Country Squire Garden

Keith and Carolyn Squires run the Country Squire Garden a few miles from my home. Its like no other garden center anywhere.

I was up there today. We had nice chat. Same as when they sold me my Hops plant a few years ago.

Carolyn has no love about Monsanto. Keith asks, who owns the ground water under your property?. He thinks the government will take it away; same idea from the same plan as what Monsanto has taken away.

Existing wells might be grandfathered. New wells might need a permit with onerous conditions. Who knows.

They say they would LOVE to take on Monsanto if they ever had to. Seems they have proof that the patents are flawed and illegal under certain processes which they follow. So far nobody has ever bothered them.

Here are some reviews from customers about who they are and what they stand for.

http://www.gardens.com/local/ontario/8764-The-Country-Squires-Garden

Here are a few comments about Keith and Carolyn Squires written by Art Drysdale, a well known Canadian horticulturalist.

http://www.artdrysdale.com/dec2004.html

Notice they don't sell fertilizer or insecticides or top soil. Just unique and unusual plants.

The reason I went up there today was to return the hop plant. Not the whole plant, just 10 or 12 rhizomes (roots) as a "gift", ready for transplantng in their garden. Their 10 acre garden.

I only have room for a few rhizomes so I pulled a bunch out and put then in the recycle bag. Then I took them out of the recycle bag and into a pail of water. Water from the rain barrel. And drove them to the Country Squire Garden as by now you know. It was a good move.

I tryed to explain who owns the rhizomes and why its easy to give them away when a person does not need them to make a living. By saying all we only ever really are are rhizomes borrowers made the point to them which they got right away. They took them with thanks.

Keith and another guy were building a huge extra shed from used lumber. He got the lumber from a neighbour who was a known used lumber hoarder. Then he showed me one of 10 of his 10 X 50 garden quonsets. It was full of used lumber.

You see Keith is also a used lumber hoarder.

But in this case he finally had enough lumber saved up for this new, practical, money-making shed. A productive hoarder... hey nothing wrong with that at all.

Carolyn was telling all about asexual plant reproduction and Hostas in particular, and how she does it. Thats her specialty. Facsinating.

Keith went back to shed building. Winter is coming and it has to get to roof tight stage before it snows.

I left to return another day.

What a great day.

johann

Garlic Fun

Grow your own garlic. Is fff; fun foolproof fabulous

First, where do you live?Next, Google "growing garlic in ______________"Fill in the blank where you live; click, duh, lol.Up pops garlic links for, yep, for where you live.

Garlic grows everywhere. Well, not in, say, Iraq, that's a dumb thought. HA!, clicking on Iraq anyway.

OMG it DOES grow in Iraq; they are famous for it!!!http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200605/natural.remedies.of.arabia.htm

Did you know that? I never knew that! OMG what a fabulous link, so much other interesting info on other foods, herbs, spices.
Warning: Alert: Seee the fun stuff connected to garlic fun!!!

Anyway. All you need is soil, land, pots, containers, etc. no matter where in Iraq or anywhere else you might live. Plant it. Hope for rain now and then. Done.

This fall I got lucky finding some seed-bulbs in the grocery store, of all places, with roots from Argentina.
Wait. They are only "seed bulbs" if the roots are alive and grow. Soooo, fingers crossed. I planted 2 cloves and....bonus, they stared to grow.

Grocery store bulbs, so I hear, from China have been chemical-treated to kill the roots. That prolongs economic shelf life and yet otherwise they just will not grow and sprout.

Other best places to find garlic seed stock would be from a reliable seed house, (expensive, shipping etc.) or better yet at the local farmers market. As long as the "farmer" is not just a lazy re-seller or they dont try to pawn you off with garlic imported from China. Sorry I hate farmers markets full of lazy re-sellers.

Here is a routine I try to follow.

