2023 agriculture efforts

[AnalogPackrat]

I got three apple trees planted, a Fuji, Yellow Delicious, and Anna (very early variety). The Anna is already blooming.



Needs more pruning, but that will have to wait until fall/winter.

Also bought some shiitake mushroom plug spawn. I've been thinning some sweetgum trees so had plenty of logs. Only had time to drill and plug two today.



Four small sacrificial logs for the base (to help keep other fungus from competing with the shiitake) then 4-6 inoculated logs will go on top.



Radiator in my '64 IH tractor sprung a leak last week, so had to pull it. Nearest radiator shop was an hour away--all of the new units are crappy unrepairable plastic and aluminum, so demand is low for repair of old brass and copper radiators. While I had much of the sheet metal off I've been cleaning it up and replacing some rusty hardware.



Old two row disc harrow also coming along. Rebuilt two axles with new 18" discs.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Nice... I never considered DIY radiator repair but AFAIK they just use solder...

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Nice... I never considered DIY radiator repair but AFAIK they just use solder...

JR

They do. But they also do a full dip in some nasty chemical vat to remove corrosion first. And they can fix (braze) where the mounting bracket had popped loose on one side. There weren't but a few thousand 404s made and there are no aftermarket radiators available, so I decided not to risk a DIY effort that might have made it worse.

The leak is at the top of one tube where it meets the tank. If it was in the middle of a tube I might have done it. Having to pinch/solder one tube closed isn't that bad as the core has 75 tubes.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Where I live almost everything is at least a half hour away, and the big city (Jackson) over one hour. It might be worth the ride to get the radiator fixed right. I don't trust those magic radiator leak goops that you just pout in, like MacGyver fixing radiator leaks with an egg white.

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Or ground pepper. No goop for me. It went to the shop Wednesday. Fingers crossed.

 

[separateness]

Very nice. I have two apple trees and a pear tree (also peaches, mulberries, blueberries, american persimmon, various plums, aronia, fig, muscadines, pecans, and a doubtful pomegranate sapling) but I am not confident they (the apples and pears) will like the heat and humidity here as they grow up. I will have to wait and see. Along with music, trees are a great passion of mine. Never had much of a knack for gardening though.

 

[Brian Roth]

My gardening skills are limited to watching the crabgrass and weeds grow, then mowing them down...lol.

Bri

 

[JohnRoberts]

I am already working on next years garden... I started 5 sets of seeds in my small greenhouse. 2ea tomato, pepper, squash, cucumber, cantaloupe. I used seeds leftover from last year's garden. Only one lonely tomato plant sprouted. I broke down and ordered a new batch of fresh seeds from burpee. The over night lows have been up in the 60s so I left my tray of seeds outside over night all week. Nighttime lows in 40s coming this weekend, so I may move them into the heated greenhouse.

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

while certainly not in blossom yet, I just did a close inspection and find early signs of leafing on a few fruit trees,,, (one plum tree, one apple tree, and the fig tree). So spring is coming.

The pine trees are already pumping out piles of pollen.

JR

 

[separateness]

My peaches are blooming and others are not far behind. The dreaded bradford pears (of which I have none) around town are full, white and stinking. I had been worried about a late frost as I can't help but feel we got off way too easy this winter. Looks like we might be okay though (knock on wood).

 

[AnalogPackrat]

Got my radiator back today. Reassembly will begin this weekend. Hope my pictures during tear-down are sufficient. Got some other new hardware to replace old rusted stuff..

Bradford pears blooming here as well. I need to mark several out back for later removal. My sapling peach (still in a pot) has leafed out. Need to get it in the ground. 3 of 5 blueberries in full bloom with leaves popping. Other two pushing buds. Hope to get some pecans this year. And paw-paw. Late frost last year zapped them just as they bloomed. Waiting to see if my two muscadines survived the winter. Birds and possum get all of my native persimmon.

Grass is greening up. Sharpened mower blades yesterday. Fun times.

 

[separateness]

I have some (tiny) pawpaw saplings too! I planted some out at my mom's house many years ago and they seem to have done quite well but they seem to be slow growers. Very cool looking tree though. Sounds like you got a nice setup.

That late frost last year (I assume it was the same weather pattern) wiped me out for blueberries. I was pretty nonplussed about that to say the least. We usually get a couple gallons of em but maybe got a few handfuls. Pecans are strange and seem to have a cycle only they know about for good years and lean years.

