What's your plan for use on one that size? I tried Hubbard's a couple years but found them too big for one person to get through fresh. The tough skin made it more work than I thought it was worth to process for canning chunks and I can only eat so much soup. Have gone to mostly delicata and butternut since you can eat everything but the stem. Butternuts usually keep until late spring just sitting on a shelf in the basement.I put a pink banana jumbo squash plant in one of my failed garlic beds to see how it would really do if it had good conditions.
This plant spans the entire frame of this pic. These squash are said to reach 50 pounds if they have the juice and time to go the distance.
Scratch that, 70 pounds.
60 days to go for these to fill out. It could be a photo finish for these if they get to the end. There are at least 10 growing here and more developing yet.
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Habitat out loud
- Thread starter SD51555
- Start date
SD51555
5 year old buck +
November deer food. I’d like to lay down 6’ wide strips of landscape fabric In my plots this winter and pull them off at squash planting time and get in 50 plants if I can. Deer will eat any squash or pumpkin by me and they wait until November to do it.
But they can eat a lot. I dumped a heaping 6’ truck bed full into a pile years ago after season, and they ate that whole truckload in under three weeks.
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SD51555
5 year old buck +
I don’t think any harder than a pumpkin. I grew a ten pounder a few years ago and it popped right open.
If it is bad, I’ll wander out there with an ax and open them up.
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Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
Is that onion or garlic in the jars w/ the beans?Also started bringing in the harvest. I’d like to get to 12 or 15 jars of dilly green beans this year.
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SD51555
5 year old buck +
That’s garlic. I am trying to grow my own. There’s one clove in each jar, except for one. Most of my garlic crop didn’t make it this year, but a few did.
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SD51555
5 year old buck +
First glimpse at the throw and roll results from last weekend.
First, the bad. There are spots (maybe 10-20% max) of the plot where the grass was tight and there wasn’t much food in it. Part of this was an area the deer and bear kept matted down all summer with traffic to the pond.
The thistle patches have clover coming thru already.
The majority looks like this.
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First, the bad. There are spots (maybe 10-20% max) of the plot where the grass was tight and there wasn’t much food in it. Part of this was an area the deer and bear kept matted down all summer with traffic to the pond.
The thistle patches have clover coming thru already.
The majority looks like this.
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SD51555
5 year old buck +
The chicory and plantain are the first to stand up.
None of the good stuff was harmed. The chicory, BES, clovers, plantains, and alfalfa, are all alive, and the grass is flat.
Did the barley make it thru? It’s early yet, but it’s coming. I pulled back the duff to see it well on its way.
This spot over in the sweet clover came sailing thru with ease. To be fair, there wasn’t as much residue here.
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None of the good stuff was harmed. The chicory, BES, clovers, plantains, and alfalfa, are all alive, and the grass is flat.
Did the barley make it thru? It’s early yet, but it’s coming. I pulled back the duff to see it well on its way.
This spot over in the sweet clover came sailing thru with ease. To be fair, there wasn’t as much residue here.
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Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
What uses barley in a food plot? Is it good as a green forage for deer - a grain producer for various birds - good for OM??
Foggy47
5 year old buck +
Yeah.....well I think SD just likes to be a bit different.....lol. Grin. I've read a few good things about barley....but I like to stay as uncomplicated as I can....and cereal rye fills my needs quite well for a grain crop....as it can take a freeze and bounce back to again provide nutrition and cover and then mulch the next year. No other grain that I know will do that. What a great crop for me. Cheap and easy....what a concept!
SD51555
5 year old buck +
Barley can outyield rye in the fall because it'll keep growing until it freezes. If I get the planting date wrong, I get an awnless seedhead, and that's also good. If I don't, I still get the leafy biomass. So you really can't miss with barley.
I planted it now because I may be spraying grass in the spring, and I didn't want to blow extra money on trit only to also have to also try to kill the trit in the spring.
SD51555
5 year old buck +
Hey now, don't you go trying to steal my thunder. I'm cheaper and easier than anyone.
In all seriousness, I'd sure like to compete for the following trophies this year:
*Lowest minutes labor per acre per year
*Lowest maintenance cost per acre
*Lowest amount of assets needed per acre
*Highest adverse weather resilience
SD51555
5 year old buck +
Barley has got to be about the cheapest. I think I paid $16/bag. Winter trit isn’t much more, maybe $20-26/bag.
The bigger cost is tonnage not produced. That’s why I picked barley where I did. I’m putting trit elsewhere because I have no plans of spraying those plots next year.
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Bowsnbucks
5 year old buck +
Rye will always be our go-to grain. It grows anywhere. One of our camp members spilled some rye on the ground when loading a seeder, and it grew great with no attention at all. Can't get much easier than 0 effort! All of rye's positives work great for us. I always want to learn more about food plots, and I have no experience with barley - thus my ?? to SD.
I get ya on SD cutting his own trail on some things .........
You're all good here, SD!!!
Foggy47
5 year old buck +
Agreed.... I think it is written somewhere in the Bible: blessed be the habitat experimenters for they are the salt of the earth. (or some such thing). GrinRye will always be our go-to grain. It grows anywhere. One of our camp members spilled some rye on the ground when loading a seeder, and it grew great with no attention at all. Can't get much easier than 0 effort! All of rye's positives work great for us. I always want to learn more about food plots, and I have no experience with barley - thus my ?? to SD.
I get ya on SD cutting his own trail on some things .........
