On 10/18/2016 9:35 AM, songbird wrote:
Ecnerwal wrote:
...
I had intended to try harvesting basil a lot earlier and spare myself
the late autumn pesto madness this year, but I determined that I need to
plant a lot closer (and more plants, but I had the more plants) for that
to be practical here - when I looked at the "early harvest" I was
looking at robbing the cradle for my 9" spaced plants. I'll try them at
4" next year and it might be reasonable. Another side goal of harvesting
early is to possibly skip the leaf-picking (tedious, slow) and just grab
the plants before they get woody, and grind the whole plant.

we're not basil growers/eaters that much. if
it gets used it is very lightly done so the dry
version works ok for us. i doubt we'd use a
single plant's worth in a year. Ma doesn't like
much from the mint family.

i had a lot of squash that needed to be cooked
up and frozen (some were starting to get fungi on
them or had lost the stem already or ...). also
ate a few which were yummy.


Once things freeze off pretty well I'll get back to a bunch of things
that were sacrificed for the sake of other concerns this year and see if
next year will be better as a result - the whole thing needs to be
re-done, hopefully the last set of path changes, renew the fence, haul a
lot of horse-poop.

dig a deep hole and scrape the surface debris into
that and bury it. keeps a lot of weed seeds from
germinating. when you stir it up again some may
sprout, but the worms will eat some of those seeds.
i have a few useless pathways i'd like to get rid of
but i keep getting overruled on that.

have to remember to get the garlic planted.


songbird

We planted basil when we moved here in 2012, have not had to plant
anymore. We pick regularly, dehydrate and jar up, then we pick again and
again, then they go to seed just before cold weather. When spring
springs the basil starts growing again. Still looks the same and tastes
the same.

We found an earthworm a while back, not another one since. We put the
one captive into the raised bed and hope it will make more.

George

George Shirley wrote:
....
We planted basil when we moved here in 2012, have not had to plant
anymore. We pick regularly, dehydrate and jar up, then we pick again and
again, then they go to seed just before cold weather. When spring
springs the basil starts growing again. Still looks the same and tastes
the same.

it's nice when it works out that ways.
perennial gardens can save on a lot of work.


We found an earthworm a while back, not another one since. We put the
one captive into the raised bed and hope it will make more.

if it was an actual earth worm it will have
migrated down to the subsoil if it could. i
have been working here for years to increase
my populations of these worms and am breeding
them inside in some of my worm bins too (with
mostly the dirt/clay and not so much organic
materials like i use in the rest of the worm
bins for worm composting). i have three
earthworm species that show up here. there
are some that are pale pink to white, some
which are darker red and the once in a while
accidental night crawler. if i notice the
last kind i put them back outside as they
don't actually do well in captivity in such
a tiny container.

all gardens that i've amended with a mix
of worm species do seem to sustain at least a
few of the earth worms now. when i first
started working in many of these gardens
there wasn't any kind of worm to be found.

the composting worms (which i do not
consider to be earth worms) i use are a mix
of at least two species. the common red-
wriggler and the non-native belgian night
crawler. the belgian night crawler will
not survive our winters, but they are an
excellent composting worm to use as they
will live in the soil but they really do
a great job of munching on organic materials
too. they rapidly increase in population
i put a hundred thousand to two hundred
thousand worms out in the gardens each spring
and most of them are the belgians...


songbird