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Post by susannah on Jul 21, 2020 15:19:30 GMT
The kale continues to grow like crazy. I picked a bunch yesterday, and I'll roast kale chips later today, since it's another cool day.
We have toads all over the place, up near the garden. I see them every time I'm there. What welcome little critters! I didn't do anything special to attract them, but I'm so happy to have those little helpers around the garden. One of them accidentally ended up in the house yesterday - apparently he hitched a ride on the kale I brought in. I saw something climbing up the bay window in the kitchen and it was a toad. The little critter was gently relocated back to the garden.
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Post by mogal on Jul 21, 2020 16:15:52 GMT
We have an abundance of frogs and toads this year, too, Susannah, and DH keeps complaining about them. I have tried to tell him what a wonderful job they do eating bugs that get into the garden.
We finally got about 2 1/2" of rain Sunday afternoon/evening and another 1/2" yesterday. This was the first real rain since Cristobal went over back in June. So grateful for that and there may be more this week before we have more 90o+ heat.
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Post by countrymom22 on Jul 22, 2020 19:07:46 GMT
I didn't make it out to the garden yesterday, so when I went out this morning I was surprised to find that 3 of my tomato plants had lost half of their leaves! The culprit is the dreaded tomato horn worm! While I've had one or two of these in the past, they always had parasitic wasp eggs already laid on them so I just let nature take its course and they didn't do any damage. This year it's different. I picked 6 big, yucky (gross) worms off the 3 plants and squished them. Not a single wasp egg on any of them. Where are the wasps? I garden completely organically and have never done any spraying etc, so other than picking them off by hand, what can I do? They totally gross me out, and I'm not the squeamish type!
We also seem to have more japanese beetles than normal. While I can see some beetle damage on the strawberries and raspberries, both of those harvests are over and it's not major damage anyway.
Is anyone else having more bug problems than usual? Maybe I'm just noticing it more than usual because of the garden being more important than ever this year?
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Post by mogal on Jul 22, 2020 20:39:40 GMT
When I find a tomato horn worm, I try to give it to the chickens. They really enjoy the treat and I at least get a little benefit via eggs from the tomato crop that the worm damaged.
We have fewer Japanese beetles this year, thank goodness. I'm not a close weeder and noticed that the JBs were eating pigweed instead of the food crops. In future, I'll leave more pigweed.
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Post by susannah on Aug 2, 2020 16:17:00 GMT
The cherry tomato plants have been giving us a dozen or more ripe tomatoes each day. Perfect number for in salads and snacking. I'm not picking any today; I'll let the grandchildren do that when they come up tomorrow.
Cucumbers look like they'll be done after the dozen or so still on the vines are fully grown. Nothing's setting anymore.
I still "walk" the container plants across the deck to follow the sun, but only twice a day now. The sun has moved and we're getting less sun on the deck anywhere. 7 hours a day instead of the 9+ hours of sunshine I we had earlier in the season.
Kale keeps growing like weeds, as does the basil. Cilantro in the container is just about done but the cilantro in the raised bed still looks good. The chard is FINALLY about ready to pick.
Beets are done - I didn't plant all that many of them to begin with.
Second lettuce planting is coming along nicely. Still have a couple of heads in the garden that are still sweet.
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Post by solargeek on Aug 11, 2020 3:19:44 GMT
Finally, Tomatoes, but not in the bulk I would have expecte with over 400 healthy plants. I also have my 1st blossom end rot and in great soil. And for no apparent reason (even watering, tons o'sun, good weather) in WI across a lot of the state, tomatoes are taking literally 2-3 weeks to ripen beyone what I would call last dates for that. I am on 2 WI gardening forums and the pictures of pale yellow/whitish Romas and San Marzanos are everywhere.
My solution to prevent poor production and then damage due to insects, birds or weather causing splitting is to pick them green but when some color is showing. My DS did a ton of research and there is no loss of nutrients. It pretty much guarantees a good tomato. I keep them on a 3 tiered cart, on the porch or in the garage if the weather is iffy. Once pulled, they do ripen quickly.
