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Post by woodeye on Mar 11, 2023 8:07:20 GMT -6
heavyhitterokra, Wow that's great, you are getting the move on. I had no idea that you had been that busy on your fence. I believe that 7' will stop them, some of mine is right at 8', but that's just because the only choices in fence fabric that I had was 3', 4', 5', 6'. I used up almost all of the 6' on the bottom run all the way around, so any of the others lapped on top of the 6' made it over 8'. I've still got more tying to do on some parts of it, I've been sidetracked because of mud at the garden and bandsaw problems in the shop. I hope to get everything running again in the shop and work on the fence some more this coming week. Anyway, I'm happy that your fencing is coming right along and I look forward to knowing just how much of gargantuan okra crop you will have if the deer beasts can't get to it.
FrostyTurnip, I have seen your post about the berms and swales. I'm still trying to figure out kind of how you mean to do that. I think I know what you mean, I'll have to use another photo and draw it out so you can verify it. I can't do it right now, I have prior commitments for today, but will get to it asap. Thank You for helping...
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Post by chrysanthemum on Mar 11, 2023 21:57:55 GMT -6
It hit 90 degrees here today. Thankfully it’s going to cool off a little bit tomorrow and even more on Monday. I need to get my tomatoes and peppers potted up, but they will still need to come inside at night later this week, I think. We don’t have any freezes forecast, but we do have some temperatures in the thirties.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Mar 14, 2023 9:54:18 GMT -6
chrysanthemum Have you been hauling those plants in and out? We sure have been. Today it warmed up enough to get my tomato plants outside in the sun.
heavyhitterokra I got to thinking and suspect we will have heavy hopper pressure this year. Maybe if I get a bunch tilled up, it will help. They were really bad late summer last year because the lawnmower is on the down side.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Mar 14, 2023 19:34:43 GMT -6
Yes, @frosty Turnip, the seedlings have been going in an out. It got down to 45 for us last night, and I understand we may be in the thirties later in the week with some really strong winds. The plants did spend this afternoon outside under cloudy skies but with temperatures in the sixties. Some of my beans are growing so fast, I may have to pot them up into little nursery bags, as I’m not sure I want to set them in the garden ahead of a strong cold front with possible storms. I would dearly, dearly love some rain, though.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 14, 2023 23:22:41 GMT -6
Grasshoppers lay their eggs in August and September. Conditions were sure ripe for them to do PLENTY of that last year. We had grasshoppers by the millions. I've read that the only thing keeping them from taking over the world is heavy rain during the hatch time when they're still so small that raindrops trickling down blades of grass will drown them.
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Mar 15, 2023 3:54:24 GMT -6
chrysanthemum Praying for rain for both of us. We both need it so badly. We are still in severe drought in this portion of Oklahoma. Crazy stuff!
heavyhitterokra I wonder if you would mind speculating if my chicken tractors scooting all over the yard would put a dent in their population? I don’t want to disturb the beneficial, tho. I noticed lady bugs in the wheat plots. Of course, the tractor is only inside the fence line. I could set it outside the fence on occasion. All other properties are fair game.
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Post by woodeye on Mar 15, 2023 17:10:29 GMT -6
Chance of rain tomorrow afternoon here, so I did some dirt work today to hopefully help keep the garden from washing away like it did on the last rain. I don't have a transit to shoot elevations, so I just more or less eyeballed it. Once I do get some runoff though, I will be able to see where more excavation is needed. I used the front loader instead of the plow, so my ditch is actually more of a moat.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 15, 2023 17:51:53 GMT -6
Hope this helps, I saw a couple of unanswered questions in the previous posts.
Woodeye,
Berm and swale is just a polite way of saying, "ditch with a higher bank on one side." The berm stops water, and the swale holds it in reserve, so it has more time to soak in below the soil, rather than just running off.
Frosty,
Grasshopper eggs are only buried as deeply as a female grasshopper's ovipositor can reach, or about 1/2" to 1" inch, plus the depth of whatever debris might fall over them during Autumn and Winter.
I would think that a chicken tractor being moved around daily, as the hens scratch down below the surface should be sufficient to uproot the egg sacs, however, I'm not sure that would kill the grasshopper eggs unless they were actually devoured by the chickens after they were scratched up?
Plus, grasshoppers fly for miles during high wind events. I've seen grasshoppers at the top of the boiler cavity at the GRDA Powerhouse and at the top of the boiler cavity of the powerhouse at Shady Point, both are 250' feet (25 stories) high.
