Free Republic

See? All it takes is time and money, LOL!

Doesn't everything?

We got our quarterly bonus this time around plus I had already been saving plus no bills to pay for the next two weeks. Gotta do some work on the car and truck but I'll still be able to buy the rest of the poly film and some end wall frame/bracing and get the tunnel closed in soon. Plus some other things.

I've got a charge controller on the way to charge the RV/marine battery for drip and side/gable motors. Already had the solar panels.

Been near 90 degrees for highs all week but we're about to get a cool down so Fall might officially be starting.

Need more drip line since what I have isn't much and has been used one season and rearranged for a second season in the little garden. It was the cheapo 1/4" brown stuff and emitters varied in drip rate. It was visibly obvious.

Toro Aqua-Traxx® Azul™ is supposed to be the bees knees of drip line/tape. It comes in 4" to 24" emitter spacing - 4 to 15 mil wall thickness - 5/8 or 7/8 inside diameter. Have to buy 1,000, 2,000, 2,500, 7,500, 10,000, 13,000 feet of it.

My choices are:

$118 for 2,000 ft of 1.00 GPM/100' OR
$124 for 2,500 ft of 0.67 GMP/100' - both in 4" emitter spacing. Flow rate is at 8 psi.

I'm leaning towards the 2,500' of 0.67 gpm/100' with 4" emitter spacing due to my heavy soil. Low and slow so it has time to spread through clayey loam. Add in fittings, a pressure regulator and for $200, I could do the tunnel 4 times over. If it lasts 5 years, that's 20 years worth. ($10/yr)

I'm heading out now to get a yard of compost to continue my 30" row down the center of the tunnel and then add another row on each side of that. That will leave plenty of working room for the sides and ends. Later on, I'll add another row on each side.

Let’s face it big Tech can find whatever we have posted at any part of our life and use it against us.

Cab they not also create posts seemingly from the past and seemingly from some individual who never actually posted them

Humidity - I've been trying to dry some hot peppers for weeks but I'm going to have to pull out the food dryer to do it because it's just too humid here. Humidity is no friend of seeds either. I saved a bunch of shishito pepper seeds this year and put the seed packet with the end open laying on the table with the hot air exiting my laptop for a few hours and then closed it up.

Other than that, I don't practice any method for extending seed viability but I need to come up with something. Fridge I guess. Some sort of container that blocks light and out it in the door of the fridge. In a couple of months, it will be nice and dry in here because I'll be running the wood stove. Might be a good time to put them in the container to refrigerate.

Bill McDorman's Basic Seed Saving:

Below 9% LOL the humidity here from Fall to Spring is 70-90%. Currently 75% on the table behind my laptop. I'll have to put my little hygrometer/thermometer in the fridge for a day and see what the humidity is.

Seeds on my cloud -- https://permasteader.route66custom.com/cloud/index.php/s/eqfmjgDwfWwxkbT

Seed Saving Handbook mentions desiccant tolerant vs intolerant seeds. Some seeds will die of they dry out. It also has a good bibliography at the end.

Finally started and I had to leave. Overheating my processor. I’m on a laptop that I’m fairly sure is clogged with dust. Need to disassemble and blow the dust out which is always fun.

The interviewer - crypto guy

I heard him for a few seconds, “we’ll be with you in a moment” then silence.

Probably another DDOS attack.

Sound is back just now

Pretty popular project is making an air tank from a disposable freon tank.

Milton makes a conversion kit but it's more expensive than the HF air tank.

Plenty of youtube videos on converting them.

I probably have most of the fittings laying around to do it. Schrader valve stem with pipe threads for filling the tank, I'd have to buy.

Interesting. Treepots for starting tree seedlings. 3" sq x 9.5" tall.

My favorite gardener on youtube puts a video out every Sunday and the last two have been about a guy who runs a nursery for native fruit trees including pawpaws, persimmon, figs etc. He uses pots like this. Never seen them before. They come in many shapes and sizes but all generally tall and thin like this.

I missed the state nursery sell starting day by a few days again and as usual, all the good stuff is gone. Been wanting to get some hazelnut seedlings for a few years now. I was lucky enough to get the elderberries last year as they tend to go fast too.

Got an 18 cell tray sowed with mostly mini head lettuces and a few cabbage and kale.

