The Garden Thread - March, 2024

March 2, 2024 | Diana in WI/Greeneyes in Memoriam

[Diana in Wisconsin]

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!

[MomwithHope]

I wonder if the “government” is working on recipes for us to have.

[FamiliarFace]

No doubt. They’ll have the meat companies issuing the recipes on their websites, so they can get funding.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

I watched the storm on radar as it passed 1/2 mile to the west. The only way you ever want to see hail like this is the pictures on the weather forecast!

[FamiliarFace]

That’s insane! We thought we were at the beginning of the tornado a couple of nights ago, and our hail was the size of regular marbles. It was furious for about 10 minutes, then it turned into a normal heavy rain and thunderstorm. East of us, people weren’t so lucky.

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

"That’s insane!"

Happy that the only thing we got was some heavy bands of rain. Sorry for all the people whose roofs and windshields were ruined!

[FamiliarFace]

We heard of some areas that were decimated. A few lost their lives, as I understand it. Very blessed to have only had minor storms here.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

And it’s not even SPRING, yet. After this mild winter, I fear BIG storms might be happening in the coming weeks.

Wisconsin had a Tornado in FEBRUARY this year! Never before! Our local ‘prognosticator’ was pretty much doing handstands! Professional ‘Weather People’ are so weird! ;)

Let’s just hope we’re not all gathered here later in the Spring season with reports of shredded garden plants!

[FamiliarFace]

We may be getting bigger storms in the months ahead, but I hope we don’t. We shall see.

Oh, and the weather guessers are weird! They’re also the luckiest people on the planet. Nobody could be as wrong as they are, as often as they are, and get to keep their jobs.

Unless they’re government workers. They’re even luckier than the weather guessers.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

LOL! I’ve been both a State AND a Federal worker (short time gigs) and you are 100% correct!

What a bunch of dead wood. Humorless drones.

[Pollard]

Yep, just noticed yesterday that about 1/4 of a neighbor’s barn is now sitting on the ground on the other side of the barn. It’s bottom land so a gust must have come right down the length of the valley. I had a few things blow around in the yard. Could hear the gusts and things moving. Thought for sure I’d lose electric but didn’t. And same as you, it lasted maybe an hour and then went to rain.

[Pollard]

I've been going by the NWS for years. When we were totally off grid, a scanner with Wx channels was our only weather report. I've got their forecasts figured out for the unpredictable Ozarks. Only go by what they say for the next 24-36 hours. Anything further out is subject to change but that's the nature of the Ozarks.

If they say today that it will be 60 on Wed and then tomorrow change it to 55. Count on it being 50 because they will only half admit how wrong they were.

I would say they exaggerate with their warnings but not really. There's always a chance that the worst of it will hit some small sub-part of the forecast area.

We don't have TV so if the internet's down so I can't watch the radar and we're having extreme weather, I break out the scanner with weather radio.

To this day, my adult autistic son is soothed by that mechanical sounding voice on the Wx system.

There is no better system for finding out a tornado was just spotted two counties over and the system is or isn't headed your way.

A weather radio really is a must for anyone living in tornado alley.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

We have a weather radio, get notifications on our phones and have two of the hand-crank radios.

So, I’d recommend having a hand-cranked radio, too. They make some now that can also re-charge your phone if needed.

https://gearjunkie.com/technology/best-emergency-radio

[Augie]

Typical Misery weather this past week. Warm, cool, wet, dry, and last night straight into the freezer. 24° when I opened the chicken coop this morning. Mrs. Augie's magnolia tree was two days from spectacular. Not anymore. Fruit crops? Probably not going to be any here. We were fortunate the storms that hit Pollard's area last week slid by without wrecking anything here. We got 1.3" of rain by the time things cleared up.

I was able to get quite a bit accomplished over the weekend. Got the chainsaw out and cut up a pair of big water oaks that went down in the edge of the hay field. Pushed the remains off to the edge where it will be food for the bugs. No more wood burning furnace here so no need to save it. Cut down half a dozen osage orange sprouts and some sick American elms from the edge of what is going to be the new garden. I treated the stumps with Tordon RTU so they won't come back.

