What did you do in the garden today?

[Elyrian1]

when is baby due? I did not read a few pages I hope I did not miss the news.

Any day, lol. Technically have a week, but we're in the "safe zone." Now I just need the midwife to get over covid before I go into labor.

 

[gtaus]

I still, envy your compost sifter as a worm/casting harvester!

I really like it and talk about it whenever I can. One thing I don't think I have mentioned in this exchange is that I can use different sized wire to sift out the material. My main outside wire is 1 X 1/2 inch, but my inserts are 1/2 X 1/2 and 1/4 X 1/4 inch hardware cloth. If you needed even smaller wire for screening worm castings, I suppose you could make an insert out of screendoor or window screen mesh.

 

[Sally PB]

What do you use to haul your compost?

I don't have a picture of my cart. It's like a two wheeled wheelbarrow. I can pull it behind or push it ahead of me. I counted the shovelfulls of compost and put in 9 or 10 heaping. Ok, I'm a wimp.

I wanted to get this done while the pile is relatively dry. I had 4 cartloads.

We have a cart like the one you show, but since I'm doing the pulling, I like having the wide handle on my smaller cart.

In other news... I got another quote on getting 4 trees taken down. I told the guy I wanted all the chips. He thinks it'll be 8-10 yards.



Cover the heavy soil garden. Cover the squash bed. Do the walkways between the raised beds. Let some dry and put them in the chicken run. I have a use for them all.

 

[gtaus]

Learned about Stinging Nettles today - the hard way!

I always wear gloves when I am outside working on/in the garden. However, today, I was just going to water the raised beds and the sprayer end of the hose was leaking water. So I decided not to wear my gloves and get them soaking wet. As I was watering the strawberry plants, I noticed a big weed that was growing up in the bed that needed to be removed. So, without much concern, I decided to pull the weed with my bare hand because, after all, it was only one weed and not worth the time to go get my gloves.

Turns out it would have been worth the effort to go back to the garage and get my gloves. What I grabbed ahold of was a Stinging Nettle and I immediately regretted trying to pull it out. Two of my fingers got pricked pretty bad and are still stinging after 3 hours. I have never seen this plant before, but I doubt if I will every forget it now.

So, hand still stinging, I had to retrieve my gloves from the garage, but decided to take out some Teflon tape, some pliers, and fix the leaky hose end sprayer at the same time. I pulled the Stinging Nettle and fixed the leaky sprayer. I imagine the stinging will stop sometime today. Some lessons are just learned the hard way. It's not like me not to wear gloves, but I guess I was overdue for a real life lesson and why I need to wear gloves when pulling weeds I don't recognize.

 

[gtaus]

I don't have a picture of my cart. It's like a two wheeled wheelbarrow. I can pull it behind or push it ahead of me. ... We have a cart like the one you show, but since I'm doing the pulling, I like having the wide handle on my smaller cart.

I have never had the two wheeled wheelbarrows. But I imagine that a wide handle on the smaller cart might be an advantage in some cases. In my case, if the load is that heavy, I convert my cart handle to the tow behind hitch and pull it with my riding mower.

 

[Sueby]

@Elyrian1 I was just going to say you must be getting close! How exciting!

Well, depends on where you live and how much snow stays on the ground. Last year we had snow cover from end of October till about mid April. I don't have the energy to go out and shovel the chicken run all winter long. My better idea is to cover a section of the run with a hoop house type structure that will not collapse under the snow load, and then the chickens can enjoy some fresh air and snow free ground. Maybe this fall I will actually get something put into place.

Sounds like a good plan! I do actually have a small covered run, but it's just a small part of the big run. I really don't *need* to clear snow for them, but I still do. I always feel like I could use the exercise in the middle of the winter. Plus I like to play in the snow.

I tore out the cukes today, the bugs won. Well, then I burned them so I kinda won. Watered too. & pulled the rest of the onions. I got a trellis up for the newest beans (I forgot, it was a package labeled bush but was actually pole ) & saw some squash coming in on the new plants. I'm going to start pulling flowers on the tomato plants so they can finish what they started. Peppers are coming in hot now, saving em all up for a hot sauce.

