What did you do in the garden today?

[Ascholten]

Most places won't really do a mushroom ID course because of liability issues, or they will be real shy about it.

FWIW there is an app you can get on your phone that you can take a picture and it helps you ID mushrooms, but of course do NOT trust this thing with your life !! Remember, some of the real nasty ones, take about 30 to 45 days to kill you, and it's a slow terrible ride down the drain. With all this rain we've been getting, I am really hoping some Lions Mane flushes start popping here or shitake.

Aaron.

 

[Iluveggers]

How do I keep the bugs out of my broccoli and Brussels sprouts? Is it too late ? I spray them with a self mixing Seven but it doesn't seem to be helping. Should I dust them with something I remember an older gal I helped when I was a teen did that. Just over the bugs! Maybe I skip broccoli, cabbage and brussel sprouts next year

Row cover works to keep them safe!

Here we get white cabbage looper butterflies and they destroy nearly all cole veg I try to grow so I don't even try anymore.

Cabbage looper are so annoying and I see about 10 butterflies a day starting early spring and they are still fluttering around.

 

[Ascholten]

just be careful you dont accidentally pick the magic varietys of shrooms and get caught with them.

 

[vall]

For broccoli - I started to plant the sprouting kind, so you can cut off the florets and continue eating the tender stems when the bugs finally take over.

Today I picked a bunch of caterpillar cocoons off my pattypan squash and fed them to the quail. Then mowed some brush and dug three holes on my acreage for two coconuts and a banana. Drenched in sweat by the end of that. We're supposed to get upwards of 2 inches of rain in the next week, I'm hoping it's a good time to finally plant these since I don't have irrigation out there. The soil (sand) was pretty damp already so I'm optimistic.

Oh, and my last banana pup made it after all! The main plant is dead but I knew it had roots - this morning I spotted a new sprout!

 

[TJAnonymous]

Most places won't really do a mushroom ID course because of liability issues, or they will be real shy about it.

FWIW there is an app you can get on your phone that you can take a picture and it helps you ID mushrooms, but of course do NOT trust this thing with your life !! Remember, some of the real nasty ones, take about 30 to 45 days to kill you, and it's a slow terrible ride down the drain. With all this rain we've been getting, I am really hoping some Lions Mane flushes start popping here or shitake.

Aaron.

Yeah, I'm aware of the app. I took pictures of a mushroom I picked out of our pasture. I felt certain it was a meadow mushroom. Pictures all matched. However before we ate any of them, I checked with a mushroom expert online who told me that research has shown that meadow mushrooms DO NOT grow east of the Rockies. Instead it was a different mushroom that looks identical to the meadow mushroom. It is poisonous. I can look up the name in my email if anyone is curious... The guy told me that you CANNOT distinguish from pictures alone so do not trust online comparison or even those laminated pamphlets like I bought from TSC. He said to definitively identify a mushroom, it is a combination of factors including description, location, smell, and spore identification. Even then they cannot say with 100% certainty.

 

[Ascholten]

See THAT is the thing so many people fail to understand... or just don't want to take the time TO understand.

It takes DECADES to get good at identifying mushrooms, you have to know the territory, NOT just looks and YES there are a bunch of look alikes that are very TOXIC !!

I will only eat on my own accord..3 types of mushrooms I find wild out here. The Lions mane, because nothing else does look like it. THe Oyster, because it's pretty easy to ID, even though it too has a bunch of different species / sub species, and the reishi although that is more a medicinal purpose shroom rather than meal mushie. Everything else, I will bag up, in a SEPARATE from everything else bag, and bring to a friend who IS competent in shroomology and say meal or marker? (meaning marker in the cemetary). He will tell me, we have a few beers, I cook a meal with the shrooms and life goes on! or I just bring him some coffee Carlos is easy to get along with heh

There are a lot of false parasol's out here, which are huge, look yummy, but which will sadly, make you sick.

Too bad there is not a way to detox muishrooms, because some times of the year, there are just Soooo many and they look Soooo good....

Aaron

 

[NewBoots]

My Jerusalem artichokes don’t look like they are even thinking about blooming

They bloom pretty late in the season here. No sign of blooms on ours yet, but then again, I cut them a lot for rabbit fodder. Bet goats would love them too.

Cabbage looper are so annoying and I see about 10 butterflies a day starting early spring and they are still fluttering around.

We still had cabbage loopers fluttering around in November. Fortunately, the chard, mustard, kale, and collards don't get much or any attention from the little jerks. Still can't grow broccoli or cabbage once the loopers finally all die since the snails, slugs, and little earth worms (I find small earth worms INSIDE the cabbage making them impossible to use without completely taking them apart) take over wrecking the cole veg and only stop once the loopers are again in ascendance.

 

[TJAnonymous]

See THAT is the thing so many people fail to understand... or just don't want to take the time TO understand.

It takes DECADES to get good at identifying mushrooms, you have to know the territory, NOT just looks and YES there are a bunch of look alikes that are very TOXIC !!

I will only eat on my own accord..3 types of mushrooms I find wild out here. The Lions mane, because nothing else does look like it. THe Oyster, because it's pretty easy to ID, even though it too has a bunch of different species / sub species, and the reishi although that is more a medicinal purpose shroom rather than meal mushie. Everything else, I will bag up, in a SEPARATE from everything else bag, and bring to a friend who IS competent in shroomology and say meal or marker? (meaning marker in the cemetary). He will tell me, we have a few beers, I cook a meal with the shrooms and life goes on! or I just bring him some coffee Carlos is easy to get along with heh

There are a lot of false parasol's out here, which are huge, look yummy, but which will sadly, make you sick.

Too bad there is not a way to detox muishrooms, because some times of the year, there are just Soooo many and they look Soooo good....

Aaron

Yeah, I completely agree. I can identify morels. That's it. And only because we've been hunting them for decades and I had family elders who TAUGHT me how to find them and what to look for.... Unless I have someone who knows what they are doing, I'm not eating it. But I do think there is a lot to learn and if you (I) don't start seeking out those people and learning, then the knowledge or opportunity for knowledge will be lost.

 

[TJAnonymous]

I can finally walk a bit with a cane. I jumped on the 4-wheeler and went down for a spin around the garden. I never dumped the water gauge since the last rainfall (2.5"). The gauge now says 5".

 

[Sueby]

I find that when it comes to pulling fat caterpillars off leaves, they have sticky feet, they can cling pretty well, you end up smooshing them trying to pinch / squeeze them to get them off the leaves and get that green gungus on your fingers. A much easier method is to grab a chicken, lift her to the level of the caterpillar, point and she'll take care of the rest for you

Aaron

This made me lol @ the pic in my brain!

You can try BT which will help with the worms. The best solution I have found is to cover them with a row cover or bag each plant individually. The individual bags are easy to make if you can sew.

BTW, I had my DH make me some frames from 2x2s and I stapled some insect netting to the frames. I hinged the tops for easy access. I used these over my broccoli plants and had ZERO worms this season. It was glorious...

Good idea, I'll have to think about that on my wooden beds, might be a good idea here! Thank you.

(I find small earth worms INSIDE the cabbage making them impossible to use without completely taking them apart)

That makes me want to barf. That is why I don't grow broccoli or cauli, my 2 favorite veggies.

We got almost an inch of rain today (7/8)!!