Our garden is all sprouting up.
Our squash sprouts are doing well, as is all the rest of the market garden.
I have a tomato plant that is about 4 feet tall and it already has some green tomatoes on it.
I will post more soon.
R/S
Joshua
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Tomato cages
I found this post through The Sun is Killing Me.
It is a really good post about making tomato cages because the store bought ones are so flimsy.
I have excerpted some of it below.
To make tomato cages just acquire a big ol' roll of caging, then measure out the correct length to make the right diameter cage you would like (Diameter = Circumference/3.14). I made my cages about a foot and a half wide. Snip the wire off the roll with wire cutters, roll up, then bend the ends around to make hooks to secure the cage together. Then snip off some of the horizontal wire at the bottom to leave vertical wire posts(4-6 inches is good)to stick in the ground to hold the cage in place. Easy-peasy! And so much more durable than those cheesy ones they sell at the store!
I happen to have found some old tomato cages made in a similar fashion as the ones above and they are very tough.
R/S
Joshua
It is a really good post about making tomato cages because the store bought ones are so flimsy.
I have excerpted some of it below.
To make tomato cages just acquire a big ol' roll of caging, then measure out the correct length to make the right diameter cage you would like (Diameter = Circumference/3.14). I made my cages about a foot and a half wide. Snip the wire off the roll with wire cutters, roll up, then bend the ends around to make hooks to secure the cage together. Then snip off some of the horizontal wire at the bottom to leave vertical wire posts(4-6 inches is good)to stick in the ground to hold the cage in place. Easy-peasy! And so much more durable than those cheesy ones they sell at the store!
I happen to have found some old tomato cages made in a similar fashion as the ones above and they are very tough.
R/S
Joshua
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Professor Einstein
We finally caught Prof. Einstein!
I have not posted about Prof. Einstein before, but to fill you in We had a mouse type animal get into our basement and our cold seed storage room.
Seed room+Mouse-= bad, bad, bad.
Prof. Einstein came into our basement sometime between last October and last January.
We built our cold seed storage room in December.
We first discovered that something was amiss when we were cutting some carpet for the Colorado Garden and Home Show and out of the carpet role poured out red popcorn!
After a week or two it clicked Sammy. (Sammy was a kangaroo rat we had once had)
We realized that we had a critter with several of the habits of our old kangaroo rat. However we never saw any mice poo.
Well one day we discovered some of Life Seed Companies seed packets were torn, and all of seeds were missing, and we kept discovering more and more of those packets mixed in with our seed racks.
We immediately realized that we had a major problem and took some steps to try to secure the cold room.
Later during intense investigations we discovered a small hole that went all the way into the cool room. We tried to block it but by this time I had a surveillance camera deployed to scan the basement at night, and oh my, the critter never came out the next two nights.
This was a major problem as it appeared that Prof. Einstein was living in the cold room.
To make a very long story somewhat short we tried all kind of live traps and I was continually acting on intelligence gathered from the nighttime surveillance camera.
Professor Einstein earned his name by easily avoiding all of our traps as well as shamelessly poising for the night camera. He would come up real close and stand in a frontal view and then turn to each of his side views in front of the camera. I dubbed that behavior as "poising for prison shots."
He was always up to something and he clearly enjoyed and knew what that camera was.
Example: he would swagger past the camera with his tail wagging really fast up and down as he raided a pile of popcorn, the prison shots, and all sorts of other ridiculous behavior.
Months later: brings us to a few days ago. We were getting desperate and considering poison, but before we did that we decided to try a sleeping pill. So we put out 2 peanut butter scoops mixed with a quarter of sleeping pill each. One was outside of the cool room and the other was inside. We also completely sealed off the cool room so that he could not get in or out of it. When we watched the video of the night we discovered two things. 1: he was still super active over an hour later, and 2: when he went to reenter the cool room via his small hole and discovered that he could not get in he just went nuts! He ran like lightning over to where the door to the cool room is and seeing that blocked came zipping back over to his hole and then started running all over the place for about 5 minutes. We think he was living in our crawl space, based on the most recent Intel. So we then decided to use a homemade trap using a big box and the trigger from a store bought one.
