Posted on 05/19/2017 3:39:17 PM PDT by greeneyes
The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds.
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You have my sympathies on the baby raccoons. I would have thrown them in a bag and into a river. That’s now, 20 years ago I would’ve tried to raise them. 10 years ago I would have given them to a rescue.
I am just east of Hatton on route E, neighbor.
I’ve killed more coons than I can count and they have killed a dozen chickens, and destroyed more sweet corn, well, you get the picture.
I’m native Missourian both family lines. My hometown is Louisiana, right on the Mississippi River where I was born in that little hospital back in aught 1950. The Griffith clan all farmed between Louisiana and Clarksville. I’ve lived in half dozen other states, all west of Mississippi River, but I came back two MO. Dad’s family, the Casteels are from Mercer Co, right up on the Iowa line. Princeton was the town where my grandparents raised 10 kids. Grandfather Casteel was a banker, farmer, and department store owner with his brother. I will go there to be buried in the family plot.
Of the other states I’ve lived in Ca was beautiful in places but a horrid, congested place to live, eastern Oregon was not a bad place to cattle ranch for 3 years, Texas was ok but way too hot and uncomfortable with poor soil, eastern Kansas was good for ranching but not scenic, Iowa had amazing soil but too flat and cold, and northern Idaho was absolutely wonderful. Family concerns brought us back to MO, which was still home and full of relatives.
American Ingenuity at Work! :-)
I have pond envy. Ours won’t hold much water.
Mine is clay so I’m surprised the beets grow as well as they do. Carrots, on the other hand, look mighty funny. I’m trying them one last time. It’s a new garden, just plowed for the first time last year out of pasture land. So I need to be patient with it ;)
I do love my raised beds though. I hear you there! Those are so easy to work with. It helps that mine are in a shaded area much of the day, I enjoy working there so much more than the big garden.
WOW! I have never seen a Crossbill! Now why would Nature do that? What’s the advantage for the bird?
Oh, you made me think of another funny story.
Summer of ‘82 I was in between freshman and sophomore years at Mizzou, mostly chasing tail and drinking. Dad was cutting wheat on some rental ground southeast of Columbia. He called me and asked if I’d haul a load to the elevator so he could stay running. Yeah, ok, didn’t have anything else to do really so why not, right?
Anyway, that was on a Friday evening and he wanted the truck dumped as early as possible on Saturday, but one thing led to another and I wound up staying out all night long partying with friends. Came time Saturday morning to meet Dad I asked my two runnin’ buddies if they wanted to go along. Sure they did, so we stopped at the beer store, picked up another case, and went to meet Dad.
Dad was putting what should have been the first hopper full of a new load on the truck when we rolled in, already half lit from being out all night. When my buddies climbed out of the car Dad got this “Oh sh*t, what have I done?” look on his face but it was either haul it himself or send it with me.
Anyway, after exchanging the usual friendly insults with my buddies Dad proceeds to announce that MFA in Columbia was full and I was going to have to take the load to Auxvasse. No big deal there, right? Wrong. The weasels at Missouri hiway patrol knew that the Columbia MFA wasn’t taking grain and had set up a portable scale on 54 hiway north of Kingdom City. So Dad tells me to cut off at Hatton exit and take Rt. E to 54 and come into Auxvasse from the north.
So we head out. It was a generally uneventful trip on the way, but I noticed something on Rt. E in the Leeper Branch bottom that got my gears to grinding - a dead skunk in the middle of the road. A really big, really swollen, horrible stinking dead skunk on a day that was going to top out close to 100°. A plan started to come together.
I didn’t say anything and neither of my buddies noticed the skunk so I just rolled on by, went to the elevator, dumped the load and rather than go south to I70 I headed back the way we came in.
Dad’s grain truck was a ‘72 model Ford F600 that had been a flatbed delivery for LaCrosse Lumber. V8 gas motor governed to top out at 60mph. Coming down the hill on Rt. E I buried the throttle and let ‘er eat. My buddies were looking at me like WTF is he up to now. Then they saw the skunk. I popped that sucker with the driver side front tire and it exploded underneath the truck. They got a pretty good laugh out of the deal until I slowed down a bit and the smell hit. When I got to Hatton I had to slow down a lot to make the turn south at the four-way stop. That’s when the smell really caught up with us. Now mind you, it was hot outside, no A/C in the truck, been drinking all night and were drinking again. It was more than poor Daniel could take and he puked out the window all over the side of Dad’s truck. Jeff would have puked but he was stuck in the middle seat and his options were limited so he toughed it out. I couldn’t puke and drive at the same time, and there was no way in hell I was stopping, so somehow I managed to hang on until we got in front of the smell again.
I didn’t stop for ANYTHING until we pulled into the field where Dad was cutting. I shut off the ignition, kicked the tranny into neutral, and we all three bailed out with the truck still rolling. Dad was just pulling up with a load on the combine and saw the whole thing. He stopped the combine, got out and headed over to see what it was we’d done this time. Then he walked into the smell. The look on his face was indescribable. He dunked his hankerchief in the water jug from the combine, wrapped it around his face and went to look at the truck.
