Good morning!!!!

[PJSprog]

67°F and clear skies this morning, going up to 85° today. No rain in the forecast for the rest of the week, and the weekend rain has been pushed off until next Monday.

Nice looking trees, fellas. The cherry blossoms and hawthorn trees The Wife planted last year bloomed quite nice this Spring. There was a period during last Summer's hot and dry spell where we were resigned to the idea that they weren't going to make it. They all did, though, and we're looking forward to the yearly color treat along the front bank of the lake.

 

[LS Tractor Owner]

RNG, sorry to hear about the crime increase and the lack of punishment by the judge. Wife and I were just talking this morning about similar criminal situations here. Seems that due to the jail systems not keeping up with the amount of convicted criminal (meaning lack of available space), it's easier to just release back into the general public. Only when a situation arises such as you describe, do the public officials stand up and say 'what's happening?'

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Morning all,

Raining again. Boys got the yard mowed yesterday. Too wet now to rake and bale it. I put rfm on the massey and mowed along creek and started to mow the field again.

Saw the ceo of jcp is going to lowes. That can't be good...

It's a shame the unfriendly politics drifts into the normal threads.

Was almost dry enough to plant more garden. Havent even planted potatos yet, and Drew is digging his.

 

[CajunRider]

Cajunrider, nice build. Can you explain "keyhole garden"? I see that it looks like an old style lock/keyhole, but what is the purpose?

With the keyhole garden I can reach anything I grow in the garden. I put a thick layer of cardboard at the bottom to kill all the weeds. On top of that is a layer of anything organic like leaves, sticks, wood chips etc.. Then I put a thick layer of composted cow manure then 8" of top soil on top. The soil at the center will be near the top of the compost barrel at the center of the key hole and sloped down to about 3 inch below the edge. The compost barrel has lots of holes so the gray water from the compost will water my garden. The method of planting was introduced to Africa and is now very popular there since it maximize the use of water and allow for continual composting and building up the soil. Turning over of the soil is only needed once every 5 years to replenish the organic material at the bottom. A keyhole garden the size of mine can give me all the veggies a small family needs except in my case where my lady would probably want me to just plant a lot of hot hot hot pepper! What I usually do is to cut off the bottom of celery, green onions, etc.. and simply stick them in the dirt and soon I'll have more than my lady and I can eat. The last time I did key hole garden, I put 2 slices of heirloom tomatoes in the ground and had so many tomatoes soon afterward.

Not seen in the picture is the door on the compost barrel. I can open the door and shovel out the compost near the bottom if the barrel gets too full.

I just looked up the price for keyhole garden Whooa! This one is $509 and is way smaller than mine.
Cedar Keyhole Garden | RaisedBeds.com

 

[hawkeye08]

Good morning all! Beautiful morning here, temps in 50s climbing to low 80s today.

Tuesday is garbage day (we haul our single garbage can about 1/2 mile to paved road for pickup). Our daughter takes it when she goes to work and picks the empty can up on her way home (if no one goes anywhere that day). We are the first address on our road that takes garbage so it is a battle each time we get our bill because they always put the excess trash on our bill, even though our account says we ONLY put out one can and nothing extra. My wife kindly does the calling each time and they eventually adjust bill, but they said they never add the charges to the rightful address. So our new neighbors past us on the road have been putting extra down every week almost. A couple of weeks ago, they put extra trash bags next to our can so it looked like ours. Of course when we got our recent bill, again had to call...

This morning, I was sitting at my desk pondering my next task (I work from home) and saw the new neighbors drive by with the back of the pickup loaded with trash. I waited awhile and then went down to the trash pickup and moved our can so it was by itself, plain as day. I noticed the neighbor has a Waste Management trash can with number on it along with the extra boxes and trash had Amazon labels. It should not be hard to figure out who should get billed for the extra trash.

Rant over (mostly).

The new neighbors are likely very happy with the garbage service since they can put out unlimited trash and never get charged....

 

[sodamo]

66°F and another 1.92 inches rain last 24 hours, 1.23 of it since midnight.

