Hallo from Idaho..

[Mandy Onderwater]

Sometimes you have to wait for all the pictures to actually be downloaded onto the page before being able to press upload. That or it was too big in size (though we did increase the size limit a while ago).
I've never had much luck with regrowing certain things, but I think it's just the climate really. They often do well for a couple of weeks and then cark it. To be fair it's in the mid- to high 30C's at the moment. And it's so wet my feet sink into the mud anytime I step outside. Not much will survive that, unless already well established.
Can't deny I do sometimes miss the more bearable temperate climate I used to be in, haha. Definitely miss the snow.

Is that soil straight from the garden, or is it storebought?

 

[MountainWard]

The soil is a mixture of some dirt from outside with a little coffee grounds some eggshell and just a little bit of crushed clinker from my fireplace. The clinker is melted silica with an admixture of potassium, calcium and phosphorous which slowly breaks down over time with bacterial action and watering. I usually like to use forest humus as potting soil but I don't feel like carrying back weight from our forests through the snow so I am using what is on hand at the moment.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

That's some good looking soil. Do you reckon your land is quite fertile?

Where I live it's all clay

 

[daveb]

I do a lot of my own seed from what I have grown myself, not so much from store produce though. The wife has grown tomato and bell peppers from store bought fruit. In fact we had a tomato plant that lived for 2 1/2 years in the house sprouted from a store bought tomato. When I went to remove the plants around it I found that it has rooted into like 4 other pots of tomato plants. It never produced many tomatoes but it was a nice looking plant and I love the smell of tomato plants in the house.

I have grown many bean plants from store bought beans, I had a half yard growing box in the kitchen next to the southern window and I commonly grew beans in the winter. One year I had them trained all across the ceiling of the kitchen with beans hanging down. That was quite cool looking. It only produced a single plate full of beans but it was fun.

We have also grown many avocado trees from the fruit bought from the store. I have a 1 yard planter on wheels in the living room that I plant stuff in. They grow well though once they get about 14 feet high the leaves reach a spot between windows and they begin to die out. We have vaulted ceiling in the living room and they have room to grow to 18 feet high but the lighting becomes a problem.

I also grow wheat from store bought wheat red durum usually and I harvest young for greens. I also sprout Mung beans from the store for bean sprouts to be used in stir fries and salad.

I have also grown oyster mushrooms and portabella mushrooms from store bought mushrooms. My first run at regrowing mushrooms..

i've a dwarf tomato that is growing along nicely still harvesting a hand fulls of consistant nickel to quarter size tomatoes regularly pant is now going on 17 months of growing, i just did some heavy pruning back on it this week.the flowers on tomatoes you have to work as the bee and polinate them get an old electric tooth brush trim away the bristles and make the end a little finers a shape, get a darl plastic spoon to catch loose pollin as polinate with the vibrating tipgentle under stem of flower as you collexct you can go back and press the pollin to tips of the flowers to insure they will bare fruit

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

I've got a massive headache (possibly sickness coming on - it's real bad around here and people are dropping like flies haha), and I for a second though there were some illicit substances in that spoon

Good tip! I've never seen pollen come out of the flower like that

 

[daveb]

I've got a massive headache (possibly sickness coming on - it's real bad around here and people are dropping like flies haha), and I for a second though there were some illicit substances in that spoon

Good tip! I've never seen pollen come out of the flower like that

ideal conditions is almost identical temperatures and humidity wise 40% - 70% humidity 75 to 85 F for temps any higher for humidity the pollen clumps and sticks inside - lower it start to dry and loose viability and wont stick to the stigma, it temps rise to high after pollenating ( 90's F ) the plant will abort the bloom and they will fall off. for curiosity i was checking around the tomatoes a couple minutes ago and its at 64% humidity and right now 66F . addition note i tend to hand pollinate early to mid afternoon.
Simple tapping the buds with flick of finger is enough sometimes to pollinate or even just a mild shaking of plant , toothbrush and veg-bee imitate the level of vibration of a bee landing and its body vibrating as wings pulsate. i get pretty much that amount of pollen in about 60% of the blossums after i get done i go back and rub tips in the pollen againo have some tiny zip lock bags i slip over spoon after and carfull seal the bag closed around spoon and seal edge with tape and put in fridge to store ive never done long term storage but i have used pillon i collected and stored and combined batches 4 to 5 weeks old and succesfully pollenated tomatoes. Low humidity low temperatures almost to 32F - 0C i know university florida tested pollen to still be viable 6 month later

 

[MountainWard]

"
That's some good looking soil. Do you reckon your land is quite fertile?

