Bryan Greenbeard of Minnesota's 2017 Plans

From what little i have read about roses, it is very hard to grow them from seeds, even if they are a legit variety.

I thought we discussed this rose ruse a little while ago, 2 years?

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Rainbow-Rose

https://community.ebay.com/t5/Home-Garden/Rainbow-Roses-Seeds-for-Sale/td-p/3010978

PS My mistake. We discussed the dragon rose. https://squarefoot.forumotion.com/t21133-blue-dragon-rose-seeds?highlight=rose

Yup, before Bryan joined. Unless you have the right background, you don't know these aren't real, and you don't think to check. Brad's atomic grape tomato looks pretty surreal to me. It sounds like neither Amazon nor Ebay have done anything about these scams during that time. On the one hand, that's pretty irritating. On the other, they probably get loads of people claiming 'scam' on things that are AND things that aren't -- and these are pretty inexpensive scams so they are probably low priority.

thats sucks.. but ill still try and germinate from seeds.  Ive got some Hungarian pepper seeds and red pepper seeds i saved from this year.

i do know about dying roses with food coloring in the sugar-water, I learned how to do that back in the 90s at Hen Tech when i was in FFA.   I just saw these and was like wow, thats cool if they work - it will save me some time doing it myself if i go with white roses.

Edit: it was only 10 bucks.. a pack of smokes, 1.5 beers at the local pub.

Keeping perspective and having a learning experience. Sounds like a gardener's thing to me.

Seasons come and season go.   Its turning towards fall here, all the leaves of drifting away upon the winds.  The frost is nipping at the air (and my Tomatoes..)    So the time has come to uproot and clean out the beds.     There were 7 Jack be Quick pumpkins, and 9 (hoping the 10th survives) of the Jack be Little pumpkins (from 1 vine each, will be measuring and see what overall lengths as they twined about in a 20'x30' section of the yard.

Today I cleaned out the raised beds. All of the Tomatoes that were left had suffered some frost damage so they got added to the compost bins. Pulled out the Peppers and Eggplants that were harvested a couple of weeks back. Moved the Raspberries from the bed to under the spruce's near the wood piles, will see if they like being transplanted this late in the season. I pulled all the mint from the bed as well and have it inside the house drying. (never planting mint in the bed again.. its a very mean aggressive plant.. trying to strangle the roots of everything else that was growing in there.


All thats left in the bed in a few clusters of hens and chicks.. and the Pumpkin Vines as Jack be little sprouted its last baby pumpkin on the 4th of October, which is the night my father died this year while on vacation with mom and my sis down in Cozumel, He was 68 and in full health when God called his faithful son Home.

I’m very sorry to hear about your father.  Sorry for your loss.

Hey, Bryan!  Glad you updated us, looks like you had a decent year, weather here was a little iffy...sorry about your dad.

Nice harvest Bryan. I too am sorry for the loss of your Father. It must have come as quite a shock.

Bryan, I'm so sorry about your Dad. It must have been hard on Mom and Sis as they were with him out of the States.

It was a shock..  He had no medical issues, a cold once in my 39 years.  Hes been a master diver since 72, dive instructor since 74 (casually) and gone diving everywhere cool on this earth.  His favorite place to snorkel was off the coast of Cozumel.   He had just lead a group of a dozen-ish people out for their first time snorkling.. half of them wore life vests in the ocean.   After an hour the group was tired, dad wanted to stay out for another 15-20 mins.. which was nothing.. he would go for a 2-3 hours at a time.      Bout 5ish on the 4th, my sister and one of the gals he took diving, went walking down the beach to get dad so they could go to dinner.   sis came across a couple doing CPR on dad.. but he was already gone.   paramedics were their shortly.   all the people they went diving with were paramedics, nurses (like my sis) or docs..   So was the right people to be their to do what they could.. but his heart simply stopped..   no water in lungs, no anneraism, no nothing but heart stopping, no bends, no nothing but God calling dad Home.   No trace of any pain or suffering.  He went in one heart beat, having just shared his love of the sea with a new generation of people.

Dad and mom went for a week to isla maharis (to celebrate their 40th anniverasy back in June) for a week, then they went to Cozumel and my sister joined them on saturday the 30th.  Thankfully sis has been a B.RN for a decade and is now a M.RN so has the clinical experience to fall back on.  She was a rock for mom, dealing with the embassy and conciliate down their.    Mom wasnt able to talk to me for a couple of days.. so shocking and sudden that it happened, she couldnt find her words.      I called the family up here, dealt with everything i could, from funeral home to going to the grave site, to a couple honour guards.. then the shock hit and now a few weeks later still miss him.   I used to call him every day for something silly.   I am lucky though, my last conversation with him was ended with i love ya dad, i love ya bry  just a few hours before he died.

I Know where he is now, i know whom he is with.  That brings comfort, miss him like crazy but who am i to argue with God calling his servant home?


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The harvest was very good this year.  So many pumpkins, one of my buddies has been growing them for a couple decades and he only got a single pumpkin off his vine.

I'll do a write up of what i learned in the next couple of weeks.   for snow comes this week and both my yard and my moms needs stuff put away for the winter season.

So sorry about your dad. What a perfect way to go, however, doing what he loved.

What I learned about Pumpkin's this year..

