october 9, 2014

Good morning, I was thinking what with the cloudy days and all the rain of late that I was getting a bit behind on my fall transition schedule. So I decided to see where I stood. Just to make sure I had a complete list of fall veggies I decided to look through my Johnny's Seed catalog and write down all of my fall / winter veggies and then checked them off as to whether I had planted them.

It has been slow work in the garden and I do not think I would not be as far along if I used a rototiller. Rototillers and wet soils do not mix. They make the soil clod up and very difficult to rake out. I have come to find turning soil with a shovel and using a scrapper to clean the shovel blade, I can work wetter soils and not destroy the soil texture. So only a day or two after some of our heavy rains and I was able to turn composted beds.

It really was a wonderful surprise to find how well I was on schedule. Save for some broccoli raab that got devoured by pill bugs, the cabbage seed that got dug up by harvester ants and hauled back to their nest, and the boc choy that needed to be resown because of dampening off disease, I am sitting pretty peachy. The late broccoli raab, kohlrabi, broccoli, chard, kale, spinach, parsnips, lettuce, cauliflower... are either up and growing nicely or are just about ready to be transplanted. What a nice feeling. I will start my transplanting any day.

I think what made me feel I was not well situated is all the summer veggies that are still tooling right along. The summer squash got covered with powdery mildew. They stopped blooming so I pulled them out. The drier weather of late has helped with the sweets harvest. It really has turned out to be a decent harvest even though I had some bad root knot nematode areas in my sweet beds. The last bed I have been harvesting about 8 pounds for every linear foot of bed. Here again I think the drip system is the culprit. The best I have ever done is 4 or 5 pounds per foot. The root knot beds were closer to 3 pounds per foot. The eggplants recuperated very nicely from the grasshoppers that just about nailed them. Their foliage is looking real nice and are blooming again. This is their fourth flush of blooms. I have one bed of toms that is doing well the other two are not doing so well. One of these two is the results of root knot nematodes and the other is still a puzzle. I am suspecting western yellow curling disease and was contracted from white flies last spring. The decline started with the toms that were not very well covered. But my long keeper toms are doing quite nicely so tomatoes will keep coming. Long keepers have yellow skins and red interiors. They also have firmer flesh and I have had them stay good in a cool dark room for 2 to 3 months. Truly a long keeper.

The progression from summer veggies to winter veggies is coming along quite nicely. As always I hope the transition continues without veggie interruptions. It is a nice time of year and it is also nice to know I am not behind too.

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 .

October 2, 2014

Good morning, it is sad to see another summer veggie season wind down. Especially after getting your tomato plants to become loaded with tons of green fruit. You keep wondering if they will ever ripen. Now that we are getting into shorter days and cooler nights along with jack frost ever so rapidly approaching, what to do with all those green toms.

First stop watering, we want to water stress the plants. You need to hold back on the water. The next thing is to go in and prune off a lot of foliage so that more sun gets into ripen the fruit. Don't forget it is the leaves that produce the sugars in your toms so don't go crazy with the clippers. I have found that after the first freeze there can be up to 2 weeks before a real doozy of a freeze hits. Have blankets or quilts ready as you watch for these approaching storms and make sure your toms are covered to the ground and the covers weighted down so that they do not get blown off.

Say you are done with covering, go ahead and pick all the toms. I have noticed there are glossy ones and dull colored ones. I find that the glossy ones ripen best but if you have space store them all.

There are two thoughts on storage; the first is to wrap each tom in news paper and stack them in a box. The other thought is if you have the space, lay them out on newspaper in a cooler dark room so that when you turn on the light it is easy to collect the ripe ones or to see the rotting ones. Myself I like laying them out on a floor because there really is nothing quite like the smell of a rotting tomato. Especially one wrapped in paper and all the papers have to be removed so that you find the rotten tomato that is dictated by Murphy's Law to be found at the bottom of the box.

Doing this you could easily have toms into December and maybe beyond.

One last note; that wrinkly wilted tomato, by no means toss it, especially if the only blemish's are wrinkles. These toms can almost champion summer toms because they are dehydrated and all the goodies within are concentrated. Close your eyes and bite into a piece of heaven and daydream of summer past!

September 25, 2014

Good morning, I like looking at taxonomic keys and any other identification book, just to browse through it. I especially scan over the pictures. When I was an avid birder, this practice really helped me especially if I knew where I would be going to bird. This would prepare my eyes for what to expect.

I heard a customer once say “ it is hard to gamely pursue fishing while you are gamely employed”. This is such a true statement for many things, since becoming a full time gardener I no longer do very many birding trips. But scanning ID books for the garden can be equally rewarding.

