@557 I just figured out my soil has turned hydrophobic. I bought a drip hose and have it on the lowest drip level. It seems to be working. What did I do to make it angry at water?
My dad almost lost his arm in 1952 or so. The scar was insane. I loved hearing the story. An animal, including humans, has an amazing ability to adapt to the loss of a body part, or sense. People who go blind in their life say they can hear much better than before. I have a friend who is current paralyzed, though it’s likely temporary. I saw her recently. Her upper arm strength is off the charts. My sister’s cat just had a leg amputated, and so far, he’s getting around fine.
Us first world-ers are dealing with inflation and shortages. Third world-ers are going to die in droves. I agree with you. Every bushel we grow and every bushel we conserve can help them a tiny bit by affecting global supplies. I had not heard about France banning exports. They probably don’t have a choice. Government is tasked with looking out for their people first—at least in some countries…. I’ve often said on PF starvation in this modern age will be politically driven and it’s turning out that way right now. Geopolitical conflict kill people not directly involved in the conflict at higher rates than direct combatants. I hope things turn around for the better soon. If they don’t this will compound rapidly.
Oh I’ve got some nasty stories….assisting necrotic still births are the worst I think. The amputations were on goats. The most involved was a broken hind leg on a kid that didn’t heal with splinting. We have a drug (Flunixin) that’s pretty good at pain reduction, especially muscular and skeletal pain. I give it well before anything like amputation. Then lidocaine is used locally in tissues to be removed. I give prophylactic antibiotics before any procedure like this as well as after. Usually penicillin. We have chlorhexidine for sterilizing instruments and iodine for site cleansing/disinfecting. A standard scalpel is best for soft tissue and a wire saw seems to be the best for bone. The nice thing about wire saws is they get pretty hot if used correctly so they help with cauterization of small blood vessels. We use wire saws for “adult” dehornings and horn trimming as well. My wife is probably a better surgeon than I am. We do this stuff together usually. Our skills usually complement each other. This goat took probably 20 minutes and there was only one major blood vessel to crimp off. We left as much healthy tissue as possible at the point of amputation (just below the hock) and it healed up quite well. Flunixin was administered regularly until the pain subsided during healing. It did bear weight on it some after healing but was mostly just a tripod. It was a weather (castrated male) so it was consumed at some Latino’s birthday party or graduation when he reached about 50 lbs. I’ve done other leg amputations on kid goats but they were simpler because the limb was lost due to frostbite/hypothermia. They tend to just die back and shrivel up and removal is pretty painless and “bloodless”. The most macabre part with goats is the screaming. Being restrained on their side produces screaming in complete absence of pain. Any pain makes it worse. Little known trivia…my best childhood friend was a military man, army SF. He started out in the SF medical training but later switched to explosives. The training in medical is done using goats because their response to pain and other physiological responses to injury mimic humans. I’m not sure about the ethics but no worse than the stuff we do to rats etc. during medical trials and experimentation. I’d prefer none of it happened but I’m also a pragmatist…
Im hearing a lot about John Deer harvesters being able to be shut down and only repaired when the factory gets around to it. (No to mention ransom ware) And Putin will control Ukraine’s ports, and shut them off at will like he did gas. And Putin will control Ukraine’s ports, and shutbthem off atvwill. Starving Africans and the Middle East are going to invade Western Europe.
This has been theoretically possible for years. They have been remotely monitoring things like oil pressure, engine temp. etc. for quite a while. Often a tech will call and request you to shut down for repairs before the operator is aware of a problem. I’m quite sure the ability to shut down remotely was included in the software running this monitoring it just hasn’t been used. Like Onstar services etc. in passenger vehicles, the tech has been there just not widely used for control of people or production yet. It takes a few years of convincing people the convenience outweighs the downsides and soon the tech is almost universally accepted. One of the downsides is when the tech turns on the company. A couple years ago a neighbor had a fuel system shut down on a combine during corn harvest. They came to the field and spent 3 days trying to identify the problem. Then they put it on a semi and hauled it 30 miles to the dealership and tried for another week with no results. Finally the neighbor made them give him a replacement machine but he lost tens of thousands of dollars in lost productivity. Another area we’ve been vulnerable for years is GPS technology. They can easily shut down access to satellites and base station correction signals. No equipment even comes with physical markers or anything so row cropping without GPS signal would be almost impossible. It would cut productivity by at least 40-50%. The ability for the dealer or government to do this has existed for 20 years. Technology is certainly a two edged sword. The ones with enough calories in them to accomplish the feat. If they want the best chance now would be better for them than later. I’m guessing they probably aren’t going to be fed by the aggressors of this conflict either…
Hi! Do you know what your organic matter content of your soil is? Not like a lab analysis but just generally. Do you add a lot of compost annually? Also do you till with a roto tiller? We used to have trouble when we used a tiller every year. A “hardpan” of compacted soil develops right below the tilled soil that is impervious to water. It’s rare but also too much compacted mulch or compost can cease gas exchange and go anaerobic. This mat of anaerobic matter can repel water. It would be slimy and stinky, not fluffy and “earthy” smelling. Our garden has a lot of clay type soil naturally. To avoid the problem you seem to have we don’t till a lot anymore and use a lot of mulching and compost for weed control and adding organic matter. If I lived further south I would use a cover crop on my garden. Maybe annual rye or peas with some soil penetrating plant like daikon radish. That helps break up any hardpan and keeps soil biology going year round. The holes in the soil rotting daikon leave facilitates water infiltration. Could be something else completely but those are my guesses. There are some odd causes like fire or a lot of eucalyptus foliage contact but I’m assuming those are not in play?
