Year of the Patriot: Gardens

[bjrogg]

Corn crop looks pretty good, but moisture is still a bit to high. I think when it quits raining maybe it will dry down quickly. I hope it doesn’t have to stay out long. It’s still plenty early but the corn around here all died prematurely from a host of diseases making its stalks weak. A big wind would not be welcome now. It would certainly knock a lot of corn over.

Corn was mature enough to fill out good. At least ours was. Not sure about the longer day varieties. Cobs are filled out to the tips.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Wheat is up nice. Had a nice sunset even though it was raining.

Bjrogg

[Eric Krewson]

Most of my greens patch is doing well. My collard patch is a failure, collard seed is slow to germinate, we had so much rain that the crab grass got the jump on the patch and overtook the collard plants. The first frost will kill the crabgrass but it will be too late for the collards.

[Pat B]

Eric, is that today's frost on the crabgrass in the last pic? We had 33 degrees this morning, no wind or breeze and no frost here on out property.

[Eric Krewson]

No, just a heavy dew, early morning and about 45 degrees.

[bjrogg]

We had a good week. We switched our combine over for corn and my son’s combine to soybeans.

I harvested our soybeans, a neighbors and my son’s.

My nephew ran our combine and finished our dry corn to haul to elevator.

Then we all worked at my son’s high moisture corn for feeding his cattle. Here’s the last load for his bunker. Nice and full. Need to clean corners of cart out because it will be carting sugar beets tomorrow.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

We run this corn through a roller mill to crack it. It helps the cattle digest it more efficiently and also helps it pack on pile so we can drive on it with push tractor. Ideally we like the moisture of the corn to be from 27 to 24 percent moisture. Much drier than 24 and it gets like driving on sugar. You can’t pack it good enough to drive on it with tractor. If you get stuck on this pile your going to need a sky hook to get out. This was getting just under 24 and you had to be really careful.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Here’s push tractor. As name suggests it push the cracked corn up on the pile and packs it.
Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

The corn will ensile ( not sure how to spell that, but kinda like ferment ) and it will keep without spoiling that way. You want to limit it exposure to oxygen though so we cover the top with plastic to keep oxygen out. Then we put a thin layer of lime over top to hold the plastic down and keep wind from blowing it away.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Still have some corn for my son to dry yet but it needs a few more days.

We will work at switching everything over to harvest permanent pile sugar beets today and hopefully be digging beets tomorrow

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

We got a lot done again today. Didn’t get a beet dug, but we got a lot of stuff ready to dig them.

My nephew fixed exhaust manifold on the 1985 Kenworth. Five snapped off studs. Managed to get them all out and hooked back up to trailer ready for early morning.

[bjrogg]

I fixed broken digger wheel, straightened four grab rolls and got beet digger in good shape.

Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

My brother replace spindle on cart. Took funnels out to switch it from grain to sugar beets.
Bjrogg

[bjrogg]

Filled the spreader up with rye seed for planting cover crop after harvesting beets.

[bjrogg]

Plus removed tarps from trucks, greased topper, carts and beet digger. Moved digger, two carts, topper, tool truck, rye spreader, loader and tillage tractor to the field.

Tomorrow we dig beets with a full crew. Hopefully we have another good day.

Bjrogg