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  • From: <eureka AT hctc.net>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] Fall Gardens
  • Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:03:53 -0600

We had our first hard (26 degrees) freeze in the southwestern edge of the Texas Hill Country Saturday night (November 15). We use old roofing tin in long sheets discarded by our neighbor to stack across our raised beds to provide some insulation for the peas, beans, and garlic which are five inches tall, and the chard, three kinds of kale and five kinds of lettuce which are barely an inch tall. Prior to the freeze, we harvested the last of the cowpeas and took cuttings from the blackberry canes. We'd already harvested the rest of the green tomatoes when we expected a freeze the week before and made chutney. (We use this tin to successfully deflect our bountiful hail in the early spring when the plants are young).

I planted red clover yesterday (my first attempt at a cover crop ever) in one of the "crop circles" mowed into the prairie (mostly undesireable speargrass). Once it warms up today I'll go and see how much damage the 'dillo has done, as he always roots wherever I water and he was already out before sundown. I've mown three of these circles into the prairie, plus I have the infamous round tin pond to turn into a rice paddy. I discovered there is not a drain in the center, but a hole someone broke through the concrete bottom to drain it once it was no longer used as a pool. That will require a patch. We will let chicken manure compost in place there, and across the creek where we grow a hundred paste tomatoes in the spring. I'll try to document all this once it gets going on my blog at www.flowerweaver.blogspot.com

Why circles? Well, circular sprinkers are easiest for us to use across the creek where there is no water source (we have lots of hoses crossing the creek), and with all the rocks, yuccas, cacti to avoid it is somehow easier to mow circles. They also look more natural, since everything on that side of the land is very organic in shape.

This weekend I joined Seed Savers and ordered Malibar Spinach to try for the first time (from the good feedback on the list, and my general inability to grow other kinds of spinach--my nemisis plant) and Oaxacan Green Dent Corn (which I grew before) that seems suited to our dryness and our desire for cornmeal. Today I placed a Baker Creek order (they seemed to be out of stock on many of my favorites) deciding to try the odd solanum Litchi Tomato and a new (to us) tomato Riesentraube, in addition to our regular favorites which I still need to order.

I also ordered a copy of the DVD Fed Up! to see if it would be good to show to our Healthy Harvest group and the book Seed to Seed, which I should have owned long ago. I plan to become better at saving seed in 2009. Healty Harvest will be hosting a booth at Christmas on the Square this month. We had almost forty people sign up to be on our email list at the Citywide Garage sale booth, so things are starting to take off.

--Sage
Way Out in Texas

On Sun, 16 Nov 2008 21:17:59 -0500
"Robert Walton" <waltonrp AT gmail.com> wrote:
So how did they come out? We talked about putting them in, I'm
interested in comparing notes.




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