What did you do in the garden today?

[WthrLady]

UGH. Sorry What on earth?! Sock? Dog toy? Rawhide bone?

 

[TJAnonymous]

UGH. Sorry What on earth?! Sock? Dog toy? Rawhide bone?

No clue.... She doesn't typically chew up socks or things like that. She does love to chew on rawhide and bully sticks. She was also playing with a couple of toys recently and tore both of them up. One had stuffing in it. The other was rubber. Naturally both of them could be the culprit if she swallowed anything.

 

[Artichoke Lover]

@TJAnonymous so sorry hope she is better in the morning. We went through that several times with our old dog. She ate stuff like a goat. 20 pound dog and she would eat a whole box of Kleenex and plastic clothes hanger, hot peppers, the no chew spray bottle. Once she almost died because she ate the slider off the kitchen table leg.

 

[Elyrian1]

@TJAnonymous so sorry hope she is better in the morning. We went through that several times with our old dog. She ate stuff like a goat. 20 pound dog and she would eat a whole box of Kleenex and plastic clothes hanger, hot peppers, the no chew spray bottle. Once she almost died because she ate the slider off the kitchen table leg.

This is why I'm always wary of the concept that chickens won't eat stuff that's bad for them... if a dog can't figure it out, how the heck will a bird?

 

[WthrLady]

EH, you can EAT your dead chicken. And dogs are like goats....glory, the things this beagle will try to eat. I have a friend with a lab who lives in a desert so she has a sand yard and rock beds. Her dog eats ROCKS! Has had surgery 2x for a gut full of ROCKS!
I had a safety glass patio table explode. One of the girls LOVED to eat the glass I missed. She rolled it around in her crop a while before she's poop them out, all frosted and etched like beach glass.
I was worried about them eating the wisteria, but they steer clear of it.
========
just heard our first cicada here of the season, 3 days early, but that's ok.
90 days to first frost, end of september (29th) We'll see.

 

[TJAnonymous]

This is why I'm always wary of the concept that chickens won't eat stuff that's bad for them... if a dog can't figure it out, how the heck will a bird?

I did a necropsy on a chicken that died last summer. I videotaped it and sent it to the poultry vet for University of Arkansas. He concluded the cause of death was Salpingitis but when I looked in her crop there were a few little plastic pieces in there. Things that most certainly would have caused a life threatening situation if they moved past her crop.

Since then I have been fanatical about picking up any scrap of plastic, metal, glass, or anything else that could possibly be non-digestible. I simply don't trust them to pass up the temptation.

 

[WthrLady]

My goofballs will play with, and fight over, those white plastic tags from plants for HOURS until you take them away. NO idea what they THINK they are.

 

[Elyrian1]

@WthrLady With chickens it's just "I've got something you don't have! nah nah nah nah! *rude raspberry noises*"

All right, we managed to have a bit of a look around the yard this evening and started planning roughly where things are going to go. DH wants to move the rv back a bit in it's parking spot. This will actually create a small area for a patio that is shaded both morning and evening, only getting midday sun.

I told him again that I want him to plant various mint types around the border of the entire yard because snakes, and spiders, and mice, and... fill in the blank. Plus it seems like all pollinators love mint. Win win. Going to see if he has time tomorrow to torch the couple of black widows I've spotted.

 

[littledog]

@littledog you mentioned you have horses and they are drinking a lot. How bad is their urine for plants? Is it too strong to spread in your garden? DO you do anything of the sorts. Curious on that.

Hi Aaron, my horses don't live on my property, they live at a barn nearby, where everything collected from the stalls and pastures (manure, urine, pine shavings) is mixed together and composted. I get a trailer load of this compost twice a year - in the fall I just dump it on the garden, mix it with brown components like leaves, and sow a cover crop, then in the spring I get another load 6 weeks or so before planting time, and mix it in with the dirt and add lime.

So I can't really judge the effect of horse urine by itself, but from my experience the compost mixture of manure, urine and pine shavings provides a lot of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium for the plants, but it tends to be a bit acidic (not too acidic, since it's full of healthy red worms) so I test the soil and add lime as needed. The compost mix from my horses' barn is about 70% manure (nitrogen) 20% pine shavings (carbon) and 10% urine (potassium and phosphorus) which is pretty nitrogen-heavy.

Some people who have horses on their property, have found ways of controlling the proportions better. I've heard of people who train their geldings and stallions to pee in one place where it can be collected (like a barrel buried underground) since males tend to pee and poop as a way to mark territory, whereas mares pee wherever they are when they have to go, or it they're in heat, wherever they are are when they have a stallion's attention.

If you're collecting manure/pee/stall bedding from a local barn, depending on how much bedding they tend to use (it can vary a lot) the best thing might be to mix in more carbon and then let it compost further before you use it your garden, then test your soil.

Another thing to keep in mind, is most responsible horse owners treat their horses for parasites, with drugs like Ivermectin or Panacur, which take about six months to degrade into harmless molecules that can't harm soil microorganisms. So this is another good reason to let any compost you get from horse barns, to sit and compost further.

 

[Phaedra Geiermann]

Finally a sunny day after continous thunderstorms, so, again arranged some flowers