Did Someone Say "Clean Up" ?

 

Ya right. The daily storms are no where near done with us poor Great Plains dwellers it seems. As you can see we got almost another five inches last night. Woke me up like clockwork about every 90 minutes all night as I worried about my barn roof, retired sheep and other live stock and before it was over the roof itself. We managed to come through unscathed but we were about the only ones in the nearby region as there were trees down everywhere this morning. Power out everywhere too with some still out by 3:00 PM. The entire roof of one nearby house was totally ripped away I am thinking it ended up near Hannibal somewhere.

It then proceeded to throw showers at us pretty much all day but I did get out and feed the stock about another half a hundred assorted cucumbers types and take a closer look at a few other things.

My Tobacco plants are not only doing a good job they are dutifully taking damage and then re sprouting a replacement to continue on as needed even when the original is down on it's back.

I have to give Tobacco Credit they take a licking and come back with a new re sprout during Summer. I should cross breed some into my Corn :)

 

Speaking of corn they took a fair sized hit last night but over all I have been happy with these varieties. I am currently on the fence as too which variety I am gonna go with as my permanent choice though. So far the I believe sweet corn 8 row type actually matures faster but has shown some SMUT growth, which I have never had before. I hear some people love it but not me.

I am also growing a bloody butcher variety that hasn't matured as fast. I think at this point I am just gonna let them all go to seed and make my decision after curing because that is certainly part of the whole process. Getting heritage corn to the dark brown tassels is one thing but I legitimately have never tried taking it into the second year as seed either.

In fact the only sustainable plant variety I stand 100% behind are my "Small Hold" beans

 

To be honest. This trellis (which grew totally as volunteers) have been my number one survival crop since at least 2010 if I remember right. My beans started out from a packet a new company sent me back then which were labeled as a Bush type variety named Dragon Tongue beans.I planted them and quickly found out they were not bush beans but by then it was too late and they got cross pollinated with some common type of pole beans I had been given by an old timer down the road.

To make a long story short this cross pollinated type must just love this particular area because they have never left. No matter what I did I was unable to get rid of them and they have proven to be the most hardy and abundant variety that I finally just embraced them and they are now the only variety I grow. 

They did lose their signature pod coloration at some point but occasionally it will show up again here and there. But this type dries better than any other variety I have tried, stores for years and then has re-sprouted after years left in a jar somewhere. I now have literally buckets of them laying around. If kept dry you don't even need to shuck them to store them either.

Luckily I only let two trellises of beans grow this year along with the 10 or 12 other volunteers I got scattered about. I simply do not need any more right now.

I actually got my first Tomato eaten last night but I had to carefully trim around a bad spot caused from Sum burn. My Tomatoes are mostly just a jumbled mess now so far but I am gonna get something of a harvest and I have learned quite a bit about seed and forget gardening from this terrible Summer too!

New Varieties and methods are sure to come for next year!!!

 

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!