The Garden Thread - November, 2025

The MONTHLY Gardening Thread is a gathering of folks that love soil, seeds and plants of all kinds. From complete newbies that are looking to start that first potted plant, to gardeners with some acreage, to Master Gardener level and beyond, we would love to hear from you.

If you have specific question about a plant/problem you are having, please remember to state the Growing Zone where you are located.

This thread is a non-political respite. No matter what, you won’t be flamed, and the only dumb question is the one that isn’t asked.

It is impossible to hijack the Gardening Thread. Planting, Harvest to Table Recipes, Preserving, Good Living - there is no telling where it will go - and that is part of the fun and interest. Jump in and join us! Send a Private Message to Diana in Wisconsin if you'd like to be added to/removed from our New & Improved Ping List.

NOTE: This is a once a MONTH Ping List, but we DO post to the thread all throughout the month. Links to related articles and discussions which might be of interest to Gardeners are welcomed any time.

I'm sure everyone's thinking about watering the garden here in mid Nov. Ok, maybe not.

Ran across a Japanese system that's kind of a combo of drip and micro sprinklers, Sumi Soak.

It's a flat drip line with holes that shoot the water droplets upwards at a high angle and doesn't go very wide. Supposed to be good even coverage in the shape of a rectangle unlike the micro sprinklers that make circles and the drip that in my case with heavy soil, make tiny circles at each emitter(hole). Supposed to be good for germination and short plants. Narrow enough that I could do two lines in my 22' wide tunnel or a single for morning sun side. Doesn't work well for tall plants like maters so drip would still do those.

Podcast I watched of a market gardener that makes his living from it, says the sumi soaker is awesome for germinating carrots. Light on details otherwise.

Searched Youtube and found a good presentation from Tilmor, the funky tractor people. The original funky tractor was the Allis Chalmers model G, row crop tractor. Tilmor and a couple other companies created their own version of it.

Anyway, here's Tilmor's explainer video of the Sumi Soaker - Sumisansui Mark II Irrigation System Overview. Since it's flat, you can roll it up on a hand crank spool. Portable. Can just hook it to a hose or tie it into an existing drip system.

Extremely high fire danger today with low humidity & high winds. A friend just emailed that there is currently a fire with road & trail closures in the mountains. I am too far north of that location to see any smoke.

We got home from church yesterday & our flag was down in the yard. I had it screwed to a piece of board & that was screwed to the tree with substantial deck screws. From the flag/pole whipping back & forth, the board broke. There is a piece on the tree still, but the larger piece with the flag & pole was all the way across the driveway & out into the yard. Our very large Eco can garbage can was gone when I looked for it this morning - it had been blown past the garage & around the corner of the house. We have tree debris all over the yard.

This wind is nuts - I will be glad when it calms down.

It's been a hectic week here in Central Missouri. Unseasonably warm (new all-time high on Saturday), no rain. Roofers on site all day Thursday and Friday, and again for about three hours Saturday morning. Still have a bit of mess to pick up from that.

The dogs were not pleased by all of the ruckus caused by the roof replacement. Booger spent the better part of Thursday and Friday looking at me from under my desk.

Howard isn't exactly house safe yet so he spends most of his daytime hours in his dog yard. He was equally unimpressed by all of the noise and commotion. He's also VERY unimpressed with deer season going on and not being allowed much freedom over the weekend. His energy level has made teevee time a bit of a wrassling match the last couple evenings. lol

Turns out Pops fractured a bone in his left shoulder when he fell two Fridays ago. ER Radiologist missed it, but his ortho guy didn't. It doesn't require surgery, but he'll have to keep that arm in a sling for a few weeks, and they're pushing the replacement of his other shoulder joint back a month to allow time for this injury to heal.

His Holter monitor came off last Thursday and was turned in to the cardiologist. It can take up to six weeks to get the results back, but his doc is hopeful that it will have some good data so they can get a treatment plan in place to combat the dizzy/pass out spells that he's been having. Speculation is that a pacemaker implant will do the trick but the Holter data is needed before a final determination can be made on that.

