What did you do in the garden today?

[TJAnonymous]

How typical! Our spouses only seem to get around to fixing certain annoyances, after we bring up the possibility of paying a professional to do the job.
I need to threaten Mr. Dog with hiring somebody to fix the lights in the kitchen and hallway, and replace the gutter by the back door, then he will pause his YouTube videos long enough to take few hours and do what he is more than capable of doing.

Here's the newest addition to our family:View attachment 3370709
Sarah (about 1 year old) showed up at my horses' barn a couple weeks before I moved my horses to a new barn. She's cuddly and affectionate and has the loudest purr, but can be spicy at being held or confined.
Our small-animal vet is also a horse owner, so she totally understands how we got her: "when you leave a barn, you've gotta pick up one or two barn cats at the same time, right?"
Sarah's been an indoor cat at our house since Thanksgiving, but now that she's had her vaccinations, been spayed and microchipped, she can go outside with our 2-year-old formerly feral orange kitty Pumpkin - it's amazing how well the two of them get along.
It amazes us even more, since we are definitely dog-type people, who've had cats in the distant past but dogs for the past 20 years, and here we are enjoying and appreciating these two kitties so much.

What a pretty baby! We have several strays that lurk around our barn. Plenty of barn mice & rats out there! I'd rather have barn cats than snakes, honestly. None are people friendly although I've tried. Here's one that was hiding out in a tree a few days ago. I tried to bribe her/him to come down with hot food but it wouldn't budge. Came down hours later on its own. I saw it this morning hanging around the duck coop and upsetting my ducks. None of the strays have ever tried to attack my chickens as far as I know but I do worry that they will attack baby chicks.

As for the 4 wheeler, DH fixed it in like 10 minutes... Aggravating that I had to threaten to hire someone to get him to do it! Of course he's been wanting me to fix the sweeper for a couple of days now and I just haven't gotten around to it yet. Karma...

 

[TJAnonymous]

I have decided to replace my raspberries with thornless raspberries. I bought thornless black last year. I plan to order Glenco thornless purple. I still need to decide on a thornless red. I could use suggestions.

I picked up a Glencoe off the clearance rack for a couple of dollars. Had no idea at the time that it was thornless. Trying to decide where I want to plant it...

 

[TJAnonymous]

I pruned the thorns off the lemon tree today. Tired of looking like I wrestled a mountain lion... Picked off a few more citrus scale but I'm hoping they were just dead ones from the last time I treated it. I will probably spray it again on Wednesday.

 

[jerryse]

None of the thornless reds seem to like my cold. I had one that made it two years, and it was a hard two years dothan or doorman, something like that.
I do grand with the thornless blacks though, Arapahoe

Doorman is part Japanese wineberry. Moore of a southern variety. I am thinking Joan J.

 

[vall]

Both seed orders (Baker Creek & Johnny's) shipped promptly last week and arrived today. Free seed was a tiny tomato called spoon which looks suspiciously like the everglades tomato I refuse to grow.

The weekend was productive, I tilled and amended my second 10x10 plot and planted a bunch of winter/spring veggies. No critters dug it up when I checked this morning so that is a good start. I did start spraying the first 10x10 with BT because I've got caterpillars already.

 

[Ascholten]

Ive done the fish emulsion fertilizer before. basically dead fish, cover with sugar, don't have to be brown, i get the cheapest i can find at the restaurant depot at the time, and let stew for some months then take out the liquid. a little goes a LONG way, like a teaspoon will be plenty for any well growing plant, it is incredibly powerful. along those paths I have found that collecting the tea from my totes works too. Ill have a tote or two with a constant toss of stuff to decompose, with also includes some form of bird poop, and now tilapia, after stewing several months the liquid, from the rain that collects in the bottom I siphon off and use as fertilizer. it does wonders as well. I also suck the liquid off and just re pour it back i nto the same tote to keep moist and like re kickstart it. works along with turning the contents when I can.

Right now I got close to 1000 gallons of high concentrate compost tea here. I'll usually throw about 5 gallons into 55 gallons when I water and it keeps everything very healthy. I am going to start towards the end of the month with the nutrient waterings to get the fruit trees nice and happy for the growing season. The main issue i have is, what will the weather do. I don't want to get them lush green then head straight into a hard frost for 2 days and burn them off. Some trees can handle it, many won't.

 

[igorsMistress]

Hey all. Love to see everyone getting excited to start gardening! A tiny bit early here, but I can’t do a garden this year anyway so I’ll live vicariously thru y’al! Nothing happening here, got a dusting of snow overnight so I can’t leave the house.

My staples come out on Thurs, my gosh I cannot wait! Sleeping on them is uncomfortable & man I’m dying for a real, full on shower! DH took me to the grocery store yesterday, my first time out in public, that was like a big, fun adventure.

So good to hear from you! I had a hard time keeping DH home after surgery. He was uncomfortable sitting, uncomfortable standing, uncomfortable laying down. So he went with me everywhere and it took us two hours to grocery shop because those electric carts are so s l o o o o w w w w w. He was definitely ready for a shower too.

Will you be able to bend over after you heal? Hubs has limited bending capacity and has a 40 lb weight limit forever. Funny, sometimes he’ll grab the 50 lb bags of feed, other times he reminds me it’s over his weight limit

 

[WthrLady]

I'm in studio moving hades over here.
Everything from both rooms is piled in the center of each room
I was going to patch nail holes, lightly brush on touch up paint and move on.
NOPE, paint is so faded after 3 years in one room, and ONE year in the other that I have to repaint all walls. ARGH I am so achy and still have one full room to go today.
LUCKILY, BEHR paint is repaying me for the 3 gallons from the first paintjob and sending me a voucher for the one I just bought, and then another for an additional gallon for future. It should not have faded!
To add insult to injury, A mouse in somewhere in my new studio. I don't know how it got in, I don't know where it is, or why, but traps will be out EVERYWHERE tonight. They can be all over the ranch, but NOT in my house. Those are the rules. Harsh, but nope, cannot do it.

 

[TJAnonymous]

Both seed orders (Baker Creek & Johnny's) shipped promptly last week and arrived today. Free seed was a tiny tomato called spoon which looks suspiciously like the everglades tomato I refuse to grow.

The weekend was productive, I tilled and amended my second 10x10 plot and planted a bunch of winter/spring veggies. No critters dug it up when I checked this morning so that is a good start. I did start spraying the first 10x10 with BT because I've got caterpillars already.

I got the same tomato freebie packet. I doubt I'll plant it because I don't need them but out of curiosity why do you refuse?

I haven't seen any caterpillars but there are wasps flying around.

 

[TJAnonymous]

@WthrLady and @Ascholten - one of the two of you (or maybe both...) were giving me some advice on the irrigation system. I can't remember who. Now that I'm getting closer to purchasing, I wanted to remember what you said. I will have 7 lines branching off the main line that's hooked to the source. I still have to go out and measure each line but the lines across the main garden and tire beds are about 20 ft each in length. The raised beds that flank each side of the garden are approximately 25 ft on the east side and more like 80 ft (guessing) on the west side. However the main line will actually 'T' into that west side so each leg would be like 40 ft in both directions from that T.

Anyway, I need to get the drill kit to put in a well and pump down there. That has to be done by end of February. That leaves me the month of March to get the lines, fittings, and emitters bought and assembled.