The ides of April

Brent Dowell

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Reno NV
Did some gardening today.

Planted some strawberries, taters and onions. Also spent a lot of time in the greenhouse starting some more seeds, thinning existing seedlings, and general just plant care.

This little greenhouse so far has take some hefty winds and has exceeded my expectations. I've been having a lot of fun with it and go and visit it several times a day.

Actually went to the garden center yesterday and got a couple of shubunkin koi and water hyacinth to put in the pond with my el-cheapo comet gold fish. If I knew the water hyacinth was the same weed I used to love bass fishing on in the Cali Delta, I would have just drove down and got some. But that would have been way more expensive than 2$ a piece for four. The shubunkin were not so cheap...

Was a lot of fun, but I got too much sunlight. My face is burned, I'm beat, but I had a good time.

These are some shots from the greenhouse and my hillbilly koi pond. Sharon called it an accidental koi pond. I spent 45 minutes out there just watching them swim around and eat. Very relaxing.

I blame this new underground aquarium completely on Bill Lantry for goading me into making it.

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Brent looking real good. At least the local critters aint gonna be getting their hands on this lot :)

How the temp monitoring coming on? you got any interesting results from the monitoring system?

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@Don - Yeah, I'm going to need to rig some sunshades in the greenhouse for sure, but the plan is that most of the plants in there will be in the raised beds when it starts to get real hot.

The garden does good here, full sun, cool nights, as long as the critters don't get to it.

@Rob - I've got the hardware mostly working, and working on the software, but work and life is keeping me away from finishing that little bit of the project. Hopefully I'll get it done in a month or so.
 
Looks like a great time. I almost picked up some tomater plants yesterday. We have one bed under the deck that needs something, but the bed gets pretty wet and those probably wouldn't do well there, so looking at other plants for that spot.
 
Looking good Brent. :thumb:

Question: Is there any advantage to growing your own potatoes as opposed to buying them at 5 pounds for $1.89? Do they taste better like tomatoes?
 
Looking good Brent. :thumb:

Question: Is there any advantage to growing your own potatoes as opposed to buying them at 5 pounds for $1.89? Do they taste better like tomatoes?

Don't know. Been trying the last several years and haven't had one yet :rolleyes:

But I haven't tried real hard to harvest them. The big advantage is the variety I reckon, I.e. purple potatoes and some other varieties.

Even a lot of the other things though, like herbs, which are cheap, are better if you grow them and can harvest them fresh.

Plus there's that whole sort of self sufficiency thing should the mayan calendar doomsday predictions come true. :D
 
Looking good, glad to see that greenhouse is rocking a rolling!

You got a good start on the tomatos for sure. Gotta be looking forward to that!!

Re: potatoes

Once they are full sized there ain't much difference, except as you noted by variety. If you get a change try some of the little fingerlings, cut into ~1" long chunks, tossed with olive oil and salt then broiled they're about the best potatos ever.

Home grown spuds of the more generic sort are worth it for new potatos, just reach under the plant and steal a few to eat with spring peas (scalloped or "irish boiled" - http://www.foodista.com/recipe/YCYNSK8K/irish-boiled-red-potatoes - they lightly steam when put back on after draining and get a perfect texture). Those definitely ARE better than the store variety. You can't buy real new potatos (at least not that I've ever seen).

Its also easy to grow a lot more food than you'd reckon with ~40' of potato hills.

One trick there you might want to try is "straw layered hilling", put down a layer of straw along the spuds, pile some dirt on it.. repeat throughout the year. Makes it a lot easier to pull the taters out at the end than straight dirt and the straw mulches down nicely over winter.

While we're here - don't forget Potato Onions, that way if they grow you can claim to have gotten either potatos or onions depending on who asks :rofl:
 
Very nice Brent. Makes one want to do the same but, its easy to look at the result and not so easy to accomplish it. Congrats.

P.s. Love the view around your place. I don't understand folks that don't find the desert terrain beautiful ;-)
 
Question: Is there any advantage to growing your own potatoes as opposed to buying them at 5 pounds for $1.89? Do they taste better like tomatoes?

Vaughn, you can cut up a potato [either seed potato bought for the purpose, or a saved one from the previous year's crop, but never one from the supermarket] and grow several new potatoes. They taste way better when fresh than what you buy at the store. We are still eating from last year's crop. The self-sufficiency thing is very appealing to us.
 
They sprout, Jim, that's the temptation, but they don't grow well. Not sure if it's that the commercially grown ones genetically don't grow well when re-planted, or if it's a treatment put on them to deter sprouting. Not saying you can't do it, just saying you shouldn't do it, because of poor results.
 
I believe it a treatment so they don't sprout as easily on the shelf. We have a lot of farms around here that grow them so I can get them fresh from the field. Often I can pick them up in the field after harvesting cause they loose some when loading the trucks and don't bother with picking them up.
 
Looking great :thumb: & growing your own hat supply will sure save some moola :D

I needed some new hats, so I whipped up a little logo for my 'Isolated Desert Compound'.

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One of the other reasons not to grow grocery store potatoes supposedly has to do with seed potatoes being certified disease free.

Apparently it's a pretty big deal in Idaho.
 
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