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Friday, 10 June 2011 15:33 |
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by Bob Smith
Hi there.
I really like living in the country, and growing some of our own food, but I really wish our roads had been better built and better maintained, and I wish – and plan next year – to plant half our vegetable garden’s plants on May 20, and the other half as soon after Memorial Day as the soil dries. Seeds can be planted a little sooner than tender pre-started plants, because seeds, protected by the soil, are a little better at sustaining a late frost than the tender greenery of young green plants – and light early frosts “may” not reach into the soil where they lie.
I felt I just had to mow the lawns, and because of all the rain, I left muddy tracks in all of the grassed areas, and some ruts! I sincerely hope the heavy rains are done – but I feel I have to tell you about the worst effect all the recent almost continuous rain had on me – helped by the wonderful rebuilding of Anderson Road. Since Anderson was closed for repairs, we had to find alternate routes to get to and from most destinations.
One of my efforts to find the best way to civilization was on a paved road. And there appeared to be some water on the road, but I drove into it – my car stopped, would not restart! A couple saw my car in the water, and stopped short of it - I was walking towards them, and they offered me a ride – then drove through the same water that killed my car! I didn’t think it was a wise choice, but they made it by my drowned car, and took me home.
I called a wrecker, had my wonderful expensive, soaked car carried to my foreign car garage in Fort Wayne, and it is spending an expensive stay, that we hope, will renew its pleasure in serving our needs. Judy frequently chauffeurs me to town or wherever (my old but powerful pickup does not get much movement from each high priced gallon of gas!) I haven’t visited the garage to see how my car is doing – they don’t encourage owner visitors!
When we went to our restaurant for our usual Sunday breakfast, I was met by one friend with a floating pillow from his yacht that he said he would loan me if I could afford to get my car back on the road, so I could float to shore if I did it again, another man offered me a short canoe paddle, and Judy just sort of smiled! Embarrassed by it all, I pitifully inquired how they found about my misfortunate water experience on a local county road, and it turns out that one of the wrecker drivers who rescued my car from a certain death was – a Churubusco Volunteer Fireman, as were most of the breakfasters at the Magic Wand.
Finally, on last Friday, my car and the shop allowed me to visit, and the mechanic has the engine running smoothly, but the car is still there. The dead battery has been replaced, but one motor, that retracts the seat belt when it is disconnected, doesn’t run, so they feel that has to work properly before letting me drive it home. Of course, they sneer at allowing me to drive without a proper operating seat belt. We travel together in Judy’s car, and when necessary, I drive my big old farm pickup, or the 1952 Ford Tractor.
My deeply respected neighbor, Tom Cormany, fell and broke both wrists, I have been told. He is one of two people for whom I would vote to elect to any government office. He and his wife were not only employed full-time when younger, but worked hard, raised a family, learned a lot, and became one of the leading farmers of my area. I don’t want to call him in case he is alone, sitting by the phone – but wouldn’t be able to answer. My solution is to write him a letter, enclose this column, and hope it helps pass time during his recovery.
I am sitting in the air conditioning in the house – it is sunny and hot outdoors – but I am so extremely happy that it is not raining and that most of our garden is planted and growing – and that next year we will plant some vegetable garden plants before Memorial Day! ! ! good gardening by Bob Smith Hi there. I really like living in the country, and growing some of our own food, but I really wish our roads had been better built and better maintained, and I wish – and plan next year – to plant half our vegetable garden’s plants on May 20, and the other half as soon after Memorial Day as the soil dries. Seeds can be planted a little sooner than tender pre-started plants, because seeds, protected by the soil, are a little better at sustaining a late frost than the tender greenery of young green plants – and light early frosts “may” not reach into the soil where they lie.
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Wednesday, 01 June 2011 20:36 |
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by Bob Smith
Hi there.
We are not farmers, trying to feed the world with the produce from our fields and barns, unable to plant their crops because of the continued rain, but today, a week before you read this, I am disheartened by the continuous rainfalls, with garden vegetables that I started eight weeks ago from seeds in my basement, standing in water in the driveway.
A week and a half ago I took them outside, on a table in front of the barn, to harden off (get used to the outside air and weather before planting on the garden, and last weekend the flats containing the many smaller cells that I had carefully watered from the bottom, leaving one cell empty in each flat of 36 cells, into which I deposited the fertilized one-half the strength Miracle-Gro recommends, watering the plants in that flat, from the bottom), but a week ago Sunday, we got a two inch rain that completely flooded every cell with rain water.)