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Post by susannah on Aug 11, 2020 16:25:42 GMT
The cherry tomatoes are giving us three or four dozen a day yet. Since we had no other tomatoes, I carefully sliced a bunch of cherry tomatoes and we used them in BLTs Sunday night. It worked surprisingly well, although a few rogue ones tried to escape each sandwich. Okay, they succeeded. But not too many of them.
I think the Sungolds will be finished and done before the red cherry tomatoes. Far fewer green tomatoes on those plants; fewer ripe for picking. And after bragging about how my placing several plastic forks tine side up in the containters kept the chipmunks away, ds noticed a chipmunk contentedly sitting in one tomato container, munching on a ripe red cherry tomato. But only one. Unlike the evil chipmunks at our previous home, where one summer they took exactly ONE bite out of each tomato - full sized tomatoes - as they ripened. I now understand the conditioned response dh developed, where he hears a chipmunk call and leaps up and runs outside to chase it away. I've started doing it myself. But fortunately, I haven't seen any further damage - or any other chipmunks on the deck. They're taunting me from further out in the yard.
I thought the cucumber plants were done but surprisingly, there's a cucumber that'll be ready to pick within the next couple days, and a few smaller ones that show promise. The leaves are yellowing on the edges and cucumber plants normally end early up here. But each extra cucumber is very much appreciated.
I pulled up the last onion, so those are definitely done. It was nice to get a bunch of them, especially with the recent salmonella outbreak traced to onions. We're good for awhile. And the farm should be selling more within the next week or two.
I'll pick the rest of the cilantro in the container today, but there's still a bunch more to deal with in the raised bed. Yikes. Basil and kale continue to do well - almost too well for me to keep up.
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Post by solargeek on Aug 21, 2020 4:35:46 GMT
Tomatoes!! 😁✔️ Huge crop finally coming in. Best: San Marzanos (2016 original seeds from Martin Longseth/aka Paquebot) huge and tons Next: “Mine” meaning it was seeds I saved from some others of Martin’s that I now am on 3rd generation Pomodoro from Seeds from Italy company: really big and delicious Cherokee purple: 2016 seeds I found in a Christmas card from “Tom” but no last name! Glacier: WOW small but prolific and so tasty Ondraszek: Martin 2016 seeds - medium but truly delicious!
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Post by susannah on Aug 21, 2020 14:39:26 GMT
I thought the sungolds would be done by now, but one plant has a few clusters that are big enough that they just might ripen, and the other continues to produce at least a half dozen ripe ones a day. The red cherry tomatoes continue to give me about a dozen a day, but there are fewer large ones and I expect fewer numbers of ripe tomatoes. Since we weren't able to keep up with eating all the cherry tomatoes fresh, I have 2 quart bags in the freezer filled to the brim, and started my third bag. Those will be used in chili, soup or sauce this winter.
The cucumber plants continue to surprise me. I have five cucumbers that will be pick-able soon - one probably should be picked today. But with the serious decline in the amount of sun that hits the deck, I really think this will be IT.
The chard is finally giving me enough to saute up batches with garlic and crushed red peppers. I so love this time of year, eating so much garden bounty FRESH!
Chipmunk got another cherry tomato, and appeared to be ready to make an assault on one of the plants yesterday. However, dh - conditioned by many years of chipmunk battles at our prior home - seems to know exactly when the chipmunk is on the deck and chases it away. It's a very small chipmunk - but a determined one. None of the bigger chipmunks have been raiding the tomatoes. I think next year I'll be doing "fences" of tine side up forks in the tomato plant tubs. Because this little guy is doing a fine job of getting around the spacing of the forks this year.
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Post by solargeek on Aug 23, 2020 12:26:55 GMT
DH Kindly dug what amounted to 50 (!!!!!) pounds of potatoes yesterday and two of the raised beds. I am still averaging 8 pounds (!) per the 4 x 4 square. From my own potato seed.
Reds and Yukons only. I love the raised beds. Although one was wetter than the other, he did a really good job.
