Gardening and Plant Thread

[one_time_user]

I still have not one single flower but I do have baby skunks wandering around with no mother in sight at 4pm in broad daylight. They came right up to me and tried to follow me into the house - and that was AFTER my dog tried to kill them.

I called the game warden, haven't heard back. Really need them gone if there's no mom because of reasons. I don't want dead baby skunks. I also need to take my dog out once in a while.

Good news is that I can enjoy my no flowers, baby skunks yard when I can get out the door because no mosquitoes. Really can't recommend mosquito buckets enough.

Apparently beneficial nematodes kill ticks in addition to the wonderful other things they do!

 

[Big Miss Steak]

I still have not one single flower but I do have baby skunks wandering around with no mother in sight at 4pm in broad daylight. They came right up to me and tried to follow me into the house - and that was AFTER my dog tried to kill them.

I called the game warden, haven't heard back. Really need them gone if there's no mom because of reasons. I don't want dead baby skunks. I also need to take my dog out once in a while.

Good news is that I can enjoy my no flowers, baby skunks yard when I can get out the door because no mosquitoes. Really can't recommend mosquito buckets enough.

Apparently beneficial nematodes kill ticks in addition to the wonderful other things they do!
View attachment 7567137

What mosquito bucket do you use, or do you make your own? My brother is dealing with horrific mosquitoes at his new home.

 

[one_time_user]

What mosquito bucket do you use, or do you make your own? My brother is dealing with horrific mosquitoes at his new home.

I made my own. 5 of them for under... $40?

It took about a week before I saw the difference.

mosquito buckets of doom! super easy, pretty cost efficient and it's like spaying our mosquito population .
you just need :

• a bucket (or more depending on the size of your yard)
• a bunch of lawn clippings
• mosquito bits or a broken up mosquito dunk
• wire or plastic mesh (so you don't accidentally catch chipmunks, snakes, dragonflies etc)
• big rubberbands and or zip ties to hold the mesh securely across the top of the bucket
• water

that's it! the science behind it is that if you make a place that's super attractive to female mosquitoes to lay their eggs they'll do it there (the bucket ). The clippings and water make it swampy and the mosquito bits/ broken dunks kill the larvae by not allowing them to grow to adulthood .

you will see swimming and dead larvae, that means it's working. every larvae that doesn't grow into a mosquito is a win- and she's going to lay those eggs somewhere, it may as well be somewhere that will kill the larvae.

the bits/ dunks are not harmful to anything except mosquitos you just need to make sure there's always water in the bucket and change the water ,clippings and dunk monthly as it will begin to smell and the dunks will also run out.

I used:
Buckets

Dunks

Mesh

And giant rubberbands I snagged from the office. The mesh comes with zip ties

 

[Aunt Carol]

a big queen anne's lace patch

A pretty flower but I personally hate the burrs from the seeds; they get on my socks and/or the cats, forever.

I do like how easy Queen Anne's Lace is to weed (as long as you protect yourself from the toxic sap): central taproot comes right out, smelling like a carrot.

 

[Jhonson the Two]

A pretty flower but I personally hate the burrs from the seeds; they get on my socks and/or the cats, forever.

I do like how easy Queen Anne's Lace is to weed (as long as you protect yourself from the toxic sap): central taproot comes right out, smelling like a carrot.

Is it wild carrot? If so I have plenty around my village, it's very bucolic I love it.
Today my lavender got a visit! Wanted to share this little joy since I have a tarred courtyard with high walls.

 

[femboy fart huffer]

I try to love big flying yellow fellas but man they have some of the worst spacial awareness of any insect, only slightly better than craneflies. The amount of times I go for a walk and have to do some fucking evasive maneuvers, especially as half the places around here give you no choice other than to walk on the road so kinda not ideal to be trying to run away from.

