Posted on 10/01/2024 6:10:14 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
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Traps....They do work but are not 100 percent effective. Buy them when you buy seed and get them out early. I also tried some homemade traps that did not work at all. (Did not get the color right I think!)
I think that I need to skip squash for a few seasons and see if I can get the beetles under control. There is a community garden about 1/2 a mile away and the time I visited it at least one plot was really thick with squash nymphs and probably the source of a lot of pests so I am not certain
Diana, You can drive from the county road to your house without kicking up lot of dust! I have to say that anyone with a 1 mile long blacktop driveway you should generally consider themselves successful in life! :)
Packed up & ready to roll this morning. Last evening was a loading ‘rodeo’ ... I’m taking mom’s 3 file cabinets & contents. One cabinet was right at the limit of what I can physically handle, but it is on the trailer... I will figure a way to get it off.
All the ‘goodies’ were delivered yesterday- 2 new floor lamps for the living room, the phone system. & the Netgear router modem. Fingers crossed I can get the wifi going. I downloaded some podcasts in the event I cannot. I have been instructed to call the field tech & send him a pic of the equipment that was left by the previous owner so I hope I can get the tech today.
Got the bare minimum grass mowed Wednesday afternoon - it was still a bit wet. Grass to mow when I get to the new house. Temps are supposed to get ‘chilly’ there next week so maybe that will slow the growth down. It should be a beautiful weekend weather wise.
Trust me - it’s still rutted in places and it is not ‘parking lot smooth’ by any stretch, but it’s easier to plow snow off of it than plain gravel, so that’s a plus.
It just looks like a service road to get to the crop fields, which is also what it’s used for, so if you don’t know where we live, you DON’T know where we live. :)
Praying for good weather for you - which helps with any task at hand. :)
Crumb Topped Pumpkin Cobbler
Easy fall dessert. So delicious.
Ing 15 oz can pure Pumpkin 10 oz can Evap/Milk 1 cup light brown sugar 3 eggs 3 tsp pumpkin pie spice 1 box dry yellow cake mix 2 sticks butter melted 1 cup coarse-crushed grahams, 1/2 cup toffee bits
Steps Stir/combine pumpkin, evap/milk, sugar, eggs, pump/pie spice; pour into sprayed 9x13" pan. Sprinkle box of dry cake mix on top, then grahams and toffee chips. Pour melted butter evenly on top. Bake 360 deg 45-50 min---center is set, edges are lightly browned.
Serve warm topped with ice cream or whipped cream, a drizzle of dulce de leche.
Now that the Hummingbirds have headed back to Costa Rica (take me with you!) it’s time to start prepping for my Winter Feathered Friends. I’m making suet, today. Here’s my recipe:
Suet Cakes
2 cups Oatmeal
2 cups Cornmeal
1 cup Flour
1/2 cup Sugar
1 cup melted Lard (Bacon grease, bear fat, regular lard)
1 cup melted Peanut Butter
1/2 cup or so dried fruit or chopped nuts, optional
In a large bowl, mix together dry ingredients. In a microwave safe bowl, melt lard and peanut butter. Stir melted fats into dry ingredients. Will be sticky! Pack into square molds, or using a cookie scoop, plop onto a cookie sheet, flatten slightly, then freeze. When frozen, put in a zip lock bag and keep in the freezer. If scooped, 4 ‘portions’ fit in a square suet feeder basket.
I hear my UGG boots calling to me from the closet!
I LOVE the addition of graham crackers and toffee bits! Yummy! :)
Cute.
You could even add chp nuts for another layer of topping flavor.
Boom Crash! Washboard and ruts! And I had all these JoAnne Gaines and Pioneer Woman images of a smoothly paved driveway! :)
"you DON’T know where we live" Always smart to remain low profile!
I will not suggest the Prepper Apocalypse Soon idea of putting a "decorative" burned out trailer or vehicle a bit back from the "service road" turn off to reinforce that "Abandoned property, no one lives here, turn back now, nothing to see here!" impression. You are far enough away from Madison and Milwaukee that you do not need to torch a trailer for effect! :O (I currently live on a main thoroughfare about a mile from KS/MO border so no real hiding here!)
(I want to avoid any "Under Cover"Gardening this year, so whatever does not mature by first hard frost is will become compost!)
This is an Olympian Fig. (probably a European Brown Turkey, which is not the same as the U.S. Brown Turkey!) I have 3 in ground fig trees Chicago Hardy, Olympian, and Valle Negra, that die back in the winter and grow back in spring with little winter protections here in zone 6B. (We do get down to -20F occasionally.) Once they go dormant I cut them back to ground level and cover them with bags of leaves or something that gives some protection. These are not the best tasting figs, but they are figs that will grow in relatively cold places. (My bucket grown favorite varieties...I-258, Bordissot Griese, Cavaliere, Campaniere.)
I have had a few ripe figs from the first two, but none from the Valle Negra. If you want fruit, it is necessary to prune them early beginning in the spring and shape them to form vertical scaffolds that produce fruit (At some point in late august snipping the top leader bud to redirect energy back to the developing figs.)
If you do not prune heavily, figs will become large weeds with no figs. Since I have better tasting figs that i grow in 5 gallon buckets and bring inside in the winter, I let the Chicago Hardy (Aka Bensonhurst Purple) just grow into a large landscape plant.
My mostly unpruned decorative Chicago Hardy. The stump of this tree was even with the ground in late March. I will cut it back to perhaps 8 to 12 inches when it goes dorment in mid November and cover it with something like leaves.
Note that Deer are not supposed to like fig trees. They are good in places with lots of heat but not so much where the temperatures get down below -17F to -20F.
Trust me, there are any number of abandoned-looking farm vehicles and pieces of equipment on our property. Oh, they still work, they just look like they shouldn’t. ;)
The entrance to our property looks like it belongs to the horse farm next to us. And, we named our farm ‘Abandon All Hope Acres’ for good reason. ;)
So nice that you can grow figs!
I used to order Brown Turkey Fig from a grower in Florida for the garden center. They do OK in a Wisconsin winter, either potted and brought under cover for the winter, or with other types of protection. They sold as fast as I could get them in. Customers loved them.
I like the privacy of being out of sight from the main road, but the expense of maintaining 1200' of private road isn't something to sneeze at.
Which reminds me... I need to add 50-ish ton of crushed limestone to my road before winter gets here. It was holding up well, and I thought I might get lucky this year, but we got a couple of big deluges in August that washed away quite a bit of the surface. There's not enough material left on top to groom it into good shape so it's time to break out the wallet.
Congratulations and I am always awestruck at how much you can accomplish!
I understand the desire to be out of sight of the main road. If I could I would prefer to be 2 to 5 miles outside of a smaller city, able to see the nights at light, quick drive to get into town for gas, groceries, and doctors. (I think that is your situation! Good deal!)
If you have a long driveway always good to have your own equiptment to maintain it, which you also have! Crushed Gravel... about $10-$15 per ton? Yikes!
The house. At some point we need to start downsizing and I will probably need to leave garden fallow for a season.
Did you have a good apple harvest this year? Aronia berries? Applesauce or drying? What varieties?
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