A gardeners wish list

A Gardeners Wish List

"All I want for Christmas is five acres and a John Deere tractor and free gas and lots of volunteer help and five tons of compost and..." ~Carl Wayne

This is the time of year when friends and relatives may be asking you for a wish list for Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanzaa, etc. Master Gardeners sometimes are asked, too. Of course we accept all denominations: fives, tens, twenties.

In the unlikely event some gardener, Master or not, does not already have a wish list, this column will provide one for them. It includes the latest scientific breakthroughs, some which have not yet hit the general market.

1. Prebagged tilth. No more mulching and tilling.

2. Concentrated pH. No more worry with lime and sulfur.

3. Hair loom tomato cages made from woven camel's hair.

4. Carbon sinks to replace your porcelain ones.

5. Soaker hoes. Simply fill the handle with water and allow to drip while you are weeding.

6. Free range turnip seeds. No more eating turnips raised in confined rows.

7. Bolts of organic material. Easy to work with. Simply unwind.

8. Canned Parmesan mulch to apply to the top of your lasagna garden.

9. Organic honey scented Mobius pest strips. Instead of eco-harmfulc hemicals, the little buggers will land and walk theyselves to death.

10. Attract a Gardener. These little earrings are mulch scented and look like little flower beds infested with nutgrass. Also included is a list of sweet nothings in Latin.

11. Decorative compost made from Belted Galloway cow manure.

12. Bottled concentrated TLC weed killer consisting of fish emulsion, triple 13, compost tea, bone meal, and seaweed. Scientific reports claim TLC kills more plants than anything else.

While this list will not complete any gardener's wish list, it should be a good start.

Ain't God good!

Victory Garden status Dec 17, 2011

Victory Garden was visited by a band of angels (AKA Collierville Christian Church Boy Scouts) who mulched all the remaining bare places plus adding more leaves where they were a little thin (the leaves, not the boys). Plus they left a big mound of leaves next to our compost pile. Note the row of beautiful carrots. :)

Our garlic has begun sprouting. These are the earliest Thermadrone softneck. Some others are sprouting too. Hope and pray all thousand sprout and grow!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD PLIGHT!

Aint God good!
Carl Wayne

Victory Garden status 12/10/11 next work day Sat 9-11 RSVP

Victory Garden status 12/10/11

next work day Sat 9-11 RSVP

YTD 4,327 + 74 lbs = 4,401 lbs!!!!

Friday Debra Matton picked 8 containers of collard greens for total tare weight of 74 lbs, which I delivered to Harris Cove and South Street south of the tracks.

Next work day Sat 9-11am. RSVP to me if you'll be there.

To-do's:
1. This carrots by 50%.
2. Move leaves onto the bare spots in plots 2 and 5 (the middle ones).
3. Mulch plot 1 where the henbit is smothering the cabbages and rutabagas.
4. Harvest remaining collard greens.
5. Move compost from the pile into the raised beds.

Aint God good!

Spring Garden Team now being formed

The Collierville Victory Garden needs a team of four to six volunteers to begin planning and organizing the spring garden.

The team will come up with a planting plan for the raised beds. Then raise seedlings from provided seeds for the spring garden. We will do 2 kinds of carrots, 2 kinds of reddishes, 2 kinds of beets, early dutch cabbages, parsnips, 2 kinds of lettuce, chard, kale, and possibly more at your discretion.
Then transplant and care for them in our raised beds and then harvest.

All supplies will be provided.

We need to have the plan in place by Feb 1 and seeds started indoors.
Transplant into the raised beds after St Paddy's Day.
Target harvest May 1 completed by end of May.

Contact me.

Thanks,
Carl Wayne Hardeman
901-485-6910
mymaters@yahoo.com

Planting garlic 12-3-2011

On Satiddy December 3, 2011:

Jeff Golladay, Jimmy Gafford, Whit Whitacre, Wes Wooldridge and his two daughters, Dave Fitzgerald, Carl Hardeman, Debra Matton, Jeanne Cannon, two boys and 3 parents of the Crosswinds Elementary School Roots & Shoots Club prepared the soil and planted 1000 garlic cloves of 20 varieties, mulched it and put it to bed for the winter. As of this morning those beautiful raised (Golladay style) beds were up out of the water after 2 inches of rain. HUGE Success!!!

Link to pix may or may not work:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?sourceId=533754321803&cm_mmc=Share-_-Personal-_-Email-_-Sharee-_-Images&_requestid=97210

Dave is the project leader and did a fantastic job of organizing and documenting the planting. We have a new variable in that we planted cloves he saved from last harvest thanks to his wine cellar and very understanding wife.

Whit also fixed the flat on the wheelbarrow tire. Yea!

Debra and Jeanne will pick collards this week for local Food Pantry.

Carrots and collards and rutabagas and Savoy cabbages are looking goooood!

We still need to spread leaves from the leaf pile onto all bare ground in plots 2 and 5 (the middle ones on each side) and on top of the henbit weeds in plot 1 (far left) around the cabbage and rutabagas.

Note the beautiful spongy humus which was not muddy though the ground outside the garden is/was.

Note we applied NO fertilizer, we did this NO-TILL, and soil pH is ideal 6.8 - 7.1.

Hopefully someone can find some pine needle mulch to put on the garlic beds to bring the pH down just a little.

Victory Garden garlic varieties planted 12-3-2011
Ref: http://www.gourmetgarlicgardens.com/overview.htm

Ajo rojo
Bavarian purple
Belarus
Brown tempest
Chesnok red
Early Italian
Elephant (actually a leek)
Georgian crystal
Inchilieum
Kilarney red
Lorz Italian
Mountain Carlos
Music
Nootka rose
Red neck wild
Red toch
Romanian red
Simonetti
Thermadrone
Transylvania

Did I mention no-till?

Aint God good!
Carl Wayne Hardeman