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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 20, 2021 19:17:20 GMT -6
Hugels are mouse magnets, which in turn attract snakes. I ended up accidentally burning my Hugel pile one Summer. It was getting so overgrown with weeds from being mounded up and un-mowable, that it became an eyesore and I set the weeds on fire (mostly deep-rooted bermuda grass). The weed fire started an underground, punky-wood fire that smoldered for days. It never flamed up, but it never went out until it had run its course.
That killed the weeds there for sure! Nothing grew there for the rest of the year. But the next Spring, it popped right back up even healthier than before. I think the ash actually helped to balance my acidic soil in that location.
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Post by macmex on Aug 29, 2021 4:59:16 GMT -6
Oh! Will definitely be praying! Will pray that this surgery does give him relief. I once had to have reconnective surgery on my wrist (tendons, nerve sheaths and arteries). The accident was traumatic and the pain intense. I woke up after the surgery to find amazing relief. Though the doctors gave me pain meds and insisted I'd need them for at least a week, I found that I really didn't need them, as "things were back in place." Shoulder surgery, of course, involves a lot of trauma. Still, will pray for amazing grace.
Rats are real bad about eating winter squash. I've had them make a hole on the bottom and hollow them out.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Aug 30, 2021 10:18:39 GMT -6
I just looked up Soldier Flies to find our what they were. I found a nice article about manure management. Interesting stuff!
I’ve added Bill to my prayer list. That’s wonderful of his boss to shift his duties so that he doesn’t have to go on disability.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Aug 31, 2021 15:15:47 GMT -6
I've been praying for you guys, Bon.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Sept 7, 2021 8:17:53 GMT -6
Bon, My fingers do the same thing. I wouldn't say it is perfectly normal, but a fact of life nonetheless. It kind of alternates from my left hand to my right because of back injuries. There are days when I can't feel my fingers hardly at all, then a few days later the feeling comes back, but they are always numb to some degree. It has been that way for a few years now. It used to worry me quite a bit but I think I'm getting used to it. Getting older sucks.
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Post by macmex on Sept 19, 2021 10:42:14 GMT -6
Bon, I'm not sure what to say about the potatoes. I try to plant mine so that, when they do come up, they aren't in danger of being frosted.
I haven't grown wheat since around 2007. When I did, it was red winter wheat. I thought it was beautiful. It produced pretty well too. I just never mastered how to efficiently process the grain.
I've been away almost a week (again). Frank Barnett was blossoming in my garden a week ago, but with no pod set at that time. Jerreth tells me that it's been hot and super dry all week, so I wouldn't be surprised to find that this one is still holding off on pod set.
Bless her heart, Jerreth has been watering, especially the sweet potatoes. So this late heat and drought will only probably result in a larger crop of sweet potatoes.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Sept 19, 2021 16:10:51 GMT -6
Hmm. I was just writing some thoughts about potatoes and opened a new tab for some soil temperature information, and I seem to have lost my potato thoughts. Maybe I’ll redo the message in backwards order. www.greencastonline.com/tools/soil-temperatureThat’s a link to a website I use for soil temperature information. It’s really only the temperatures in the top couple of inches because it’s on a website for grass and turf rather than vegetable gardening, but I pulled up data for Stillwater, Oklahoma, for this winter just to get an idea. As you know, Bon, I’m no expert on potatoes, but since I was planting them for the first time in Texas this year, I read lots of lots of information on soil temperatures for when to plant and when it was too hot for them to keep developing. It seems that the general recommendation for hot summer climates is to get the potatoes in about four weeks before the average last frost so as to beat the summer heat at harvest time. I guess that might put you in the first or second week of March if your soil is warm enough by then. It sounds, though, that the rain was your biggest problem this year, and I’m not sure whether an earlier planting date would have helped that in any way. It’s great that you did get some good-sized Yukon Golds out of your drier bed, though. My husband loved our tiny potato harvest this year (we had just one four by four raised bed for them). He’s not such