Weekly Garden Thread - Nov. 25- Dec. 1, 2023 [The Ultimate Christmas Tree Guide Edition]

| November 25, 2023 | Diana in WI/Greeneyes in Memoriam

[Qiviut]

Regardless of the method, gravity is our friend! 😊

[Diana in Wisconsin]

Good point. I’d hate to have Christmastime ruined with a sick child or pet.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

With few exceptions, all of our land is either uphill or downhill depending on which way you’re traveling. :)

Draining my 300’ hose set up is easy-peasy - disconnect and lay it down on the lawn as the hydrant is at the top of the rise.

This is also the reason that all of the ‘really good dirt’ is down in the pasture. Decades of soil erosion have provided that bounty, though we now have production field contouring practices in place that slow it down. Gravity always wins!

(Just take a look at my sagging neck, LOL!)

[Pollard]

Things work out.

I had gotten a new gas tank for the splitter because the old gas cap/tank had a tendency to suck in rain water and the inside got rusty. I tried to keep it covered but goats. Need an equipment shed really. Got the new one on but the carb was pretty nasty by that point so I got a new carb and put it on a couple of days ago. Still won't start. It has good strong spark and pops sometimes when trying to start it. There must be some sort of ignition issue or maybe even mechanical. Getting hard to work on it with the temperatures being low now to the point of needing thick gloves.

I've had a browser tab open for a few weeks now for craigslist search for firewood within 40 miles. Most everything was pretty much 40 miles away and in areas I don't know. Refreshed it yesterday and saw an ad for seasoned firewood for sale in the town I work in. Still 35 miles but I know the area, including where the shopping is.

$65 for an 8' truck bed
$60 for a 6' truck bed
Other sizes figured at $0.80 per cubic foot

6' bed is 6 x 6 x 2 x $0.8 which is $57.60(72 cu ft)
8' bed is 6 x 8 x 2 x $0.8 which is $76.80(96 cu ft)

With an 8' bed, you get quite a bit more for $5(unless it's supposed to say $75 instead of $65)

An 8' bed is nearly a cord of wood. Cord is 128 cu ft so $65 for 96 cu ft is a heckuva deal(and we don't have to cut/split). A cord usually sells for $100-125 around here so even $75 for 8' bed is a decent deal.

If I leave my tailgate down, the 6' bed becomes 8'. Just need to make a tailgate extender.

$300 for one that has a tailgate.

Mine will be whatever I can do cheap myself. I do have some steel pipe leftover from the tunnel.

Never did get any firewood stacked last year due to the splitter up and dying. No decent deals on firewood near me so I spent quite a bit on propane and electricity. Lit a fire in the wood stove night before last and it's been so nice. Real heat.

Regardless of "seasoned", when it's stacked like this, it's going to be wet and/or green.

With ex and daughter gone, I have room to bring quite a bit of wood inside. Will help keep the humidity up when running the wood stove while drying the wood out for the wood stove. I've got a wood rack right next to the stove too.

I'm eyeballing stuff I can store in the camper to make more room for wood in here.

[Pollard]

craigslist is dangerous

Such a purty girl

[gloryblaze]

Thanks. My mind is made up to get the collapsible ones for sure. I have the heavy duty, too, by and large, and they get heavier and stiffer every year. I needed a few hundred feet for the property we are fixing up, and got sick of hauling mine, so I picked up some cheapos at the Dollar Store. OMG. They crimp if you look at them cockeyed. Plus, I am just a little too tall, so I have to bend over to pull a wagon reel. PITA.

I’ve done a lot of dumb things, but letting water freeze in a hose isn’t one of them.

So far.

[Augie]

We finally got a week of seasonable weather conditions here in Central Missouri. Cold, damp, and miserable with a bit of snowfall over the weekend. Just enough to remind me how much I despise winter.

Aside from Thanksgiving Day I spent most of the weekend in my workshop cleaning/organizing. Friday was the rendering of the turkey carcass. Saturday was picking the bones/gristly bits out and turning the remainder into a lovely pot of turkey soup. Those things I did out in the shop while I was putzing about. It’s really nice to be able to keep that mess out of Mrs. Augie’s kitchen, especially when she’ trying to use it for something else.

Thought I’d finish up moving dirt out of the kitchen garden on Saturday but Nanner wouldn’t cooperate. The new starter I installed last month - kaput! I pulled it off yesterday to see what was up and it wouldn’t even spin when I connected it to a battery on the workbench. Just got off the phone with the dealership... it will be a couple days to get a replacement shipped in... with any luck I’ll be back in business by the weekend.

[MomwithHope]

It is 25 degrees here today a couple of inches of snow on the ground. Wind really blowing and a couple more inches tonight. No matter how ready we get the garden ready for winter, my body is just not ready for this cold. They are saying 19 degrees tonight. Just not ready!

