What did you do in the garden today?

[Acre4Me]

One good thing about this high heat -seeds sprout very well!! We planted most of the big bed on Saturday afternoon. Watered well, then next day it rained. This morning at 6am, sprout everywhere! Not everything is sprouted, but I’ll bet by tomorrow many more will be.

We had to put down one chicken last night. She has been lethargic and moving slow lately. She also has been limping, but no idea why. She sits, then get up to walk a short distance elsewhere to sit again. Always sad, bc you wonder if something could be done/get better, etc…however, it has been awhile that she’s been like this and it was just getting more obvious.

 

[WIchickMama]

70s and muggy this morning with some rain and then headed to sunny and high 80s-gonna be hot. I will have to go out and weed this morning, picked a bunch of lettuce and spinach yesterday-spinach was starting to flower. LOTS of strawberry flowers and green fruit, have to get those covered today with netting before the birds and bunnies find them. Bean, squash, melon and cucumber plants have added about 6 inches in the last couple days. @Acre4Me I agree the high heat really helps with germination! LOTS of green tomatoes and peppers out there! rhubarb is about done here and the asparagus has started to fern. Happy HUMP day!

 

[Sueby]

Sorry about your bird @Acre4Me. It's so hard to figure out what's wrong with them, wouldn't life be so much easier if they could tell us? LOL

So glad to hear from you again!


That is SUCH a good deal! I'm so jealous, I can never seem to have posts.

I've thought about having goats over and over, but unless we can manage to buy more land I just can't.

I miss things we had easy access to in Portland but Portland nursery is at the top of the list.

Looks to me like a Tree of Heaven sprout, we called ours Tree of Heck if you catch my drift.

I love growing corn, it just looks beautiful!

We were lucky, we just caught the edge of the weather here.

@Sueby, I'm so very sorry for your loss. Try to remember the good times. For me, remembering her smiles helped when I lost my mother. Best wishes for you and your family.

Well with all the rain and cooler temperatures we've had this year, we've lost more strawberries to rot than the slugs and snails. The bunnies and chickens have made out like bandits though.

The littles have been pretty well integrated and the tinies are well on their way. I still hadn't gotten to getting a net over the top of the open run. I was pretty confident that the ladies were too big to be a target for hawks, especially after the one hawk that did try to take Inky dropped her after lifting her over the fence (she was fine though she hid under a shed for 2 days poor girl). That said, the littles would be the perfect meal size and the tinies are more fun size snack. But I keep putting it off because I wanted to get a frame put up to hold the netting high enough to easily walk under. Well I walked out to give the girls a treat and no one is in the uncovered run and there's a clump of feathers just inside the pen...it took me a second to realize that they were dove feathers! It was raining but I immediately got out the netting and a bag of zip-ties (I so love those) and now everyone is safe and happy except for the feed stealing doves. I'll still make a frame out of pvc pipe but now it can wait till I have room in the budget.

Got more peppers and tomatoes moved out to the beds and removed a huge amount of borage and comfrey as well as weeds and grasses. I still need to get the green beans in. Got most of the giant weed choked pots out of the deck next to the greenhouse, the ladies were a big help with the contents of the old pots. They love the snails but now they even eat the slugs too. Good girls. I'm sore and stinky and ready for a hot shower, a hand-full of ibuprofen and bed.

Oh and I took care of our last naughty cockerel today, he didn't bother the big girls but he was a real beast with the girls his own age.

Thank you for the kind words. & I'm glad you got your run covered. It's funny how both the hawks & the littles know - once they get full sized they don't run & hide as much & the hawks don't hang around. I had one that was relentless with the littles, he would sit on the post every day & scare the crap out of them. Thankfully he couldn't get them but he sure did try to find a way.

I have heard about maremma dogs but they are very rare here. I would like some smaller dog though to guard the house and coops at night and not interested in killing chickens. I wish I could find rat terriers here.

My rat terrier would eat your birds & run away. He was obsessed with the chickens when I first got them, we ended up spraying him with the hose a couple times because nothing else worked & he finally got over it. He no longer obsesses but I'm sure he would still eat them if he could. He is a good guard dog, always on duty, always on the hunt - no matter how annoying.

 

[Sally PB]

Forecast is for very hot and muggy today. I have a chiro appointment, so I'll be blasting the AC, if it still works in my old car. I plan to stop at Home Depot on the way back. DH got a $50 gift card from work, and I'll use that toward another roll of fencing.

Is supposed to be MUCH nicer this weekend, mid to upper 70s.

If that tree picture someone posted is in fact Tree of Heaven, get RID OF IT NOW. It is very difficult to kill once it gets established.

Trivia: It is the tree in the book, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Do you know what type of trees were in there? It could have some black walnut or others that have a negative impact on other plants.

This area has been pasture for many years, at least a decade. I've owned the property for a little over 2 years but I've seen maps of the property that go way back.

I'll try to get some pictures this evening. When you physically see the space and the placement of the plants in it, the stunting/disease really does seem to be tied to the mulch. I don't know that I can or will pull it out completely but at least pull it back from the plants as much as possible.