Let's start with the 12 grocery store bulbs I just got from Argentina via the local grocery store for $7.19. OK, I'll plant those 12 bulbs X 8 cloves each = 96 cloves planted = 96 plants to harvest next summer.

Wow, thats a lot of garlic bulbs. From those I will immediatley save the best 12 or 15 in cool place for replanting next fall. (96 or more new plants again)

The other 81 or 84 bulbs I can begin using right away, right past the time I replant the other 12 and keep using all winter. The objective is to never buy seed stock again. Henceforth, I become my own grow seed stock grower plus have all the garlic I can eat or give away to friends and relatives.

OR. Time to experiment. Some of the 81/85 bulbs I save I might save until early spring and harvest in the late fall to see if that growing cycle works. Well it's known that it works in warmer climates. But no one does that here. Gonna try it.

That would result in a brand new objective of a "split harvest" as a hedge against failure or tying to save garlic too long. It eventually and sometimes prematurly drys out, moulds or sprouts way too soon. Depends on smart storing proeedures.

Heres some fun garlic math:
Year 1 96 new bulbs X 8 cloves each. Replant them all.
Year 2 1,152 new bulbs x 8 cloves each. Replant.
Year 3 9,216 new bulbs x 8 cloves each. Replant.

Year 8 301,861,888 new bulbs, ohhhh my aching back!!!

12 garlic from rhe store was 2 pounds ,so, 6,288 tons.

One picture attached shows one of the test cloves I dug up after about 7 or 10 days with the hairy-like roots, and a new sprout starting from the pointy end. So now its easy to visualize what going on under the soil.

The other picture shows 2 bulbs from Argentina, looking like almost any other garlic. But I tilted one of them so you can see the dry bottom root nubs trimmed by the shipping farmer or processor. Can you count the cloves humps under the skin? 8? 9?. That would mean 8 or 9 cloves to plant yielding you 8 or 9 new bulbs at harvest time.

(Refer to garlic math fun above)

Each clove shares its own little section of the root nubs. If you find bulbs where the root nub has been hollowed right out, it might be a wonderful cooking bulb but it wont ever grow. No starter root nubs.

It wont take you very long to become a garlic expert. I think garlic people stink nice. :-)

Have garlic fun, it's fabulous, foolproof, and, ohhh, we already typed fun!

johann

Growing Hops and Racoons Be Gone

Hops traditionally grows tall on supported vines. Or you can grow them like I did, horizontally along wires. Then you dont have to climb up 12 foot ladders to pick the flowers.

Wires. Hmmm. I pounded in two iron snow fence poles at each side of the garden at the back and rigged a 100 foot clothsline back and down and forth three times, drew it tight again and tied it off. A perfect trellis kind of rig.

Back up 5 years. Originally this was so I could grow grapes. Four years later we have beautiful big, juicey, black grapes, climbing up and along the smooth strong clothsline. Tons of grapes, jackpot.

Just a night or two before they matured for picking and eating, the raccoons got them. Every single last grape. All gone. Then the little @#$%$^&* Sh** all over the deck and the roof. Big piles of black grape sh** everywhere, a huge racoon picnic. How demeaning is that?

Not funny, all done with grapes, lol.

Anyway we all know they use hops for beer so I got a plant and took some pics of the three year old vines. By the way, I'm drinking hops tea from the flowers saved from last year. Sedating, induces sleep.

You can see the green hops flowers in the pic, where a vine has come around the corner and claimed the downspout. The main hops vines are in the background.

But the flowers have no seeds and you cant transplant the whole vine.

So how do hops they reproduce? Hops is a Rhizome. Rhizome roots shoot out little sprouts that often mosey along undergound sprout out and spread. All you do to reproduce is snip one of these root shoots off and replant it. Or put 3 of them in 3 pots and give them away as in the other picture.

