Ducks4you for 2022

[ducks4you]

Stupid poison sprayer (the Sprayer part) died!!!
I took the new one out of it's box. It is a 4 gallon backpack style, now priced at $62, but I think I bought it for $20...5 years ago. It has been living in my outside gardening box. The instructions, at the bottom of the cardboard box, had fused together...all 12 pages.
Went online and downloaded the owners manual. Looks like it's all ready to rock and roll!!

No Wonder it takes so long to do our gardening chores!!!!

 

[ducks4you]

@heirloomgal , I watered this morning and realized that that picture was of genovese basil that sprouted from an old package. I Did get about a dozen cinnamon basils that sprouted. I can tell bc they have reddish stems.
I Hope against Hope that I can clean up my overgrown herb bed and transplant these and let them go to seed.
Maybe not...herb filler is better than the native weeds.

 

[ducks4you]

Here is the 12 page humidity glued manual...before I downloaded the manual and burned this:

You know I like to post these things bc I know I'm not the only one who does this! I think the box sat in my Rubbermaid plastic garden shed for maybe, 4 years, and it kept absorbing humidity.

 

[ducks4you]

Busy gardening day yesterday!!
Where to start... FINALLY got my sweet potatoes in!!!
I set up 3 wooden sides, although I am running out of old 2' x 6's, whyich I secure with old rebar (found on the property, btw.) I lightly tilled up where I dumped used stall bedding mid winter--some shows signs of breaking down nicely. I filled my tow wagon and dumped, then lightly tilled it in the bed.
For the thread talking about starting vining plants inside, This is what happens:

 

[ducks4you]

It isn't hard to pull the vines away, since they aren't like like peas or beans or pumpkins that latch on. I moved the planter and transported with my wheelbarrow, then dumped in the prepped bed. If you recall I had worked in mouldy grapes and mouldy pumpkin, so they is plenty of food.
I didn't bother to remove the slips from the old sweet potatoes from whence they grew bc there were a lot of roots that I didn't want to disturb. Even most of the old sweet potatoes had started to grow new roots! I hand dug and buried them an inch or two below the soil, then watered thoroughly, didn't count, but I think there were about 10 sweet potatoes with multiple slips. Got house cleaning to do today for family tomorrow, but this week I will put in the last wall to this bed bc they won't be harvested until October. The bed is about 12'square and nobody will walk on it until harvest, and it's on the south side of my big garden bed.

 

[ducks4you]

I have been studying up on growing sweet potatoes for a couple of years, now. I had a pretty good harvest last year, but I only planted 3 (surviving) slips. This year the harvest will be much better AS LONG AS I don't let them dry out. Check out :

gardening, sufficient me, sweet potato - Google Search

 

[ducks4you]

Earlier in the day I hand weeded with a hand rake next to my tomatoes and laid down straw. Last year I used straw and mostly the weeds didn't sprout. On Mid American Gardener, one Master Gardener said that she has abandoned straw in lieu of grass clippings, which probably works very well, unless your clippings have seed.
I also hand weeded, then tilled, then dumped a wheelbarrow's worth of urine soaked used stall bedding, which I collected from the stalls which haven't been stripped yet from late April. ALWAYS behind on things. Middle DD is coming late August for the 1st weeked that DH and her 2 sisters will be in Colorado, and we going to clean the barn. BIG effort, getting rid of cobwebs, taking apart the stalls (made from round pen panels and gates, moving out all 3/4" rubber mats and cleaning the cement floor. She is bringing a powerwasher.

 

[ducks4you]

My blueberries are hardly growing. I still had some dried out manure in a bucket, that I used to transport and put in the holes for my tomatoes. I surrounded both feeble looking blueberry bushes with them, decided that I would replace the wooden spacers with 2 of the rusty fenceposts I had removed from grape supports and tie them up. I don't intend them to stay there permanently, but they are easier to see.
Either the blueberries will Love the amendment...or it will kill them and I will buy two more. I planted them last Fall, kept them watered, protected the with a wall of stall bedding with plenty of straw, I have kept them well watered, and this is my reward! My patience is growing thin!

 

[ducks4you]

Nicest surprise of the day...Inky caught a baby rabbit and brought it to us to admire! She was mouthily announcing her catch, rolling in the grass and batting it around. It was gone by the time we came back from a restaurant. She was So proud of herself!!!

 

[Rhodie Ranch]

Several things. I have 8 Bluebetties to plant (the kids called them strawbetties and bluebetties), and then I have four big tubs of thornless raspberries to plant (half off at Fred Meyer((kroger))), and I caught a baby bunny, took darling photos, then let it go in the forest, turned around and the cattle dog found it and mouthed it to death.