I took each group of six cells out of the flats they were in, laid them on a drainage surface so they could loose the excess water, then, when the reached a good moisture content, I, thinking the heavy rains had ended, returned to the clean waterproof cells and the midweek rain storms refilled them. Unbeknownst to the rain god, several years ago Judy and I took several favorite vacations, a week long sailboat ride from the Maine coast.
They, thankfully recommended, and we fortunately bought, complete rain gear for sailing the deep blue seas in stormy weather. Fortunately, they still fit, and still are waterproof, and I went out in the Indiana Spring rains to move the vegetable garden plants from their re-flooded flats, and have left them in a position where they can drain away any excess rain water. We hope they will survive, we need the produce.
I do not understand all I have read about global warming or many other interesting subjects, but I do believe it is occurring. I was brought up in a Christian home, and was told that God created the earth in six days, and declared the seventh, a celebration holiday. And that Santa Claus came around every Christmas, etc., and I was happy, and still am. But some great time after there was a world, and plants and animals and people, I think people were smarter, and started eating other things that they liked.
Maybe lightning started a forest fire, and early man found that cooked meat and vegetables tasted better, and somehow man figured out how to make clothes, and metals, and baked bread and cake but early they discovered that lignite, coal, and oil from the ground not only cooked food, but made iron and steel, and they greatly increased the use of these heating materials all of which produced carbon dioxide gas.
I don’t understand why anything stays on earth, travelling at the speed they say it is, nor why we can stay in one spot instead of being tossed into the atmosphere, but we do! The global warming experts say the increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will cause more rain, hot weather, and great problems for mankind to continue to live in the manner we are. I love living here, growing garden stuff, mowing on warm summer days.
I hate seeing tornadoes, floods, and severe weather threaten lives, villages, and cities, whether nearby, in cities I have driven by, or in foreign countries I wish I had visited, but it is happening, more frequently than I like, and I have seen no other logical explanations. The United States, England, and Australia have led the struggle to reduce the production of carbon dioxide, or CO2. I do not want the living conditions on our planet to get any worse, and I am going to search for the answer, but right now, I believe the production of carbon dioxide has resulted in our changed weather, and I am willing to try to learn more about helping to solve the problem. I sincerely believe it will greatly help. . . . good gardening by Bob Smith Hi there. We are not farmers, trying to feed the world with the produce from our fields and barns, unable to plant their crops because of the continued rain, but today, a week before you read this, I am disheartened by the continuous rainfalls, with garden vegetables that I started eight weeks ago from seeds in my basement, standing in water in the driveway.
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Wednesday, 25 May 2011 19:29 |
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by Bob Smith
Hi there.
Well, I mentioned dandelions earlier this spring, and mowing them doesn’t kill them – they seem to appreciate the attention, and re-grow, and re-bloom, and re-produce seeds. The best success I have had with getting rid of dandelions, and it lasted for several years, was to use a chemical weed killer – and many people are against using chemicals where they live. My advice about chemical weed killers is 1. Get the best advice possible about to use. 2. Carefully read, understand, and follow the directions. 3. Re-read the directions again every time you plan to use the chemical, and follow them!
I found good results using a broadleaf herbicide named Trimec, made by Gordon’s, for professional turf and ornamental use. I want to have you read here a part of their recommendations. “Users should wash hands before eating, drinking, chewing gum, using tobacco or going to the toilet!” I do! Labels should list cautionary directions like that, give a list of what they will control, when they should be applied, at what diluted rate, and under what time of year and weather conditions they should be used. I sincerely believe you should keep the directions with the container, and read them before every use.
I got the best results by spraying twice in the same year, first in the spring when the plants are young, and just starting to grow and blossom, and again in the fall, when any surviving dandelions, like our beautiful, manicured lawns, are drinking in the sunlight and energy to store to survive the winter – and I think two applications are worth doing. You probably have neighbors like me who don’t spray twice a year every year for several years, and the seeds produced by the dandelions on those lawns may be wafted by the warm summer breezes onto your beautiful grassy areas, and you will again see the pretty yellow blossoms in the spring.
