Verification, potatoes and eveything else

The great visitors at www.gardenweb.com who always answer so quickly have answered and I now believe that I have a Japanese Quince and a peach tree. I did some of my own research and see no reason why they would not be those things.

My potatoes arrived in the mail yesterday. The bad thing is that it is raining on and off and there is grass growing where I tilled a spot for the potatoes. I hope they can wait in that bag a few days.

I made out a To Do List today and the list makes me want to quit altogether. I have not yet mulched the roses I planted 3 days ago.

Those are a John F. Kennedy and a Blue Girl.

Burning Bush?

We have these beautiful bushes that bloom every spring. They only bloom for a short time and then they turn green for the rest of the year. We have been told that they are burning bush but they look nothing like the pictures I have found. These are pictures of the bush, flowers and the green one is another bush that is intertwined that I also cannot identify.

Mystery Tree

After knocking down some old buildings we have noticed this tree. Is it a peach? We don't know.

Failure

I placed my light too far from my lettuce and they are "leggy". Many have now fallen over. I will let them go and see if they continue to grow.

Rollin' along

I got the light replaced.

Finally all of my seedlings are straight up and down now. For such tiny things they sure drink a lot of water. I watered from the bottom at 11pm and the bottom was dry in the morning. I haven't let the peat pots dry and only once have I seen a few dry bits of dirt on top. I am going to start watering less so I don't cause damping off disease.

They are now about an inch tall and threatening to touch the clear dome on the tray. I think I read that at some point you can remove the dome but I will have to find that again.

I am still a little confused as to what true leaves look like. I will post a picture as soon as I get it off the camera but as to the fact that no one reads this blog but myself If there is anything wrong with them I will not find out until it is too late.

Shop Light, Sprouts

The shop light that I purchased was a Lights of America brand from Wal-Mart. It will stay on for 10 minutes and then shut off. I am going to take it back when I get the chance. It did its jobs before it shut down though as I have 1-3 1/4 inch sprouts in each pot.

Lets get the ball rolling!

Last night (March 6) I started 50 peat pots with lettuce seed. My wife and I spent time after work cleaning the porch off and set up the shop light. I can not believe how small those lettuce seeds are!! I think most of the peat pots got 2-3 seeds in them because I could not drop just one. We bought two 4' grow light bulbs and one of them was broken so that must be taken back. I have a heater set up but I am not sure if it is doing much good unless it heats the whole porch. I got rather warm in there yesterday even without the heater so maybe today the heater will help it maintain the heat. Another option would be to start helping my wife do laundry and spread it out over the course of the week so that the dryer is running. That tends to make it quite humid in there.

So Much For That

I came home and did not clean off the porch. It is still a mess. I did however try to drill holes in stumps and that DID NOT work. Two holes drained my cordless battery.

I bought some peat pots and soil an HOPEFULLY will clean off the porch soon so I can start. I am going to put a heater on the table to warm the soil.

Lettuce

I have been researching all of the vegetables, fruits, and flowers that I am planting this year. But, I spent so much time focusing on corn and flowers that I waited until today to look up lettuce. I have found that they like the cold and hate the heat so planting early is better. The first recommended planting date is around the 15th of march. So by that date I should already be growing some inside to transplant out. I haven't even tilled the garden yet. Where the garden will be is still yard and where I would grow transplants (my porch) is still a mess. I think I will go home today drill a few holes in stumps and clean the porch off.

Killing Stumps

In order to speed up decay on stumps it is necessary to drill 1" holes in a stump to pour the granules down. I was able to get 3 holes in one stump before a previously fully charged battery went dead. I think this will be a long summer.

New Plan of Action

So the cleaning up did not work. I am still not sure if I have been charged for the tires on the Skid Steer. I will probably find out when they send a bill.

In the process of cleaning up I have noticed an abundance of stumps that I did not know about. By "did not know" I mean I forgot, was ignorant to, or had selective memory about. After a lot of research I had decided to rent a stump grinder and go at all of them. But now I have decided to plant the garden somewhere else this year and spend downtime this summer cleaning up. I am going to try to dig down around the stumps, poison them, and then take a chainsaw to them about 24" deep. Then I will fill the holes back in and dump some topsoil to cover the area then cover it all will straw or wood chips in preparation for next year.

