I dont do markets, but my wife steals from the patch and goes :). So yeah she was probably theyre. I told her Ive been noticeing a varmit in the patch, but he wasnt leaving any uneaten parts or nibbled veggie bits, and I was going to have to set traps. She says our coons are getting smarter to my tracking methods and are carrying walmart bags with them. I said well have to see about that hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm something fishy around these parts LOL
josh

Perhaps we met her. I found the market very interesting, quite different than our market. We have several large vendors (taking 2 spaces) while Bloomington's did not have as many. Now I'm wondering if I actually did talk with her, sure wish I got everyone's name. Oh well, 'ships that pass in the night', right? I'll probably never know. But I do know that everyone there were very nice. Unfortunately, we explained that we were just visiting, not buying.

You know this is a small world. My wife is 12 years older than I. She is a city girl from Indy. So is my mother. When my mom was 18 and my wife was 6 they were neighbors in the same apartment building. Her mom knew my mom, they talked all the time at the laudramat. Can you imagine if someone from the future came in and said to my teenage mom, "in 5 years you will have a son" then looked at my wifes mom, "when he is 23 and your daughter is 35 they will marry"
It was funny enough that when my mother inlaw met my mom, it took a little while but there was this tension , of course Lin ,my wife, and I didnt know, but my mom and mother in law kept looking, until my mom asked Lins mom were they lived when Lin was a child, 28 years had passed since they last met.
Small world.
josh

It is definitely a small world. When we lived in FL and was getting ready to move back to IN, my youngest son became online friends with several girls his age. After he found out the girl's details, he would come to us to find out if he was talking to a relative. As it is, he married a girl whose grandfather worked with his grandfather. That's close enough.

Josh:

The Devrinol herbicide label says to incorporate 2 inches. I'm worried that my 48" 3-pt tiller is going to till too deep - the beds aren't real level and it digs down and stuff. This is coarse sandy loam. Can't I just water it in good with sprinklers?

Jack

GMO = Genetically Modified Organism . . . the jury is still out on this, especially with organic growers. More importantly only a handful of seed companies control these seeds and will sue anyone who tries to save seeds for next year. Monsanto is the biggest culprit and is trying to control the seed industry. When only a handful of companies control everything then we are at their mercy. Most corn & soybean grown in the US is GMO.

As for growing heirloom tomatoes, one needs to know the variety and their history. It helps convince people to buy them who are not familiar with them, especially the non-red colors, like black, green, yellow, etc. Once people taste them they'll never go back to hybrids, even the ones you grow in the garden. We grow over 50 varieties of heirloom tomatoes transplants and sell out every spring. Look up heirloom tomatoes on the web and you will see hundreds of varieties from all over the world & the US with wild names, colors, shapes, textures, etc. and even wilder history of the tomato. They are just as easy to grow as hybrids but you can get higher prices because of the heirloom "craze".

I wish we could still grow the old OP indeterminate varieties but Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus appeared in our area in 2006, and now we have no choice except to use TSWV resistant commercial varieties - also nematodes are a major problem in our sandy, acidic soil - and that kills heirloom varieties for us. The Western Flower Thrip, that carries TSWV, blows in on the wind from adjacent pasture lands where host weeds thrive. And Root Knot nematodes are just a fact of life in East Texas sandy soil.

We are a charity-based grower and our market is not very sophisticated - mostly poor and minority folks who are glad just to get some fresh tomatoes that at least don't taste like cardboard. Our produce is distributed free in poor neighborhoods for a voluntary donation.

They won't accept the corn earworm anymore, though. The older folks who used to garden don't mind the worm, but the younger people freak-out and throw the whole ear away! They aren't used to it anymore - the WalMart sweet corn is 100% worm-free. We tried to explain that you just break-off the end of the ear, and we even cut off the end of the ears for them so they wouldn't have to look at the "disgusting" worm, but we couldn't persuade them.

So in order to present a product that meets modern standards, we had to choose between planting Attribute with the bt gene and spraying toxic insecticides like crazy while the corn is in silk. The Attribute cultivar, while extremely expensive for us, seemed like the better choice healthwise.

