night time temps
are in the single digits. we've sometimes been able to get
out for some walks but i hate it when the eyelashes freeze
together when you blink.


songbird

I hate it more when my breath condenses and freezes on my beard and 'stach
..

--
Snag

Terry Coombs wrote:
songbird wrote:
....
uhg! that's about what it has been today. night time temps
are in the single digits. we've sometimes been able to get
out for some walks but i hate it when the eyelashes freeze
together when you blink.

I hate it more when my breath condenses and freezes on my beard and 'stach
.

i wear a short round scarf (call it the foreskin )
which is also thick so that the air going out preheats the
air breathed in. saves a lot of sinus and lung troubles
for me.

i've already put winter goggles on the list for our
next outing to the stores as i really would like to be
able to see when i'm walking...


songbird

On 1/19/2016 8:51 AM, songbird wrote:
Terry Coombs wrote:
songbird wrote:
...
uhg! that's about what it has been today. night time temps
are in the single digits. we've sometimes been able to get
out for some walks but i hate it when the eyelashes freeze
together when you blink.

I hate it more when my breath condenses and freezes on my beard and 'stach
.

i wear a short round scarf (call it the foreskin )
which is also thick so that the air going out preheats the
air breathed in. saves a lot of sinus and lung troubles
for me.

i've already put winter goggles on the list for our
next outing to the stores as i really would like to be
able to see when i'm walking...


songbird

Look around for one of those military surplus felt face masks. We used
those anytime we were topside on a destroyer in the Arctic. Beat frozen
nose hair and eyebrow's, not to mention my 'stache. I think I've
mentioned before how much I hate cold weather. G

49F out this morning and a lot of sunshine, forecast for mucho rain
coming though. Won't be long before spring is here in SE Texas. Finally
pulled up the eggplants, the sweet chilies are still producing and
haven't been frostbitten as yet.

Won't be long until the fruit trees are blooming and getting leaves on.

On 1/6/2016 9:32 PM, Derald wrote:
"Terry Coombs" wrote:

Also to finish defining the terraces .
How defined will the terraces be? If you really are starting over,
have you considered raised beds? I neglected to mention that since
2008, I've gardened in raised beds that my wife built in 1997 and
gardened in for a few years and, despite a few drawbacks, find them
advantageous over attempting to maintain the native soil, as I had done
previously. In this part of Florida, the only thing that changes within
the first 20-30 feet of digging is the color of the sand.

And that's the reason we now garden in raised beds. It's hard to make a
garden on five feet of Houston gumbo clay fill. The beds of flowers are
amended each year as they are in the clay. We dug out three full size
pick up beds of clay, hauled it around to the back fence, which was
teetering on falling over, and packed the clay in there. Saved the sorry
ass fence, which will be replaced this year, and kept the critters from
the detention pond from coming under the fence and eating our garden.
The snakes alone kept us busy for a while. Mostly harmless water snakes
with the odd water moccasin thrown in. The rat terrier no longer has to
patrol the back fence and bring us trophies of the kill.

Another plus is that we have rolling garden seats and use them along the
sides of the raised beds, helping elderly backs and still getting the
weeding, etc. done. Weeds seem to have an affinity for raised beds,
either that or the birds like to seed them. G We get free fertilizer
as one of the beds is under the power lines to a point and the birds
rest there frequently.

Heavy rain last night around 10 pm, lasted until the wee hours of the
morning. Knocked the power out twice. It seems our portion of Harris
Cty, TX needs some new electric wires and stations, don't know when we
get it though. Neighbors two doors down are on a different sub station
and their lights are always on. The rain makes sleeping better, the
thunder makes it difficult for the dawg to sleep. Oh well, such is
gardening and sleeping for old people.