Where I live it's all clay "

Worn out clay here, but the forest is quite fertile, it has been growing for about 40 years now is quite thick as it was originally planted with a spacing of 3 feet between trees and 6 ft between rows. Now it is a forest full of 50 to 60 ft trees many of them no more than a foot between trunks in many areas. This makes for very thick humus layers. I pull the top loose material back into a pile and then I rake up the mulched material and some of the black underlaying soil and load that up. Then I rake the loose humus back over to cover the forest floor. The 3 acres or so around the house is fairly good soil now after all the livestock dropping manure, rotting waste hay and insects etc. I have also brought in up to 20 tons of rotten hay a year cleaning up for other people and I have used that improve my soil as well. I also end up with a lot of rotted wood that I add to the soil as well.

The fields are still mostly clay and burned out, they do not even grow hay well unless you were to fertilize it. I am slowly growing them in with trees, trees are really the only way to rebuild and heal the soil. We had a hay shortage about 10 years ago and the state allowed hay that been in a program to take them out of production and allow natural meadow plants to grow and in "theory" repair the soil. The state allowed these lands to be put back into hay production to offset the shortage. Many of these fields had been laying fallow for 20 to 30 years and still couldn't grow hay without adding fertilizers.

Land that has been returned to forest though can rebuild in 20 to 30 years quite well. Trees, bushes, shrubs and loads of organic matter will turn the worst clay soil into a gardeners dream. The difference is amazing really, the first you notice is the massive uptick in insects and the earthy mushroomy smell to the soil. Then it becomes dark and grows more and more plants each and every year. One simply has to make it livable for the insects, bacteria and fungi, once you do that they do all work to repair everything.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Sounds like a solid plan. I feel like there's little nutrient in our soil either, and that whilst it's all clay. On top of that, there's a ridiculously high calcium content in the water available to us here. Anytime we try to fertilise the ground all plants tend to die around it. I feel like it just burns them as they aren't used to it, hah. Thankfully most of those plants are weeds anyway
I'd love to work on the ground but with the rain the past couple of weeks, everything is boggy.

I'd love to grow my fruit trees down the back long-term. But we have 2 cheeky cows that love destroying anything they can get their horns on, haha. They are some cheeky buggers.

I feel like some of the soil around you could also be quite fertile due to wildlife visitations? I know that in The Netherlands we have "duck islands" which are either floating or manmade islands fenced off from human life. The ground always looks amazingly fertile, perhaps due to the ducks habitating there.

 

[MountainWard]

High calcium in water is a big issue. If you get good rains maybe you collect some of the water as it will have no calcium issues. One could also set up a cistern outside for watering with and fill it with the calcium containing water and add sodium carbonate to it which will chemically combine with the calcium and precipitate out of the water thus removing the calcium from the water making good for watering plants.

Do you by chance use any hugelculture on your place? raised wood beds will hold rain water with no calcium in it. You could also bring in some soil/mulch without high calcium content to spread over the hugelculture, or just use hay and rotting material in place of soil. This could potentially greatly improve your growing situation by helping with excess water issues and with the calcium issues.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Yeah, but it's the only water I have access to. We do have a lil' stream running through the backyard, but that'd mean I'd have to drag buckets from down there to up here and my back is not up for that, haha. On top of that, the water is only an option after rain anyway, as it tends to go stagnant pretty quickly. That, and I'd have to fight our cows for it, haha. They love wading in the water and it's their main source of water (unless stagnant, we have a big tub up top that we fill as needed).

