The Quack Shack

[Canadian Wind]

I could name some.

Same. Although not all species are this far north, a surprising number of them were, and I was fairly good at naming them!

 

[Muscovy Wunda]

Morning all. Love seeing so many different conversations happening. Hope you are doing okay @rjohns39 and Sue

 

[Canadian Wind]

Greetings. Had a frost warning again last night (and probably tonight). I want to get some things planted but can't!!! It's probably going to have to wait until the end of the month or start of June.

 

[Miss Lydia]

We’re in the upper 40’s this morning. So much for climate change which is a joke anyway.

Good Morning and Evening All!!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I've researched this, making certain of species, and am being careful not to over-ingest. Even then, I'd have to eat pounds of the stuff for it to affect me.

So far, I've sampled the shoots and tubers, as well as the flower buds a few years ago. Even fed them to my pet lizard at the time. The leaves make excellent fodder for the rabbits, too, and most of them love them. I'm currently cooking down the tougher leaves and roots to turn into fowl food.

I'm very much into foraging and living off the land. Food has gotten way too expensive, especially when one has no income.

I can link you pages for recipes if you want?

Would love to! - I have the orange day-lily, some neighbors call it the tiger daylily growing all along the creek at the bottom of the hill. Still the neighbors insist that these plants are poisonous and no part can be eaten…

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I've researched this, making certain of species, and am being careful not to over-ingest. Even then, I'd have to eat pounds of the stuff for it to affect me.

So far, I've sampled the shoots and tubers, as well as the flower buds a few years ago. Even fed them to my pet lizard at the time. The leaves make excellent fodder for the rabbits, too, and most of them love them. I'm currently cooking down the tougher leaves and roots to turn into fowl food.

I'm very much into foraging and living off the land. Food has gotten way too expensive, especially when one has no income.

I can link you pages for recipes if you want?

Food not became really expensive, several food-items are simply no longer available: I have not found any Brussels-sprouts or Cauliflower in the local stores for months! Neither fresh nor frozen. And it won't help that half of California's central valley is now under water instead of being in drought.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Well.. I would say that anything that contains fresh manure should be kept away from anything that we eat raw, that's why i mentioned "tall" when talking about mulching berries. Gooseberries and currants can hang very low, same with haskap or, as an extreme case, strawberries. Or cornelian cherry if you pick only the fallen fruit (usually a good idea in my experience).

Raspberries and blackberries on the other hand seem safe to me (currently using straw under black rasps).

A way around this would be to lay down duck straw but then pile some grass clippings or whatnot over it during the season and keep refreshing the layers as needed. At our place we top up the mulch all over the summer to shield the plants with shallow roots from full impact of the sun and to keep weeds away.

I would love to use straw under the straw-, rasp- and blackberries, but straw is still scarce here and expensive ($15/square bale) and i have not been able to mow and weed around in the berry garden - maybe this afternoon…
I am also out of wood chips, maybe i trade some in for tomato-seedlings and/or duck-eggs.
I don't think manure (fresh or partially composted) is really an issue, as long as you thoroughly wash your food right after harvesting and let the water drain and dry off.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Maybe this is a situation similar to the pawpaw (asimina triloba) which also contains a neurotoxin.

Has been suggested as an anti-cancer agent because of that (in my understanding the alkaloid slows down energy metabolism, thus starving cancer cells which have the highest needs; unfortunately nerve cells have the next highest).

Now, while the above may work or not, the fact is that the fruit is super tasty to the point of "you don't believe it until you've tried it" (think mango-banana-vanilla-caramel all blended together) and that one would have to eat A LOT to develop nerve problems.

There are other plants in the same family though which have a much larger concentration of the active ingredient and over the time there have been studies which have shown an increase in Parkinson's where this fruit (graviola - soursop) is very popular.

Pawpaw is another tree i like to have here, but it won't tolerate full sunlight and i don't have a spot for it right now. - Fenced in for deer protection and shaded by taller trees.
I will definitely give these day-lilies a try - sooner or (more likely) later.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

@WannaBeHillBilly and @Miss Lydia

How many can you identify?

I have made it to the Bluejays, which i know very well. In the past i thought their calls were from some kind of hawk or buzzard, some BoP and was very surprised when i saw a Bluejay at the feeder making that "hawk-sound".
Biggest surprise was the Mourning Dove: I thought there were Owls around! - Nope, doves! I have never seen a dove - consciously, but i will pay more attention in the future.
Very interesting video! Thank you very much!

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Happy Monday to Everybody!​

Been busy over the weekend with the garden, now i have 40 tomato plants in the ground, 80 in tiny pots and >>100 still in the cold-frames! - Every single tomato seed has germinated this year…