What did you do in the garden today?

[CNJ]

My Super Sauce tomato plant had a bad start, but has since recovered from a tiny insect attack. At first I thought it was a fungus attack and used a fungicide, but that didn't help. Then I took a good look under the leaves and saw tiny insects, so I sprayed it with neem oil and my plants recovered. Since this was my first attempt at this hybrid hydroponic system, I did not know if I could grow anything in it.

I am happy to report that the roots has made it down to the 7 inch water reservoir in my 5 gallon buckets, so I can turn off my water pump at night and leave it on in the day. However, I just stuck a small cherry tomato plant in one of the buckets, so I have the water set to come off and on every 3 hours for an hour at night.

I have included a picture of my Kratky 5 gallon tomato buckets, the water is still touching the 5 inch net cups and the roots hasn't grown into the water yet. I just put them in a week ago and they survived the 3 day constant rain. The sun is out and everything is starting to take off.

The tomato plant with the pea gravel is keeping up with the one with clay pebble. The down side is the pea gravel are very heavy. I hope the net pot doesn't give way when the plants get bigger. For this reason the clay pebbles are better. However, the pea gravel is cheaper.

The tomato plants in the 5 gallon Kratky buckets are determinate Roma type, bred by the University of Hawaii to resist commonly seen problems in Hawaii.

 

[Wee Farmer Sarah]

I’m in the worst of the storm now. It was really warm ( hoodie weather) earlier. We had a sunny break in the torrential rain so the chicken’s got out for about 30 minutes earlier. The winds and rain cranked up about an hour and a half later. The power flickered for awhile then came back on. The temps dropped from mid 50’s to the 30’s and it’s been snowing for the last 45 minutes. Wind is supposed to keep up until after midnight and temps hitting the single digits. I don’t pay attention to the wind chill. After it gets really cold it doesn’t matter. Cold is cold. If the snow doesn’t blow all away we may have a White Christmas after all. Fingers crossed, the power stays on. There’s no way I’m trying to crank up the generator at 2 am. I have a fireplace that needs no electricity. Stay safe everyone. As bad as it seems you know we have all been through worse. Glass half full!

 

[TJAnonymous]

I made some homemade apple cider. Mixed my glass with a touch of spiced rum. Just the cure for this crappy cold weather.

 

[CluckNDoodle]

I made some homemade apple cider. Mixed my glass with a touch of spiced rum. Just the cure for this crappy cold weather.

View attachment 3357187

That sounds like just what the doctor ordered!! I need to see if I have the ingredients to make some!

 

[ChicksnMore]

I've been toying with my next BIG project, build an attached green house / room / spa room? mostly greenhouse on the back of the house. Im not talking some piddle pissy little plastic sheet thing, Im talking full blown and I want it about 10 foot tall or so for BIG plants, with the windows, climate control the works so I can keep well hell, Banana, Papaya, Pineapple, stuff like that IN it all season and it's actually Doable to put it in more of a real life situation for it growing and not one of those 5 gallon wonder vines.

It's going to cost some money, that I get, who am I Bsing tis gonna cost a LOT of money, from what I seen them charge the neighbor for just a little lanai patio thingie, holy BS batman !

So ive been toying with the idea and mediocrally debating - teasing myself with, ok why do you need this aaron, do you REALLY need this aaron, yes I get it mid life crisis BOY... but is this REALLY worth it, wonk wonk wonk.

After dragging 30 and 60 gallon pots in with 8 foot banana and papaya trees tipping and literally dragging to get them under the garage door to get them inside to hide from the coming storm... yah you stupid a hole, there goes your back again, I felt that pop and just KNOW whats waiting for me tomorrow when I TRY to get out of bed. I think I found my justification. Given it's going to run about the whole length of the back of the house, ok box off a 5x5 section for an'indoor coop'. keeps them safe BUT at the same time OUT of the Hooman's part of the domicile Come spring time, I think it is time for this project to kickstart here. Ive been selling my veggie starts, papaya starts, honey, eggs, herbs, spinach starts,... you know, plant stuffzzz and putting them on my business for tax and income reporting purposes, so it IS a valid aspect of my business. Ill have to talk to the accountant and see if I can do some sort of write off as my business, an expense, since I am going full bore on the tilapia and self sufficiency stuff now. The only way I think they might balk is because it's attached to the house, hard to justify a 'business' expense then.

It's worth a try, im even toying with putting like a raised 'doggy door' on the thing and putting a beehive right in it, so the hive is inside but slap against the wall for the bees to get in and out, and maybe like one of those spinny doors you find on a nuc, to let them in to my part to get the plants there too. maybe do an observation hive. Anything to keep from EVER having to drag those huge ass pots across the yard again

Aaron

If you build it please post pics so I can live vicariously through you! That sounds amazing .

I used a furniture dolly to move my papayas inside for a cold snap, then placed them by our big east facing window. I've always put em in the big west side window before and they did fine. Well, guess the east side window gets too cold...almost all the leaves shriveled and died after 2 nights in the 20's . Maybe we should use the heater or fireplaces more. And yup...my back hurts even with the dolly to help.

I absolutely hope you get your greenhouse!

