Grinding corn today!

[SavedByGrace3]

Garden update.
Everything is growing... we are watering everything... maybe too much. I fear the young tender plants will dry out as they are susceptible to dry conditions.
The fig tree actually has figs on it. Unusual for fig trees as they usually do not produce fruit for the first 4 to 6 years. The tree has only been in the ground for about a month. Not sure how old it was before we planted it. Was about 3 feet tall when we got it. Trunk is about 1 inch in diameter. Should I pop them off and let the strength go to the roots??? I dunno.
Barb's flowers are gangbusters. Dozens of bulbs are up through the ground 2 and 3 feet tall. Zinnias, Marigolds, Gladiolas, Hyacinths (a favorite), Petunias, Begonias, Dianthus, Moss Roses, others.
We had some Moss Roses in window planter on the porch which were not doing to well. I moved them out to the road under the mailbox. 100% sun all day. See if that helps them.
7 Blueberry Bushes in the ground, 4 more in the potting soil ready to go.
8 Tomato plants about 2 foot tall. Many Flowers... no tomatoes yet.
10 more Roma and Sweetie Tomato plants 2 to 4 inches tall in the ground. A couple dried up in the ground. I think I transplanted them too soon and they did not take the stress.
7 Yellow squash with several little squashes showing. We will be eating these within a week or two!
We had 8 Lettuce plants that have already reached harvest state. I say had because we plucked one up and ate it on some tuna sandwiches. First harvest of the year!! It wilted very fast but a stay in the fridge crisped it up nicely.
10 Zucchini squash plants coming up fast.. No flowers yet but leaves are coming on strong.
16 Cucumber bush plants at the 4th leave stage. Won't be long till we have to stake them up.
Almost 60 Okra plants up to the 1st adult leaf. Only been in the ground for a week, but we did soak the seeds overnight.
35 Bean (green) plants coming up to the adult leaf stage... these plants grow fast!
3 Green Bell Peppers. They are also putting out nice round white flowers.
10 Asparagus plants coming up out of 12 roots planted. Good strong ferns with a half dozen little spears coming up! Will not havest this year. We will let the root strengthen and see what they look like next year.
9 Nice Jerusalem Artichoke plants coming up with multiple stalks per tuber. 1 to 2 feet tall. Hoping for a good season this year. We have not had much luck with these plants that everyone says are so each to grow. Perhaps we are not watering them correctly. This is the best crop we have had yet. Past efforts have resulted in fast growing plants that just sort of petered out and died. Too much watering I think. Dug up last years failure and the tubers were rotten and gone. I am cutting back on the watering this year.
10 Potato plants in Containers. First time we have tried this. They seem to be doing well. Strongest of the plants are 2 feet tall and are pushing out flowers at the top. Nice dark green luscious foliage. We have high hopes for these! In the front (among Barbara's flowers) we have what appears to be 4 volunteer potato plants (?). Where and how that happened we do not know. But I have staked them up and am throwing extra fertilizer at them. Not expecting too much since they are in almost complete shade on the south side of the house. We shall see!
Experiment time:
I purchase 10 fabric growing bags - 10 gallon size. Two Jalapeno Peppers each in two bags. Two Best Boy Tomatoes in one bag. The Soil is one half Potting soil, one half Peat Moss, and two or three double handfuls of Black Kow. We can move the bags around to different locations in the yard. See how these work out. I will likely put Tomatoes and Peppers in the rest of the bags.
I skipped watering for a couple days to see how the plants would take it. All except the young ones which are prone to drying out. They all did well Forgot to water 4 watermelon plants in potting soil... and they were drooping. A squirt of water and they perked back up.
I am hitting everything with Miracle Grow every two weeks.
Hit Everything with Epson Salt a couple days ago. Did seem to green things up a bit. Too soon to tell.
Barb is still throwing down new seeds and rooted plants.
It is good to keep busy!

 

[gideon123]

Good for you!!
Blessings in the Lord!!!!

 

[gideon123]

We live in CA. It was tremendously difficult for my wife and I to find a simple piece of land where we could make a self-sustainable homestead. I think we have finally succeeded with an 0.69 acre lot. But it was no easy task. The whole system of land ownership is based on greed and speculation.

