Moved my tiny Ume and planted Cardinal Persimmon in it’s place!
threatened the starts so they will harden off faster
planted out everything i thought i could get away with. gonna be some that get sunburn
started building up the shelf organization in the greenhouse to make it look nicer and be more organized. this will take all year I’m sure
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I finished filling and up potting all permanent containers in my spare time yesterday! This was a big accomplishment. Now, if I could only start the stupid foundation trellis and get my husband to pound in the T posts for the other one. Other projects being sidelined until mid summer or fall. I’m done. Just want to play with my perennials.
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I watered a few things, stared at stuff, wandered unproductively around the yard, sighed, then went and layed on the couch for a rest before work! Then I saw my rototiller is supposed to be delivered today!!! I know what I am doing tomorrow!
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attempted for the 4th time to graft my Russian mulberry over to illinois everbearing. 1st time doing it totally dormant. hopefully they take this time. and to do anything in the yard with my 2 toulouse goslings chewing on my pants and socks. they cant graft so they figured chewing on me was for moral support.
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We have had some piles of old asbestos roofplates removed from our land. They were weathered and broken in many places, so I suspect the soil to be contaminated. So, after that I removed some of the topsoil and disposed of it. And now I am busy covering it all up with clean soil. The worst location I first covered with plastic, then covered that with clean soil. I hate to put plastic into soil, but neither do I feel comfortable with the idea of free asbestos fibres, and chickens taking dust baths in it.
And at the same time I have been preparing a lot of home grown plants in pots today so I can go sell them at the market this weekend. This will be the very start of my plant and tree nursery business. 
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Actually getting a good amount of my colder weather stuff. 2nd round of raddishes, 3rd of broccoli (finally getting a good yield, combined with the other 2 which were smaller we’re eating em for dinner. Also only 4 are producing and im fearful of how much broccoli i’ll have when the other 7 come in), first of brussel sprout bottom leaves. Started forming its heads so i took the bottom row of leaves.
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Do you have a run for your ducks/geese or are they just out and about when you’re not outside? I’m still trying to problem solve what to do with the future ducks I want to get next year when I’m not outside. Do you have predators about during the day trying to nab them?
there are plenty of predators up the street but im surrouned by fields here and its rare they come down here. the geese are in my portable chicken tractor until they get a little bigger. then they will go in with the chickens. they have a 15 -25’ run.
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Finally starting to feel normal again, have been sick for the past week.
I added to my compost pile today. 16 5 gallon buckets of produce scrap from restaurants & smoothie places. Since the new stuff shrinks I’ll be adding to this pile for a little longer until it’s almost too large to manage. Pile is about shoulder height and 9 feet diameter at the base.
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unimaignably jealous. this would be the rat haven in my yard
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That’s why we have a cat. But even before we got cats I never had an issue with rats in hot piles. When I used bins I did see one jump out of a cold pile - the bin walls hold material up and allow animals to make tunnels that don’t cave. But rats seem to like termites and sweet potatoes more than this. Maybe they take a scrap off the side when it’s not covered in new leaves.
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with our cool summers that would take 3 yrs. to break down. thankfully i have many piles of chicken manure that breaks down much quicker due to high N.
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There’s chicken manure and grass clippings in the bottom half of the pile. The carbon comes from leaves, spent potting soil, woodchips, and this year sawdust since I have a lot.
But yes I can compost quickly here. I tend to let my compost age a while, I imagine this one will be cooled off to my liking by August.
But 90 days to pretty much done with a yard of fruit scrap + leaves is possible in hot summer if I am diligent.
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Today I moved 30 more potted fig trees (roughly the last half) down the hill to their summer location inside a fenced orchard. Thus ends the most physically difficult job of the year. I also “relocated” a rabbit and a woodchuck.
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Put up a new bird feeder for mother’s day after planning it out for a while, below are photos of around two years ago, as compared to today
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do you put a baffle up to stop squirrels or is squirrel feeding part of the joy for you. I had to stop doing bird feeders because the rats were nuts over it. but im going to start again eventually once i get some mess free mix.
No baffle, I figure if the animals are gonna eat something I’d rather it be the bird food than the fruits/berries I have, I’d say it’s more a matter of personal opinion; I don’t see why ya shouldn’t feed the squirrels and everything else as well as the birds, as long as they aren’t taking it all, but I could understand putting up some kind of barrier if other critters started stealing it all away for themselves. I suppose it also just depends on rodent pressure in your area, I don’t have a super huge problem with rodents so I can afford to let them have some.
Elijah 6b/7a
Southern Ohio
My plan for today is to rip the weed barrier out from under the cruddy landscaping on the east side of the house and get that area ready for squash and melons instead.
My neighbor built an elaborate bird feeder not to keep the squirrels away, but to prevent his cat from killing the birds. It’s illegal to allow cats to roam around here but he doesn’t care and neither do the cops. I personally think it’s sadistic to allow a cat to roam free and feed the birds. At least he did something about it in his yard, but that doesn’t stop his cat from trespassing and killing birds on my property.
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My kitty has a catio i built with my wife. I gotta post some pics its from well before this forum lol. She can go out in it and i plant bug and bird attracting plants around it
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