What Are Your Garden Tricks?

[rustycase]

Ha!

I really enjoyed the Brickyard video!!!
Reminds me of the track our boys built in the vacant field next to the house we lived in for 15yrs... lil' ole' shanty down by the RR tracks, but it was a GREAT place for boys to grow up. Right down the street from skool, park across the street, track next door in the field, and trains... LOTS of trains! Ha! Ha!

Mebbe sometime when I'm drinkin' at the keyboard I'll tell abt the bike ramp I built... 8-0

GH... Austalorp... MEAN so and so's ! got spurs almost 3" long. attacked my kid one day and freaked the kid out BAD! I ran over and booted that sucker away from the kid and he stumbled over to the bushes and never made it back out. NO LOSS. We later got a silkie to keep the hems in order... he was the cutest little guy... we called him Socks. friendly disposition.
Coons got him.

Here's part of the garden today... It ain't much compared to last year.
Really bombed out this year... but we pan fried a zucchini today.

The baccy is a havana strain.
Other pic shows the trouble I gotta go through to keep the deer from eating ALL my sunflowers. $#@!

 

[Goat Herder]

Harry76 I missed that. That was a kewl video. When I was young all I did was ramp bicycles . Parents would not let me have a motorcycle. As they were convinced I would get my self killed. They were no doubt prolly right.

We had what we called the Woopty Doos on a nice section beside an irrigation ditch bank water came in from the Rio Grande River. BMX bikes was all the rage back then. Quarter pikes and half pikes. Lots of fun then.

Know what you mean about the Rooster Rusty I wanted to kill that thing was my first instinct lol. That guy has no dogs so they are his pets. Shore brings up a conversation at his place. No kids there he looks after his mother now she's up there in her years.

 

[rustycase]

The marauding deer hit me hard, again!
Sunflowers and chick peas were decimated.

Beer cans on trip wires didn't work, and radio on hip-hop disco chit didn't work after they got used to it in a few days.

GOTTA make up the hot pepper spray next.

Took a pic of THIS guy when I was watering yesterday evening because he won't last long with the blue jays!

...this was the garden abt this time last year...

 

[Mannhouse51]

We raise rabbits. Hundreds and hundreds of meat rabbits. Thats alot of bunny poop. We keep dumpin it on the garden , and tillin it in. When its planting time , woooohoooo. Everything grows like mad.

 

[Goat Herder]

Rabbit poo is generally a little higher in phosphates I think?

 

[rustycase]

I'll bet you got a healthy Garden, 51 !
Rabbit droppings are the only thing you can put directly on the plants without burning them. Good stuff!

Whew! I got no tips! darn deer browsed through again and ate up a bunch of my sunflowers and chick peas again. The beer cans on trip wires and rock station on the radio are NOT working.

This evening I strung up even more cans and some milk jugs with pebbles in em, then I sprayed what's left of the plants they like with some hot sauce in water.
I'll find out if they like spicy food!

The only thing so far that works for real is to wrap the maters in chicken wire.

I wish the beer cans worked, they're cheeper than chicken wire around here!

Next I'll try dish soap in water sprayed on em if there is anything left...
rc

 

[James912]

Anybody know of a easy way to deal with mole crickets? They're eatin' up my lawn. They leave just the dirt behind. They completely destroy the grass. We use this bug blaster stuff and spread it around the lawn, and that is supposed to deal with them, but it doesn't seem to do any good. Anybody have any ideas?

 

[James912]

Ever heard of an electric fly swatter.
Electric Fly Swatter - Save on this Electric Fly Swatter

 

[Goat Herder]

Well just got done with some garden work. Busted out a soil PH test kit this year and got pretty specific about things. Been composting a bunch of soil over the last few years. My garden had been pretty much nothing for a few years now.

Put some good stuff in there over all the years and never stopped! Thinking got the soil truly unlocked right this time around too! Fixing all those pots.. If more is better definitely on the map now!! lol. Found out where the PH and the nitrogen etc was. Had to sweeten the soil up a bit with some lime. Should be interesting! Back yard smells like a lake of water..''fish'' Kinda smells good at spring time. Gonna be procreative.

All there is for bragging at the moment is a 4 year old Chilti. There will soon more!!

 

[Dave31]

my garden is not doing well, we had a few days of a freeze and snow in tucson if you can believe that. it was right after i got back from cali and was in too much pain to try to protect my garden.

 

[rustycase]

Pain?
In Kalifornia???

It's all sunshine, moonbeams, and butterflies here!
How'd u get pain, Dave?

GH, your soil sounds AWESOME !
Mine is STILL gray, in spite of all the household waste I've been turning into it.
(maybe the junkmail isn't helping???)

I've got somewhere around 300 seeds germinating now, must do many more, and near 90% on the baccy success, so far.
There's something I'm missing, because they always tend to be spindly.
Probably because I'm too cheap to run lights over them???

Life is harder when ur a cheapskate like me! lol
rc

 

[Dave31]

Pain?
In Kalifornia???

It's all sunshine, moonbeams, and butterflies here!
How'd u get pain, Dave?

i crashed my bike at Bairdco's race at adams motorsports park in riverside.

