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Gardening with Leon


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Landscape fabric. They sell it, but I used leftover screen and fabric. I bought Home Depot 5 gallon buckets online at the bulk price, which Lowes doesn’t do. I used slotted black plastic 4 inch or do rain runoff plastic tubing, 10” cut, a single piece in each bucket. The cloth is to keep dirt out of the tubing. Water overflow holes cut with lower edge of the hole 3.75” up. 5” is too high- you won’t have an air space for the roots. TSC has a red funnel with a small outlet, and big top.i like the blue bags of potting soil, and Evergreen manure/compost. If you cut the rain runoff tubing right at 10” you may not need landscaping cloth to keep dirt out of the 4” tubing.

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    I’ve been playing his videos over the radio in the big truck, can’t watch em but get a lot of good info and entertainment out of them just listening while running down the road. 
    Hope to find some Diva cucumber starts like he uses, I’ve seen them in years past just never grew any. I’ve always grown Straight eight and Market more. 
    Called cackle hatchery to order some chicks and was told they are 8 weeks out , that’s alright I still need to build me a chicken house. Ordered several brown egg layers and some game chickens so I’ll have something that’ll go broody and sit and game roosters make good look outs for varmits and such, ain’t had any chickens for over thirty years because of having turkeys they don’t allow it for bio-security and now that I’m out of the turkey business I’m really looking forward to having chickens again. 
     What kind of pullets did you get?

       Jim

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TSC in Columbia, SC had Plymouth Rock pullets, which I got. We really like this heritage breed. Other favorites, but didn't get, are white-faced black Spanish, Welsummer, and Delaware. I was going to order from McMurray or Cackle, but USPS is really dragging out delivery times, and I was afraid it would be a death sentence for the chicks.

Diva cucumber seeds are on Ebay.

Leon is a humble, generous genius.

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    Rocks are nice birds, never tried any of the white faced black Spanish but I enjoy a multi colored flock. 
    I ordered some Diva seed last week from a place that pedals nothing but cucumber seed,ain’t got em yet , hope to find some sets local to save me a few weeks.

   Homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers are pretty hard to beat in my book. 
    I think your right about Leon , strikes me as a good man. 
     Jim
 

 

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

   Tony how are your buckets and barrels doing?

did you put your tomatoes and cucumbers in full sun or did you give them partial shade?

   I’m sure it’s hotter where you’re at but I’m concerned the barrels of cucumbers in water might burn up in full sun but don’t have the experience to know for sure

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The stuff in 5 gallon buckets are doing well. I don't think the blackberry and asparagus roots liked being transplanted, but they're alive, but for a couple blackberries. I've had no luck down here with blackberries, but I'll try again with this method. Tomatoes are popping up, and squash are happy. The yellow squash didn't root into the big barrels, maybe because I had small holes in the bottoms of the containers at first. They were getting dehydrated, so I just put them into 5 gallon buckets. I'll try a couple tomatoes in the big barrels. I don't know what's what with the viney plants: squash, cucumbers, cantaloupes, but some are doing well in the big barrels. So far, about 60 or more plants: watermelon, green beans, leeks, onions, tomatoes of various types, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, cataloupes, basil, potatoes (in two stacked trailer tires), okra, pumpkin, and cabocha squash. We'll see if a variety of bok choi comes up, but it might get too hot. The cotton hasn't been watered up the hill, and it got too cool for it a couple weeks ago. I'm not sure if it will come up? Tomatoes, from what I saw online, are supposed to be full-sun. Cucumbers generally are too, but they're in partial sun, as well as most everything else.

I have five Plymouth Rock hens in my huge coop. They're about a month old. I just installed an automatic coop door. I saw two hawks today, so I can't let them run free in the yard, but they have a long run. Hopefully that coop door will put an end to killings by possums and feral cats.

What, if anything, have you planted?

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  I don’t have anything out in barrels or lick tubs yet, I had trouble finding barrels that had been used for food products, lots of barrels but they’ve had stuff in them that you don’t want to grow in afterwards, but have some now that had flavorings in them.

     I ordered the Diva cucumber seed on line and started them inside in 4’’ net pots they are up big enough I can start putting them outside a few hours a day to harden them, plan on putting them in the barrels next weekend and putting me a few tomatoes, peppers,squash and zucchini in lick tubs next weekend too.

      Finished putting out my regular garden yesterday just before it rained again , it was almost to wet but things look good today after rain last night. I put out a lot of the same variety’s that I’m planning on putting in the barrels and tubs so I can compare them and not be worried about apples and oranges.... most I’ve raised in my regular garden for years just curious.

   Got my chickens on order from Cackel Hatchery for Aug.6th they are about an hour south so I Can drive down and not have to worry about the post office .

   I’ve got my chicken house started up in the shop on skids and will have to drag it with the tractor to where we want it, lots of aggravation but it’s always raining ...

     I’ve been looking at the automatic coop doors myself and racking my brain on which one and have about decided to just build a wire top run and call it good . What door did you end up with and what’s your impression so far?

  Lightning got both my sows and my boar hog but I had a dozen feeder pigs in a different part of the pen that survived. Heard from a friend that processing appointments are months out so called a couple Minnonite places today That I knew didn’t observe Memorial Day and no appointments till after the first of the year way to late for mine so looks like we’ll be doing it ourselves 

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Cackle Hatchery is good. This is the door I bought. Darned expensive, but so is my time invested in chickens. I've pittled with settings the last few days. I finally settled on using the timed settings. I don't like another brand of door that has oak slides. Wood movement is a no-go. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07GL47Z4G/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Green beans are doing very well in mostly shade. One of the barrels I'm using was a chemical from my brother's car wash. I rinsed it out at least six times, and I'm fine with that. Plants are doing well in it.

Pretty bizarre about lightning hitting your pigs! I remember a black and white movie where a guy was farming and had a crop failure. A guy chewed on him and said, "You farmers are gamblers!" I wanted to farm or ranch terribly bad when I was young, but in hindsight it's good I didn't.

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  • 2 weeks later...

  Wow you weren’t kidding when you said huge coop! I’d love to have something like that where I could could keep them separated . 
    Your plants are looking good too, I’ve been busy trying to farm, plant and get my first cutting of hay up and truck when it’s to wet to farm .

    Finally got some lick tubs with tomatoes and a couple barrels of cucumbers put together a few days ago but it’s to early to tell anything about them yet and a month later than I’d like to have started them but I’m just trying to get educated in all this so we’ll see how it goes.

    Haven’t had time to work on my coop much hope I can now that I’m caught up farming for a spell but did get a chicken plucker bought, I’ve wanted one for years.

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