Figure out what growing zone you are in and then google and you can find a guide that looks like this. This is for zone 9 (my zone). If you're worried about it being too hot you can always start it indoors and wait for it to cool down before transplanting.
Lol, you reminded me of a spider Mrs. Greybeard found in our cherry tomatos. She was done for the day at this point...
1/3rd of my family in for an end of the outside season family photo. The other 2/3rd are too large to fit or up on shelves enjoying their time. These guys are scheduled for my bedroom.
Got around to extracting honey again this weekend. Not much honey production in the mountains this year, so I ended up with around 7 more gallons. My dad and 5 year old helped with extracting honey. From both extractions this year.
Does anyone here have experience with mason or leafcutter bees? I'm seriously considering renting them next year to help with pollination.
Got some sweet potatoes, including this massive one. Others were mush and the carrots didn't do so hot either.
Yeah, about 6 times. But we had a lot of rain at the start after we planted and it turned the garden rock hard in some places. Still have clay in the garden some and we went a little heavy on dumping the sheep manure into the garden. We'll do better next year.
The owner in our chain of title who laid out the landscaping had a preternatural green thumb but a complete lack of spatial awareness and total disregard for climate zones. Combine that groundwork with a LadyPokes who refuses to consider cut/replacing anything and I’m constantly trying to keep dueling plants alive and resuscitate plants that aren’t suppose to live here. Cue my newest project, a bird of paradise that’s growing gangbusters by eating its neighbor’s sunlight while benefiting from their shade on its roots. I hated to do it but I culled all of its children except for a few and in the process of doing so I realized I could use the healthy leaves to insulate the flowerbeds from our skin-searing UV rays. Hey Sunlight! Hey you motherfucker!
Looks like a banana spider, IMO, we’ve got tons of them in our yard. Scared the crap out of me too. If so they’re completely harmless.
I have a couple of jalapeño plants on my deck that are starting to fruit for a second round. It looks like it’s gonna be a better harvest than the first round of peppers. A little worried about it getting too cold before they’re ready. How cold is too cold? Dropped into the 40s this weekend but will be warm again this week. TIA
I usually just let mine keep producing til they die in the late fall / winter. I am in the same boat with my production as well.
Peppers don't like cold. You say "on your deck." Does that mean they are in pots, and you can bring them inside maybe when it gets cold? If so could bring them inside at night and leave out when its warm and maybe you can keep em going a bit longer.
Furthermore if you have a grow light, wouldn't hurt to give it extra light. If you don't have one, get one that can do blue and red light indepedently. Red light is what helps promote flowering/fruiting while blue is more for getting seeds established and growing. You can get them pretty cheap on amazon. I have one that's like this and use it to start my seeds when conditions aren't right outside yet.
I was cleaning up a section of the garden and took the mower over my peppers... if you want to clear your sinuses, that’s a great way to do it.
Has anyone been able to rid of indoor fungus gnats? I've tried mosquito bits. I am about to repot (67 indoor plants) everything at this point.
Wisconsinite My crimson sky climbing rose really took off this year after planting it mid season Someone check me if I'm wrong, but to winterize it successfully (in a place where it will snow and be sub 32 degrees nearly every day) , I should wait for first frost, cut it down 12-18 inches above nodes, mound up a pile of dirt around the base, and cover it with something. Does a burlap cover work? Or I was thinking a chicken wire cylinder around it with straw of pine needles inside for insulation.
Had the first lambs of the fall born. Should only get a few this fall, but the girls enjoyed them and the dogs wouldn't leave their side.
Had our first lamb of the winter. Unfortunately it's twin was stillborn, so just the one. Should have a bunch more over the next month or two.
The ewe above had a third lamb that was also stillborn. The lamb above ended up dying too. Had 2 more born this morning.
We have a few theories. We got some new barn cats and one possibility is toxoplasmosis. It can cause problems in sheep just like with pregnant women. Each lamb has its own placenta. We think they all separated on that ewe at the same time, so the last 2 died due to that. It could have just been a one off too. If we have this happen with other ewes it'll probably be the culprit.
I knew about it for people because I had to always change the cat litter box when we had indoor cats while my wife was pregnant. We didn't know about it in sheep until we posted what happened and someone suggested it. Same thing the guy died of in Trainspotting.
Two more sets of twins born over the last week. Up to 8 (living) lambs now. Also paid off the tractor last week. Nice to not have that payment anymore.
Clearing a sloped .75 acre spot for aesthetics and future storage building location. Felled everything and started pushing piles a month ago. Decided to move the pile into a gully rather than burn somewhere I couldn't easily get water too, with trees still around. Tractor earned its keep this morning. What a mud pit. The ground hasn't frozen enough to make this task very viable yet, and I made a helluva mess. Ideally I'd get it rough cleaned, fell a couple more trees, grade, dig footers, and remove stumps before spring, so bush hogging isn't a total PITA next year. Thinking about taking a week off and renting an excavator.
So apparently one of my chickens (or more) has been laying eggs on the wrong end of the coop Found 13 eggs down there today
I don’t have much to add, never ran an excavator, but have messed around trenching with a backhoe and it was really fun. iirc you can rent a mini excavator from Home Depot or SunBelt relatively inexpensively.
I've got about 100 hours on a 12k# excavator. If I rent one, I'd be looking at one larger than that, probably 20k# class. Looking at the project on the whole, I really need a dozer too. Never run one of those before.
Six more born over the last week. The black one has some pretty severe issues, including walking, so we may have to put him down. Has been in and out of the house with the girls.
I can’t remember, are you selling your goats or processing them and selling the meat, or just selling the milk/cheese?
They're sheep, and for now we're just selling them live to people that come pick them up for meat. A Greek restaurant in Georgia's bought a bunch from us. We've processed 1 for ourselves, will probably do another when we process the cow.
Looking for real world grow light recommendations. Leaning toward a 4 foot fixture, but not wedded to the idea. We're going to try starting tomatos, peppers, and eggplant from seed in the next week or two. Any help would be appreciated! Awesome sheep, btw...
Don't do what I did wrong Which I have no idea what that is, but I started like 100 seed pods of pepper and tomatoes last year and zero survived to be in the ground, was my first time starting seeds I suck at starting seeds
interested in this as well because I'm expanding my seedling setup in my garage, and my current light doesn't have a large enough footprint. This is my current light. It worked fine the past couple of years but doing a bit of research last night I'm going to get one that allows you to set different spectrums of light for different growth stages