Rhizomes are an interesting species.

johann

Storm Dream

Storm Dream.

predicting the storm yesterday from a 3 day old dream when the weather network said no storm in sight was stupid. not even gonna rain it said

putting the truck in the garage to protect it from hail pock marks was stupid. why do that when it's not even gonna rain?

predicting the huge wind and rain and lightning was like.... holycrap, what going on?....the dream storm is suddenly a real storm!

predicting the huge hail content, just like in the storm dream, would be the first live hail wifey dear had ever seen in her life. so she says don't get weird ....and then the hail hit.

predicting a small tree snapping off next in the wind in the storm dream seemed wrong in the real storm because there was no tree like that across the street.

the real tree, the exact one in the storm dream that snapped off in the real storm, was up the street and around the corner.

johann

Scary Encroaching Flowering Vine

This vine belongs to the neighbours yard. It trys to snag me as I go by with the lawn mower, scary I tell ya. Ohhhhhhh

johann

Name This Flower

One more flower without a name.

johann

Multiuse Blue pot

Buzz wonders if this would make a good Basil growing pot next year.

johann

Monsanto Takes Over The World

Hey Monsanto, NYSE (MON) Who made you God anyway?

http://www.infowars.com/monsanto-trying-to-take-over-world-seed-supply-nation-by-nation/

http://www.naturalnews.com/030967_Monsanto_evil.html

You took the real God's grain and wildflower and other seedstock of the world, genetically altered it, applied for patents and made it your own.

Who authorized Monsanto to do that? Oh right, the courts, silly me. Did you ask God? Duh?. No. Big mistake.

So if we save seeds from crops under Monsanto's control, we are in patent violation.
OMG Patent violation.
It's printed on all the packages.
Who owns all the seed houses now. Monsanto.
Who initiates legal battles with the worlds farmers and forces them out of farming and off the land. Monsanto.

Monsanto, shame on you. You have no rights here at all. None.

Just so you know...your generic alteration authorizations and patents are deeply flawed and invalid. God's custody prevails, not yours. Screw the courts.

Read the link above and the links within that link.

I hate you. Me and Willy Nelson. We both hate you. Look what you did to him.

Everyone hates you.

Shame on you again.

Are you coming to plow my offensive illegal garden under now?

johann

Loser

Did you ever notice how some of the best loser-dogs come from animal rescue and become total winner-dogs?

In August 2009, long after all the best garden center transplanting flowers had been overly over-picked, I spotted this sad, wilted, bedraggled Zinnia loser-plant still for sale. For sale. HA! It was marked down to 10 cents. How degrading. No one wanted it even for 10 cents.

It was a hopeless, pathetic Zinnia loser-plant.

It was also an orphan. Like me. All alone in a black plastic tray that once held 6 dozen mini boxes of its brothers and sisters and cousins, by now growing proudly elsewhere in the town's best flower boxes.

Two nickles later and a quick trip home to the watering can, and it was MINE. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, hmmmm 10 cents, was that the best use of a dime?

Valid question.
Stay tuned.
Hold on.
I transplanted it.
Tore some of the deranged and tangled roots apart.
Oh my.
That must have hurt. What next?

September 2009. Whoaaa. It's still alive.
October 2009. It's perking up, going a nice orange.
Nov 2009, arghhh it's done. " Quick take my seeds"
Two seeds. Not 30 seeds. Two seeds. Sheeez. Loser.

May 2010. I plant the two seeds.
One comes up.
Nice. Zinnia plant, looking good.
October, "it's been a blast, take my seeds".
November I strip off 30 seeds from the one flower. THIRTY. Jackpot.

May 2011. I planted 30 Zinnia seeds in different places and up comes.... 30 Zinnia plants! Look at the picture attached. You can see several of the Zinnia plants with 6 flowers and 7 buds on the way.

OMG keep looking. Now they are giving more than one flower per plant!

Oct 2011. By then they will offer 30 plants X 50 flowers X 30 seeds per flower = 45,000 Zinnia seeds

Oct 2012. 45,000 flowers X 30 seeds = 1,350,000 seeds

Oct 2013. 1,350,000 flowers X 30 seeds = 40,500,000 flowers

Oct 2014. 40,500,000 flowers x 30 = 1.2 billion seeds

Oct 2015. 1.2 billion flowers X 30 seeds = 36 billion flowers.

