Fall Vegetable Garden Class

The free class on Fall Vegetable Gardening I attended last Saturday was outstanding.  I loosely adhere to the old adage 'you get what you pay for' so I was not expecting all that much from a 'free' class, especially one offered by a retail business.  At most, I expected to get a few pointers and maybe hear about the latest gardening tool or product for this area.  Even though Producers is an ag co-op, they are still a retailer ...in the business of selling their wares to the public.  I half expected coupons to be handed out for discounts on those tools or products which, of course, would be available for purchase from the store hosting the 'free' class.  The skeptic in me always looks for a catch when something is offered for free.  I was pleasantly surprised on all fronts.  

I have been to Producers dozens of times in the five plus years we've lived in this area but this is the first time I was there on a Saturday when the free classes are offered.  I was surprised to find out I was only one of about a hundred people attending yesterday's class.  I had no idea attendance would be that high and I was amazed to see the lengths the store went to accommodate the attendees.  Large display racks were temporarily moved off to one side to make room for the rows of folding chairs.  Two tables were set up where you entered the area ...one with registration sign in sheets and a nine-page handout of the material that would be covered in the class and the other with several carafes of coffee and trays of cookies.  The store apparently goes to a lot of effort and expense to host these classes every week and I really didn't come away with the impression I had been to a sales pitch. 

One of the things I learned that we will be implementing this coming year is that it's far more beneficial to rest and improve your soil during July and August than to push for production during the two hottest months.  This part of Texas has relatively mild winters and it's entirely feasible most of the time to keep a garden going for nine to ten months out of the year.  But just because we can doesn't mean we should.  Gardens need time to rest, organic matter needs to be worked in to replenish depleted minerals and restore balance to the soil.  The speaker recommended cleaning out the garden at the end of June.  Remove the old crop, clear weeds and grasses and add approximately three inches of well-composted material.  Work the compost in by hand or with a tiller, then saturate the garden with water to a depth of at least four inches.  Let the water soak in, then saturate the ground again the next day and the day after that.  By the third day, you should be able to dig down 8 or 9 inches and still have very damp soil.   If the soil is not damp to that depth by the third day, you are not watering enough.  When it is damp to that depth, flood it one more time to the point you have standing water, then cover it with clear plastic and leave it covered until the first week in August.  The hot summer sun on the clear plastic will sterilize the saturated soil, killing any seeds, fungi or bugs that may be in it.  Even in a normal summer, the temperatures under the plastic will reach at least 160 degrees during the day.  That heat will help speed up the decomposition of the compost you just added.

The first week September, remove the plastic and 'fluff' the soil by hand or with a tiller.  Additional store-bought compost may be added at this time if necessary.  This is not the ideal time to add material from your home compost because you need to transplant seedlings to your fall garden by the middle of September and two weeks is just not enough time for typical home composted material to break down in the soil.   It is also not good to work horse or cow manure into the soil because it adds too much phosphorous and will stress your seedlings.

Mid- to late-September is the ideal time to transplant seedlings into the garden.  Most of us keep our thermostats set so that temperatures in our homes fluctuate very little between daytime and nighttime during the summer.  So if you started your seedlings yourself in an air-conditioned setting, it's best to move them to a shaded area in the yard for a few days before you transplant them into the garden so they can become acclimated to the more extreme outdoor temperature fluctuations between daytime and nighttime.

If you purchase seedlings for your vegetable garden, look for boxy, full-leaved specimens, rather than the tallest or the one that already shows flowers.  Height that is disproportionate to fullness is a plant's response to tight quarters and having to compete for sunlight.  Early flowering is not a sign a vigor, it's a sign of stress ...literally according to Dr Masabni, the plant is saying, 'OMG, I'm going to die soon ...I must reproduce!'  That generated some chuckles, as you can imagine, but he's right.  The base instinct of all life is to survive and reproduce.  Plants are no exception.  

If these kinds of classes are offered through your local ag co-op or the county extension office, I urge you to take advantage of them.  All of the classes won't be relevant to your situation, but take advantage of the ones that are.  Knowledge is something we need to stock up on occasionally too.  

Continuing Ed Tomorrow

Producers is the name of the big feed co-op store in Bryan.  Their advertising slogan is 'Everything Ag' and that's a pretty fitting description of what you can find there.  In addition to all the normal things you'd expect at a feed store, they offer free one hour seminars on Saturdays, covering a variety of subjects that would interest  most any farmer, rancher or homesteader.  The seminars are held at 11:00 on Saturday mornings in a small section of the store that's set up like a casual den ...complete with fireplace and big comfy chairs.  The subject this weekend is Fall Vegetable Gardening and the speaker is Professor Joe Masahni, an Extension Vegetable Specialist from Texas A&M. 

I don't know if I'll learn anything new in the class, but I'm pretty sure it won't be a waste of my time.  I happen to think that adding to your own store of knowledge is an essential part of being prepared.  The timing for this class is great and the price is perfect.  We were just talking last week about whether to plant a fall garden this year and what we should grow and since the class is free ...well, you just can't beat free! 
 