Recently I was looking at some ID pictures of cut worms. Most books have just the picture of the larval stage of the “cutworm” moth. The caterpillar stage is the destructive stage for this moth. This is true with all moths and butterflies. Well anyway this book as if to say” oh and by the way, this is a picture of the adult stage!”. The lights came on! How many times have you been reading in bed and along comes this drab colored moth and starts fluttering around the light, just being a huge distraction and annoyance. This is the adult stage of the cut worm! Granted most of these guys full lives are spent in locations that cause no harm but oh what they can do to young seedlings!

I have noticed the adults wrapped up in my fabric or just sitting on the leaves of plants in the garden. I do plan on taking a different approach. Like with grasshoppers, click beetles and various other chewing insects that I find as I am working beds, these moths too will be dispatched on sight. Just think of the number of eggs that will never be laid.

So yes looking through ID books can be very enlightening. It can prepare your eyes for scanning the garden for just a fleeting glimpse of a would be predator or even the good guys to leave alone.

September 18, 2014

Good morning, Well it seems it is that time of year again where I begin to plan the garden for another calendar year. I do this so that I have an idea when the next succession needs to be planted and it also gives me an idea of how much seed I need for the year. Before I do this I like to reflect on the year that has just passed. I like to note all the successes and those things that didn't quite turn out right. This is important so that errors are not repeated.

I like to think the end of August as the beginning of my garden calendar year. It just fits for me. This past year has been quite eventful. Last fall was pretty mellow until the last couple weeks of November and the weather just didn't want to play nice anymore. This set the stage for a cool spring and I hope this does not become the annual late freeze norm (late April). This was followed by a moister summer but not an average wet year. The rainfall that did fall came in decent quantities to get things really deeply wet.

Any way there was that learning curve thingy again. I seeded all of my usual fall veggies towards the end of August. I had great germination and all of the fall beds were well stocked. I experimented with a late fall seeding of peas. I have found that late August soil is too warm for peas and this really affects their germination (always very poor). I also notice that these August seedings get to blooming stage when the freezes hit. This really affects the pea harvest (slim to none). I seeded this year around the middle of October. The young seedlings got well rooted to go through the winter and then took off with warmer February weather and I got 3 to 4 weeks of harvest. This will be repeated. My bulb onions were not as fortunate. The first of November seeding took very well and all was well until the end of November with freezing rain and a very wet winter with very cool soils. This was a recipe for damping off disease and took out all the onion plants. I purchased onion seedlings and planted them in late February. The white onions were all of a good transplant size below a 1/4 inch but this was not the case with the red. When I transplanted them because they were closer to 1/2 and we had a very cool spring most of them bolted and did not form bulbs. Then to add insult to injury the late freeze killed several of the lower leaves and this then affected the mature size immensely. This freezing of the lower leaves affected my garlic likewise. I am going to erect hoops over the allium beds and have a layer of agribon 19 at the ready just to give them a little added protection if it is needed. The harvest for onions and garlic was good but the bulbs were some what small.

The mid to late November freezing rain afforded the chance for an amazing experiment. I uncovered a small bed of chard to see what the affect of 2 days of freezing would do. Not good! I then cleaned it up. I then covered with greenhouse film and a layer of Agribon 70 (the heavy stuff) over the film. I have noticed cooling affects with fabric and was hoping to have a temporary green house that did not need to be vented on sunny days. Sunny days in the winter are windy days. To make a long story short, this experiment worked beyond my wildest dreams. The lows on a 11.7 degree morning only got into the 20's and the high on an 80 degree day was only around 105. Where as a film out and fabric in bed exceeded 120!! I plan to expand this temporary greenhouse usage into the garden this year around the first of November.

By the middle of March my garden was fully planted except for the sweet potatoes. 

I have mentioned that I have root knot nematodes (RKN). This year I tried some new treatments. These were Actinovate, orange peels, watering bi weekly with cold pressed neem oil and planting a squash crop after my garlic harvest. The one treatment that I feel has worked the best was the squash planting after garlic. It is totally possible that with the other treatments I did not make appropriate application amounts. I may have to source more orange peels and with an injector attached to my drip system, I will be able to make adequate applications of neem oil and Actinovate. A study I read on Actinovate (a natural fungicide) did not kill RKN but was shown to reduce reproduction success. This is a good thing it fits into my RKN program of multiple attach fronts with population reduction always being the goal. RKN are for ever but they do not need to be the end to the garden either.

A late freeze could have wiped the garden out but I was constantly monitoring updates on the weather and did manage to be quite prepared for the freeze. Will not say I came through unscathed but I did not loose anything save for leaves that were in contact with the fabric. The fabric saved the day once again. This was the freeze that killed the lower leaves of my alliums.

