Mr. Jones wrote:Opel... Sounds like your a true gardener?
Starting plants in winter is something I've never done but I've known other people with hot boxes outside , window starting kits or actual grow light systems in their basements...
I love to garden, great exercise too...weeding is a real pain in the ass....I'm never around my cabin enough to have a great garden up there...rabbits, deer, bears eat or dig it up all the time...I have it on a sloped piece of ground that gets natural watering by gravity... sometime s it's too wet...
WHAT DOES GROW GREAT IS MY HERB GARDEN AND they winter over seasons sometimes...I had a thyme plant that was 7 yrs old and was totally outside every winter...
Just out of curiosity? Do you lay down plastic or hay between planted rows?
Do you have an irrigation system?
I want to try growing potatoes in ROTTED HAY piled on top of the ground, it looks easy...some books by an old lady about growing all kinds of stuff in rotted hay above ground.
Do you live in a legal recreational marijuana state?
How many plants can an individual grow?
Thyme will easily live outside and is a perennial in most areas of the Country. Sometimes in the most northern States, it will rot from being too wet and cold during the winter. It will also slowly crowd itself out and needs to be lifted and split up and replanted. You can also keep them easily in a pot in the house. I have a patch of mint at the old place that was in the yard and around one of those OLD mesh type satellite dishes. It's basically a weed and I have a ten feet diameter spot that is still growing and I can smell it every time I bush-hog the place.
As for the rotten hay, it needs to be more like compost, if it's just at the rotten/moldy stage, it will tend to cause problems with potato mosaic virus or mold. I had rebar wire that was made into hoops about two feet in diameter. YOU just cut it into 4-5 foot lengths and roll it up, then wire it together to keep it in a round shape. I was mainly using it for tomatoes so I didn't have to keep tying them to a stick. I decided to try and grow potatoes in the hoops, as the plant would leaf up through the soil I added fresh straw hay, just leaving the top leaves barely peking through the hay. I just kept doing that until the late summer/fall and then just pulled up the hoop and they were full of potatoes.Works good and kept me form constantly having to cover them with fresh loose soil, or "hilling" as it's often called.
I'm proud Of Opel/Joel, he has kept a variety of heirloom corn that I sent to him for almost a decade now. I sent that stuff ALL over the Country, around 20 of them just wrapped up in clear tape, the entire dried ear, LOL! I just labeled them and took them to the Post Office. ALL of them got to their address. I think I did that around Christmas. Numicorn cards, LMAO!
I enjoyed using handpicked cotton from the rented row crops at the farm for packing material. A couple of the Brothers here have wives that are/were teachers and they got quite good use by taking them to school and showing the youngsters.
Sadly, now that we have moved into a subdivision about 7 miles from the farm and old place that burned, I can't keep the deer and coyotes from eating or packing off most of what I grow. Two or three types of greens, two being rutabaga and turnips are the only luck I've had over the last 2-3 years. I have been growing gardens since I can remember. I have had sunflowers next to the new house where there's a patch of pea gravel where all the underground utilities are coming up form the underground wires from the street to the house. This year, it will be covered with red okra. They have a pretty Hibiscus type flower and red pods.