I see that controls are loosening somewhat on the bt corn. Siegers Seed Company is now selling it nationally to smaller growers with a 25M seed minimum (about $200 that will plant 3 acres). Up until this year, it's only been available from a Syngenta regional distributor - our Texas distributor has a 100,000M min order ($840 for a single bag of seed!) They are trying to keep this out of the hands of home gardeners, but it's just a matter of time until it's sold in packets at WalMart. I was VERY surprised when it appeared in Siegers catalog. We had a real hard time getting it at all - The distributor didn't want to sell it to us until he was convinced that we were a qualified commercial buyer!

I didn't know it was open pollinating - I thought it was a hybrid and the seed wouldn't carry the gene. That does indeed magnify the long-term environmental implications -"Super Worms from Hell"? LOL

Jack

Jack: Set your hydraulic arms so that the tiller tines just barely scratch the surface, you have to mix it just a bit even on sand. I grow large amounts of sweet corn in the river bottoms here were its real sandy, and if I dont incorporate or mix in the pre emergents its always pooling and leaving some areas with too much and other areas not protected, thats why it is important to mix a bit. There should be a stop on your lift arm control, it may take some time to adjust (I always have my wife stand behind the tractor, while parked, and have her tell me how high the implement is) but get the tiller so the tines will just hit the top inch or two and set your stop, most employ some sort of wing nut. My John Deere, its about the same age as your tractor has a knob that if you pull up it slides, push down it locks. Once youve mixed the devrinol set your sprinklers , to activate the herbicide must be watered.

I prefer heirlooms, and I prefer organic. But the world we live in is a mess. There are areas like Jacks were the ground has been utterly contaminated and the organic ways will leave you starving. It has been proven, Purdue has even done studies, that the widespread uncontrolled use of pesticides and herbicides since WW2 has made insects and weeds worse than they ever were. They have gone into areas that have not endured the deluge of modern petro chemical agriculture and found that the insect and weed pressure is only a fraction of that experienced in the American Heartland. The natural system has been thrown askew. Our leaders are just now awakeing to see that our Creators work can be kicked so out of balance that it will backfire. They are scrambling, trying to find a way to undue the damage. For example, the reintroduction of wolves in the west, it was not because our leaders cared about wolves, the truth, Yellowstone Natnl Prk was dying, literaly. Being a wilderness with no hunting, the elk, ,bison, and deer were over grazing areas so bad, that even the beaver left the park. Once the beaver left and all the beaver dams collapsed there was no water retention and thus no water during the dry spells in the summer. The deer, elk, and bison without the wolves harrying them and forcing them to move around became like cattle, and would stay in one area till it was denuded of all vegetation. Outside the park was not so bad cause humans hunted and harried the animals. But in the park, well, during the dry spells and due to the lack of beaver ponds acting as fire breaks over 80% of the park burned.
Flash forward within 10 years of wolf reintroduction. The first few years was wholesale slaugter. The prey animals did not know how to respond to wolves, but they learned within a couple generations. Within 10 years the animals were moving around and the beaver returned. The bad news is the buffalo are wandering outside the park now and pissing the ranchers off.

My point is that the natural balance is so screwed up I dont think it can be fixed, the bible, and believe it or not even the Koran say that it wont be fixed and the earth is doomed. And the profit mongers in the seed corporations know this and plan to make a profit from it.
my 2 cents
josh

Thanks, Josh - I have a stop on my hydraulic lift.

I'm trying to find the post about copper hydroxide sticking to the sprayer plumbing - I think it was Bob (Sunnfarms) who said to use 1/2 gal of vinegar in the sprayer before mixing herbicides. Should I leave the vinegar in the spray mixture or just flush the sprayer with it? The bottom of my tank is all blue with caked copper.
**************************

Something tells me we shouldn't be doing this here :-) - but I'll add my 2 cents to yours.

Josh, Mother Nature died years ago. Since it's nearly impossible to revive her even in the confines of a National Park, those who dream of restoring millions of acres of farm land to pristine condition are just living in a fantasy world.

We're trying to feed 6 billion people on a planet designed for a max of about 2 billion, according to demographic and environmental scientists. It's only going to get worse. I fear that what we're seeing now on the Horn of Africa will be commonplace across the Third World in your lifetime.

