TOPIC: Springtime!!!!!!

So what are you guys up to?

I am going to the mountains this weekend, and doing another spring planting of 2 more pounds. I've also got some bloodroot seeds and bulbs to put in, as well as manicuring the patches.

There's a great deal of deadfall branches -from the ice we have received up there- that need to be cleaned up. some of these are 6\" in width.

BTW, i've been off forum mostly for awhile. Got my breath back after losing Mom in lat Jan. The old saying that \" death is a part of Life\" is worth mentioning here...

I'm also going to manicuring the woodline behind my home this week. Plantings there have been pretty much a failure. I've got about 35 plants from 3 lb.s of seed. so, I'm going to continue to amend the soil there.... and put a few seeds in from the 2 lb.s i recently got.

Whitjr..

Sorry to hear about your Mom... Mine passed away last October. I know that is a hard place to be and I guess time will help us get past that. Thanksgiving and Christmas sure were not the same this year.

Not much happening lately here on the board. I did put down nearly 700 lbs of gypsum mid Feb and cleared some fallen limbs off my beds then.

We had a cold spell here lately but the past few days it has warmed up some. We have some serious bud swell going on now and my plumb trees are just about to break into bloom. They are my first things to bloom here.

The last two springs I have found 3 leafers up on March 20 and March 19.

I am going to have to get out and look some - perhaps on Saturday the 16 th and see if there happen to be a few early birds up. I do look forward to seeing them again.

Good Luck to you on your spring planting !

TNhunter

Whitjr
Im sorry to hear about your Mother as well. I lost my Daddy at the age of nineteen and to this day there is still so many questions I need to ask him and a multitude of advising he could help me with. He was also an outdoor's man and I know he would have enjoyed this venture of Ginseng growing with me. It's been long enough now that it seems almost like a dream when he was alive and ever so often in my dreams he still is. As Im sure you know, time heals the wound even though the scar remains, but at some point it turns slowly into only fond memories.

TNhunter
I was up in my plantings just before dark today. I may be wrong, but from the looks of things, I bet this year will be a few days later. Im not seeing as much growth from the earliest woodland plants as I have the last two years, I could be wrong though. I can tell my efforts at rodent control have helped but there is evidence a few didn't take the bait due to a few shelled seed. After checking my newly seeded areas I discovered there is some action going on under the dirt. They are all beginning to push out their little tails and getting ready to grab a hold. It wont be long now.

Hillhopper

Hill,
I'm of the same mind as you are about when I will be seeing my first plants. This winter has been a little longer and slower at moving on. It has been an extremely wet one and we've seen more snow here than I can remember in many years. Nothing over 5 inches accumulation, but it has just snowed for week after week for two and 1/2 months. I'm thinking that this will make a big difference as to how young ginseng will grow compared to the last 5 years which were consistently dry. Right now the ground is completely saturated and has frozen and thawed numerous times. I've finished all of my additions of ammendments, but nothing has started to show itself in the way of woodland plants. It's been raining all afternoon and as soon as I can get back in the woods and it is dry enough, I will try to get a copper spray down to protect in this unusually wet year. I will try to get another systemic spray down as the plants are emerging. For anyone living in Ky. Tn. Va. or N.C. I believe you would be well advised to try to get some kind of early protection on your plants because you can bet in a season as wet as it has been here you will see lots of blights and fungus problems ahead. Good luck to all of you as the new plants start to emerge.
Hugh

Hillhopper...

I think you are right on and I have noticed the same thing too.

It has just been a lot cooler the past 3-4 weeks (we even had some snow a week or so ago) than it was the previous two springs.

I bet we don't find any up by 3/20 this year. May be a week or two later.

I am going to look some this Saturday just to see what I can find.

My Plum tree is just about to bloom and my bradford pear is too. A couple of good sunny warm days and they will cut loose.

Hugh - on the spraying - I have determined not to spray mine with chemicals. What I do grow to harvest will be true wild simulated (in the deepest sense of the word)... wild as in never exposed to anything unnatural.

I plan to eat it myself too so it will be grown just like my garden food - completely natural.

Can't blame anyone that decides to do that though - and best of luck to us all !

TNhunter

Ahh the ole \"To Spray or Not to Spray\" topic makes its rounds again. Don't spray and you will have about 10% left at the end of 10 years. Do Spray and you will have about 50% (maybe less or maybe more depending) left at year 10. It is cool that many are doing it one way or the other and time will tell. Can't say I blame anyone that does or doesn't spray. Pros and Cons for both approaches. Some spray the first 3 or 4 years to get the plants started off good and then stop from there on out. Kind of a mixed approach I guess. Makes sense to me thou. They sure are more hardy at year 3 and 4 and onward than they are at year 1 and 2 assuming they are free of disease and all.
Either way I wish all you fellas the best!
Latt

I would like to say that I could grow my veggies in the bqackyard w/o amendments... however I choose to use the stuff I am using. And the Bugs here are tremendous. We get literally swarms of \"June bugs\" and squash borers. I have some success with buying praying mantis egg casings, and putting them out, however soon the little mantis's move on, and I'm back to square one.

The soil around here is really beaten down as well. I have cultivat3ed my garden areas with compost for a very long time... and that has give the red clay look a very different look. All I have to do is dig down about 2\" and I het red clay in my lawn. gqarden swpots used to be the same... however after about 9 years of working with the soil, I now have 6\" of good soil.

Still, I'm looking forward to getting out there to grow the stuff!

Looking to get out and about this weekend check the sang beds remove fallen branches and have a look around. Looking forward for spring morel hunting and starting my seeds this weekend for the garden.

trahn007,
I am with you on the morel hunting. It is close for sure. 30 days from now or even a bit sooner we should be good to go. I think Ohio and PA are close to the same timeline. I see where they are finding some in Georgia and South Carolina already. With all this moisture the conditions are looking good IMHO.
Latt

Latt, for normal years I start picking black morels in PA around tax time. We had some snow pack this year with a nice amount of rain fall which will help. Looking for a nice slow warm up with some rains and we should be in good shape. Happy Hunting