Pops came over yesterday and helped me get the fence up. We pushed in all of the t-posts with Nanner's loader bucket, then set the panels and got a clip on every post. Pops retired to the couch at that point and I got busy. I finished tying all of the panels and hung a pipe gate so I've got an easy way in with the tractor. I've now got 9000 sq/ft fenced off from the horses. It's not all going to be useable due to the trees in the west fenceline, but it will give me 3x the space I had in the old garden. And afternoon shade! With more room to maneuver a lot of things are going to get easier.

I've got another pipe gate to hang in this opening. With that I'll be able to get into the garden from the barn lot and won't have to go around. That's not really a big deal, but as slow as I move every step counts. The pile of rotten hay and horse poo from feeding round bales over the winter was right where the new fence needed to be so I had to clean that up before we could start on the fence. It's a decent sized mound and will make a nice start on a compost heap. It's going to be really nice having the space to put that inside the garden fence. It's also going to be nice having afternoon shade. The old garden got morning shade and then blasted by the sun for the rest of the day.

There's still a mountain of work to be done to turn this space into a proper garden, but now that the fence is up I can get serious about that.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Gorgeous! Looking SO good! :)

[Diana in Wisconsin]

[Pollard]

Prepper ping from Pollard RE: Info in emergencies and Spring has sprung. Are you gardening this year? The gardening thread is now monthly so I may toss a prepper ping in if a conversation leads that way. Hopefully Diana doesn't mind. Many of us are in the Midwest and had strong weather events last week which made me think of having good info during those times which naturally means a weather radio. Tornado season has begun.

I use NOAA Weather Free(NWS) on my phone. Been meaning to pay the 2-3 bucks to upgrade and ditch the ads. Phone app, Scanner(NWS channels), PC with https://forecast.weather.gov and I have consistency. Most of your local TV forecasts just look at NWS info and tweak it for the particular city/metro locale and their experience there and maybe their own doppler radar. I basically do the same, minus a doppler, for me as I'm not in their circle.

You can find your closest stations here - https://www.weather.gov/nwr/station_search

It will be one of the top seven that are in bold text below. Mine are 162.500 MHz aka WX6 or 162.525 MHz aka WX7 (which one will come in better at any given time -- depends on the weather LOL)

National Weather Radio Frequencies
for U.S., Canada, and Mexico (et al.)

# WX8-WX12 frequency order and inclusion varies

Frequency	WX [30] Channel	Marine Channel	Radio Preset
162.400 MHz	WX2	36B	1
162.425 MHz	WX4	96B	2
162.450 MHz	WX5	37B	3
162.475 MHz	WX3	97B	4
162.500 MHz	WX6	38B	5
162.525 MHz	WX7	98B	6
162.550 MHz	WX1	39B	7
161.650 MHz	WX8	21B	blank
161.750 MHz	WX#	23B	blank
161.775 MHz	WX9	83B	blank
162.000 MHz	WX#	28B	ASM 2
163.275 MHz	WX#	113B	blank

Any receiver that can pick up those frequencies will work. That includes a lot of HAM radios and scanners.

NWS has a list of common weather/emergency radios -- "courtesy of Ambient Weather" https://www.weather.gov/mob/nwrhelp

I like the scanner because it will also pick up local first responders and public works which can be very helpful in localized shtf scenarios. Radio Reference is a good resource for frequencies and if you have the a programmable via USB scanner, they have a tool to choose frequencies and download the proper file to upload to your scanner.

Related to that, our state DOT, MODOT, has a nice website with road current conditions - https://traveler.modot.org/map/index.html -- It's surprising how up to date it is. It covers road conditions based on weather, construction delays, accident delays and closings of sections of the interstate due to them. It helps with my long commute from the boonies to work and back in Winter. Your state might have something similar.

My old school, heavy, handheld Radio Shack Pro-92 scanner is programmable. It runs off of 8 AA cell batteries and will charge the right type of rechargeable AA batteries but I've never bought any. AA batteries are 1.5 vdc so 8 x 1.5 = 12 vdc. I can run it of a car battery. I bought it around the same time we got a 12 vdc solar panel setup. It was what I was looking for at the time. Cheap and reliable.

