The 2019 Garden, Landscape, and Other Stuff Thread...

[LEGION 12]

I yanked the two tomato plants from my containers (Goliath variety) over the weekend, churned up the soil, added some slow release granular fertilizer, and added some more potting soil to nearly the brim. Think I'm going to stick some Pansies in those two containers for the winter/spring to be replaced by new tomato plants next year.

I still have one Big Boy variety tomato plant in the garden with a fair number of green tomatoes on it.

Last evening after dark I noticed a Hummingbird Moth laying eggs on my two remaining tomato plants I planted in July. So, I can expect to see some hornworms in a bit.

One of my celery plants is acting like someone sprayed weed killer on it with the leaves starting to roll a bit. Probably will loose that plant.

Still pretty dry here. I need to aerate my yard and over seed, but I have been dragging my feet on that because I will have to water so much to get the new seed going. Mother nature is not helping much in the precipitation department over the last few months. I made a spread sheet summarizing all of the rainfall this year so far (by month & day). (I was already doing a monthly total on another spreadsheet. The thing that jumps out at you is how dry it has gotten over the last few months and the frequency of rain has decreased. The time gaps between rains has gotten much wider. I previously just wrote the measurements down on a calendar, but there is other stuff written on the calendar and the rain issue doesn't stand out now.

I got the more precise rain gauge a couple years ago because of a drought that was ongoing at the time and I wanted to see better how much rain we were actually getting at the house. This was during the time period when Gatlinburg TN (Smoky Mt NP) was getting the wild fire. That was a survival event for many people living on the outskirts of Gatlinburg.

LEGION 12 Have you gotten any peas from your late planting? I never have tried to plant peas late in the year.

Unfortunately my peas seem to have some kind of fungus just when they started to get pods .

 

[22-rimfire]

I keep spread sheets on obscure data, and I've been amazed at the way I was able to apply it. (Actually figured out some things that no-one had been able to explain!) I wonder what you will do with those rain stats?

Daily totals are pretty detailed, but it misses the overlapping data sometimes at night. When it's raining, I do try to check and empty the gauge between 11:30 PM and Midnight, but I am not going to wander out there in the pouring rain just to get a number which will be included in the next day's number. So, the tabulation is not perfect. I added color to any daily rainfall over 0.5 inches to visually see the larger rainfall days. I also highlighted the time gaps (spread sheet cells) with color to provide visual impact on the time gaps.

One interesting number for this year is that we got more rain in the first 6 months than last year when it rained so much the entire year. It was essentially a continuation of last year's trend. But dates are dates... Since June, the rain totals have been sub normal and getting worse. Normally here, we get about 4 inches of rain per month, year around. At some point, I am going to look up the official monthly rainfall averages for the area and compare more directly rather than just a general comparison of my data.

I'm sure I will dream up some other statistical analysis as time goes on.

I added normal month precipitation to my spread sheet and compare the months to that number. We are at 99.4% of normal (for the year) as of today, but that is misleading as rainfall prior to July was well above "normal" levels. The official measuring point for NOAA is about 6 miles from me.

 

[22-rimfire]

Unfortunately my peas seem to have some kind of fungus just when they started to get pods .

That's a shame. Looks like powdery mildew. My new tomato plants seem to be getting infected with tomato diseases more quickly than ones planted in the spring. It may be the variety is less resistant to the disease?

 

[LEGION 12]

Should of thinned them like the package said , everything else though .

 

[LEGION 12]

 

[22-rimfire]

Should of thinned them like the package said , everything else though .

Beautiful Bell Pepper! I don't have anything to compete with that.

 

[annr]

I added normal month precipitation to my spread sheet and compare the months to that number. We are at 99.4% of normal (for the year) as of today, but that is misleading as rainfall prior to July was well above "normal" levels. The official measuring point for NOAA is about 6 miles from me.

That's interesting.

I was able to prove my thesis with year over year (and month over month) data. I found a variable over which I had control and got a 50% change in the data (improvement). I don't know what you can do with weather data w.r.t. growing season-- difficult to preempt/forecast rain--but maybe something will occur to you!