Trimec should be mixed with water, and be applied with a sprayer, according to label instructions. There are all kinds of sprayers available, and while pulling will remove some weeds, it is not very successful with dandelions, because their roots may reach six or eight inches into the soil, and when we try to pull them, any part of those roots that breaks off, has the ability to grow another yellow blooming dandelion next year, in the same area of your lawn. Roundup kills everything green it falls on, so it shouldn’t be used on lawns – but works well on poison ivy – if the poison ivy is growing on thick barked tree trunks, so you don’t spray any of the trees leaves. Poison ivy is another weed that seems to survive attempts to kill it by pulling it out of the earth, for the same reason – you need to get all of the roots out of the soil, or it will re-grow.
I highly recommend you rely on a really good source of information if you use chemical weed killers. Every county has a cooperative Extension office, funded by city, county, state, and federal tax money, with information available to you on gardening, home economics, farming, and country living. They are very well educated, and really helpful in living a productive and happy life – and they have informative free pamphlets available on most subjects to help you be happy and productive. There are many businesses that sell garden products, but they do not all have the same amount of knowledge and experience as do the very best, so ask around to find one that you can and will trust, and rely on their knowledge.
Do tell your neighbor gardeners about these merchants you feel you can trust, they will appreciate the advice. They might be trying to find one, too. . . good gardening by Bob Smith Hi there. Well, I mentioned dandelions earlier this spring, and mowing them doesn’t kill them – they seem to appreciate the attention, and re-grow, and re-bloom, and re-produce seeds. The best success I have had with getting rid of dandelions, and it lasted for several years, was to use a chemical weed killer – and many people are against using chemicals where they live. My advice about chemical weed killers is 1. Get the best advice possible about to use. 2. Carefully read, understand, and follow the directions. 3. Re-read the directions again every time you plan to use the chemical, and follow them!
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Tuesday, 17 May 2011 13:16 |
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by Bob Smith
Hi there.
Well, like you, and many, many farmers, we are waiting for the rain to let up! I mean, STOP RAINING so we can till our soil, and plant our crops and gardens. The lawns and weeds are really enjoying this weather, but I am getting a little nervous, and my mind is leaping frantically.
Did you know that “up” may have the most definitions of any word in our dictionary, with many differing meanings? Merchants close “UP” their stores at night, and next morning, open them “UP”! “UP” often means farther away from the center of the earth. But, if you are in bed, you may sit UP, and stay in bed, or you may get UP, and leave the bed completely. If you are building a house, it is “UP” when construction is completed. If the score is tied in a baseball game, people often say the score is “2 UP” instead of “Two and Two.”
When we pull a weed UP, we certainly plan to remove, and kill it. If we bring a subject UP in a meeting, it is for reasons of discussion for action. Many of us expect the ladies to clean UP the house, but we should at least offer our help! I would like to bring UP a subject for discussion: Our farmer neighbors use large diesel powered equipment to grow the crops that America needs to survive and compete, and there is (red colored) road-tax free diesel available to use for off highway use, and no road tax is added to the cost per gallon.
Huge refrigerated over the road trailers can buy road tax free diesel for their reefer tanks, but not for the tanks that feed their engine. Off road diesel is offered if we have diesel lawn mowers and diesel garden tractors, but I, and I imagine most of you, use gasoline powered tractors and lawn mowers to maintain and beautify our home property, and I think we should have available road-tax- free gasoline (of any strange color) to perform these necessary functions, and I would welcome a substantial fine be imposed on anyone who puts that road-tax-free gasoline in any vehicle that travels on its own power on our highways, paved or not. There are substantial fines levied against people who are caught using tax free diesel in anything traveling on our public roads, the law is there – a good question to bring UP to anyone asking for our next and all following votes, I think.
UP may be used for people who stand UP for their rights, and paying road taxes for gasoline that is not used in highway transport seems like it should be within home owners and gardeners rights. UPDATE means a change or action to bring an action or law in line with reality, and I love our paved roads, but I choose to live in the country, and our roads remain unpaved – but I am happy to pay the road taxes (now Anderson Road will be smoother!) added to the gas I buy for the pickup and car I drive on, but much, much more when I reach the macadam or concrete surfaced highways, free of dust.
