What did you do in the garden today?

[akroberts1085]

Rant - non garden related- skip this if you need/want to-
I just fired the printer I have used for a decade.
I hand paint my holiday cards and get them printed and cut them to size at home, but I buy the prints on cardstock and the standard envelopes from this mom and pop printer locally.
I emailed the print to the shop, and drove over to place my order.
20 A6 prints, and 20 envelopes.
I told her that IF she had to adjust the size to take it off one side and corner. Sometimes my email sends them at full page size and not smaller than half.
I was going to cut them to size, and use them as just postcard like cards and not folded, so if she wanted to put two on a page, great, otherwise I would take care of it at home.
I picked them up today.
The bill floored me. $63. OMG WTH???
They charged me to fit 4 of them on an 11x17 page, charge me to cut them, charged me to do the layout. HOLY HELL! at 3$ a card I could get 20 HALLMARK indiviual cards or 5 BOXES of high end holiday cards.
I've NEVER paid more than 25$ for this to be done. NEVER before have they charged me for fitting things to pages.
I told her it was my last order.
That while I SHOULD have been MORE specific, although I DO NOT know how I could have been.
THEY should have provided an estimate upon order, I SHOULD have asked for one, but since I've done this for 9 years, I thought I knew what to expect.
I also told her that any reasonable person in the shop would have said 'whoa, this is going to cost a LOT, Maybe I should run this by her and give her a quick call to check before I hit print.'

This is a tiny shop, in a tiny village, not something that does huge expensive orders or has customers that come in and SPEND $3 for each card!

OK rant over. Thank you for your time. Phew. I feel better.

I probably would have flipped my lid and then walked out feeling like horses hindend. I also absolutely agree about no one letting you know about the highway robbery you were going to encounter.

 

[TJAnonymous]

I probably would have flipped my lid and then walked out feeling like horses hindend. I also absolutely agree about no one letting you know about the highway robbery you were going to encounter.

I probably would have refused to pay and walked out. Then ordered somewhere else...

 

[Happy hen lover]

I wish I had access to free cattle mineral tubs. You must be a fan of Leon's gardening channel on YouTube. He uses those cattle mineral tubs all the time.

Do you use the fabric weed cloth in your bucket?

Yes you're correct I love Ol' Leon!
I don't use the fabric and have not had any problems.
I live in a rural area and can get truckloads of those tubs. They even have them at recycle plant nearby. I even put 1 upside down and stack the tub on top. I have about 10 tubs , next year going to try carrots in one. I do grow cukes, tomatoes, peppers, and herbs all the time. I fill mine once a week and do add fertilizer once a month. I just coated all of them with chicken poo and ash topped off with bedding I got from my annual deep litter cleaning. My hubby put plain old dirt in one and it's rock hard compared to my 1/3 1/3 1/3 soil mix ones. I do have a couple of "tote" tubs but they are starting to crack and split after 4 years.
My holes are 1/4" on empty milk jugs etc. Nice thing is those are free.
that are used as fillers.

 

[Happy hen lover]

View attachment 3679286


Ryboi does make a power cutter, but I think it's in their 4-volt line of tools.

View attachment 3679290

This post is right after the person that asked about an easy way to cut corn off if cobs! Sorry I just couldn't resist sharing . The mind goes where the mind goes.

 

[CNJ]

I was gifted 52 ears of corn on the cob. I gifted 16 of those to a friend. I want to get the kernels off the coc and can them. Does anybody have any great DIY tricks to get the kernels off the cob quickly ?

It's easy to slice the corn kernels off with a knife.

 

[akroberts1085]

This is the Thanksgiving dining room.

 

[Happy hen lover]

Well I was just going to plant my tulip bulbs........ but the garden called my name.
I pulled the last of carrots. Threw poo on garden, then ash, then used bedding from annual clean out. Whew beds all ready for next spring. After 3 hours of buttoning up garden I finally DID plant tulips.

 

[CNJ]

I have no idea why the girls have suddenly decided to go on strike. They get PLENTY of food, free ranging, and protein options.

Mine stop laying when they started molting. I switched their feed to a high protein fighting chicken blend and I put Corid in their water for a week as a preventive when they stopped laying. They started up again after a month.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Mine stop laying when they started molting. I switched their feed to a high protein fighting chicken blend and I put Corid in their water for a week as a preventive when they stopped laying. They started up again after a month.

I've been getting less than half my usual egg count going well over a month now. I don't have enough girls molting to account for that difference. As for feed, mine get a lot of different protein sources every day besides unlimited access to layer pellets including black oil sunflower seeds, oats, soybeans, flax seed, wheat, and more... Every day. That's in addition to 4 to 6 hrs per day of free ranging through the pasture, compost, and wooded areas at least 4 to 5 times per week.

 

[igorsMistress]

I could find nothing on the trademark logo. Which is why I am asking others if they have any idea of company and/or product.



That blurb on the .pdf seems to indicate that the magazine was 100% recyclable. Unfortunately, I don't know if that means it is also 100% compostable for use in a food garden. Are the 2 the same, or different? I don't know.



I certainly don't want to add toxic materials to my garden compost, but it really would be nice to shred up those magazines and use them as compostable materials. Not that I need more compost paper products, but I am really trying to reduce the amount of stuff we dump off at the recycle center - because I basically don't believe that any of it gets recycled.

It's been a long journey for me. Back in the day, we used to bag up our grass clippings and leaves in plastic bags and then send them to the dump. We used to fill up the back of the pickup with all kinds of tree branches and stuff and haul them off to the landfill. All our household waste was dumped in plastic garbage bags and dropped off at the dump. Over time, I got used to the idea of recycling some products, like glass, metal, plastics, and paper products. So, that was a small step forward, even though I have never seen any proof that our "recyclable" materials were ever recycled. Anyways, once I got chickens, I started dumping all the grass clippings and leaves into the chicken run. Almost all our kitchen scraps and unwanted leftovers get put into the chicken buckt and fed to the girls. All our wood tree branches and logs get used in hügelkultur raised garden beds, or at least used to burn out stumps here on the property. Almost all our paper products and cardboard are shredded at home and used first as chicken coop litter, and then later as compost material for use in my raised bed food gardens. Almost nothing organic leaves my property. But I am always actively looking for more ways to reuse our "garbage" before it ends up in the dump or landfill. Colored magazines are about the last paper product I have yet been able to reuse because of the toxic ink issue. But I think that might be changing, too.

I don’t think recyclable is the same as compostable.