What did you do in the garden today?

[WthrLady]

All three of them already had long criminal records all under the age of 25. Sad.

 

[Ascholten]

Just be careful, because even though their situation was a S sandwich, now that you called the cops on them, in their dirty little meth heads, YOU have ruined their lives now, and they may come back at you for not minding your own business etc. Every once in a while that drug vermin shows up down our way. The 3 S's can work wonders if they get too pesty.

Aaron

 

[WthrLady]

Thanks, it of course crossed my mind.
But what are you going to do? you can't NOT call.
This was 4 plus years ago.
THe girls didn't go to jail.
He did and I don't think he's around anymore.

 

[Ascholten]

Well if this was 4 years ago you are good. I thought it happened very recently. Most of them have enough common sense to not cause trouble when THEY did something really dumb,but a few of them now. I am not trying to scare you, but just make sure you realize, this is not the somewhat nice little world we grew up in, there is no honor, humanity, or ethics left anymore. People will kill others at the drop of a hat and not even blink because those drugs destroyed what common sense they may have had.

You are absolutely correct, you DO have to call, THEY put YOU in that bad place. But if they do get stupid about it and show up later on, YOU may have to put them down like any other rabid animal that attacks or threatens humans. As I grow older I find myself with way WAY less tolerance for human ignorance, and this whole wave of violence that is sweeping the nation, NOT in my back yard, NO you will NOT!

I can tell you the REAL secret my garden is growing so well !!
Just kidding officer, it was a JOKE!!

You know, speaking of, lets segway this in another direction, this IS a garden topic.

I seen a composter, it looked like a cone thing, with a bucket buried underground, it was for meat products they claimed. This immediately caught my attention because of well, I eat steak, bones, I fish often, guts and bones, an animal dies, bones / compost... type thing. They claimed it works very well and did not really stink much. Has anyone ever used something like this? Me personally I can't see a pile of rotting meat NOT stinking somehow. I typically throw all my meat scraps and entrails etc out / bury them but is there a way to compost them into something usable that's not a huge nightmare?

Aaron

Edit: Let me add to this, I have seen where some will take fish, throw it in a bucket and cover with sugar and let it ferment for a few months to make a super potent tea out of it for fertilizer. While useful, you are spending more money on the sugars, my goal was to compost but not have to throw more money, down the toilet, so to say...A

 

[gtaus]

I seen a composter, it looked like a cone thing, with a bucket buried underground, it was for meat products they claimed. This immediately caught my attention because of well, I eat steak, bones, I fish often, guts and bones, an animal dies, bones / compost... type thing. They claimed it works very well and did not really stink much. Has anyone ever used something like this? Me personally I can't see a pile of rotting meat NOT stinking somehow. I typically throw all my meat scraps and entrails etc out / bury them but is there a way to compost them into something usable that's not a huge nightmare?

A few years before I got my composting chickens, I made a composter similar to the one you are describing. I took an old plastic garbage can with a good lid and drilled many large holes in the bottom and lower 2/3'rds of the garbage can. Then I buried the garbage can out in the garden up to maybe 4 inches below the lid. The holes you drill in the bottom and sides are to let worms and other bio life in and out of the garbage can so they can break down the material you dump in the can.

I threw everything in that garbage can. Leftover meat and fish remains after cleaning went into that garbage can all the time. What I found worked best was to top off a layer of meat or fish remains with wood chips, leaves, or dry grass clippings. That helps knock the smell down a little of the rotting meat. You absolutely need a good, tight fitting lid to not only contain the smell of rotting meat, but also to keep vermin out. Be it dogs, racoons, or skunks, the rotting meat smell will carry far and wide if you don't throw a layer of carbon on top of the meat and then cover the garbage can with a good lid.

I actually made 2 of these composting garbage cans. First I filled one, which took all summer, and then I left it to compost on its own while I started to fill the next in-ground garbage can composter with new material. When the second garbage can was full, I harvested the first can and it had made some of the best compost I have ever made.

Of course I could have sped up the process by mixing or turning the compost in the in-ground garbage can, but I'm pretty lazy when it comes to making compost and never in too much of a hurry. I think all I ever did was to throw some water on top of the compost if it got too dry. But that was it.