And as if it was a fucking sign from god some massive hornet literally just flew in through my window, luckily it just kinda hovered there and fucked back off out the window. Shit sucks because I literally cannot use any wasp spray in my room because of the aquarium and I don't have any bug zapper big enough for a fucking hornet. Idk maybe I need to get a pet owl or some shit to eat them.

 

[Big Miss Steak]

Idk maybe I need to get a pet owl or some shit to eat them.

Get screening over your window?

I saw a bee and several butterflies visiting my mint (which I have allowed to bloom), tropical sage, and leavenworth's tickseed.

 

[GungusDingaling]

I have more mini tomatoes than we can eat, any fun suggestions (beyond canning, which we plan on doing) on recipes/preserving?

Ate my first Big Jim pepper the other day, it was great! Spicy but not overwhelmingly, and had a great flavor. Excited for more to come in, we have some ideas for recipes. Habenero just got moved because it wasn’t producing/doing well in the small pot we had it in, hopefully it will start producing soon

 

[I was a Teenage “JA”-man]

Pumpkins are doing great even in the summer heat! Watering them in the morning, seeing a couple of spider webs and ladybugs around the vines so I have natural pest control for now!

 

[Jhonson the Two]

I have more mini tomatoes than we can eat, any fun suggestions (beyond canning, which we plan on doing) on recipes/preserving?

Ate my first Big Jim pepper the other day, it was great! Spicy but not overwhelmingly, and had a great flavor. Excited for more to come in, we have some ideas for recipes. Habenero just got moved because it wasn’t producing/doing well in the small pot we had it in, hopefully it will start producing soon

You can make tomato sauce and put it in flat storage bags to put in the freezer. You just have to re-heat them for a quick bolognese or a tomato based pizza.

 

[Big Miss Steak]

A bad storm tipped over my topiary rose, dumping soil all over the place

 

[CreedAndWrenches]

Pumpkins are doing great even in the summer heat! Watering them in the morning, seeing a couple of spider webs and ladybugs around the vines so I have natural pest control for now!

It’s looking like it’ll be a great summer for pumpkins, got 8 different vines growing in the patch this year. Last year I couldn’t even get one to grow.

 

[Sperg_rancher]

This is a continuation of my post asking for help with my apple trees. https://kiwifarms.net/threads/gardening-and-plant-thread.10883/post-19028329

Most of my apple trees are strung up like so:
View attachment 6313878
Held more or less in place with bungees, and each gets a small circle of hay mulch. I regularly remove these plants you see around them. This was taken shortly before weed whipping.

This is because in heavy winds they like to tip. Like I said, in the first post the root ball for these guys looks fine:
View attachment 6313879

There does appear to be less bark, but I'm not sure otherwise.
The honey crisp trees seem to be in double jeopardy right now. Firstly with the japanese beetles munching their leaves:

View attachment 6313893

but also with some strange fungus / bacteria that seems to be rotting the leaves:
View attachment 6313899

As you can see, there's a bit of nitrogen deficiency in the leaves, I'm treating this with KNO3 (43-0-13) and slow release 14-7-7

View attachment 6313905

Post in thread 'How hard it is to become a small scale farmer?'

Aug 20, 2024

are hobby farms large enough to feed a small family at least?

If you can farm 1 acre / person, you'll satisfy 70% of your caloric needs with high yield crops like potatoes and corn. This is without livestalk.
My goal is 33% of my caloric needs (b/c I want to grow low-yield crops too like spices) and I'm struggling to hit 10% on my acre right now (it's also my first serious year so YMMV).

• Sperg_rancher

• 

Look at that, I caught em in the act!



So in short the apple trees are having a really rough go at it rn and I'm not sure really what to do about them tipping over, getting eaten by the beetles, and getting fungal infections. If there are any experts around please let me know if there's anything I can improve.

Update on the trees.
They are MUCH happier this year, but are still struggling hard. two are still doing rather poorly, but the other 2 are very well established. It turns out that the soil drainage is incredibly poor, leading to sick and diseased roots.