Who knows if the grasshoppers actually flew up there or if they just climbed the steel though? They tend to be like ticks in that they just keep crawling higher, no matter which way you turn them they just go whichever direction is up. This illustration didn't copy very well, but the ovipositor is the part at the very end of the female grasshopper's abdomen.
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Post by woodeye on Mar 15, 2023 20:03:52 GMT -6
Thanks, heavyhitterokra. I haven't finished the east side yet. My plan is to make the swale go the length of the east side too, and the berm will be on the far side of the swale so that it holds water. I'll incorporate the pile of dirt that is seen in the photo to make the water turn and go north via the swale on the east side. It took me quite awhile to get all of it cut because the ground is so soft that it was hard to get traction at times, even though the tractor is 4WD.
Anyway, my goal is for water to stand on the west side, then continue to flow east on the south end, then flow north all along the east side and finally end in a high water spillway that is just past the NE corner of the Iron Curtain. The picture is of the south end, the swale will continue northward, I just haven't gotten that far along yet...
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 15, 2023 22:48:48 GMT -6
Well, well, Woodeye, the water that fell first, from the sky, in the form of rain, then traveled East, then South, then North, then, Well ... that just about takes the cake don't it! That's almost every direction there is except up ↑ I hope that dizzy water doesn't create a whirlpool effect, that sucks your whole garden down to the center of the earth! Just kidding! Woodeye, All kidding aside, that's an impressive-sized gardening rig you have there! I've never had an opportunity to operate a front-end loader on a tractor with four-wheel drive before, that would be different for sure. I'm just used to the rear tires losing traction because of the heavy load up front, then the whole thing is pretty much out of commission without some sort of re-rig. In my mind, added weight in the back would fix just about anything. I've never considered what it would be like to have added traction up front as well, *** interesting... With all that added Kabota orange power, be careful not to snap your front wheels off during a heavily loaded power maneuver. I've seen Massey Ferguson's front wheels snap off at the welds with only two-wheel drive operating under the weight of an over-filled front-end loader's bucket, and a bit of an overzealous driver at the wheel. I can't even imagine what added stress those powered front hubs and those heavily-lugged front tires might add to that equation. I don't know if Massey wheels are made more cheaply or what, but exchanging them for Ford front wheels later seemed to remedy that problem for the rest of the job. I ended up putting 10-ply load-Range E Dodge truck tires in place of the old Ag tires that it came with. They worked just fine and got the rest of the job done.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 15, 2023 23:01:48 GMT -6
Our local forecast is calling for a 100% chance of rain tomorrow (Thursday), then lows into the low twenties to continue for the next several days ... Anyone with any tender veggies set out already probably needs to start working out a blanket system to try to protect them from freezing.
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Post by woodeye on Mar 16, 2023 7:31:52 GMT -6
heavyhitterokra, it would have helped me yesterday if I had happened to have the tiller installed while I was doing the dirt work. I considered driving out there and installing it, but decided I would try it without it first. I have used the tiller for dirt jobs like that in the past when the ground was drier, but I wouldn't have needed it yesterday except for the rear tractor weight help that it would have been. I do not have a box blade, but I sure wish I would have gotten one when I bought the tractor years ago.
As far as the weather today, there is still a good chance for rain here too, but as usual it will still be a "just have to wait and see". All the rain that I got 2 weeks ago was a surprise, the chance for rain then was less than it is today. So who knows what will happen today, but at least I have enough of the dirt work done that I will know how to continue with it if the rain does indeed fall from the heavens today...
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Post by FrostyTurnip on Mar 16, 2023 8:34:47 GMT -6
Woodeye, I”m with you on the lack of trust. It looks like it should be raining right now, even storming but it’s dry as a bone.
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Post by amyinowasso on Mar 16, 2023 10:37:42 GMT -6
My daughter is on I35 between Paul's Valley and OKC. I've been watching the weather for her. So far so good. woodeye,I have a friend who digs a mote like that around his garden and then fills it with mulch. This helps keep Bermuda at bay in summer and channels and holds water to soak in. Daughter hit heavy rain in OKC.
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Post by heavyhitterokra on Mar 16, 2023 12:43:06 GMT -6
I got sprinkled off my fence-building project twice three times today. I'm working out of an old Jeep with no top or windshield, both all three times I went out, it rained lightly, just about enough to become really annoying. So I packed up my stuff, and drove all the way home while sitting on a wet seat, then as soon as I got back to the house it stopped raining. (Works better than Frosty's new white tennis shoes). If gas wasn't so high right now, I'd drive over to Frosty's house to build fence until the drought there was over.
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