Sparse input

[ferdzy]

*staggers in, takes a chair*

Uhhh.... hi, guys. Yeah. Looks like this is Year 4 of the ongoing parental shenanigans. We thought it was calming down, but my MIL and her housemate declared their intention to move out in April. That is, in April they declared they were moving out. In June.

There went any hope of a calm planting season.

The good news; they left in early-mid June, and are now settled in a "retirement" community that is much better set up to deal with their serious health problems, and also 5 hours away, and also in the same city as one of Mr Ferdzy's brothers so he is now taking the brunt of it. The bad news is my mom is now moving into their old apartment. But first, the renovations. Oh! And let's not forget: dad's partner fell and broke his hip in the middle of all this, also MIL is now diagnosed with Alzheimers. My mother had a cataract operation which failed, and she is now walking around with no lens to her eye until they can try surgery again, in December. DECEMBER. No problems with our health system; no sirree.

That's where I've been.

This is a lousy garden year. It's been wet, wet, and mostly cool; also wet. Garlic has viruses. (I Googled "garlic virus" and one of the first hits was a site claiming garlic destroys all viruses. Me: "...apparently not."

There's also some virus in random beans throughout, actually everything looks like it has viruses. Even the weeds look bad. Peas don't seem to have a virus, hurray! It looks more like fungus, as does the blight in the onions. Tomatoes are a third of their usual size with about a quarter of the usual tomatoes. Peppers about the same but admittedly we left the hoophouse up over them then went away and forgot them, so we cooked them a bit. Can't blame the weather for that one, other than the afternoon turning out unexpectedly warm. Zucchini and cukes are churning them out. Beans are mostly looking pretty good apart from the virus, but the anthracnose is starting to show up. If it doesn't get cool we might get an eggplant or two. Melons are a definite maybe. Potatoes have taken a licking, mostly from an early plague of leafhoppers, as far as I can tell, but are keeping on ticking. Carrots look fine but I have an uneasy feeling dad was mostly QAL. Beets did not germinate.

So that's the news from Lake Woebegon. I hope I'll have a garden update on my blog early next week.

Oh, and Hello! to everybody.


Also too this year sucks

[RpR]

Well I tried to post something the the web ate it.

Anyway, this forum is suffering from what every forum I post on has had happen.
Do not know why but maybe a case of been there , done that; I know one girl who posted here said she has gone to the facebook type places now.

For me it is partly that for the past several years I have not put near the effort into the garden I used to due partly to family items but as she died I have more time now so next year should be better.
This year has been horrible with total corn failure and of 14 roses purchased 10 went belly up and two I transplanted, which I usually have not problem doing, both died.

The green thumb my dad and aunt said I had seems to have turned into a wrinkly brown item as stuff I could plant blindfolded and have great yield fails miserably at times.
The wrinkly brown part is not totally fantasy as since last year, when it started as two unhealing cracks, my fingers now suffer from some sort of Eczema that is not going away.
If I do not touch dirt it seem to get a bit better but if I get my hand dirty they start cracking. As long as I keep them jammed in the ground working it does not hurt much but when I wash them off and they start cracking it get real, real annoying.

[prairiegardens]

Dunno if it will help but you could try coconut oil. It feels yucky to put on since it feels , well, like an oil, but it can sometimes do wonders for skin issues. And it doesn't have a lot of chemicals doing who knows what, it's just coconut oil. I found out about it by accident, bought some to eat on something or other and thought it was horrible, didn't want to toss a whole jar so figured at least I could use it as a skin cream. For that purpose, I'm a fan of the result, although it takes a little getting used to feeling like you've just been basted ready for the BBQ. (I've been reading too many of Steev's posts about long pig)!

You might also consider using gloves to give your skin a bit of a rest from stress, they're actually some out there now that don't feel like you're trying to work in baseball mitts.Some people use cotton gloves inside rubber gloves but I've never found any rubber gloves to fit my hands, my stubby fingers leave the empty rubber fingers flapping in the breeze. I found some stretchy cotton gloves with pebbly rubber palms and fingers that I can actually work in and I normally loathe trying to work in gloves.
Just a couple of thoughts.

[steev]

I've used leather gloves for many years all the time, when I didn't need a finer touch; I just work with my hands too much to withstand the wear-and-tear; for chafing. scratching, chapping issues (my hands get so messed up in the wet winter, when it's too wet to use gloves), I use a product called "Bag Balm"; it's for cow's udders, officially, but it works great; not that nicely fragranced, but neither am I, so it's all good.

