I have a little battery operated thermometer that records the lowest temperature and the highest temperature and it and I just reset it when I want to start over by taking the battery out so they do have them I’m not sure where mine came from because my son got it for me
We have some like that around the house and outside. The problem is they all transmit on the same frequency or something so once they connect to the display you don’t know which is which. And you can’t just get a second display and remote sensor because all the remote sensors will connect to all the displays. That’s why I keep looking for something that goes to an app kind of thing.
Planted! Inside starts 3/10.
Tomatoes-
M dw rosey finch, 4
M dw orange hat, 4
Dw sandy stripes, 5
Dw Gloria’s treat, 6
Dw stoney brook heart, 6
Dw summer sunrise, 6
Dw Geranium Kiss, 6
Exserted Orange, 6
Exserted tiger, 6
XL Red, 8
Promiscuous G2 pink, 18
Panamorous Direct Seeded, 19
MMM x BAG, 12
Wildling Panamorous, 20
Cache valley currant, 6 (two clumps?)
Neandermato, 8 (two clumps?)
Improved Galapagos, 6 (two clumps?)
Big Hill, 6
42 day, 6
Glacier, 4
Barry’s crazy cherry, 6
Hartmans yellow gooseberry, 6
Great white, 6
Big rainbow, 6
German yellow stripe, 6
Black beauty, 6
Peppers-
Anaheim, hot, 5
Big Jim, hot, 5
Greg’s Hungarian, sw, 12
King of the north, sw, 12
Lofthouse grex, sw, 12
Tomatillos-
Chupon de malinalco, 8
Goingtoseed grex, 8
Leeks- one thickly seeded pot each
Carentan
Bulgarian giant
King Seig
Bunching onions- one thickly seeded pot each
Red welsh
He shi ko
Goingtoseed bunching grex
Bulb onions- one thickly seeded pot each
Yellow of Parma
Red of Florence
Yellow sweet Spanish
Dakota winter
TPS potato seed- 10 pots
I’m liking the new pots I got. 2.5" square and 3.5" tall. 32 fit in a 1020 tray. This whole list is just 2 trays, 64 pots. The tomatoes are mostly 6 per pot, planted in dice face pattern.
I’m hoping the alliums do ok. They’re “supposed to be” started so freakin early and I’m just not up for all that.
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Hey all. Sorry to have dropped out, it’s turned into a very challenging year. This is going to be a bit of a vent so feel free to not read it, I just need to yell into the void.
I had tons of great plant starts. Then some were dying, seemingly randomly to damping off. They seemed to die right above soil level then wither. It happened the same time I put them outside. It didn’t last long because in two days something ate every single plant. Tomatoes, peppers, tps potatoes, onions, leeks, tomatillos,… Everything was eaten to the soil with only a couple partial tomato leaves left as evidence.
The weather has been erratic, as seems to be the only constant anymore. Ohio and surrounding states are being called the new tornado alley. Last I saw Ohio was top for number of tornadoes so far by state, and ahead by quite a few.
I had some events that I sell at. I sold just enough to scoot by on. Very disappointing as I have a ton of product and the best fleeces I’ve ever produced.
Two weeks ago the forecast showed 5 days of heat and no rain. Very hot. Everyone was cutting hay because it’s perfect for it.
Next day it rains. Just enough that it rained and could possibly wreck the quality of the hay. Next day a storm whips up and it’s torrential rain for 45 minutes, we got over an inch of rain. Every gust of wind was from a different direction.
The front third of my sheep barn roof is flipped back like a bad toupé. Of course this is the part where the lambs and ram were being housed, so I spent the next day and a half changing everything in and around the barn to make it work.
A huge old tree fell on a corner of dad’s goat barn. Thankfully not where the goats were or where the milking set up is.
Tree down on our driveway. Three trees down on our road. One tree down on the road off of ours. Every tree fell a different direction, just to prove how crazy the wind was changing.
Nothing showed in the follow up that said tornado but it was dang sure trying to be.
The garden didn’t go in at all with the ravenous critters so I’ve just been grazing the sheep over it still. The deer pressure is high. The wild rabbit population is the highest I’ve ever seen it here, like fleas on a stray.
Two pots of leeks managed to survive and I’ve got them into medium pots. And the sweet potato I pulled the starts from and put them in a pot. They are on the roof of the rabbit cages to keep them from being eaten. No idea how they just sat there when the roof got torn off, since they are 10ft in front of that barn and on the windward side that pulled back. 
On top of all this me and my siblings just spent over a week clearing the yard and filling a dumpster. My dad is a hoarder and part of why I live with him has been to do my best to keep things from being TV drama level. There’s not stacks with deceased animals or anything like that, it’s just a very very full house… and barn… and shed… and piles in the yard…
But since the storm it’s become apparent that I’m being used as a crutch and a scapegoat. The rain and wind revealed some damage to the house and it’s apparent that things are going to, at best, continue exactly as they are. I’m not in a place to be able to take on fixing the house myself or hiring people to do so.
