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Musings on organic gardening, frugal living, the environment, self-sufficiency and whatever else strikes our fancy. 

Tags: gardening, environment, organic, permaculture, green 

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Ta Lu

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 5:48 pm


I'm planning on running a little watering experiment at my house. The soil I have around my house does one of two things, drains fast, or puddles then drains slowly. It dries fast especially on hot days and some spots are too far for the hose.

So this year I'm going to an under ground watering station that involves several bottles of large Cranberry plastic bottles, a funnel, and a bucket of good water.

I'm going to punch holes in the sides, bury it, and keep a portion of the bottle above ground. probably larger fewer holes towards the bottom and a higher density towards the top and mid section. Keeping the cap will prevent mosquitoes and hopefully it will save the issue of water evaporating off faster than it drains or water seeping through the cracks of the shoddy brick work around the patch.

Less dragging that awful hose around and loosing water to misting and I won't be shooting my plants with the jet.

Down falls is the degrade of plastic, :/ But people use plastic buckets for watering and potting, and another down fall would be the space it takes up. But I think it would be more efficient in watering since I can't get a drip system going since no one is willing to be monitor it when I'm not around.

Any other recommendations to improvements, comments, concerns?

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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 6:11 pm


Ta Lu: Do you know what type of soil is present at you house?

HorsesOfTheNight


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PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 6:25 pm


I built another garden for the charity I work with. heart
PostPosted: Tue Apr 26, 2011 8:13 pm


HorsesOfTheNight
Ta Lu: Do you know what type of soil is present at you house?
sandy, its incredibly sandy small sand. and it gets pretty packed when dry or wet. Its definitely has more of a sand quality than clay.

I've removed several inches last year from a plot I plant in and added bagged soil and a half of my compost pile to it. But its still awful.

Sorry I can't provide images right now, I'm away from home.

Ta Lu

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dragon_of_emry

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PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2011 11:37 am


Today I am leaving my parent's house and am going back to mine for a while. Was going to go back Monday or yesterday but there were tornadoes in the area so I stayed in Houston. Saw a report that one hit about 5 min away from my house. Hoping it is still in one piece. (I'm sure it's fine.)

I know there are others here who may have been in the paths of the storms. I want you to know that my heart and prayers are with you and I hope everyone is ok.
PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2011 8:09 pm


Thanks for the good wishes, guys, and I'm glad you're okay! Friend of mine, working on the railroad, was 14 hrs from his house when he found out the little town he lives in was hit by a tornado, and 4 people were killed. The storms today and this evening have been terrible for people in Alabama and east of there. I'm sure I'm not the only one praying for people I don't know. One tornado in your life, and you never look at life the same way again.

Some of the floodwater is going down here, some coming up, depending upon which stream you're talking about. Still couldn't take the normal route to town this morning, but the road was open by this afternoon. Our next chance of storms is this weekend.

@ Ta Lu: We grew a garden in sand when I was growing up in Oklahoma. My granddaddy finally got firehoses! He would flood the garden every few days. We would all be out there in the water and sand past our ankles, weeding and harvesting, enjoying the cool water in the cool of the evening! Looks like your buried bottles should work, and mulch will help conserve the moisture, too. Good luck!

Be safe, Everyone! I care about you! heart

sunsetsmile
Crew


Ta Lu

High-functioning Lunatic

PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2011 8:52 pm


My marimo is loosing mass and started to crack.

Loosened it up and tied it back together with some string.

@Sunset: that sounds incredibly fun! I wish I could flood the little plots of mine!
PostPosted: Wed Apr 27, 2011 9:37 pm


Finally made it home. It looks like I didn't have much damage. A bunch of twigs to pick up, a flipped breaker (which may need replacing) but certainly nothing too bad. At least not as far as the storms are concerned- but I'll get to my unusual problem in a bit.

So, my little retreat is just north of a college town. Almost in the middle of nowhere, but I'm right on the interstate. The is a mid-sized college near me, and then the university is in town about 20 mins away. The news I saw said that a tornado touched down some-what near the mid-sized college, but I didn't see any downed trees or damaged buildings the way I drove. I'll do a closer inspection tomorrow, but from what I understand we got lucky. Apparently the warning sirens went off in town and caused some excitement at the university. One of my friends who hasn't graduated yet said some of his (international) friends wanted to go see the tornado. *facepalm*. It isn't a tourist event! Anyway, there may have been a funnel cloud nearby (hard to tell if stories were exaggerated) but according to all nothing touched down. Definately a reason to be thankful.