To give you a basic idea of the triggering mechanism it was a metal ramp suspended over a fulcrum with a metal flap that would pop up and block the entrance/exit hole when the mouse walked over the ramp. Kinda like a teeter totter.
Well we changed a few things like pushing the trapping flap outside of the box a little so that Prof. Einstein could not get his hands on it to forcibly pull it down (He is called Prof. Einstein for a reason. He is easily the smartest rodent I have ever seen.) We also added a little bit of peanut butter under the ramp (accidental) and were hoping that it would help it stick one the Prof. was inside the box.
Now the reason the store bought trap never worked was because we were trying to get the Prof. into a really cramped area and there was no way he was going to fall for that kind of pathetic trap.
So we tried this trap last night and in the morning we watched the video.
The Professor entered the trap and ran right back out (did I mention that a friend of ours had tried a larger professional style trap and the Professor ate the bate without setting it off.) We were Shocked!
After further analyzing I discovered that Professor Einstein had run into the trap at full speed by putting his hands and feet on the tiny rail on each side of the ramp! He then exited the same way.
By the way he must have discovered that his peanut butter from the last night had been tapered with because he did not touch any peanut butter again.
Today we reset the trap and poured a bunch of seed in there in the hope that in one of the Prof. many trips to get to the seed he would set off the trap. I also added a quarter to the rail in hopes that as he ran up it would fall onto the ramp and trip it.
When my dad went downstairs to check on it at about 10:15 P.M. (about 15 minutes after I put the money in) he discovered that we had caught Professor Einstein!
Finally!
So We checked to see just what kind of mouse he was and to my utter surprise (based on the night vision videos it looked like a larger mouse) the Prof. was a Deer Mouse!
We let him go about a mile from our house to use his amazing skills in the wild and I will be on a sharp lookout to make sure there are no other mice around.
So that is the shortened story of our acquaintance with Professor Einstein.
R/S
Joshua
I have not posted about Prof. Einstein before, but to fill you in We had a mouse type animal get into our basement and our cold seed storage room.
Seed room+Mouse-= bad, bad, bad.
Prof. Einstein came into our basement sometime between last October and last January.
We built our cold seed storage room in December.
We first discovered that something was amiss when we were cutting some carpet for the Colorado Garden and Home Show and out of the carpet role poured out red popcorn!
After a week or two it clicked Sammy. (Sammy was a kangaroo rat we had once had)
We realized that we had a critter with several of the habits of our old kangaroo rat. However we never saw any mice poo.
Well one day we discovered some of Life Seed Companies seed packets were torn, and all of seeds were missing, and we kept discovering more and more of those packets mixed in with our seed racks.
We immediately realized that we had a major problem and took some steps to try to secure the cold room.
Later during intense investigations we discovered a small hole that went all the way into the cool room. We tried to block it but by this time I had a surveillance camera deployed to scan the basement at night, and oh my, the critter never came out the next two nights.
This was a major problem as it appeared that Prof. Einstein was living in the cold room.
To make a very long story somewhat short we tried all kind of live traps and I was continually acting on intelligence gathered from the nighttime surveillance camera.
Professor Einstein earned his name by easily avoiding all of our traps as well as shamelessly poising for the night camera. He would come up real close and stand in a frontal view and then turn to each of his side views in front of the camera. I dubbed that behavior as "poising for prison shots."
He was always up to something and he clearly enjoyed and knew what that camera was.
Example: he would swagger past the camera with his tail wagging really fast up and down as he raided a pile of popcorn, the prison shots, and all sorts of other ridiculous behavior.