There is always a list of errands that need to be done on Saturdays and this weekend is no different.  The oil needs changing in the little truck, a trash run has to be made to the local collection station and now I have this class I want to attend in Bryan.  Yeoldfurt will be tied up at the the Appleseed shoot in Millican all day tomorrow and again on Sunday,  so I'll take care of whatever needs to be done this weekend. He'll load up tonight and leave bright and early for the shoot in the morning.  I'll be leaving an hour or so behind him so I can be first in line at the Kwik Kar in Caldwell when they open.   I should be back home by 9:00, giving me plenty of time to make the trash run and start the weekend laundry before I need to leave for the class in Bryan.

After the class, I'll gas up at the HEB in Bryan because it's always 10-15 cents cheaper than the stations in Caldwell.  Then I have a short list of items to pick up while I'm at HEB and I should be back home by 2:00.  Yeoldfurt will call me when he's heading home after the shoot, but I don't expect to hear from him until at least 5:00.  That gives me three or four hours to finish the laundry and have a nice dinner for him when he gets home.  I've told him he's off the roster as far as feeding the critters or any other chores this weekend.  He's managed to finagle a day off work on Sunday so that he can attend both days of the shoot and I just want him to enjoy himself.  There are plenty of weekends that he has shouldered all the responsibilities for me so I could go visit the granddaughter in San Antonio.  This is my opportunity to return the favor. 

Passing Judgment

A friend put up a post several months back on 'armchair preppers' which, when I first read it, struck me as a little judgmental. Who are we to know the true reality of another's circumstances, or their means, or even their actions? But she made some valid observations which I've been pondering ever since.  Yeah, sometimes I think things to death and, depending on how deep the subject is, that can take a while.

One thing I've noticed is there are a whole lot of another type of prepper out there ...the loud and proud but standing in the back type.  They have a soapbox and they're not afraid to use it.  I call them the Loud and Proud Crowd, or LPCs for short.  They usually have quite a few followers.  Not sure if it's because they all agree with all the viewpoints, or just enjoy the show when the LPC gets wound up.

You know the ones. They have all the answers. They have it all figured out and if everyone would just do what THEY say, this whole runaway train that's in Washington DC would get back on track and we'd be America again.  Their own hands always seem to be tied, of course.  They are caught between the proverbial rock and hard place ...powerless to follow their own advice because of this or that in their personal circumstance.  But I thought the very basic premise of prepping was having a proactive, take-the-bull-by-the-horns approach to life.  It's the goose-gander conundrum.  What's good for the one seems only to be good for the other if it's convenient to be so.   

I know the world is full of all kinds of people and every one of them has their own set of circumstances and their own set of options and limitations based on their abilities or finances or even their geographic location.  I know that what Yeoldfurt and I consider a problem might be a total non-issue for others.  I know that how we decide to solve a particular problem might be the absolute last route someone else would take in our circumstances.  To each his own.  No one knows our needs, our abilities, our resources and our limitations better than we do.  I try to only offer advice if it's asked and I make a concerted effort not to be offended if the advice is declined or ignored.  I firmly believe we are each in charge of our destiny and, as such, we each own full responsibility for our lives and well-being, which brings me to a tangent line of thought ...welfare mentality.

There is an entitlement mentality in this country that started with food stamps and medicaid and has morphed into Earned Income Credit (tax-free cash grants to households under certain income levels), housing assistance (HUD) and daycare assistance (CCMS).  A lot of the households taking advantage of these programs are two-income households that are simply living above their means.  They use food stamps to buy their food so they can use more of their paycheck to buy what they want ...booze, cigarettes, in some cases illicit drugs.  They jump through hoops every three months with government paperwork so they can get subsidies on their rent and, again, have more money to spend on things they want like acrylic nails or fancy cell phones or a new tattoo.

In my opinion, all of this gimme-gimme-gimme-you-owe-me attitude for decades is one of the main reasons we're having government-mandated healthcare shoved down our throats today.  Enough of the general population is finally indoctrinated to believe government welfare is the norm.  Instead of only applying for assistance where there is real need, many people are applying simply because it's available and they know how.  Word gets around, you know?

It's sad for our country because, contrary to popular belief, there is no magical money tree ...the government can only dole out what it first extracts from our pockets. And it's even sadder for the children growing up in homes where welfare has been the norm for several generations.  What lofty aspirations can they possibly have? 

I am grateful to have grown up in a home where my parents worked hard to provide for our needs, took good care of what we had, and saved for the things the family wanted.  We lived within our means every day and when the family could afford to have or do something special, it was that much more special and memorable.  I hope Yeoldfurt and I are neither 'armshair preppers' nor fall in with the 'LPC' types.  I hope we are just one household doing the best we can to better ourselves and our circumstances with what resources we have available. I hope that if the priorities we set and the decisions we make about how to handle different things differ from those of our readers, that they won't interpret the differences as judgment on our part.  It's not my intention to pass judgment on anyone.  You do what works for you, we'll do what works for us and we'll both accept full responsibility for the outcome.