UPKEEP means to maintain in good condition, and we are all interested in doing that, and our governments are really trying their best, in spite of higher costs and decreased income. I have campaigned for political office – I have never won, but when I lost by 35 votes in a small city in Denver, 65 friends called and all most uniformly said, “Gosh, Bob, if I had known it was going to be close, I would have registered and voted for you.”
I think it is very important to vote for the people we expect to govern us, but it is more important to get to know how those asking for your votes think, and plan to work for us. It takes time and effort to do that, but it is easier for us to do than to do the jobs we are electing them to do. I think Democracy and America offer the best solution to our problems and happiness, but we must do our job in selecting those we elect. . . P.S. What do you, I, and everybody we know, do just before going to sleep; and just after awakening? U P ! . . good gardening by Bob Smith Hi there. Well, like you, and many, many farmers, we are waiting for the rain to let up! I mean, STOP RAINING so we can till our soil, and plant our crops and gardens. The lawns and weeds are really enjoying this weather, but I am getting a little nervous, and my mind is leaping frantically.
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Wednesday, 11 May 2011 20:17 |
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by Bob Smith
Hi there.
Well, in spite of the millions of bright yellow dandelion blossoms I mowed off with my first mowing – THEY CAME BACK! It is warm enough, and moist enough for grass (and weeds) to grow extravagantly, and mowing grass when it is more than three inches tall does nothing harmful to it either. I encourage mowing lawns, but do not encourage planting tomatoes quite yet.
My respected and valuable good friend, Ricky Kemery, the Allen County Extension Office Horticulturalist said in his Sunday, May 8 column to not plant tomatoes and tender annuals quite yet. He refers to May 15 as ‘our frost date here,’ (I call it the AVERAGE frost free date here) – but he did not take the statistics courses available to me at Cornell, where my professor did not consider “average” a very significant measurement tool, “because, if you stand with one foot on a cake of ice, and the other foot on a hot stove, you will not – on the average-feel comfortable!”
I am going to email him this column a week before it is published and I hope he will laugh a little, and if he is at all upset - I will even write a different column for next week. If you call him, you will find him welcoming to you, answer any serious gardening questions you have, but he will have received this. I, as you may realize, have made mistakes before – but his friendship, nor his ability to share knowledge have never faltered.
I am going to mow frequently, hoping to discourage the dandelions from enjoying my lawns. I am not going to till any garden areas (I will pull weeds, and Judy is tirelessly pruning perennial flowering plants and trees, and pulling weeds buy the buckets full, which we whisk away to our legal burning area way out here in the country, where they will die a glorious death someday – when they dry)!
There are cool weather vegetable and flower plants that can be planted now, and, of course, there may NOT be another serious frost – but I prefer to till our vegetable garden in the fall after harvest, and again in the spring, before planting, and we, like you probably, have some heavy clay in our soil, and if tilled when it is too wet, it can form into almost cement-like clods that plants don’t do well in, so I am waiting, anxiously, for the rain to stop, the soil to dry.
If you can squeeze a handful of fresh garden soil in your hand, and water drips out, your soil is too wet to till. BUT if you haven’t, some samples of the top five inches of soil can easily be put in a bag or box, identified, and taken to a soil testing lab, and you will know more about the properties of that area of soil than you know now, and what you should do to make it better perform for you.
Many garden and farm service stores will do free soil tests on the samples you take to them, there is a fine soil testing lab in Fort Wayne, (A & L Great Lakes Lab., 3406 Conestoga – 483 4759 (call for directions), which is where the Extension Office takes all the soil tests you take to them, and the cost is the same as if you took them to the lab – the results of the test, and their recommendations for improvement are mailed directly to you.
It is too wet for farmers to plow, or you to till your garden, but digging six inch deep soil samples, and identifying where you dug that sample, and noting it on a map of your garden, lawn, or property – so you can take advantage of the results of your soil testing, will make you a happier, more productive gardener. There will be a better time to till and plant, and crops will be better. . . . good gardening by Bob Smith Hi there. Well, in spite of the millions of bright yellow dandelion blossoms I mowed off with my first mowing – THEY CAME BACK! It is warm enough, and moist enough for grass (and weeds) to grow extravagantly, and mowing grass when it is more than three inches tall does nothing harmful to it either. I encourage mowing lawns, but do not encourage planting tomatoes quite yet.
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