Gardening - Growing Your Own.

[MasterBlaster]

Good luck with that!

:>)

 

[Al Smith]

I've never seen a money tree although I have had a few money pits .That kinda sucks .

 

[woodworkingboy]

Every once in awhile it is on the news that someone has found a suitcase full of money. They don't say the person's name that found it, generally. The police keep it for a prescribed period of time, then if there are no valid claimants, the person that found it gets to keep it. Mostly it gets thought of as yakuza money that was tossed out for some strange reason, that is feared to be claimed, or maybe it fell off the truck it was in with the other suitcases full of money, and whoever was transporting it just figured that they had enough. People do keep their eyes peeled for abandoned suitcases.

 

[Burnham]

That reminds me of a story from my distant past, mid 1980's. M and I had finished our work season with the FS, and as we were wont to do, loaded the canoe on the VW Rabbit and headed to Florida, a mere 3k miles away .

We decided to canoe the Evereglades Wilderness Waterway, 150 miles or so of mangrove bays and rivers, and some Florida Bay beaches. In the course of things I left M on the north end of the waterway at Everglades City with the boat and all our gear, and drove the VW around to Flamingo on the south end to leave for our eventual arrival via canoe, planning to hitchike back.

I got a ride out of the Park to Homestead pretty quickly, and very shortly after was picked up by a guy going straight to E'glades City! He was driving a very shiny new Cadillac, and looked like he'd just climbed down from the bridge of a third world shrimp trawler .

He took off along Alligator Alley at about 95 mph, asked me what I was up to, and I told him our plans for the Waterway. He nodded, and we visited a bit more about fishing the Keys and such. After a while he looked over at me and said, "There's word out that a recent shipment got tossed overboard to avoid the Coasties...bales wrapped in shrinkwrap, lots of them. But I hear there is also a suitcase, one of those fancy watertight aluminum jobs. It'll float."

"You keep your eyes open, son. You find bales, come to the third house on the right past the bar in E'glades City, It's green, behind some bamboo. I can help you with that salvage. You find that suitcase...don't come to me, and I think you best be very careful what you do with it."

I was back to M quicker than I made it over in the VW...and we never saw bales nor suitcase.

 

[treesmith]

No, I mean straight cash. Pluckin Ben Franklins off the plant.

I get money from trees all the time. I thought that's what this forum was about......?

A friend of mine was visited by an insurance salesman once who was trying to sell him some life insurance. He went on and on stressing how one could never leave enough money behind for loved ones, etc, and finally told my friend, "You know, money doesn't grow on trees..." My friend, who was a logger, with his own little operation replied, "I don't know. I get my money from trees every day!"

 

[Cut4fun]

Noticed the wife took some pics of the small garden plot we did this year. The 2nd half of garden is planted about 3 weeks behind.

The deer this year have been killing us. We had 6 big tomato plants early on and they took them down to nubs in 1 night.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Kevin, I usually picture darker soils as being rich in organic matter, but I know it isn't always the case. Do you use chemical or organic fertilizer? I use both, but my main garden is just organic. I recommend foliar spraying of compost tea, if you have never tried it. Gives a quick boost and makes up for soil deficiencies.

 

[Cut4fun]

No dark soil in my area. Head south of me nd you see the dark. Keep going south and you get the red clay type.

We use 12-12-12 and then miracle grow too.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Your plants look happy! What's the large crop behind?

 

[Cut4fun]

soybean this year.

Help explain our Ohio dirt and glacier movement from past. http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/portals/10/pdf/glacial.pdf

 

[woodworkingboy]

That explains it! Keeping out deer is a lot easier than keeping out raider monkeys. You have to practically electrocute them before they will think to go elsewhere to look for easier pickings. They often take the one bite approach too, before wanting to sample another. Produce with a monkey bite out of it isn't very delectable. The buggers can waste a lot of food.

 

[Al Smith]

As Kevin said the soils in Ohio can change drastically in just 20 miles .The portion where I live is flat as a pancake being the blue portion in the north western portion of the state .It's some of the richest farm land in the USA and also some of the most high priced .

We only got about 4/100 of an inch of rain yesterday but I'd bet just that much will have greened things up in about two days henceforth .Because of the rich organic content of these soils the crops survive better than in most of the state or the midwest for that matter in times of drought .

 

[woodworkingboy]

I can't believe how the plants love rain. Whatever is in it, no spray fertilizer that I have ever used can compare by far. I wonder if rain content also varies by location?

 

[MasterBlaster]

Of course, Jay. Just think about it... we can start with pollutants...

 

[woodworkingboy]

True, MB. Things like radiation, now that you mention it. I guess I was thinking more about major differences, like living in a place where our storms often blow up out at sea, how that would affect rain content, say as opposed to rain in Ohio. It sure seems to have a lot of nutrition in it, the plants wake up. Color change and growth spurt is almost immediate.

 

[Tucker943]

I just had a discussion about this with my uncle, who takes gardening very seriously. He has experimented with rain water collected from rain catch barrels versus water from his well. He said the rain water trumpet well water by leaps and bounds. Also mentioned that for watering flowers, 1/10 urine to water mix makes flowers go nuts. He hasn't tried it, and most likely won't, but its been proven.

 

[MasterBlaster]

I've know that for ages. Fresh urine is the best source of Nitrogen there is. One cup to one gallon for vegetative growth.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Some people will add urine to their compost mix, I found that on the web. I took a leak in my compost spray, I'll try just about anything to make the lil buggers happy, but I didn't mention it to my wife.

 

[MasterBlaster]

It's a great initial vegetative burst, but you want to stop as soon as your product begins to reproduce.

 

[woodworkingboy]

Good thinking, MB. Too much nitrogen makes for growth, but not much reproduction.

 

[MasterBlaster]

Plus, your stuff can taste like piss...

 

[Cobleskill]

My bud planted two ornamentals, butterfly bush I think. The one right by his deck he whizzes on pretty often. He says it is doing much better than the other one.

 

[Al Smith]

I pee on the oak trees quite often and they are around 100 feet tall so it must work .It's not the pee so much as I think residue of Budweiser .

 

[Burnham]

Now you know why the PNW trees grow so tall and wide...we don't even do the Bud residue thing here, we just pour it on straight from the bottle.

Only thing worth doing with Budweiser anyway, PNW microbrews rule!

 

[woodworkingboy]

People that pee directly on their plants are uncouth. I snap my fingers and a boy carries out a cut glass decanter of mine, carried on a silver platter.