Posted on 05/17/2013 1:01:42 PM PDT by greeneyes
The Weekly Gardening Thread is a weekly 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.
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One thing that I learned is that pea fowl don’t understand boundaries. They go where they want to go. My neighbor had one on 25 acres, but (occasionally) he’d wander off and she’d have to go pick him up.
The leader of my flock was stalked and killed by a fox and 3 kits. (We got a tracker in to detrmine this fact.) Those viscious foxes just pulled his tail feathers out and discarded them in a ditch. I grieved for months over his death because I considered it my fault. That was the one evening that I failed to lock them in their barn because I had a meeting and they refused to go in.
The interesting thing is that they woke me up at 3 AM with their screaming. I looked out and saw a whole line of them heading for the barn in the moonlight. It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized that the big male was missing. He had led the foxes in the opposte direction (we found their footprints) and saved the flock.
The problem was that he’d led them down the driveway which had evergreen trees on both sides — no place to perch! You have to provide open trees with places for them to perch, or they won’t survive in a yard. Mine were good at perching in a horse stall, but didn’t seem to understand how to get up in a tree, even though we built perches for them. They never seemed to learn to use them.
I looked for that bird for 2 days before we found his remains (the tail feathers were all that was left.) I remember standing on my front porch and saying to the dog, “Where’s the bird. Go find the bird.” My dog put her nose to the ground and led me down the drive, stopping near the road with her nose in the grass. I scoffed and said, “That’s not a bird, you silly dog.” Then I looked closer and spotted some tiny neck feathers in the grass. My husband found the tail feathers across the road in the ditch when he got home. So sad.
It’s not too late to plant some more lettuce. Just make sure it’s in shade during the afternoon, and plant a variety that is heat tolerant. I usually cover my lettuce and spinach with a row cover untill they are growing pretty good.
I had success with black seeded simpson last year. I planted it in a pot and kept it shaded from about 11am on.
Other possible salad makings:
Roamine, Leaf Amaranth, New Zealand Spinach, Swiss Chard.
How could his weather be too cold for chives? I still have the same pot of chives going that I planted in my garden in 1987 — through many Wisconsin winters and no care.
Okay, now that makes sense. Some of the composting methods actually put a perforated pipe in the middle of the heap, others put a circle of sunflower stalks in the middle of the heap to allow air to come down into the middle.
Oh how sad! I don’t think I’d have had the heart to get any more after that.
My aunt’s front yard was all those big old 100+yr old oak trees. She didn’t like pine trees because they usually bring roaches near the house. I don’t know what happened to her peafowl, I went to college. I think the guineas just sort of met old age via attrition.
We’ve seen one fox so far at our current home. Hubby’s got the chicken coop pretty well secured though. Buried the fencing 2ft down on every side. So far so good and it’s been 2 years.
When we first got the coop built and had chickens in there one morning we found little raccoon footie prints all around. Bad raccoon.
I’m thinking the squirrels are what got the sweet onions. That or something under ground. We have tons of squirrels and they just love the garden especially right after it’s been tilled. Nice soft dirt to bury their pecans in! And of course it’s right in the middle of where seeds were just planted. Hubby keeps saying he’s going to eliminate them because they keep getting into the shed and attic and the neighbor is saying the same but neither do anything about them. Hubby has his bird feeders out so we also have tons of birds but feeder food is a lot easier to get to so that’s fine.
I’ve told ya’ll about the woodpecker who feeds at the hummingbird juice? He’s so funny. Big thing that he is, he has to hang upside down on the feet holder thingie and balances with his tail feathers underneath. Then he cranes his neck around to get to the water. You can see how simply pleased with himself he is. I didn’t know birds could smile but this guy does, yum yum, lol.
Black seeded simpson was in that planter where none came up. That one was my seed choice. I’ll get more of that seed and use the row cover so it won’t get stolen. I didn’t have row cover when the two planters were robbed.
I grow lettuce year round here in Missouri. I plant it in late fall and get it going a bit. Plant it in a sheltered spot close to the house, with a retaining wall on the north east side.
Put a cheap wire fence of about 18 inches tall around the bed. Line the back and sides with styrofoam and Milk jugs full of water. Cover it with row cover. Add more row cover as temps go down.
