Bryan Greenbeard of Minnesota's 2017 Plans

Sunday my Aunt gave me a whole bunch of wildflowers she had growing in one of her gardens that she was thinning out.  Got them all planted, and watered since taking the pictures.  Ive still got about 4cu feet of Mels that im probally going to top these guys off with come daytime on the marrow.   Hoping once the shock wears off they will mostly be ok.

Also Momma Hen has a Flower on it.. just thought i would share, as apparently they only flower ever 7 years..

Wow, GB, quite the transformation!  Makes my back hurt just looking at your pictures! Nice work!  

On the perennial transplants, might wanna cut some of the blooms off so the plant can concentrate on rooting.  Pretty

Momma Hen is flowering

After talking with aunts, cousins, mom and realizing that none of them has ever seen a Hen flower, I figure i should share this beauty with you all.   feel free to share as you need or want the pictures.

O! Thanks! I have never seen them flower before. Way cool!

Turan wrote:O!  Thanks!  I have never seen them flower before. Way cool!

Ditto!

CapeCoddess wrote:

Turan wrote:O!  Thanks!  I have never seen them flower before. Way cool!

Ditto!

+2!

Beautiful.

These were taken over the past week.

Ive been talking for about a week now that i needed to pull the taters out of the ground. as by all signs they were done.  They flowered weeks ago, while watered a couple of times a day they ended up looking about half dead.   So after we got home from dinner my girlfriend asked if we could pick the taters as her daughter was over and probably wouldnt be today.  I henned and hawed and said no it will be well after day when get finished and i dont really wanna get stung by sketters.   a bunch of pleases later, gave in and said sure we can pick a couple.    Went and emptied out one of the wheelbarrels to put them in.   She had started picking the taters to show her daughter what they looked like right out of the ground, but she couldnt tell me which of the plants she pulled them from.. as taters are the roots.. so i had to pull everything out, after sunset as i didnt want stuff to die overnight.

This is the yield of 1 square of white and 11 squares of red potatoes, or 12 square feet of the beds.   Im very disappointed, sad, disappointed.   I expected at least as many as would have been in a bag of potatoes from the store.. got half that.   There is enough to make possibly 2-3 meals out of them.   I did not build UP for the taters.. would that have made a difference?  It was exactly 60 days of growth in the garden for the taters.. research said they needed 110 days to grow..    Did i somehow speed up the process by 50 days?   The taters harvested DO taste good.

Greenbeard, I wouldn't beat myself up over the potato harvest. I don't know how big they are but some of those reds look really good. Have you tried one yet? If they taste good, it is a success. Some potatoes don't need to be towered with soil as they only produce at the original level.

They do taste good. as do the peppers.  i had one of the peppers with some taters mixed in with some pasta for lunch(at dinner time) yesterday.

Girlfriend and mom and aunts also say the same thing bout the taters.  this is better then any yeild they have had before.   GF is happy if stuff dont die a week after she plants it..

I just feel.. like im doing something wrong.  built the super pricey raised beds and filled it with this expensive mel's mix that from all i read and studied about is almost  like a magic mix of yummy goodness for plants.  Just figured the yield woulda been more then what i ended up with.


Its a good first year w the method..
*I Know i need more beds. I know i spaced everything way way too close together. 
*I am always going to give tomatoes 4 squares to bush out in, as 1 is too compact and 2 would not be wide enough.
*Ill be only planting 2, not 4 potatoes per square.
*I know Mint is aggressive as heck and while it Loves eggplants it tries to strangle the hens/chicks by sending roots over along the surface and wraps itself around the hens but totally ignores the eggplants growing Right next to it.
I know strawberries are not happy at either place where i put them. (too much sun, not enough)
I know pumpkins (jack be quick) grow and spread like crazy if planted early/mid july.  (mine have gone crazy in about 3 weeks)
I know the raspberries are happy.
I know the tomatoes are very very happy.. so much fruit either almost ripe or just going from flower to fruit.
I know the peppers are happy.. but could do we being planted so they are not shaded by the taters or tom's
I know that ive had alot alot of fun.  enjoyed watching things go from little spouts and small plants to full grown. 
I know next year ill be starting from seeds.   Ive saved the pepper seeds to start for  next year.