 

[TJAnonymous]

I'm jealous of everyone with a good strawberry harvest. I lost about 95% of my strawberries last year to disease so I pretty much had to start all over again this year which means I got a handful of berries that were the size of my pinky. Bummer.... Hoping to build those new strawberry towers soon.

I don't know if any of you have been reading my other thread about the aggressive broody mama and her lone chick. I feel like it's War of the Roses between her and me. Anyway, I thought something was wrong with the chick's eye (in addition to her deformed foot). I was right... Last night I realized her eye is completely swelled shut with a big blob over it. I had to leave to go out of town last night and won't be back home until tonight so I just had to leave it alone. If she is still alive when I get home, I'll wrestle her away from her overprotective mama (yet again) and see if we can't treat that eye. I swear the odds have been coming at this poor baby in wave after wave....

 

[Liz Birdlover]

BT spray for the caterpillars and borax powder (away from the plants) when you have a couple dry days in a row for the ants. It doesn't take much. sprinkle it on the mounds. It poisons the whole colony. They take it as candy down in the next. 20 mule team in the laundry row.

Wish my ants were that easy to deal with. I usually go for Borax, that stuff is great, even gets rid of fleas. Turns out my nasty, stinging ants are European Fire Ants & don't even belong here, but here they are & they're here to stay. They don't do mounds, they have extensive tunnel systems, a few acres worth. Even into my gravel road & of course the neighboring properties. I got a product called Antixx, with the primary ingredient being Spinosad. After talking with Eleanor Grogan in Maine, where they've dealt with these little cursed, bastards for decades, Antixx is the least chemically invasive product. It's yellow pellet granules, shake some out & the ants immediately carry down into the tunnel, hopefully to feed the multiple queens. It's a real trip to see them marching with the yellow pellets! I've followed some of their trails 100 feet! Even though they sting the crap out of me, making me hate them, I still have to admire their strength & work ethic. I will never be rid of this plague, but the Antixx HAS reduced their numbers. If you're trying to be as close to organic as possible, Antixx is best, with a vicious ant, otherwise I'd use Borax. I hope you have regular ants & not ones like these awful stingers! Good luck

 

[Sueby]

So this is my little septic project. Our septic is in this odd little corner between the deck & the dog pen where the oil tank is, the radon system & dryer vent. There isn't much I can do with it, we talked about building a removable deck but but the septic people all say thats not a good idea as it blocks rain water that is needed & no weight should be on top of the tank. The oil man also needs easy access, DH can't get the mower in there to mow (& shouldn't anyway) & we need access to the 2 covers so this is what I came up with - mulch & plants. Obviously plants will fill in over the next couple years. The chain link fence gets covered with morning glory every year & the trellis will have morning glory & dahlias. Black eyed Susans in the back corner, some irises & some other plant I don't know the name of. I didn't want to spend any money so it's from stuff I already had. It's better but still awkward & ugly. Hopefully it gets better as plants fills in, but I guess it is what it is! & my back is mad about the rocks, lol.

Before:

After:

 

[igorsMistress]

Wish my ants were that easy to deal with. I usually go for Borax, that stuff is great, even gets rid of fleas. Turns out my nasty, stinging ants are European Fire Ants & don't even belong here, but here they are & they're here to stay. They don't do mounds, they have extensive tunnel systems, a few acres worth. Even into my gravel road & of course the neighboring properties. I got a product called Antixx, with the primary ingredient being Spinosad. After talking with Eleanor Grogan in Maine, where they've dealt with these little cursed, bastards for decades, Antixx is the least chemically invasive product. It's yellow pellet granules, shake some out & the ants immediately carry down into the tunnel, hopefully to feed the multiple queens. It's a real trip to see them marching with the yellow pellets! I've followed some of their trails 100 feet! Even though they sting the crap out of me, making me hate them, I still have to admire their strength & work ethic. I will never be rid of this plague, but the Antixx HAS reduced their numbers. If you're trying to be as close to organic as possible, Antixx is best, with a vicious ant, otherwise I'd use Borax. I hope you have regular ants & not ones like these awful stingers! Good luck

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Aren’t those the ones that make rafts with their bodies so they make it through floods? We had those rotten little in So Cal. I am surprised they aren’t here in our yard, but we have nasty ones anyway.
Thanks for the info, I’m going to see if I can find some of that!

 

[igorsMistress]

So this is my little septic project. Our septic is in this odd little corner between the deck & the dog pen where the oil tank is, the radon system & dryer vent. There isn't much I can do with it, we talked about building a removable deck but but the septic people all say thats not a good idea as it blocks rain water that is needed & no weight should be on top of the tank. The oil man also needs easy access, DH can't get the mower in there to mow (& shouldn't anyway) & we need access to the 2 covers so this is what I came up with - mulch & plants. Obviously plants will fill in over the next couple years. The chain link fence gets covered with morning glory every year & the trellis will have morning glory & dahlias. Black eyed Susans in the back corner, some irises & some other plant I don't know the name of. I didn't want to spend any money so it's from stuff I already had. It's better but still awkward & ugly. Hopefully it gets better as plants fills in, but I guess it is what it is! & my back is mad about the rocks, lol.

Before:
View attachment 3149238

After:
View attachment 3149239

That looks good Sueby! I bet you’re happier when the plants are grown and fill in the spaces.