Months later: brings us to a few days ago. We were getting desperate and considering poison, but before we did that we decided to try a sleeping pill. So we put out 2 peanut butter scoops mixed with a quarter of sleeping pill each. One was outside of the cool room and the other was inside. We also completely sealed off the cool room so that he could not get in or out of it. When we watched the video of the night we discovered two things. 1: he was still super active over an hour later, and 2: when he went to reenter the cool room via his small hole and discovered that he could not get in he just went nuts! He ran like lightning over to where the door to the cool room is and seeing that blocked came zipping back over to his hole and then started running all over the place for about 5 minutes. We think he was living in our crawl space, based on the most recent Intel. So we then decided to use a homemade trap using a big box and the trigger from a store bought one.
To give you a basic idea of the triggering mechanism it was a metal ramp suspended over a fulcrum with a metal flap that would pop up and block the entrance/exit hole when the mouse walked over the ramp. Kinda like a teeter totter.
Well we changed a few things like pushing the trapping flap outside of the box a little so that Prof. Einstein could not get his hands on it to forcibly pull it down (He is called Prof. Einstein for a reason. He is easily the smartest rodent I have ever seen.) We also added a little bit of peanut butter under the ramp (accidental) and were hoping that it would help it stick one the Prof. was inside the box.
Now the reason the store bought trap never worked was because we were trying to get the Prof. into a really cramped area and there was no way he was going to fall for that kind of pathetic trap.
So we tried this trap last night and in the morning we watched the video.
The Professor entered the trap and ran right back out (did I mention that a friend of ours had tried a larger professional style trap and the Professor ate the bate without setting it off.) We were Shocked!
After further analyzing I discovered that Professor Einstein had run into the trap at full speed by putting his hands and feet on the tiny rail on each side of the ramp! He then exited the same way.
By the way he must have discovered that his peanut butter from the last night had been tapered with because he did not touch any peanut butter again.
Today we reset the trap and poured a bunch of seed in there in the hope that in one of the Prof. many trips to get to the seed he would set off the trap. I also added a quarter to the rail in hopes that as he ran up it would fall onto the ramp and trip it.
When my dad went downstairs to check on it at about 10:15 P.M. (about 15 minutes after I put the money in) he discovered that we had caught Professor Einstein!
Finally!
So We checked to see just what kind of mouse he was and to my utter surprise (based on the night vision videos it looked like a larger mouse) the Prof. was a Deer Mouse!
We let him go about a mile from our house to use his amazing skills in the wild and I will be on a sharp lookout to make sure there are no other mice around.
So that is the shortened story of our acquaintance with Professor Einstein.
R/S
Joshua
Monday, June 1, 2009
Attractiveness of Beer & Fermentation products to the Gray Garden Slug
Below is the link to the full report done by CSU.
http://www.colostate.edu/depts/aes/Pubs/pdf/tb97-1.pdf
I will give just a couple of highlights here.
METHODS AND MATERIALS
All trials were conducted in a heavily vegetated yard in Fort Collins, Colorado during April and
May 1987. Attractants were evaluated based on slug captures in a commercially available slug
trap (Slug Saloo#, American Quality Products, Denver, CO) that measured 9.5 cm in diameter
and was covered to exclude dilution by rainfall and irrigation. Approximately 180 ml of liquid
were placed in each trap during trials, which filled the containers to within 2 cm of the container
lip. Traps were placed among vegetation, arranged in a randomized complete block design with
4 replications. Individual traps were separated by a minimum 0.75 m. Traps were collected 48
hours after placement, unless otherwise indicated. All data were subjected to analysis of
variance (ANOVA). Means among the treatments were separated using the multiple range test
of Duncan (1955) at P < 0.05.
Attractiveness Comparison Trials of Commercial Malt Beverages. Trials were conducted to
rank commonly sold malt beverages for attractiveness to slugs. Treatments included 12 brands
of beer, one alcohol-free malt beverage, sugar water/baking yeast, one brand of wine, and tap
water. Comparisons were made during a series of trials involving three treatments against a
standard beer (Budweisera) that was used in all trials. The ratio of slug capture in treatments
2
was then calculated against the (Budweiserk) standard to establish overall rankings of
attractiveness.
