What did you do in the garden today?

[gtaus]

Egg shells too. I'm not sure how they'd be processed, but I'm guessing bake them in the oven and disintegrate it all in a food processor.

I had a discussion with other members about using eggshells as fertilizer in the garden. Turns out that the calcium in eggshells is bound up and the only way to break the bond is using something like a vinegar solution and letting everything soak for a week or more. Crushing up the eggshells will not break the chemical bond and release the calcium to be taken up by the plants. It has to be cooked, crushed, and soaked in a vinegar type solution.

I ended up crushing my eggshells and tossing them out in the chicken run. The chickens can eat what they want and maybe get some calcium from their digestive system. I don't have time for all the cooking, crushing, and soaking eggshells in vinegar for weeks.

I have a separate calcium feeder for at will feeding for my chickens, but my bag of calcium I bought 4 years ago is still mostly full. My chickens don't eat much supplemental calcium. I suppose you could puree the eggshells in a food processor down to very fine bits and put it into a separate feeder. But that takes time and I'm too busy right now for things I don't really need to do.

 

[Smokerbill]

Little emotional this evening. Last Friday I purchased a used Murray riding mower that looked like a really good deal. The original owner had the shop put in a brand new engine, but then he never came back to pay for the mower. I got the mower for half the price of the new engine and repair bill, so I was pretty happy about that. It rained all weekend, so this evening was the first chance I got to take it out for a test drive. Found out really fast that the shop had not checked the brakes on the riding mower and almost got myself into an accident going down a gentle slope with no way to slow down the mower. Immediately called the shop and left a message for the small engines manager. Will be talking to her tomorrow.

I'm sure they will fix the problem, but point is it should have never been put up for sale without proper checkout - especially something as critical as brakes! I have been buying new and used riding mowers from them for over 35 years, and they are considered to be the best in town, but this situation could have resulted in real injury. Nothing worse than the feeling you get sitting on top of spinning blades on a run-away machine that you have no ability to stop.

Not looking forward to that conversation tomorrow with the shop manager....

To make things worse for me, I had borrowed my brother's trailer to pick up the mower and he took it back home this weekend. He lives about 3 hours away, and won't be bringing the trailer back until sometime later in July. So, my "new" used mower might end up sitting in my shed, taking up space, and not even getting used for the better part of the summer. Bummer.

You seem to be handy. Maybe it's just a cable that wasn't reconnected when the mower was put back together. Might be an easy fix.

 

[Smokerbill]

Yup... I've got another larger one that will be ready in the next few days! They both came out of the volunteer pumpkin patch that sprouted up on the edge of a wood chip pile that composted down. Since they were volunteers, they got an early start.... The pumpkins I planted in the garden proper still have a long while before they are ready.

Save some seeds from that pumpkin. If it makes a good pie it might be a really good short season variety.

 

[Smokerbill]

I had a discussion with other members about using eggshells as fertilizer in the garden. Turns out that the calcium in eggshells is bound up and the only way to break the bond is using something like a vinegar solution and letting everything soak for a week or more. Crushing up the eggshells will not break the chemical bond and release the calcium to be taken up by the plants. It has to be cooked, crushed, and soaked in a vinegar type solution.

I ended up crushing my eggshells and tossing them out in the chicken run. The chickens can eat what they want and maybe get some calcium from their digestive system. I don't have time for all the cooking, crushing, and soaking eggshells in vinegar for weeks.

I have a separate calcium feeder for at will feeding for my chickens, but my bag of calcium I bought 4 years ago is still mostly full. My chickens don't eat much supplemental calcium. I suppose you could puree the eggshells in a food processor down to very fine bits and put it into a separate feeder. But that takes time and I'm too busy right now for things I don't really need to do.

Yeah, I think I mentioned the "eggshells soaked in vinegar" method here a while back. So maybe add a bit of the eggshell/vinegar solution to the mix instead of crushed eggshells.

Dr. Earth ingredients:

 

[gtaus]

You seem to be handy. Maybe it's just a cable that wasn't reconnected when the mower was put back together. Might be an easy fix.