Sunset, I am so glad to hear you are ok! Stay safe smile

Ok- now to my wierd problem. So, I was away for a month, come back, and literally have ant beds IN MY BED!!! Very little ones, near the wall. I really would prefer not to call anyone to come spray anything. I can honestly say, though, this one has me stumped. What should I do? Vacuum them up? They don't look like they are on my matress, but should I try to save up to replace it anyway? *Sigh* Looks like I'm going to be sleeping on the couch here, too.

dragon_of_emry

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Ta Lu

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PostPosted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 9:28 am


Currently on a clear food liquid diet right now for a procedure tomorrow. @_@ I remember now why I don't drink apple juice or jello now, they give me headaches!
PostPosted: Thu Apr 28, 2011 10:45 am


@ Ta Lu: It WAS fun!!!!!!!

@ Dragon: Ants, I hate them. We have so many ants this year it's just incredible. I think they're coming in to get out of the water! We use Terro, which helps some---at least it gives them a target, and they flock to it, instead of everything else. It has been my experience that they come to it for so long that I think I'm just feeding them, then they suddenly are gone. I have noticed that there are Terro products for sale for the outside of the house this year, which I never noticed before. The Terro for indoor use is just a boric acid solution, which has been the major weapon against ants for as long as I can remember. I don't know if it's the same formula for outside, probably not. I can tell you that if they're not gone here pretty soon, I will be tempting them outside and then murdering them by whatever means gets the job done. Period. No more Mr. Nice Guy!

Vacuum the bed and move it, check out where they're coming in, and----may the best man win. This is war! Go get 'em, girl!

If a funnel is spotted and there is a radar signature for rotation they blow the sirens in the towns near here, whether it has touched down or not. A couple of tv weathermen lost their jobs here because they called a tornado warning without the National Weather Service telling them it was okay, but they saved lives, and there was a public outcry in their favor. Better safe than sorry.

sunsetsmile
Crew


Ta Lu

High-functioning Lunatic

PostPosted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 4:51 pm


Went to a medical procedure today.
Went home, napped, then did a little more cleaning around the yard.

Question, I accidently pulled out several purple nightshade plants with my garden gloves while weeding and got Pull happy. Should I toss these gloves away?
PostPosted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 8:29 pm


A Ta Lu: I have no idea! Do a search online to find out. We do eat nightshades.....

I have just watched over 30 minutes of the most wonderful aerial fireworks! Probably about a mile from here. No idea who is doing this or what the occasion is. I have just thoroughly enjoyed it! It's wonderful to live out here! You just never know what will happen!

My husband brought home some more cedar fence pickets to make planting beds from. It's still too wet to actually get the beds put in, but I can get the dogears cut off the pickets, at least. Tomorrow will be fun! Might get some painting done, too, if the wind calms down some.

sunsetsmile
Crew


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PostPosted: Fri Apr 29, 2011 8:34 pm


Bought a new microphone for my xbox to replace the one i broke. Played some Rockband with friends and ate far too much awesome Chinese food. Now i'm watching stuff on youtube and applying for season 3 of the Discovery channel show "The Colony".
Trying to figure out why my pc keeps making some horrible noise...sounds like the fan is crapping out on it but its got 2 others so i'm not worried about heat damage...going to try to just disable the bad one and put a laptop cooler on it and use one of the usb ports to power it. (i'd just replace the one fan but its an all in one thing where the monitor is built into the little laptop sized bottom half and i can't get the thing open to work on the innards)
PostPosted: Sat Apr 30, 2011 10:24 am


So far today I've transplanted some wild catnip to a pot (Currently letting that sit in some water and get a nice drink. :3) and I passed my 10-mile milestone for riding my bike this year. biggrin

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Ta Lu

High-functioning Lunatic

PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2011 1:21 pm


I told my mom for an extended Mothers day gift my brother and I are going to try out best to DYI the backyard of our house.

There is a hefty spot of mulch separating my yard and my neighbor's yard and I was thinking about going some food there, maybe some bush beans.

So I went out and bought a fat bag of Cherokee wax, a yellow looking long bean, it looks tasty and I have a thing for beans and peas. biggrin Though I'm not sure how BUSH BEANS grow. I've been growing snap peas for two years now and they don't get higher than a foot and and I stake them. Do Bush beans need staking or trellising? whats best to get a pretty little wall of green?
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