Sparse input

[troppo]

I'm another of the Down Under gardeners. I usually drop in here quite a bit but I'm ashamed to say I although I find what everyone is doing stimulating and enlightening I don't post as much as what I should. Some of my activities/breeding projects have fallen by the way-side and have been temporarily suspended as I have recently started a new position and private life has become a lot busier.

I am still proceeding with a few breeding projects: a heat tolerant purple snowpea, orange-fleshed spag squash, and a red sweetcorn. Most of my tomato projects have come to a halt as our last summer we had nearly 2 months of over 40oC temps and no rainfall so I lost a few lines. I have also started looking at peanuts.

[steev]

That's too bad, T; I have never had any inclination to get into FB or insta; my daughter is deeply enmeshed in FB, which is prolly why she never checks her old email, where I try to contact her; could explain why I've not heard from her for years, that and living with her mother, my loony ex.

[templeton]

It's just another of the constant changes - my vinyl hasn't had an outing since the turntable croaked 10 years ago, i don't even look over the album covers that Ms T would love to liberate the shelves of. My cookbooks don't get opened much, inspiration from the web is quicker, tho the dominance of NorthAm sites is a bit frustrating re ingredients and measures. I still love my cookbooks, and my gardening forums, and my vinyl, they all have irreplaceable uses. Just other stuff is useful too.
T

[12540dumont]

T, if you need to liberate that vinyl...send it my way. Leo loves them. I can't find old Kinks Vinyl....still hunting.

[ethin]

 Well steev you know how some of us feel about inputs.


Jokes aside, I've been busy... -ish. I don't post all that regular anyway, and what with photobucket banning external linking of images on free accounts my thread has become rather boring.

[steev]

Amen. There's a reason I bought land in the middle of nowhere.

[reed]

Jul 18, 2017 9:07:20 GMT -5 toomanyirons said:

 and yet none of them could start a campfire or acquire food sources/gut an animal or make a shelter if their very lives depended on it, which just might happen someday soon).  

Isn't there an app for that?

[steev]

Taskrabbit, if cell-service remains.

[richardw]

Jul 13, 2017 2:23:35 GMT -5 steev said:

At least you've a SoHem excuse; it's the deafening silence from NorHem that bugs me. This should be early harvest and late-planting season.

Thanks for the exemption. Nothing growing here at all, maybe the youngest of the broad beans, the older ones are looking sad thanks to the frosts.

[richardw]

toomanyirons I'm interested in why you have many failures happening? can understand parsnip seed because of there short lifespan. Forever hearing other gardening people say, 'oh i cant grow parsnips', 'your seed is old' i say to them. So many of the mainstream seed companies sell old seed because much of it comes from overseas, time it gets to the customer its probably a year old.

When it comes to direct sowing i cant remember the last time i had a failure, slugs and snails are the #1 pest in my garden but thanks to my extensive plantings of native flaxes the introduced hedgehog have plenty of daytime sleeping areas, must have a good population of them around here by now even though they are targeted locally being a known TB carrier. Ive even been known to stop the car and pick up (not with bare hands) a Hedgehog or two and chuck em in a bag to release back home, you could think of me as the hedgehog equivalent of the 'the crazy cat woman' off the Simpsons.

[steev]

Occasionally the local "free" site lists critters; mostly chickens, dogs, and cats; I've seen rabbits, goats, a hedgehog, a monkey, and a sloth; I'd have taken many of these if I could, especially the hedgehog and sloth. Given my current plague of locusts, I think I'll get a waterer so I can score any free chickens and turn them loose in the critter-corral; they're liable to become raptor-chow, but I'll not be invested in them. When I've more time on the farm, I'll build a movable predator-free run and start a flock of Black Jersey Giants (slow to get meaty, but more chicken for less killing).

[ethin]

I'll admit it, I'm a lazy millennial (although the rest of my gen would disown me), and your right about gutting an animal, I might last a week or two longer than the rest of my pack. That second week would be due mostly to what I've learned here.

I've got a Flickr account now so... maybe some pics of this years crop of "biomass" soon. 

[kazedwards]

I don't have a garden this year. Just a sorry looking patch of garlic to keep it going until next year. I had a bad habit of just checking the threads I follow. About once a week or two I'll look for what new. I do read a lot on here but don't have much to add a lot of times.

[khoomeizhi]

Yeah, hardly any garden here either this year. Add to that a job change i'm right in the middle of, and the computer i have the most access to having a half-functioning keyboard, and I don't post much. I suppose I could update about persimmon and black walnut grafts and yacon, but typing on this phone sucks. Garlic is drying down - that looks good. I still read daily, but posting is a challenge.

[templeton]

I've got the next 3 months work-free (long service leave - apparently a uniquely Antipodean workers right - fancy that!) so will try to post a bit more, having a bit more time on my hands.
(from wiki "Long service leave was introduced in Australia in the 1860s. The idea was to allow civil servants the opportunity to sail home to England after 10 years’ service in ‘the colonies’. It was 13 weeks for every ten years of service, composed of five weeks to sail back to England, three weeks of leave and five weeks to sail back.")
T