Cover with straw and sometimes an old styro mattress depending on how cold the weather gets. If the sun shines, I take off the straw and leave the row covers if it is still too cool.
I also grow some indoors just to have a leaf or two available for sandwiches.
In the hill country, lettuce will grow year round. Just give them hair cuts as you need a salad and they’ll keep producing if they can survive the heat.
Hi greeneyes-I had the privilege of helping a friend slaughter ( ahem-”process”) 20 7 week old chickens a month ago. It was a first for me. She lives out in the country. She purchased 25 chicks-raised them in her garage ( it was still way cold here then). She lost 5 but 20 survived. They were about 8-10 pounds in weight at 7 weeks of age. Not sure what breed of chicken they were. She mentioned they were a chicken bred just for producing meat. They were white- half were hens, half were roosters.
She set up her side yard with several “stations” for the processing procedure. We would do 3-4 at a time. We would grab one, sit in a chair, an assistant would cover your lap with a towel, flip the bird on his back-putting the bird in between your legs with his head hanging down, then using a sharp knife we slit the throat, waited several minutes for the blood to drain out and then twisted the head the rest of the way off. It was helpful to sit for a few minutes since the bird would exhibit a lot of post death nerve twitching that they are so famous for. Then we hung the birds by their feet on a clothesline to let blood drain more. Then we would dunk the bird in a large pot of 180 degree water-dunking about 8-10 times. Then hang them back up and pluck the feathers off. Then we would lay them out on a table, cut the feet off, carefully gut the insides out without piercing the intestines, hose them off well and then place in a large container of ice water to sit until we could cut it up for freezing. We had 4-6 people doing all this, like an assembly line. It was an enormous amount of work-we were covered in blood and feathers by days end. I understand the apprehension of killing animals but I wanted to learn how to do this bad enough that I just resolved to put my big girl pants on and just do it. It is gruesome but it really helps you appreciate your food more.
It does seem suspicious what with the spraying that you didn’t get pollination. Pollination can be done by hand, with a little paintbrush.
With my tomatoes indoors, I just turn the fan on them and give them a flick with my fingers as I go by.
That’s all I know about it so far. We just planted our trees a couple of years ago, so we haven’t had to worry about it or learn too much about it yet.
Sorry I don’t know more at this point.
And you can't get the plant out of them without tearing the plant to pieces.
LOL. The best kinda neighbor to have.
Until you get really good at composting so your pile is getting hot enough, wet enough and all that I would not put weeds in there. When I was learning about composting everyone said weeds were okay- I had a huge weed problem until I got better at composting. If composted right any weed seeds should not be viable- but I still don’t put the real obnoxious weeds in mine just in case. My advice is no weeds until you really figure out the composting. I still rough chop vegetable scraps too. I try to keep things in the pile fairly small so it will compost easier. If you have space somewhere you can pile big things like small branches and prunings from rose bushes and they will break down eventually for the compost pile but if space or a tidy look is what you want don’t even do the bigger stuff- it takes a long time to break down.
Why am I going through this? Your address is what? Put it in this blank and I’m going to your house to live. You can grow food inside your house so I quit.
Your address_____________________
I use various and sundry things. Newspaper pots, Cottage cheese containers, Used plastic cups, orange juice containers.
I am liking the OJ 1/2 gallon boxes. They are 4 inches tall. I cut off one side. Use a screwdriver to poke holes in the bottom. Fill it with the soil/seed starter mix to the depthe desired. Take the side cut off and cut it down the middle length wise to divide the planter in half.
Use the other strip cut into smaller pieces to divide it into 2-3 inch sections. Transplant new seedlings or plant the seeds directly.
For veggies with longer roots, just cut off the top, poke a hole in the bottom and put in soil and plants or seeds. Sometimes I punch a few holes in the sides too.
Right about the weeds - I’m not putting them in there.
/johnny
Well I dunno the particulars, but that is what one of my books said. The first year I planted them, I really didn’t expect them to come back because we had some really cold weather, but they did.
Maybe it is something else that is different between the two climates? We have a mystery don’t we. Guess we’ll have to refresh our memory and do a little more research.
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