Richard's patch

[copse]

I'd love to get my hands on one of those corn shuckers like they have at Koanga, but I expect it'd have to be a heavy expensive import. They had a youtube video up showing the shucking I think.

[richardw]

Just a good ol knife is fine i reckon, i ended up freezing about 20kgs of fresh kernels

[richardw]

A look at how i make a large amount of compost, takes 12 months before its dug out and taken to the garden

[steev]

Great! Given the space, cold-composting is the only way to go; when one has that much land, there's always work that's more productive than turning compost. As you show, it works for logs, branches, large quantities of other waste, aggravating neighbors, whatever.

[richardw]

Had the odd neighbour that could have done with a stint in a compost heap.

Have found that different pines break down faster than other, contorta pine is a lot faster than radiata pine, though this process is accelerated thanks to a native Huhu beetle larvae en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huhu_beetle , when smashing the rotten logs my dogs there eating them, cheap dog tucker.They taste like pine trees when found in pines, when from native logs they taste more like peanut butter, and yes i have tried them. 

[steev]

Now that's grub!

[richardw]

Nearly 20 years ive been growing and selecting Russian giant sunflower,along with selecting for height the width of the trunk base is equally as important for obvious reasons. Another consideration i look for is the flat part of flower head needs to hang horizontal down so that birds find it difficult to get at the seed. But where i'm starting to see great results in the last few years is the level of frost tolerance, i like to sow early enough so as to catch the last of the spring frosts,if i go back 10 years i would easily lose 50%, this mornings was -2.6C deg, ive noticed not a single young plant was lost

[reed]

I don't know what kind of sunflowers I have. They are mostly ones with multiple smaller heads and I always try to save a few seeds but mostly they grow volunteer, I dig them up each spring and move them into a patch at the north end of the garden. I guess I always though of them as a hot weather plant but they are always up and growing while it is still freezing, not just frosting in the spring. The ones that come up later is because they got buried deep during fall tilling. We have 1/2 dozen or more kinds of birds that love them so I'm also always surprised that that any survive. A little bird called titmouse especially, has no problem hanging upside down to get the seeds.

[richardw]

Lucky we dont have the titmouse here, its only the sparrow that gets into them.

Maybe some sunflower varieties have more cold tolerance than others because i know that Giant Russian would never handle the conditions that you are referring to reed

[reed]

I'm guessing Giant Russian has large flowers? I'v never had any large flowered ones volunteer or if they did they froze out. I also gave up a long time ago harvesting seed, just too many birds. I like the birds though and the flowers so I always transplant the volunteer plants to a patch every spring. It varies some but the flowers are mostly a rusty red color, three or four inches across.

[richardw]

Yes large heads about the size of one and half dinner plates. If the birds were that much of a problem i could always rap a seed head or two in netting

[copse]

Sept 24, 2016 19:14:40 GMT -5 richardw said:

Had the odd neighbour that could have done with a stint in a compost heap.

Have found that different pines break down faster than other, contorta pine is a lot faster than radiata pine, though this process is accelerated thanks to a native Huhu beetle larvae en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huhu_beetle , when smashing the rotten logs my dogs there eating them, cheap dog tucker.They taste like pine trees when found in pines, when from native logs they taste more like peanut butter, and yes i have tried them. 

We had the chance to eat huhu grubs in primary school.  I can still remember it, though I don't remember what they tasted like.  I suspect that it'd be much harder to do that sort of activity these days, with all the allergy rules.

My sunflowers have just started sprouting true leaves.  I've just started soaking some more seed to go in somewhere else.  On the subject of sparrows, I don't know whether you're on their list but Koanga had a newsletter where they linked to how they trap and kill sparrows, and detailed instructions on how to build one of their traps.  But it seems a little out there for me, at this stage.  Could be worse, at least it's sparrows, not pukekos.

[richardw]

Dont have Pukekos either thankfully, though they are pretty bird, copse you would have them having the water channel down the back of your garden?



Ive got a one year old Nashi pear grown from seed that is covered with blossom, is this normal to flower so young?

[walt]

I googled Nashi pear. Didn't find anything about Nashi pear bearing young. Blooming a year from sprouting should be something people would be talking about.
The guy at Oikostreecrops.com found 5 seedlings, out of thousands, of beach plum bloomed their first year. He seperated those out and found that they bred true for that trait. Might be that you have something just as worthwhile, though you don't have another such early one to cross it with. Might have to go to the F2 to get the trait set.
On the other hand, Asian paears are said to be somewhat self compatible. So it might come true from the start.
Don't mow that thing.

[richardw]

Dont worry walt, it wont get mowed as i dont mow the orchard anyway. So wow, ive got something really different here, fantastic!!