N & C Midwest: May 2016!

Scorpio Rising wrote:Yeah, I am looking at those lightweight coiling type "as seen on TV" hoses.  No idea if they are any good, but my friend has one and she likes it.  She has much less garden however.  

Those are the ones that exploded on me. I tried 3 times before I gave up but they must have fixed the problem by now. My experience was 3 years ago. I don't think they'd still be around if they were still blowing up. 

Oh who knows, CN, people keep buying things whether they work or not because they personally haven't had the experience of the failure! What part exploded? Like they would fill up and just blow apart?

Scorpio Rising wrote:Oh who knows, CN, people keep buying things whether they work or not because they personally haven't had the experience of the failure!  What part exploded?  Like they would fill up and just blow apart?

Yup. They couldn't handle the pressure. If you try one, make sure you can take it back if it doesn't last.

I will keep my receipt! Good advice....will let ya know! If they work, it would be great!

Scorpio Rising wrote:I will keep my receipt!  Good advice....will let ya know!  If they work, it would be great!

If it works for you, I might try again.

Yeah, CN, will def keep track! Got all my flowers containers, today. And still planning the big planters...that is heavy lifting.

Stuff is growing. Not sure if I will ever do the lay down tomato method again...they at
Re still sideways ish

Only thing I still need to get in the MM is my last 6 plants: 4 melons and 2 gifted maters! I have 2 each watermelons and muskmelons. Would you mix them in a planter, or put both watermelons and both muskmelons together? Are the plants similar? I have never grown a melon before! THey are Minnesota Midget muskmelons. I assume the watermelon plants will be larger? True?

And the maters are really small, 6 inches tall. No idea of variety....they will look silly in those 24" diameter pots. LOL

CapeCoddess wrote:
I also don't like putting City water on my plants and so I fill buckets and let the chlorine evaporate overnight and use that water to water with. It's a royal pain! But what else can you do? I can't use a rain barrel because of the type of shingles I have. There is a filter you can attach to a garden hose that I've been thinking about getting. The reviews are mixed so I'm not sure how well it would work. Meanwhile I just keep telling myself that bucket watering is good exercise. And I love the results!

CC, I ended up using one of those outdoor water filters (designed for camping), because my rain barrels can't deliver enough pressure to run my drip irrigation contraptions. I'm with you, I hate giving my plants chlorinated city water, so I figured the filter is at least better than not treating my water at all. My plants are doing GREAT with the water that comes through it.

Suzy wrote:I have a dear friend that wants to hang out on Tuesday, so she is going to come help me finish planting my garden tomorrow.    She's an apartment dweller, so no garden to play in. She will happily help me put in seeds and plantlets and create my bean trellis... so we can go shopping on Tuesday! WHEEEE!

Rain is forecast for the rest of the week, on and off... so the timing is perfect. 

Good kind of friend to have, Suzy! If your apartment dweller friend has a sunny balcony, she may want to try container gardening.

landarch wrote:rain, rain, rain, tornadoes, rain, more rain...I think my Mels Mix may be void of nutrients after all this...severe storms and flood warnings forecast for the next couple days.  Hopeully tomatoes and cukes don't get ravaged with disease.

Same here, we got about 4 inches of rain this last week, and about 5-6 inches the week before. Still not quite as much as last year, so I'm very thankful for that! I decided not to wait this year for my plants to stop showing any signs of growth before adding some fertilizer, though. They've all got such great momentum going now, I'd hate to let them skip a beat.

So... remember a while back, when I was so proudly showing off the critter cages I built for my SFG beds?  Well.  They work great.  Until, that is, some of the plants - in this case the potatoes - get tall enough to hit the top, and it becomes necessary to remove them.  There are also onions and carrots in this bed.

I knew there would be a risk of the rabbits going after the carrots.  (I don't think they like onions or potatoes much.)  So I've been watching for signs of nibbling on the carrot stalks, and so far, nothing.

Until tonight... did they start eating my carrots?  Oh no.  Much worse.  Mama put a nest right in the bed, in a square just adjacent to the carrots.  (She must have been thinking, "OMG - I can't believe my dumb luck finding this spot, we are set for the summer!")  What called my attention to it was, when I turned on the irrigation, some water was squirting out, as though there was a leak.  I found one of the 1/4-inch tubes bitten off.  Then I found... fur.  Very soft rabbit fur.  Then, this...


I lifted up some of the fur and verified there are indeed babies in there.

One day at a time...

CitizenKate wrote:So... remember a while back, when I was so proudly showing off the critter cages I built for my SFG beds?  Well.  They work great.  Until, that is, some of the plants - in this case the potatoes - get tall enough to hit the top, and it becomes necessary to remove them.  There are also onions and carrots in this bed.

I knew there would be a risk of the rabbits going after the carrots.  (I don't think they like onions or potatoes much.)  So I've been watching for signs of nibbling on the carrot stalks, and so far, nothing.

Until tonight... did they start eating my carrots?  Oh no.  Much worse.  Mama put a nest right in the bed, in a square just adjacent to the carrots.  (She must have been thinking, "OMG - I can't believe my dumb luck finding this spot, we are set for the summer!")  What called my attention to it was, when I turned on the irrigation, some water was squirting out, as though there was a leak.  I found one of the 1/4-inch tubes bitten off.  Then I found... fur.  Very soft rabbit fur.  Then, this...


I lifted up some of the fur and verified there are indeed babies in there.

One day at a time...

Oh. My. Unbelievable! She had to have thought she had landed in bunny heaven! Lol....but, not. Wow. Ethical dilemma.....we had an unfortunate toad incident earlier this week, can't talk about it just yet.....

Scorpio Rising wrote:

CitizenKate wrote:
Mama put a nest right in the bed, in a square just adjacent to the carrots.  (She must have been thinking, "OMG - I can't believe my dumb luck finding this spot, we are set for the summer!")  What called my attention to it was, when I turned on the irrigation, some water was squirting out, as though there was a leak.  I found one of the 1/4-inch tubes bitten off.  Then I found... fur.  Very soft rabbit fur.  Then, this...
I lifted up some of the fur and verified there are indeed babies in there.

One day at a time...

Oh.  My.  Unbelievable!  She had to have thought she had landed in bunny heaven!  Lol....but, not.  Wow.  Ethical dilemma.....we had an unfortunate toad incident earlier this week, can't talk about it just yet.....

Had a close call with a frog today. Found her this morning with her leg scraped up and stuck in the deer netting fence. She was stuck in the sun and probably exhausted because she was (to her benefit) limp as I extracted her and took her down to the creek.  She found the energy to hop out of my hands as I had her almost to the ground, and then into the creek. I bet the cool wet felt very good after having been stuck in the hot sun. I hope she heals up okay. I have no idea how she got in the garden! I finally got the last non-SFG flower bed dug and the grass cut down (by hand, with shears) so I could get the fence up/down(the grass had lifted it up as it grew) on Thursday, and I don't know if she was hiding in the tall grass before that, or found her way in through one of the gates.

Back to the rabbits - my dad found a nest in are garden once (after stepping on it   and killing one - it was right in the path where the grass clippings got dumped and not at all obvious) and the mom moved them either that night or the next. This was two decades ago, so I don't remember clearly. I hope your rabbit mom moves her babies out of your garden!

Can the rabbits be relocated near the beds but not into them? Frogs, toads, and lizards - hate to hurt them also.

sanderson wrote:Can the rabbits be relocated near the beds but not into them?  Frogs, toads, and lizards - hate to hurt them also.

I posted a reply to this in the June thread.