october 15, 2014

Good morning,

Everybody's okay, but my little dog Missy got hit by a car, and when I tried to pick her up, she bit me. I have stitches, a giant bandage and a lot of pain. And, Debbie says I have to stay inside and take it easy. So, I won't be taking any orders this week. We will be down at the market, so come on down and pick up some goodies.

I'm sending this out early just to let everyone know.

This years garden plan is taking a little bit more time to complete. The reason for it is having to consider the the drip system and how it has boosted my production.

I did expect to have a reasonable production boost but I feel it exceeded my expectations immensely. It is nice to know that I have not tapped out the production capacity of the garden.

My garden plans of the past have used extra beds of veggies to increase quantities. This was when I only hose end watered. This time period of the garden I had learned by trial and pure accident that there were some crops that can become full season crops with extra care. A short list of these would be determinate toms, summer squash, butternut squash, pumpkins and cucumbers. I used to think that to continue season long harvests for these crops, I needed to plan for these crops to have successive plantings . Successions take added bed space and time for the crops to mature.

Different things happened and I noticed that these crops could be full season crops and get repeated blooms off of mature plants. It is a lot easier to use existing plant material than to completely regrow from seed. So I adapted watering techniques to encourage this.

In years past the pumpkins and butternuts would die back to finish ripening the fruit and then would put on new growth and provide a second harvest.

This year for all five of these crops, because of the drip system, never stopped blooming and there was a continual cropping until I realized I was at my limits for storage. This is only a problem with the pumpkins and butternuts because of limited storage space. Toms, cukes and summer squash are perishable and are sold weekly or are preserved by one method or another. The canned goods are then stored for latter sales.

My plans are to plant one bed of butternuts and one bed of acorn squash. Because I have been unable to sell pumpkins except during the fall, I will discontinue them. My storage space is limited and I like to sell inventory as opposed to holding it until there is a demand. The one bed each of the above mentioned squash may need to be adjusted in the future depending on how productive they are.

For my cukes and tomatoes I really did not get to see their full blown production potential because both of these crops had other issues. The cukes and one of the tom beds had root knot nematodes. One of the other tom beds also got what I feel was yellow curling disease and they just faded away. I did have one tom bed that did well. Production for this bed was very tolerable and we did have enough toms to preserve from all three beds, so I will keep these number of beds (3 tomato and 1 cuke) . Maybe revisit this plan next fall.

Soooo, If my garden plan finds itself inadequate I can always plant a succession or make adjustments in next years garden plan. It is looking like that I will have four beds open during May and June. This is significant in the fact that I will plan for my 4 worst root knot nematode beds to be solarized. This will be a good thing. I hope to regularly schedule beds to be solarized. Solarizing will also help control any other pathogens that may be harboring in the beds. It is one of the neat tools that comes with my garden planner program, it keeps track of how frequently I am planting similar veggies in the same bed.

It is good to have a 3 year rotation before replanting a bed with a similar plant family. A short list of plants that are either related or have similar pests would be beets, chard an spinach but the real hard group to plan for are the eggplant, tom, potato, chile, bell pepper, jalapeno and sweet potato group. Many in this second group have multiple beds and with only 31 beds to rotate these around in makes it very difficult to not replant with a similar plant every 3 years. I am hoping solarization will help with this.

Oh yes it would be such an easy process if all there was to do is just bury seeds in the ground. It is nice though that with some planning I can do some major organic control on a yearly basis. I do wish the garden plan I use had a icon for bed solarization. This would be a very useful prompt.

The garden plan I use has some cheesy graphics but is very good to show you how the garden planting proceeds through the year. It is offered by Mother Earth News and here is the link

http://gardenplanner.motherearthnews.com/gardenplanner/gardenplanner.html

it does offer a trial period and has a $25 dollar a year fee. It sure beats having paper copies laying around and then trying to find them to plan your next garden.

It will be interesting to see how next years garden plan works. The drip has been a major game changer and it may take a few years of trial and error to figure out garden plans. Never a dull moment!

Something that may be of interest to folks will be held at CDRI on the 23^rd of October. I have been invited to talk about row covers and garden tasks.

Writer: Steve Byrns, 325-653-4576, s-byrns@tamu.edu

Contacts: Jesse Lea Schneider, 432-295-0342, jlschneider@ag.tamu.edu

Logan Boswell, 432-249-0265, l-boswell@tamu.edu

 

FORT DAVIS – The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service offices in Presidio and Brewster/Jeff Davis counties and the Chihuahuan Desert Nature Center are collaborating on a Nature Appreciation Workshop set from 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. Oct. 23 at the nature center located at 43869 State Highway 118 at Fort Davis.

“This is going to be a goody,” said Jesse Lea Schneider, AgriLife Extension agent in Presidio County. “If being in the Davis Mountains during the fall doesn’t make you really appreciate nature, then gosh, I just don’t know what will.

“To optimize this high country fall experience, we’ve tailored this program to be as meaningful as possible by putting together quite a potpourri of topics that should pique just about any nature afficionado’s interest.”

The morning session’s first topics will include talks on pollinators and butterfly gardening.

Following a 10:20 a.m. break, workshop participants will embark on a 30-minute walking tour of the center before returning for a live demonstration featuring cooking with native plants, according to Schneider.

Schneider said participants are encouraged to bring a sack lunch and enjoy the beauty of the nature center’s grounds during the noon-1:15 p.m. lunch break.

Afternoon topics will include talks and demonstrations on Gardening with Row Covers, Fall Garden Tasks, Using Gray Water, Getting to Know Your Soil, and Geology of the Davis Mountains.

Individual registration is $10 due upon arrival.

RSVP by Oct. 20 to Schneider at 432-295-0342, jlschneider@ag.tamu.edu, or Logan Boswell, AgriLife Extension agent in Brewster/Jeff Davis counties, at 432-249-0265, l-boswell@tamu.edu .