No I don't hugelkultur here. I want to, but we have massive issues with termites. Granddad (back in the 70s or 80s mind you) thought it'd be a good idea to pour many truckloads of blue gravel down the driveways. And to be fair, it probably looked amazing when newly placed, it now HOUSES termites. They just live in the gravel and there's no way for us to kill them all in there. Sometimes we even find them by accident, crawling out of it.
Mostof granddad's furniture is wooden, and we've already had to burn some pieces because termites managed their way inside a couple of times. So no wood for me

 

[daveb]

Yeah, but it's the only water I have access to. We do have a lil' stream running through the backyard, but that'd mean I'd have to drag buckets from down there to up here and my back is not up for that, haha. On top of that, the water is only an option after rain anyway, as it tends to go stagnant pretty quickly. That, and I'd have to fight our cows for it, haha. They love wading in the water and it's their main source of water (unless stagnant, we have a big tub up top that we fill as needed).

No I don't hugelkultur here. I want to, but we have massive issues with termites. Granddad (back in the 70s or 80s mind you) thought it'd be a good idea to pour many truckloads of blue gravel down the driveways. And to be fair, it probably looked amazing when newly placed, it now HOUSES termites. They just live in the gravel and there's no way for us to kill them all in there. Sometimes we even find them by accident, crawling out of it.
Mostof granddad's furniture is wooden, and we've already had to burn some pieces because termites managed their way inside a couple of times. So no wood for me

i know an old remedy for furniture was to spray with a lemonoil and vinegar , vinegar and olive oil spray, and to smear the bottom of legs of furniture Aloe vera gel

had run across this ages ago maybe something you could try along driveway Mandy. it didnt say specifics but knowing some insects i would sat lay borciacid soak carboard down and coverwith the treatedpiece of woodto sraw then in after the damp moith wood fiber of the cardboard



If you have termites or a termite nest in your garden, you can make a trap by using boric acid and some cardboard. The boric acid trap for termites helps to eradicate them outside because the cellulose in the cardboard attracts them and the boric acid kills them.

How to use:

To make a simple and cheap termite trap using boric acid, this is what you should do:

1. Mix 8 part of warm water with 1 part of boric acid in a bucket and stir well.
2. Soak a piece of cardboard or some planks of wood in the solution.
3. Place next to the termite nest to start eradicating the colony and prevent termites infesting your home.

 

[MountainWard]

Termites are around but it is actually uncommon to have issues with them here. Ants are more of an issue here for us but they aren't all that bad to deal with here. It's a good thing we don't have issues with termites as we are surrounded by wood here.

I was just thinking of how common it is in Australia to have large catch tanks for rainwater, something like that would alleviate calcium issues in the water. Any other method requires chemicals or expensive filtration systems. We have soluble iron in our water and we have to watch how much of of it we drink so we don't get too much iron. The excess iron also produces algae at a terrific rate so any kind of sprinkler or drip setup is plugged in a matter of a day or two with algae. I can add chlorine to the well but then I have to be careful with the water as I am crazy sensitive to chlorine and chlorine will also kill your plants. Part of why I wish to grow directly on my ponds and eliminate watering altogether.

 

[daveb]

varies filters and ipn exchange style filter will remove the calcium as will boiling will cause it to percipitate out but as heavy as it is there the cost of filter would make it as easy and cheap to install an RO system

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

We do have 1 large tank that's hooked up to the gutters of our house. But it's our only backupwater in case of power outtages, cyclones, etc. We've had our waterpump in our bore break down on us twice before and were thankfully able to use the tank in a pinch. But I don't want to use up that tank just in case something goes amiss.
That and the water smells like rotting leaf matter from the gutter. The filter can't block all of it after all.

Do you have any tanks @MountainWard ? Or do you not normally deal with drougth?

 

[daveb]

We do have 1 large tank that's hooked up to the gutters of our house. But it's our only backupwater in case of power outtages, cyclones, etc. We've had our waterpump in our bore break down on us twice before and were thankfully able to use the tank in a pinch. But I don't want to use up that tank just in case something goes amiss.
That and the water smells like rotting leaf matter from the gutter. The filter can't block all of it after all.

