Comments on: The farm, year 3

By: RL

RL — Thu, 05 May 2022 21:48:02 +0000

I remixed up some of the containers… adding perlite, rock phosphorus, and coir to lighten up the soil and improve water retention- these containers will be used for our peppers and tomatoes. They had already been treated with beneficial nematodes a few weeks ago.

In the dirt I found several Japanese beetle grubs- they were yellowed and sickly, signs that they had been attacked by the nematodes.

By: RL

RL — Sun, 10 Apr 2022 01:37:25 +0000

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/feb/10/plummeting-insect-numbers-threaten-collapse-of-nature

By: Pebble

Pebble — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 23:51:25 +0000

I’ve noticed that too

By: Pebble

Pebble — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 23:50:07 +0000

From any time now our lawn s full of infant frogs so doesn’t get mowed until the end of summer. We welcome the dandelions as they are the bees first food of the season pretty much.

By: podrock

podrock — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 22:02:28 +0000

Is something that people around here are starting to push. Let those dandelions bloom. Plant clover.

We are planning to get rid of the last strip of bluegrass on our property, between the sidewalk and the road. Officially, it belongs to the city but they are encouraging people to go native grass and flowers. More and more are doing so.

And I can finally get rid of my lawnmowers (one electric and a manual olde timey push type.)

Have you heard of the “Bee Safe Neighborhood” program?

By: podrock

podrock — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 21:41:15 +0000

Messy is good.

By: RL

RL — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 21:12:31 +0000

When I was a kid even short drives in the car would leave the car splattered with bugs… now, its much ‘better’… not even noticeable…

It does not bode well…

By: RL

RL — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 21:09:30 +0000

Especially the beneficial pollenators…
We didn’t see many pollenators in our garden – no bees to speak of until the beans started flowering, then we got some bees coming by.

We live in the suburbs outside DC, all it takes is a few neighbors treating their yards with pesticide to crash the local populations. We try to use only treatments harmless to beneficial insects- we are not ‘organic’ but at least try to do no harm.

I just applied ~7,000,000 beneficial nematodes to our dirt, and in a few minutes I will follow up with another 3,000,000… I cant say with %100 certainty they make a huge difference, but our first year of gardening we were plagues with SWARMS of flea beetles and other beetles- and the next year I used the nematodes and had nearly none. The nematodes travel down through the dirt looking for larvae of pests, burrow into them through their various orifices and inject a bacteria that kills and liquifies them … If only they made something that worked like that on people…. (looking at Putin). Whether they work on pests or not, they certainly do not harm earthworms…

By: Pebble

Pebble — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 20:13:10 +0000

So much so that their buzzing outside the window drowns out conversation when the mock orange is in flower. They love it, as do I because of the strong scent.

I plant for insects and use no chemicals. My garden is very natural (messy……)

By: RL

RL — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 18:27:35 +0000

24 5-gallon
8 4-gallon
2 30-gallon
10 7-gallon
4 10-gallon
5 20-gallon
4 of these for greens
all loaded,fertilized and mixed with compost

and maybe 6-8 5 gallon buckets that are growing hard-neck garlic and egyptian walking onion.

We likely went a little overboard….