 

[22-rimfire]

Rain Measurement: I mostly do the rain measurement thing because I want to. Yeah. I am a bit anal about precision. It started with the drought here back in 2016 when I opted for a more precise manual rain gauge. I knew we hadn't gotten much rain for months at that time, but I had little data. In October 2016 we got ZERO rain. NOAA data is obtainable, but it is more difficult as I recall to look up daily amounts from the past. They do a running total and daily amounts mostly. I do find it interesting.

TVA used to (probably still does) tabulate data by month which could be downloaded in excel and text formats. Their closest measuring point is near one of their hydro/flood control dams. This kind of data is very important to their flood control effort as well as hydro electric production. Need to check that again, as for a while, the monthly tabulations were not available... some sort of software issue I suspect on their end. I used to go by this tabulation as my reference point to the official data. I downloaded their monthly spread sheets, but didn't keep up with that after I started taking my own measurements.

One of my clients has a weather station (Weather Underground) and he enjoys it. He said it's interesting to see the patterns. It was a present from his wife. Pretty niffty present I think.

So far, we can't control the weather. So, other than assembling a record and maintaining it over time, I don't really think there is a lot of statistical analyses (averages over selected periods of time, graphs perhaps for the hell of it, etc.) that are likely to yield interesting results. But if I think of something, I'll play around with it.

Weekly data might be interesting to look at in composite as compared to averages. But generally the data is not reported or tabulated weekly, only monthly. That might be an interesting spread sheet actually with weekly data tabulated.

I still have the calendars where I tabulated the 2017 and 2018 data. I might transpose that data onto spreadsheets for the fun of it. This was recorded daily. I usually tabulated both my cheapie hardware store rain gauge (the yellow plastic kind) with the newer rain gauge measurements (posted something like 0.52"/0.6"). This is how I determined that my hardware store rain gauges averaged 10-15% higher that the more precise gauge. However, for most people, the hardware store gauges are precise enough for a casual interest.

I used to check the stream gauges that are available through the USGS to ascertain water levels prior to making a drive to go trout fishing. (Yes, a dependence on internet access was developing.) I more than a couple times drove over an hour only to discover the "cricks" were in flood stage/very high, and unfishable. Oh sure, I still enjoyed getting out and in cases like that I just hit the woods to wander around. I generally only have so much time available for such things and wasted trips are not a good thing for me. The other interesting aspect to the stream gauge data is just how quickly the stream flows react to rainfall.

I think if I had life to live over again, I would choose meteorology as my focus. I think that is the "farmer" in me. In high school, I used to get picked on by the city kids (which was most of them) about being a farmer. Kids are really cruel sometimes. We lived out in the country. The funny thing is as these "city kids" grew up, they wanted to move to the country.

 

[taldesta]

When I was a kid, I begged my parents to spend summer time on the farm of a friend. Stacking bails, harvesting hay and straw, feeding stock, cleaning barns ... up at dawn. The physical freedom of it all - or so it seemed to me as a kid.

My family moved to a farm. My older brother hated it. I loved it. I had an old horse, probably on a budget and rescued from the meat packers, and he always tried to wipe me off the saddle under the branches of crab apple trees and while I was on his back would drop and roll in the dirt at the drop of a hat. I became a nimble rider. A broken wrist, a 'ski' type injury from a fall, other broken bones ... like I said, I became very nimble - of necessity. And the horse learned to clear very low jumps I constructed out of available lumber myself. My grandfather laughed his $ss off at my attempts to train an old dog of a horse. Mind you, my grandfather supplied the ancient leather saddle on which the girth strap gave way - causing one of these injuries. Life

I might have been so much better engaged in crop farming, knowing my care of critters, my love of technology and gardening as I now do. Dunno. We know where we've been, can only guess what may have been ... and we're not dead yet!

 

[annr]

So far, we can't control the weather. So, other than assembling a record and maintaining it over time, I don't really think there is a lot of statistical analyses (averages over selected periods of time, graphs perhaps for the hell of it, etc.) that are likely to yield interesting results. But if I think of something, I'll play around with it.

