What did you do in the garden today?

[WthrLady]

We're heading towards 50 again today. Yup, that's right, two days ago we didn't make it past 12, and today 50. Nebraska, eh? Normal and I love it.

It's making me itch to get into the soil. I guess I'm going to have to be happy cleaning up the seed starting nook.

The hens will want out today, and their coop needs de-pooped. I too use a tiller in the run in the spring and fall to go deep with the turning and to let out any ammonia build up. It also ticks off the mice to no end, which I am glad to do. It's a little tiller that fits on the end of our weed-wacker.

Alpacas need their coats off this morning or they'll roast. I'm serving their breakfast two hours late, so they'll rush to come in and eat and I'll shut the door behind them to catch them and de-frock them.

Besides that, it's move a tractor full of poo to the front beds and a tractor full of feed to the barn. Hmmm......seems to be a cause and effect there somewhere.

I need to get a sash on the loom, get some spring garden aprons sewn, and some wedding hand bands made. It's good to be busy.

 

[Reedo5]

The tiller I got a deal on for $120 was delivered yesterday. I opened the shipping box and found a manufacturer box inside that was pretty beat up. As I unpacked the tiller, it was obvious somebody unpacked and repacked it before. The tines were already put together, bolts/nuts were already in some holes and the oil was already poured into the motor. I decided to put it together anyway and see if anything was missing, which fortunately nothing was. I didn't have gas on hand to start it yesterday though to see if it would run. I did open the gas cap and took a wiff. I didn't smell any gas fumes so it's possible gas was never poured into it.
Today I called Home Depot customer service to voice my frustration and make note of my concerns that something could be unknowingly wrong with the tiller. They offered to let me return the unit and replace it with another or credit $50 back to my card as a concession. I didn't want to take it apart and repack it if I didn't have too. So I took the $50, which resulted in my total investment being just $70+tax.
As icing on the cake, when I got home I poured gas into the tiller and it started right up and ran fine for several minutes before I turned it off after being satisfied with it.

Well hell yea cant beat that deal! Those are the ones remeber yrs from now

 

[AllenK RGV]

@TropicalBabies so I was thinking about your dog trapping situation and I think you're using the wrong bait with live chicken. We catch dogs every night in one of our bathroom traps when they raid the cat litter box. Chicken droppings are also a favorite of our dogs you might add those to your trap

I staged a reenactment of what I found this morning in our trap.

 

[WthrLady]

old socks work here.

Boys are now coat free. The beehive doors are open, so they can go out if they want to. The hen house is scooped. I'm all nice and showered and the bread is rising. Phew.....

 

[Acre4Me]

Received our soil analysis. This wasn't a perfect representation bc we will be adding some more soil to the beds. However, these were composite samples, so well mixed of what were in these two locations. Many soil cores were taken, then laid out to dry inside the barn. Then placed into large bag to mix it all up and break down any large clumps. From that the 1 Cup+ sample was taken for mailing to the analysis lab.

The "New Bed" results are from the garden soil we bought - knowing it was not the highest quality garden soil, but knew we could/would amend. Ph is pretty high! P and K are really low!! So, what kind of sulfur do I need to purchase?

The "South Beds" is more representative of what we've been working with and have amended quite bit over the last 2 seasons, but there was some topsoil mixed into these "South Bed" composite samples from the other project we did, so we knew we would be dealing with likely some poor soil overall. Lots of Calcium (bc I had added crushed ouster shell to all planting holes, along with lots of eggs shells in the compost that got mixed in). Low P and K. PH is also still quite high - but not as high as the other sample.

Overall, I need to really lower the pH. And I need to seriously get some P and K into the soil!

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

I’ve never had soil that wasn’t acidic, so I’m at a loss on that. Sorry.

 

[BReeder!]

I’ve never had soil that wasn’t acidic, so I’m at a loss on that. Sorry.

Grow blueberries

 

[BReeder!]

I have that well-aged screened compost I mentioned previously. I'm thinking of mixing it with just sand to create a seed start medium. I dumped 50lbs of sand into a bin with about 50lbs of compost (nearly 2:1 compost to sand by volume). My thoughts are as follows.
The compost has quite a bit of fibrous material to hold moisture, but the send will allow excess moisture to drain.
The compost has nutrients, and the sand will help dilute the excess of nutrients in the compost.
The compost is rather loamy, but the sand should make it even easier for fine roots to grow.

Any thoughts? I may consider mixing in some peat moss just for additional moisture retention and fluff. I just don't have any on hand though and they didn't have it stocked yet at Farm and Fleet when I was there this morning to get poultry feed. That said, I don't know how the current mixture of sand and compost feels because I couldn't thoroughly combine the two yet because the compost was frozen in the bin since it was sitting outside. It's in the garage thawing right now with the sand just dumped on top. I'll mix it in a few hours and see what it feels like.

 

[WthrLady]

I like coir over peat moss, which brings a lot of acidity to the table.

 

[BReeder!]

I like coir over peat moss, which brings a lot of acidity to the table.

Do you find coir in bulk cheap? I believe 3 cubic ft of compressed moss is $12.