I was able to replant both beds +2 others we had emptied. Lots and lots of lettuces like arugula and that dainty mix stuff- mesclun-! and basil was also planted. Then I took one 4 x 4 and put a new peas. Hopefully those will have time to grow.
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Post by susannah on Aug 28, 2020 14:58:03 GMT
Things are definitely winding down in this year's gardens. I have a lot fewer containers to move around these days. One of the sungold tomato plants is finished, the other one has a few that have the potential to ripen, but not a lot. The two red cherry tomato plants are still giving me maybe a dozen a day between them. I have two more cucumbers on the vine, then that one's done. I've already yanked up what remained of the cilantro. Basil continues to be doing well. Once the rain ends and things dry out a bit, I'll be yanking up the rest of the lettuce and planting the cover crop on that half of the raised bed. The other half is still producing kale and chard, so I'll give it another week or two. The seeds I ordered from one of the sites solargeek recommended have arrived (including the seeds for the cover crop I mentioned above). As my 2020 gardens end, I'm excitedly looking ahead to 2021's gardens.
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Post by krisinmi on Aug 28, 2020 17:31:41 GMT
Once the rain ends and things dry out a bit, I'll be yanking up the rest of the lettuce and planting the cover crop on that half of the raised bed. The other half is still producing kale and chard, so I'll give it another week or two. The seeds I ordered from one of the sites solargeek recommended have arrived (including the seeds for the cover crop I mentioned above). As my 2020 gardens end, I'm excitedly looking ahead to 2021's gardens. What do you use for cover crop? I've been thinking about giving it a try this year, but don't want to entice more deer to my garden!
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Post by susannah on Aug 28, 2020 18:13:43 GMT
The cover crop seeds I have are field peas and oats. I've never used this before so I don't know how tempting it will be to the deer. Actually, even plants that deer supposedly don't like are like deer candy to these guys, so I think they pretty much eat anything and everything.
We've been able to keep the deer out of the raised bed garden by using deer fencing, with a kind of maze getting to the gate that leads into it. So far, the deer really seem to hate getting near the fencing (I hate getting tangled in it myself) and haven't figured out the maze gate. Yet...
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Post by mogal on Aug 28, 2020 19:13:32 GMT
Since both field peas and oats are occasionally used as nurse crops for new hay fields, my guess is that they'd be very attractive to deer. Good luck.
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Post by solargeek on Aug 28, 2020 21:30:52 GMT
I had literally 9 Leinenkugel cardboard boxes filled with tomatoes to process Wed. and today, Friday. The boxes measure 16"x11" and hold about 9-11lbs so plenty to deal with. Very happy! And I received the GARLIC from MARTIN/Paaquebot so am all set with my seed and his!
Per my other posts here is an update with the good, the bad and the stupid:
Russian red kale (or purple) is amazing, taste, ability to fight back from those J Beetles grrhhh, and quantity.
DIno kale is stupid big and not that tasty so will not grow after I run out of seeds
JOHNNY"S selected seeds, hands down are the best for length of life, germination and just really tasty vegetables.I finally am using up the LAST of my 2014 seeds (arugula and basill) from there. Totally a great experience.
MiGardener seeds are hit and miss. But when they HIT they HIT BIG. Avoid his "10 Fingers from Naples" (almost every tomato was rotten even when not ripe yet my San Marzanos and 3 other types of tomatoes in the same bed were excellent) Be aware his "Black from Tula" while tasty, are small not medium His Wisconsin 55 only germinated 10 seeds from 25; again all had same light, water and treatment. Of those 10, only 7 produced. They are delicious but NEVER again.
Glacier! What a shocker! Love that little tomato (not so little).
Martin's Evans purple pears --- yum yum yum!