a huge fan of the fresh tomatoes and cucumbers (though he loves sauce and pickles), and I really think that he was partially motivated to do so much work to move and fill the neighbors’ raised beds by the idea that it would increase the space that we could devote to potatoes. Down here the wisdom is that you want potatoes in the ground by Presidents’ Day. I had planned to do it on Presidents’ Day itself this year, but of course, the night before we had a blizzard and deep freeze. It was almost two weeks after our plans that we got our seed potatoes in the ground but since our spring was cooler and moister it was fine for us. All that to say is that the weather at any particular period of time will always trump the best laid plans of mice and men.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Sept 21, 2021 13:49:17 GMT -6
My grandma used to plant 100 pounds of potatoes every year on Valentine's Day. She'd have us run the furrows as deep as the plow would go (about 10" inches). 100 pounds will make about 10 rows, each row 100 feet long. The tops get frozen off several times, but the tubers keep growing underground and her harvest always made larger potatoes than our neighbor's who planted every year on Saint Patrick's Day. That trick doesn't work every year though. This year, It was 15 below zero on Valentine's Day.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Sept 22, 2021 17:48:01 GMT -6
My grandma used to plant 100 pounds of potatoes every year on Valentine's Day. She'd have us run the furrows as deep as the plow would go (about 10" inches). 100 pounds will make about 10 rows, each row 100 feet long. The tops get frozen off several times, but the tubers keep growing underground and her harvest always made larger potatoes than our neighbor's who planted every year on Saint Patrick's Day. That trick doesn't work every year though. This year, It was 15 below zero on Valentine's Day. It’s great when you can learn from people’s experience like that. I love hearing your stories about your grandma.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Sept 24, 2021 19:04:34 GMT -6
Oh Wow, that sounds good!
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Sept 27, 2021 12:06:03 GMT -6
The burn ban is good thing. A fire right now would be very dangerous because our relative humidity has been so low.
Does your forecast call for rain on Thursday? Surely, this drought can't last forever.
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Post by hmoosek on Oct 3, 2021 22:11:05 GMT -6
I like having wild plants that tend to themselves. My garlic was here on the farm when I moved here. It doesn’t need input from me, BUT The bulbs are bigger when I amend the soil and replant. I’ve always said it’s some type of elephant garlic, but it’s not mild. It has a kick. I sent some to a buddy up north and it grew huge for him. How it got started growing here is anyone’s guess. It comes back year after year.
I started some grape hyacinths many years back and they do their thing without intervention from me. I do dig up bulbs and move them to different areas because I like seeing them grow. I also have daffodils that do the same thing along with some type of spider flower.
I have a field of wild onions. —I’m really not wild about them especially when mowing , but I don’t try to eradicate them. I just let them grow.
I have some kind of a rose shrub. It came from another uncles farm and we moved it here sometime in the late 70’s. I say we, I didn’t move it here, my Uncle did. It makes the prettiest flowers you ever saw.
I have lots of brilliant wild flowers. One of which is an iridescent purple, it grows everywhere here.
Of course we have a bunch of poison ivy just about any direction you look. I’m not allergic, but I don’t wallow in it either.
I’m not sure what they are, but I call them blood weeds and they grow like a stalks of corn. I’m not wild about them as they make me itch if I mess with them.
Lots of stuff here on the farm.
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Post by hmoosek on Oct 3, 2021 22:51:13 GMT -6
Here’s that spider flower I mentioned. I have no idea how it got started here, but it was growing in the road ditch and I dug up some bulbs and put it around this tree.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Oct 4, 2021 8:12:33 GMT -6
Wow! hmoosek, those flowers are beautiful!
I find things similar to that growing along the creek bank down here in the Autumn, but I figure they'd never live when I transplant them, so I leave them alone. That's pretty cool having them there close so you can enjoy them. Your farm sounds like a great place to be.
If you don't mind me asking, "What State do you live in?"
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Post by hmoosek on Oct 4, 2021 8:59:40 GMT -6
Couple hours Southeast of Dallas.
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