Beer Flattening/Alcohol Fortification Trials. The effect of beer flattening and alcohol
fortification on slug capture was evaluated with two beers (Budweise?, Pabst Blue Ribbo$). In
both trials, beer was flattened by decanting into a bowl 48 hours before the initiation of the trial.
To further help define the importance of the ethanol in beer to slug capture, additional treatments
were conducted involving fortification of the baits with ethanol. Ethanol was added at the rate
of 6% by volume in the form of 95% ethanol.
And the results
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A wide range in attractiveness occurred among the various malt beverages tested (Table 1). The
non-attractiveness of alcohol, demonstrated by Smith and Boswell (1970), was emphasized in
this trial since greatest attraction occurred using the non-alcoholic malt beverage Kingbury Malt
BeverageR. Among tested beers, there was a three-fold range in attractiveness with the brewer
Anheiser-Busch products (Micheloba, Budweisep, and Bud LightR) attracting the greatest
number of slugs to the traps.
Several volatile components associated with beer have been identified by Selim (1976) as being
attractive to slugs including acetoin, diacetyl and dihydroxyacctone. The range in attractiveness
of various malt beverages are likely due to differences in the concentrations of these attractants.
For example, Meilgaard (1975) reports a three-fold range in diacetyl exist? among typical United
States beers.
The single wine tested (Gal10 Pink ChablisR) was not attractive to slugs, although Smith and
Boswell (1970) reported that unfermented grape juice was a moderately attractive to slugs. Use
of fermenting sucrose solutions to which baking yeast was added produced capture rates similar
to beer. Selim (1974) had previously reported sucrose fermentation byproducts as attractive to
slugs.
http://www.colostate.edu/depts/aes/Pubs/pdf/tb97-1.pdf
I will give just a couple of highlights here.
METHODS AND MATERIALS
All trials were conducted in a heavily vegetated yard in Fort Collins, Colorado during April and
May 1987. Attractants were evaluated based on slug captures in a commercially available slug
trap (Slug Saloo#, American Quality Products, Denver, CO) that measured 9.5 cm in diameter
and was covered to exclude dilution by rainfall and irrigation. Approximately 180 ml of liquid
were placed in each trap during trials, which filled the containers to within 2 cm of the container
lip. Traps were placed among vegetation, arranged in a randomized complete block design with
4 replications. Individual traps were separated by a minimum 0.75 m. Traps were collected 48
hours after placement, unless otherwise indicated. All data were subjected to analysis of
variance (ANOVA). Means among the treatments were separated using the multiple range test
of Duncan (1955) at P < 0.05.
Attractiveness Comparison Trials of Commercial Malt Beverages. Trials were conducted to
rank commonly sold malt beverages for attractiveness to slugs. Treatments included 12 brands
of beer, one alcohol-free malt beverage, sugar water/baking yeast, one brand of wine, and tap
water. Comparisons were made during a series of trials involving three treatments against a
standard beer (Budweisera) that was used in all trials. The ratio of slug capture in treatments
2
was then calculated against the (Budweiserk) standard to establish overall rankings of
attractiveness.
Beer Flattening/Alcohol Fortification Trials. The effect of beer flattening and alcohol
fortification on slug capture was evaluated with two beers (Budweise?, Pabst Blue Ribbo$). In
both trials, beer was flattened by decanting into a bowl 48 hours before the initiation of the trial.
To further help define the importance of the ethanol in beer to slug capture, additional treatments
were conducted involving fortification of the baits with ethanol. Ethanol was added at the rate
of 6% by volume in the form of 95% ethanol.