We all agree, humanist/secularist and faith-based alike, that we are destroying the planet. The question is what to do about it. In my view, Man is simply behaving like all other creatures - overpopulating, "overgrazing" if you will, and destroying his own habitat. Those of us with a faith-based worldview see humankind as inherently selfish, greedy and sinful, incapable of restoring the environment. Secular folks, on the other hand, place their faith in Man himself and believe that if we just straighten-up our act we can restore the utopia that Earth once was. Given Man's historic track record, it's very difficult to understand their optimism.

Organic and "sustainable" agriculture, it seems to me, is a trendy luxury of a few affluent western societies, not a realistic solution to the world's environmental problems. Science got us into this mess and only science can get us out. We should be funding and encouraging more R&D on better chemicals and safer alternatives like genetically modifying plants and animals to better serve our purposes.
We might buy a few more decades that way.

Jack

Jack :If you have a pressure washer pour the vinegar a gallon or two in bottom of sprayer and let soak over night, white vinegar is best. Put dawn dish detergant or any heavy dish detergant in the next day take pressure washer and wash it out. Now when you use your sprayer after you get it clean, dont put it up with chemical residue :) ! spray it and wash it out with dish detergent everytime
josh

"Mother Nature" is not dead. In fact it is evolving to what humans have been doing to it for centuries. When a meteor destroyed the dinosaurs other life thrived and evolved into what we have now. The more human's tamper with the Earth the worse it becomes. Nature will take care of itself with or without man's "help". So while we have been more rapidly destroying the environment and spewing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere the Earth will always be here. It's just in what form that we should be concerned about. Another issue: how ironic that after the Developed Countries of the world destroyed and/or altered their environment/wildlife/indigenous people we have the never to tell the Third World not to do it!

I know I probably should keep my mouth shut, and Ill probably pay for this, but I can not help myself, I cant keep my mouth shut.

EVOLVED, you believe we just accedetily happened. Does it not take more faith to believe that the earth just happened to be in the right spot. That inanimate, lifeless molecules, elements, just majicaly sprang to life, not only that but over an infinite amount of time transformed into the billions of life forms that inhabit or have inhabited this planet. Thats absurd. They have done studies and proved thats an odd of infinite to one chance. Basicaly something cannot come from nothing. Then theres the deal that all things have a begginning, orr did they. You have to believe just as much as a religious person, that there is at least one common denominator that supercedes the laws of physics, that there has to be at least one thing that has always been, that lives outside and does not answer to the laws of phyics. Otherwise there would be nothing, notta, zilch. I am not here to convert anyone to any particular religion, belief, or denomination, but one should look and see that over 97 percent of humans believe in some sort of creator, a higher power. In a democracy the majority rules, and it just so happens that the science does prove in the existince of a creator, it is the only thing that makes since. Of course science does not tell you which faith is correct but that point is mute, the point is that there is a creator a higher power that goes beyond physics, because the truth is 99 percent of everything had to have a begaining. Now I believe in adaptation, you see it everywhere, but I have yet to see a frog turn to a squirrel or a dog to a cat, species may adapt, change looks even, but a canine is a canine a feline is a feline. Varieties and breeds change but species do not, not even genetic enginering can change that, bt corn is still corn.
feel welcome to send me hate mail, I can take it, but if you are as studied as I you know that Im telling the truth
Joshua Crissen

My Dear Brother Josh:

In all fairness, Tommy is using the word "evolving" to simply mean "adapting." I know that word is like waving a red flag in front of a bull, but it's all in the context. Plants and animals do clearly "evolve", Josh - we modify plants that way all the time and many creatures adapt to changing conditions through gradual physical changes. "Evolution" is only controversial when applied to Man himself. I agree that the odds against that happening by pure chance are umpteen gadzillion to one! It's more likely that a tornado would tear through a junk yard and accidentally assemble a complete Boeing 727 that's ready-to-fly!

Tommy is quite right - the Earth is adapting to Man's alterations of the environment - and there's nothing we can do to kill all life on the planet. Some little organism would survive even the worst nuclear, volcanic or impact event and the process would start anew - up to, but NOT including Man :-).