60 days is about right for an early potato variety. Even they would like a little bit of hilling, more to keep the soil cooler and to protect the growing tubers from greening. Can you tell us in pounds what your harvest was for 12 squares? Five to 10 pounds would be normal range. As you learn your specifics you will learn how to increase that, but 5-10 is a good start.

The only scale i own is a 0.01gram - 100 grams max.    the white and red potatoes i ate both weighed over the scales limit for the large one, for the small ones they each weighed 2.24grams.

01 square of white potatoes 6 taters (ate biggest/smallest one) .27# (119.27grams remain) (I ate roughly half the yeild of white taters as my taste test. they were good.)
11 squares of red potatoes  (ate biggest/smallest ones) 6.95# (2853.67 grams remain + 3@ over 100grams) (what i ate didnt put a visible dent into the red taters)


I dont know the type or brand.  I just went to grocery store and picked up some organic taters in Febuary and picked up a bunch of red and a couple white potatoes, put them in the sun on kitchen table for march-may so they would grow some out of the "eyes"  cut them in either half or third if they were bigg.   Each tater i had the girls plant all had 2+ eyes with growth of at least 3".   planted Just deep enough in the MM that they leaves were bairly sticking about the surface.

**Looks like i have 68 days left until the first frost here in the fall @ oct5th for minneapolis,mn.

Thoughts on what i could go to the store and pick up to plant where the taters were?

Options that come to mind: beets, Swiss chard, kale, bok choy, carrots possibly.

i decided to just spread the hens and chicks out in the beds once things finish in the squares.

I made a walking tour a couple of days ago. link will be below.  As you can see from the photos.. alot is growing in the wildflower patches.

Ive been eating alot of tomatoes, the big ones are just finally ripe this week. cherries past few weeks, orange tears tomatoes also for a few weeks. and know i only need three next year.. not a dozen.. that would have been better served as another 9 pepper squares.  

The Pumpkin vine has gone crazy as heck   Both Jack be little and Jack be quick are producing.  total of 9 pumpkins, two in the process of turning orange. the others still just babies having appeared in the time since i recorded the video, as you can see only 1 of them was present.

I can honestly say that of all ive grown so far the Jack twins (pumpkins) love the mels mix the most.   well maybe the tom's as is alot of them.

I let the garden go for three days no tending the hybrid 100 grew like a magic beanstalk.. i had to prune enough out from through the whole 3x9 bed that i filled both my wheel barrels to over flowing.   It sure was a happy camper.

Most the rest of the peppers will come out this week.  

These were from a couple of days ago same time as the video.. for those of you that my walking about make dizzy..

Brian, Thank you for posting photos for me and other folks who can't watch home videos. You are doing a great job.

sanderson wrote:Brian,  Thank you for posting photos for me and other folks who can't watch home videos.  You are doing a great job.

+1

I ordered a batch of 100 seeds for these Rainbow Roses for next year.  They are obviously engineered to be beautiful like this..  no way these can be natural..

Greenbeard wrote:

I ordered a batch of 100 seeds for these Rainbow Roses for next year.  They are obviously engineered to be beautiful like this..  no way these can be natural..

Not only are they not natural, I'm sorry to tell you that the seeds are a scam. Is it too late to cancel the order? The roses in the photos were created by splitting the stems into different vials of dye, or injecting them with dye - you will not get roses that look like that growing on any plants you grow from the seeds (if they germinate at all.)

BeetlesPerSqFt wrote:

Greenbeard wrote:

I ordered a batch of 100 seeds for these Rainbow Roses for next year.  They are obviously engineered to be beautiful like this..  no way these can be natural..

Not only are they not natural, I'm sorry to tell you that the seeds are a scam. Is it too late to cancel the order? The roses in the photos were created by splitting the stems into different vials of dye, or injecting them with dye - you will not get roses that look like that growing on any plants you grow from the seeds (if they germinate at all.)

Luckily I didn't pay for mine, since not a single one germinated.