I had looked into making a raised planting bed but to raise the area I wanted I would have needed 37 cubic yards which was almost $1300. FORGET THAT!!! Dirt should not cost that much!

Skid Steer Loader

So I rented a Skid Loader this weekend. Saturday went fine. I pushed most of our old garage into a pile and picked up several other bits of debris around.

Then Sunday arrived. My brother-in-law was pushing around old trees that he had previously cut down and when I looked closely I noticed that one of the tires was flat. The rim was just spinning around inside the tire. So we had to stop prematurely (1 or 2 o'clock) and waste the rest of the day.

I am hoping now that they wont charge us for the tires. They were already old and badly damaged before we got the thing. There were large gashes and nicks all over and they looked a little low on air.

Guess I will wait and see.

The Vegetable Garden

Prior to this year I have never had a vegetable garden and I didn't begin planning to have one until winter so the ground has not yet been prepared. As of the moment there are old buildings in the spots where I plan to plant. I have scheduled to rent a skid loader for the weekend and am going to knock those buildings down this weekend. Currently I am in the beginning stages of planning for my garden. I ordered way too much sweet corn seed so I will have a lot of corn if the soil is okay.

I am planting this year in the veggie garden:

1. Sweet Corn
2. Lettuce
3. Bush Beans
4. Cucumber
5. Pumpkin
6. Potato
7. Watermelon

I ordered 600 sweet corn seeds on accident but depending on the fertility of the ground we may have a lot of extra corn or none at all. I am going to try planting them an inch apart and thin when they sprout. My aunt and Uncle were very kind and gave us our first pressure cooker for Christmas this year so I think we may get a lot of use out of it while canning.

I didn't order very much of the other veggies as we will probably want to eat sweet corn every day during the summer and the others we will eat only occasionally.

I am not sure yet how I am going to keep our four puppies out of the garden. I am going to try and find the cheapest method there is and preferably something that can be removed and reconfigured each year. If anyone has an idea let me know. They are Chocolate lab pups that were born in January and they are already causing quite a mess all over the yard. I am not the kind of person that likes to pen animals up so that is not an option. However I have thought about getting a radio shock collar fence.

Next post will be about the flower garden.

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my first blog. I have never seen much of a reason to do a blog but as forgetful as I am I would never remember what was done to my garden and would have to research all over again next year.
So here it goes.

I live in Westphalia, Kansas. The county that I live in is split by Hardiness Zones 5b and 6a. But if the zones aren't split into a's and b's then I am in zone 6. Unless I go to a different website that says I am in zone 5. My wife, daughter, and I live on a 6 acre piece of land in the middle of nowhere.

We have been remodeling the house for several years now. The house was originally built in 1902 and was my wife's grandparents house. The house had been sitting empty for some time before it had a very messy tenant that attracted mice and tried to burn the place down.

We have been remodeling since the summer of 2004 and have made the house more than livable. The siding is awful and the foundation causes cracks in the walls. Plus, it can be a little drafty sometimes. But we can only fix so much at once. We don't have a home improvement project planned for this summer because we are not sure whether we should fix or replace the foundation and add on or build a new house nearby. Until we decide I don't want to spend too much money on the place. If we rebuilt the old structure would stay and be rented out or used in some other way. The house has a lot of sentimental value with the family which is why we moved in in the first place.

My Property

I live in Westphalia, KS on 6 acres of land (mostly trees). Some websites say that I live in Hardiness zone 5 some say zone 6 and others say zone 5b. Are there different zone classes based on the subject? (ie livestock, flowers, trees, etc.)

Already on the property when we moved in are two old fashioned rose bushes and this bush that I am not sure of the name of. If anyone call tell what it is or would like a zoomed in picture, let me know.
Since moving in I have transplanted quite a few irises that have not yet bloomed. This will be the third year for them so I have my fingers crossed that they will begin to bloom this year. I have also planted a magnolia tree that is going to start its third year.

Last season I planted a Double Delight rosebush, a hydrangea, foxglove, lilies, and some phlox. In some planters I planted Dinnerplate Dahlias and some other assorted plants like begonias, but I didn't know that I should have dug up the tubers and taken seeds from the dahlia so those plants are a loss.