We aim to do the same as you. Produce all of our food, with 0.69 acres. And then the food we are not using will go to the poor. The same system that God describes in 5he OT.

I send encouragement to all the other Preppers and Homesteaders who are struggling with The System. Don't give up, keep up the good fight!!

 

[SavedByGrace3]

We live in CA. It was tremendously difficult for my wife and I to find a simple piece of land where we could make a self-sustainable homestead. I think we have finally succeeded with an 0.69 acre lot. But it was no easy task. The whole system of land ownership is based on greed and speculation.

We aim to do the same as you. Produce all of our food, with 0.69 acres. And then the food we are not using will go to the poor. The same system that God describes in 5he OT.

I send encouragement to all the other Preppers and Homesteaders who are struggling with The System. Don't give up, keep up the good fight!!

The US is creating the framework for the perfect famine storm. Everything they are doing will exacerbate and magnify the effects of what would otherwise be a simple cultural and economic paradigm change. The gov pays farmers not to grow crops. Big Ag is suing small farmers who are the unintentional recipient of their genetically altered plants. Local and state bureaucrats are putting a huge amount of pressure on small producers to the point where they simply give up. The entire effect is to dissuade small local producers from growing. Just In Time stocking of the supermarkets will guarantee that there will only be a days' worth of food on the shelves. Some locals are even prohibiting the collection of rain water. It is all coming together into a perfect famine storm. Prep people.. at least a year. Three years is better. Prep not to survive but toward self sufficiency.

 

[drjean]

I feel somewhat better with the new administration. The former one was making it illegal to even give away excess foods you grew! Some people went to jail for not having a license, or health certificate or whatnot DOH.

If I gave away excess, I'd be sure they didn't know where I lived, I mean---you know?

Re the corn.... do you have an outlet for non-gmo corn seed? Or any heirloom seeds? I want to try the Patriot's Supply... but not for corn, as I could never grow it even when in MO.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

At least 100 tomatoes on the vines.
Just as many or more little squash.
Cucumbers are starting to show.
A dozen or so peppers of several varieties.
There are about 14 figs on our little 3 ft fig tree.
A dozen asparagus shoots... which we will let go this year.
Beans are beginning to flower.
Carrots are funny... we let weeds grow up because we could not tell the difference between the carrot and the weeds. So they are just growing together.
Cannot tell how many Jerusalem Artichokes we are making... they are about 3-4 feet tall now. Seem pretty healthy.
The potato plants are massive. It will be disappointing if after we grow 4 and 5 foot tall potato plants to then dig no potatoes. First time we have tried to grow them in containers... The guy at the store said we waited to late. We shall see. We love a challenge. Barb loves to go to the back lot of Lowes and pick the discounted plants they have given up on. She has nursed many of them back to health!
A couple watermelon and cantaloupe plants are growing fast! We are having to guide the vines away from the asparagus... which is where they seem to want to go.
Barb is turning the front yard into a flower garden. The Moss Roses are my favorite. April gave her a mother's day plant and it is up on a Shepard's Staff Pole out by the road with a couple other colorful flowers and a hummingbird feeder. All designed to lure the hummers into the feeder.
Chris gave Barb a flowering tree (sorry I cannot remember the names... Barb does). We bought a nice big tree sized pot and we are going to transplant it soon. It is out growing the container and we are having to water it every day. Beautiful plant.
Enough of the garden report.
The Word says:

Deuteronomy 28
3 Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field.
4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock.
5 Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
6 Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

And we are recipients of these blessings only because Jesus has redeemed us from the curse of the law:

Galatians 3:
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:

2 Corinthians 1:
For no matter how many promises God has made, they are "Yes" in Christ. And so through him the "Amen" is spoken by us to the glory of God.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