I was mostly interested in a weather radio but saw all the bright shiny colors with features I didn't need like a built in crappy flashight to make you kill the battery quick and couldn't do it. I was big into prepping at the time and knew about scanners being a good tool to have and that many have Wx so I picked it up used for a decent price off of craigslist. It came with a little flexible antenna but reading the web told me what Radio Shack extendable antenna to buy. The instructions for it tells you what sections to have extended/retracted to get certain frequency ranges.

I can't help it. It's just my gearhead/techy/crazy guy's guy way. Shiny white or red plastic with too many silly features and no upgrading/tweaking? Yuk. There's probably some decent hand crank devices out there but my only experience has been a couple of cheapo flashlights.

But by all means, if you find a weather radio with features you want, that looks good to you and has good reviews, get it. It's way better than not having one and a new one may have new features that my old scanner doesn't.

As I said in the prior post, it's the only source to hear a tornado was observed two counties away and that the storm is or isn't headed your way.

Voices Paul was the original, then Donna, Craig, Tom and for high hispanic areas, Javier and Paul II/Paul Jr replaced Paul(all computer generated)

CRS introduced a computerized voice nicknamed "Paul", using a text-to-speech system which was based on the DECtalk technology. -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOAA_Weather_Radio#Voices

My chosen tell tale that the shtf for real is when the NWS signal goes down and stays down. Air and maritime traffic rely on it.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I don’t mind! You are a wealth of knowledge. :)

[gundog]

I bought a couplr of these, ten years ago. Seems solid enough. I saw them online for $50, or so, plus shipping, which is less than I paid.

Weather, AM/FM, a couple of shortwave bands. Flashlight, small solar panel. The dynamo seems solid, so I just crank it for power. It’ll charge things, with the right USB cables. Comes with some adapters.

[Pollard]

Kaito KA-007 Hand Crank Solar AM FM Worldband TV VHF Weather Band Radio

It's on The Ambient Weather radio list on NWS website and has a 4.5 rating on amazon.

They have a carrying case and extended range antenna for them too. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Kaito/page/930C7C91-29FA-4FD4-B8F2-19E020A4DF9D

With the cheapo hand cranked flashlights I used, you pretty much had to be cranking them when in use but they were the cheapest of cheap.

I should have mentioned my scanner didn't get a whole lot in Ctrl FL because the police/fire use digital and the scanner isn't digital.

Here in rural Ozarks, the problem is hills and distance and lack of activity, which I don't mind.

While Radio Reference is still a good resource and allows you to view a ton of info, if you want to download anything, including a file to program a scanner, it requires a premium membership. A good deal at $15 for 6 months if you have a programmable scanner because it beats punching little buttons for 2-3 hours.

[Pollard]

Weather — gardening — prepping; all link together.

In the Fall it will be putting up food and big cooking that tie in with prepping.

My boss pulled out his phone yesterday to show off the trailer be built and just got painted so I pulled mine out and showed a pic of the tunnel frame. He said he’s thought about making raised beds and hoops to go over them. I plan to make hoops for my raised beds and will have to show him pics. That and a pic of the tunnel with plastic on. Maybe it will motivate him. I told him about this guy I know on the web that grows a lot of food in his small backyard in some beds with hoops. (Pete)

The pH test strips I got might be junk. Says I have alkaline soil. Tell that to the blueberries and raspberries that grow wild here. Even the cattle farmers lime here so they can grow a wider variety of grasses and legumes.

Gonna try again with distilled water which is what you’re supposed to use. I used the local spring water. The sample came from the front yard garden which has been amended with compost but I doubt compost made locally would be alkaline. Need to take some samples from other spots like the tunnel and areas that have never had compost.

If I still get wacky results, I’ll just have to send off a sample to a lab. That’ll tell me a lot more anyway.

Holy crap. Looks like the price went down. Used to be $35 but is $15 now at MU Extension.

Regular analysis: pH, Neutralizable acidity, Phosphorus, Potassium, Calcium, Magnesium, Organic matter, Cation exchange capacity (includes grinding with recommendations)

Had I known that, I probably wouldn’t have paid $14 for the pH test strips. I just now looked it up. LOL

I bet they had a lot of complaints of being higher than most every other state. For another $7.50 I can add micro-nutrient testing but I need to get the pH right and get organic matter in there first.

I was sort of boycotting the $35 price but for $15, I’ll start testing it every year.