Bark, I would love to help you with the keg, but I can't get to Kenai on my quad before the keg has to go back.

 

We actually leave em in the ground till the last minute. The tops dried and fell off quite a while ago. Being gone two weeks at a time makes things a bit challenging. 600 POUNDS????? I hope you are digging with diesel power!!!

All told, we will probably have harvested about 200. We tried russets this year in addition to red's and YG's. Started digging here and there a while back. We include a fresh raw potato in our juice every morning, and have one for dinner almost every night. I LOVE the durn things!!!

 

Wyododge, I wish we dug the spuds by diesel power or any other form of non-human power. A buddy of mine at work and I have an ongoing debate about whether DW and I are farmers or gardeners. My answer is that we are gardeners because there is no way that farmers would plant, weed and harvest nearly as much as we do manually. A farmer would have a machine.

Farmers are smarter than gardeners.

As for breed of spud, we have tried darn near every spud in the book, including blue skin, blue flesh, fingerlings and sweet potatoes. We have a very short growing season up here (last frost about June 1 and first frost about Sept 15) YG's have proven to grow fastest, store the best by a long shot and they grow shallow and close together. They harvest really quickly in our soil conditions.

Oh yeah, they make amazing fries and mashed.

 

I think I have the same soil you have. (prairie muck) I've been having trouble with it's chemistry getting messed up with too much rain, or rock hard without rain. This spring I tilled in the grass clippings from about 4 acres from last year into my 1/2 acre garden. It took about three separate applications to get it all in over almost a month of tilling.

I've never has such a good garden, and the soil is downright fluffy. Lifted the carrots yesterday with my bare hands. We got about 700 lbs of butternut, sweet dumpling and another small squash from 5 hills. About 6 bushels of Amish paste tomatoes from 3 plants, coupla bushels of green peppers from 7 plants, etc.

 

Tanks but meez got er wonderbly unker troll.

Actually, I figure the keg was a test. I was getting fat as a pig (and drinking too much) so I had stopped drinking months back and had set Sept 20th as my reward date (09-20 has a special symbolism to me).
Sept 20th has come and gone so today I did have a little bit of beer but don't feel like I have to drink the whole thing so it doesn't go to waste.
Who knows, maybe I am finally growing up.

Well, back to boxing up some frozen fish for the trip south (flying, so its gotta be 50lb boxes or less) . Get to take my Dad out hunting in CA in a couple of days. Haven't seen the truck since May but I stored it in a manner that should have kept all of the spiders, lizards and snakes out of it this time.
No guarantees on the bird poop.

 

well hopefully you don't end up hunting spiders, ect... that love your truck.
still chuckling at the FIL situation, change your phone numbers in their address book....

happy my tenants and their smoking will be gone! holding off on renting it, we have some friends out West coming maybe..never been out East so they might as well use the apartment for home base.

have to check the garden tomorrow, think it is being overrun with cherry tomaters..learned to cure the peppers for extra sweetness. miss the thick walled bell peppers though, dang kids (switched veggie id tags as a prank)

feel like that Rosanne Barr snickers commercial
"my BACK hurts! log hits her.."now my front hurts!" ..same whiny voice.
better try to snooze. cold tomorrow and lots to do.

 

THAT'S who you remind me of! Never realized it 'til you said it, but now it all makes sense!



Morning all.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 24th:

1789 - The U.S. Congress passed the First Judiciary Act. The act provided for an Attorney General and a lower federal courts.

1869 - Thousands of businessmen were financially ruined after a panic on Wall Street. The panic was caused by an attempt to corner the gold market by Jay Gould and James Fisk.

1929 - The first all-instrument flight took place in New York when Lt. James H. Doolittle guided a Consolidated NY2 Biplane over Mitchell Field.

1955 - U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower suffered a heart attack while on vacation in Denver, CO.

1957 - U.S. President Eisenhower sent federal troops to Little Rock, AR, to enforce school integration.

1960 - The first nuclear powered aircraft carrier was launched. The USS Enterprise set out from Newport News, VA.

1963 - The U.S. Senate ratified a treaty that limited nuclear testing. The treaty was between the U.S., Britain, and the Soviet Union.

1996 - The United States, represented by President Clinton, and the world's other major nuclear powers signed a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty to end all testing and development of nuclear weapons.

1998 - The U.S. Federal Reserve released into circulation $2 billion in new harder-to-counterfeit $20 bills.

2001 - U.S. President George W. Bush froze the assets of 27 suspected terrorists and terrorist groups.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:
It takes less time to do a thing right than to explain why you did it wrong.

Coffee & ph00 are ready. Fuzzy donuts are on the counter.

 

J-Martin - I have debated the lawn clipping concept for a few years. I am glad it worked out of for you, I might have to give that a try this coming spring. The best thing I have ever done for my soil is to add a bunch of nice, mellow (aged 3 years) cow manure. In last week's breakroom I mentioned that I give my hay to a farmer friend of mine. He returns the hay to me after it has been processed by his cows and then allowed to age for 3 years, like a fine wine. He has also told me that I really need to add a few dump truck loads of sand to the soil.

 

You're getting most of the nutrients you need from the manure. If you put too much into heavy soil, PH will go way up and lock up the nutrients. That's what was happening to me.
Sand doesn't help all that much. Decaying humus is what you need. Any source of cellulose will help. (grass, sawdust, etc.) As it's decaying it ties up some of the nitrogen, releasing it as it decays. Not a bad thing at all, just know the process.
Another thing I do is help the phosphorus and PH at the same time by adding a little superphosphate.
My daughter does a small extreme production lot in the city. She uses alfalfa pellets as her main soil admixture. Good source of both humus and nitrogen.

 

Morning.

 

Morning/Afternoon sweety! How's King Richard today?

gonna head down to Birmingham and slap some auction insurance guy real soon thought I was dealing with someone in India for the same reply no matter what (like IT help)... ready for BBQ or waffle house then Rick.

chaikwa, (RE rosanne Barr) not quite, half her size and I can sing the National Anthem.....you can get to know her though, she grows nuts

btw, thanks for looking for that gift item in New Hampshire fer me....

got to do all bad news stuff today, hope it is received at par. feel for folks with no options..

 

If I were her I'd punch you in the mouth!


Afternoon all. Just got back from a 9 day motorcycle trip with good friends and family. Had a blast!

What did I miss on DTR?

 

Lets see...

diggin taters, Rosan Barr (shudder) and cow manure.

Pretty much the same all around.

Off to the wild blue yonder, Y'all be good!!

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8N_tu...eature=related

Todays Jim Hensons birthday, gotta give that guy credit for hours of funny stuff
Coffee is on....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9r00e...eature=related

Pancakes are hmm ready I´d say http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMAO6...feature=relmfu

Have a nice day.

Slev

 

I'd actually LIKE to meet Roseanne. She's just off center enough that we might get along famously!
As far as 'the item' goes, I looked at a NH State store today, (only place you can buy stuff like that in NH), and they didn't have it... "YET". Going to Boston Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, so I'll poke around down there if time allows.

She'd prolly do just that... if she could reach that high!

J/K sis!

Afternoon all.