What did you do in the garden today?

[sourland]

Still picking tomatoes.

 

[Liz Birdlover]

You also don't need a fence, really, just a hot wire that you can turn on and off. You can message me your set up and I can see if I can plot a wire for you.

Someone told me to drizzle Pine Sol all around where you want to repel bears, but I have no idea if that really works...I think of where bears live...in a forest full of pine trees. I mean if they dislike the smell of pine so much, wouldn't they relocate?
Also, the smell of livestock is going to outweigh any other supposedly repellent odor, if a bear is hungry & has chicken dinner in mind. I've never dealt with bears, only raccoons. Pine Sol didn't repel the raccoons btw. Neither did cougar urine. Nails in boards? Yeah, my luck, I'd be the one stepping on them, then have to go get a tetanus shot. Or the bear steps on it, gets an infected toe, then becomes very grumpy with painful toe, & knowing I'm the one that set the nail board out there, so he rips my head off. Yeah, I'm thinking electric shock wire is the way to go. Sorry, just my rambling thoughts

 

[Sueby]

We kept the birds locked in the shop for the first night & hung rags with ammonia. He hasn't been back, yet. I asked DH to set up a board with nails. I'm hoping he gave up - he wasn't chased away so my logic is that he didn't get in so he's done trying.

Still not feeling well but I HAVE to get out there today & get the garlic planted. We will have frost/freeze very soon.

The leaves are beautiful right now. Coming down quick, which is good because we're buying a chunk of land behind us but the surveyor needs the leaves down for the GPS to work. We got 3.5 inches of rain on Thurs, that was nice.

 

[DParker75089]

I remember my grandparent's summer kitchen. some other cousins had separate small 2 room house, 1 room was summer kitchen and another one was for livestock feed. I preferred porch kitchen as the other one was too hot in summer.

How about an early Fall kitchen? At the moment I have 21 lbs of my home-cured pastrami sous vide-ing on the back porch in my 82 qt crawfish boil pot. It's a fusion of haute cuisine and redneck cooking techniques.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Look at your daily electric consumption. Either at the meter just running these things, or you can buy plugs that you plug in and it tells you how much comes thru the plug, add them all up, and figure out the kwh you will need for a week. from there you can size your battery bank and panels to fit your needs. The dish washer is going to be a killer with that heater element / drying element in it.

www.altenergystore.com is a good place to look for articles and how to's on that

aaron

I'm currently set up on net metering but this setup isn't what I THOUGHT I was buying. Currently I get all my daily electricity from the grid. The power my panels generate goes straight to the grid. Essentially it runs my meter backwards. So I'm not really using any of the power I generate myself. If the power grid goes down, my house defaults to the backup generator which runs the entire house on propane.

So here's what I REALLY wanted to do and a subsequent question... I really would like to use my own power to run my house. I realize I need a battery wall to store the power to do that. But what I'd like to know is if I can set my system up as such -

Use my own power FIRST. If I don't have enough stored or available, then pull energy from the grid. If my battery wall is full, then send excess electricity to the grid. So basically keep the net metering but allow me to use the energy I create first. That way if the grid goes down, I can still use the power my panels are creating even if the grid is down. Then, my house will not fail over to the generator unless the battery wall is depleted AND the grid is down.

The question is if this is possible...

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

Check with local solar power installers. There are restrictions in some places that will not allow to disconnect from the grid that way.

 

[Ascholten]

I'm currently set up on net metering but this setup isn't what I THOUGHT I was buying. Currently I get all my daily electricity from the grid. The power my panels generate goes straight to the grid. Essentially it runs my meter backwards. So I'm not really using any of the power I generate myself. If the power grid goes down, my house defaults to the backup generator which runs the entire house on propane.

So here's what I REALLY wanted to do and a subsequent question... I really would like to use my own power to run my house. I realize I need a battery wall to store the power to do that. But what I'd like to know is if I can set my system up as such -

Use my own power FIRST. If I don't have enough stored or available, then pull energy from the grid. If my battery wall is full, then send excess electricity to the grid. So basically keep the net metering but allow me to use the energy I create first. That way if the grid goes down, I can still use the power my panels are creating even if the grid is down. Then, my house will not fail over to the generator unless the battery wall is depleted AND the grid is down.

The question is if this is possible...

If the panels spin your meter backwards, and there is NOT an additional meter there, then it already should be powering YOUR stuff first then whats left over goes to the grid. If you time it right you can charge your battery off YOUR power too then whats left over goes to the grid.

Id have to actually SEE your setup to know for sure, because that is one dirty trick they LOVE to do, send the power thru the meter first, THEN sell it right back to you at full price. if you moved the breaker to your distribution box your inverter would let it pass right thru when there is excess but the rest would be running YOUR stuff first, then extra goes to grid.

Aaron

 

[Ascholten]

bla bla My power, MY battery

The question is if this is possible... ?

this is an entire conversation and yes it IS entirely possible.
your grid, does it get turned into AC on the panel or on an inverter in the garage or somewhere?

Aaron

 

[NinjaGamer2022]

Buena Mulata peppers (From rareseeds ((https://www.rareseeds.com/buena-mulata-hot-pepper)) and a pepper I grew from the seeds of an org. store bought green bell pepper.
All were grown in mason sized jars.
Since they were grown in jars, indoors on a windowsill (other than a few days that I left them outside because they got dirty) the produce is on a smaller scale (Coin for reference):

 

[Ascholten]

Don't let size fool you, some of those small ones will light your world on fire.

* <- Your butthole before eating that 'small unknown' pepper
O + <- AFTER you eat that pepper

your overall experience with magic teeny peppers

Aaron