Country Living Skills

Via: Countryside & Small Stock Journal

(…) If you’ve got a garden plot rolling already you’re in good stead. While we normally have a long growing season here in southwest Missouri, we are about a month behind schedule because of the massive flooding and late frosts—but we’ll still give it the old college try.

If you don’t have a garden, help out the folks who do this for a living (CSAs, produce farms, etc.) and buy some of their stuff on bulk sale. You’ll be happy with your bargain and they’ll be happy to sell their perishable stuff while it’s still fresh.

Over the past decade, Jimmie and I at Timberlakes Farm grew veggies to supply upscale restaurants plus our own household’s yearly needs. But, as many of you already know, when that flush of zucchini, other squash, peppers and tomatoes ripens, you’ll feel there’s enough fresh produce to serve the entire armed forces! Most growers, like us, prefer to sell it at a “fresh” bulk-discount price to someone who can take advantage of it and feed a family, than to let it spoil and get dumped onto a compost pile or go to waste.

In either instance, the biggest question that always raises its ugly head is: how much do I have to grow (or purchase) to supply my family’s food needs throughout the year? Since I’ve done this for so long (first to feed me and the two kids [as little tykes] and eventually just the two of us seniors—Jimmie and me), I’ll give you the best average to yield a year’s supply of stocked food for a household of four. (I am saying “average” because of the varying ages, appetites, and menu preferences that come into play.)

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After heavy pruning and spraying yesterday, our zucchini looked much better this morning.  There seems to be plenty of new foliage growth already, and the few leaves that still had a little mildew on them don’t seem to have developed any more mildew on them this morning.

The acorn squash that looked really bad last night seems to have recovered a little too.This morning I sprayed them all again with the baking soda/ soap mixture as it seems to work well.

Stay tuned for how things are continuing here.  Tonight we will burn the leaves I pruned away yesterday morning.

We started fighting the powdery mildew not last night, but this morning since we read online that watering and/ or fertilizing plants in the evening could be one of the reasons why they get powdery mildew in the first place. Not only did we find affected leaves on zucchini and pumpkins, but also on the acorn squash and on our cucumbers. The luffa gourd that grows right next t the zucchini remained unaffected, which came as a surprise.

So this morning we first cut away all the infected leaves and then sprayed the baking soda/ soap mixture on the remaining leaves and the stems, and now we are waiting for the results.

We also read online that a mixture of 1 part of water and 9 parts of milk would work well against powdery mildew, but we decided to try the baking soda/ soap mix first.

Generally speaking, you can plant zucchini, squash, pumpkin and gourd a plant per foot. Note that zucchini does not vine, whereas squash, pumpkin and gourds, do.

IN ROWS:

• 18 inches between rows for zucchini, squash and gourd
• 12 inches apart
• plant 3-5 seeds, thin out if necessary

Pumpkins are usually planted in hills dues to their size. Leave plenty of space for them to vine.

Corn, Beans and squash, pumpkin or zucchini together make what is commonly called “The Three Sisters”. Here is how you plant a three sister mound:

1. In late May/ early June, pile up soil a foot high and 20 across. Place the mounds four feet apart, flatten the tops.

2. Plant five to six corn kernels in a small circle.

3. When the corn has grown about five inches (about a week or two later), plant seven to eight pole beans in a circle around the corn, about six inches away.

4. At the edge of the mound, a foot away from the beans, squash or pumpkin seeds, seven to eight all in all.

5. Weed out the weaker plants once they have grown enough to tell which are strong and which are weak plants.

6. Wrap the beans around the corn stalks as they grow. The squash will crawl around corn and beans.