the little wild kingdom

They used to just string them up and hang near the heat source

Mini Horses said:

They used to just string them up and hang near the heat source

Click to expand...

not going to happen here! the box flats dry well enough i don't have to go through the extra time of stringing and hanging and there really isn't a single source of heat as the furnace provides the heat via several vents.

i did turn up the heat and put the flats in a few spots where some air flows happen better than other places but it isn't enough to cover all the flats at once. after a while i rotated the flats to give all of them some time to dry with the heat on them.

usually i can tell just by feel if they're going to be ok or not and when i'm picking i discard some ends that have been dragging too much in the mud as i know the beans in those will be sprouting or rotting already. once in a while i'll miss something and find a bit of white mold starting, but that isn't too often.

today has been a day of mostly rains and heavy at times but going through quick. it's currently a big swirly spinning around and we're going to be getting yet more rounds of rains.

it would have been a good day to sleep but i didn't get much of that done as i had a few projects to finish. those are done now.

flowerbug said:

today has been a day of mostly rains and heavy at times

Click to expand...

Rained hard about 2 miles from my house - but not so much here. Rumbly and lightening - but no wet stuff yet.

it has rained steady yesterday and due for some more rains today but nothing yet. i'm not picking any more beans or doing any gardening at this rate but that is how it can go. patience grasshopper...

no rains in the forecast until towards the end of next week. i should be able to get some things done outside this week. which is good because there's still a lot to get done...

i'll try to get some weeding done today and see how that goes. i have one garden in particular which is really bad that i'm just going to have to work on a bit at a time because i won't have the energy or patience to do the whole thing at once. the old strawberry patch is loaded with oxalis and i don't want that spreading all those tiny seeds all over the rest of the gardens and pathways back there so i have to really get after it soon.

i did get some gardening done, scraped a large garden i'd already weeded recently to make sure any tiny grass sprouts that were starting were removed or disrupted from having an easy time coming back. that was 20 minutes and then i spent the rest of the afternoon working in the old strawberry patch to get it weeded. i'm at about the halfway mark. very wet still but this garden has more topsoil and organic matter than most of our other gardens which have more clay so it wasn't too bad but still messy to work in.

it felt good to be back outside and doing something useful and getting some exercise.

i had some crows flying around and then there was i think a toad doing some strange sounds or something else was making an odd noise, but i didn't get to see it.

made more progress today on cleaning up the old strawberry patch. i should be able to finish it up tomorrow in about an hour to an hour and a half.

i took a few pictures of the gardens out there that i've put up plus the few still left to go yet

i also took pictures of the soil profile of the old strawberry patch since i was digging in there and the difference was rather stark. the subsoil is white or gray clay and light sand, the top is about a foot of dark topsoil with plenty of organic matter and looks like perfect. it's a bit too low though and prone to a lot of weeds until i get it back under control. i'm tempted next year to smother it with cardboard and mulch and leave it for a few years. when i want to grow beans in there i'll poke holes through the cardboard...

the old strawberry patch is weeded but not leveled, i may wait until spring to do that.

also did get the garlic planted and some other puttering around done.

flowerbug said:

the old strawberry patch is weeded

Click to expand...

Yay!