And the results
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
A wide range in attractiveness occurred among the various malt beverages tested (Table 1). The
non-attractiveness of alcohol, demonstrated by Smith and Boswell (1970), was emphasized in
this trial since greatest attraction occurred using the non-alcoholic malt beverage Kingbury Malt
BeverageR. Among tested beers, there was a three-fold range in attractiveness with the brewer
Anheiser-Busch products (Micheloba, Budweisep, and Bud LightR) attracting the greatest
number of slugs to the traps.
Several volatile components associated with beer have been identified by Selim (1976) as being
attractive to slugs including acetoin, diacetyl and dihydroxyacctone. The range in attractiveness
of various malt beverages are likely due to differences in the concentrations of these attractants.
For example, Meilgaard (1975) reports a three-fold range in diacetyl exist? among typical United
States beers.
The single wine tested (Gal10 Pink ChablisR) was not attractive to slugs, although Smith and
Boswell (1970) reported that unfermented grape juice was a moderately attractive to slugs. Use
of fermenting sucrose solutions to which baking yeast was added produced capture rates similar
to beer. Selim (1974) had previously reported sucrose fermentation byproducts as attractive to
slugs.
Mite Update #2
My attemps to destroy the mites have been only partially sucessful.
I have kept their numbers fairly low, but they have killed several of my marigolds in the last couple of days.
I am rather upset. Those marigolds were over 2 months old.
In other news we have had a lot of rain lately, which is really nice in our dryland climate of northeastern Colorado.
One of the dificult things about having clay soil is that when it rains hard the plant leaves become caked with mud. Depending on the severity of the caking and the size of the plant this can be fatal. I have lost more plants the last two weeks to this than I care to remember.
I have kept their numbers fairly low, but they have killed several of my marigolds in the last couple of days.
I am rather upset. Those marigolds were over 2 months old.
In other news we have had a lot of rain lately, which is really nice in our dryland climate of northeastern Colorado.
One of the dificult things about having clay soil is that when it rains hard the plant leaves become caked with mud. Depending on the severity of the caking and the size of the plant this can be fatal. I have lost more plants the last two weeks to this than I care to remember.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
I decided to post some pictures of a trip we took to Virginia in May 2007 during the 400Th anniversary celebration.
Below are some pictures mostly taken on 5-12-07 the 400Th anniversary to the day since the settlers landed in Jamestown. After the settlers landed they returned to their ship and the next day (5-13-1607) they officially formed Jamestown. We were able to see the exact site of the Jamestown settlement. They are still doing a lot of archaeological work, but that is one of the things that attracts people to Jamestown, the sense of excitement and discovery. By the way archaeologists were able to reproduce some of the structures in their exact locations thanks to stains in the soil. Because of this, They have put up a realistic palisade in the exact dimensions of the Jamestown settlement. It was really something to walk in and see the statue of John Smith (that was erected before Jamestown was rediscovered) standing inside the settlement, and see just how small it really was. It definitely gave us a sense of the truth of Jamestown and the realities the settlers faced. The day we were there was not too busy, although somewhat hot, (but not by Colorado standards) however, the next day it was really busy because that is the day President Bush visited. As we were leaving for the night we could see all of the secret service members clearing the area.
Archaeological excavation in progress.
Archaeologists believe this structure to be a barracks.
In the center of the Fort. Note the John Smith Statue facing out to sea.
Swamp surrounding Jamestown.
Fireworks after the celebratory concert on 5-11-07.
Below are some pictures mostly taken on 5-12-07 the 400Th anniversary to the day since the settlers landed in Jamestown. After the settlers landed they returned to their ship and the next day (5-13-1607) they officially formed Jamestown. We were able to see the exact site of the Jamestown settlement. They are still doing a lot of archaeological work, but that is one of the things that attracts people to Jamestown, the sense of excitement and discovery. By the way archaeologists were able to reproduce some of the structures in their exact locations thanks to stains in the soil. Because of this, They have put up a realistic palisade in the exact dimensions of the Jamestown settlement. It was really something to walk in and see the statue of John Smith (that was erected before Jamestown was rediscovered) standing inside the settlement, and see just how small it really was. It definitely gave us a sense of the truth of Jamestown and the realities the settlers faced. The day we were there was not too busy, although somewhat hot, (but not by Colorado standards) however, the next day it was really busy because that is the day President Bush visited. As we were leaving for the night we could see all of the secret service members clearing the area.
