Re: [gardeners] Artichokes
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Sat, 17 Jan 1998 19:37:50
At 06:12 PM 1/17/98 +0000, you wrote:
>Thanks for encouragement George. I used to "liberate" artichokes
>from the UCLA test gardens when I was an unreconstructed teenager.
>Would cook them in my coffee pot in my dorm room and feast away.
>Try them again.
>Soil amendment is what we do instead of read books! We have a turkey
>plant in town; all the turkey doo is bought up by a smart lady, mixed
>with her veggie growing compost, and marketed by the truck load.
>First year I used it, I didn't wear gloves, and forgot to wear a
>mask. Got the worst case of salmonella anyone ever saw! But it was
>great for the garden.
>We can also drive up to San Saba and get pecan shells; they sell them
>at $1 for an old 50# feed sack load, or $7 for a pick up load. You
>dig, and you fill up yore container. Almost as good a deal as the
>old rice hulls we used to get near Houston; free, if you wanted to
>face-off the rats and bag your own. We once took our Siamese cat
>with us to protect us. He took one look at the local wild-life and
>left! Took us an hour to find him and his previously lilac color
>points had turned snow white.
>We need to meet, George. Come on down!
>
When we lived in Orange, Texas and had a large garden we got rice hulls
mixed with race horse poop from a friend. Another friend had a cabinet shop
and we swept it up once a week for all of the sawdust and wood shavings.
The sweepings went under our chicken roost and in a month was rich black
soil. We understand scrounging for soil amendments. Anne gets horse manure
from a local race horse trainer about 4 times a year, hauls it home in the
4-door sedan in buckets, tubs, and old feed sacks then we compost it. Still
rinse all root vegetables and those that could have been splashed during
rains with a bleach solution. One round of amoebic dysentery teaches you
not to play games with manure, human or otherwise.
When Anne found out where y'all live she also said we had to go there. She
loves that part of Texas. Gotta get her up to Maryland this year to see her
90-year old momma then we can go to other places.
George