WEEKLY GARDEN THREAD MAY 19, 2017

freerepublic | May 19, 2017 | greeenyes

[CottonBall]

“I did not know that you had to train to gain weight??? I find that just sitting in front of the computer was sufficient for me...”

LOL, same here!

[Neoliberalnot]

Good ideas. When I get to my last crop, this I shall remember.

[Augie]

So here's the story on the pond.

It's just a little 1/2 acre or so farm pond that had been used as a stock tank since forever. During the drought of '81 it got really low so Pops had dozer guy
come out and do some work on it. Basically he pushed the muck from the edges into the middle and made a caldera so the cattle could get a drink without getting stuck.

Fast-forward a few years to 2007. Mrs. Augie and I bought ten acres from my folks and built a new house. The pond was on the part of the property that we bought.
It got really low again during the drought of 2011 and in August of that year it ran out of oxygen and all of the fish died. That was a sad deal because it was loaded
with channel cats, largemouth bass, crappie and bluegill. Not little stunted fish either, big, whopping fish. 5lb+ largemouth, channel cats up to 20lb, 12" bluegill.
It wasn't deep but it was rich from all the cow poop over the years.

So, I had dirt guy come out and cut the dam so it wouldn't fill back up. The next spring I bought an old half wore out industrial loader tractor, which we needed for
farm stuff anyway, and started the process of cleaning out the pond. I began by working my way in from the edge on the shallow side, removing the muck and hauling it off
to a sippy hole down by the creek. It was slow going, working on it when I wasn't at work or doing other projects around here, but it gave me time to drink beer and
have some time to think about what I wanted to achieve as an end result for the pond. And I didn't have to write a big check to dirt guy for the work. We were still
pretty much tapped out from building the new house and taking it in the shorts on the sale of our old house due to the downhill slide in real estate that was happening then.

I can't find the earliest pics of the work. Changed cell phones somewhere in there and didn't start using dropbox until after the phone swap.

This first pic is fairly early in the process. You can see the difference in color of the material that's being removed compared to what's underneath. For a little
perspective, the loader bucket on the tractor is 7'6" wide.

Looks like it rained again. I've lost count of how many times I've had to pump it out.

Compare the cut in the dam in the first pic to this one and you'll get an idea of how much material has been removed so far. My goal is to have 12'-14' of water in the middle
when the pond is at full pool. I haven't measured it yet, but I'm estimating here it would be about 10' if it were full. I'm going to build a fishing/swimming dock about where the tractor is sitting.

I gave up after this rain last fall.

This is what it looked like this morning. Two days ago it was empty. Two weeks ago the water was above the spot where the discharge line comes out of the cut.

I'm super happy with the new pump. It's rated for just over 3000gph and will handle 1/2" solids.

This what it looks like now after 8 hours of running the pump. All I need is a few days without rain and I'll be able to get in there with the tractor and resume work.

[tubebender]

Speaking of feeder birds we had three Red Crossbills at out feeders yesterday eating black oil sunflower seeds and the day before we had two Hairy and one Downy Woodpeckers. They are drawn to Lady Bender’s home made peanut butter and lard biscuits. I could not find my woodpecker photos…

[tubebender]

Nice little pond ya got there...

[tubebender]

Rhododendron Golden Gait and I don’t know the name of the next one and last is a old Azalea. Rhodies and Azalea do well in the Redwoods...

[ApplegateRanch]

Have to be rural for this, but I use 2-3/4” low base #7-1/2 12 ga “field & range” loads. Very low power, but plenty for chippers, squirrels, and similar pests. At the 45-50 feet to the barn, they barely mark the paint, but take out the vermin efficiently.

[Augie]

It’s coming along, I just need some dry weather so I can get back to moving dirt.

I got my priorities screwed up last summer when I put in 500 tomato plants. I was messing with tomatoes when I should have been moving dirt. Not this time. Market garden is going into pumpkins if I can get the ground ready in time to plant. Not much work involved with those. Plant em and forget em until harvest time.

[Neoliberalnot]

Nice, very nice sequence of pictures. I can’t tell, is that a cat or JD tractor and loader? What kind of pump is that?

Several years ago we had drained a pond in central Missouri, hoping to farm over it. We waited a year and a half to test it. I drove out cautiously on a 90 horse Case and before I could react, the front end sunk to the axle. It took a 120 hp JD with duals to extract that rig and we had to wait another full year. I got a D4 Cat stuck in an irrigation ditch in eastern Oregon back in the 70s. We spent a couple of hours digging out behind it with a little JD crawler and finally extracted the D4 hooked to the JD crawler and another 60 hp David Brown. Before we dug it out, the winch on the Cat would drag backwards both the JD crawler and that little David Brown tractor.

Is your pond in Texas? I noticed the absence of rock. Makes me sick to think all those fine fish died.

[Augie]

OK, time for some garden pics. Mrs. Augie and #1 Marine Daughter Leah went to kansass to visit DiL and the Grandsons this weekend. That and the muddy conditions have given me some time to mess around on the computer for a change.

Baby kohlrabis. Basil seeded in the flat behind but not peeking out yet.

Peppers, cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, etc. All of the weed fabric and irrigation line is stuff that I used on the market garden last summer.

Wider view of the kitchen garden. The potting shed looks like it's about to fall over, but that's just distortion in the image from the super-short focal length of the lens in a cell phone camera. It's actually quite level and plumb.