Tom's (a complete stranger to me) Cherokee purple - best ever
SEEDS OF ITALY POMODORO! Oh my stars. Just order them
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Post by susannah on Aug 29, 2020 14:09:25 GMT
What an amazing tomato harvest, solargeek! I'm envious! I yanked up half of the raised bed plants today. No way the latest planting of lettuce and chard will get anywhere near mature before our first frost. The soil still is pretty amazing - after so many years of clay soil where we used to live, this is wonderful. Lots and lots of worms, too. Planted the seeds for the cover crop on that half, working carefully around the gazillion little toads who were playing/hunting there. The kale - on the other half of the garden - continues to produce and sometimes I swear I see it growing while I watch. Still have basil growing there too, and a few onions. What's left of the chard was a mess, so that got ripped out as well. Our weather has been crazier than normal this past month especially, and I don't think that's helping anything. Looking ahead to next year, I think I mentioned somewhere that I'll be doing my northwoods version of winter sowing - spring sowing. We get very little sunlight in winter on the deck where I'll be doing the sowing. By spring, we're getting sun but nights below freezing until the end of May - well, it was mid-June when we had our last frost this year. So I'll get things started in late March or early April. Because direct sowing chard seeds in the garden this year had them maturing way too late. No spinach will be grown. None. I've had the worst luck with it, both here and back when we lived in southern Wisconsin, close enough to Lake Michigan to be in a longer growing zone, and had great southern exposure. The farm near us has the most amazing spinach - my daughter-in-law asked where we got it the first time she had it, because "This is the best spinach I've ever eaten." I'll happily continue to support a small local organic farm for our spinach - and a few other vegetable - needs. Smaller cucumbers did absolutely amazing in a large container on the deck. We'll be doing at least one additional container next year. I'll be planting dill in a container (made the mistake of planting it IN the garden years ago and fought it for years after that). I don't know what's going on with dill this year. Since we didn't grow it, we had to buy it for pickling. And it was DOUBLE - in one place, triple - the price it was last year. That weed is so simple to grow, I'll handle it myself next year. More garden musings to follow...
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Post by susannah on Sept 7, 2020 15:28:43 GMT
I tore up the other half of the raised bed, and planted the cover crop there. It's strange to look out the window and NOT see huge kale and chard plants - and even basil - towering out of the bed.
What's left of my garden is four containers on the deck. Three cherry tomato plants, and yet another basil. They're still producing, despite the much-reduced amount of sun and the cool weather. I may have another week or two with those.
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Post by susannah on Sept 10, 2020 18:26:59 GMT
The 2020 gardens are officially history. The basil was really missing the sunshine, I guess. As far as the tomatoes, again, lack of sunshine this time of year, no matter where on the deck I'd drag wheel the containers. Then frost was in the forecast. As I was debating whether to cover the plants and try for a few more cherry tomatoes, I got the call that the pest control place would be spraying for cluster flies this week. If you've never had to deal with hundreds of cluster flies in your house, I'm envious. Spraying for those - along with Asian beetles - is money very well spent. And of course, they spray the deck and all around, so I took it as a sign - time to end the garden. I picked a lunch bag full of green cherry tomatoes to (hopefully) ripen in the house. The ripped everything up and dh took the dirt to dump in low spots in the woods.
It was a great return to gardening for us. We got so many fresh vegetables, and I have a number of bags of frozen veggies in my freezer. As well as what we canned. In a year where there was so much bad news, so many things I never dreamed we'd live through - at least I can look back on wonderful, productive gardens. It was a great blessing to add to my list of blessings.
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Post by solargeek on Sept 15, 2020 20:18:52 GMT
I am loving but overwhelmed by my continuing garden produce. I thought the 39° nights, two so far, would stop everything dead. Today I picked: A complete giant amount of Russian red kale, At least 35 mostly big, slightly pink tomatoes that I will ripen in the garage along with my two other bushels, Several hundred green beans just perfect from my second crop and represent a 4 x 4 space, ( what a blessing!) A good amount of Swiss chard which I will mix with bacon and freeze, Some unexpected Italian radicchio lettuce and other lettuce that was hiding, 4 large kohlrabi to Add to the 32 we already have to peel, slice and roast and then freeze.
