Weekly Garden Thread - November 14-20, 2020

November 14, 2020 | Diana in Wisconsin/Greeneyes

[Diana in Wisconsin]

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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[Liz]

A great holiday project. Hobby Lobby is one of the few stores that carries the Krylon Looking Glass Spray Paint needed
to make those wonderful mercury glass "antique look-alike" items. Start today. You'll have a marvelous collection by Christmas.

Get the effect on inexpensive clear glass items---see tutorials on-line.

The dollar store has odd glassware. And squat jam jars in the
supermarket---w/ pressed glass fruit designs--look like antiques
when mercuried.

NOTE Many spray paint products have been tried and failed---silver,
chrome, nickle. Krylon Looking Glass paint works. Hard to find---
but Hobby Lobby has it.

HOW-TO Spray droplets of water inside the glass before
spray-painting----to get that antique mottled look after it dries.

Shop Hobby Lobby on-line.

http://www.hobbylobby.com/home.cfm?market=yp

[Ellendra]

I plan on testing that on corn earworms next year. A patch with marigolds, and a patch without. We’ll see if it helps. I lose 90% of my corn to a combination of earworms and corn smut.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

You can sell Corn Smut for big money! People that are Mushroom Fans LOVE that stuff!

Always. Be. Closing! ;)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Also - I told Beau tonight, ‘When the Jung Catalog gets here, I’m letting YOU pick out the Sweet Corn varieties you’re going to grow and FEED TO THE RACCOONS next season.’

*SMIRK* ;)

P.S. He has YET to dig the 30,000 pounds of potatoes he planted in the lower garden. Sorry! You CANNOT plant your garden in June - then LEAVE to hunt anything that MOVES until November, LOL!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

It’s GORGEOUS! I’m obsessed!

I have two vases that are REAL Mercury Glass. My Grandma found them in a shop and they were ‘supposedly’ survivors of The Great Chicago Fire when she overpaid for them in 1950, LOL!

Grandpa liked to point that out. ;)

[Liz]

Wow-——you got the real thing——they’re very valuable.

[Ellendra]

If it wasn’t growing on rare corn varieties, maybe.

And if I had better access to a market, and if I could harvest it at the right time.

[Ellendra]

That’s a lot of potatoes to let go to waste!

[Paul R.]

You are right — I think this is just the 1st time we’ve had a group of chicks without either a hen as “Mom” or at least ONE chick that was a little more adventuresome when hungry. These 6 all just complain if the feeder is empty*, flick away “goodies” dropped in for them, and complain some more!

*That said, what I’ve started doing now is only refilling the feeder enough to last until an hour or so before I get back to them. The Buckeyes are finally starting to figure out that when I show up, the feeder gets refilled, so they are gradually associating me with food. Not nearly so quickly as our chicks of other breeds in the past, but, making progress. And, they definitely now know that “scratch grains” is food, most are eating the small bread crumbs (but not bigger pieces), and they’ve been eager to devour small pieces of cut up red grapes. I believe the red color may attract them?

I tried putting one of the ISA Browns in with them, but even though it basically just ignored them, they were too afraid of the bigger pullet to learn anything from it.

I may try some moistened reddish color dry dog food & see if they’ll go for that. Or maybe a little cooked fish reddened with a little red food coloring.

The worms are a funny story. In the past even our store bought chicks would go for them the 1st time one or a piece of one was dropped in. It’d invariably cause a small riot! Whichever chick grabbed the worm 1st would, instead of gobbling it down quickly, run around with it “in beak” with all the other chicks giving noisy chase. These silly Buckeyes, so far, despite their game bird heritage, all disdain the worm as you describe... I hope that when mature they stay true to their reputation as mousers, which was the whole reason I went to a lot of trouble to finally get them. More ISA Browns or Amberlinks, Orphingtons, etc., would have been friendlier birds and less trouble.

Oddly, most but not all of our chickens, though free range part of the time, seem to lose the attraction for worms as they mature.

[tob2]

That is awesome. 120 years and still going strong. I’ll have to check my two for color, age and condition.

[Liz]

These plain ornaments AFTER Christmas go for a dime a dozen.
Mercury them, add a bit of ribbon......... et voila..........
your very own antique Christmas tree (next year).

I love the monochromatic look at Christmas----so elegant.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

He’s been test-digging here and there. With this AWESOME weather we’ve been having, they’re keeping in the ground just fine.

He planted them because his brother had over-bought, so Beau ended up planting 30# or so, which COULD end up resulting in about 750# of taters!

I’ll let you know when the digging actually starts. ;)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I know! It's Miracle Paint! The cats better stay out of the way, or they'll end up coated, too, LOL!

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Somewhere along the line I mentioned the Christmas Tree I designed and decorated when I worked for Jung Garden Center. Since we are first and foremost a SEED Company, I took empty seed packets and used them as decorations. The tree turned out so well that the other centers used the idea in following years. One thing I DO miss about the job was the creativity we all could exercise on a daily basis with merchandising, helping people with plant problems and closing the sale. ;)

[Ellendra]

I keep working on a design for a potato-digger that would attach to a small tractor. So far it’s still just on paper, but I keep hoping to be able to build one. It would make growing a year’s supply so much easier!

(I’m also hoping the same machine could be used to clear out some of the rocks on my farm. It’s like farming cobblestone!)

[MomwithHope]

I have about 25 old jars, blue ones. Some half gallon, some quart and a few pints. A few with zinc tops, otherwise clamps and standard screw type. I used them for canning up until about 10 years ago. Have made a few popourri jars out of the pints. They are pretty in the blue pints. I used screw rings, gauze or cheesecloth no lid and filled them halfway with popourri. Did some short lace around the ring. I also have used clear pints for cute sewing kit jars, filled with an assortment of sewing notions, mostly from the dollar store and used foam and some fabric for a pin cushion lid. Glues it onto a canning lid and then used the screw on ring. People love them. I also have a few offbrand jars, Kerr and Atlas.

[MomwithHope]

That looking glass paint looks interesting it must be hard to spray just right without marks left behind.

BTW I made the bacon compound butter yesterday. Used a pound of butter and for quantities I just followed the recipe visually to match. Yummy!! Had a little on my omelet this morning. Will probably try a baked potato too. Mainly made it for Thanksgiving to have with plain old tube biscuits.

[MomwithHope]

Ornaments! That does it Liz. I am going to clip a Hobby Lobby coupon and pick up some of that paint. I have some clear ornaments I have not used for anything and those look great. I am working on getting some winter projects together. This one is easy.

[Liz]

Very easy....the clear ornaments will look like antique mercury glass in a nanosecond.

Just lightly spray them w/ water, then apply the Krylon coat. Let dry.

And dont forget a bit of ribbon for hanging on the tree.

[MomwithHope]

Cool, I am going to go on Monday, coupon day. That paint is pricey! I will give away the ornaments and I have lots of ribbon.