In May 2016. I will rent 500 acres of dormant farmland and plant 36 X 30 billion = 1.080 trillion Zinnia seeds. 1,080,000,000,000

I will post a sign on the land.
"Welcome, please pick all the Zinnias you want. Then go home and plant the seeds, OK?"

Mars is the red planet. Earth will be the orange planet.

How's that for a 10 cent loser?

johann

FABULOUS!

Fabulous

Simply, absolutley, just....just... so Fabulous!

johann

The Last Tomato Worm

Today: This is a picture of the world's very last tomato worm. Yup. All you have to do is reach out and....gardeners of the world rejoice....SQUISH him. Hurrrry, and the species is eradicated forever!!!!!!

Yeahhhhhh, gone, done, fugly buggers, some even have opps, had, what look like horns. Nice shade of green though. All he ever wanted of you was to share a few leaves.. And if his cousins operpopulated, the birds would thin them down. Nahhhhhhhh, SQUISH. What a perfect day!

Next Summer: You are with your honey on the back yard deck. Warm summer night. Full moon. Midnight. Romamtic garden candles in full flicker. Heady wine. Soooooo perfect.

"Honey do do you remember a night like this last year?. How that beautiful Luna moth with the 5 inch light green spotted wingspan magically came in from a silent nowhere and landed on your tanned and beautiful arm. And it made us breathless as he sat there and slowly
pumped his amazing wings as if to the beating of your heart".

"How perfect if one like that came back tonight"

Well they won't be back because you squished the last one !

johann

PIG!

This Pig! story comes from either Readers Digest or something similar, and it carries a lesson.

A guy was driving down a winding gravel road, way out in country. This lady comes around the corner from the other direction, somewhat out of control and encroaching a bit on his side.

She sees him and in the flash of an eye, waving a sudden hand out her window, yells at him "PIG! PIG!"

He gives it to her, yelling back "COW! silly COW". Zoom, shes gone.

And feeling very satisfied and smug, not slowing down, knowing she heard him, he enters the corner and runs smack into the pig.

Such a good lesson, right?. Day to day we never know when even the smallest act of human kindness might reveal itself; either to give or receive.

We have to be ready, alert, spontaneous, true. Don't think, don't judge, just do it. And such acts of kindness are time sensitive as we saw in the pig story.

Miss them and they never come back.

BUZZ MATTERS

johann

Where Do Potatoes Come From?

Did you ever wonder how little kids know so much?

Geeez they even know where babies come from nowadays.

But whoaaaa potatoes can be a whole new deal.

And if you are lucky, really lucky, you'll be right there to see it when it happens.

Buzz Wonders.

johann

A Dandelion Moment

My neighbour is the best ever. He spends hours every month on his knees with all these tools from the shopping network that never work, ripping and sweating and cussing his mortal enemy...dandelions. Every good citizen does it.

Then I was thinking how lucky we are we don't have the neighbour from Hell across town who never even cuts his lawn. He just sowed a 25 pound bag of wildflower seeds. So irresponsible, right?

When his wildflowers hit 3 feet, 500 complaints rolled in to town hall...and the town said you cut or the town will cut and add the cost to your taxes. Wildflower/weeds/dandelions, all the same.

HA! We got him!

That's when it hit me like a 250,000 volt shock! Like if you took the back off your old broken TV set and electrocuted yourself. BAMM. (NEVER do that by the way)

BAMM again, My pea brain brain went into spin cycle, wildflowers/bees/honey/pollination/sustainability/dandelion wine from the flower/new dandelion leaves for salads/dandelion roots for tea and herbs"

Dandelions are not the enemy! The whole plant is a treasure...even the bees know that.

A Dandelion Moment.

johann