 

[Ascholten]

Neem oil - be CAREFUL, a little goes a long way with that stuff, and if you are using a water system, if it gets in your water it can raise hell too. also tomato's since you are experimenting with 'stuff', do NOT use tobacco. Tobacco and Tomato are the same family and tobacco commonly has a fungus which will tear up your tomato's, so NO spraying or putting ANY tobacco down near them.

greenhouse - I'll probably have it built, but who does stuff like that? I'll have to look around, given i want it 2 stories with a walk around on top patio, first I just KNOW the HOA Nazi's are going to start crap but pointing out when they are being total idiots usually does the trick with them. Secondly, in the end it's probably going to cost half what the whole house costs !! so if Im dumping that much money, this baby BETTER have a hot tub somewhere too :{) If this don't work ive been thinking a big ass shed too, im talking drive your boat in and park it size, two stories so it can be a work shed, ..but if I make it out of hardware cloth and re bar ish support, with a chicken corner then well, who's to stop me... or maybe do both and just get another mortgage (Aaron shut UP, eat your pills, lay down and BEHAVE !! ) Don't know about sliding glass door, especially since I want the door too,to be like 9 - 10 foot tall sostuff fits thru w/o having to duck so hard. I'll have to talk to an expert on the feasibility .vs. im not a billionaire of having THAT done.

Hell if I get this built, instead of sending you pictures, I'll just have to invite you over for a visit, make it a Loong weekend, feed you, booze you up, and take you fishing. Make you put up with the TerribleToo and the Chickens! so I can get a days rest for a change !

Aaron

 

[Ascholten]

If you build it please post pics so I can live vicariously through you! That sounds amazing .

I used a furniture dolly to move my papayas inside for a cold snap, then placed them by our big east facing window. I've always put em in the big west side window before and they did fine. Well, guess the east side window gets too cold...almost all the leaves shriveled and died after 2 nights in the 20's . Maybe we should use the heater or fireplaces more. And yup...my back hurts even with the dolly to help.

I absolutely hope you get your greenhouse!

Papaya's are just tempermental cuss' and the fact the leaves do NOT grow back, and they pretty much never branch, just makes them look more atrocious when you DO - do things to them. Once I got a few of them and the shock thought of OMG you want to do WHAT !! was no longer there, I topped a few of them. They were about 6 foot tall and I whacked the top off it down to about a 2 foot stump. Did this about June - July. Then put a dixie cup in the hole to keep the goobers and gomers out of it while it healed and did it's thing. Took a few months but slowly it branched out, and has the short stubby stump with 4 branches hanging out pretty much equidirectional, each with it's own top now and fruit bearing. Much easier to work with, and since I lobbed it when it was mature, it was 'Mature' so as soon as first rows of new leaves started and it was growing in earnest again, make that about month 3 after beheading, it was blooming again.

Another benefit I found was, being a hermaphrodite, it'd get it's flowers at different times, but seemingly NEVER overlapping. So it'd get male flowers, then female flowers, but they wouldn't ever overlap and pollinate each other, so the fruit was always barren. By having multi branches now, that kind of unsynched it a bit so there ARE flowers of different sexes now and it does self p and seed for me. It's getting tall again, and fruit 'up there', this is year 3 for it, so I am tempted to whack it again, with a bigger fatter trunk this time of course, but way low, and see if we can do this AGAIN, with the branches down low and workable again,

Moving into the future, IF I find out that YES you CAN double whack them over the years and they successfully re head themselves, my next experiment (ok now were talking 5 years down the road, so hopefully im still alive !!) but get one, with a healthy head on it, so all 3 or 4 of the first severing branches are healthy, and whack THEM. That way each of THEM gets a new multi branched head on it, so it turns into like a Papaya Tree Canopy where the one tree, is tall, branches, taller and more branches and has like a bush head on it of maybe 10 tree heads or something. If that works i think it'd be an awesomely beautiful tree - to keep in the corner of my green house permanently !!

When I do finally die, someone is going to get a wonderful already established garden here! with a rotten cussing bird to keep watch on it

Aaron

 

[Sally PB]

with a rotten cussing bird to keep watch on it

How old is he? I have a friend who has a 25 year old cockatiel.

 

[Ascholten]

How old is he? I have a friend who has a 25 year old cockatiel.

I have had Paco umm 12 years now I believe. he was about 5 when I got him, I got him as a rescue so am not sure what his real age is. 25 for a cockatiel is very old and that bird lived a long healthy life for sure ! M2's now (Moluccan Cockatoo / Salmon Crested they are sometimes called) can live up to 80 years I hear, so he'll be here long after I kick the bucket I am sure, and in fact probably will be the cause of my death ! ...well actually i can be 113 years old, which will work, because then I can say I have lived to see the BiCentennial and the TriCentennial of the USA. and he'll be in his 80's. We can go out together... maybe a final death match over a piece of apple or something

Aaron

 

[Ascholten]

Just looked at an updated weather forecast. Below freezing temps, high of 38 tomorrow and more freezing temps all the way out to next wednesday. My poor bees, I hope they survive. These are florida bees now, not used to this hard cold and extended! I know what Ill be doing in the garden tomorrow. Getting sugar water out for the bees. going to have to in and out with that every day. Can't leave it overnight if it's getting down to 20, thatll freeze, bust the jar and now we got a huge mess in the hive. Ill be amazed if they are still alive after this.

aaron