Deer season opened on Saturday. Mrs. Augie saw a few in spite of the unfavorable weather conditions. None of them were up to her standards so they all got to walk. Same result for my buddy Nick. Same result for the neighbors hunting across the fence. The weather guessers are saying it's going to cool off with a decent chance for rainfall over the next couple days so hopefully that will get the vermin moving around again.

I got a good bit of cleanup work done in the kitchen garden over the weekend. Tomato and pepper cages have been stripped of dead plant material and moved aside. Still need to store them for the winter. Most of the weeds have been knocked down and burned off. All of the t-posts that held up the tomato cages and cucumber fence need to be pulled up and stored. The ground is way too hard to pull them by hand so I'll have to get a tractor out for that job. Soon as those posts are out of the way I'll run over it with the tiller then add six-ish inches of composted stall waste on top and that spot will be ready for spring.

Spinach crop is doing well in the greenhouse. The turnip/rutabaga planting in the raised beds are doing very well, and I noticed the garlic is starting to peek out of it's compost blanket. I still haven't gotten my lettuce planted out there. Probably too late to start it now but I'm going to do it anyway. Maybe. If I have time.

Eating from The Land, Your Hand, Your Garden:

Tonight EVERYTHING for supper is from Nature or from the garden!

Crock Pot Mule Deer Tenderloin - with onions and cream of mushroom soup and mushrooms. I will make a gravy to go over...

...FREE Pontiac potatoes from the neighbor. Baked.

Thelma Sanders Sweet Potato Squash.

Applesauce - homemade from our apple trees.

Life Is Good!

Cow Chronicles: I believe the farmer lost a cow today. I had noticed a cow lying down for a long time late morning & I wasn’t seeing her head up - looked like a black lump. While making dinner, I saw the farmer checking the field - it was after dark. When he got to the downed cow, he stopped with his truck headlights on her. I never saw movement or saw him working on her, etc. His truck was there 20-30 minutes with no movement or action & then he went on & left the field. So that’s a calf loss last week & now a cow. I never noticed any issues last year with the cows/calfs so this calving season is starting out rough. For sure it wasn’t White Face - I saw her up and around this afternoon. Funny Face is harder to pick out so hopefully it wasn’t her either. Losses happen with livestock & to a certain extent are expected, but it’s still sad.

Found some cool pipe clamps. We have Cintas services where I work for entrance rugs and uniforms. The uniforms get hung on a rack provided by them and the Tee bracket caught my eye. Made by a company called Railex. They have Tee brackets and cross clamps. One cross clamp is for two pipe ends to attach to a pipe and the other type is for two continuous pipes to cross each other.

KT is their designation for a pipe size that matches the OD of chain link top rail

This is the one that has three pipes meeting. Two ends and one pass thru - good for framing in gable vents/fans. Extra holes to pin the pipes to prevent linear movement, aka run a screw in to keep and from pulling out and prevent clamp from sliding on thru pipe.

This is the bypass cross - good for my lengthwise truss ties going end to end. No holes but I'll run a screw in each pipe for good measure.

All are better designs than what I can get from a high tunnel supplier and for a decent price($8 instead of $4). I can't think of anywhere I could have used them already because the trusses are all weird angles - no 90 degree angles. End walls with gable vents and the truss ties can use these though.

I had already not been looking forward to using the flat bar straps for the last of the framing. "Everything's 90 degrees. Someone's gotta make what I need" he grumbled.

This is what the 90 degree cross clamps look like.

This is what I used for the odd angle Tee connections. End cap with tab bolts into strap. Works for any angle.

Wednesday: Mostly cloudy, with a high near 66. Calm wind.

Borrowed a ladder from the neighbor that I'll strap down to the roof of the SUV every which way I can. Poly and wiggle wire/track are here. ---------------

Need two verticals inside the pentagon like shape for the gable vents. Add two horizontal cross bars in between the verticals with the connectors that make the pipes flush with each other.

I can see the -- end of the tunnel

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