Posted on 05/01/2025 6:15:12 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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We have very heavy clay soil.
But we have so many I’m still doing them in. We do have regular earthworms.
Turns out what I thought was vinegar was ammonia. Since I was pouring it into the bottles outside I never picked it up. I opened the bottle indoors and KNEW it was ammonia. They don’t like that either. Even if it doesn’t kill them, it stuns them and then I can pick them up and toss them in a bucket of soapy water.
I finished getting the lettuce in. The asparagus bed needs weeding and while the weather is not going to be favorable for planting tomatoes and peppers yet, I will get everything set up so when it does turn nice, I can just pop them in and be done.
I’ve been that close to lightening and it’s alarming when you hear ZZZZZZTTTTTTT BANG.
We went from "it's too muddy to walk across the garden" to "watering daily" in the span of ten days.
Mrs. Augie is leaving after work today for girls' retreat. Lacking adult supervision, I've secured a dump trailer for the weekend, and made arrangements with the neighbor lady to haul some tons off her pile of horse stall waste.
With the garden move in flight last summer I didn't make time to replenish my heap and now I'm starting to get low. It takes about an hour to drive to the neighbor's house, load up, then drive back home and unload. If can turn that lap 15 times over the weekend I'll have a good start on my new heap.
Oh no! That’s so sad. We will keep the family in our prayers.
My raised beds have drained pretty well - as of today, the soil is damp/workable. The plants I had in the beds look ok - not drowned.
I planted my zinnia seeds. As for the dahlia tubers, I don’t think the tubers for the Kelvin Floodlight are viable. I planted what I had - maybe there is a spark of life in there somewhere. The Cream de Cassis might be one tuber better - I don’t think both are good, but planted them anyway.
The flower ‘garden’ might be a bust this year, but we’ll see. If I get some zinnias & the dahlia seedlings (4 plants) take off & grow, maybe we’ll have a few flowers.
Talked to mom about putting the 4 metal raised beds along the barn - she loves the idea. We are going to the old town/house mid-June for her doctor appointments. If the weather is decent (not wet or broiling), we may spend the night & try to dig up the raised beds & bring them back. I’ll have to figure out how to fill them - not sure I’ll use the same ‘topsoil’ I used on the flower/herb/jalapeno beds. I may see if my cousin (strapping 25 yo who owns a dump truck) will haul/shovel for me.
List of flowers to go in the barn side beds at some point in the future: Hollyhocks, Russian sage, Calendula, Snap Dragons, Delphinium, Salvia, Larkspur, Foxglove, & Monkshood. Most, if not all of these, are deer resistant, if not poisonous. Most are tall plants so they will look great with the red barn backdrop.
“Most are tall plants so they will look great with the red barn backdrop.”
I had a three-clump of Japanese Whitespire Birch in front on my red barn wall. Looked SO pretty in the winter. If I come across a pix, I will post it for you.
I’d really like to get another Quaking Aspen. They ‘sparkle’ in the breeze. :)
Dagnabbit - “heavy” weather headed for us again - per radar, should be here around 3:30 this afternoon. Heavy lightning showing - I really hate lightning.
With downpours in mind, I just heavily mulched with pine straw the 2 beds where I planted the zinnias earlier today. I don’t want the seeds washing away from the rows where I put them. I marked both ends of each row so when the danger is past, I can pull the pine straw back from where the zinnias should be coming up.
I also mulched around the herbs & Jalafuegos. The Jalafuegos are blooming - yay! I got them at Walmart & so far, they are doing great.
Our paving contractor called this morning - paving should be in 20 - 30 days. He was on his way with a load of gravel to a guy on the mountain - driveway & both ends of a low water bridge washed out. The guy dumped his rain gauge twice so he got 12” of rain!!
Well, this storm that’s developing right now IS something to be cautious about.
This one is one to watch.
I have not been online all week. Rare for me. I can’t catch up with posts but know that I love you all and I have great emotional support. Link to my sweet hubbys obit. One in a billion.
https://gerstfuneralhomes.com/obituary/timothy-harris-hufstader/
Appreciate any prayers.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
Prayers up.
Prayers Mom With Hope. Sorry for your loss.
:)
Hit the ‘post’ button too soon; we are ALL here for you! Just let us know how we can help.