Weekly data might be interesting to look at in composite as compared to averages. But generally the data is not reported or tabulated weekly, only monthly. That might be an interesting spread sheet actually with weekly data tabulated.

For my "research," I purchased a $8-9K meter, professional grade. I didn't start out with anything in mind--just taking measurements (over 44,000 to date). These measurements were organized: max, min, average, running average, standard deviation, etc. I did not know what I would prove other than the specific measurement; in fact, I didn't set out to prove anything.

Over time, I noticed a very alarming pattern. I had 5 variables, and I realized that when I changed 1 or all of them by 1 minute each, my measurements were considerably higher (by as much as 200%). NO-ONE would have believed this or thought of it. I used an alarm to time the measurements, and when I went back to the original timing, after 3 weeks all the numbers would fall by 50% to their starting values. Like clockwork.

When I added a 6th variable, the daily averages did not change, but the max/min went up/down by about 10 points--again like clockwork.

So I began experimenting with the variables, making substitutions, changing the timings, etc., and there is absolutely a pattern. I even have professional confirmation of this, although I don't think they understand (or care) how I did this.

My point is that sometimes taking data can lead you to places that you had not thought of initially. Follow the data, and maybe you will be inspired to try something different and/or better.

And I do think that finding out where to measure the water in your yard would be key, rather than using other stats. I know the weather conditions are quite specific to my house and neighborhood.

 

[22-rimfire]

annr What data specifically are you collecting? You never really said other than you collect data concerning something. I don't care if it is garden related or not.

Noticed that the hummingbird activity levels are decreasing at my house/location. I think the males may have already headed south. I'll keep an eye out for males, but I am still seeing females, just not in the numbers of a couple weeks ago.

 

[taldesta]

Re: hummers, the males migrate first as they have no nesting or rearing responsibilities ... and should be long gone in winter habitats well ahead of females with juveniles. My last sighting here was on Sep 17 as posted earlier ... and I do not want to see another one this year. I have my life back and like it that way

 

[22-rimfire]

Re: hummers, the males migrate first as they have no nesting or rearing responsibilities ... and should be long gone in winter habitats well ahead of females with juveniles. My last sighting here was on Sep 17 as posted earlier ... and I do not want to see another one this year. I have my life back and like it that way

Last year, the hummingbirds left my yard about September 30th. That date is approaching rapidly. It has been warmer overall this year, so that might delay the departure. But I think they primarily react to lunar cycles. Your efforts last year were remarkable and I'm sure it took considerable effort.

Are there such things as hummingbird forums? I wonder if you have shared your experiences outside this forum. Not many people can keep a hummingbird alive and seemingly flourishing over a winter.

 

[annr]

22-rimfire
Intraocular pressure

 

[annr]

When I was a kid, I begged my parents to spend summer time on the farm of a friend. Stacking bails, harvesting hay and straw, feeding stock, cleaning barns ... up at dawn. The physical freedom of it all - or so it seemed to me as a kid.

My family moved to a farm. My older brother hated it. I loved it. I had an old horse, probably on a budget and rescued from the meat packers, and he always tried to wipe me off the saddle under the branches of crab apple trees and while I was on his back would drop and roll in the dirt at the drop of a hat. I became a nimble rider. A broken wrist, a 'ski' type injury from a fall, other broken bones ... like I said, I became very nimble - of necessity. And the horse learned to clear very low jumps I constructed out of available lumber myself. My grandfather laughed his $ss off at my attempts to train an old dog of a horse. Mind you, my grandfather supplied the ancient leather saddle on which the girth strap gave way - causing one of these injuries. Life

I might have been so much better engaged in crop farming, knowing my care of critters, my love of technology and gardening as I now do. Dunno. We know where we've been, can only guess what may have been ... and we're not dead yet!

That's interesting. I think kids are very smart and apparently quite persuasive -- inspiring everyone to move to a farm! (Then there is my little brother whose first career choice, around age 5, was garbage collector and his ideal honeymoon was camping and hunting for lizards--he could chase and capture rabbits and lizards (on foot) by hand-- quite a fast and smart kid--even chasing them down holes.)

