Miragreen Peas

Earlier this spring I was on the hunt for a good variety of shell pea. I read a lot of reviews about miragreen peas being heat tolerant and producing for an extended period of time. I found the peas on Gurneys web site (and ordered). What I failed to read was how long the vines get (4ft)!  My “trellis” was only 2 feet tall so now they’ve all fell over making it really hard to pick peas because of the 4ft vines.

This posting is to inform others! I’m really liking the peas (full shells and good sweet flavor) but if you’re going to grow them make sure your “trellis” is supported well and is a least 4ft tall. I’ve already killed a few vines trying to get to the pods (ugh).
I’ve shelled about a quart of peas so far and it looks like there may be a lot more coming.

Strawberry Jelly. What’s it cost anyway?

We picked about 9 quarts of strawberries so far this year from the back yard. It’s amazing how a six foot round patch of strawberry plants can produce so many strawberries. We ended up canning 17 pints of strawberry jelly. Costing about $25 to can, 2 hours of canning time and 3-4 hours of taking care of the patch/picking. 1 pint of strawberry jam costs about $4 in the store so that turns out to be $67. We used about 6 to 7 quarts of strawberries for making  jelly and ate about 3 quarts of fresh strawberries (and there should be about 2-3 more quarts left to pick).
Pick your own berries are $3.25 a quart this year so I think if you did the math, the berries we grew would have cost about $46 (maybe more since they were organic L) . In the end, I think we have a better jelly than store bought and paid a little more if not about the same. At least I know what’s in the jar!

Don’t throw away that expired magic Jack! Free Phone Service

A friend of mine is using this and said it works well. An old magic jack can still be used using GVJack App ($20 for the software, 7 day free trial) and Google Voice. CNet has posted 2 articles on the subject. (Article 1 – Article 2 Download) User reviews at CNet have reviewed and rated the software/setup at 5 stars.
The part I don’t like is having a PC on all the time. Otherwise, I see people are switching from magicJack and Vonage to use this method. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to try it free for 7 days? I also read that Google Voice is free for 2012 but may require payment in 2013. The decision has not been made to keep Google Voice free for 2013.

GIMP – Free Photo Editor

An employee at work received an appreciation award last week. Her picture was taken with the presenter and she was holding the award certificate. The picture is to be used in a newsletter next week. The issue is, no one noticed the certificate was held upside down. yep! Can’t retake the picture but it must be used! On my USB drive, I have a portable photograph application called GIMP that I downloaded free from Portableapps.com. There is also a windows version on the GIMP web site. Using the program, I was able to “lasso” the certificate and turn it right side up. You really can’t tell unless you look really close.

I thought I would post a freebie program that others may want to use when they have a difficult edit to do. The program takes a little getting used to but it works well.

Composting Wet Leaves Stinks

After research, I found out why my compost bin is “smelly”. Adding too many wet leaves produces a different method of digestion. The type of digestion you want to achieve is called aerobic (the Greek word for air). These “creatures” live in the air converting the carbon and nitrogen inside the pile. The introduction of too many wet leaves does not allow the pile to get air thus the aerobic “creatures” can’t get into the pile. Without the oxygen (air) , this causes another form of digestion called anaerobic digestion creating gases such as ammonia, hydrogen, and carbon dioxide. The smell you might find in swamps, bogs, deep cold lakes etc. This explains the strong ammonia scent I endured while turning the pile. It was like all of the neighbors were urinating in my compost bin! LOL

Anaerobic digestion is a slower type of digestion and does not create the 160 degree temperature you would want to quickly digest the compost pile.

Resolution:
For 3 days straight I turned the compost pile and introduced more green grass. I broke apart the wet leave clumps already in the compost bin (taking from the bottom) and mixed them as the “brown” to the green grass. I had a small bag of vermiculite and perlite left over from last year that I spread over the new mixture every 3-4 inches. I think the same thing could be achieved using peat moss (cheaper). This method created the air pockets needed to get the compost bin back into aerobic digestion. The vermiculite and perlite helped to dry out the leaves and made the pile lighter.

I hope this helps someone else that “stinks”.

Garden Status – Saving Cauliflower Seed

We’ve started picking a few strawberries and the peas are starting to produce pods. Finally things are starting to grow. I decided to post a few pictures since I haven’t done so for a long time.  The strawberry net system is just about on it’s last leg!  Nothing a little bit of duct tape couldn’t fix! (Left Picture) Strawberries, elephant garlic, and peas.

This picture (Below) of peas I added lots of compost to the soil and mulched the top layer with compost.