The WIND has been fierce! One of my greenhouse roof vents has been torn off - again. We went from temps in the high 80's to 50 degrees this morning. Beau and Emma Jolene had a hunt last night, and the wind NEVER stopped...must've been an interesting hunt. Kind of hard to sniff out a raccoon in conditions like that - but Emma isn't a Nite Champion for nothing! ;)
So, more general clean-up of branches and 'stuff that got blown around' is on the agenda for today. Beau has another mowing job, and I'm going to tackle every annoying little 'chore' around here that's been getting ignored and pushed off. I have company coming at the end of the week...and it's going to TAKE me 'til the end of the week to whip this place into shape!
Meet the four-legged landscapers battling invasive species
This summer, browsing goats will take on buckthorn and honeysuckle in 56 acres of Madison’s parks.
Since 2020, Madison Parks has used a somewhat surprising method to manage invasive species in city parks: Goats.
A herd of about 80 goats — which the city of Madison rents from the Poynette-based company HaakHagen Goat Grazing LLC — is split into two groups, with each working at a different site. From this weekend through September, the goats will browse invasive shrubs on a total of 56 acres at seven parks.
The city focuses its goat grazing efforts on parks with high concentrations of invasive woody plants, allowing native species like the oak tree to grow more freely.
We have similar goat grazing businesses where we used to live: RVA Goats & Goat Busters. They seem to do a pretty good business.
We had storms again last night. The heat & humidity from yesterday is gone - it’s very windy & cool, but the sky is mostly blue - beautiful morning overall. We are having company Wednesday so the place needs mowing/trimming before then, plus I do all the cooking so I have to grocery shop & make 2 dishes the day before.
Today .... plant my $9 pot of African Marigolds that I got at Walmart on sale for $5. Check if the rain made it through the mulch over the zinnia seeds - water if it didn’t. Get out the chainsaw & cut up a huge branch that fell off the sycamore tree. Start some calendula seeds - finally found some yesterday. Work on cleaning up the barn lean-to ... going to take a while to get it done.
Composite:
However, some of the Btrnt squash planted in a neighbors plot showing powdery mildew. Sprayed from copper fungicide on the leaves yesterday. Soil seems to be poor.
Started from seed and transplanted 8 plants. Got 40 melons. They were awesome.
Got my first full two week paycheck, paid a buddy back half what I owe him and paid one bill and have enough leftover to work two more weeks and pay my buddy back the other half and pay another bill and have enough leftover to work two more weeks and then be able to spend a little something on whatever. That will also be review time so hopefully another two weeks after that, my paycheck will be a little bigger.
I did spend $30 this morning and got hosting for farmwp.com for the farm app I’m working on. That will give me something to do tomorrow when the rain comes, yet again. Need to convert it to a multisite so I can have the main site and as many subsites as I care to make.
I wanted to print something the other day and since I don’t have a printer, my routine is to upload the file, usually pdf, to the server and then go to the library, get on the web and go to my website where the file is and print it. Couldn’t do that though because Chrome on the library’s PC didn’t like my self hosted website because it’s not https/ssl aka secure so I couldn’t get to my files. Having farmwp.com on real hosting will fix that.
Gonna be a nice day today. Probably got some weeding to do. Gotta check the fluids and tire pressures on the truck. Work on the push mower and weed wacker and maybe pull the radiator out of the tractor and hope the copper tubes aren’t too brittle to work with and solder.
A new or even used 1981 Mitsubishi radiator is unobtainium. If it’s not fixable, the only thing I can do is get a custom made aluminum radiator for it for $600 to over $1,200. Probably closer to $600 since it’s tiny and I don’t need it to double as a transmission fluid cooler.
My oxy/acetylene torch set has a cutting tip and one other small tip that hopefully will work for radiator soldering. Watched my dad solder one 45 years ago. Youtube to the rescue for a refresher to find out about tip size, oxygen and acetylene pressures and general tips. It’s a little tricky because you don’t want to melt the solder elsewhere while you’re working on a single tube. I do remember that part of the lesson because cuss words were involved. Melting one of the tanks loose is a bad thing.
I LOVE Rhubarb Sauce on Yogurt, Ice Cream or Pound Cake. A real TREAT!
Martha Stewart’s rhubarb sauce is good. She stirs rhubarb and sugar in a pan (off heat);
lets stand til rhubarb releases some liquid, about 10 min. ...
Then cook/stir to a boil over med-high. Squeeze in juice extracted from gingeroot.
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