Having said that, now that I have chickens, I throw all our kitchen scraps and leftovers to the chickens. Even fish remains after cleaning a bunch of fish if we had a good night out on the lake. They pick all the meat off the bones so there is nothing left to rot and smell. If I have too many fish remains for them to eat in one day, then I'll bury the fish remains down into the chicken run compost litter that night. Just let the worms eat it, or let the chickens scratch it up at a later date and pick on it some more. At any rate, I now let my chickens compost most everything I have and they seem to both to enjoy doing it, and I also get to offer them something other than their commercial feed. That works better for me. Everything composts in place in the chicken run and I can harvest more than I need whenever I want.

 

[Sooner Magnolia]

About to water, I have a hatching dilemma though:
3 adorable baby chicks hatched overnight.

Just saw momma and babies out of the nesting box (locked in a large dog crate), and the last chick has externally pipped with a pretty good sized hole. It is 10:30 AM, temp is 86 and rising, humidity is 67%. Trying to decide if I should leave the egg where it is, remove the nesting box so the egg is on the floor (forgot to do that before they started hatching), or snag it for another stubborn broody to finish the job and grab a couple of sibling from TSC.

Thoughts?

Update-The baby hatched, but momma saw it as an interloper and attacked it when it cried. There was a little bit of blood on the wings, but no major damage I could see at the time. I rescued chick by grabbing the whole nesting box with the baby inside. I cleaned up the blood with wet tissues, and set up a brooder in the garage with the original nesting material. Gave it some nutridrench. I planned to give the baby back to momma tonight, but both wings are swollen now. If she attacked it because she knew it wasn't quite right, it really isn't now. I'm going to keep an eye on it and give it to that mom or another broody if it improves.
Momma is doing great with the other 3.

Garden is doing well. Those of you who have a hard time bending over should consider straw bale gardening if you haven't already. I'm not sure I have the patience to wait for all these tomatoes to ripen!

 

[chickengr]

Around my neck of the woods, I've been told you shouldn't water in the evening unless you have a way to water at root level. Heat & humidity are too high which encourages mold, mildew, blight problems. I have a really great container gardening book. They suggest using a pvc pipe to get to the bottom of containers but putting a mesh/screen covering over the pipe and overflow holes to keep mosquitoes out. This could easily solve the problem. Also self-watering containers are a lifesaver for plants that are wilting by midday.

hot and dry here so no mold. I don't have containers but a little jungle garden.

 

[alfie10]

got up this morning to find it rained overnight ,no grass cutting today.got 2 compost piles going both need turning so think i might make a third one and put everything into one ,then i can start again .The potaoes are about 3ft high starting flowers ,i just hope they have a decent crop underneath .got to tie the peas up they are growing fast since i weeded around them ,lots of pods on them as well .the onions weren,t doing well at all so i pulled them up and using them like spring onions.bought them from a new supplier ,not again .my pond needs a new liner in it ,it,s going to be a big job probably in the autumn can,t afford to pay anyone but i built it myself so i,m sure i can do it .I think you can do anything if you set your mind to it !just have to be careful I don,t fall ha ha ! have a nice day everyone .

 

[Phaedra Geiermann]

Just made another flower arrangement, breakfast for all hens (here I usually prepare one meal for them in the morning, the rest of the day they will have commercial feed and leafy greens I planted)

Also picked some fresh salat leaves for girls. As long as you collect the leaves from outside (instead of harvesting the entire heart once), those salat will keep producing leaves for months. This year I planted two areas with leafy greens for hens.

The rest of the garden is doing quite well~

The baby chicks stay in their own run, with a lot of winter vegetables originally waiting to be transplanted. Now they become chicks' food forest.

They enjoy the sunlight while I am working in the garden~

 

[Ascholten]

Thank you for the reply. I think i'll pass on the meat composter. Sounds like too much of a mess to deal with. Not sure id want to throw fish guts to the birds though, iggghhhh.

The closest I came to that was, one time fishing, I left a cooler with some shrimp and fish in it out in the yard. I 'remembered' it about 4 days later. I could see by the flies collecting around the lid that I did NOT want to open it up. I actually moved it by the fence and left it there, for a year and several weeks. I finally one day opened it out of curiosity. Everything inside dissolved, water had a layer of slime and some scum on it, strong ammonia smell, but everything else, including the bones.... gone..dissolved. The white sides of the cooler were discolored a bit, yellowed. Amazingly enough, I hosed it out real good, refilled with water and some hypo and it cleaned right up and had no residual smell at all in it. I was actually amazed that it didn't ruin the cooler. I already had the trash can there, on it's side to slide the thing in and be done with it, but didn't need.

Aaron