This picture (below), I only mulched the top layer with compost.

I planted them at the same time. Not sure if it was the compost or not! It looks like we’ll start getting peas in the next 2 weeks. I was hoping to get a lot of peas this year.

The winter sown containers did not fair very well. Most of the containers had pepper seed planted in them and did not come up. The tomato seed did pretty well but I think they grow much better being started inside. Here are 2 pictures (Below) I took of the winter sown containers.

 The biggest bed (Below) has cabbage growing (slowly) and I just put in some cucumber seeds over the weekend. Hopefully the cabbage will take off and the cucumbers will not choke them out.

I planted some zucchini last Friday and they have sprouted today (below).
 I am an amateur at this BUT I left some cauliflower plants in over the winter. I’ve read you get seed the second year. From what I have read (which I’ve found very little on the subject), they flower and produce pods that kind of look like pea pods. I’ve been watching for any pods to show up but haven’t seen any pods yet. The plant below has plenty of flowers but it looks like it’s ready to die off once those flowers are gone. Perhaps someone whom has collected cauliflower seeds can give me some information?

The Heat is On! – Composting

There has been plenty of green grass to compost over the last 2-3 weeks. Turning the compost has been a weekly event this year, just to have space to add more. One of the bags of leaves I had was entirely too wet which made them clump together. I’ve changed my mind about the ratio of green grass to leaves. It seems to work out best to have a ratio of 2/3 green grass and 1/3 leaves. The wet leaves that were clumped together did not compost very well, leaving clumps of leaves in the compost. I’ve starting mixing old compost with new green grass so it can decompose the clumps. I’ve tried to layer the leaves and grass but have found it works best to mix them together. Maybe the ratio changes when you are using wet leaves? Hmmmmmmm.
The wet leaves left a lot of moisture in the compost bin which I think has slowed down the composting process. It has also made things “stink” a little more!
Is it all worth it? I can tell a BIG difference in the health of plants. I used compost in my strawberry bed last fall, adding about 3 inches on top around all of the plants. Almost immediately, runners came from everywhere and produced a lot of new plants. This spring the plants grew about 3 to 4 inches taller and are now loaded with berries (starting to turn red). They will need to be thinned out after harvesting this year. Anyone need some strawberry plants (for free?)
Worms: When I turned the soil in the raised beds this spring, there were more worms than I’ve ever seen in the beds. Last year I used the compost as a mulch on top of the ground around everything I grew. My logic was that I could turn the compost into the ground in the spring and use it as a mulch during the growing season. This is working very well plus attracting a lot of worms. The odd part is 90% of the worms are “babies”. I wonder if they’ll stay after they have grown up? (New Business, worm farm!)
Heat: The compost in the bin has been getting hotter as each day goes by. I’ve noticed each week when I’ve had to re-mix everything. Earlier I mentioned the smell. This year it smells a lot more like cow manure! (Bet my neighbors have made some comments when I’ve turned it!) I’ll have to research the topic a little more to try and figure out why. I am betting it has something to do with the wet leaves.

Morel Season – 2012

This year was the worst year that anyone has ever seen for morel hunting; at least for this area. We ended our year with a total of 55 morels for the year. Our average is somewhere between 1,200 and 1,700 morels per year. A combination of the early warm spell, no rain when it was needed, and the long period of cold nights totally messed up the entire season. Most of the morels found were yellow which pop later in the season.

I’ve mentioned in earlier posts about the morel “window”. What I’ve found is if the morels do not pop up inside of that window, they simply do not wait until later to pop up. For some odd reason I always hold onto the hope that they will pop up eventually BUT that has never happened.

No morels to freeze/store this year!

April 6th, 2012

Short and sweet today. 16 in VA, zero (yes zero!) in Pa. It’s looking like they will not come in this year. At least the black morels. Found 1 yellow morel and 15 fresh black ones in Va. Mayflowers are up in both states. We need rain and warm nights this week which it looks like we’re not getting much of either. I think I may wait until next Friday before looking again

March 27 – Pa Morels

I walked for 3 1/2 hours this morning and looked in some early spots in Pa. I found 2 places that had morels and found 7 total. The second patch had 5 morels and they were all frozen. They “snapped” off when I tried to pinch them off. I found them all on south facing slopes. This is the first time I’ve ever picked a frozen morel. The difference between Virginia forest and Pennsylvania forest is staggering. Pennsylvania has no mayflowers sprouting through the ground but everything is green. In my opinion, it’s still a bit too early to hunt morels. I’m going to wait a little bit longer before devoting a lot of time to hunting.