It's called "Purple Express". I'm in Texas, where we grow cabbage and other brassica crops through the winter. This is one I didn't harvest in time, so once the weather started warming up, it bolted.

While you might think this is a telepathic alien plant from Zeta Reticuli sent to conquer our world, really it's just what happens when you let a red Napa cabbage go into full bloom. It's really pretty incredible how it goes from a well-behaved little cabbage to this outlandish riot in just a few days. Next year, I hope to be able to set up a time lapse camera to catch the process.

#grownostr #gardening #flower #vegetables #TelepathicAlienPlantsFromZetaReticuli

If you're in the Austin or Lockhart (Texas) area, we're having our first plant sales of the season this weekend, and will be having sales through the month of March. Mostly vegetables and herbs, but we have a few ornamentals as well. You can find the schedule of sales and locations at our website:

http://squeakyfrogfarm.com

All of our plants are grown with "beyond organic" methods, though we aren't certified organic. And if you pay with Lightning, we'll give you a 20% discount!

#gardening #plantstr #austin #texas #grownostr

What I really don't understand is, who's buying that? Even the newest of newbie gardeners is going to look at that sad display and keep walking, aren't they? And yet, you see it every year, so they must be selling at least a few of them. I suppose that's why the prices are so high - for every plant they do manage to sell, two or three end up in the dumpster behind the store.

This is just disgraceful. A few barely sprouted okra seedlings in a cup of sterile potting soil for five bucks. Remember, folks, friends don't let friends buy Bonnie plants. Find a local grower to buy plants from, or start your own from seed.

Okay, I confess, I have a small nursery business, so I've got a financial interest in promoting support for local growers 😉, but come on, this is ridiculous.

#gardening #grownostr #plantstr #ripoff

I just poke them whole down into the soil at different spots around the roots of the plant. Some people dissolve them in water and then apply it that way.

It definitely works to help the plants resist blight. It's not bulletproof, but it's a great cheap method to give your plants some protection.

I use three tablets around the plant when it's transplanted, then another dose every 3 weeks through the season. As the plants grow, I'll increase those additional doses - one tablet the first time, then two tablets for a couple of applications, then three each time for the rest of the season. We have a short season for tomatoes most years, the Texas heat burns them to death by July or August.

#proofofwork

I just signed up the other day and had the same experience, not much activity in my area, and most of it was months ago.

There's a great smartphone app called PlantNet. You can take a few pictures of a plant and it will try to identify it for you. I've had pretty good success using it, especially if you take pictures of different parts of the plant, like leaves, flowers, etc.

A couple of years ago, while splitting firewood, I found this piece of barbed wire embedded in a log. Now I keep it on my front porch as a daily reminder of three things:

- Think as much as you can in terms of longer time scales. Overcoming that fence was a decades-long project for the tree.

- Nature doesn't care about what people want. That tree didn't stop growing just because somebody put up a fence.

- You might be as big, tough, and resilient as an oak tree, but a chainsaw can still fuck you up.

#deepthoughts #grownostr #homesteadphilosophy

Cool device!

If I understand it correctly, the heavy stuff like rocks falls down the vertical shaft, and the lighter junk gets sucked into the vacuum, leaving behind the seeds? Do you have to adjust the flow on the vacuum for different size seeds?

The pallet isn't strictly necessary. After a couple days, the material is settled enough to remove the pipes and leave behind air tubes through the material, so lifting the whole thing up with a pallet lets more air through the whole thing. It probably speeds up the process a little, but it also means you have to water them a little more often as they dry out from the airflow.

A side benefit is I can put pallet forks on my tractor and move them around if necessary (though it's a little wobbly and unstable, so it has to be moved very carefully).

Put together another bioreactor in our long-term compost area yesterday. This is a shady spot in a corner of the property behind the orchard where this stuff can sit for a year (or more) and let the fungi do its magic. Now we've got five bioreactor style bins (the four on the right were filled with woodchips last March, the one on the left is leaves, grass clippings, and coffee grounds) and two bins for growing leaf mold. My goal is to double this capacity by the beginning of summer.

#m=image%2Fjpeg&dim=1920x1440&blurhash=%23XG8.ZRPR*juoLaeV%40ofRj%7EWRPj%5Dj%5BoKjZWBofWA.8RiWVaxWUj%3FaekCjYkXV%40WBWVRkWVa%7DbIjsW%3DWAoMWBR%2BWWf%2BkCayoejZofjuazofofoeWVn%25jafkbHj%3Foeofj%40j%5B&x=43f209f85dccce835cb3b20c703ce4616ed4d09bf2f19794c79563a4ab50312d

#gardening #permaculture #compost #gardening

Individual kernels may contain different genetic information, but the ripening of the kernels (and other physical aspects of the cob) are mostly controlled by the mother plant. Think of it in animal terms - each kitten in a litter may contain different genetics from its siblings, but they're all born at the same time.

Yes, it's pretty amazing what you can do these days with a cheap $200 3D printer!

A rat decided to chew into our chicken feeder and crawl up into the feed. Quite a surprise to open it and find a rat trapped in there on top of the feed! Our cats are not doing their job...

I 3D-printed a new part and now we're back in the chicken-feeding business.

#chickens #diy #3dprinting #grownostr #homestead

Just went out to the barn to get some more firewood to feed the greenhouse stove and discovered a skunk sheltering under the floorboards where the woodpile is. He must have chased away the possum that was under there during the last cold snap.

Thankfully, we built a second woodshed last year and there's a good supply of seasoned wood in it. I think I'll get what I need from there for the rest of the evening... 😉

#homestead #farm #wildlife

But not too much love, I guess. She kept all the good meat for herself and brought me the head! 😂