Jay, overview of how our water catchment works:

Rain from roof collected by gutters.
First part of collection fills the self draining 1st flush pipes.
Remaining water passes thru my 3 phase prefilter consisting of a course plaster core, a nylon filter, panty hose, then a second like prefilter on way to 4 foodgrade poly tanks, 4K gal each.
Pumped from tanks to pressure tank then filtered
100 micron
20-5 micron
5 micron carbon
1 micron
UV sterilizer light

Pretty clean by time it gets to House.

Prayers for all in need

Be safe
Have a great day

 

[jbrumberg]

Good Afternoon Everyone. An overcast and drizzly morning in the low 50F's; still drizzling and in the low 60F's. It was a good morning for the weekly supply run.

Ted- I really like the pictures of your trees and landscaping.

Buppies- I hope your leg is in better shape today.

Drew- What you are doing organically with your garden is much more labor intensive than your neighbors' gardens, but the end product although nutritionally the same will have less chemical residues. I too am heat intolerant and need to take frequent breaks to cool off and hydrate when it get "hot;" the older I get the longer the breaks. I think that I sweat thinking about heat and/or physical activity. "Hot" to me would probably be "cool" for you Southerners. We only use organic methods for pest control. I used to spray the apple trees with dormant oil, burned tent caterpillars, etc. but the expenditure in time/energy was not reflected in production although the apples looked better. For leaf eating grubs we use Bacillus thuringiensis spray. It works really well, and although it tastes awful it is harmless to non grub leaf eating animals. I hand pick a lot of pests too.

Our "Garden Bible," a +40 year old How to Grow Vegetables and Fruits by the Organic Method J. I. Rodale, (10th printing, 1974) is dog-eared from heavy use.

RNG- Brogen gets Bravecto Flea and Tick pills every three months and Interceptor heart worm medication monthly. This stuff seems to work. I find no ticks on him; only me. At +150#'s he takes some big $$ "chewies." He's "suspicious" of all treats unless he "thinks" they're "safe" or pure meat. If he thinks it's a "pill" he will not eat it. He's pretty smart about recognizing "pills." He's a sucker for peanut butter. I am always saddened to read about the failures of the Judicial and Criminal Justice systems. CA and MA seem to have more than their fair share of "poor outcomes" for released "rehabilitated" criminals.

CjR- I like the concept of keyhole gardening. I have modified my planting practices since I read All New Square Foot Gardening, M. Bartholomew (1981). A civil engineer's approach to gardening had an appeal. I now use tape measures to plant seeds.:embarrassed: I do not have raised flower/garden beds, but I mulch heavily. I use brown cardboard as mulch as well and the earthworms love it. I was bringing home more broken down cardboard from the transfer station than the garbage I was taking. It's in high demand now; I rarely score any nowadays.

David- Thanks for the description of your water collection system. It's pretty elaborate I hope the acid rain/particulate matter does not mess up your system. I hope that you remain safe.

I hope that everyone is having a safe and decent day today and everyone mending continues mending and those healthy stay healthy.

 

[toppop52]

Warm and humid today with clouds and sun, no rain do far.
Finished mowing the back just in time for the rest to start needing it again. It’s only been two days so it’s gonna wait until Thursday or Friday so it looks good when the hoards arrive.

 

[daugen]

much to my surprise on very small plants, the beans are coming in.
A few Burpee standbys but also some "cool beans".
Borlatto Vigevano, colorful Italian beans definitely are pretty in the garden and on the plate.

First couple of tomatoes showed up also, plus picked another several pounds of peas.
Worked outside all day and thoroughly enjoyed it, the cloudy weather can be a blessing, except when I forgot my
hat and an hour later was frying. Back I went for it.

 

[daugen]

I mowed the fruit orchard today and need to spray all the trees tomorrow if the weather will cooperate.
Pleased to see, squirrels willing, I might get my first pears this year. Some apples, a few plums it looks like, can't see any peaches.
Third year, need to be patient.