[Qiviut]

Beautiful day .... “feels like” temp (41) is about 10 degrees lower than actual temp (51) because there’s a decent breeze.

So I just HAVE to tackle the garden cleanup at some point, but “my” golf cart isn’t working, not even charging. Mom has a golf cart with a little trailer, but all my tools, that I need to take down fencing) are on my golf cart (formerly dad’s workshop on wheels). I have figured out a way to pull a “sled” behind it & I can haul pretty much anything in it. It’s one of those big black pans for mixing mortar (large size) & I attached a ring to it, just run a rope through it & attach to the golf cart.

I was hoping one of the battery wires had corroded because that would be a relatively easy fix - the carts are old enough that’s starting to be an issue, but I just have not had time to even check it out .... today was the day. Sure enough, one of the wires is corroded off - in fact, when I took off the nut that holds the end of the wire to the battery terminal, there was nothing there to take off - the metal had corroded down to nothing. I had ordered a set of wires for mom’s cart (she’s had two battery wire ends corrode) so I took one from that kit & fixed the broken cable on my cart. Cleaned the terminals well, put on some anti-corrosion spray. When I plugged the cart in, it looks like it’s charging. Fingers crossed it charges up & runs ok - I really need my cart - trying to borrow mom’s is pretty difficult because if she’s outside, she’s using it.

[Pollard]

You should check the batteries every month or three for water level and terminal corrosion. Use distilled water only to top off the water level.

Needs to be above the lead plates you can see when looking down the fill holes but 1/4” below the plastic tube of the filler holes.

A mix of water and baking soda will neutralize battery acid for cleaning up corrosion.

White lithium grease brushed or sprayed on the terminals will help prevent corrosion by blocking out humidity and oxygen.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

At least you know where the problem lies...which is a good start!

Our Ford F350 has been sitting for a few weeks now - the guy that is supposed to come over to, ‘take a look’ hasn’t been showing up. :(

[Qiviut]

It is running - seemed peppy enough at first, but was getting slow coming back from a dump trip. I am hoping being on the charger overnight will improve the situation. At least I can get my tools & such out to the garden.

Made progress in the herb beds, pulled out all the pepper plants, started working on the tomato bed.

[Qiviut]

My dad was “in charge” of the golf carts. He was pretty good about checking the water levels, always asking mom to buy him distilled water. He had gotten to the point of asking me to put the water in - he had no balance & couldn’t see very well, spilled water everywhere & the last straw was he overfilled at least one battery that leaked on the garage floor & ruined the finish in that spot. I put on my headlamp & have a squeeze bottle with a tip (for condiments) that I use to make sure the water gets where it’s supposed to go & at the proper level.

Dad passed away in January so now the carts are “on me”. I never used one (he and mom were in their carts all the time, dad because he couldn’t walk outside any more), but now I have been using his ‘workshop on wheels’ since he’s gone. I never paid much attention to the corrosion, but it’s started to be a problem & that’s why I ordered new battery wires. I will be re-wiring 3 golf carts .... whew. Some of the wires/terminals just need cleaning up, but it’s nice to have new wires, too. The corrosion/wires are a ‘winter’ project - days when I cannot work outside. Dad’s cart is kept in the garage, mom’s is under a pole barn, but can be pulled in the garage so I can work on it out of the weather.

The one I replaced yesterday went well - got the wires off the terminals, cleaned them all up, put on some old stuff dad had to block corrosion (I need to get something else) & got the wires hooked back up. The cart is charging/running. This particular one (dad’s) has weak batteries - it was in the shop 2 or 3 summers ago & they told us at that time the batteries weren’t great. The bad thing is if you replace one, you need to replace all & that’s an extremely expensive proposition. We’ll be running these batteries until the cart just won’t charge/run any more. The 3rd cart is at our lake cabin - I might be able to get one of my brothers to work on that one.

Thanks for the info :-)

[Pollard]

Yep, @ $125-150 each, they add up.

They weight nearly 80 lbs each too so when you do end up changing them, find some strong young man to swap them.

They also have a core charge so you’ll want to bring the old ones in with you when you get new ones. Let the golf cart supplier pull the old ones out and put the new ones in your vehicle, which pretty much needs to be a pickup truck or good sized SUV. Six batteries will be close to 500 lbs and 8 batteries about 650 lbs.

If you do it while the cart will still drive, you could drive it up on a trailer, take it to the GC battery supplier and they will change them right on the trailer or drive it off, swap them and drive it back on. Then you go home and drive it off the trailer.

[Pollard]

Been thinking of things to automate around the house too.

With Winter setting in, it's time for some winterizing. With our water supply being a tank, it's always been a battle to try and prevent things from freezing.

Things I've done in the past.

