California - What are you doing this month?

Audrey,  I have managed to kill all the straw berries either by drowning or drying out.    I would think that you could transplant them now with maybe a little shade protection until they get their roots re-established. ??

What heat wave?  It's only been in the high 90's recently.  Down right balmy.     Well, today is suppose to reach 103*F.  Glad I turned the compost last night.  Today I have to start emptying 2 more original on-the-ground boxes for DH to raise. One has a worm tube that is open to the dirt below. I wonder how many red wigglers vs. earth worms I will find. The other worm tube box was closed bottom under the tube and I found way more earth worms than red worms. Go figure.

I just cut the water to my 27 sq. ft.strawberry bed. They have been showing signs of stress from my inability to keep them watered enough with the scorching summer heat. I had used a row cover canopy to shade them from the sun this summer, but keeping the shades from going air-born in the wind was a hassle, so my wife convinced me it's time to say bye-bye to the berries.  I will miss the vine ripened ever-bearing strawberries a lot; I'd pick hand fulls for breakfast every other day. I figured that with the stress, disease will follow, so I pulled them to keep any soil-born diseases from taking up residence in the bed.  When the drought ends, they will be the first thing I put back in.

YS, My heart breaks for you. Fresh strawberries and cantaloupe are my favorite summer fruits. But you have to do what you have to do in this drought. I think of farmers having to decide to turn off the water and let their orchards or fields die. Or only save certain areas. Let's pray for El Nino rains.

Yardslave wrote:I just cut the water to my 27 sq. ft.strawberry bed. They have been showing signs of stress from my inability to keep them watered enough with the scorching summer heat. I had used a row cover canopy to shade them from the sun this summer, but keeping the shades from going air-born in the wind was a hassle, so my wife convinced me it's time to say bye-bye to the berries.  I will miss the vine ripened ever-bearing strawberries a lot; I'd pick hand fulls for breakfast every other day. I figured that with the stress, disease will follow, so I pulled them to keep any soil-born diseases from taking up residence in the bed.  When the drought ends, they will be the first thing I put back in.

The strawberries I'm going to move are in my SFG table top.  It gets too much shade for them that's why I'm going to move them.  Interestingly though, my best strawberries this year have been the newest transplants into my newest hillside garden - basic soil with 2 inches of compost and 4 inches of wood chips (that's now down to about an inch).  It could be because it's decomposed granite and clay so it both holds water and drains well.  

They're in direct sun, watered once every 3 days in 100+ degree heat.  I'm thinking of transplanting the ones in my raised table top to under my cottonwood tree that's stealing the water from everything else in the garden.  If they don't grow it's no big deal, if they do, I'll move the regular garden further down the hillside.  


The squash were planted 4 feet above the strawberries and have spilled over on to them, below is a new crop of weeds.  I have zero weeds anywhere the wood chips are, but this area is bald so we keep having to weed there (guess who is over due?!)

I just finished yanking the last of the strawberries and discovered something interesting. I had used a little Mykos@ mycorrhiza innoculant when I planted because of claims that it made the plants more vigorous and required less water. I couldn't tell if it worked or not because the berries were producing great. Well, after cutting the water off and finally getting around to pulling up the plants, I found that the last stragglers, that just wouldn't give up, all had roots covered with the white mycorryza fungus. I guess it had something to do with the plant's refusing to wither and die. I'm going to slip some of those roots into my worm tea brewer and see if I can get it to join in with the rest of the party in the brewer.

YS, are you going to pour a little brew into each bed?

I hope that I can spread the mycorrhiza around to other beds. I tossed a mushroom and some whole wheat flower into a batch that I watered into my lawn to try to detox the soil from all the chemicals that the previous owners used and it worked- 'shrooms popped up everywhere!, so I'm hopeful that the brewer will do it's magic on the mycorrhiza- the only trick is to get some water on the beds to get them going.

Where does the whole wheat figure into the attempt to detoxify your soil?

