I feel foolish asking this but we tried out our new greenhouse this

[jwirr]

year and we have had the kind of weather that produces good gardens even when we don't have a greenhouse. So we have 10 foot sunflowers and huge tomatoes. We just got through canning 92 quarts of dill pickles, a gallon of refrigerator pickles, a dozen bags of rhubarb, 11 pints of pie apples, 9 pints of applesauce, butchered 3 hogs for the 3+ families and are not done yet.

The problem we are having is that the tomatoes in the greenhouse are completely filling the greenhouse to the extent that the sun is not reaching the center of the mass. What should we be doing to help maximize the production of these plants inside the greenhouse? I am suggesting that we pull some of the plants out so the others can produce.

Also we have strawberries that are just this year sending out runners but we do not have berries on them. I am assuming that they are June bearing berries and we will get berries next year. Any advice on them?

Also is there anyone on DU that can tell me how much graze land you need per cow/horse if the land is lightly wooded?

Thanks to any and all who can help us.

[babylonsister]

1. Sounds like quite a problem.

:hi: Your hard work has paid off; sounds mahvelous!

I have no advice, but wish I lived near you!

[Warpy]

2. You should have been trimming the suckers, the side stems,

all along, but don't knock the fact that your vines have been such great producers.

You can still use green tomatoes for green tomato pickles, green tomato pies, and fried, sliced green tomatoes. Yes, that green is solanine, but there's no more in a green tomato than there is in a ripe one.

You can also ripen them in paper bags with apples to supply the ethylene gas, but that's only after the first hard frost when you want to cling to fresh tomato season a week or two longer. Tomatoes ripened that way taste like supermarket tomatoes, IMO, and for the same reason.

That's what you can do with the green tomatoes left on the vines you weed out, in other words, so don't worry about wasting them. That way the ones left will ripen naturally and be at the real peak and tell you why you bothered growing them in the first place.

Everybody should have that kind of problem. Monsoons fizzled out here in NM again, tomatoes are hard and sour.

[jpak]

3. You must really like dill pickles - 92 quarts!

:wow:

[jwirr]

5. They are for 3 families and a lot of our friends get a jar or two when

they visit. But yes, we know our babies are part of the family because by 1 1/2 years they go to the refrig and say, "Pickle, Papa?" to their grandfather.

[uppityperson]

4. I'd suggest aggressively pruning the tomatoes, leaves, side shoots, etc

Leave the roots, just prune the heck out of them. That way also the tomatoes will ripen faster too.

[LWolf]

6. A minimum of 2-3 acres of GOOD pasture per horse.

I don't know about cows. I don't know about "lightly wooded."

I do know that horses have a more primitive, and more sensitive digestive system than cows, and require better feed. What kind of forage is growing there?

[jwirr]

7. At the moment the land is wooded and has underbrush so it is totally

unfit for either horses or cows. It is being logged and we are not doing clear cut so there will be trees but we want to replace the underbrush with some type of grass. We are hoping to run 3-4 steers and several horses. This is in the planning stage so we can use any advice.

Thank all of you for your help.

[LWolf]

8. Will it be irrigated to maintain the grass?

It's a good idea to make sure that your grasses are high quality for horses, and to know how to maintain a pasture for horses. If it will support horses, the cows won't be a problem.

http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/naturalresources/components/7540_05.html
http://www.ampacseed.com/pdfs/resources/Horse_Pasture_Management.pdf

[jwirr]

9. Thank you and especially for the links. Irrigation is usually not needed

here in MN.

[FedUpWithIt All]

11. You might look into Scottish Highland cattle. They supposedly thrive on forage.

They are relatively docile (there are more than a few stories of Bulls coming over for a nice brushing), self defensive with predators, need little or no shelter, do well in a variety of climates, birth very easily and produce a very high quality and healthy low fat beef.

They are useful, according to some, for brush clearing and pasture restoration. They use their horns to knock over the brush for easy access. They are also very disease resistant.

http://www.scotlandfarms.com/comparebeef.html

http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/cattle/highland/

I personally think they are incredible looking animals.

[EarthFirster]

13. MMmmm

Grass fed beef is the best! I hear Europe does not even allow GM fed beef into the food stream! Are you worried about SB 510?

[Kali]

10. talk to your local extension agent about acreage requirements

you can put more animals on a piece of ground if you can rotate them around based on plant growth rates.but you will need fencing or full time herding - for brushy places you might try starting with goats.
you can eyeball feed by imagining how big of a spot will give the equivalent of a half small bale of hay and extrapolate that per day for however long you are going to have them out there to your acreage to get an animal number but I wouldn't try if you don't have experience.

talk to a local farmer or extension - really, you need to develop a relationship with somebody to mentor you and help in an emergency if you are going to fool around with cattle.

[Boudica the Lyoness]

12. About the head/acre

It depends on a lot of things. We are in the west and it's very dry. We get less than 10' of rain/yr. We have 500+ acres of sage brush, native grasses pasture and the cows eat it right down early in the year. We only have about 20 cow calf pairs. Horses can do much better for longer on it. In some parts of the country 500 acres sounds like a hell of a lot for only 20 head, but not here. So I back up what was said up thread and talk to the local extension office.