What did you do in the garden today?

[igorsMistress]

Did some mowing and took a walk in the woods . No mushrooms . I did dig a clump of woodland phlox for Mom's grave for Mother's Day . Her favorite flower . Dad always picked her some . When he passed I promised her sweet Williams - woodland phlox for Mother's Day . Never broke a promise to mom . Since I had them in a bucket I put them next to the Hesperis for comparison . Hesperis a little over hip high and stems pencil size . Phlox less than knee high and thin stems . Sharing information .

That’s wonderful

 

[WthrLady]

Market was a bust. I made enough today to pay for the baked good ingredients, and to pay for the planting supplies in the greenhouse, not for any of my time or effort at all. She'll be open tomorrow, but it is university graduation day and rainy, windy, cooler, and stormy - so no idea who will wander out in that. I brought all the veggies home to put in the greenhouse for the night. I won't be taking them back down there for tomorrow, but left her my order forms. I did leave the remaining 3 Mother's Day flower baskets I made down there. They should be fine over night if her cats will stay out of them. Sigh.

It's depressing. I spent 6 hours down there. I'm now suffering from a major sinus' headache. Too many candles, too many cats, too much pollen.

See you all in the morning.

 

[gtaus]

I use Stabil fuel conditioner in my gasoline for the snow blower and the riding mower @gtaus. I hate going to the gas station to fill my gas can so I buy about 4 gallons at a time. That little bit lasts me a very long time. I have a little over 1/2 acre and about 1/4 of that is all wooded and the small, immediate backyard has to be mowed with a push mower. The rest of the property is open and sloped so still too much for an old woman and a push mower.

The gas we have today with Ethanol is OK for our cars that we drive everyday, but it's terrible for machines that we do not use all the time. The Ethanol attracts water and turns to varnish, gumming up the carbs, in just a few months. Stabil will help preserve the gas for up to 2 years and that is good. But Stabil was not designed to clean out a gummed up carb, like I had on my riding mower. Anyway, the Star Tron product is also a fuel stabilizer, up to 2 years, plus it has active enzymes in it to clean out the fuel system and carb. In any case, it cleaned up my riding mower and I am very happy.

BTW, I no longer purchase Unleaded gas for my lawn mowers and snow blower. I only buy Non-Oxy gas, which is more expensive, but it does not contain any Ethanol in it. Living in northern Minnesota, most of my yard equipment sits in the shed for 6 months out of the year, which is why our carbs can get gummed up so easily. I would rather pay a little more for the Non-Oxy gas up front than to have my machine(s) in the shop for a carb cleaning. And now I'm adding a touch of Star Tron to the gas as a fuel stabilizer and fuel system cleaner.

I have also switched over to using battery operated grass trimmers, chainsaws, pruning saws, etc... because my gas operated machines never lasted more than a few years. I suppose now that is was the gas in the machines sitting over winter turned to varnish and gummed up those carbs. It costs more to have a carb serviced than it does to buy a new trimmer, so I used to have to replace my gas trimmers about every 2 years. With the battery operated trimmers, etc... I am going on about 8 years without any problems.

I even have a battery push mower which is now about 4 years old and still runs like new. It is much lighter than my gas push mower, and I am able to cut some banks down by the lake with the battery mower. The gas mower was too heavy and I did not feel safe using it on those banks. But the battery operated mower works just fine.

 

[WthrLady]

We had that lurching with our commercial large mower too. The fuel additive worked for about a day, then it stopped working. I can't remember what the real issue was, but it had to go to the shop.

We also only use non-alcohol gas in our smaller engines. I also run it in my truck. I get no decent mileage on it with ethanol added fuels.

 

[igorsMistress]

 

[AmeliaBedelia]

Did some deadheading today and bought myself a couple plants for mothers day. Watched the chickens for a bit. Not a bad day!

 

[BReeder!]

I did my best to protect the garden from frost. The cucumbers and zucchini are covered in a layer of straw a few inches thick. The tomatoes are wrapped with landscape fabric. The fiber material type, not plastic. I covered the beds of peppers and herbs with landscape fabric too. I managed to even cover half the marigolds around with the overhanging fabric. The flower planters out front are in the garage now and the sunflower starts got moved into the sunroom for the night. I have lettuce sprouting and I am not sure if it will survive a light frost or not. Corn, onions, garlic, brussel sprouts, kale, carrots, parsnips, potatoes and radishes are all sprouted or already growing and should withstand a mild frost. My peach has some tiny little peaches - I hope they survive. It's the first year it's produced fruit and the existing fruit is a product of the flowers that made it through the last round of snow/freeze we had.

I checked the weather again. Some sites say I have a frost warning others don't mention it. The low is expected to be 33 or 34. Hoping we scrape by without a frost, but feel I did what I could to protect things if there is frost tonight. Fingers crossed...

 

[NewBoots]

Potted up 4 feed bags of seed potatoes (going to turn the next few bags inside out) and got the deck a little more tidied up. At this rate I'll have the deck looking great by Halloween . Chased Nicky out of the coop/run twice, hopefully the super soaker convinced him to stay out.

 

[gtaus]

We had that lurching with our commercial large mower too. The fuel additive worked for about a day, then it stopped working. I can't remember what the real issue was, but it had to go to the shop.

We also only use non-alcohol gas in our smaller engines. I also run it in my truck. I get no decent mileage on it with ethanol added fuels.

I don't expect fuel additives would fix all engine issues. Normally, I used Sea Foam in my gas, but with my surging issue on the riding mower, the Sea Foam had no effect. I tried some other additives with equal disappointment. However, the Star Tron I used on my riding mower cleaned the fuel system and carb. It worked on this surging issue whereas the other additives did not. I think I had to pay about $10 for the bottle of Star Tron, but in the end it saved me a $100+ repair bill to have the carb removed, cleaned, and put back on.

I have had carbs fail, mechanically, and needed to be replaced. So no fuel additive would have helped those issues. That happens. But the guys at the repair shop tell me that about 90% of their repair jobs are fuel related due to the poor fuel we have these days. Also, the new EPA certified carbs we have are much more prone to clogging, or gumming up, then older carbs. At least, that is what I was told.

At one time, I was so discouraged with my gas riding mower that I was seriously shopping around for a battery operated riding mower. I just wanted to be done with the whole bad fuel, gummed up carb, not running right gas motors. However, I read too many complaints that the batteries in those riding mowers die/degrade after a few years and the problem then is getting replacement batteries. Evidently, those batteries are almost always out of stock and people were waiting for months on end for replacement batteries. I guess every manufacture has propriety batteries and they are not interchangeable. I hope they start to standardize those batteries, but somehow when I look at the different tool lines with propriety batteries, I suspect they are not in any hurry to standardize riding mower batteries either.

I have an older truck which just developed a gas line leak somewhere hidden up in a belly panel. First clue, 10 mpg on the last fill whereas I used to get about 18 mpg. I have talked to a few mechanics and it sounds like it might be one of those repairs that would cost more than the value of my old truck. Need to find someone who will take a good look at the gas leak when the truck is up on a hoist and gave me a firm estimate.

I don't use the old truck very much, but it is the vehicle I use to hitch up the trailer and head on out to the county landfill to get all those free wood chips for the coop bedding.

 

[Sueby]

Morning.

Did absolutely nothing in the garden except forget to bring in the cayenne starts I was hardening off. I need to remember I can't remember anything anymore.

Got the littles to roost in the big coop last night, went a LOT better than I thought it would.