I stand corrected, Tommy. Mother Nature is not dead - BUT, any semblance of natural balance on this planet is clearly a thing of the past, at least within our limited frame of reference.

Don't forget, Josh - "To the Lord a day is as a thousand years" - so the morning of the sixth day could have lasted for millions of years. It was the afternoon that was brief.
I hope we don't all get kicked-of the forum. It's supposed to be about gardening. LOL Oh well! :-)

I can't believe we're having this conversation here - but I may have been the one that started it.

Jack

Mother Nature is alive and well on my farm. This farm hasn't been taken over by the big farm mind set, being only 35 acres tillable with small fields, biggest ones only 16 acres, and old-fashion fence rows. Yes my fence rows are over-grown, but that's where the best wild berries grow, along with the wild plum trees. We have PawPaws in the woods that has been logged only 2 times in the last 50 years. Yes we cut firewood, but only dead or dying trees.

We respect Mother Nature, and she has taken care of us. I stronly believe that if you take care of her, she will take care of you. Also believe if you upset Mother Nature, she WILL upset your life.

On our acreage we do not use chemicals or pesticides. We encourage ALL forms of life, ones that are beneficial and non-beneficial to US. ALL LIFE has a reason for existence. Some to eat, others to be eaten, some to fertilize and some to be fertilized, some to be used and others to be admired. Life as we know it occured in that 1-in-billion (or more) chance on our planet. For all we know there may be life on some other far distant galaxy beyond anything our telescopes and spacecraft can see. Infinity is beyond our imagination. Some say something cannot come from nothing. If so, where did that "something" come from that supposedly "created" something?

This may not be the place for this subject, but life is too complex, too intricate, to diverse to have appeared at the snap of a finger.

Jack: Modern humans have either destroyed or altered much of the Earth. There are very few places left that have not been touched by Man. Even there some form of pollution has arrived. We need to save what few truly wild places are left and leave them, not just for our benefit but for the health of the Earth. The more we destroy our planet the more out-of-kilter it will become. At some point the Earth is going to "revolt" . . . and it won't be pretty. We've already seen weather changes and environmental degredation that we may not be able to turn around. Say what you want about Climate Change, but something is happening and we need to address it now.

And for a happier note: I can't wait for the gardening season. As a hard-cord gardener I never stop gardening, even after the first frost. I take stock of the past garden's success/failure, improve the soil, plan for next year by going through seed catalogs and trying to improve the health of our little spot on Earth.

I appologise for my misunderstanding of what you meant Tommy.
I am a bit sensitive, especialy when it comes to this glorius creation. I am very upset by what I see happening to it all around me. I love this creation its my home, and what I see being done in the name of progress, but what I call greed, to me is the same as making your home a sewer, reminds me of cattle standing in a pond defecating in one end and drinking on the other.
I chose to live my life on the land, I believe its more of what was meant for us. My fathers mother was a Lakota Indian, and her people believed that you were not to take more than you need, you find the same precepts in the bible. But you turn on the televisin and their bragging about strip mining many square miles for gold and ore. West of where I live coal mines strp mines tens of thousands of acres. Here in Southwest Indiana coal mines claim a total of 300,000 acres. Where I completed highschool, used to be farm fields, now mega Walmarts, my wife grew up between Avon and Speedway IN , farm land and woods, now suburbia, 10 houses to the acre.
My neighbor and I are working to preserve our land, with a Farmland trust, they are going to buy the development rights and hold them in perputity. Between us there is 480 acres, not a lot in the scheme of things, but at the rate our area is going to 5 acre lots, its a large space.
well enough of this
Were finishing the ground work and will begin putting up our hoop houses today, as long as this good weather holds up. Were utilising this odd area behind our house, its like a small valley surrounded by low hills, we had to install some culverts to cross this drainage, and we had to also cross it with the waterline, last nigt I pt up the light pole, were installing solar lights, they seem to work real well. Today were trenching the hot water lines from the boiler.
josh

I'm building a box on my lo-boy trailer to serve as a temporary greenhouse for my transplants - just 16" plywood sides with corrugated iron laid on top, and three 100 watt light bulbs inside. I can move it easily from sun to shade, take the "lid" on and off as necessary and pull it into the barn when it freezes. I only have room in the house for 600 plants under lights, so I hope this trailer idea works-out. I sure do need a greenhouse but haven't been able to get it past my wife yet.