I’m trying to figure out what to do with all the tomatoes because I think I have enough sauce, but I don’t want to waste them.
Yesterday I made five loaves of tomato breads: two sweet and three savory. Very delicious so I cut them in half and froze them. The savory one will be great as bruschetta toast!
I think for the first time in years I will likely punt and simply quarter them, squeeze the seeds out and freeze them until I can decide the best way to use them. I will say the tomato sweet bread which was a cake mix mixed with tomatoes and other things, it’s outstanding. I used a spice cake mix. Wanted to use it up because it was getting older.
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Post by dw on Oct 1, 2020 21:30:02 GMT
We have had frost but still many things to do. Took 34 pumpkins out of the garden today...someone's getting some pumpkin gifts. I freeze some for bread & pie, makes seeds and save a couple to carve. They are all pie pumpkins but some are pretty large. I save these seeds every year. I think tomorrow is buckwheat. And there are still some slow ripening peaches on one tree. Down to one bowl of tomatoes on the table that need to turn red. They will get froze for ketchup some cold winter day.
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Post by mogal on Oct 2, 2020 11:41:15 GMT
Missed by THAT much. If you are old enough to catch that reference, you're about my vintage.
Anyway, just looked at the weather station read out and it's 38o outside. Weather guys were forecasting spotty frosts but I haven't turned on the TV to see if they have any reports of same. Our house is on the highest part of the place but there's a higher hill just to our west with about 1/2 mile of creek bottom between the two. There is usually frost down there before this part is nipped. I've still got tomatoes, cayenne and sweet peppers, lima beans and okra out there, producing slowly but still producing. My purple hull peas are almost at a standstill although I did see a couple of pods Wednesday I should go pick. I won't have time to process apples next week but I do need to get DH to pick the Enterprise tree. Those are our long term storage apples for eating fresh. Won't take much to sort and store the better ones.
The kicker is after this cooler bit, we have day time highs next week in the 70's, one day nearly 80o. Ah, Missouri. If you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes.
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Post by susannah on Oct 2, 2020 14:15:54 GMT
The last of the green cherry tomatoes that I picked on September 10 have ripened. They're going into a salad tomorrow. They're tiny - SO TINY - but have great flavor. After that salad, THEN I will be out of fresh, homegrown vegetables.
Despite a couple of freezes, the farm we buy from still has a good selection of organic vegetables available ("good" being relative - not a good selection for, say, early August but pretty darn good for October). I've been buying carrots in bulk and storing them in boxes of sand in the basement. We're still eating super fresh vegetables wherever we can, but luckily I have a lot of things frozen for use this winter.
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Post by mogal on Oct 2, 2020 20:20:17 GMT
We're still eating super fresh vegetables wherever we can, but luckily I have a lot of things frozen for use this winter. I've always said that aside of the smiling, healthy faces of your loved ones, the three prettiest sights are a full hay barn, a full woodshed and a full larder. From the sound of it, Susannah, it sounds like you have 2 out of 3 unless you have critters in residence for whom you store feed of some sort. Upon closer inspection, the leaves on some of the okra plants look like they may have frozen. If that's the case, I don't know why the tomatoes and cayenne peppers not 8' away had no damage. Is okra more sensitive to cold? I had a beautiful red mandevilla once that went toes up at 50o. DH picked the Enterprise tree--4 bushels--and I pulled up the soaker hoses from the sweet corn patch and the purple hull pea patch. I had oversown crimson clover when the corn was about knee high as a living mulch/nitrogen fixer and it's beautiful now. I also picked the peas one last time and got about 2/3 of a 5 gallon bucket. More for the larder.
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Post by mogal on Oct 4, 2020 12:19:24 GMT
The National Weather Service has issued a frost advisory for a lot of the Midwest down to the Arkansas line for tomorrow morning 2 until 6 a.m. It's that time of year, I guess.
