What Did You Do In The Garden?

Beekissed

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This morning's garden walk revealed my first glimpse of this season's squash bugs...and they were mating. It was their last bit o' love on this earth.... :cool:

I'm happy to report that soapy water works to kill squash bugs, though not in the time frame reported of 20 min....try 2 min. Dropped, wings spread, dying a glorious death.

Seeing some cuke beetles showing up too...will see how fast the soapy water works on them. Pretty soon the Jap beetles will be emerging in full force, so it will be interesting to see if the soapy water will work on those nasty things.

Suckered tomatoes and peppers, pinching off bloom and peppers off the latter. This is the strongest looking tomatoes I've had in the past 4 yrs and I'm quite pleased thus far with how they are progressing. The NYer tomato plant with the first tomato now has a competitor with a pink Brandywine showing a first tomato.

Spud vines are huge and healthy...hoping that doesn't mean all tops and no bottoms.

Peppers all look very healthy...first time I've had healthy peppers since I started no till, heavy mulch gardening. Before they would just turn yellow and leaves drop off, the plant withered. Over and over. No matter which part of the garden in which they were planted. The peppers planted in the rotten hay bales around the raised beds are some of the healthiest looking of all...loving the warmth around their roots, I guess. Hot in the middle of those hay bales.

Picked one of the pak choi to put into our weekly salad mix, along with a handful of sugar snap peas. Very fresh and crisp, that pak choi...can't wait to have it in my salad bowl!
 

Collector

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Picked up 8yds if fine mulch yesterday going to work on spreading it today, we see how far it will go. DW and DDs gave me a loadhandler for my 3/4 ton truck for Father’s Day. Tell you guys this, I wish I would have had one of these years ago it makes a huge difference. DW ,Grandson Thomas , and I hauled three big loads of the mulch and unloaded it next to the garden. I caught some kind of bug mid week flu/ cold or whatever it is bad. Friday I was sick as a dog and got stuck at work feeding a paver with a super dump for 15hrs. So yesterday I was happy to have the loadhandler to help with unloading. Also I was able to use a loader on the other end to load the mulch, so it was a pretty easy day. By last night though my lungs and throat were on fire and had earaches in both ears. DW microwaved an onion and filled my ear canals with the juice for 15 minutes each side, woke up this morning and earaches are gone lungs and throat better also. I want to get this mulch placed today to see if we going to need more, plus it been raining off and on last week so the soil is full of water perfect time to mulch and save the moisture. Not sure what up this year been battling back and foot injuries plus a few unforced errors now this respiratory situation. I really need to get this stuff behind me so I can get to some of our larger projects. I see the temps are going to at least get up to normal starting today, so the garden can start growing faster, it has been growing but slower than usual.

Happy Fathersday to all the dads here.
 

Beekissed

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@Collector, so very glad you are feeling better for Father's Day!!! Happy Father's Day to you, Grandpa! :D

We got one of those unloader thingies for our truck for unloading firewood....doesn't work for that. I think it works best for dense, fine loads like gravel, soil, manure, mulch, etc. I was sure hoping it would work for the firewood, even if it would just bring it down to the tailgate for us so one of us wouldn't have to get up in the truck and pass it down.

I'll keep that onion trick in my memory bank...hadn't ever heard of it, but it's worth trying, as onions are a wonderful healing herb. Folks used to use onion poultices for all manner of lung infections.

Another thing you can put in an aching ear that works very well is castor oil.
 

digitS'

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Well, I hadn't heard of the onion thing either, might have been able to use that as a kid.

@Collector , I want to caution you about mulch. One of my worst respiratory infections was after I moved spruce wood chips. The pile had been sitting in my driveway through several winter months and I hauled off 3 pickup loads, then spent a couple weeks recovering ...

Steve
 

Collector

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@Beekissed , I hope this goes away starting today. I feel about 50% than yesterday already. DW just went on line and found the onion juice in your ear remedy, and it worked for me. I noticed tha with the mulch I had to shovel a little between the fender well and the cab just enough to get some of the weight off then it would just wind easy and unload quickly. I see that it might be kind of hard with fire wood though. I have not tried the caster oil before but it seems like it would work.
 

Collector

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@digitS'i was kind of wondering if maybe the mulch was affecting my situation and making it worse. I think the answer might be yes. My lungs were burning like they were on fire as well as sinuses. They are better today so I going to watch it and see if it gets worse when I start working with mulch. You only have to say free mulch to me once and I be there no mater what lol.
 

flowerbug

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@digitS'i was kind of wondering if maybe the mulch was affecting my situation and making it worse. I think the answer might be yes. My lungs were burning like they were on fire as well as sinuses. They are better today so I going to watch it and see if it gets worse when I start working with mulch. You only have to say free mulch to me once and I be there no mater what lol.

free organic material of any kind is great for me too, we don't have a truck always available to haul things. luckily i have some friends who will bring me some leaves and the leftovers from when they're making firewood. all of that is gold.

agreed with others on the possible lung complication, if the dust or fumes are strong. best to stop and work from the upwind location if you can. then rinse out nose/sinuses/eyes...
 

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