The 2014 season is here already. (more…)
Author: John
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Last planting in 2013
Shallot, Garlic and Onion seed are in the ground
40 foot rows of garlic, shallot and 10 foot seed bed. The last seeds and bulbs are in the ground. I have always used onion sets in the early spring. This year I’ll try to grow my own from seeds. They have emerged very nicely. The idea is to not give much room for each plant. Grouping the plants closely will make transplanting easier in early spring. I imagine we will dig up clumps and plant them in rows.
Garlic is pretty easy to grow. In the southern US (Oklahoma) we plant in late fall, after the first frost. In a mild or normal winter they will emerge and grow 6 inches high. The magic is below ground where the cloves establish their roots. Garlic loves a rich soil so we have added chicken manure compost before tilling and hilling the soil. They like dry feet so raised beds are best. Plant each clove about 4 inches deep.
Next to the Garlic is a row of shallot. It is mostly French Red Shallot that I found at Southern Seed Exchange. They have a nice choice of varieties and cater to a southern gardener’s planting schedule. I have no trouble finding garlic nor shallot. I have until now always planted shallot in the spring. The result is shamefully small bulbs (some of which I have used as seed this fall). Maybe fall planting will finally produce a harvest of shallots.
Thanks to Adrian the rows are now mulched with wheat straw that he shreds in a leaf shredder. He has also been busy building more compost piles from shredded okra, peppers and garden debris. We are getting loads of chicken manure from a new round of pullets. Ron Cramer gave me 24 chicks this summer and they have begun producing lots of eggs and poop. Plenty for the compost piles and about 2 dozen eggs per day.
The garden is not sleeping. The first section planted in the garden in late 2012 were strawberries. To my surprise they produced some nice berries this year. Next year they should be great – if we can keep the deer out of the garden all winter. The Arapaho thornless blackberries have done very well too.
Strawberry, Asparagus and Blackberry in perennial section of garden -
Predicting Lead Gen Revenue from a Book of Orders
Part 3 – Estimating Lead Gen Revenue
In the field of insurance, companies grow by building a collection of policies. This collection is called a Book. So an established and successful insurance agent will have a large Book of Policies. This Book defines the present value of the agent’s business. (more…)
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DO variables and response variables
Predicting consumer response
Graphical model of auto insurance leads. In the previous post I discussed how it is possible to compress our knowledge of auto insurance lead consumers into a very compact model. A Bayesian Network, shown here, (more…)
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Lead Gen Revenue, impossible to estimate?
Part 1 – the Problem
It was years ago, about 2001, when we met with Todd Chapple (now at My Agent Solution, Inc.), who at the time was pioneering auto insurance leads online at Netquote. He is a very smart guy (more…)
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The last load of boxes
This season was a very good garden season. Seemed like the garden has been gushing boxes of veggies and melons. Boxes after boxes shipped twice a week. The garden gave it up.
Okra bloom stalks are 3 feet long Now she and I need a rest. Adrian too, bless him.
The okra wants to work more. Each plant 7 feet tall after blooming over and over. Boxes and boxes of okra.
But I think it is time to give it up this season. Clean and oil the tools. Compost the too tall okra. Pull down the beans and reclaim the trellis. Call it a day.
After a long season the deer are in garden. See the tracks? -
Planning a 2014 garden
Starting a plan for the 2014 garden
Variety in the garden is important. Crop rotation is made easy with planning software. It is simple to layout next year’s garden. Looking back at old notes and gardens, variety is not my strong suit. I seem to plant the same varieties year after year.
This year will be different. Next year will have 1/3 new varieties. Any failed variety gets booted (Brandywine tomato, Gonzalez cabbage, Tomatillo Roma Verde). I will save seed from our best crops and use some swapped seeds from my family.
Row spacing is changing some too. To cultivate between rows, I’d like to buy a cultivator/hiller for the tractor. It uses adjustable tines, disk and blades. We can cultivate our 5 foot row spaces and then also rows space 2 1/2 feet too. It will hill corn in narrow rows and potatoes in wide rows.
Still need to buy and plant onion, shallot and garlic to be planted in the next few months before winter.
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The Spendor of Repetition
A simple okra bud shows Nature’s repetition. The buds spiral in space and time. (more…)
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Fall plantings doing very well
Pole beans have been planted where the sweet peas had grown. The peas did pretty well on the plastic trellis material. The beans and cucumbers are too. (more…)