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Post by susannah on Oct 4, 2020 15:02:21 GMT
mogal , I love your "three prettiest sights" - and you're right; I have two of them. Our critters are all of the wildlife variety, so I don't feed them. Although the deer will stand under our biennial apple trees during the off years and stare us down when we're outside. Dh commented several times that it looks like their wanting us to make apples reappear. I've mentioned before how crazy tame the deer are here. I've actually had to chase a few out of the driveway so someone could pull in without hitting one.
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Post by mogal on Oct 5, 2020 11:30:35 GMT
It's still too dark out to see if we actually had frost but the digital weather station registers 32o. I bet there's a bit of ice in the chickens' and goats' waterers. DH and I picked everything from the gardens that had a chance to ripen inside. We still have the Fuji tree that we need to pick but since we have had more apples than veggies this year, we'll just hope for the best for those apples. At sunset, we covered some big pots of zinnias and calendulas with triple layers of old sheets.
Fingers crossed on the Fuji tree.
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Post by solargeek on Oct 5, 2020 17:11:30 GMT
2 deep frosts in a row. My garden is pretty much toast. Going to venture out today to see if any of the brussels sprouts made it. And of course the kale made it. I covered the arugula my second planting so that should be ok.
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Post by solargeek on Oct 9, 2020 16:45:19 GMT
It is a warm and blustery day in the 40 acre woods and although I’m not harvesting honey, I’m harvesting: more potatoes (!! Love it) tomatoes, kale and cabbage and more kale and then some more kale!
You all mostly know me very well so you will may recall my deep hatred of KALE in any form. However I have found that if you dehydrated it, it has a roasted taste and then you grind it up and use it as powder that you hide in things that you make, like breads, cakes, casseroles, pies…
I also chop and freeze it and insert it into Chili’s or stews and again casseroles and such because as long as I can’t taste it I’m willing to eat it. But I will not drink a smoothie and particularly a green kale included smoothie 😬😁
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Post by mogal on Nov 24, 2020 19:40:48 GMT
Since the killing frosts have come and gone, DH and I have cleared the gardens--still want to put barn cleanings on them and under the fruit trees. Maybe now that DH has finished mowing the fields the goats didn't keep eaten down well enough and we can take off the mower, I can use the bucket loader to haul some well rotted poop/bedding. I finished processing the Fuji apple tree about 2 weeks ago too. Now my focus is on growing in the hoop house and our house. I'm going to try Peter Burke's method outlined in his book Year Round Indoor Salad Gardening and have as many transplants in the hoop house to take off once we reach 10 hrs or sunlight per day, around mid January for our area. DH repaired the wooden containing boards on the hoop house beds and I want to put in some fresh compost before I plant more stuff in there. The good thing is that when I was moving potted herbs and such into it, I noticed some volunteer miner's lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata) from last year's crop. I read an article this morning praising "mache" or corn salad but it's a cut once and gone where miner's lettuce is a prolific cut and come again plant, edible at all stages of growth. The hoop house is my "tropical getaway" on these cold days, not just a good source of food.
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Post by mogal on Nov 27, 2020 20:57:30 GMT
I dug four 5 gal buckets of compost from the barn this morning after I finished feeding the critters and hauled them in a cart to one of the hoop house beds. It hurt my legs but not the first time. I did PT exercises after lunch so had enough after a rest to plant a space 2 1/2' x 4' to potato onions. We had a really good crop last year so this planting is primarily to replenish the "seed." DH finished mowing the last pasture to reduce danger of natural cover fires this winter. Every year or so, one neighbor or another decides he needs to burn the undergrowth in his woods and it usually escapes to threaten the rest of us. The worst offender lives in St. Louis: he seldom sticks around long enough to be sure the fires are out. Idiots.
We have some wicked cold weather coming in Sunday night through the first part of the week so we finished setting up trough heaters for the critters. Not keen on winter.
One thing we had to do with the extension cords was affix them to the purlin so they wouldn't sag and knock me off balance. DH got a roll of Velcro tape that has the vel on one side of the tape and the cro on the other so it clings to itself. I used it to bundle the cords and it worked like a champ. DH is talking about getting a roll for his tool box. Way cool product.
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