I have to sell off the sheep and guardian dog. 9 years of hard work, experience, and learning curves. Heart broken only begins to describe it.
I have a job waiting for me that I haven’t been able to take because it’s over an hour drive away and I don’t have a vehicle. Every time I think I’m about to get a step ahead and have some money to try and find a vehicle I get knocked back, like this.
My mom and sister are only a half hour drive from the job, much more manageable. And I’ll be able to stay with them for a while to get on my feet. A bit on the bright side is mom’s busy and I’ll be able to have potted plants and work up the flower beds for some garden work.
Going to try and slowly catch up on here. Hope everyone is having a better year than me.
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Wow. Sorry to hear your misery. Hope things will pick up for you after having taken some distance. All the best. And feel free to vent if that helps.
I don’t know what to say, but I can offer you a hug. It sounds like you’ve been going through a lot. I hope things look up for you.
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After the shenanigans in the spring and losing basically all my plant starts I ended up saving a few leeks and starts off a sweet potato. So in some small pots that I could keep on top of the rabbit hutch I had a few pots. To keep them as safe as possible from the most possible critters.
A pot with 4 sweet potato starts.
A pot with 5 King Seig leeks.
A pot with 11 Carentan leeks.
I kept meaning to fill a few more pots and plant some things like micro tomatoes and things that would do ok in the small pots I happen to have. It kept not getting done.
Finally I filled some and planted some stuff that will be easy to move around and hopefully go into the fall/winter. So 8/21 I planted…
A pot of Hedou tiny bok choy.
A pot of spinach (mixed seed).
And 4 pots of a circle of arugula & mustard (mixed, saved seed) with 2 tomato seed in the center. The tomato seed is from a mix of seed called “2021 dwarf invasion” (HRseeds) mixed seed of dwarf and micro dwarf tomatoes, basically the clean up miscellaneous seeds.
Is late Aug a good time to plant tomatoes in Ohio? Heck no. But! The pots can be moved and taken inside. So I can select whatever plants are doing best to take inside. Hoping to get at least 2 of those will be micro dwarfs. If none are micros I’ll go with the smallest and/or keep them trimmed short.
The arugula and mustard will be nice going into fall and I can cut it back as the tomatoes grow in. Let it go nuts if the tomatoes don’t grow.
My thought with the tomatoes is that I’ll have something to keep me occupied and I can practice manual pollination. Since it’s a mix of seed I’ll have to note what traits they have if I end up keeping seed from anything.
Of course after I had it all planted I had the thought that I should have done one with Improved Galapagos or something. So maybe if I end up with a micro dwarf I’ll plant an Improved Galapagos or something in another. Then my hand pollination practice could yeild useful F1 seed for next year.
The leeks are fairly small. I’m going to keep the biggest 4 maybe and try to overwinter them. Find somewhere protected to keep the pots. See if I can get seed next year.
I wanted to post something positive to update.
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I’ve ended up with 2 surprise pumpkins. There is a little shed that has ended up as a store-whatever place. I had used it to work sheep and all kinds of stuff. Well back when I raised the pig a couple summers ago I had the young pigs in the shed while I trained them to the electric fence.
In June Dad ripped the roof metal off to use elsewhere. And one day he asked me how my pumpkins were. What?? Sure enough a plant is sprawled up and out of the shed remnants and is vining around. There was one fruit and one flower when I investigated. I didn’t figure the flower would do anything with as late as it was and a single flower.
I didn’t do anything else til yesterday when I fought my way into the crunchy weeds and came away with two pumpkins. I saw the vines were well dying back from the heat and drought. So better get to it before something comes to eat the fruit.
I haven’t the slightest idea what fruits I fed the pigs. It was in May so whatever fruit I had from the previous fall. The color is the same as a Georgia candy roaster. I forgot to get pics of the leaves before it died. But I’m gonna say Maxima based on how they look.
Plant had a very late start. It’s been dry and then hot and dryer. I never did anything to it. There was very little rain this year and this may have grown soley on the one storm that did all the damage here and a smaller rain a week later. We really haven’t had anything since. The little that’s been has only got the tops of the grass wet, not down in, and not into the soil.
Of course the stem broke off the big one as I was cutting the vine. So I’ll watch it and make sure it doesn’t rot.
But the small one was already off the vine, it had been hanging down and must have broke itself as the vine dried out.
3# 8oz and 9# 6oz.
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The volunteer squash survived some storage. Cooked em yesterday. Good flavor. Not the darkest flesh, but fine. The bigger one was darker so I think the difference was maturity. Only one plant grew so it must have self pollinated. Got lots of seed.
Interesting how the blue in the skin changed a bit with storage.
I’ve got several other local bought squash to do next.
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