About Jack be Little. (baby pumpkins)
The roots only extended ~5” below the surface of the soil.. Roughly 2” growth of roots in 15 weeks.
The plant itself sent out 11 main vines and zero secondary vines. I was able to gather 10 little pumpkins varying in size from one of my palms to both of my palms.
The Vine lengths varied drastically averging 64” in length (though none were that size) 162”, 106”, 92” 89”, 38”, 38”, 37”, 36”, 36” a total of 10 vines (but not each vine had a pumpkin on it) with combined length of 708” or 59' long.

Mostly it stayed fairly close to the bed it was planted in. The two longer ones wanders in and out and through the Jack be Quick vines.


About Jack be Quick. (large pumpkins)
Just like Little Jack, the roots extended ~5” below the soil surface for both of the jack be quicks. The largest one did have some tap roots that it shot out and they spread thru the garden.. they look very similar to the roots that the Mint plant sent out to literally choke other plants, only the pumpkin taps just went horizontal at the level of the bottom of the raised bed.
ML= mainline SL= secondaryline, TL=Teritary line QL= Quaternary Line; P= Pumpkin

So the first plant had 3 main vines.
ML1 went 66” then SL1 went 153” no tertiary branches.
ML1 Continues 8.00” then SL2 went 89” no tertiary branches.
ML1 Continues 8.00” then SL3 went 66”, no tertiary branches.
ML1 Continues 8.00” then SL4 went 39”, no tertiary branches.
ML1 Continues 8.00” then SL5 went 32”, no tertiary branches.
ML1 Continues 43.00” than SL6 went 109”, no tertiary branches.
ML1 Continues 103.00” then SL7 went 55”, no tertiary branches.
ML1 Continues 85.00” then P1 grew and 1 Tertiary branch happened about 2” after the pumpkin.
SL8 Continued 305” then P2 grew and I removed 8” of vine.
SL8 then Forked after P2.
TL1 Continued 132” ended at P3.
TL2 Continued 156.25” ending at P4.
ML1 had a combined length of 1475.25” or 122' 11” HUGE HUGE vine with 4 pumpkins of decent size.

ML2 went 154” then forked.
SL1 continued 60”.
SL 2 continued 03” then forked.
TL1 continued 28” ending at P5
TL2 continued 57” ending at P6
ML2 had a combined length of 302” or 25' 2” with 2 pumpkins of decent size

ML3 went 158” forking just before p7
SL1 continued after p7 for 174”
ML3 had a combined length 332” or 27' 8'.
Jack be Quick Adam had an overall length 2109.25” 175' 9.25”

Jack be Quick Bob
ML1 274” before P8
ML1 continued 241”
ML1 had a total length of 515” or 42' 11”


ML2 grew 457” Long
ML2 had a total length of 457” or 38' 01”

Jack be quick BOB had a combined length of 972” or 81'

The Quick Jacky twin had a combine length of 3081.25' or 256' 9.25' +/- ~16”
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Notes: Each pumpkins had between 7-9” of vine.. for simple math I rounded up or down to 8” for the cuts.. so margin of error is ~8-16”. I did use a tailors tape for measuring as the vine did not grow straight enough to use a normal tape measure All three of the plants grew in a 30' x 20' area of the yard very much twining around each other.

All I gotta say is wow... that was one huge beanstalk..

I'm amazed at the total length of vines for each plant. All that growth from one little seed (well, big for veggie plants). Did you take a photo of the pumpkin patch?

WOW!!! Fantastic !!!

trolleydriver wrote:WOW!!! Fantastic !!!

+1

Thank you.   Im sorry for the late reply.. but thank you, its been a long winter, and either my sister or self have been over at moms every night but less then a handful since dad passed.  Im a night owl so ive been painting alot of figures for a few different armies, either for myself or others..  Ill add a reply here with some images of what i did over the winter as far as the miniatures goes..   To sum up what i learned about SFG gardening is i loved it.

I covered my beds with a few inches of hemp to keep them warm over the winter.    Should not have done that.  I had 1 single hen survive the winter.  
With moms raised bed. we did not cover it.   The hens loved the winter and sorta spread everywhere so ill have plenty to move into the beds here to get them back to spreading out here.   
Id read about both ideas being good.  maybe if had only used an inch or so of hemp would be different but it was 3-4" in places.

I kept the chicken wire frames up over the winter.  also should not have done that.. would have made shoveling ALOT easer.. did not account for winter here.

Im going to start a thread over in the show us yours forum to for year 2 and forwards, as id like to establish myself here and eventually figure out how to make a blog elsewhere so i can put my gardening, painting, and storytelling all in one place.     This is my favorite place to talk about gardening and learn from others who share a green thumb that im not related to..

Mom found that the dollar store in minnesota sells pots that are 1 sq foot just round, not squared off, for a dollar.   So shes going to try using a ton of them and see how things go.. as she doesnt want another 4x4 bed in the her yard atm.   Gotta trim the grapes over there once they wake up.

Happy 28th of April 2018 AD.   If its still cold where your at.. know it will melt, eventually.. we went from a no snow 3 weeks ago.  blizzard with 2' of snow 2 weekends ago.  to last weekend when it was mostly gone.. this weekend have next to no snow and the beds are no longer frozen.. with plants having been out for a few hours already for a week waiting for it to be warm enough to stay out over night and get into those beds.

Spring is finally here and folks are coming out of their dens.

sanderson wrote: Spring is finally here and folks are coming out of their dens.

All we needed was some sun and we start popping up like dandelions.

Welcome back, Bryan! I am sorry to hear your family had a tough winter and I hope the spring brings easier times.

Hey, Bryan! Welcome home!