 

[Elyrian1]

@gtaus ah yes stinging nettle. Same compound as a bee sting, is my understanding. Excellent for arthritis and inflammation in the joints, valuable as a tea, and wicked painful! Crush some fresh basil and rub on there, should help within moments if it's going to at all.

 

[TJAnonymous]

It takes me HOURS upon hours to put up hay, plus the $12 grand in machinery and on top of that the buildings to cure and store it. I'm always surprised it doesn't cost MORE per bale. Come winter, I can charge 12$ for high protein alfalfa and grass hay and get it. As the large rounds are hard to store, hard to move, and 99% of them here are late cut/one cut cattle quality low protein bales stored in the outdoors. Some of them stored that way for years, so they're bordering on silage, which cattle love, but isn't good for horses.

We buy good, quality, fertilized bermuda for our horses and goats. We get it loaded from the field, literally as they are baling. We pay $6/bale for 60 lb square bales. If you buy it later after it has been moved into the barn, it's $7/bale. Hay production is the ONLY thing this family does as a source of income so they have several hundred acres but they ALWAYS sell out by mid-October.
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I've got all the hay I really should need to get me through the winter but I might still pick up another 40 bales or so as a buffer. It's been really dry and was cold late into the spring which affected the grass growth. I'd rather have more than I need than not enough.

 

[TJAnonymous]

About hay and straw prices, I had one of my pastures cut and baled for hay, regularly, for a Dollar a bale up till four or five years ago(usually between 150 to 200 bales), when I sold off my sheep, goats, pony and my horse died from cancer. That pasture now almost, looks like a young forest, in four years! Now , I use trails for nature walks in that pasture, with twenty foot tall pioneer trees! Straw from my county farm supply store, has gone up from a dollar a bale to $4 each , in small orders, in the last four or five years. Good, clean horse quality Bermuda hay(what is used here the most) went from $3 to $6 per square bale in two years, in orders less than 100 bales, a few years ago. Alfalfa cost a small fortune here! The work involved and the cost of equipment would make my hay the most expensive in the world! I might should of kept getting the hay cut and selling it, but was out of storage room in my crowded sheds, anyway, and did not have the energy to work it. I wonder what it would cost me now, to get it cut and baled, if the pasture was still good? I bet, it would not be a dollar a bale!

Alfalfa is $16/bale in Arkansas. It is generally too hot to grow down here so it has to be shipped in. Thus higher prices

 

[TJAnonymous]

Hey all. Back from the thumb doc. He was nice enough, but I don't think he was focused on me while I was there. He just grabbed my hand poked it, made me cringe and slap away his hand, looked at my xrays and said, yup, you broke it in two places 18 months ago, but it's healed now. But arthritis has set in in all thumb joints and the joint at the wrist is bone on bone. Told you it hurt like hades.
Tylenol and steroid shots every 3 months until I can't stand it any more, then they'll cut it open and shave the bone. Oh joy. (forgot, he actually mentioned taking ibuprofin, nice reading of my file dude, I"M ALLERGIC TO IT.)

I told DH the dog was treated more thoroughly than I was. How long do I have to suffer? My primary doc is the one that did the xrays in November and he didn't see the breaks, I saw the xrays today, and even I could see them!

Tylenol doesn't even touch it, let alone not being able to actually USE my thumb. No pens, scissors, I drop things. OMG and the headache I have now after the shot, which was also not comfortable.
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Garden gets watered today and if I feel like it I'll get some gypsum and aspirin on the tomatoes.

The pizza sauce made and canned yesterday has been liberated from the jars and is simmering to thicken again all day. Then I'll recan it tonight.

Sounds like me, only mine is my right foot. I injured it several times from martial arts over the years. Developed a bone spur in the big toe joint which made walking excruciating. Ortho doctor suggested surgery last summer and swore I'd be able to wear heels again. Nope... Arthritis is really bad that I need a cane at times. Now I have a bone spur in my Achilles tendon on the same foot! It is excruciating but I haven't been back to the doctor because I don't want to hear him tell me I need another surgery to remove it.