That was last Saturday. Did a second tray too and then I forgot all about them until yesterday. Can you say leggy? Pulled the humidity domes off and have 3-4" sprouts with tiny first leaves on top. OOPS. Going to start over and sow the same things again and set a daily alarm on my phone to check them.

Got the tunnel closed in with cattle panels & pallets and the first two "successfully" seeded trays are in there along with the elderberry bushes in pots. Brought the RV/marine battery out there and rigged the drip & micro-sprinklers up and started wetting a strip down the middle where the seedlings will go.

Gonna fluff up that spot, amend with composted manure and get those in the ground today and then I will officially be growing in the tunnel. Long time coming.

They have the domain name forwarding to linkedIn for some reason. It’s done on the web sever of verus.com. Any domain name can be forwarded anywhere.

Wrapping the tunnel in cattle panels today. Time to get the first two trays of seedlings put out there. I’ve been hardening them off for a few days now. Gotta get more seed starting mix on my way to grab a cattle panel. I’m using pallets to block off the NW end of the tunnel with a half pallet as a door. Need to order some more pipe brackets and start buying chain link fence top rail again to start building the real end walls.

Goats have been getting into the little front yard garden since I took the cattle panels out from around it. I knew that would happen. It still has a fence around it but it’s only 39” tall field fence and the bucks can hurdle that without even touching it. Shishito plants are trampled but they were near their end anyway and only putting out tiny peppers. They started eating on one of my elderberry bushes. I’ve got three and they’ll be going in the tunnel today once it’s closed off.

Got a little rain and will probably get a little more but not enough to moisten the ground to be able to dig post holes easily. Once it is moist enough, I’ll start putting posts in for a perimeter fence around the tunnel. It will be big enough to grow some outdoor row crops around the tunnel and plant those elderberries and other fruit trees like peach.

The fence I really need is a pen for the goats so I can start getting rid of them. That won’t happen until Spring though. No one wants to take on new goats just in time to have to feed them hay all winter. They’ll be easy to get rid of in the Spring. I can sell 3 not too closely related breeding pairs at this point.

I’ve got one PTO day and will be using that to make a dump run, refill the trailer with compost and if there’s time, off load the compost in the tunnel and go get a load of white oak from the local stave factory. They’ll fill the 20 foot trailer for $20. Cheap firewood.

She has the ultimate nagging woman voice

Ahh, Shishito. Definitely saveable and grow-able as they are an heirloom. Those seeds I’m saving this year are from store bought plants. We’ll have Shishito peppers next year.(and the year after and year after and ....)

Sorry, it's a thing I do

Mexican Chicken Rice Soup (Caldo Cantina)
World class deliciousness. Use plenty of lime, onion and cilantro; can use veg stock.

Ingredients:

• 6 cups chicken stock,
• 1⁄4 cup long-grain rice s/p
• 1 cup diced fresh tomato
• 1⁄2 cup minced white onion,
• 1 cup diced cooked chicken, can use leftover or store-bought rotisserie
• 1⁄4 cup or more fresh lime juice
• 1⁄2 cup chopped cilantro (or more to taste) minced jalapeno (or other chilies, to taste)

Steps:
Bring stock to boil on med-high.
Add rice, s/p; lower heat; bubble-cook, stirring, til rice is tender, 20 min.
Meanwhile, combine vegs, chicken, lime juice, cilantro and chilies. Place in bowl. When soup is ready, ladle it into bowls. Taste; adjust seasoning if necessary.

Only thing I’ve ever heard that about is people saying they do something to potatoes to prevent growing them but if they’ll sprout eyes, they’ll make plants and all the ones I buy will sprout eyes.

What generally makes seed useful for saving is that it has to be from non-hybrids. Hybrids won’t breed true because the grandparent plants are four different varieties.

Seed needs to be from heirloom plants. One variety for parents, grand parents, great grandparents and on and on.

You can save and sprout/grow hybrid seeds but you never know what you’ll get. I had volunteer cherry tomatoes from the prior year’s hybrid plants one time. Different colors and sizes and none were as good as the hybrid.

Hoping she’ll get body slammed less during the games?

He needs downers like Biden needs uppers

Oh good gawd, he went to proud how he handled “the pandemic”. I sure hope RFK Jr can educate him.

https://x.com/i/events/1833572995433914368

ABC news live on X