Not so funny, funny story time. Three nights ago when Mrs. Augie went out to shut the chickens up there was a raccoon on top of the brooder house sniffing around trying to figure out how to get in and have fresh pullet dinner. I did what I always do when there's a chicken thief sniffing around my flock - grabbed my trusty Ruger 10-22 and gave the varmint a terminal case of lead poisoning. No big deal, right? Wrong.

Fast-forward 24 hours. Mrs. Augie is out messing with her flower bed and hears a funny noise coming from the brush on the neighbor's side of the fence. Calls daughter over. Daughter calls me over. Yep, baby raccoon crying for momma. Daughter climbs over the fence and catches baby raccoon. Now, I'm a practical guy from a farming background and my first inclination is to whack it in the head and be done with it. No. It's too cute and pitiful. I'm over-ruled by irrational females.

Daughter gets an eye dropper and feeds it. Puts it in the baby chicken cage in my shop with some towels and a heating pad. A few hours later Mrs. Augie goes out to shut the chickens up and hears another one. Calls me out there. The first one had crawled out of the nest and fallen out of the tree. This one is still in the tree. I get the look. So I drag the ten foot stepladder across the fence into the brush, climb up into the tree and retrieve baby chicken thief number two. Daughter feeds it and into the cage it goes.

Next day Daughter googles how to raise baby raccoons. Off to the store for kitten formula she goes. They have to be fed every three to four hours. They have to be kept warm. They have to have their little private parts massaged to stimulate them to eliminate waste. Wife and daughter run off to kansass for the weekend leaving poor Augie to take care of baby chicken stealers.

I know, I'm a special kind of stupid. LOL

[11Bush]

I know, I'm a special kind of stupid. LOL

No Augie, your sound like a good father, husband, and man.

[Augie]

Tractor is a Massey-Ferguson 50E. 65hp Perkins diesel and absolutely amazing hydraulics. If I stick the loader bucket too tight it will lift the rear end off the ground. That’s with loaded 16.9x28s and 1000lbs of box blade and suitcase weight hanging off the rear three-point hitch.

Pump is a 1/2hp japan-made trash pump that I bought off of Amazon. Best $300 bucks I’ve spent in a while. I burned up three of the $70 china-made pumps from Harbor Freight since I started on the pond.

I grew up farming. Been stuck and helped neighbors who were stuck more times than I can count. I ran a 7600 Ford pulling a 16’ spring tooth cultivator into a creek bottom seep hole one time. Same deal. It was sunk to the belly before I knew what happened. Took another 7600 Ford, and 3020 JD and a 4020 JD all chained together to get out. I got a good butt-chewing for that from Dad’s partner. And another one when I pointed out that if he didn’t want me driving into it he should have told me it was there. LOL.

I’m smack in central Missouri myself. Six miles east of Columbia and a mile and half south of I70.

[MightyMama]

Small Obnoxious Dog (who actually weighs about 80 pounds) ADORES broccoli stems for some reason. This year he figured out that broccoli stems come from broccoli seedlings, and we’ve had a few discussions about No You Cannot Have That.

[greeneyes]

We had rain Friday night too, and again tonight. I need to check taters tomorrow to make sure they are still covered, and maybe I’ll also put down a layer of straw.

I have a bed of hairy vetch that I need to pull up and get it ready for something. Nights are still cool enough here that I didn’t want to put out the lemon tree or transplant tomatoes that already have blooms.

You’ll be glad to have a more efficient pump, I’m sure. So much stuff these days from china and simply nothing else in town available. I hate the fact that so much Walmart stuff comes from China.

[greeneyes]

We live on one of the steepest hills around our area. Our lower patio is at least 8 feet below our upper patio. That’s why we have such a terrific walk out basement. LOL

The front windows of our house are only about 3 feet to the ground. The back windows are about 8 or 9 feet.

Some of our gardens are terraced because of the steep slopes.
In the winter we go around the block and up a road that is not quite as steep and then slide down the hill to our driveway-when it’s too icy to make it up the hill. We have had times when even 4 wheel drive was challenged.

[cherry]

my taters are all up....all fingerling type...edible decorative corn about 2 inches if the gophers don't get to them...

some squash in...trombone and also pink banana...

elephant garlic looking great...

I have hops growing for no particular reason, lol...

today I planted a few tomato plants...

I went with some beefsteak and hope the season is long....I want a big old fat real tomato tomato...

also some plum tomatoes...

[greeneyes]

Thanks for the humor - I had a good laugh and that’s getting to be a rare thing these days. LOL

[cherry]

haven't seen an oriole for some time....I'm not getting as many birds that I use to...

hummingbirds are here, but not so many....

what exactly do you do with the jelly?

[greeneyes]

We collect the rain to use during the droughts. Learned a good lesson one summer we had to let almost all of the plants die, because we hadn’t saved enough rain water, and the barrels were empty by the end of May, when they normally would have lasted through August.

So that’s when we bought a swimming pool that was on sale, and now we have 4000 gallons collected to use for irrigation, if it’s needed. Since we have it located as far uphill as possible and still catch water from the roof, it’s a great gravity fed deal.

Just turn on the hose that is attached to the pool, and a good stream comes out to water every thing pretty quick. I used to haul buckets from the rain barrels, so the hose is easier.

[cherry]

we have squirrels...I actually saw one go into a bluebird house and subsequently, found a dead bird on the ground...grrr......