Whole wheat was added to give the fungus the complex sugars and cellulose they love (not just the regularity that fiber offers ). Mushroom growers often inoculate their spores in jars of moist grain, so I thought that maybe a little flour in the compost tea would give the mushroom spores and mycorrhiza a better chance to propagate.

Just asking. . . would raw milk solution do the same thing?

I don't think fungi like milk much as it is an organic alternative to chemical fungicides. I've used it to combat powdery mildew on squash and it zaps the fungus pretty well. It can be sprayed (along with a little baking soda) on plums, nectarines and peaches to prevent brown spot fungus outbreaks which ruin fruit production.

 Didn't read your comment close enough for why you were using wheat.

Well, I hurt my back today moving the newly raised boxes around with DH. I guess I get the evening off. Red box tonight?

I'm glad I turned the compost for the 7th time last night. Today it is 27 days old. I don't think I like using whole bedding straw as a brown for a Berkeley pile. There is a lot, and I mean a lot of straw in there, per volume probably over 1/2.

Sorry you hurt your back. I think I have to take it for granted that I'm going to hurt my back no matter what I do, and just live with it.

Why don't you like using bedding straw in a Berkeley pile? Because it mats up into a big mass and gets hard to turn and move around?

It's 76*F right now.  Down right chilly for a sleeveless top.  My back is better so I'm off to work outside.

PS:  Just had a little shower.  Just enough to make a mess of things without cleaning them.

You got a shower we got about 10 drops, LOL!  Oh well, the cloud cover made it cool enough to enjoy my hand watering chore in the garden this morning.  I've got a new infestation of aphids in my greenhouse so I'll have to break out the sprayer this evening.

I bought the round up brand sprayer and am really liking it.  It's so much easier to spray under the leaves with it.  A good investment for $23 I think.

Weather forecast of six (6) days of 100*F +. I thought we were done with those.

sanderson wrote:It's 76*F right now.  Down right chilly for a sleeveless top.  My back is better so I'm off to work outside.

Tough chick! You compost-turning monster, you.

Mentioning compost - last night I told my husband he had permission to not let me have a drop of coffee until I took the kitchen compost bin out to the pile.  

Unfortunately, I could NOT get to sleep last night until after 2 AM and he had a dentist appointment in town, so I woke up when he left.  Once awake enough to stumble in the kitchen there was a bright lime green post it note taped to the handle of the coffee pot: 


In case you can't read it, it says, "Please take the compost out... THEN COFFEE"

I thought you guys would get as much of a kick out of it as I did, LOL!

Now that's a nice hint! So, did you take the compost out while the coffee was brewing?

We didn't get a shower per se, but monster raindrops splattering everywhere, stirring up the dust and sticky pollution. The air was dusty so cat and I went inside for a break.

Glad you found a sprayer that is working for you. DH showed me a nice large sprayer with a metal wand that has been in the garage cupboard for a long time. It does not smell like petroleum pesticides, even Neem oil, and is not Round up or pre-emergent, so I am going to triple wash it in the shower and give it a whirl.

He had already brewed the coffee but was holding me to my own words It was truly nasty and full of fruit flies, eeewwwww. But the worms will love it.

I can't remember who on here recommended the Round Up brand sprayer, but it's nicely made and the Home Dept guy said they have great results with them an very few returns.

Glad you found a good sprayer. We can't help who slaps their name on the container, right?

This is a little quiz. It was 103*F today with 104*F forecast for tomorrow. What is Sanderson doing tonight and tomorrow?

sanderson wrote:Glad you found a good sprayer.  We can't help who slaps their name on the container, right?

This is a little quiz.  It was 103*F today with 104*F forecast for tomorrow.  What is Sanderson doing tonight and tomorrow?

Yeah, woke up this morning really really REALLY ready to fee the Fall in the air but it's not quite hear yet (to put it mildly)

Ummmm... let me guess what you're going to be doing.... turning compost?!

You're close.  Emptying the bin in order to build a new one today.  DH has gone to fetch the horse manure.  I'm chopping produce.

I screened the failed Berkeley last night and early this morning.  Look at how much straw I screened out! About 1/3 of the bin or 9 cu. ft.