Muscadines are tough and the woods here are ate up with them but I may have pruned mine too early this year. I hope not because I paid good money for some fancy cultivars. Clemson extension says people used to prune them after thanksgiving but that later hard freezes can put a hurting on them so now they recommend doing it late January or so. I did mine in December then we had a hard freeze around the turn of the year or so.

Good luck with that radiator. I remember I had my truck in a million pieces, block out, and a dozen or so fuzzy pictures to go off of. By some miracle it still runs today. Had to do a little guess work on all the vacuum lines.

 

[JohnRoberts]

Got my radiator back today. Reassembly will begin this weekend. Hope my pictures during tear-down are sufficient. Got some other new hardware to replace old rusted stuff..

Bradford pears blooming here as well. I need to mark several out back for later removal. My sapling peach (still in a pot) has leafed out. Need to get it in the ground. 3 of 5 blueberries in full bloom with leaves popping. Other two pushing buds. Hope to get some pecans this year. And paw-paw. Late frost last year zapped them just as they bloomed. Waiting to see if my two muscadines survived the winter. Birds and possum get all of my native persimmon.

Grass is greening up. Sharpened mower blades yesterday. Fun times.

I only have two (different strain) blueberry bushes... I noticed today one is pushing out berries, the second one still looks dormant.

[edit= yup, pecans have a different rhythm .... I put out some fertilizer tree spikes, but need to hit them with dormant oil spray before they blossom./edit]

JR

 

[AnalogPackrat]

One of my local acqaintances runs a pecan business (in shell, shelled, roasted, candied). He says you need to hit them with balanced fertilizer (20-20-20 or similar) when buds break in March and when nuts start forming (July?). Optionally once in mid-May, too.

I have a lot of volunteer paw-paw out in my wooded areas. One big patch with "larger" trees about 2" diameter. Most of my wooded areas were cut over 25 years ago, but there are some 75-100 year old hardwoods in a few places. Not sure how old those paw-paws are, but no more than 25 years.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I have a bag of grass fertilizer that is probably close enough, in addition to a few tree spikes I put out a few months ago.
===
I just did a "hail mary" planting with several years of old garden vegetable seeds. Probably several hundred total but my recent planting of ten sets of seeds with only one tomato sprout germinating, then a second planting into the 9 dry holes about a week ago I expect those seed may not be very viable. I filled up a plastic planter tray with dirt and just dumped hundreds of old seeds on top of the dirt... I covered with a layer of potting soil and then watered liberally. I had at least a half dozen types of hot pepper, and other goodies.

I had several envelopes of onion seeds that I decided to spread over my resting compost heap. I have a new compost pile so this one is just sitting fallow. If I get onions or not it's no biggee.

My new burpee seeds are still sitting in transit in NJ, but I can wait. I'm just going to start them in my green house even though the night time temps right now are good for seedlings. We could still get a hard frost or two...

JR

 

[JohnRoberts]

New signs of life from my second planting of old seeds... I now have a second tomato sprout, and signs of life from the cucumber seeds. Spring is breaking out.

Pretty soon I will need to mow the weeds in my yard.

JR

 

[Soundwaves]

That lower photo reminds me of Dad's race cars when he was first putting them together and laying out the parts. So I think that is a race tractor plan.

 

[13engrsapper]

The cold 17 degree night we had in Charleston did in most of my tropical carnivorous plants. The local stuff lived, and the stuff that lives on top of Tepuis in the cloud forests. But even those took a very disappointing hit.

My Kaffir Lime tree is dead, Hawaiian Lei Tree Dead, night looming jasmine dead, and my curry tree... dead.

Weeds in the lawn, oh those lived.

 

[AnalogPackrat]

The cold 17 degree night we had in Charleston did in most of my tropical carnivorous plants. The local stuff lived, and the stuff that lives on top of Tepuis in the cloud forests. But even those took a very disappointing hit.

My Kaffir Lime tree is dead, Hawaiian Lei Tree Dead, night looming jasmine dead, and my curry tree... dead.

Weeds in the lawn, oh those lived.

Bummer. I hope we don't get a late frost like that.

 

[AnalogPackrat]

That lower photo reminds me of Dad's race cars when he was first putting them together and laying out the parts. So I think that is a race tractor plan.