Your 2025 Garden

[pennyJo1960]

Seem we have rats, the mice are afraid of them.
May get to plant around April inside start them.

 

[Nomadicus]

I have 115ac in all my coops but one and it is well up off the ground where mice and rats can't get in through 1/2" hardware cloth. I uncovered a community nest of mice that had dozens of babies and when I did the hens went crazy eating the babies. The adults abandoned them and left the area. Haven't seen any in there since. I have seen a lot of tunnels near the garden areas if I set something down in a staging area for a couple of days. When I move it there are always tunnels big enough for a small rat to move through. Out by the gardens where I have no power and now chickens I'm going to use the bait. On the side of the property that has coops and where I turn the chickens out to free range from time to time (when it's not feeling like it is 80 below zero) I think the electric traps might be the best choice.

 

[Nomadicus]

I have some scraps of OSB board that I'm going to lay on the ground at the ends of the garden and wait to find tunnels under them and then put out the poison where I know it will most likely do some good.

 

[NanaK]

Sounds like the electronic one may be good for the greenhouse. I can keep it checked as I'm in there daily.

I've been thinking about adding a hardward cloth skirt to the greenhouse. The coop and run are already covered in HC too.
I should have bought stock in a fencing
company.

On a side note, We may get snow, sleet or freezing rain Friday night. I have not seen snow in a long time. Just hope no freezing rain. That can cause a lot of problems.

 

[Nomadicus]

I'm planning on using metal for a skirt on a greenhouse. The same kind used for siding and roofing on metal storage buildings. I have a supply locally from a shed builder that sells if for a dollar a running foot. It will be easy to have a 3' shirt and use clear panels for the rest of the covering. 29° here this morning so I'm working on the new grow light system in the sun room out of it. I unboxed the new grow light fixture last night and have it ready. Once I can borrow Ma's hands for a few minutes it will be done. It's just a matter of putting two eye screws 45.5" apart in the bottom of the frame I have already built and hanging it and plugging it in to the backup power supply. This unit has a programmable feature for the color of light used. Bandwidths for seed sprouting, growing, & fruiting. I only need the sprouting and growing until large enough to set in the ground.

 

[Nomadicus]

Grow light is up. I can cover 288 plants in trays of 72 each and if I line one side of the 10x20" trays with a row of just the cell trays I can cover 332 plants. I may just leave it at that and keep the second light as a backup to avoid a catastrophic failure down the road. I still have the option of transferring the seedling plugs into 3" pots. I'm inclined to think of doing that for the pepper, eggplant, and tomato plants if the weather is not ready for them when they need to have a larger root area.

 

[Nomadicus]

Has anyone here ever grown Fava beans for green shelling?

 

[Sally PB]

I first started using peanut butter as the bait.

I have had better luck with a peanut in the bait holder. Get a nut that is a little too big to fit, and mash it in. They have to work at it and trip the trap. I actually caught two mice and a mole with the same peanut!

I'm not had issues in the coop and run since I started picking up feeders at night a few years ago.
Just a random one every so often.

I take out/securely cover the food every night. I also dump out the water dish and turn it over so that there isn't a little puddle of water in the bottom, which is enough for a mouse to get a drink.

 

[Nomadicus]

Picked up some bib lettuce seed today from the new seasons rack at Walmart. Ma got a few herb seeds for her herb garden. I know she got some rosemary and a couple more.

 

[Nomadicus]

The Lima bean seed that didn't germinate last summer in the garden did in a test container I planted a few days ago. Glad to know that the seed were good but still dumbfounded as to why none of the seed germinated in the garden.