Do you have any tanks @MountainWard ? Or do you not normally deal with drougth?

that is also why the old timers lept fish in the springs in the old well house here they would keep the water moving and fresh, as they move the water to air exchange at surface would help off gas the smells and , most today use a small aquarium pump to keep the water moving and the stall musty tne of leafs will gp away as they break down , you can also add a bubbler skimmer to collect stray particles to remove. refered to in fish aquariums as a protien skimmer and can actually be made very simply, there are numerous video on youtube with howto's on making a simple one

 

[MountainWard]

Drought really doesn't have effect on us here, we still have about a 3,000 gallon reserve in the well even in drought. The ponds always fill to the top each spring even in heavy drought as well with the snow melt. The only issue here is an increase in forest fires when in drought.

We lost our old well pump in 2014 and I replaced it with a cheap $150 deep well pump I bought off Amazon. We just boiled the water from the ponds for washing dishes and making food and bought jugs of water to drink. The old well pump didn't actually go out it was buried in clay silt so I shortened the 1 inch steel pipe from 130 feet to 122 feet to get the new one up out of the silt . Been working great ever since. I did manage to drop the pipe in the well after pulling 40 feet of pipe off of it but I managed to run a loop of cable down over the power wire until it looped over the pipe and I was able to retrieve it. I have never worked on a well pump before so it was all new to me. But other than that mishap everything went great. Now I have the original 3'4 hp pump a used 1 hp pump and the pump in the well along with an extra 600 feet of 1 inch pipe. We are pretty well set on our water.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Ah that's fair. That not too bad then, fires aside.

We have a pump too, and I've been told that if you drop a pipe, give up and dig a new well, because you'll never retrieve it. Lucky you managed to! I think my heart would've dropped.

 

[MountainWard]

As long as the heavy electric wires are attached to the pump and do not rip off or anything you have a perfect means of guiding a metal cable noose down to the pipe. I just cut the wires a few feet from the well head and looped my cable over the wire and slowly dropped it down to the pipe. It took me about 6 tries before I manage synch it tight over the pipe and the wire taped to the side of the pipe and voila. If I had to do it again I might slip a cable over the pipe and wire to begin with and drop it down 75 feet looped around both and then pull it tight as a back up.

I might also consider changing from 1 inch steel pipe to the 1 inch PEX tubing which is far lighter and easier to deal with. I just replumbed my house in December with PEX tubing when our plumbing failed. I managed to "completely" replace everything for just over $300 using the PEX tube and fitting. Still haven't figured out what all happened to our copper plumbing but somehow a large portion of it became blocked and apparently somehow the hot and the cold water had been plumbed together somewhere. It is nice now, no more chunks of rust coming out of the faucet and no more off colored water.

 

[daveb]

As long as the heavy electric wires are attached to the pump and do not rip off or anything you have a perfect means of guiding a metal cable noose down to the pipe. I just cut the wires a few feet from the well head and looped my cable over the wire and slowly dropped it down to the pipe. It took me about 6 tries before I manage synch it tight over the pipe and the wire taped to the side of the pipe and voila. If I had to do it again I might slip a cable over the pipe and wire to begin with and drop it down 75 feet looped around both and then pull it tight as a back up.

I might also consider changing from 1 inch steel pipe to the 1 inch PEX tubing which is far lighter and easier to deal with. I just replumbed my house in December with PEX tubing when our plumbing failed. I managed to "completely" replace everything for just over $300 using the PEX tube and fitting. Still haven't figured out what all happened to our copper plumbing but somehow a large portion of it became blocked and apparently somehow the hot and the cold water had been plumbed together somewhere. It is nice now, no more chunks of rust coming out of the faucet and no more off colored water.

be nice if you had a small stream in a resonable distance with a decent vertical drop you could make a hydrolic ram zero power use and worst case a couple little pieces to replace for the clap valve on occasion. i had a small stream on back side of meadows i used to own they would drive water to a tank that fed the horses watering trough

 

[MountainWard]

I have waterflows from my dams in the late winter and spring up a ways into summer but no actual streams here.