I just have 4, 4x4 raised beds. I started with a blend of top soil, pre mixed loam, mushroom compost, etc. I do not till. I typically harvest compost once a month in the summer, and every two months in the winter. Really, just whenever it’s ready. I think I’m doing a decent job of maintaining a good green/brown ratio in the compost. I try to spread the compost love around, and will use miracle grow for veggies to supplement. Really, I’m hoping it’s just because we had a seriously dry winter, and the rainy season is running late this year. I’m trying to get the soil back before my current seeds reach a planting height. I can’t grow much here in the summer, but there are a few things that will most likely work. Even though the soil is dry, it gave me awesome tomatoes, continuously, from about February through late March. Im in SE Florida.
I used to use a lot of peat moss in container mixes. I used dish soap as a wetting agent. Dry peat moss repels water and can be a real pain to wet.
* raises hand. Here's my chance to use a fancy $5 word, a wetting agent is also known as a surfactant. I'm not sure but I think it may work by breaking up the surface tension
@Curious Always, Good suggestions from others. If it’s a problem caused by hydrophobic molecules in your soil a wetting agent/surfactant would be beneficial. I used to have an old guy come around peddling liquid Amway soil amendments for commercial ag applications. It’s basically what @FatBack and @politicalcenter are describing. The detergent will bind with the hydrophobic binding sites of whatever is in your soil and neutralizing them. Too bad you are so far away. I have probably 20 gallons of the stuff I never got applied. Sounds like you are doing everything right to me. A hot dry winter may be the problem. I found this. I did not know sandy souls were more prone to surface hydrophobic conditions. Isn’t soil sandy down there in FL? It also mentions lime application which I had never heard of for hydrophobic soil! I’m learning! https://myaussiegarden.com/hydrophobic-soil/
Man, dish soap is handy. I also mix it with vinegar and salt as a weed killer. Soap seems like WD40 for backyard nature, lol. Thanks everyone. @557, my parents sold Amway for quite some time. 5 gallon buckets of LOC were much fun when tipped over. Lol. @FatBack sandy loam seems like a good description. I have some work to do. I found small tomatoes called Everglades tomatoes that supposedly survive the brutal beating of summer. Since I basically live in the Everglades, it can’t hurt to try.
Many of the Hispanics around here seem to have a pot always growing of what his generically referred to as 'Grove peppers'.... They're tiny little things but they're hot as hell. I've seen some great big three foot bushes of them too. Look like a Christmas tree with all these little different colored peppers that ripen to red. Ever see those?
I had 5 acres of muck soil in Indiana. It was 14.5% organic matter. I had it tested. We had a drought one year and it dried out. You could stand with a water hose and the water would disappear in the cracks. After a few minutes I gave up. Lost most everything that year. Couldn't pump enough water to do any good.
No, I’ve never heard of them, but my kid is currently growing ghost peppers. That’s some serious Scoville numbers.
That's amazing. We're good and hot by June 10th which can be a real problem if you get a late jump planting, like we all did this year. My wife fixed that problem in our veggie garden by buying a bunch of shade cloth and that's been a real big help. In fact, the pumpkin seedlings I planted last Friday are hiding under it right now (highs in the mid to upper 90s all week). When the heat gets real fierce I'll shade some of our other veggies, including our tomatoes, but I have found one local variety that can handle just about everything Mother Nature can throw at them: Virginia Sweets https://www.totallytomato.com/product/T00801/87 https://www.southernexposure.com/products/virginia-sweets-tomato/ They're exceptionally heat-tolerant, they've got superior disease-resistance and the fruit are thick-skinned, so I've rarely encountered any problems with them. On top of that the fruit are huge and taste great. I prefer richer tasting dark tomatoes like Carbons and Cherokee Purples but they're not near as tough and productive as the Virginia Sweets. Raised beds are the way to go because they'll spread if you don't confine them. I plant them in manure rich soil (you can sink them deep like tomatoes) and my wife top dresses them with composted manure once or twice at the max. Once they start fruiting cut back on the Nitrogen and ramp up the Phosphorus and Potassium. The trickiest thing about them, in my estimation, is their structure. They get really gangly and the branches are highly prone to snapping so you have to stake and/or cage them (cages are better).
If you're looking for a good hot weather tomato, give this one a try (I was just blabbing about it in #122 above): Virginia Sweets https://www.totallytomato.com/product/T00801/87 https://www.southernexposure.com/products/virginia-sweets-tomato/ Our summers are brutal, too, and they handle the climate better than any other tomato I've grown. This tomato is PERFECT for seafood salsas, by the way....
I planted Celebrity.....determinate......and Bonnies best .....indeteminate. So far so good. Also planted Beefsteak. Don't let the weeds bother you. They don't bother me. I like weeds in the watermelon to shade the fruit.
I’m trying to find the growing zone for these. It’s not the sun and heat that makes summer challenging in zone 10, it’s the incredible amounts of rain we get that floods them out. Most plants don’t tolerate continued wet feet very well.
