Nuts! The Farm Report 9-25-2018

Nuts!

The Farm Report: 9-25-2018

Rather, Carpathian Nuts! or Persian Nuts! or California Walnuts! By whatever name you call 'em, they are delicious and they are dropping right now. They have a milder flavor than pecans - and make Better-Than-Pecan Pie as far as I'm concerned.Click Here to see the pics in Google Photos.

Unlike our typical midwestern Black Walnuts, Juglans nigra, which drops the nut gooey husk and all, the husks on these Carpathian Walnuts, Juglans regia, crack open into quarters like a flower opening when they are ripe and ready to fall.  

This nut is ready to drop. All I have to do now is get to it on the ground before the squirrels do! 

BINGO! 

Well, as you might remember, I turned in my Official Organic Gardener's card for this year due to short help and bad weather - and maybe a little bad attitude, too. Here is one happy result. I sowed the ground around my melon patch with oats and rye grasses. Then, after they were up and the weeds were suppressed - without any tilling on my part! - I killed the grasses around the melons  with (No! Don't say it!) Yes. I used a selective grass-killing herbicide.  Result: Grown in place straw-like mulch and a nice clean melon patch.

After the sweet corn patch was put to bed, I immediately tilled it up and seeded it with a cocktail of buckwheat, oats, soybeans and rye. The buckwheat sprang up within about 3 days. 

Here is the same spot 1 week later. Amazing! 

The patch after about 5 days. 

Same patch about a week later. Cover crops were 'invented' by the Romans, and good farmers have been using them ever since. We do it on a commercial scale in our fields now. Except, I plant by hand and the field guys use an airplane. They plant the seed right over the standing corn before it is harvested. The idea being that the seed has a chance to fall to the ground and get a foothold. Later, when the corn has been harvested and the light let back in, the seed is ready to go - and grow for the winter. Next spring, it is part of the soil, including all the nutrients it has gathered and held over the winter. It works. My bank agrees.... and so does the garden.

The Thanksgiving lettuces are in the greenhouse. Zoey somehow feels the need to stand guard. Maybe she's afraid the chickens will get the lettuce. 

So where are they? In these Walmart sweater pans. I'm growing the lettuces using a passive hydroponic system. No pumps, no water falls, no nuttin' except plant, water and fertilizer. The system was origianlly designed by Dr. Bernard Kratky at the University of Hawaii. The roots grow through the 'net' pots into the water. As the water level drops, the 'air' roots develop. Lettuce loves this system. Not all plants do. 

View from below. The little 'net' pots hold the plants until their roots develop. 

So there were a few tomatoes this year. Waste not, want not, they say. So I picked a basked full and headed for the shop kitchen. 

At least we can make some decent chili this winter! Canning tomatoes has always been one of our most fun times with the garden. We like to play with our food. (I put a few cayenne pepper into the brew, too. But I won't tell if you don't.) I have another cayenne pepper story that involves Zoey, but I can't tell you here.

Nuts!
In Memoriam

When General Anthony McAuliffe was asked to surrender during a battle in WW II, his response was 'Nuts!' So it is with me. I am not going to surrender. Even though we have been surrounded and attacked - again.  Coyotes broke into the High Security Maximum Detention Area during the last 2 nights. They dug under and pushed open the chain link gate, after pushing through the electric fence wire strands! The Two Henriettas survived, but only 'Big Daddy' and his little pullet 'Sweetheart' made it through from the Replacement Platoon. Churchill said, "Never give in, Never ever ever give in!" And I ain't, but it is a disappointment. Here's to better news next time.