Weekly Garden Thread - December 7-13, 2019

December 7, 2019 | Diana in Wisconsin/Greeneyes

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Nice bluebird house! And, FWIW, I’m extremely JEALOUS of your freshly painted porch railings!

I cannot WAIT until next year when this @#$%^&*! house is painted in full and the porch railings are all repaired thanks to ‘puppy gnawing’ this past summer. ;)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I have room for all three so no harm, no foul! :)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

You’re a busy lady, today! I got that ‘Seeds-n-Such’ catalog this week, too - it’s in the stack!

Thanks for all the links! *HEART*

[Ellendra]

I can’t say what caused that without a closer look at the teeth marks. But I can tell you a way to save your tree.

Have you ever tried your hand at grafting?

There’s a trick for saving girdled trees, called a bridge graft. Basically, you take a piece of fresh bark, or a nice springy twig, and graft one end to the living bark at the bottom of the wound, and the other end to the top. Do several per tree, in case some don’t take.

Here’s a good how-to guide: http://www.ladybug.uconn.edu/FactSheets/trees—bridge-grafting-and-inarching-.php

You can also do an image search and find some nice photos of the process.

As long as the tree can transport nutrients along these bridges, it should be able to recover.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I'm glad the subject is turning from gardening to birding! I feed the birds all year long and I will post my suet recipe for you all to use, in the near future. I found this seed chart at The Old Farmers Almanac site:

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Hot Link: https://www.almanac.com/feeding-wild-birds-guide-seed-types

[MomwithHope]

The Costa Rican red has more flavor IMO. Plus they were heavy bearers. I used to be able to buy plants and I swear they were Bonnie plants. Haven’t seen any for a few years now and whatever seeds I had saved got used or were no longer good.

[MomwithHope]

Ah another reason to continue buying seed with no millet. We rarely see a cowbird anymore.

[Qiviut]

Well, you don’t have to be jealous because the porch railings are not freshly painted :-) .... they’re vinyl. However, we did power wash the porch this fall, including the railings. My SIL had a small, portable pressure washer & it worked well, so mom got one for herself & that is what we used. I think this is what we have:

https://www.lowes.com/pd/Greenworks-1600-PSI-1-2-Gallon-GPM-Cold-Water-Electric-Pressure-Washer/1000866740

Personally, I’m all for paying someone to do the whole house this coming year .... there is a lot of the house we just can’t reach. We also got only what was most visible - the front of the house, one long side & another short side, front of an addition. The rest of the house is still growing all sorts of “things” of a gray/green variety.

Bluebird house is a “Nature’s Way Bird Products CWH3 Cedar Bluebird Box House, 12’’ X 7.5’’ X 8.125’’, Dark Wood” & it was $18.46 on Amazon.

[Ellendra]

My garden is frozen over for the year, but still making huge progress this week. I discovered that some of the experiments I was planning on running might be eligible for research grants from SARE!!! Naturally, I find this out just a few days before proposals are due. I was writing frantically for a bit, but I got 2 proposals submitted, with a whole 14 minutes to spare! If approved, those could help a lot.

If this works, I'll submit more proposals next year. I always have research project I want to dig deeper into, and the data might help other farmers and gardeners. If they're willing to chip in on some of the expenses, AND publish my results, all the better!

[Ellendra]

Really? Those bite marks didn’t look deep enough for beavers. At least compared to the beaver damage I’ve seen around here.

[Ellendra]

I moved super slow & was as quiet/careful as I could be & she never budged, even when I briefly used a drill to help take out the screws.

That speaks to an incredible amount of trust!

[Eric in the Ozarks]

We had similar tree attacks from a beaver living in our lake. Missouri employs “Wildlife Damage Biologists in the Dept of Conservation. The guy came to our property and set up a very large trap that he baited with scent. We nailed the beaver the next morning.

[tubebender]

Lady Bender’s world famous Bird Biscuit recipe
For you Wild Bird Feeders

ALL SEASON PEANUT BUTTER SUET RECIPE

1 cup Crunchy Peanut Butter
1 cup LARD (no substitutes)
2 cups quick cook oats
2 cups cornmeal
1 cup white flour
1/3 cup sugar

Melt lard & peanut, then stir in the remaining ingredients.
Ladle into paper lined cupcake trays and freeze.
Makes 12 biscuits. Lady Bender doubles the recipe and got 29
today but your milage may vary.
Serve in wire suet holders.

[Qiviut]

Actually, it was a pretty “amazing” experience & I give her credit for being a super dedicated mama bird.

[tubebender]

Last nights 7 day weather forecast for coastal Benderville

The Weather Guy is a recent transplant from Minnesota but that doesn't necessarily make him a reject

[MomwithHope]

C’mon man that is cruel. How about reposting that crab market picture to make up for this.

[tubebender]

OK OK... Here is my make good photo. We went to a local building center where they convert the garden department into a Christmas theme..

[MomwithHope]

OK (smile) I love your nice green garden pics but not the forecast. I did love that crab picture though. Never saw anything like it before.

[tubebender]

The Dungeness crab season has been delayed by the state due to some issue with the condition of them...