TOPIC: opening day...

Hot and Dry ... the last two years our July, Aug, Sept had a lot of that... hard on the seng.

So far this year we have had some hot but also had good rain with it. My yard grass looks like it grows at least an inch a day.

If this rain holds up, I will have a good crop of seed bed berries. it takes a few good rains in July and August for me to get a good crop.... and we don't always get that.

PS... off work now and today on my lunch hour picked a big bowl of blackberries...some super plump whoppers too. Going to have some for desert after supper tonight. Going out now to do my second pick of cucumbers... I made 3 quarts of pickles off my first picking (and ate some fresh too)... That was last Friday... and today it looks like there are plenty more ready. I am going to have all of my fermenting lids tied up soon, and half gal mason jars Love those garlic dill fermented pickles.

Hope you get some rain soon Chief !

TNHunter

Hey guys, it's been hot (mid 90s) and dry here with no rain. I haven't counted the days but would say at least 10 days. Last year the creek through the property dried up some time late Sep or so, it's dry now. I have to put water out for my pups who usually cool off in the creek.

I'm glad that I tapped into my water line this past spring and ran lines out to my garden and newly planted orchard because I'm watering regularly. Everything is looking good but not not ready for harvest. I did get some strawberries but the birds got more before I fenced them off. Corn looks good and cukes got lots of flowers. I have clusters on my cherry tomatoes and several green tomatoes elsewhere. I have a nice looking giant Marconi and jalapeno, I never seem to get multiple peppers on my plants. Maybe this year.

Checked out one of my honey holes several days ago and the deer are feasting big time. Fortunately on several plants, they've left the berry stems so perhaps all is not lost. Near that same hole, I was at a game cam when something caught my eye, it was three very small bear cubs climbing down a tree. I suspect mom sensed me and called them down, I never saw them afterwards despite moving in that direction with my camera at the ready. I actually felt relieved they moved away but I could not stop myself from trying to get a pic. It was kind of like a very bad horror movie where the main characters can't not explore places where you know something will kill them, and it does.

TN, the first fall (2018) I planted wild sim, I didn't know I had wild growing and planted within one colony. I did spread them out trying to plant the way I figured they'd grow wild. So I don't think I planted too close, plus I planted mostly down slope of the main colony, by luck.

Last year I planted per your 2 seeds per square foot suggestion in places that had companion plants or that I just felt good about. This year, I found wild within a couple of those sites. This is why I became concerned with my "determination" requirement post. After speaking to my wife that I may be on the DNR's 10 most wanted list, she laughed and diffused my concerns.

I definitely am not doing this for profit but as a hobby since my accountant (wife) ensures me we'll die with money in the bank. I think what intrigues me in part with ginseng is that so many people value it and so few possess it, and I'm one of the few. If I can attempt an analogy, when I see a new plant, wild or sim, it must be like a baseball player feeling a pitch hit the bat's sweet spot and know it's going deep.

Sorry for the corn!

Just heard thunder, maybe we'll get rain tonight. Wow, it's right overhead, yes!

It tried to rain here yesterday evening... got some dark clouds near by and thunder... but no rain at my place... but my not to far off neighbors got some. Late evening pop up thunderstorms...

It is not dry here... very green and lush... but now our July and August can turn quick... I am happy for what we have now.

In 4 days, my little cucumber patch produced 42 more pickling size cukes (I picked all I could find, 4 days prior).
I put up (in fermenting brine, and jars / lids)... a half gal, and one quart after picking yesterday.

Right now I have a half gal and a quart in the fridge (done).. and two half gals, and 2 quarts fermenting on the kitchen counter. they were started 4 days apart and I like to let them ferment for 10 days total... get super tasty that way.

I have a total of 6 half gal mason jars destined for fermented pickles..
I have told my next of kin... that they can have the rest after I get those filled !

Picked 6 big old hefty BIG BEEF tomatoes today... oh man... now that is Summer !

TNHunter

I finally took the time... braved the ticks and chiggars... and got a couple pics of my seed producing bed...

also checked out some wild sim growing near by and saw several nice 3 prongs with berries on and looking good.

Here is what my seed bed looks like today July 8th..

With plenty of rain they are looking nice... as expected.

TNHunter

Here is a up close of some nice ones !

A few (double 3 prong tops) in there and a nice 4. Flower spikes turning into berry pods.

TNHunter

looking good TN.

TN, healthy and sweet looking plants. Can I ask what you do with your seed producing beds? Do you plant the berries or (I forget the term at the moment), dry them... Darn, am lost for the name of the process and too lazy to look it up. Stratify! Is that it?

I'm wondering if i should plant berries near their colony or if there is a more satisfying/prudent process?

It's cooled here with a bit of rain but not enough to soak to the roots of anything, I guess it's suppose to heat up again. I haven't been up in the woods lately, the last time was kind of depressing with the deer invasion. In May I marked quite a few plants with survey flags and I now have a lot of lonely survey flags.

One doe had twins and she has terrorized me and my dogs to the point where I started carrying a stick. She's chased the dogs and has been within feet of us a few times. I saw her twins on a game cam awhile back and today she brought them out and across the field.

Oh, what is a double three prong? On some of your plants, the two smaller leaves look larger than what I've seen, is there a reason for that or just the photo causing that impression?