• I have got a tank heater first thing but that doesn't help the spigot on the tank or RV hose that comes from that into the house.
• I added 6" insulated flex duct from the house to tank and ran the hose down inside of it which helped a little.
• Then I put a computer fan at the inner end of the duct to blow house air down towards the spigot and would just let it run overnight when below freezing.
• That helped a lot more but when it did freeze, sometimes I'd wake up to the sound of the pump running because it lost pressure and couldn't build up pressure to shut it off.

Then the computer fan died so I put a different fan there but it's loud so I would just turn it on in the morning to thaw things and I would turn the pump off overnight as well.

For this year, I bought new computer fans, one for a spare they have a low db noise rating. The big buck ruined the duct but I have more and will block the goats out of that area. And I have automation components and knowledge I didn't have before.

A temp sensor inside the duct at the tank/spigot end. Temp below 28 shuts off pump. Above 38 turns it back on. In either case, the pump won't run if the pressure is up.

Temp sensor will be dual purpose. It will also turn the fans on/off at certain temps.

For general prevention of the pump running for too long, whether due to freezing or leak, create a Timer which is just script used for logic.

If the pump runs for more than 20 minutes, the timer turns it off. I'll have to manually reset it so I'm also going to have a LED bulb turn on when the pump gets turned off by the timer(not shown in drawing). That will be an indicator so I know to manually reset it and/or find the reason it stayed on for 20+ minutes.

I may use an indoor temp sensor too. If it's cold in here, I don't want to run the fan(s) and suck out what little heat we have. A fan pulling air out will pull cold air in somewhere else. Maybe use <65 as a threshold to turn fan off. If that causes the spigot to get down to 28, the pump will shut off but so be it.

Timer and temp settings are subject to change. Low temp may end up being 33. I don't think I'll ever run the water for ore than 20 minutes doing dishes. I could probably drop the time down to 5-6 minutes and go from there. If it shuts off while I'm doing dishes, increase the time.

I also plan to build a box for the spigot and have the duct run to it. I usually just tuck the duct over the spigot as best I can but there's always a gap where cold air can get in. Just need to make the box easily detachable for when I need to make a water run. Box will need holes in the bottom for air flow. The combined sq in of the holes will need to match the sq in of the fan.

If it's super cold for days on end, we just do without pressurized water. I need to buy a few 5 gallon water dispenser type jugs. We used to use them to keep 15-20 gallons in the house for doing dishes in a big pot on the wood stove. A plastic bottle with holes in the cap was used to rinse dishes. If it remained cold for weeks, I'd fill the jugs at a neighbors(if their pump wasn't froze).

Might play around with an incandescent light bulb in the box I build for the spigot like people use for their pump houses. The box will be a lot smaller though. Maybe a little fridge bulb? They also make little heaters for electrical enclosures but they're pricey.

If all works out, neighbors may be filling jugs here when their pumps/plumbing freezes. LOL

Some of these concepts will also be used for the high tunnel tanks so yes, this is a gardening subject. ;~)

[numberonepal]

Growing Your Own Food Is Like Printing Your Own Money
https://thegrownetwork.com/you-can-grow-food-72-hour-viewing/

[Pollard]

Oooh, sunny and very little wind today so even with a high of only 42(and the northerners laugh), I can do some outdoor stuff like set the next tunnel frame in concrete. I've got probably 30 minutes digging to go the last 2-3" of depth. Then drag a frame over, lift with makeshift crane, lower into holes, level and brace it and mix/pour concrete.

Gonna have to tear down the truck crane so I can start getting loads of firewood. Would like to get one load tomorrow because it's going to rain later this week. Get it in the morning and the boy will have the rest of the day to bring it in while I work on holes and start on winterizing the water tank setup.

The seller did confirm that an 8 foot bed is $65 compared to a 6' bed being $60 so I will be making some sort of bed extender to make my 6.5' bed an 8' bed and get quite a bit more wood for $5.

Even thought the seller is in the same town I work in, picking up a load on a work day isn't happening. I work 6am to 6pm and have almost an hour drive. I would be loading in the dark at 5am or 7pm. No thanks.

[Qiviut]

Dad & swapped a couple of batteries out ourselves some years ago when he still had his balance (& was too stubborn/cheap to pay the golf cart dealer to do it). The service manager gave us a battery carrier - screw it on to the terminals & it makes a handle. We put a 2x4 through the carrier, dad on one side of the cart & I was on the other side & we lowered the battery in the spot where it was to go ..... those suckers are some kind of heavy & there’s not a lot of room to maneuver! Before we had success, the battery slid down the 2x4 & pinched dad’s hand (very painful).

When we decide to do new batteries, I will trailer the cart to the golf cart dealer & let them handle the whole process - too much for me!! I have been there a couple of times by myself (including picking up a cart to trailer it home) & they are more than friendly & helpful, don’t mind explaining things at all.

[SaveFerris]

nice graphic - keeper

[Diana in Wisconsin]

She seems nice! “Grab a beverage and let’s grow some food!”

Thanks for the link. :)