The Garden Thread - October, 2024

October 1, 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!

[Pete from Shawnee Mission]

Variety is a nice thing! Surprise would not exist without it! How much apple butter does one really need? Perhaps the small crop will result in rest year and have a bumper apple harvest next year!

The fall smell of ripe apples is a wonderful memory!

[FamiliarFace]

Awesome!

[Paul R.]

That’s no fun! Hope it heals up fast!

I tend to twist my ankle on hard hickory nut or walnut husks sometimes. So far, never so badly as to be really put out of action, but, one of these days it’ll probably happen.

I try to keep them swept off our paths, but the chickens have other ideas!

[Paul R.]

Hah! Got #3 yesterday. The 3rd squirrel, I mean. He was in the smaller trap I mounted on a branch on the south (more or less) side of the garden area where the (was) bigger Opo had been extending.

That’s not all of ‘em though, I saw another about 70 feet away, on that side. There’s been no more chewing up of the plants, but, that “was bigger” Opo plant is in really sad shape. Only 1 main stem has survived, and I’m unsure if that will make it. The plant seems to be barely holding its own despite no more damage to it since I put the traps out, and very good environmental conditions (except for the ever lowering sun angle and shade more of the day). But temps, humidity, and soil moisture have all been ideal the last 2-3 days. The other plant is “struggling” but making slight progress, and the fruit on it have grown a bit. :-)

Our tomatoes look like somey will crank out a few more fruits, but are just about “done”, especially those planted earliest. They used to last into the fall as long as I could keep ‘em from freezing — I think what I’m seeing is that they are taking up juglone until it gets to a concentration that starts killing the plant... Ergo, the plants I put in in July are still healthy enough to produce a few fruits. I guess I should have been chopping down those young walnut trees sooner, or, move the garden (at least the part with juglone sensitive plants.) No small task... :-(

[Paul R.]

Does anyone here know of an adhesive that adheres to both Nylon and PVC?

[MomwithHope]

Hey, Congrats on #3. A noble battle to save your plant.

[Paul R.]

Hah-hah-hah!

If I could get a couple squirrels in short succession, or a big one, my wife (teaches at a parochial school) has break this week: If I dress ‘em she’ll cook them Filipino(a) adobo style. We did that once before: Not a lot of meat, but, very tasty!

[Paul R.]

For those into prepping and such, I was @ Menards yesterday to return some un-needed plumbing parts and pick up a couple others. They have on sale, 3 (pack) for $10, some nifty little LED headlamps with a built in Li-Polymer rechargeable battery. The main beam is not focusable, but is quite bright for such a small headlamp. I guess I’d call it a medium beam - it’s certainly not a “flood” pattern. Better yet, the red flashing function turns out to be true “SOS”.

A slight disadvantage is that the charge port is USB-C, but, that does allow for a charge time (100%) of only 2.5 hours claimed, from a USB-C source, I would guess. Also, a short “A” to “C” charge cable is provided. Run time is anywhere from 3 hours to 12 hours depending on function selected. (SOS is rated at 8 hours.) Should make for handy spares or backup, if nothing else.

The brand is “LitezAll” — obviously not top quality stuff; it’s cheapo Chinese, but, I’ve had “decent” luck with their headlamps, given the prices. They have a US support phone number, too.

[MomwithHope]

Yes squirrel is good, like dark chicken meat. But skinning them is hard.

[Pollard]

I don’t think anything sticks to Nylon. Like Teflon, DuPont developed it for that characteristic.

[Paul R.]

I found this article online, which gives some ideas:

https://www.permabond.com/resource-center/bonding-nylonpolyamide-industrial-adhesive/

So, if the Nylon is not high in “slip additives”, it MAY be possible to use, basically, “Super Glue” (cyanoacrylate)...? From past experience, I know other plastics like polypropylene can be glued with CA IF the surface is “prepped” (chemical treatment or flame treatment). I can try flame treating, as I have some experience with it. What chemical “prep” might work I have not a clue.

I may try contacting Permabond, too. There are so many threaded nylon parts, including simple nuts, machine screws, and bolts, that I’d almost bet Permabond has a thread-locker that works on at least “non-greasy feeling” types of Nylon.
That’d likely be good enough: I don’t need high bond strength, just a good seal and modest bond strength.

[Paul R.]

BTW, the headband starts off pretty tight on my not-too-swelled (I hope!) medium-size head. Likely it will stretch a bit with use (I hope), as I have it loosened as much as possible. Maybe that’s why they are on sale - hahaha. :-)

[Paul R.]

I saw this vid online: It’s about a small family farm devastated by the flooding in (I believe) western NC. Those of us on this thread can probably “relate” more than your average city dweller.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=18QR-rFWxFI

Note: It’s a long watch @ 22 minutes. But, it really gives you a feel for what these people experienced. :-(

[Augie]

Crushed Gravel... about $10-$15 per ton? Yikes!

I bought two loads of inch-base in October of '23. 52 ton - $1150 delivered. Diesel fuel is about a buck less per gallon now but I won't be surprised if the cost for rock has gone up since then.

I just ordered two more loads so I'll know soon enough.

[MomwithHope]

That was an amazing video.

[Pollard]

Bought a 50 foot ethernet cable a week+ ago and it will be here this morning. I mounted the network switch and automation control modules in a weather-tight electrical enclosure yesterday and it will be going in the tunnel today. Ethernet cable will run from the enclosure to the PC in the shed. That will give me a programmable irrigation timer and temp/humidity sensor for now. Later on I'll get the rain bucket and wind sensors put up and connected.

