What did you do in the garden today?

[Gammas Bearded Babies]

My garden is well behind all yall! But beef masters are growing up a storm! Fixing to be ready to prune em and tie em!
BUT found a black striped worm on my biggest plant today! Happily picked that thing off and gave it to Vanilli! She was quite happy!!!

 

[Elyrian1]

We sometimes see recluses inside here. Many are in attics, sometimes I see them in the bathtub. Common wisdom is to remove bed skirts if you are likely to have them inside so they won't crawl in bed with you as easily. I think spraying mainly drives them out in the open.

This is true! PSA: My cousin's feet got chewed up by a brown recluse and her babies that was living in the bedskirt. He's okay! But still...

 

[Sally PB]

So the fear I had when I was a kid of spiders crawling up my bed to bite my feet was legit?

 

[Sooner Magnolia]

So the fear I had when I was a kid of spiders crawling up my bed to bite my feet was legit?

Yep. More likely that you get bitten if you roll over on one in bed or it is in your pants leg, etc.

 

[Sueby]

OMG you guys are freaking me the heck out!! I'm never moving from CT. Unless it's north. LOL

 

[Sueby]

I did get bit by a spider once, a friend & I slept in the loft of the horse barn, I woke up & couldn't move my thumb, hurt like heck & was swollen. I had 2 teeth marks in the fleshy part. Obviously not a recluse, but it was sore for a week!

 

[vall]

First thing I did when I got the keys for this house was release some of those bug bombs. It had been empty a few months and was not tented for termites. Only thing I found was a handful of dead ants, whew.

 

[gtaus]

thanks.

I was thinking about building a tank for water. the stream might not have enough water in summer.

Understand. I have a small creek that runs through my property out into the lake. Normally, I just drop the suction end of my pump hose into the creek. Late in the fall, the creek usually gets pretty low and is not usable at that time. This year, without any rain, the creek is already almost bone dry. So I have to draw water from the lake itself. Not a big deal, but need about another 50 feet of garden hose to take water from the lake.

More to your concerns, today I tried running my 12v water pump from my rain barrels by the main garden, through a sprinkler, and it did a fair job of watering the garden. Then I decided to draw the water from the lake, which meant another 7 feet of head height and another 50 feet of garden hose. At that point, the pump did not have enough power to run the sprinkler in the garden. My 12v water pump is rated at about 5.5 gallons per minute, but I assume that is on a flat surface. As you start pumping the water up hill, and for a longer distance, you lose water pressure and the flow rate drops.

I tested the flow rate of the pump drawing water from the lake, uphill about 7 feet, and using a 50 foot hose. I filled a 5 gallon bucket in 1 min 45 secs, which is about 2.85 gallons per minute. That was not enough to run the garden sprinkler from the lake water.

So, my current plan until I get a better pump, is to first pump my rain barrels (55 gallons X 2 barrels) full and then switch the pump to run water from the rain barrels to the garden. I suspect that if you have to pump water uphill, you too will probably see a big difference if you have a holding tank up on top of the hill and then run your garden water from the holding tank(s). Unless you have a really strong pump, you might not have much flow left directly to the garden after pumping all that water uphill.

If you plan on buying a 12v water pump, I recommend that you pay a little extra money and get the 12v demand water pumps. The "demand" portion usually pressurizes the output to about 60 PSI, but what I really like is that you can then use any garden hose sprayer and when you shut off the water, the pump will shut off too. My 12v water pump is a transfer pump and has no ability to sense pressure and shut itself off. If I had a 12v demand water pump, I could put in a float valve in the holding tanks and when the tank is filled, it would shut off the water flow, causing the pressure to quickly build up in the hose line and the demand pump would sense that and shut itself off. My current transfer pump would just keep on trying to push out water until it burned itself up. So, my recommendation is to spend a few dollars more and get a demand pump. You have many more options with a demand pump.

 

[WthrLady]

Do you have a trailer for your gator? You could get a water hog, fill that at the lake and then take the hog up the hill to your garden system.

 

[gtaus]

I was out pruning my strawberry bed this afternoon. I snipped off about 15 strawberry runners (stolons) and attempted to replant them in small 3" pots I saved from our plants we bought this spring. Don't know how many will survive, but thought I would give it a try. In any case, I have heard that you need to snip off those runners or the plants will not put any energy into developing the strawberries to eat.

If the runners take hold and start to grow in the small pots, I'll transplant them later into my empty hügelkultur raised bed down by the lake.