After this freeze, day and night time temps were like a roller coaster. 90's by day , 30's by night. This had a huge impact on plant growth. It pretty well halted. The garden was late to mature, mid July. I always shoot for mid to late May for a mature garden. I am planning to use on a few selected beds a layer or two of Ag 70. My hope is to keep some of the veggies actively growing so that the harvest does not slow. Two layers of 70 would give me 16 degrees of modification.

Well May and June were true to form with heat being in the triple digits. With 12 to 14 hours a day 7 days a week of watering, I felt like I hit a wall doing 60 miles per hour. I was thrashed!!!! We finished installing the drip system. I for the life of me cannot understand why I had been so reluctant. I got a life back and the garden was the most bountiful it has ever been!!! I had a summer squash bed that has gone from March until the present . Save for the healing period after a hail storm we have been swamped with squash. I have usually planted 2 successions with hose end watering. I reseeded after the hail because I thought the squash would not heal. Boy was I surprised. I have planted 2 beds of butternut squash, I will only plant 1 bed next year. With several stacked flats of butters and 3 layers deep under the bed, I think the drip system performed beyond my wildest dreams.

Yes this has been a very eventful and productive year. I look forward to applying my new found knowledge!!

What with all the recent rain and cloud cover the garden has slowed. I have beaten back the squash bugs, cucumber beetles along with a white and a green stripped caterpillar in the Summer Squash, although the powdery mildew may have the last say. Sadly the summer veggies will soon be gone. But December will soon be here and spring Solanacae sowing is not that far away. Save for some dampening off with the spinach and pill bugs nuking some broccoli raab, fall seedlings are coming along. I do need to start some more carrots, lettuce, beets and green onions. There never is a dull moment.

And last but not least an awesome note. The Alpine Farmers Market has been given a best in region rating by Texas Monthly. Check out the site http://www.textraveler.com/texas_best_farmers_markets/

I have been invited to do a column in The Avalanche on my favorite subject. First article is this week. And on the 25th of September the small land owner workshop in Fort Davis. See the note

  FORT DAVIS – The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service will conduct a Small Acreage Landowner Workshop from 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Sept. 25 in the First Baptist Fellowship Hall, 111 E. Agave St. in Fort Davis.

“When one thinks of our beautiful Fort Davis area, what generally comes to mind are the expansive vistas encompassing huge ranching properties,” said Jesse Lea Schneider, AgriLife Extension agent in Presidio County. “But there are many folks out here who own much smaller acreages who are seeking ways to best manage them, and that’s who we are targeting for this workshop.”

Schneider and Logan Boswell, AgriLife Extension agent for Brewster/Jeff Davis counties, will conduct the workshop.

The program is free and open to the public, but Schneider requests those planning to attend RSVP by Sept. 22 by contacting her at 432-295-0342 or Boswell at 432-249-0265.

Topics during the day and the speakers presenting them will include:

Range Plant ID, Dr. Alyson McDonald, AgriLife Extension range specialist, Fort Stockton; Ag Exemption 101, Dr. Rob Hogan, AgriLife Extension economist, Uvalde; Fence In vs. Fence Out/Theft Prevention, Mike Barr, Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association special ranger, Fort Davis; Sheep and Goat Management, Dr. Bruce Carpenter, AgriLife Extension livestock specialist, Fort Stockton; Winter Gardening, Mark Foster, Dirt Farmer, Alpine; and Bee Keeping and Africanized Bees, Dr. Mark Muegge, AgriLife Extension entomologist, Fort Stockton.

The day will conclude with a question and answer session featuring workshop speakers.

The yahoo group site will be shut down in the near future. Please contact me if you want to continue receiving the weekly email.

Farmers Market operates year round

The Farmers Market doesn't let a little winter stop us. We will be open today, and every Saturday morning in December and January. Stop by and visit.

 



This picture shows all three of the film covered beds. The first one nearest the camera has fabric over the film

 This is the second bed with film only.

 This is the third one with film out and fabric in

This picture looks back towards the fabric out film in bed. I have a thermometer in the fabric out film in bed and a remote sensor in the film out  fabric in bed. Sunday the 9th was a sunny day temperature of 62 degrees. The temperature in the film out fabric in bed was 92 degrees. Temperature in the fabric out film in was 82 degrees. This info so far proves what I thought would happen with the fabric. I do not have a thermometer in the film only bed. I will rectify this soon. The chard in the fabric out film in bed has pretty well healed from its foray with two days of sub freezing weather with out covers. I will see if I can harvest this week and compare quantities with another mature bed. 

Farmers Market Tomorrow, 12/6

In spite of this cold gray weather, there WILL be a farmers market tomorrow. We will have limited amounts of bok choy, chard, spinach and lettuce. Come early for the best selection.

We'll have the fire pit burning, and the SRSU Con Bio club will be selling hot coffee and hot spiced tea. Some bundle up, and head down to Murphy Street!