(05-02-2023, 11:57 PM)VioletDove Wrote: Has anybody tried in garden vermicomposting? I learned about it today. I tried worms in a container last year but it didn’t work out too well. I may try it this way to see if I have any luck.
I've not tried it, but I have no raised beds, either. I just break up dirt in the ground and plant in that, and what worms are there, are already there. I also don't quite grasp "composting". back in the day, I mucked out the horse stalls, we let that manure and straw sit in a hot pile over winter, then spread it on the garden and plowed it in in the early spring, a month or two before planting happened.
My neighbor wants to give me chicken manure to manure the dirt with, so I might try that next year.
I planted the beans and corn in the spot where I grew tobacco last year, to use the beans to replenish the nitrogen in the soil. Tobacco, tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes are all in the same family, and they all deplete nitrogen, but beans "fix" nitrogen, and replace it in the soil. So I'll just swap plant places every year and see how that goes.
I broke up another 10x4 foot plot today to plant tobacco in. The tobacco starts are "damping off", so I expect I'll be lucky to get 40 plants in where I had planned on 60.
A couple more tomatoes and pepper plants sprouted. Since the cat mishap, I still don't know which peppers are hot and which are sweet, so planting them is just the luck of the draw, and no seed can be saved because sweet and hot peppers cross pollinate with sometimes unexpected (and often unpleasant, depending on what one was expecting) results.
When I was breaking up the tobacco plot today, I ran across a Giant Appalachian Millipede. Not all that giant as they go, and certainly not the biggest I've seen. it was about 5 inches long and as big around as a pinky finger, but identifiable all the same.
The mini greenhouses were a good idea, and are still going strong, but the planting media may have been less than optimal - it's molding. That's probably the last time I use nearly pure peat as a starter medium. It's just too hard to get properly hydrated, and to maintain the right hydration in. Just plain dirt is far better.
Beans and corn have not yet sprouted, but I didn't really expect them to. they'll surprise me when they surprise me. Need to talk Grace into a corn grinder, not for this year's crop of (sweet) corn, but for next year's crop of flint.. I like me some corn bread and beans, and all the better if they are from the ground up, right here. I think I can talk her into it if I do alright with (her) herb garden this year. Sage, basil, and thyme are coming along nicely, and the cat are gonna love the catnip when it gets of a size.
The Afghan poppy - the single one, out of goddamned thousands of seed planted - is bolting. The grocery store poppy - again out of thousands of seeds planed - which i thought was dead, is gathering itself up to bolt. I reckon poppies just go dormant until it's time, then they run like the wind. With any luck, I'll have enough seed to get a bed started for next year, so I can get enough seeds for baking.
That's it for this update.
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