I just bought a case of 4000 little 2" round peat pots. I should have read-up on them before buying! I've learned that there are some downsides, like plants getting root-bound. But these are lite wt and have slits in the sides. I'm hoping to get a head start with stuff I usually plant directly in the ground. Instead of just the usual tomato and bell pepper plants, I'm also gonna try to start okra, squash and cucumbers in those little peat pots.

Jack

You can grow cucumbers and squash in the regular cells or 1204's as long as you're careful transplanting them. Don't rough them up too much and they take right off. Been doing it that way for years. Haven't tried that with okra. It really doesn't sell that high for the space it takes up around here. I have so little land I have to stick with the high dollar stuff like tomatoes, zucchini, yellow squash,eggplants, peppers, things that sell high and produce lots.

I have used 2401s for cukes, squash and okra. Around here, the okra plants don't sell well, but the okra pods sell well enough, IF the summer is warm enough. Not last year, for me.

sandy, I've probably asked this before, where do you market? From home or a farmer's market. I understand you are in the northern part of IN.

Okra is a real big deal for us - but I HATE to grow it! Horrible picking job including miserable rash on my arms, unbelievable end-of-season mess, encourages root knot nematodes, people demand that it be picked at exactly 4" GRRR!:-( - everything about it just sucks! But our people absolutely insist on it. I do have church volunteers lined-up to pick it next year - if they show-up everyday!

My trailer "greenhouse" seems to be working. I've got a few experimental tom seedlings in there. Took them through a freeze and driving rainstorm - but I hafta keep going out there and fooling with it all the time. Of course, the weather won't be as bad in Feb, when I've actually got the real plants in there, as it is now. I am gonna go ahead and buy a few sheets of corrugated clear fiberglass for the "lid" so I don't have to run out and put the tin over the plants every time it rains. It's a poor susbstitute for a real greenhouse but it may get me by. I'm hoping my wife will tke pity on me and agree to a greenhouse next year. LOL

Merry Christmas,

Jack

How about some old storm doors attached at top of "V" so that you can open the 'door'. If they have screens still in them, you could use the screens when it got too warm. Just a thought that popped into my head.

Jack have you looked at those small polycarbonate greenhouses that harbor freight sells for about $500, I was reading on that greenhouse site, some of those guys say with a little tinkering there pretty good.
josh

Josh - One of those little greenhouses is just what I need! And the price is right! Can you link me to the site where they discuss them - how to anchor them, etc?

I've been thinking about that, Marla, but I hate to do so much construction on the trailer bed. One of those cheap little greenhouses look like the answer - at that price you could buy a new one every couple years. I'm just afaid it will blow away in the first good thunderstorm.

Jack

Josh - I greatly appreciate your trying to help us, but forget the greenhouse link. I found the site and read about those. Too flimsy and too many headaches. I'm better off to apply the $500 (+ another $300 for very complicated reinforcement) to building a solid structure with womanized 4X4 posts and a 2X4 frame, covered by fiberglass corrugated panels. Maybe next year I can build it.

Jack

yeah you probably can get those fiberglass pannels and some caulk and build a pretty decent greenhouse, for maybe even less, with all those pines around you you probably can get some 4 or 5 inch trees thats straight for the post.
josh

Believe it or not, we have to buy pine poles at the lumber yard. If they're not creosoted or womanized they won't last a year in this wet, termite infested ground. Just painting the creosote on there with a brush doesn't cut it. We had a lot of free utility poles after Rita though - most just had the top couple feet broke-off. Pieces of 'em make great fence corner posts.