I'm not a mechanic. And, I have less than 5 minutes on riding mower and I think it's best that I have a conversation with the manager who assured me that the mower had been thoroughly checked out before it left the shop. I can do lots of small maintenance things on my machines, but I don't want to muck things up on a machine that I just bought when I believe the manager will take care of it for me. Also, she needs to know the condition of the machine she just sold me so she can get a better understanding of situations with her shop and the guys who work there. I don't want to get anyone in trouble, and it might be an easy fix for them, but still, it should have never left the shop the way it was.

Of course, I'm walking on eggshells as my other two riding mowers are from the same shop and the guys there fix my riders when I have problems. So, I'm not looking to make any enemies out of the people I need to be there to fix my stuff.

 

[gtaus]

Yeah, I think I mentioned the "eggshells soaked in vinegar" method here a while back. So maybe add a bit of the eggshell/vinegar solution to the mix instead of crushed eggshells.

Dr. Earth ingredients:

View attachment 3557224

Someone posted a link to a .pdf file with good information on this subject. I read it. It's somewhere here on the forums. That was a few weeks ago, I think. If you are thinking about making fertilizer out of eggshells, it might be worth your time to do a search for the .pdf file somewhere in this thread.

 

[Smokerbill]

I'm not a mechanic. And, I have less than 5 minutes on riding mower and I think it's best that I have a conversation with the manager who assured me that the mower had been thoroughly checked out before it left the shop. I can do lots of small maintenance things on my machines, but I don't want to muck things up on a machine that I just bought when I believe the manager will take care of it for me. Also, she needs to know the condition of the machine she just sold me so she can get a better understanding of situations with her shop and the guys who work there. I don't want to get anyone in trouble, and it might be an easy fix for them, but still, it should have never left the shop the way it was.

Of course, I'm walking on eggshells as my other two riding mowers are from the same shop and the guys there fix my riders when I have problems. So, I'm not looking to make any enemies out of the people I need to be there to fix my stuff.

In that case, it seems like they should send the tech to your place to fix the mower. But I know you don't want to burn any bridges and damage the good relationship you have with the dealer. Yep, walking on eggshells.

 

[gtaus]

Yeah, I think I mentioned the "eggshells soaked in vinegar" method here a while back. So maybe add a bit of the eggshell/vinegar solution to the mix instead of crushed eggshells.

Dr. Earth ingredients:

View attachment 3557224

Yep, it was you that posted that .pdf link!

I would like to try that vinegar solution someday as described in the PDF linked to us by @Smokerbill ,

I read the good info on that link, but I did not save it to my computer. But I"m sure you could find the link again if you lost it. It's somewhere here in this thread....

 

[gtaus]

In that case, it seems like they should send the tech to your place to fix the mower. But I know you don't want to burn any bridges and damage the good relationship you have with the dealer. Yep, walking on eggshells.

The shop does have a trailer for pickups and drop-offs. But they normally charge $30 per trip. Given the situation that I don't have my brother's trailer for a number of weeks, I'm hoping the manager will eat the cost and help me out by getting the machine back to the shop and back home after it's fixed without charging me the trip fees. I'll bring it up if it seems right.

I don't expect replacing a brake cable to be a big issue for the shop, and maybe they just forgot to reattach it after working on the mower. To be sure, I just want the machine fixed and running right. I'm not looking for a refund at this point. Just off to a very bad start....

 

[chickengr]

I've noticed that one of my peach trees had a couple of yellow leaves deep in the center of the tree. Last week, the yellowing picked up steam. Did some searching and discovered a 7 ft x 7 ft peach tree needs about 90 gallons of water a week? Wow! Seriously? That's an insane amount of water... Mine definitely isn't getting that much. It is on the irrigation system and getting watered daily but only a gallon or two. I will have to add more emitters around it to increase the watering. The rain we got yesterday should help.

Just weird because the other peach tree nearby is bigger and has no yellow leaves.

that's why I don't care much about science. peach trees here don't get that much water in a month.