I had thought about putting the PC and touchscreen in the tunnel which is why I bought an IP65 touchscreen. It's not very bright though so I'd have to make a shadow box for it and the PC would have to go in a box. Everything takes up space in the tiny tunnel though. I'll have to take my time in building a North wall with shelves for potting and storing stuff and the PC and touchscreen. Keep it all 1 foot deep maximum with a fold out counter for things like potting.

Happened to catch the solar panel with sun on it yesterday and it was putting out 16.6 vdc so that will be fine where it is in the tunnel for a while.

---

Phone company just called. I guess the fiber optic is ready to go so next Wednesday we'll be swapped from DSL to fiber with 30 times the speed, yay, and cost $20 more, boo. Guess I should get the streaming PC reconnected. I stole the 25' network cable for messing around with the automation stuff. We'll be able to stream at 4k now while we used to struggle with 1080p.

My streaming box is basically web browser based along with PlexTV which has streaming plus will handle a personal library of music/tv/movies and acts like a TV app or Roku etc. Since it runs on a PC though, there's no lag in the menu/screens due to the tiny processor/RAM that a Roku or TP has. Also doesn't shove ads for premium channels on your face all the time. Streaming and personal library are separated in the menu.

Having a browser on a streaming box is handy for watching youtube on the TV. The streaming PC is Linux/Ubuntu based too so any app available for a Linux PC will be available. Only one I run on my laptop right now is Spotify.

Looks like this and in the menu on the left, Movies TV Shows, Music, Photos and maybe Games up top are personal library while streaming stuff is below that. It will pull down graphics, descriptions, titles etc for your personal library content so the main panel looks just like the streaming stuff.

It's a little tedious to get the library files to show up in a nice organized way like the streaming stuff. For TV shows, you first need a folder for each season. Then you have to name each file a certain way. Good task for my son.

Once that's done it will pull down a graphic from the web for Stargate series and put it under the Sci-Fi TV Shows genre. Click on that and you see a slightly different graphic for each season. Click on one and you get a graphic for each episode(all different). Once you start watching a series, a menu option appears on the main page that allows you to continue wherever you left off without having to drill down through the levels every time.

I've already got Stargate all set up because that's what we happened to be watching back then. Need to get Fringe, Longmire, Brisco County Jr, Firefly/Serenity and more added and start collecting more. Movies and music too.

A downloaded youtube playlist of videos could be turned into a TV series. I could create my own custom Gardening channel. They can be categorized and tags can be added. Could have a lettuce tag for any video to do with lettuce. Click the lettuce tag, it would show those and then pick one or hit play all. Winter project.

It also acts as a media server so I can watch something from the personal library on my laptop while my son watches something else from the personal library on his laptop and they're both streamed from the streaming PC.

I can create something called SSBs, Single Site Browsers on my laptop and can also do the same on the TV box. They're good for web based streaming sites. A SSB is a browser stripped of the address box, all menus, status bar.

Below is Pluto TV on Brave as a SSB. Uses less resources than a full browser and makes it very app looking. Simply hitting F11 to go full screen on a full browser still uses the resources of a full browser.

I have a SSB for Tubi TV and one for Roku TV as well and F11 does work on them. Even got one for Tucker Carlson but his website layout isn't great for it. I generally just listen to his shows while surfing on my full browser.

Started this HTPC project a couple of years ago but the streaming part wasn't great due to DSL. Won't have that problem as of next week. Haven't tried finding a tv remote that will work and don't know if there is a such thing but a cordless keyboard with trackpad works well enough and the keyboard is better for searching than a remote where you have to use 4 arrow keys to select letters from the alphabet to make words. BTDT - Tedious. The keyboard also has arrow keys and Enter which are handy in many cases.

[Pollard]

Hooked up the network cable and got automation stuff put in the tunnel and the PC in the shed is communicating with them.

The modules have memory and are running on the solar power battery through that converter. If we lose grid power, which is what the PC in the shed runs on, it doesn’t matter. The modules will keep doing their thing. If I ever needed to change a schedule or setting or turn something on/off manually on a module while the grid power is down, I can plug in to the master unit directly with a laptop. At some point, Shed PC will become Tunnel PC as was the plan and then it too will run on solar power.

[Paul R.]

They have follow-up vids up now, too, as they begin to clean things up, recover, repair... These are “hillbillies”, I suppose, but I am really impressed by their resilience.

Granted, it helps to have a Bobcat and a small backhoe! :-)

[Paul R.]

Yeah, that’s why I just buried these little ones in the garden. The fridge is full anyway: Leftovers from a big party my wife and her Filipina friends had at a friend’s place last weekend. The BBQ pork (”Lechon” - a whole young pig) was much better than usual - I wonder where they got it... The other foods (of the ones I like, which is “most”) were all good too. :-)

[Paul R.]

DRAT! NWS is saying we have a good chance of frost by next Tuesday. I’ve kept tomatoes going until Thanksgiving, some years. Not this year, it appears. Ah, well, most of the plants were on the way out anyway.

I might be able to get light tarps up over some stuff, maybe even the better Opo plant. What WAS the better one originally looks like it’s not going to be worth the effort. The squirrels just did too much damage... :-(