Report From The Garden...."Cap'n Thar Be Worms Here!"

[Charlie]

I just set out the first of the 'mater plants. Siberian and Subarctic, new heirlooms for me this year. Early, short season breeds. I tried Stupice last year and wasn't overly impressed. This is the first spring that I haven't used a tiller. I started the lasagna business last fall.

I was amazed at the number of earthworms I saw! There were easily several dozen in each hole I dug for the transplants, several adult worms and many small worms. This soil improvement business *is* what it is cracked up to be.

The early season stuff that I planted...onion sets, radishes, assorted greens, snap peas and snow peas....is going like crazy. I simply pulled back the mulch and spread the seeds on the soil, covered with a light layer of mushtoad compost and pulled the mulch back over and they are off and running.

The broadcast salad garden is breaking through nicely. I transplanted African Marigolds into it and the other beds, along with several Amaranths.

Had our first salad last night, Lovey wasn't too hot on it as it was pretty strong, but it consisted of store bought romaine with fresh dandelion greens and garlic scallions. Felt like a great accomplishment to me and damned tasty.

Temps today were hot, 86F, but will cool tomorrow and be in the 60s and seventies for the next week or so with nightimes in the up40s and low50s, except for one night they say will be mid30s.

Hauled a pickup load of twigs and sticks and prunings and stuff that would take years to compost to the landfill today and lucked out in that they called it readily compostable and didn't charge me for it. The large stuff they charge you for taking, chip and shred it, then compost it or use for mulch. I guess the carge covers the chipping. At least it is recycled.

Potted three more cherry 'maters. Fertilized the strawberries in the pot. Found that the potted Hostas survived and are doing their thing.

Gonna go out now and lay cardboard around the asparagus and cover with compost and mulch. THis is it's second year and it was damned hard to resist.

Later, got food to attend to! ;-)

Shit, the weather monitor thingie just went off and informed us we are in a 'nado watch 'til 1am.....nothing new hereabouts, but I still don't like it much. Tornados are hard on gardens!

Care Charlie

"If we're all down trying to unclog the sewer, who's gonna smell the flowers?" ~ Billy Rose

[Omelet]

It is indeed. :-) Anywhere where there is a high manure content, the soil is rich with worm castings in the morning.

I can gather fish bait by putting down a piece of old carpet and keeping it wet anywhere there is fertile soil.

[Bill]

We have a school yard about 3 miles from our house. Very sandy loam with a special attribute. The place is loaded with night crawlers. My Dad once again had me out on Rainy nights to catch them.

The How maybe of interest.

Drive two copper stakes in the ground about ten feet apart. Attach a wire to each and have switch inline this hooked up to a car battery. Drives em right up to the surface. Good bait and good for our garden. This maybe considered dangerous today but I'd guess walking about on thin Ice in freezing looking at stakes you planted to mark underwater foot bridges would be too. Aside some of those stakes turned into trees in time.

Bill whose Dad had me gigging for frogs with a flash light and a club with water up to my chest also had me trapping rats (Muskrats when I was

8.. Ah 30 cents for a black pelt bought by Sears. 50 years ago) Yup Sears. Still remember a vacation in 1955 when my Dad disappeared one night and the next morning the icebox had 60 large frogs moving slow.

Dad BTW is 84 and was a Marine gunner on the USS Biloxi ww2. Taught me how to shoot.

[Omelet]

Shocking. ;-)

I read something recently in a survival article about "drumming" worms up. Pound a 1" thick stake into the ground and vibrate it by running a piece of wood over the top. The vibrations are supposed to drive them up.

Sounds like you had an educational childhood.

I have to wonder how many kids nowadays are being taught survival skills. I am at least confident that, while I may not be happy or comfortable, I could manage to live off of the land.

I'd want to at least have a knife tho'. There is enough flint around here, I could probably make one if I had to.

[enigma]

Omelet wrote in news: [e-mail]:

just repeatedly hitting the ground with a stick or bat works too. i thought everyone knew that trick...

mine is. i hate to say this, but i suspect he'll need to know these things.

true, but having a steel knife with that flint can make a cold night more comfortable... lee

[Omelet]

No I didn't. :-) I was taught some survival skills by mom and dad, but I'm always up to learning a new trick or two!

