Posted on 08/30/2013 1:16:25 PM PDT by greeneyes
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Tell me the news, good or bad..Is Mr Stevia still alive?
Mr. Stevia is alive. All the leaves he had when he got here have died and fallen off. I was worried when that was happening and did trim the limbs like you said. New leaves have grown and are growing from the end of the limbs so he is definitely alive.
Looks like we're fixing to get some rain, radar shows it coming in from the east.
We have a 40% chance of rain today. I’ll click on the weather channel and see what’s there.
Had to search banjo cooker, had never heard that term. We have made them before using the burner from a gas stove, but they can be made from a coil of copper tubing with jet holes drilled in it if you like to build stuff. We used them to cook seafood outdoors or deep fry turkeys.
Don’t know what WC does, but internet link with zoom feature:
http://www.intellicast.com/National/Radar/Current.aspx?location=USTX0286
“That way when someone yells “hurricane XXX is coming” we dont have to run out to the overcrowded stores looking for things that are not available.”
The weather channel is showing a film and it is stuck - film not moving.
Yes, rightly, it’s the same every time we have a hurricane come through. Everyone rushes to the stores and they are sold out in two days including all gas stations are out of gas. They never learn to have supplies already stored. The only thing I buy is ice and I’m through shopping.
I get my canned heat out and set up for warming/cooking, get the battery fans out and batteries ready to go and light sources ready and then wait for it to happen.
I’m looking at radar from the weather channel and there’s a blob with a big red center coming south down 45 and it’s very close to Willis so you may be in that now or very soon. If it keeps coming south I’ll be in that red part. Right now I have no rain, I’m in between green rain to the north and south.
All we have to do is gas us the fleet and 10 gas cans, and I got a 6th sense about hurricanes, I gas up a day or two before they holler “Wolf”
I do have a generator, but it takes gasoline. I have procrastinated on converting it to LP gas even though I have that monster tank out back with 6mo or more supply of LP. If I convert the gen, I won’t need the cans of gas.
I never let my car gas tank get below 1/2. Generators do have to have fuel, which is why I went to a solar panel and batteries. If I had a generator, I’d probably blow myself up dealing with it plus I wouldn’t have much fuel for it.
I don’t know. It should work though. Don’t know how much it would cost. Haven’t bought any for a while.
That’s good. I know I won’t get that much, but it is so nice to go dig up a potato for supper to eat with cukes, onions, and green peppers from the garden.
Next year, I’ll plant more than I did this year, and I think I needed to add a little more compost than I did this year. Also, probably going to add a bunch of hay for the hills.
Good news and bad news.
Yesterday I spent most of the day working on my land. Pinned down plastic sheeting until I ran out of staples. Picked all my corn (most of it was drying down, and the critters were eating it right off the stalk), then I wasn’t tired yet, so I went traipsing around looking for goodies. I came home with 2 sacks full of corn and one of wild grapes.
Then I came home, put up several pints of pickle relish. Cleaned, boiled, squeezed, and canned up the grapes as juice. There must have been other stuff I did in there too, I don’t really remember much. Just as I got the grape juice in the canner, a migraine hit and kinda screwed with my head. I did have the sense to set a timer for the grape juice, hopefully it was even for the right lenth of time!
I haven’t been strong enough to work myself to the migraine stage since I was in high school! As miserable as that was, it’s a good sign!
Now I need to remember to stop before I get to that point.
Greeneyes said,”I have no experience with sweet potatoes. None. Nada. Zip. I’ll be waiting on your report to let me know all the answers.LOL”
LOL! Marcella says she read that you harvest them when the leaves start falling off in the fall. I’ll probably try that!
In any case, you will get a report!
The damaged sunflower with the splint has opened up into a perfectly formed mini-Mammoth flower, about four inches in diameter, instead of the 10-12 inches of the others. Its seeds are forming, and it is a beauty! One of the others which has not been damaged is opening now. The ones which have already opened are heavily laden and busy maturing their seeds.