The soil is only ~2 feet above the water table, <12 in when it rains heavily.
If anyone has ideas on how to improve drainage definitely LMK. I think I'm going to start with Gypsum, but I'm at a loss as to what the hell should come next. Soil is clay, so I can't add sand.
Many thanks to the folks who had suggestions last year, I tried most of them to varying degrees of success, and I'm very grateful.

 

[River possum]

I have been harvesting raspberries, blackberries and wine berries from my yard in order to make my own wine. I also have apple mint in my yard, I was thinking about putting a few leaves of it in the mix during fermentation. Can anyone tell me is this is a good idea or nah?

 

[Jhonson the Two]

I have been harvesting raspberries, blackberries and wine berries from my yard in order to make my own wine. I also have apple mint in my yard, I was thinking about putting a few leaves of it in the mix during fermentation. Can anyone tell me is this is a good idea or nah?

Mint is a flavor you can find when tasting some wines so it won't be a disgusting mess, it add some nice spiciness.
But I don't know if the mint flavor will stay if put at the fermentation stage. Since the worst that can happen is your wine not catching the apple mint maybe you can try different techniques -maceration, fermentation, mother tincture, infusion, etc- in one batch?
TBH I'm really curious, I hope you'll doing it in the name of sciences lol

Other topic:
Do any kiwi have a recomended way to preserve fresh basil? I tried the freezer and the oil ones but I don't want to use my small fridge this time, it take to much space.

 

[Flan Handler]

Do any kiwi have a recomended way to preserve fresh basil?

If I’m feeling rich I pick up some pecorino or parmigiana and pine nuts, and make some pesto. Better than anything I can buy. I usually put it in everything for about six weeks a year, until I get tired of it/run out.

 

[Leather Gliscor]

July Garden Update:
Everything looks good! Was too late to plant my June seeds No pumpkins and sunflowers this year, but that's okay. I'll focus on perennial flowers. My granadero tomatoes are doing fantastic, except for a few hornworms but they were easy to remove. Lathyrus and morning glories EVERYWHERE. No flowers yet, surprisingly. The little ruby fig, rhubarb, and blueberry bush are doing their own thing and it's all working. The house has been surrounded with an army of Mirabilis and it looks great. Put some asteraceous plants (zinnias, blanket flowers) in a bed typically invaded by thistle and groundsels and they're doing fantastic. Replacing asteraceous plants with other asteraceous plants always works. Speaking of which, the marigolds from last year self seeded in the vegetable bed, and they also look great! Looks like a compact form with orange and yellow flowers. Planted my own larger marigolds with them and they get along just fine. It's my first year growing onions from bulbs, not sure what they're doing. Made sure they're watered every time I go out there. They're alive and look plumper every day, but also like green spaghetti between the marigolds. All in all, a bountiful growing season.

 

[Soyjack Pinhead]

the marigolds from last year self seeded

Lovely! The milkweed that I planted last year self-seeded too. Makes me irrationally happy.

 

[Justsomecicada]

Anyone have any tips for growing some of the stranger berries like cloudberries?

I’m pretty experienced with bog plants at this point i want to try something new

 

[Anasa Tristis]

the bits/ dunks are not harmful to anything except mosquitos

Sort of. Skeeter dunks are BTI (bacillus israelensis) which targets fly larva. If you have trouble with fungus gnats, or onion maggots, watering with a skeeter dunk solution works for those too.

any fun suggestions (beyond canning, which we plan on doing) on recipes/preserving?

Invest in a dehydrator. Even the cheaper ones work fine. I dry and store a few jars of dried cherry tomatoes every year and they are da bomb in homemade mac and cheese, frittatas, chili, etc.

a recomended way to preserve fresh basil?

Another good one for dehydrating. Wicked easy too. Just wash, spin and lay out the leaves on the screens and they crush up nice after drying. Home dried basil (or any home grown herb really, parsley, dill, etc.) is so much better than store bought. Do it once and you'll never go back. Great for gifts too.