If for no other reason than to save money on food. I'm investigating more of the local edible plants. If nothing else, there are plenty of prickly pear. (Sorry about not having shipped those yet to those I primised them to! I fell and hurt my leg last Saturday so have not walked down to the plant yet to harvest them. Just sprained it and it's healing ok. Just hurts and is weak).

There are also wild persimmons and some other stuff. Nutgrass grows in my herb garden. Too bad the local Tarot is not edible.

Absolutely. :-)

And when I was in Colorado hanging around at the Rendezvous, I learned how to start a fire with flint and steel.

[FarmI]

Surely you didn't doubt it Charlie?

Ouch. I'm sure glad we don't get those blasted things here. I saw on the news tonight that another one had killed more people in the US again and done a humungeous amount of damage. Hope you and your garden are safe.

[FarmI]

Do you eat both the pads and the fruit? I have a recipe for Prickly Pear Ice Cream in my recipe collection but still haven't convinced my husband that I need a plant.

[Omelet]

Still experimenting with the pads. The pads have to be REALLY young to be tender.

I've eaten the fruits many a time. To me, the taste like a cross between strawberry, banana and kiwi.

[Billy]

Uh, how's your garden today Charlie? I understand that a twister set down in KC and made a mess:-(

[Omelet]

Hope he is ok. We had a twister set down here March of 2007 about 2 miles from my house. Fortunately, we live West of IH-35 and most tornadoes stay to the East of that line. The terrain of the hill country breaks them up and the freeway is the dividing line. It did some damage to the warehouses and the police station a few hundred feet on this side.

I was coming up the freeway commuting home from work. I missed running into the damned thing by about 5 or 10 minutes. :-(

I've had nightmares about tornadoes... It's one item I truly fear.

[Charlie]

Everthing well here, though it *is* effed up in KC. 40000 were without power and quite a few homes were destroyed, though only minor injuries were reported so far. There was no warning or advance on them.

Arkansas had serious damage and eight deaths (last I heard). One was a teenager asleep in bed and a tree fell thru the roof.

I'll be back this evening to see how all the fine folks are doing here in wrecked gardens.

Charlie

[Charlie]

THey are a hell of a thing, aren't they. Until one sees, up close, the things they can do, weird things along with the damage, you just can't imagine, though I can't imagine going thru an earthquake, like Billy and all the leftcoasters *should * fear!! "Course we have our New Madrid fault to worry about, but we should be clear of anything major up here in the opposite corner of the state.

Catch ya' later, I've got a little one gnawing on my arm, making it a bit hard to type. :-)

Charlie

[Omelet]

Kitty? :-)

Glad y'all are ok! I used to live in California near the San Andreas fault, so understand about quakes.

[Billy]

Earthquakes ain't so bad, so long as your not underneath a freeway:-( The most remarked on earthquake was the 1906 San Francisco trembler but the truth is, that it was the fires afterward that did the damage. The most awesome result of the '06 quake was up in rural Marin county, where the right-slip, San Andreas fault moved twenty feet. Property is pretty cheap along the fault line. From Marin county, the San Andreas goes out to sea and north for about 100 miles, where it connects to the San Juan de la Fucha subduction fault, off Cape Mendocino, that continues on up into British Columbia, and feeds active volcanoes like St. Helens and Mt. Rainier.

[Omelet]

Theoretically, the San Andreas fault is the edge of a continental plate. Some doomsayers say that that part of California (West of the SA fault) will eventually be underwater.

[Billy]

No, that's the San Juan de la Fucha subduction fault, where the Pacific plate is sliding under the North American plate. Before the San Andreas fault arrived with the Pacific plate, the sub-ducted Pacific plate gave rise (;-)) to the Sierra Nevada Mt.s in California. The melting ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctica may raise the sea level 200 ft., which would mean a much shorter dive to the beach.

[Omelet]

Yah right.

I'll just stock up on ammo...

[Billy]

Can't that be cured with Preparation H?

[Charlie]

?? You have one of those too? Cat often nips when he wants attention.

In this case it was the 7-month old granddaughter, wanting whatever it is they want when they chew on you! ;-)

Quakes...never experienced, don't want to.

Same for experiencing California........ ;-)

Charlie, ducking and running.....