Posted on 04/01/2024 6:23:19 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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Ah, thanks! I’d poked around on the web a bit and found a lot about allergies to mustard as a food, but very little about wild mustard pollen.
Good info. at that link. :-)
Anyway, yeah, my suspicion is confirmed - wifey may (may) want to go get tested if our insurance will cover it.
Next question: :-)
Pro’s and cons of sterilizing soil / potting mix?
Would a long hot sunny day in a closed car be sufficient for quantities on the order of a 5 gallon bucket?
Worked on the 10 cu ft cart that the lawn mower can pull. One tire is holding air & the other is leaking a good bit. Yesterday, I sprayed the rims where the tires meet with WD40. This is a ‘trick’ my brother saw on YouTube for stopping leaks. He tried it on a tire going low at his farm & the tire is holding air .... I should be so lucky!
The trailer is going with me today to the new place & should speed up debris hauling - cut the trips in half at least. Since I now have a compressor, I can pump the tire up & deal with the leaky tire in a more permanent way when all that is going on slows down.
Everything here is now covered with yellow pine pollen this morning. I noticed yesterday it was starting to fall. This weekend, I will be back to mow (10 acres) & Clyde will be kicking up a major cloud of yellow pollen. It’s the time of year when I take an antihistamine before I mow so I am not one giant hive after mowing!
If it’s commercially manufactured and purchased in a bag, it’s already sterile.
If this is dirt you’re digging out of the ground or re-using from one bed to another or in pots and you’re concerned about weed seeds and/or disease, or you have an area that has already caused you a crop failure, then here’s a good primer on how to sterilize soil:
https://morningchores.com/how-to-sterilize-soil/
I’ve never had this issue. Soil in my garden beds has been dug from our very ‘clean’ pasture (bottom soil; nothing has ever been grown on it other than grass for cattle) and amended with our own home-made (Mule & Steer manure and straw bedding) compost.
Just remember that sterilizing soil kills all the GOOD STUFF in there, too.
Has anyone else had this situation? If so, chime in! :)
Yes, my intent is to re-use some garden soil* and a concern is the killing of all the good stuff...
*My biggest problem is that squash and such seem to do well until just about the time fruits start to develop, then they weaken and produce poorly or not at all. Same for melons. I put Okra in the same spot last year and it thrived and produced way more than we could use. Peppers there did “ok” and eggplants so-so. Soil testing says nutrients and so on are good. Tomatoes generally do well.
I can’t afford to buy new soil for this much area / volume. I “can” apply Preen to kill weed seeds, as all plants are started in small containers with purchased soil and then transferred to the garden once a few inches high, or more. But diseases and harmful nematodes and such are my concern.
I’m still thinking an afternoon in a hot car would kill diseases and such, leaving me with something not too far from purchased soil?
Unfortunately, most of our property has hickory trees, plus a couple walnut trees. So, that soil has juglone in it, and I can’t use it in the garden. I cut down several intermediate (~ 4” trunk) walnut trees last summer whose foliage began 50-100 ft. away from the garden area, in hopes of reducing juglone in the garden area. (Leaching and leaves blowing in in the fall may be a problem, and on still summer days you could readily smell the stuff.) As tomatoes seem to do reasonably well, I SOMEWHAT doubt juglone in the garden is the problem, but I’m unsure on that score. In any event, the closer walnut trees are now gone, and the closest hickories are over 100 ft. away.
What a temperature of ~160 deg. for a few hours might do to juglone I have no idea, but juglone does gradually decay with time, of course.
Thanks!
“My biggest problem is that squash and such seem to do well until just about the time fruits start to develop, then they weaken and produce poorly or not at all. Same for melons.”
Zuke & Cukes will benefit from a scoop (about a cup) of crushed eggshells and a scoop of Bone Meal in the planting hole. What you’re probably seeing with Zukes, Cukes and Melons is most likely a nutritional issue, versus your soil. Give it a try this season. I’ll bet you’ll have much better results. I give the crushed eggshells (Calcium) and Bone Meal to my Tomatoes and Peppers, too. You can buy liquid Calcium if you haven’t been saving eggshells all winter. :)
I put crushed eggshells out there, but not in that quantity. Plus some Super Phosphate to encourage blooms (although sufficient blooms don’t seem to be much of a problem anyway.) But I’ll give a shot at fruit formation time a try - maybe the Super Phosphate all gets taken up by the time the fruits are starting to form.
My Rural King store has bone meal, 3 lbs. for $7. But that won’t go far if you are recommending a cup for each plant?
I also have about 5 gallons of (wood ) ash.
I know it's only April, but so far this year, I've been good ... REALLY good, so I thought I'd give you a little hint. It won't fit in your sled, but with 8 mos lead time, I just know you can figure something out!
~Q
You can go less with the bone meal. I’m just generous! I looked at my ‘scoop’ and it’s 3/4 cup at best.
LOL! Beau can’t live without his skid steer. His is a CAT. I say, TREAT YOURSELF! You’re going to need it to maintain all that you’ve bought into. :)
The birds ... the birds ....
Back door motion alarm was going off this morning. It covers an edge of the patio & the adjacent landscaping. Birds set it off when they forage that area. This morning I was thrilled to see an Eastern Towhee pair. He is so handsome with that black, rust/orange, white combo.
Another bird has been traipsing down my gutter guard just under the (slate) shingle edge until it gets to the main house where it starts pecking. When it flies off, it has very dark feathers, does not look like any of the woodpeckers around here although it flies somewhat like one. The pecking is slow & steady, not a rat-a-tat-tat. Yesterday, I was chasing it off all afternoon.
No fake snakes to be had at the Co-op or Walmart (I have had success with them before). I did get a green lizard at Walmart - head is snake-y looking & will be staring the bird in the eye at the end of the gutter guard. Next stop was the fishing lure department. A blog post on woodpeckers said the one thing that does work are these shiny discs that hang, sort of like wind chimes - most birds hate them. They are used on houses, porches, in gardens, etc. I didn’t have time to order anything so I got some shiny silver jig spinners & strung them together. Using my jewelry making tool set, I got a little hole in the end of a popsicle stick, attached my shiny rig & the stick is taped to the gutter. All before the first cup of coffee, too. Will it work? I guess I will find out.
All trees in danger of falling down last night during a storm with high wind advisories are still upright, but a windy weekend is in store. If they make it to next week, they’ll be cut down.
I posted the usual links on our community Facebook page, should really post them here. Hummingbird and Oriole migration maps.
Oriole, you have to choose the 2024 map
https://maps.journeynorth.org/map/?year=2021&map=oriole-first-baltimore
Hummingbird
I see. I’d read that too much bone meal can mess up other nutrients.
That would make sense. (Trying to drag back up my old college chemistry classes!)
I wonder how rainwater (naturally soft) may react with glyphosate?
Other info.: http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/archive/glyphotech.html#:~:text=6-,Water,few%20days%20to%2091%20days.
“I wonder how rainwater (naturally soft) may react with glyphosate?”
(My initial web search did not turn up much.)
I am not a soil scientist, just a forgetful retired farmer so treat the free advice for what it's worth.
WATER HARDNESS AND pH IN THE EFFECTIVENESS OF GLYPHOSATE FORMULATIONS
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