What Did You Do In The Garden?

[LocoYokel]

We met here first, @flowerbug, was wonderful to get to meet in person! There are 5 or 6 of us in these here parts...

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Nah...those wood chips have been on there 4 yrs now and I've never seen that many worms in there. Add hay, LOTS of worms. The other day I went to scatter rotten bales that had sat all winter out in the weather in the garden where the chickens had scratched up the hay, causing little bits of grass to grow. In between each flake of hay were numerous large earthworms....hay is good eats for worms, apparently.

Not only are there more worms, but they are much, much larger and well fed looking than those found in the chips.

This lady did a little experiment with both and then counted the worms per shovel full...

I have been pulling weeds and turning dirt in the garden where I had put rabbit manure last fall. Some of the areas had woodshavings that were soaked in rabbit urine. I have noticed that the areas where the woodshavings were, the dandelions are huge and there are a ton of worms. I am not going to do it again like that. I had to rake stuff up because it did not breakdown. Usually it goes in the compost bin and breaks down in a year, but only because so much urine.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

We have 2/3 of the garden planted now most of the transplants are doing fairly good in the heat of the last couple days. They kinda get witty in the afternoon heat but perk up when it cools off. Most of the garden space this year is brand new first year growing, so I hope it does ok. We have 33 tomatoes, 3 rows of potatoes, 3 kinds of beans, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, sunflowers,and some other things I cannot remember at the moment lol. My back is 80% better but I smashed my foot with a log at work yesterday it rolled off another log while I was bucking it up. Foot is a little black and blue but the swelling is down quite a bit so I thankful for that. When log fell I tossed the saw away so I wouldn’t cut myself with it. The log was so heavy I could not budge it at all it was super painful and I was working on job alone. I called boss to come help but he was 40 mins away. After about 10 mins of struggling trying to pull foot out I stretched out far as I could and reached the saw and cut log off of foot. The owner still has not hired any laborers and first my back now my foot. The worst part is being on these sketchy mountain side job sites alone all the time sheesh.

Just wow. Both the garden and all the planting done and what happened with the log. Glad you are okay.

 

[digitS']

@digitS', I wonder what it is eating the silks off of the ears. I always thought it was earwigs but maybe it another bug. Do you do anything to keep pests off your corn?

I missed this, just as I missed @Nyboy's compliment on my marksmanship . I do have a good eye, in a strange sorta way. I never bothered much about guns and hunting but I was a better shot than my brother, and it meant a lot more to him. But, marmots aren't very fearful and "the hunter" can be tricky about stalking - like walking all the way around a big 3 car garage instead of straight up on the prey.

Corn Silk Eating? I have figured that it was grasshoppers. Earwigs should be found under the husks somewhere. Grasshoppers come and go.

I used to have more problems with silk being eaten when my garden was on a vacant lot between houses rather than the corn patch out in the open, as it is now. Pyrethrum seemed to stop the eaters. I doubt that it was killing grasshoppers but it may have deterred them. If deterrence was the case, I'd bet something like neem oil should work better than pyrethrum.

Steve

 

[thistlebloom]

spent the morning with @thistlebloom, sent her away with a full truck load of flowers

(Really helped clean out the bed that has to be moved! Hope she comes back soon...hint,hint!!)

Yes she did!! It was great fun digging up Locos yard, and boy was she generous! Most everything was for my young friend, but I snagged a few choice prizes. One was a beautiful daylily that was Locos granddads, some Rose Campion that I have been wanting to plant for a very long time and a couple of other gems.

Got mine all in the ground then walked my shovel over next door and we got all of my friends planted in her new garden spot. She's so thrilled, kept thanking me over and over for introducing her to TJ.
Great fun today!

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Finished the small garden area, all turned, weeded, raked, and manure spread. I can plant there tomorrow. The other side is over half finished. DS borrowed the neighbors tiller, but it would not stay running. They worked on it and got it going, but then stopped, so I will finish it myself probably in next couple of days. Have a lot of plants hardened off. I will start leaving peppers out tomorrow. I have been digging up blackberry shoots and I will replant them in a new row I am starting. Getting in better shape. While digging blackberries, I could jump on the shovel both feet. I have not done that for awhile.

 

[Collector]

Today I was able to plant some more of the garden. I planted carrots, radishes, kohlrabi, corn , peppers, and moved some horse radish to another spot in the garden. We really did not need anymore peppers but I had some space to fill on the end of a row

 

[Collector]

Mostly what is left to plant is the squash, melons, cucumbers, and goards. Also going to put in another row and a half of bush beans next weekend. Slowly closing in on finishing the garden for this year. Oh yeah still need to get watering system going also.

 

[flowerbug]

I have been pulling weeds and turning dirt in the garden where I had put rabbit manure last fall. Some of the areas had woodshavings that were soaked in rabbit urine. I have noticed that the areas where the woodshavings were, the dandelions are huge and there are a ton of worms. I am not going to do it again like that. I had to rake stuff up because it did not breakdown. Usually it goes in the compost bin and breaks down in a year, but only because so much urine.

it will get broken down eventually wherever it ends up as long as there is some moisture. and yes, in all composting the nitrogen to carbon ratio is important if you want a fast compost.

as i'm purely in the "don't really care how fast it breaks down" camp i don't even bother trying to layer or figure carbon ratios. the only spot i'm likely to have any source of nitrogen for composting is in the worm buckets and most of that is going to be used in there by breaking down paper scraps.

my other nitrogen source is chopped alfalfa, birdsfoot trefoil or the clovers, but i don't often get to that any longer. i'm not seeing signs of nitrogen deficiency in my garden veggies.

through time i do notice what is happening in the worm bins. the other day i noticed that my experimentation with orange/tangerine peels had reached a limit. i was trying to find out how many i could add where the worms would not seem affected by them because in many composting/vermiculture references it says to not compost them at all. being the contrarian sort that i am and also curious i wanted to find out how many i could use and how to do it. i'd also read of one guy who bred a worm species specifically to use for breaking down citrus peels.

i need another room...

yesterday was a day of rain so i did some indoor things and took a break. today looks like i may get some things done outside or in the garden shed wall tile project.

 

[flowerbug]

*whew* Mom cleaned up some very old planters yesterday and also got rid of the pieces of linoleum from the garden shed. i was wondering how much the trash pick up was going to orange slip this morning. they took it all.

i hate having to throw anything away and not recycle it, but once a year a few things going to the landfill is still doing pretty good. the old wood was painted and stained several times and it would have taken me weeks to get all the screws out of there, let alone having all those paint/stain flakes someplace, ick...

the linoleum pieces Mom wanted to put under other things to block weeds, but i said that would be a bad idea because it would eventually crumble and be a much bigger mess to clean up and she actually listened to me!

that means two future bigger messes avoided for a change. if i could throw a party i would.