Welcome to The Yardstead
The USDA has a ton of good information that can be very useful for planning your garden. One of the first things you need to know for garden planning is what plants will do well in your particular climate. The USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map provides quick and easy access to this information.
Each zone on the map is represented by a different color. The key associated with the map gives the zone number for each colored area as well as the average annual minimum temperature for each zone. There are 10 zones on the map that each represent a different level of winter hardiness. The zones are subdivided into 'a' and 'b' sections that represent about a 5 degree F difference in minimum temperature.
This information is critical when planning your garden, if you want to make sure your plants will survive the cold weather. The areas encompased by the map zones also have similar all around climate characteristics. This makes the map very useful for planning plants that will not only survive a frost in your area, but also thrive in your climate conditons.
So now that you know what hardiness zone your garden lies within, how do know what plants will do well in your zone? Well you could .......
When February rolls around, we always get excited here at The Yardstead. No, not because of Valentines Day, but because it means Spring garden time is about to arrive. We are extra excited this year since our garden has been almost completely bare since the end of the summer. We usually have a full winter garden with lots of collards, mustard, turnips and other greens as well as snow peas and cabbage varieties (bak choi is one of my favorites). This year our work schedules kept us out of the garden for the most part all winter. Kathleen did mange to get some snow peas in the ground a couple of weeks ago, but it may get to hot for them before they really produce much. We arent to worried about the snow peas though, if they dont produce much we will eat what they do produce right off the vines while we work in the garden. The fresh pods make a tasty snack! Anyway, one of the first veggies that we usually get in the ground for Spring are potatoes. Our old farmers almanac says Valentines day is the best time to plant potatoes in our area.
Potatoes grow best in cool, but not freezing weather. If you live somewhere with a hot climate, like our yardstead (which is in Florida) you should plant the potatoes as early as possible so they will have time to produce before the weather gets too hot. Many varieties of potatoes will wilt and die when the temperature reaches the 90s. A freeze will also kill potato plants, so you need to plant them after your last freeze. Since it takes about 2 or three weeks after being planted for the potatoe plants to emerge from the ground it is usually safe to plant them a couple of weeks prior to your latest expected freeze date where the temperature drops down below 28 degrees. Well, since no one gets a schedule with all the temperatures listed in
advance we have to rely on past weather statistics to forecast planting
times. NOAA maintains the National Climate Data Center with all kinds of useful weather and climate statistics, that can be accessed from their website. Here is a link to the freeze/frost probability tables. Just select your state from the list and scroll down the table to and find the nearest town listed. You will see the 28 degree column and can find the latest date it is likely to fall below 28F in your area. For our area itis Feb. 8 so valentines is a safe bet for us.
There are many varieties of potatoes to choose from. You can.......
We have been raising turkeys here at the Yardstead since about the middle of May. They are just over 6 months old now and fully grown. We got them as 3 day old poults and raised them in with our chickens. This is the first time we have kept turkeys and it's been really easy and a lot of fun.
We bought three baby turkeys called poults from our local feed store. We kept them inside in a box for a couple of weeks. The poults looked very similar to baby chickens but were slightly larger. After a couple of weeks we moved the poults out to our chicken pen and put them in a small holding pen to protect them from the hens. Turkey do well on chicken feed and we fed the baby turkeys layer crumbles.
We have been raising chickens for years and the baby chicks always did a fair job of looking out for their selves. Our baby chicks have a small shelter they instinctively use when the weather is bad. We expected that the turkeys would do the same. One night after the poults had been living outside for a couple of weeks, we had a hard rain. It stopped raining a little after dark and I went outside to the chicken pen to check on the birds. I shined the light on the holding pen and all three turkey were laying on the ground soaking wet. I rushed them inside and Kathleen.....