Archaeological excavation in progress.
Archaeologists believe this structure to be a barracks.
In the center of the Fort. Note the John Smith Statue facing out to sea.
Swamp surrounding Jamestown.Fireworks after the celebratory concert on 5-11-07.I plan on posting some pictures I took of the Yorktown Battlefield soon.
Respectfully Submitted,
Joshua
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Mite Update 1
The spray that my dad used for mites on his tomato plants is 30% vinegar and 70% water.
I used a roughly 1% vinegar and 5 percent lemon juice (was already in the spray bottle) with a roghly 94% water.
So far it seems to work fairly well. I have only had a couple mites left today on the sensitive plant and the other plants I have sprayed with it seem to be mite free. Also my marigolds that were infested this morning are greatly reduced in visible mites. I sprayed them just a minute ago with an increased percentage of vinegar.
If you ever hear that mites wont do much harm to your plants do not believe them. It is true that a small number of mites will not kill a large and healthy plant, but they do not stay a small number of mites. They spread. What in my case starded out as a very small number of mites has in 3 days (which by the way it only takes about a week for them to go through a generation) easily quadrubled. I went from 2-3 known plants to easily 10-15 hard hit plants. They killed fairly healthy plants in 4" pots in 2 days. They have changed a healthy marigold in a 5" pot to a struggling to survive marigold in a day or 2. These things are bad. Another thing about them that is very bad for home gardeners is that once they have become intraduced into the plants you have indoors it becomes virtually impossible to completely eliminate them without removing all of the plants from your house for 6 month to a year. That is bad. You see mites can live for a long time without eating so that you can remove all of your plants from indoors for 2 weeks and then bring new plants inside and within a few days the mites will be as bad as ever.
I will try to do the virtually impossible and eliminate the mites without removing all of my plants indefinately.
Especially since I plan on doing a new rotation of plants once I remove all of the old ones destined for outside.
On a side note Basil seems to be very mite resistant.
Respectfully submitted,
Joshua
I used a roughly 1% vinegar and 5 percent lemon juice (was already in the spray bottle) with a roghly 94% water.
So far it seems to work fairly well. I have only had a couple mites left today on the sensitive plant and the other plants I have sprayed with it seem to be mite free. Also my marigolds that were infested this morning are greatly reduced in visible mites. I sprayed them just a minute ago with an increased percentage of vinegar.
If you ever hear that mites wont do much harm to your plants do not believe them. It is true that a small number of mites will not kill a large and healthy plant, but they do not stay a small number of mites. They spread. What in my case starded out as a very small number of mites has in 3 days (which by the way it only takes about a week for them to go through a generation) easily quadrubled. I went from 2-3 known plants to easily 10-15 hard hit plants. They killed fairly healthy plants in 4" pots in 2 days. They have changed a healthy marigold in a 5" pot to a struggling to survive marigold in a day or 2. These things are bad. Another thing about them that is very bad for home gardeners is that once they have become intraduced into the plants you have indoors it becomes virtually impossible to completely eliminate them without removing all of the plants from your house for 6 month to a year. That is bad. You see mites can live for a long time without eating so that you can remove all of your plants from indoors for 2 weeks and then bring new plants inside and within a few days the mites will be as bad as ever.
I will try to do the virtually impossible and eliminate the mites without removing all of my plants indefinately.
Especially since I plan on doing a new rotation of plants once I remove all of the old ones destined for outside.
On a side note Basil seems to be very mite resistant.
Respectfully submitted,
Joshua
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