Coming, one hopes, out of Cali's drought, I also hope to be growing more stuff in the not too distant future.

I suppose this is the nature of gardening/agriculture: that it isn't guaranteed, but what else have we got to do, play golf? That's such a depressing alternative to me; I realize some people like it (like my brother), but it seems like such a waste of time and money, to me. Chacun a son gout, n'est-ce pas?

[mskrieger]

Yes, coconut oil! Highly recommended. Anti-fungal, moisturizing, almost never raised with any pesticides or herbicides. Generally good stuff. Occasionally some people are allergic to it (I have had one person tell me this) but that's rare.

Unfortunately it doesn't help with elderly in-laws (unless they have skin conditions) but what can you do.

[richardw]

Great cooking with coconut oil too, high in healthy saturated fat, the unrefined has a coconut flavour as well.

[RpR]

The problem did not show up till last year, when it was just cracks on my left hand trigger finger and the thumb.
Two cracks did not actually heal, even in winter when I do no gardening.
This year it has spread to the finger tips of most fingers, and my chewing my finger nails, actually the dead skin, to an extreme at times, when bored, I suspect, was part of the reason it spread.

I have almost never worn gloves while gardening or landscaping with the only problem being dry calloused hands. This included handling and carrying cement blocks of fifty to eighty pounds all summer with bare hands.
I went to a doctor, and he said you have some sort of eczema, and gave me three tubes of steroid salve. (I had been using a fifty year old tube of Lindex, steroid salve, I got from my late Aunt, that while not really healing , relieved pain and Animax, a anti-biotic salve for animals that did some healing. I found out later you were not supposed to use Animax on humans. It did not say why, just not to, which is odd as most of it components were the same as those contained in salves made for humans)
They help better than anti-biotic salve but none of it really does much except that it reduces cracking from the hands drying out.
I have a jar of forty or more year old Noxema, it has no computer code, that really is almost as good as the steroid stuff.

I think I will have to see a dermatologist as the fingers I use the most are not really getting better, although the original thumb seems to be trying to heal in the original crack location.
I have used more bandages this year than I have in the past sixty total.
Thank God there is a clearance store here where I can get them for from fifty to seventy percent off of normal price.

The odd thing is, I did put up a large retaining wall in the pat month, and wore gloves.
Well my fingers did not hurt so I looked at my gloves to see how badly the cement blocks had worn them.
The finger tips were gone and my bare cracked fingers were sticking out but they had no new cracks.
They did not ache till I took a shower and my hands dried out, then I was miserable till I put bandages on each finger with dab of anti-biotic salve.
You find out just how poorly bandages are designed and which brand sticks and which just pretends quickly when you apply them to finger tips, including those supposedly designed for finger tips.

I tried using lotions for dried hands, including those with supposed healing properties for a while, and found out that when they dried out in the middle of the night, my hands not only ached but new cracks would appear where none were before.
As I said the only thing that kinda-sorta worked was Noxema . If mixed with anti-biotic salve,(including Animax) same for the steroid salves, it worked better.

[steev]

There's a youtube vid about how to split bandaid straps to counter-cross on fingers, so they don't slip off so easily.

"Bag Balm" (not a paid endorsement, unfortunately) has a bactericide component to protect scratched/cracked tissues; it comes in an heirloom-quality metal tin ( dammit, Bag Balm; you owe me something!).

While I wouldn't dream of second-guessing any professional health-care provider, it IS called "medical practice"; my opinion is that you're beating the hell out of your hands, while not giving them enough aid and comfort. Be kind to your hands; they will keep your nose and your ass clean for life; assuming that's the order you prefer.

[prairiegardens]

Duplicate post sorry can't see how to remove it completely.

[prairiegardens]

Bag Balm has been a standby for years for a lot of people, I wasn't entirely surprised to see it in Walmart one day, Not usual to see something originally intended to keep cows udders soft and flexible in the cosmetics section of a big box store.

Btw, the latex surgical gloves can be used to keep finger or thumb bandages in place.. just cut off the parts of the glove that aren't. needed. Those things are cheap and available everywhere. It's easy to work in them but they're fairly flimsy. But they do help to keep bandages on and around the hand in place.

