[Homestead] Michihili Chinese Cabbage
Gene GeRue
genegerue at ruralize.com
Sun Apr 19 23:44:00 EDT 2009
Excellent post. That's a keeper.
On Apr 19, 2009, at 5:06 AM, Clansgian at wmconnect.com wrote:
>
>>> I need to do better in reseeding my veggies. How do you remember to
>> reseed everything? Is there a day of the month that you take
>> inventory
>> or something?
>>
>
> Of all the aspects of gardening that one has proven to be the most
> artful
> and illusive.
>
> The first thing, of course, was many, many years ago breaking from the
> mindset of "putting out" a garden. I remember visiting a friend some
> time back
> who was entertaining his elderly MIL and he asked me what was
> shaking in the
> garden. It was early March and I told about transplanting onions and
> seeding
> beets and turnips. MIL's eyes widened, "Oh, it's much too early to
> 'put
> out' a garden" Here the magic date is May 10. Very traditional
> gardeners on
> that day plant peas (much later than their prime time) and
> watermelons (much
> earlier than their prime).
>
> Another garden epiphany came during erstwhile attempt at market
> gardening.
> Snap peas are very popular here abouts and I had the usual fence
> lined with
> them. At that time early, primo snap peas fetched $3 a pound and
> bedazzled
> by how well we'd done, I put up 80' of trellises and replanted
> peas. There
> was a huge crop of them but suddenly you couldn't give them away.
> After
> the peas faded and I hadn't planted any more (since the freezer by
> now was
> full of them), everyone demanded to know why I had no peas for
> sale. Thus it
> went.
>
> It drew into stark relief the phenomenon of garden boom and bust ...
> knee
> deep in some vegetable one week and perishing for want of it a
> fortnight
> later. So I began to pay close attention to it.
>
> Foremost is the fact that for one's own direct use, even for a large
> family
> peopled primarily with teenagers, it is amazing how little planting it
> takes at any one time to have all the vegetables you want. So we
> have adopted
> this as a general scheme: Calculate how much of something you are
> likely to
> eat during its season of maturity and plant twice that much of it.
> Doubling
> the amount is a hedge against poor performance -- poor germination,
> loss to
> pests, etc. Most of the time the garden plot yields that double
> amount.
> The half not eaten is first subject to be preserved, as the old
> mountain
> saying goes:
>
> "We eat what we can, and what we can't we can."
>
> What isn't perserved for human food is converted into some other
> type of
> food by feeding it to the goats, pigs, rabbits, or chickens. In
> fact it is a
> definate ploy to breed the rabbits so that the maturing bunnies can
> be fed
> primarily with weeds and garden surplus.
>
> Next the garden surplus is returned to the soil by composting it.
>
> And last, definately last, we might sell some of it if it is
> convenient and
> profitable. Any money so derived is view strictly as "trinkgelder"
> and not
> to be relied upon although some years it is a tidy sum. We have
> always
> made more money selling vegetables casually and incidentally than
> when we did
> it as a planned enterprise.
>
> Now, to comment on your actual question. Replanting by dates never
> seemed
> to work out. Rather we keep a weather eye out for the signs that
> it's time
> to replant.
>
> Some examples:
>
> Green scallion arlic grown from the cheapie Chinese bulbs from the
> mart is
> best before the leaves harden off. When one garlic plot is about 4"
> high
> and just begins to change from chartreuse to blue-green, it is time
> to plant
> the next one.
>
> Loose leaf and semi-heading lettuce is invariably grown here by
> transplants. When the seedlings are about 1 1/2" high, they are
> transplanted to the
> final bed and then another plot of seedlings is started.
>
> When climbing peas set on their first blossom, more peas are planted
> 6"
> away so that as the first peas begin to fade, the next crop is
> climbing right
> over top of the old vines and blooming.
>
> Almost all the tomatoes here are OP and indeterminate. When the
> plant sets
> on suckers, those are snapped off and put into pots or else put
> right into
> the ground in a new tomato plot. When the old vines show signs of
> exhaustion, they are grubbed up at about the time the new ones are
> fruiting.
> Sometimes I will be harvesting tomatoes from the fourth generation
> of suckers by
> late fall.
>
> Cucumbers produce a good flush of high quality cukes and then go
> senile and
> the fruits become smaller, bitter, and oddly shaped. We only keep
> 8 or so
> bush cucumber vines going at any one time. The first are here in the
> window waiting a few more weeks until the ground warms more. As
> soon as they are
> transplanted, more will be started. As soon as the second are ready
> to
> transplant, the first will be fruiting and a third wave is seeded.
>
> While most of the potatoes are just eaten first as new potatoes, the
> mature
> potatoes, then cured and stored potatoes ... we also put out a few
> potatoes
> in June, July, and August so we can have the small, sweet new
> potatoes all
> along the summer.
>
> For some crops there is no profit in managing them this way. Peppers
> and
> eggplants, for example, just keep producing until frost unabated so
> there's no
> point in planting them more than once.
>
>
> James
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>
Gene GeRue
www.RURALIZE.com
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