Knucklehead's 2022 Prilep and Veggie Container Grow Blog

[Knucklehead]

Thar's a couple of them wascally wabbits right thar behind my hood in the woods.
Doe nursing a fawn. The fawn was still wobbly and knock kneed, very recent. From the size of the doe's belly I'm not sure she has quite finished yet. Twins are not unheard of.

 

[Alpine]

Dust off your 6.5x55 Swedish for the coming season!

pier

 

[Knucklehead]

Dust off your 6.5x55 Swedish for the coming season!

pier

You are good. 6.5x55 military barrel shortened to 17", hooded front and rear peep sights, timney trigger, restocked with pre-inlet rough shaped walnut. Light, fast, and handles like an extension of my arm. She's retired.

 

[Alpine]

A real beauty. With such a short barrel, a mannlicher stock would have made it even prettier (but heavier). My compliments for the wood work.

pier

 

[Knucklehead]

Traditional sun curing methods of the ancients.

 

[Knucklehead]

I thought skychaser might get a kick out of this. Many of the corn and bean bean plants are growing in what might be referred to as "3 gal. bags" but only if you have a vivid imagination.

 

[skychaser]

I use 2 gallon bags to grow out peppers in my greenhouse for the summer after all my baby plants are planted or sold. I use the white plastic kind. The white color keeps the bags from getting to hot in the sun and burning the roots. They are cheap and last for 3 seasons if you are careful with them. I've used the cloth bags too. They last for years and don't cook roots like black plastic does in the sun. People are amazed by the peppers I grow in such small bags. The secret is lots of water and Miracle Grow every other watering. Never tried any plants as big as what you have growing. But I might now!

Truck curing. I like it. We both do redneck truck growing so why not. I actually thought of putting wire across the top of the wood hauling racks on my truck to hang strings of leaves on and sun dry them. If bad weather comes I can just throw a tarp over it all or drive it into the barn.

 

[Knucklehead]

Nasty buggers. They're outrunning me.

 

[Knucklehead]

Flowering Prilep and a couple of primings. The plant that blew down and broke off now has a sucker coming up. (front and to the the right, bare grow bag)



Left side hanger - fresh priming. Middle hanger - blown down plant. Far right hanger - mud lugs.

 

[deluxestogie]

That's fine looking leaf, and gorgeous plants.

Bob

 

[Knucklehead]

Tomatoes are coming along. Some of them might even make it to ripen if I can quit pulling them for fried green tomatoes. Rutgers, Big Boy, Better Boy

 

[Knucklehead]

I've been picking bush beans a couple of beans at a time for a few weeks. They are awfully slow about it. I've been stashing them in the freezer as I catch a couple.



This is the first good picking of pole beans aside from a few early ones. They are about to take off. There are bunches of smaller ones coming along behind these and more are flowering.

 

[FrostD]

I've been picking bush beans a couple of beans at a time for a few weeks. They are awfully slow about it. I've been stashing them in the freezer as I catch a couple.

View attachment 42381

This is the first good picking of pole beans aside from a few early ones. They are about to take off. There are bunches of smaller ones coming along behind these and more are flowering.

View attachment 42382

I dig that lighter there Knucks! Awesome progression on the beans also!

 

[deluxestogie]

One summer, I was slammed with green beans. I started throwing them into gallon Ziploc bags, and freezing them without blanching first. To my surprise, those lasted about 5 months in the freezer, before getting icky. [It's the gardener's version of a postal worker's tossing bags of mail into a roadside ditch, in order to keep up with the burden.]

Bob

 

[Knucklehead]

I dig that lighter there Knucks! Awesome progression on the beans also!

I prefer picking pole beans at head height to picking bush beans at copperhead and rattlesnake height. I have to push face first through the corn stalks all bent over in a non strategic fashion for bush beans.
It also turns out nicotine can be far more carcingenic to your health than initially believed. I keep running into health hazards in my tobacco patches.

Copperhead from my 2014 grow blog. You can see the tobacco seedlings on the railing. (On my PORCH!!) I had just carried out three trays of seedlings, one at a time, and was returning with a fourth when I looked down and the varmint was already coiled up with it's head back a couple feet away. I was looking off in the woods daydreaming. I beat a length of 3/4" metal conduit into a u-shape.


Rattlesnake Sept. 2021
That one met it's end about 9 months ago where my squash plants currently sit and a few feet from - you guessed it - my tobacco.
My brother in law was kind enough to pose for the photo. It was awhile before I wanted to leave the house. I never knew a Chihuahua could hit 90 mph from a dead stop on the flat but that one did. Female garden dog shot past me so fast I felt the breeze kick up as she hit the afterburners. I knew something was wrong even though she didn't pause long enough to give out any kind of a warning aside from that breeze I mentioned. She's the smart one of the family. I looked around and all I could see was that black rattkesnake tail buzzing away above the grass 20 ft. away and my deaf, blind, and goofy 16 yr. old male Chihuahua happy trotting directly toward the rattlesnake that the female garden dog had just agitated so badly. I took off after Goofy Chihuahua who is arthritic and cantankerous and when I tried to grab him to keep him away from Grumpy snake, he thought it would be a good idea to try to chew my arm off for disturbing his leisurely trot. By this time we've cut the distance to Grumpy Snake by about half and the buzzing is getting louder and Grumpy Snake is getting less happy by the second. Grumpy Chihuahua sounds like he's being eaten alive by a pack of coyotes and it's just me trying to keep him away from Grumpy Snake. I finally got both of them in the house and I went for Grumpy shotgun. I took a look out of the bedroom window to try to locate Grumpy snake as I didn't really want to blunder out into him again. He was headed up the bank at the current squash patch and I took the screen off and dispatched Grumpy Snake at the edge of the yard with Grumpy Shotgun. I leave them alone in the woods but my yard and porch are somewhat disputed territory.

 

[Knucklehead]

One summer, I was slammed with green beans. I started throwing them into gallon Ziploc bags, and freezing them without blanching first. To my surprise, those lasted about 5 months in the freezer, before getting icky. [It's the gardener's version of a postal worker's tossing bags of mail into a roadside ditch, in order to keep up with the burden.]

Bob

Is there anything I can do now or should I just go ahead and eat those? What do you do with the early ones that come in a couple of beans at a time? Blanch two beans at a time?

edit: I will blanch the pole beans now and keep everything separate and labelled. Looks like we'll have bush beans for supper.

 

[deluxestogie]

Alabama Snake Tales: the perils of growing tobacco. That could be the title of your new book.

What do you do...

Two or three cut up beans disappear happily into a pot of anything that happens to be cooking. Tonight, my meatless (ran out of hamburger) Mulligan stew will include peas and bok choi, in addition to carrots, potato and celery. If a veggie is all alone in the world, with no one to turn to, I eat it that day.

Most veggies can usually store well in the freezer without blanching, for long enough (surely weeks to months) to get you past their peak production glut.

Bob

 

[Knucklehead]

It's funny how this works. An hour after posting some months and years old snake photos I open the door and there's a four ft. harmless black racer or king snake staring back from the front porch. He was friendly so he went off on his merry way. I wonder if I can train him to catch hornworms?

 

[Homegrowngoodnes]

A hornworm catching snake! Lol

 

[Knucklehead]

Regluing a bridge to a 12 string. My buddy is 61 and his mother bought the guitar for him when he was 12. Special guitar. He has been playing since he was 5 and learned on an old Silvertone guitar. I'm swapping out for some guitar lessons.