Yes, you probably would/could have been magnificent in some Aggie related field.

The one thing I add to your observation is that: I've found most people like their chosen work (or chosen field of study); fewer like the reality of the work environment, co-workers, management, governmental controls, the way they are expected to perform their job, etc.--many forces largely beyond their control.

So you never know. Doing it on your own terms can be best!

 

[22-rimfire]

22-rimfire
Intraocular pressure

Ah... eye professional.

Added: This is an important thing understanding the changes in pressure and what causes them.

 

[22-rimfire]

When I was a kid, I begged my parents to spend summer time on the farm of a friend. Stacking bails, harvesting hay and straw, feeding stock, cleaning barns ... up at dawn. The physical freedom of it all - or so it seemed to me as a kid.

My family moved to a farm. My older brother hated it. I loved it. I had an old horse, probably on a budget and rescued from the meat packers, and he always tried to wipe me off the saddle under the branches of crab apple trees and while I was on his back would drop and roll in the dirt at the drop of a hat. I became a nimble rider. A broken wrist, a 'ski' type injury from a fall, other broken bones ... like I said, I became very nimble - of necessity. And the horse learned to clear very low jumps I constructed out of available lumber myself. My grandfather laughed his $ss off at my attempts to train an old dog of a horse. Mind you, my grandfather supplied the ancient leather saddle on which the girth strap gave way - causing one of these injuries. Life

I might have been so much better engaged in crop farming, knowing my care of critters, my love of technology and gardening as I now do. Dunno. We know where we've been, can only guess what may have been ... and we're not dead yet!

My rural roots included doing "farm things", and that was good training for a young man growing up. It instilled in me an appreciation for farmers, their independence and necessity, and the importance of the weather. I loved growing up in the country. Eventually (by my high school years) we had a few steers that we raised for family food. Dad discovered it was just as easy to raise a half dozen as it was to raise one or two. So, my Dad provided half-a-beef to more than a few of the folks he worked with and we had plentiful beef in the freezer for "free" except for all the work it took. No chemicals with these cows. One of the neighbors started raising pigs..... we hated the smell. That stopped and then came chickens... hated that too with chickens wandering all over our yard. Our beagles killed some..... amazing how efficient a little beagle is killing a chicken. Dad paid the neighbor for the dead chickens; I would have told the neighbor to stuff it, but the dog did do the deed on their property and not ours.

I had a horse throw me as a kid and I never rode a horse again..... probably should have made an effort to change that.

Wondering why your older brother hated living on a farm? Work? My youngest brother was the last to leave the nest and my Dad really depended on him to help out. There was some resentment that built up over the years, but it never became an issue.

We lived about 20 miles from the high school I attended. (We thought that was a long distance then. Funny how perception of distance changes.) I don't look back fondly on those years as many do. I have never gone to any of the class reunions. I haven't seen a high school classmate in 40 years. Although I did help my older brother get in touch with an old high school girl friend. I do know how to reach a lot of them via Facebook.

 

[LEGION 12]

No humming bird's but I have these all over the yard .

 

[taldesta]

LEGION 12 What a beauty!

Lots of web dwellers here too, very noticeable in the morning dew. And the wooly bears are everywhere.

 

[taldesta]

Maple leaves tell the story - fall colour is coming on quickly now all around here. There's a caterpillar on the fake bird's beak. A wooly bear, reddish brown and black would have been more noticeable, but nature serves up what it does. These little yellow caterpillars are everywhere as well.



Glads, cosmos and nasturtiums are keeping the bees fed well and will last until killing frost. It's raining heavily here on and off. This will help the trees over winter.



I can't get over how beautiful and easy the gladiolas have been to care for. Cut flowers for inside last and last.



These are petunias that self-seeded from last year's planting. This is the patch where I found Busby last fall. Still no hummingbird sightings since the 17th - and my sense of it is that Busby is successfully migrating with her two little girls, maybe flying around some of your gardens today