Croftstone Acres Farm

I hope this doesn’t affect the seeds I already planted…

Welcome back! I know I haven’t posted in months. I’ve been busy….  get off my back. (BTW, Easton says ‘Hey!’) There’s not much going on with the garden this time of year, but I have started a new growing experiment. The above picture is of a glass with 59 japanese maple seeds in it. The seeds are from a tree in my parents’ yard, and they have been soaking for 36 hours in the water to soften their shells. The baggie is full of slightly damp Coco-peat, which is a substitute for peat moss that is made from coconut hulls. I had planned on using regular peat, but the nursery I stopped at only had this stuff, and he gave it to me for free.

The idea is to put the seeds into the peat (which is used to regulate the moisture level and to provide a growing medium) and place it in the refrigerator for 90-120 days to mimic the process the seeds go through during winter (called stratification). The seeds will germinate in the fridge, and I will plant them as they germinate.

The long term plan for howevermany survive is to attempt the art of grafting more exotic versions of jap. maples after they’re a year old. I’ll let you know how it goes…

Okra!

We LOVE it. Before this summer we only liked it fried. Then Beth (sis-in-law) turned us on to sauteed. It is so good and so much better for us. So we eat it all the time.

This year’s okra crop surprised me a little. Last year, in my first small garden experiment, I planted a ton of it and the plants ended up being 7-8 ft. tall and putting off tons and tons of pods. This year I planted about half as many plants as I did last year, and my plants range from about 2 feet tall to about 4 ft tall. I was real suspicious of the seed until I started noticing the okra in gardens that I drive by. I haven’t seen any taller than 4 ft. I’m really curious what growing conditions were so good last year to produce twice the height of this year’s growing conditions. If anyone knows, that’s what the comment button is for…   among other things.

Ok, so I know you haven’t heard from me in awhile, but I promise that I’m alive and that the garden exists and is productive! I hardly ever get on a computer anymore; especially not simply for entertainment. However, I know that a least a few people enjoyed this blog, and I enjoyed updating it. So I’m going to make efforts to revive it.

(The picture is of my lovely wife surrounded by lima beans!)

I know it’s been over a week since I last posted. Well, it’s going to be another week before I get to post again. I headed out of town in about 10 minutes and I won’t be back until Sunday. I wanted to give a quick update in the middle of this dry spell.

Above you can see the tomato transplants I started from seed. They’re doing great and are ready to go in the ground. I’ve already given one transplant of each variety away. If you want one come and get it.

Everything that has been planted thus far is coming up. The sunflowers are a couple inches tall. The corn is 4 or 5 inches tall. The 1/2 runner green beans are a few inches tall with big leaves. The limas have come up and the okra is peeking through. Squash and zucchini are getting big. And we have little green tomatoes on the Better Boy plants! The carrots are getting close to being ready while the turnips and cabbage are maturing. Next week I’ll be harvesting the last few Romaine lettuce heads and getting the spinach out of the ground so sweet potatoes and soybeans and such can be sewn.

Things are really picking up speed in the garden. It’s a lot of fun watching things grow when you can tell a difference between one day and the next.

Thursday I had a halfday off from work to go to a local pro-am golf tournament sponsored by one of our suppliers. Ashley and I went long enough to bum some food and beverages and watch a few people putt. The tourney was fun, but we were most excited to have an afternoon to play together. Ashley agreed to help me plant a few things and then we took Scout for a nice walk downtown at Cleveland Park. It was a really good day.

We managed to plant 3 things. First, we planted a patch at the front of the garden with a mixture of sunflower varieties. It’ll be the first thing you see when you look at the garden from the house. Second and third, we planted a patch of alternating sweet corn and green beans. This is a combination the indians used to plant (two of the “three sisters”). The beans provide nitrogen for the corn and the corn provides a place for the beans to climb.

Today we planted some more. We did a couple landscaping things and then we planted two six foot rows of okra and two six foot rows of lima beans. I’ll need to build trellises for the limas sometime this week.

In the foreground of this picture is a very small strawberry plant. Ashley really loves strawberries and was excited by the idea of eating some out of our garden so she bought a plant and put it in the ground. We lost the first two little berries to some kind of mold. In doing research to figure out what might be wrong I read that there are basically two ways to transplant and grow strawberries: 1) primarily used in the low country, is to plant the transplant in the fall (october or november) and let it overwinter and produce in the spring. This method allows the strawberry plants to be annuals. 2) primarily used in the upstate, is to plant the transplant in the spring but pinch off any berries in the first season so the plant spends its nutrients on building roots and runners. Then the next spring you harvest what berries are grown. My source (Clemson HGIC) didn’t indicate which method is preferred if your climate would allow both, but it doesn’t sound like we should expect to eat any strawberries straight off the vine this year.

In the background of the picture are the Better Boy tomato plants that are growing very well (one plant is already to the second rung of the tomato cage!) and the marigolds that Ashley thoughtfully planted around the tomatoes as a surprise for me. Marigolds attract several types of pests that feed on tomatoes - they don’t attract them toward the tomatoes, the marigolds draw the pests away from them.

The romaine lettuce transplants did well. I lost two due to trampling by dog feet, but the rest have grown and produced well. We’ve eaten a few salads off them and there’s plenty more to harvest. It’s about to meet its end, though. With warmer temperatures coming (which turn the flavor more bitter) it probably only has a week or two left. Likewise for the spinach.