About peat

So, in an earlier post I "went off" a bit about peat and the propaganda surrounding the depletion of peat bogs. I have a tendency to do that at times. Let me explain.

Of all the acres (270 million) of peat bogs in Canada, in the entire history of the world about 0.001% of them have been harvested. Even if it takes 200 years for the peat to be replenished, it's growing back at a rate 50 times faster than it's being depleted. Basically, we are not destroying the planet by harvesting peat! We are not even making a dent in the available peat.

So it makes me frustrated that people say, "Save the peat! Buy our product instead!" When I see these things I understand that they're either misinformed themselves, or lying to try to get my business.

Everyone these days is "going green". I have nothing against environmentalism or environmentalists, I think it's great that we should take care of our planet. But truth is truth, and falsehood is falsehood, and making up stories to convince the uninformed to buy a product is wrong and I don't like it. So when I see things like those fiber pots, I actually have to look past the packaging and tell myself I'm buying the product on it's merits... maybe it will work better, imagine that!

OK, that's plenty enough soapbox. I'll try to avoid going off like that in the future. ;-)

Blast from the past - Part 1

OK, so, with the change in the site you can't really go back and see some of the fun photographs from long ago. I'm going to bring a few of these to you while we're waiting for the season to start.

You might wonder how I made this picture. First of all, this is not a manipulation in any way. One summer night shortly after I made the switch to digital (it's been a while), I set my camera on a tripod and tried to take pictures of star trails. Shortly after I began the long exposure, a plane started making it's descent towards our small airport that is about 4 miles away. The red line is a light on the plane, and the white dots are a blinking light on the plane. Flew right over my patch. Neat picture!

Winter experiments

Well. do you play around with seed germination trials during the winter? I do.

This time of the year all the stores clean out their Christmas stuff and start putting out Valentines stuff and gardening stuff, (if you're lucky). So I ran into these fiber pots (pictured below). All around the packaging was, ... ah, now I can't think of the word I'm looking for... rhetoric? no, that's not it, but a bunch of bleeding heart stuff about saving the peat bogs, etc. Anyway, they also claim that the fiber loosens up and allows the roots to quickly run out of the pot. Well, I'm going to try it out this winter to see if it will work well enough.

I don't like peat pots. They really don't break down in my soil.

By the way, you can see larger versions of these images by clicking on them.

Seeds, seeds, seeds...

I joined the NYSGPGA, and now I have tons of great seeds. Well, I had tons of great seeds before, but now I have more. It will be very difficult to decide.

One thing I will do, is double and possibly triple-plant every site. That plan really worked well for me last year. I had some plants flat-vine on me, and others just didn't want to grow. But I wanted to grow out five plants, and last year was the first time I've really been able to do that, to have all five plants grow out and do fairly well. Even with double planting, I think I had only two tough decisions... the others were made for me because the plant had some sort of problem.

So, in order to use this strategy, you have to plant a few more seeds than you might otherwise use. It also gets hard if you spend any significant money on one particular seed. (Hey, I spent $xxx on this seed, I'm not pulling it!) Fortunately I don't have to worry about that. I'm just going to pick 12 or 15 of my most promising seeds and let the best six win.

Planting sites

I touched on this back in 2005, and that year I had my best start ever, I think.

What it is, is digging out a four foot by four foot, by 1.5 to 2 feet deep at each planting site. Here is what I'm thinking:

Dig the holes.
Put down a layer of green grass clippings, mixed with straw.
Sprinkle a layer of blood meal over that.
Layer in a few inches of soil.
Layer in an inch or two of peat moss or really good finished compost.
Continue the layers of soil and compost until the hole is filled, and then over fill the site by a few inches.

Of course, I somehow need to find the time and resources to do this at six sites.

Some of my thought processes: I want to avoid salts in my soil. For that reason I'm hesitant to put down more manure, and that's why I'm focusing on grass clippings, straw, peat, and compost. But I think I'd need a fairly significant layer of grass and straw, activated with nitrogen to actually generate some heat. It would be fun to try this, and also to monitor any heat generated with a thermometer.

What do you think? By the way, you can respond to this and other posts by clicking the "Comments" link below.

NYSGPGA

Did you know that I'm now a member of the NYSGPGA? I really like this little card.

2008 Plans

OK, well, here we go!

I'm thinking of six plants this year. I took some time last fall to remove a raspberry patch that was no longer producing. This patch was right in the center of the space that I used for last year's patch. I've really burned it down and ripped it up with the tractor, plus, I did it before the canes had a chance to formally "go into dormancy", so maybe the roots won't come back up all over the place. Well, I certainly hope.

Some seeds that are on my short (long) list:

604.5 Warren 07 (1086 Holland X 125 Wolf) - This will definitely get planted.
720 Warren 07 (1191 Zunino X 1086 Holland) - Might get planted, but germination tests haven't gone well.
857 Christensen
1171 Christensen
1186 Bowles
1002 Bowles
1290 Poirier
1236 Wolf
125 Wolf
1185 Bortner

There could be more. I have lots of great ideas, as usual. I'm even thinking of using drainage pipes to feed the plants (roots) about one foot down.

For early season protection, I'm definitely going with my neighbor's design from last year. I will need to post photos. I still have a lot of soil work to do. Ah, I also found out that I can get a basic soil test from Utah State University Extension for about $14.00. I need to do this. Mostly, I'm concerned about salts and organic matter.

First day, will this work?

This is a test. Should I move my long-time online giant pumpkin journal to this new format?

Can I type things in newlines, etc...?

Photos, photos are very important. If they resize and reduce quality in my photos, forget it.