We are moving forward with 3 kinds of tuberous perennials. Perennial means that the plant will come back year after year as long as you leave some ribosomes in the ground when you harvest them.
We have Jerusalem Artichokes (sun chokes), Yacons, and Chinese Artichokes.
We are about 4 months into our second attempt with the Sun Chokes. The first attempt last year ended in failure. We attempted to gown 6 plants in containers and I believe we either watered too much or not enough. Perhaps the drainage was wrong. They just died and dried up. This year is much better. We have 12 plants out in a 6 by 6 foot patch in the back yard and they is doing well. We planted from tubers and after about four months the plants are from 4 to 8 feet tall and almost all have gone to flowering and are doing pretty well. We have not looked into the soil yet for tubers but that time is coming soon. October, I believe, is the target harvest month. As soon as the plants dry up we will chop them off at about the 6 inch mark and pull up a few to see what we have. If we find success we will pull out a few more and harvest the tubers. Since tubers are best left in the ground until needed, we will do that with the rest. I feel good about these.
The Yacons arrived last week as 2, 7 inch plants with two good sized leaves on each. However, these leaves quickly dried up over and fell off. I suppose they could not take the stress of shipping. I hit them with a cup of compost tea and set them out in the full sun and happily they have both developed a new set of 2 leaves each. I will try to get them strong enough to transplant into a nice sunny place in the back. These form a good amount of large, up to 5 pound tubers which look a lot like sweet potatoes but are nothing like them in taste or texture. Looking forward to seeing what kind of success we have.
The Chinese Artichoke arrived in tuber form, ten nice inch-long ribosomes. I need to get them into some moist soil today or early tomorrow as the are susceptible to drying out. I have high hopes for these. They do not generate large tubers... but they are said to be prolific and a good addition to an otherwise bland salad. These plants are a bit more sensitive to moisture and require constant monitoring.
We have few other perennials that we are working with. One is a nice Mulberry Tree on the side of the house. Birds and small animals love these. Another is what I believe to be Raspberries that grow wild in the back lot. I might try to nurture these. We set out some Blueberry bushes.. which frankly are not doing to well. We planted 7 and only 2 remain. We also planted a grape vine as well as 2 fig trees. We are looking forward to some good results from these. You can only go so far with rice, beans, and other stored preps. Fresh things from the yard and garden will help both with variety and nutritional needs.
I will try to keep you up to date.
Blessings.
Dids

 

[drjean]

I can not eat artichoke but from where did you buy these heirloom tubers???

 

[SavedByGrace3]

I can not eat artichoke but from where did you buy these heirloom tubers???

Yacon - Hirt's Gardens
Chinese Artichokes - Yumheart Gardens
Jerusalem Artichokes - Yumheart Gardens

They are a little high... but I think that is due to the rareness of some of the tubers. The Yacon came as plants. The others were tubers. The Sunchokes are almost ready to pull up and we will know then how they did. The others are going in the ground this week. I know the Chinese Artichokes can go into the ground during the fall. I tossed them in a grow bag this morning. We may end up putting the Yacons under a plant light till it the are strong enough to be transplanted. Never done this before and there is a lot of conflicting information on the net.
Should be fun.... If they are all successful, we should have a good source of tubers from all three each year. Certainly not the main attraction for a daily menu, but a good addition to the diet to keep body and soul together.
Blessings
Dids.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

Fall cucumbers are beginning to fruit. These plants are about the fastest growing garden plant we have seen. 3 Weeks and they are 6 feet tall and outgrowing my trellis. We have several cukes that are already 7 or 8 inches long. These are Japanese cucumbers which are supposed to have thinner skin and fewer seeds.
We are already picking our second crop of beans. The Okra is pushing out their last handful of fruits. I will pull the rest of the stalks.. .probably tomorrow. Our second planting of carrots just plain failed. We planted at least a hundred seeds and only a handful came up. A nice 4 X 8 raised bed with nothing but weeks. Sad view. The pepper plants are still putting out dozens of peppers each week. More flowers too. Our one eggplant plant is still flowering in the greenhouse and Barb harvested 4 yesterday. The sweet potatoes are almost ready to dig. Looking forward to that! Barb planted a row of Rutabaga and they are several inches tall. Another first try for which we hold high hopes. We are leaving the Asparagus alone... just letting it grow this year to develop the root system... next year we will consider a harvest.

 

[drjean]

WELL I CAN eat cukes and asparagus!
When you say Japanese cukes with thinner skin and fewer seeds... is the GMO'd or natural/cross polination?