There was exploded skunk all over the underside of that thing, in the fenderwell, underside of the driver side running board, all over the exhaust, just everywhere. It was the most god-awful thing I have ever smelled in my life. Worse even than rotten soybeans. He was over there cussing a blue streak at us and we were rolling on the ground laughing at him.
He was a little bit mad at me for awhile but he got over it. Told me the next time he asked me to come help to leave those two no-good sons-a-bitches somewhere else.
Priceless...
Rat-sized snap traps and peanut butter. Never fails.
There’s also some bucket trick to use where they run up a ramp towards food, fall in and drown, but I find that too cruel. I want them dispatched quickly and relatively painlessly...just how I’d like to go, LOL!
“No You Cannot Have That”
Exactly! We have one young pup, our Beagle and one older pup (9 months) running around; the other dogs have outdoor kennels, they’re all hunting dogs.
Anyhow, the 9 month old is now tied up. She was chewing up things on the porch left and right and we figured out yesterday that SHE is the one that tore a branch off of the new plum tree and put a big gash in the trunk.
No more fun for you, Shiloh! ;)
“what exactly do you do with the jelly?”
I have two Oriole feeders that use jelly. They love it! One holds jelly and nectar (sugar water, make it yourself) and the other uses the whole jelly jar, upside down, and there’s a little paddle you turn to feed jelly out onto a platter.
They like Grape jelly best, but have eaten up a jar of plum preserves as well.
Look for those feeders at Walmart or your local hardware store. They’re bright orange.
Sometimes it’s best to plant straight to the ground-stuff can acclimate gradually that way. It’s part of the winter sown method to plant seeds in the winter, put them outdoors and let it go. Stuff tends to come up when it’s time.
You are a credit to people with conscious. Only people with psych issues would enjoy bashing babies of any species. It shows your humanity, and is a good thing.
That’s why I use row covers - I sleep too long in the AM - they would be cooked. Sometimes I even double the row cover, but for 35 degrees, just one layer would have worked.
Yeah, they hit about 2 inches - a couple-three late bloomers - stayed stuck for 6-8 weeks - Sun killed them.
I’m gonna try a few seeds of Beefsteak (80d) that I got tonight - see if I can get 3-5 plants going. The 3x6ft spot is going to be mostly peppers. I must have 150 pepper plants (young) plus some California Wonder Green (about 15 or so).
I was looking for Bush Early Girl seeds but didn’t find them at WM. So I went with the Beefsteak. If the Roma comes up, I’ll have 3-4 varieties of tomato. Squash seeds came up - have nice broad leaves - like 50-cent pieces. I’ve got a few more seeds in reserve. I’m gonna have trouble thinning all this out.
Put radish seeds in, gonna start chives, got some small pepper plant (forgot what), got 3 Sweet Basil going, got 5 Rosemary (SB and Rose WM plants), got Sweet Snacking Pepper going (about 10-15 plants), Jalapeno plants (about 6-10).
Most all that is looking strong. Don’t know if any carrots are surviving (a few thin plants). Plus I do have some other tomato from the grocery store - must have 20 sprung up and looking healthy (NOT going to put them in the Sun). Not much at first, anyways. Bought those tomatoes at Sprout’s. Maybe 3-5 Roma lasting - maybe 3.
And about another 3 dozen pepper plant seedlings - hey the seeds were free outta the peppers. I’ll bet I have 500+ seeds in reserve.
The branch I broke on my Bush Early Girl plant (oops) I taped up with black electrical tape (that’s how a guy fixes things). Branch is still green and going after a couple weeks of my doctoring. And the girl is producing tomatoes like crazy. Most are small, but about 3 are well on their way - the other 20 are trying to play catch up.
When you start tomatoes in doors, You are not supposed to put them out directly into the sun, first you put them in a somewhat shady/protected area to let them adjust.
Even in the shade, the amount of light is a lot more than indoors.
Yeah, the Sun just KILLED my good carrot starts - twice.
Killed the Roma tomatoes (almost got the latest from tomato seeds of Roma). That’s the 3 that may survive.
The Cucumber starts look really weak. I doubt they’ll live. Miracle-Gro is sending me a coupon to replace the Roma pod - I’ll probably buy it with the coupon and put it back seeing as how I’ll have a lot of tomato variety.
I’ve got some other tomato seeds out there - right in the battle - they’re in with the squash seeds. Trying to come up. A few nice starts.
I’m gonna need about 20-40lbs of soil.......and a few more planters.
LOL. That’s the way it is. Every year, hubby thinks he needs another garden patch. Soon we will have no back yard at all - just berry bushes, fruit trees, and garden spots. LOL
I’m almost out of planters. One big one left and I have way too much to put in it. I have last year’s Bush Early Girl bucket, too, with a round trellis. I might put the Beefsteak in there since the Sun killed off my BEG seeds. Maybe 1 survived. Gotta go look. Not looking good.
Pepper plants - they can take anything.....gotta love ‘em.
Funny story. Thanks for sharing!
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