 

[rustycase]

Bummer!

Gosh, sry to hear that.

Hopefully u are on ur way to quick and complete recovery!

Best
rc

 

[rustycase]

Here's pics of my sprouts... lil tiny things!

and here's a pic of the carton that shows the spindliest of 'em...

I'm afraid they will 'damp off'.
Lost quite a few from that last year. actually, gazillions! much more than a few!
rc

 

[killercanuck]

need some kind of a dome on those little girls, some plastic sheeting and pvc, eh? hmm how many extra tobacco seeds you have handy?

 

[MEASURE TWICE]

The Valencia orange tree dwarf has been from Homedepot transported and in half wine barrel for a couple of years and now is coming into its own. More buds, flower, and suspect a tree loaded with oranges.

Missed a year of oranges as the small fruit all fell off before maturity. They were still size of peas. Forgot to fertilize and maybe cover when freeze warning in winter. Cover with not burlap, but newer stuff lets light through and not too heavy. Put a 60 watt incandescent bulb on a droplight out hanging on a branch to help deter freeze sometimes now.

One picture shows some of the blueberry plant mingling in around the orange tree.

The oranges now are larger than before when they turned from green to orange. Still like rocks even though color change and have to wait till summer for them to be ready.

The blueberries with the pancakes picture also has the addition of New Jersey Pork Roll and favorite when I was living back in New York as a youngster. I ordered some flown out to California and now find it is too salty for me.

I sliced it real thin and felt I could palate it and also feel like George Washington during the Delaware River crossing.

Eating this stuff is the kind of food that they ate for all the fat content to keep warm in the winter back there, not to say California is warm all year round, but orange trees would not grow but indoors back there.

MT

 

[rustycase]

handy?

Oh, I don't think I have more than 3 or 4 hundred thousand handy.
But I got plenty in the other room up on the shelf.

Send me a PM and we'll fix you up.

A dome, huh?
ok... I can do painter's plastic over a framework.
Humidity is running abt 75% in the evening, and abt 50% during most days.
(We've had rain for a few days running)

I set 'em outside each morning, to get sun, on the east side of the casa.
Over on the west side it gets too hot for the little sprouts in the afternoon.
Oh, they are not girls... that's the other evil weed... these are monoeacious? and self pollinating.

They really are a pretty plant. Some have compared the young leaves to the look of 'praying hands'.
I've seen people use them as houseplants, and others use them as an ornamental border along their driveway!

They are not as useful as the other evil weed, but there's no tax collectors with drawn guns actively lookin for these! lol

They are fun, but guaranteed to make you cough!

MEASURE TWICE:

Gosh, your navel oranges look great! Excellent reddish color! I'll bet they are good! Very nice green pics! It's quite arid here, and although we can grow nice veggies, and have some good fruit, too, brown is still the predominate color in my world!

Blueberry pancakes and a pork roll! I will definitely put in my breakfast order!
...well, maybe in a few hours... a slight case of insomnia, so here I am at the keys...

Gotta watch the glycemic index of what I eat.
I can do much better if I eat the right things, or just slide downhill if i don't.
Eating the wrong thing too late in the evening seems to hurt me the most.
Not so much problem if I eat meals earlier in the day.
Only prob is, the chief cook and bottle washer is NOT an early person...

Oh well. Life is more entertaining with em, than without.

3am philosophy... lol

Best
rc

 

[killercanuck]

They are not as useful as the other evil weed, but there's no tax collectors with drawn guns actively lookin for these! lol

true that! heh heh

Well what I was saying about the dome, well you don't spray directly on the plants, you spray the inside of the dome...with straight water, nutes will crust up, (don't ask me how I know that) So you need a straight water mist, for one. But maybe once/twice a week with a mild N heavy solution you can hit the soil with a nute solution, just try not to hit the sprouts directly. That burns them. They'll soak up the water from the inside of the dome, and take what nutes they need from the soil, even under mild light. Sprouts love that.

Just food for thought.

 

[rustycase]

I spray off and on, thru the day, when they first got started, because the seeds are so durned small... but now, I fill the egg carton lid, which is the bottom of the tray, abt every other day.

I'm real nervous abt overwatering!
I've killed a BUNCH by overwatering!!!

Don't got no N, but I use water out of the goldfish tank.
Goldfish are really dirty fish. They generate a lot of waste. Seems like everything goes right thru em!

I think our tank is 100-120gallons... It's pretty big. and the fish got big, too!
Not as big as koi, but these were only 25cent feeder fish!

Bigger they get, the smarter they get.
My biggest one, Ralphy, checked out last year.
He began to have personality.

We're up to 9 now, because we got some orphans.
Gotta change the water every 10 days or so, more when it's warm.

SO, I got quite a bit of fishy water to use on plants!

I should probably dump the filter sludge in the garden, too... gotta clean the filters every 2 or 3 days...

Whew! another loong tale! lol

Best
rc

 

[killercanuck]

hmm, nute rich water directly on foliage does more harm than good. try putting directly into the soil, and mist with straight water, they'll love it.

gl.