Jack

Jack, what I have isn't anything special. Just a 10x20 canopy, bought from Sams for less than $200. Metal poles. Then we built it in with 2x4s, you could use treated, framed in a screen door on each end (I'm only using 1 at this time) and covered with 6 mil greenhouse plastic. You could use the regular 6 mil plastic that can be bought in the 'tarp' area of a home improvement or farm store. The cheaper plastic might need to be replaced more often. We got our plastic from the greenhouse that my son works at. It was damaged in 1 spot and was rusty at one end. We were able to use a good area inbetween bad spots. I know his greenhouse changes the plastic every 3 years and they try to rotate changings. they have 10 good sized greenhouses, plus 1 that is 1 acre large.

Happy New Year, Marla

Do you have a hinged vent in the roof or does it ventilate enough through the screen doors?

Jack

Just thru the doors. We did put a blower fan on one side, but never cut the plastic to use it. Of course, we don't get as hot as you do, but it worked last year for us. We did put a box fan on the end that I did not open to help blow some of the hot air out. Before that it got up over 100 degrees for short times. If we had used both doors, we probably wouldn't needed to use the fans as much, but I would keep one out there anyways.

I have some pictures, if I can find them and figure out how to post them to help you see.

Thanks, Marla. I can't download photos due to my antiquated phone lines and dial-up.

JOSH:

What are your experiences following Devrinol with non-listed crops? The label says 12 months. I called United Phosphorous and they said soil type is a big factor and some growers with coarse soil can plant sooner. I have very sandy soil.

I want to follow the tomatoes with mustard, turnips and collards. They will be seeded on 7/15, 4 months after the spring Devrinol application. Devrinol is labelled only for heading brassicas - cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower are tolerant - leafy brassicas more vulnerable. The guy at United Phosphorous said "maybe" on leafy crucifers. I gathered he thought it "might be" okay - suggested I try a small area first to avoid possible crop failure. I can't understand how broccoli could be tolerant and not collard - they're so close to the same thing that you can't even tell the leaves apart!

What are your experiences following Devrinol applications? I know, however, your soil is finer than mine and leaching would be slower.

Also, one of my tomato plots is severely infested with RK nematodes. I think the N-resistant toms will hold-up one more season, but the RKN will eventually overcome the resistance in time, so I want to plant onions there in October and then solarize the plot under clear plastic all next summer. That would be seven months after the Devrinol treatment - in coarse sandy loam.

Jack

I would have to agree with United Phosphorus, thogh I do not have any experience growing mustards turnips or collards. Your sandy soil with rain should move chemicals out of the system fairly quickly, my river bottom ground, is quite sandy, and chemicals dont last long there at all.
josh

Hello
My name is Eureka and I currently live in Barbados but grew up in New York. I sell mostly cut herbs at a farmers market on Saturday but wants to expand into fancier vegetables.Have been lurking on this site for a few weeks. The information given has been a great help and I've only just begun. Thanks

Hi Eureka --

Barbados! What a great place to live. You're making me jealous.LOL The temp outside is 16° right now.

How much land do you have and what kind of soil? I visualize Barbados as being mostly sand. :-)

Jack

Barbados, ah sounds nice, its 1 above zero here today. Your lucky Eureka
josh

Hi, I'm Brook from southern Illinois. We bought some property a few years back to deer hunt on; now it's ironic that we kinda want them to leave us alone. We took an overgrown, neglected five acre hay field and turned it into a "truck patch." In the last two years, we've put in 40 assorted fruit trees, 700 asparagus, grapes, rhubarb,and a few hundred berries. I hope to retire in a few years and plan on having this up and running by that time. Like jrslick, I'm a teacher--English--no you don't have to watch your grammar. Wife's one too.

After two long years of working it all by hand, we found the perfect tractor for us. A 24 horse New Holland with a tiller, bucket, blade, bush hog, and box grader at a good price. Tractor only had 300 hrs on it and is small enough to get in between things. What a godsend!! I can do in a few minutes what took me days before.

Once we decided to farm our own land ourselves, it started raining and hasn't stopped since. We lost all our spring and summer crops this year but had a decent fall harvest and had loads of fun doing it. I plan on putting in a pond soon, so that means a drought is coming. We just started selling this past year and were encouraged by the results. I've gardened my whole life and must say that this market stuff is pretty addicting. Bring on spring!!

Best of luck,

Brook

Hi Brook - Glad to meet you here in cyberspace.