My garden is doing really well though weeks behind yours, I need to invest some time to learn how to can veggies, I tried to get my wife to take on that role but she's not interested. Like composting, which she thinks is a great idea and we need to do it, she's not will to get her hands dirty or research the project. Too many books to read, too many soccer games to watch (she's English), and too much internet to look at. But I love her cause as a city girl, she moved into the woods for me, can't beat that.

Woodsrunner... yes, stratify is the name of the process that you can do to get a batch of seeds ready for planting... so that once planted they will come up the next spring.

You have to collect the berries, separate the seed from the berry/pulp, then put the seed in the ground, in a ideal location protected so that varmits can't get to them.. needs proper moisture content, etc... In Scotts book he describes it well. They are usually stored in Sand, or some user leaf mulch. and keep them in some type of screen pouch, so voles can't get to them.

YOu put them into stratification one fall... and then the next fall you can pull them up, clean up the seeds (float test them, clorox treat them) and then plant them...

I have never tried that myself... I just plant my seed producing bed berries (on a good year 400-500 berries)... most have 2 seeds each, but some have 3 and some 1.

Plus all of my wild simulated that is 5 years old or older... those are producing berries too.. and I pick them and plant them too.

After you plant stratified seed for 4-5-6 years, your own plants should be producing enough berries that you may not need to buy anymore seed. that is where I am now and have been there a few years now. I planted my first wild sim in 2010 best I remember.

I have had good luck with planted berries... so I don't plan to stratify any...

A double top is when one root, on the root neck, it produces two buds, and sends up two tops... I have 3-4 of those in my seed bed, and they all have two 3 prong tops. One root, two 3 prong tops off that same root.

I have found one root in the wild before that had 3, 3 prong tops coming off the same root.

Billy Taylor had a youtube vid online, of a Monster Root (5 oz+) that had 4 - 4 prong tops on it. Watch the vid below... you wold like BIlly. I doubt there are many folks that love seng hunting more than Billy. He even had his own TV show for a while there.. FIlthy Riches... it may still be on Hulu, or on Youtube if you want to check that out. PS... 5 of the roots in my seed producing bed I got from Billy (to diversify my genetics some).



Composting is easy.. you just need a place to pile it up and let it rot... I have been doing it for 30 years or so.

We put all veggie based food scraps in the pile, pealings, spoiled fruit, etc.. and all egg shells... I put some grass clippings in, and some garden waste (like all my corn stalks after spent)... and in the fall after everyone is done with their fall display (0ld hay bales... I collect some of those and put them in my pile).. I just let it all rot on it's own until about late Feb... on a warm day and I will turn it over a few times... and by April it is ready, nice stuff... things grow like crazy in it.

I even had a spagetti squash plant sprout in my left over compost pile this year, and I just let it grow and now I have 5 nice mature spagatti squash to harvest from my compost pile.

Compost piles are a must for a serious gardner...

TNHunter

TN, first the Billy Taylor video, yep, I could sit and drink a cold beverage and listen to him tell seng stories all day.

To know you have a a two or three top, you must carefully expose the root yea? I have some good size three-prongs growing close to each other but have figured they were separate plants. BTW, none of my tops are near to the size that Billy dug up in the video.

Stratifying, as I've previously read seems like more work than I'm willing to do so I'll continue to just plant the berries. I would like to plant them this fall in a manner that I can monitor them in the future. Last year I planted them near their mother plant and stuck a stick in the ground next to them. I'm thinking more of a 2 berries per square foot or so plot similar to how I planted sim seed last fall.

I've heard of composting systems with 3-5 stalls where you dig and move the product as it reaches a particular stage of composting to the next level... I'm sure it can be less time consuming than that.

I think the 3 stall composting method would work fine..

it just depends on how quickly you need to make it... Some gardners are extra busy, planting in succession... early, mid, late crops... and use compost on all...

Me.. I really only use compost on my spring plantings... so I just need one big batch to be ready in April. I nomally plant April/May and then about the end of July, or early August, all that will be done (in another week my sweet corn will be done) and I am going to do one more picking of my cukes today and then pull those vines up (5 Gal of Pickles is enough). The last things I will pull will be my cantelope and tomatoes... sometimes I leave my tomatoes late, but that is just one row in my garden now.

What I do clear and pull.. I will just break up agian, and plant in some greens for the fall and winter months.
I don't need compost for getting a good crop of those, but I do put down some blood meal, a little bone meal, green sand, epson salt... before I plant my fall greens and they do well.

So if you only need one big batch of compost to be ready in April... just pile it up all year and mostly just let it set there thru most of the winter, then late winter early spring, start turning it over, now and then, to finish it off well. By April I have a nice pile that is nice and finished and ready.

At that point I start a new pile near by, and anything that is not nice and finished in that last turn that I do.. I toss into the new pile, and that new pile goes on until the next winter and spring... all of our new scraps go into it... so I basically have a active new pile, and a finished pile... part of the year. That finished pile usually gets used up between april and may.

This year, after planting everything I still had a nice little pile of finished compost... so I just spread it out (about 6-8" deep in a 6 ft circle and planted taters in it.
And I put a pile of old rotten hay on top of that... made a nice tater bed. Those tops are dieing back now and i will be digging up a nice tater pile here soon... then I will put the compost that is left from that into the active pile... and will have just the one pile the rest of the winter...

Lazy composting... or just doing what works for me anyway.

TNHunter