2023 Massachusetts Outdoor Growing

Wow! That’s great intel, but I don’t see anything in Western Mass or out toward the Berkshires…:unamused:, is there another sheet?:grin:

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Knightville Dam is in Huntington (hilltown, west of Northampton). Tully Lake is in… Royalston or somewhere like that, over by Orange.

I didn’t remember it until I looked it up, but I’ve been to Knightville Dam before (was doing a work thing nearby).

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I have a tent full of plants vegging as they wait to go out to the garden.

No doubt you guys already know this, but It’s also worth considering the amount of daylight when you decide when to put your plants outside. If the days are too short your plants can go into flower and then spend time and energy re-vegging as daylight lengthens.

I have read that 14 hours of daylight is a minimum to keep a plant in veg. You outdoors growers may know whether that is correct.

In Cape Cod we are currently at 12 hours, 49 minutes of daylight. We’ll hit 14 hours on May 1.

Cheers,
-Grouchy :+1: :green_heart:

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They are rather obviously missing an Amherst station which kinda sucks for anyone in the river valley, especially since that’s where the Stockbridge School of Agriculture is. Also no readings from the Cold Spring Orchard in Belchertown :frowning_face: I’ve been using the Worcester numbers because when I look at the weather at my brothers house there before I go it’s almost always the same temps. Royalston is a good bet for folks along the NH/VT border, like @yardgrazer said Tully Lake (Reservoir lol) is a nice spot up there all the way up in MA, I’ve camped there a number of times before with friends, nice waterfall to swim in if you can dodge the cops and rangers. Knightville Dam is definitely more representative of the Berkshires, they’re almost a month behind which tracks with my experience living out towards the NY border vs the I-91 corridor. I’ve also gone camping in the mid-late spring up above Knightville in Gilbert Bliss State Forest towards Chesterfield Gorge and found snow, soooooo….

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Here’s an interactive map for Mass by towns, can’t attest to its accuracy vs the university chart but it’s more detailed:

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Good tip @Dirt_Wizard,

Here’s the “Last Frost” map from the same site:

All signs point to May First for my transplants!

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Very good article on current fuckery in Mass. Doom! Doom I say!!! :rofl::rofl::rofl:

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I passed out in a car with some dudes girlfriend at a keg party in Chesterfield gorge! He almost caught me in the morning, but I fled with her panties as evidence for my crew. Ahhh, to be 17 again.
Awesome fishing and beautiful spot. But getting up and down that mountain in the winter, is a bitch.

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Here in the Berkshires elevation plays more a part than anything… i.e., Peru,MA vs. Great Barrington are substantially different but like previous posts I have seen some genius thai start to preflower at 14 hours of light, while the black lime reserve did not.

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Boy it sure does, I lived in GB for a few years when I was young and a townie restaurant guy, it’s quite mild there down off the plateau but damn if Peru and Florida MA aren’t some of the coldest places I’ve ever pitched a tent!

Weird historical side note: the old L1/L2 fiber optic cable systems and other telecom infrastructure are an interest of mine, and the steel transmitter tower in Peru used to be one of the most important places in New England, along with with what’s now a plastic factory out there in I think Huntington? Those, along with the Strategic Air Command bunker at the Notch on Rt 116 in South Amherst, were the nodes where the national Cold War Bell microwave transmitter system interfaced with the first cables. The steel transmitter tower in Peru is the tallest freestanding (not guyed up with tension) antenna in New England, still to this day.

There’s also a nuclear bunker in each of those major Bell switch buildings so that an employee could survive and keep the system running in case of a Russian first strike. When Nixon’s daughter was attending Smith College in Northampton, her Secret Service detail used the Bell switch house on State Street that’s now the Hungry Ghost bakery as their headquarters. Because they had an arrangement with Bell that they could use their secure facilities anywhere, anytime they needed, that also meant that the Peru bunker was where they would take her in case of a DEFCON alert.

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I’ve always gone by the farmers almanac. It has been pretty dead on accurate until about 7-10 yrs ago but still is pretty reliable

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@Dirt_Wizard , sounds like you may still be into communications? Ever heard of a Baofeng UV-5X?

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I have, but I’ve never gone down the road of VHF/UHF/hamming. Maybe one of these days! My interest is less in the telecom part of it than the industrial and infrastructure history of it, I’m an architecture and development history nerd

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I’m surprised they wouldn’t take her to the old Westover AFB. A drive to Peru could be treacherous in winter, and WAFB musta had something comparable?

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Had to be somewhere nuclear survivable that wasn’t a primary target like the Strategic Air Command at the Notch or Westover AFB, those were expected to get hit in the first few rounds of ICBMs, but I was wrong about the Long Lines site. It wasn’t Peru, that had a single line down to Northampton connecting the Notch and Westover to points west with the microwave system that was supposed to be the post-nuclear comms system. Her bunker (and her Eisenhower husband’s) was going to be at the Chesterfield site, which was low-key probably the most important strategic telecom site on the east coast during the Cold War that nobody knew about. Literally every cable came in there it’s crazy, you can still follow the cuts on satellite photos from Chesterfield Plastics outwards:

This is slightly incorrect in that Julie went to Smith College, her husband went to Amherst, they lived in Northampton so Chesterfield was a straight run up the hill.

“ This site had also TM microwave. Four separate routes (Littleton L3, Springfield/Cheshire L3, Clarksville L3/L4 and Netcong/Airmont L3/L4) terminated at Chesterfield. This was a two level facility and was powered by 3 diesel generators. See drawings of the site plans The upper level had a 1ESS switch that provided AUTOVON to military users in the area included Westover AFB, Barnes ARB and the Post Attack Command and Control System Facility at Hadley, MA. . Chesterfield was also the relocation point for Julie Nixon, Presidents Nixon’s daughter, who was attending school at Amherst College. One of the mezzanine rooms was designated as living space for Julie and her husband during a catastrophic event. Chesterfield, as well at most of the entire L coaxial and AUTOVON system were turned down in late 1990.”

https://archives.long-lines.com/mfoster/Chesterfield.htm

The Notch was the site that was supposed to take over when Cheyenne Mountain got bunker busted or cut off from the east coast, which is why it was considered a target if it had been found out about (it was wildly secret for generations, not least of which because the Federal Reserve stored a few billion in US currency there along with other military bunkers to reboot the American economy after a nuclear war and the banking system destroyed:

https://archives.long-lines.com/mfoster/PACCS.htm

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Gnight all. Thanks for another amazing OG Day!!!

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Funny misstatement in that Amherst didn’t go co-ed until 1975 (well after Nixon would have been there).

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I’m going to glom on here as I live in Mass and I just started some of my girls outdoors. Seems like spring/summer is going to be several weeks early.

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I’m gonna miss it, but have fun buds who are going and smoke one for me and keep an eye out for the old hippies with seeds from them thar hills, northern Connecticut River Valley has some deep old genetics around!

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