English teachers aren't intimidating unless they start correcting the grammar and syntax of other posters LOL - cuz that ain't no kinda way to make no new friends! :-) Down here in East Texas, we butcher the English language almost beyond recognition.

Five acres is just right for what you want to do. I have 22 acres but only three are flat enough to garden.

The 24 horse compact tractor is perfect. I use a 20 hp Kioti with a 48" tiller, a 60 gal pto-driven sprayer, bush hog, box blade, straight blade and landscape rake. The sprayer is critical. I couldn't get along without that.

If you are going to build an earthen dam on a creek, better check state regulations. Texas has really tightened-up on dam requirements - to the point that it's almost impossible to build a new one anymore. What are you doing for irrigation water now? You may be just as well off with a shallow irrigation well. I have an old-fashioned pond-fed gravity system with elevated tanks, but if you have the opportunity to install a modern drip tape and plasticulture set-up, by all means go for it!

Are you going to cater to the organic market or will you be gardening conventionally with chemicals? These are two very different worlds, each with its own solutions and technologies. We conventional growers are free to use organic methods where applicable, however, and do so whenever feasible.

Jack

Now Jack ,you Texan, remember you are a foreigner to us Midwesterners. I only half understand you cuz I spent 8 years as a foreigner in your part of the country :0)
In Texas yall tanks are ponds, and Jack if you aint govt, here in the Midwest your not damming up any running water larger than a spring, were stuck to excavated, or damming a holler. (Jack understands holler LOL!!!)
Just kidding, but the deep south is kinda foreign.
Welcome Brook, now all ya need is a hoop house, and dont be suprised when we hoosiers butcher the english language. By the way were do the deer hide over yonder in Illinois, last time I was over that way, oh 9 months ago I got lost, so I climbed atop the cab of my truck, and I could see for miles , and I could see were it was I made the wrong turn. It sure would be easy country to push a wheelbarrow, flat as a table top. :0)!!LOL
Sorry bout that, ya know Im a Southern Indiana boy, and well my left leg is longer than my right, hahaha
josh

Josh, her 'true' self came out. LOL.

I used to have decent English grammer but that was 40 years ago when I needed it in high school.

Brook, where about are you? Hubby grew up, early childhood south of Pana.

The local dialect here in the Piney Woods is actually more like Louisiana than Texas - any little body of water, even a mudhole, is a "lake". I'm using the word pond here because I don't think y'all consider these ponds to be "lakes". An hour west of here all ponds are "tanks." Way out in West Texas, they are "stock tanks."

My creek ("branch"), which runs all year, flows into Thuevenin Creek (locally called "Toodleum" Creek) which flows into the Neches River, which flows into the Sabine River, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico at the TX/LA line.

This is part of the historic Big Thicket - lots and lots of water, including huge swamps and large populations of alligators.

Jack

When we lived in ARK. We were a short distance from the borders of both Louisiana and Texas, now my dads from Kentucky and moms from Indiana, and most of my life has been split between these two states, but 8 years was spent inbetween Fordyce and England Ark. right between, in Podunk :0)
We were what was considered the northernmost range of the American alligator, now this boy aint seen no lizards biggern those little ones whose tails come off when you grabem or maybe a salamandor, I had just gotten a beagle pup, and there was this crick out back that dumped into the buffalo river, my pup would go down there barking at muskrats, or wood ducks, one day I went looking for it and saw its tail sticking out from under a bush, pulled the bush back and a 5 foot gator was eating my dog, I screamed (I was only 9) and ran to the house, my dad went out and shot it with the shot gun, and called the game warden, (mistake, sss , shoot shovel shutup) they fined my dad for shooting it, said he was lucky they didnt arrest him. They are protected there, or at least back in 1985. The warden said it was a small gator, but to me it might have been 50 feet instead of 5.
josh

"Shoot and Shut Up" is always the best policy! The wardens prefer that too - less headache for them. We have very strict laws against feeding gators. They usually aren't dangerous to people unless they are fed. I was wade fishing one time in knee-deep water, dragging a stringer of white perch tied to my belt. I felt a yank at my waist and a six-foot gator had ahold of my fish! I didn't argue with him - I untied the stringer and let him have 'em!