Okra has been producing, as have the cucumbers. At last count I had 16 tomatoes forming, but lost two to boring worms. I found a worm and squashed it. Also neemed the bushes very well.
The amaranth continues forming its seed head. The snow peas are blooming, but something got them, as many of the leaves are left with a thin layer of substance and the veins are left in place. They look like lace. I guess enough green has been left to support life, and I neemed them real well too. Hope that preserves the new foliage they are putting out. I also moved them into shade which is near our back door so I can keep a better eye on them.
The echinaceas (purple cone flowers) have just about finished blooming and have formed their seed heads. I’ve been beheading some of the seed heads and have been scattering the seed where I would like to see them next year - couple of feet behind where they presently are.
I still have carrots growing. I see the tiny little filigree leaves about 2 cm in diameter now. A friend of mine says that since I planted them in the bed with my okra and the soil has only been somewhat amended, they very likely will not be very big. Soil in our area is this black clay stuff. Rich, but gooey and hard as a brick when dry. Supposedly not conducive to carrotage!
In years past I’ve just laid the seed spud on top of the ground and covered them with compost. Yields were just so-so. This time I dug a shallow trench for the seed, covered with soil, and continued to hill around the plants as they grew. When the hills got to be ~1ft high I put a heavy layer of wheat straw down between the rows. It was a lot of work but the yield was impressive.
A few tiny carrot plants are up and that's everything up except regular squash plants. I had that seed before I knew about the “T” Italian squash. Don't particularly care if the regular ones sprout. Don't want those insect grabbers squash close to my “T” squash.
Check for toads. ;)
/johnny
Thats gunna take a lot of potting mix for all them bags.
My small ghost pepper is still producing, but looks like it needs re-potting. I aint messin with it until all the peppers are ripe and picked. The other one has it’s first pepper after having 200 blooms for several months. I now get to dry and flake the peppers. Then the fun begins.
OK, I went to Lowes looking for perennial flowers that would bloom a lot, like all spring, summer and fall (or close to that) and had blooms now and attract hummingbirds and butterflies.
I was handed over to a lady who, I found, knows everything about every plant that ever grew. I wanted to bring her home with me and turn her loose on what I'm doing.
Told her I didn't know anything about flowers since I couldn't eat them. So, she starts telling me which ones I can eat. Like I said, she knows everything.
I now have a pot of Lantana with pink/yellow blooms on it, a Hummingbird bush with flowers on it, and a Rudbeckia, which is a black eyed Susan except this one is yellow with gold in the center, not black, and has blooms and ones ready to bloom.
She told me when looking for flower plants, don’t look at the top, look at the bottom. She took the Susan one out of its pot and the roots totally surrounded the soil. She said that was a good root system for this plant and to take a knife and start about half way down and split the roots apart all around the plant, then spread them out at the bottom and plant in the soil.
This was done in the hot sun and it was 100, don't know the heat index, maybe 105 because it was horrible. On to Walmart, got 6 large plastic cheap pots by MISCO that have the saucer as part of the pot, just looks like a pot with no saucer, but it is there. I’ll put the three flower plants in these pots and something else in the other three pots, all the pots are green. These were inside, now go outside for potting soil mix – it’s hotter and I’m pouring sweat. Got six bags of the size I can carry. I already have five or six bags that size at home. Tomorrow is planting day in containers for food plants and these flowers.
Went to their grocery department to get a new item, got several of them this time. It’s bread that is already toast. I found this maybe a month ago and got one package to see what it is like. The thing is, this toast had a eat by date, of MONTHS away. Think that date was in November. This already toast must be a chemical wonderland to last that long. That was their regular toast, and all I found today was their “Double Fiber Toasted Bread”. I got several because I don’t eat enough regular bread before it goes bad. I can’t find an eat by date on these packages. I have emailed the company to find out the shelf life of both kinds for sure. You don’t micro this bread, you just eat the toast as is. Oh, the company is BIMBO. Yes, you heard it right, Bimbo.
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