Smartie's Bar & Grill #74

Broccoli is not inedible then. The leaves are very edible. Very nice broccoli leaves and tomato soup. But I feed the leaves to the goats.

 

Mine has puddles. When it dries out I will be ready.

 

I was hoping to cull the lettuce this weekend, but I'll need a pulley and a rope to make it out to the garden and back again. Slicker than (add and adjective) is very applicable.

I will be getting my seeds ready for starting, and Wednesday night, with the moon just before full, the seeds should do well. The weather has prevented getting the rest of the gravel down in and around the greenhouse, so once again, my credenza in the kitchen will serve.

 

I let my garden alone last year. I did use it for pasture. I have a spot a little higher on the hill for early stuff. I grew some big ass watermelon up there one year.

 

My wife says her nose is going to fall off. But it’s not turning black or getting necrotic so I think she is exaggerating.

We typically get a week or so of -5F to -10F nights with 10F daytime highs but this was very atypical. It’s been probably 30 years or more since it’s been like this here for that long.

We had zero to 5mph winds most of the time which was a blessing. If we had had 20-40 mph winds (which are common) in conjunction with the cold it would have been much worse.

Interestingly enough, there were some 30 minute rolling blackouts in the Midwest because of our dependence on wind generation of electricity, no wind, and record demand for power. A coal plant not far from me that hadn't been online since 2012 was started up to help.

 

Sounds like I'll count my blessings at 20 degrees at night, and 30-40 during the day....

 

Tho't of you Tigger, we were driving home and I saw a landscape .. it was just beautiful.. I've seen it enough times, but with the lighting it was just ..awesome and I tho't "I bet tigger could capture this" because I know you can't capture scenes like that with a camera (why is that?)

 

I guess I should use the pooled knowledge of the gardeners here..
So I have a piece of ground that grows nothing, however I want to use it because it has shade from both sides.. too much intense sun here, so that is necessary.
Question is.. is there a home soil testing kit? I suspect that it has too much animal waste on it.. might be too hot to grow.

 

Yes. Available at any garden center.

 

Thank you.. I'll put it on HB's shopping list.

 

I doubt if you have too much manure and I would worry about shading out my Sunlight. I would use a shade cloth for shade. About 40% shade and plant in a place that gets sun all day. You can always use the shade cloth as a crop cover. Ground that grows nothing is problematic. Could be chemicals, even in shade it should grow something.

 

Try a different bird food. The majority of the ones coming to my feeders are getting white proso. They would pick and pull at one food till I identified which seed they liked best. They seemed to like the proso the best which is millet.

 

You local ag center can help you and tell you what will grow best. They might even do the soil testing. Where I live the farmers call in professional soil testers and they spot check all over the field that is to be planted.

 

Plenty of puddles here.. Both garden spots are holding water. I checked the rain gauge this afternoon and it showed 5 inches it looks like a week or two at least before we can plant.

 

I do have a spot uphill.

 

I’ll try and count my blessings as well. This kind of weather is hard on grasshopper eggs that would hatch and compete with my cows for grass in the summer.

 

Amazing. I must confess I thought the "-" must be a typo, its incredible, we had a couple of days at 18f and that felt like your ears would fall off.

Interesting, I wonder why the wind died (perhaps it froze )

 

Thank you. Yes you are right, painting pictures is about capturing the mood rather than recording the image. So you have to exaggerate colours and shades, The other critical bit is the focus of the picture, where it draws your eye to. You never paint exactly what's in the photo and you never show people the original photo
Interestingly I've had a few photos where you can't paint them, ones where the sky is so strange and vibrant that if you painted it people would think you'd got it wrong.
If you get a chance to take a pic, pop it on here and I might have a go.

 

It really is a lot about what you are used to. I talked to my banker this morning who grew up In Wisconsin I think. He said the last several days were just nostalgic and gave him happy memories of childhood. LOL

Actually you do get used to it pretty fast. Today it was 18F when I got up and went out for my first heifer check. It felt HOT. I had to take off my outer coat—I was stripped down to only a hoodie and insulated coveralls. I even took off my neck gaitor I use to tolerate riding the four wheeler at those temps.

@Curious Always knows someone who would know about the wind. Let’s ask! I’m guessing it has something to do with the location of the jet stream that brought the cold air down here where it doesn’t belong in the first place!

How cold can it get at your place?

 

Actually you're right, when I used to go snow boarding you never considered the outside temperature was minus 9, because you dressed for it.
Where it catches you out is when you go out in a cotton jumper, a winter coat and a bobble hat expecting normal temperatures.
Still rather you than me -30 bbbrrrrrrr.

Would be interesting to see what curious says. Many people don't realise that climate change has is about global warming moving thigs like the jet stream.
Where I am (Cambridge UK) the joke is we don't have weather, we rarely get mentioned in the forecasts. Because of our location the two main weather causes in the UK don't reach us. From the west storms off the Atlantic hit the Welsh mountains and get driven north away from us, and cold air driven down the North sea around Scandinavia are pushed inland where it narrows into the English channel, but that's below us. So 24f is as cold as it ever gets normally, we don't get hurricanes or massive snow falls. This year we have had rain and some rain and some more rain, and then we had some rain. 4 years worth so far.

 

Exactly! The clothes matter. Layers and making sure you get rid of some layers before chopping ice out of stock tanks. Sweating profusely and then having to stay out in the cold in a less active state is no bueno.

Where did you snowboard, across the Channel?

So you kind of picked a great place to live—as long as you like rain! I grew up in a very mild climate (but very dry) so I’m not really a fan of cold.

 

No, you can't snowboard across the Channel, you need to take the ferry. I tried it once, didn't go well
I snow boarded in the Alps, various places. I wasn't good at it, I used to watch the glaciers overtake me. But I loved it out there with friends and family, sitting on top of a mountain having a coffee is magical. I used to be a pretty good squash player, but my knees got too bad, so I switched to snowboarding (Which everyone knows is perfect for your knees Doh. But had to give that up eventually when it got to painful.

 

Didn't really choose it, I was born round here, but its a nice place to live. I would choose hills and rivers, but our life and friends are all here now. And it makes travelling to the mountains and hills all the more special.

 

Not sure where this forum went. Did not read a lot of posts.

One bar I would like to visit some day is Rudy's in Manhattan. It is in the Hell's kitchen neighborhood. Cheapest beer in NYC you can buy a pitcher for $8-10.

They have free hot dogs for the purchase of a drink. Hebrew nationals with all the toppings.

I'm sure they have had a rough time of it with Covid and the idiot uncaring leadership of that city and state. Hope they come out of it ok.

https://rudysbarnyc.com

Rudy's was mentioned in a Steely Dan song, "Black Cow".

"I saw you at Rudy's you were very high"

Great song and seems like a great place. I'd love to try their red beer while eating a couple of dogs and watching a game.

 

Is it dry? We live on a hill and it is wet right now our soil has a tendency to hold water. Are you going to plant watermelons up there