But one time, years ago, I was REALLY scared. I was flyfishing in a float tube, with swim fins on my feet for propulsion, when a BIG gator - 10-12 feet - surfaced within a few feet of me. I resisted panic because I figured those swim fins might mimic a fleeing fish and could trigger an attack. I stayed still and he just looked at me with only his eyes and the ridge of his back out of the water for what seemed like an eternity! I really prayed hard, and his eyes finally slipped under the water -he was either gonna to grab me or he was gonna leave. He chose to leave - obviously! :-) I was so shook-up I hailed a passing boat who picked-me up. Except for some badly soiled shorts, I was non the worse for wear.

I didn't know they ranged all the way up to Texarkana - that's so far north that they're Yankees to us. LOL.

Occasionally a gator will turn-up in someone's pond. If you value your children and your pets you'd better get rid of it! Where they really have problems with them is down in Florida - not so bad here.

Jack

From what we understood , they are rare there and thats why thier protected, its as far nort as they are known to have ranged on there own, my dad said they keep turning up in his yard he would cure there ranging :0)
josh

Jack,

No, I'm not organic altho' I try to use a minimum of chemicals. When I'm sick I use medicine, not ten pounds of jewel weed. I treat my crops no differently.

As for the pond, I plan on damming up a holler on the north end of my property, and the state boys have already approved it. Now, I just have to come up with the money. The size will be approx. an acre, and I'm thinking at least 14 ft deep. That should be enough to irrigate all I want-- I hope. If any gators show up here, I'm afraid they're goners. I've got an additional 18 acres of timber and am blessed with a lot of native fruits like pawpaws, persimmons, dewberries, and a lot of nut trees. It's pretty good for morels in the spring.

Josh,

You went to the wrong part of Illinois. Southern IL is pretty much the same as southern IN--good mixture of prairie, rolling hills, and a lot of creek/river bottoms. Mercy, is there ever a lot of deer!! They get pretty big here too. Because of them, we never buy beef. As for the hoop houses, I'm afraid I may just have to add that to the ever growing list of wants. My farm is undeveloped, thirty miles away, and has no water or buildings on it. There is electricity on it tho' if I wanted to tap into it. It is so remote that the edge of the world drops off just around the corner. Of course, that's what I love about it. My most pressing needs right now are water and a building.

Marla,

I live in Effingham County, which is where I57 and I70 cross. My farm is in Clay County, which is well over a hundred miles south of Pana.

Best of luck,

Brook

I hope the utility lines aren't too far away - that can run into bug bucks!

Jack

I was wondering were the edge of the world was. :0) !
josh

Brook, been there. Almost got stranded there back in 78 blizzard, but made to his uncle's farm outside of Oconee and stayed for about a week til we got dug out.

You might consider just getting a generator to haul around for electric.

Josh, we stopped in at that greenhouse in Crawfordsville today. The guy was real nice and showed us his operation. Basically he has a wood-fired outside boiler with water pipes underground to in front of his greenhouses, then the water is piped inside the greenhouses to a water furnace. He even let us go inside of one of the greenhouses. He said he had been using 7,000 gal of propane per season and now he uses the wood instead. He has to load the 'wood stove' 3-4 times per day in this kind of weather and up to every 3-4 hours when it gets really cold.

When we moved onto the farm, it had no buildings or electric or anything but bare ground and woods. Now we have the electric and 2 old trailers to live in. A big step up into civilization.

I have one of them stoves, been going like a steam engine. Im thankful for this warm spell, however long it may be. My wood piles been shrinking fast.
Josh

Jack Soil here in Barbados mostly limestone, my husband found a dumping area for manure from a chicken farm so he collects some 3 times a week.Only a true gardener would understand, when I saw all the chicken s--t my eyes popped out and the first thought in my head was "goldmine". Have 1/4 of acre but still clearing and planting works a few hours in morning and a few in evening sun too hot to work all day.

Eureka

People dump that stuff, here in the Midwest we have to wait till someone either quits farming, dies or both before you can get poultry litter, and when you get it you hang on tight.
josh