[RpR]

surgical gloves inside tight fitting work gloves with goop in each finger whole sounds good.
When I worked at a Walgreens, decades ago, women would buy Bag Balm for their skin and some conditioner for horses tails, for their hair, from the veterinary section of the store.
I wonder if any Walgreens still have a veterinary section.

Steev:
You are correct I do beat up my hands, as up to and including last year, I often would use my hand as much as a shovel to dig potatoes, less chance of spiking big ones.
My dad said one day I would regret the way I abused myself, in more ways that one that has come true.

[richardw]

I'm fortunate that shearing sheep is great for keeping my hands soft, a week in the garden and the skin on my hands can be as rough as 250 grit sandpaper but a day shearing and they are polished smooth again...keeps ol girl happy at least.

[kazedwards]

Bag balm works great. I hate the smell but it's better than cracked hands. In the winter my hands will get horrible. I alway say falls over when my hand start to bleed and spring starts when they stop lol. One year (before I used bag balm) I had quarter inch deep cracks in my knuckles from November until May just from them being so dry. Just moving my fingers hurt like hell. Washing my hands was miserable. Hand sanitizer is like a slow painful death not that I like the crap anyway. I still won't touch it now. They don't get anywhere near as bad now but it needs to be used daily. Once they start cracking they take a while too heal no matter what you use.

[mskrieger]

Ouch!
I know some folks moisturize their hands at night and then wear gloves (soft knit gloves--lanolized wool might be best) while they sleep.

Also, there's an Ayurvedic practice called oil bathing. I do it in the winter with sesame oil. Cover myself in it (from scalp to toes--really all over) and then take a hot shower to help the oil soak in (no soap to wash it off, just water!) It does wonders for my skin and mental health. Once a week is great. I was never into moisturizing or worrying about my skin on, say, my elbows much at all, and these oil baths have been a revelation. Coconut oil probably just as good.

[RpR]

Jul 13, 2017 0:26:15 GMT -5 steev said:

It's July! Why is there so little participation? Is everyone really so busy they have nothing to post? Who do I have to piss off to get some action? It's hard to believe there is so little maturing, growing, and being planted.

So many have not been heard from for so long; one hopes they are only too-well occupied, inshallah!

Why is there so little participation? Is everyone really so busy they have nothing to post? Who do I have to piss off to get some action? It's hard to believe there is so little maturing, growing, and being planted.
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Well this thread was going for a month two years ago when my Eczema was at its worst , then pfffft, the thread goblin took it to the abyss.

My Eczema is not gone but after getting a steroid and other skin fixers, it is much better now with splitting fingers a rarity, unless I bite the dead skin off to often but it has now moved to my palms which much less annoying and unless I wash my hands in very soapy water, or with bleach some times I can go days without wearing gloves at night; I also can and am using my hands as a garden tool again with no ill affects BUT my sense of taste is still mostly gone whereas; I have found out one can eat too many snacks out of habit even if they are almost tasteless, though the past few days my intake is way down as I have near zero appetite more often than not.

Gardenng:
My corn was a total failure down South probably due to squirrels digging out kernels.
I planted a large amount twice and have one stalk total.
The neighbor cut down his Black Walnut tree so the squirrels now have to work harder till acorns in the fall.
I do not miss digging out walnut trees though.

Potatoes are doing well but some I spent a lot of money for appear to be a total failure but planting late in Minn. even withthe cool wet weather we have had is a crap shoot.
The partial failure is not totally bad as I planted far, far, far too many this year and do not eat one half as many as I did even five years ago.
Sweet corn up North is doing well even though one plot was a failure but the second planting is near one hundred percent success.

I transplanted squash down South as the North garden is over crowed and they seem to be doing well and will fill in the empty corn plots; as well I transplanted some volunteer tomatoes to the the South and they seem to be doing well.
Up North Tomatoes are doing well after a iffy start , so well it is now a green jungle as carrots, chiles and other items are too close together and the squash still up there heading for the crown rather than the open space I left for it.
Potatoes up North were sloooow to get going but now are going gangbusters.

I left some volunteer Cleome in the veggie garden and did not pay close attention , plus was not up there when the humid hot weather really hit so mow I have a large flower garden in the middle of a over grown veggie garden.
I will have to go out and do some weeding thinning but I really do not want to thin to hard as there is something about a garden that looks like a jungle that is appealing.

I did do heavy weeding down South last week and after ten hours on my hands, knees and buttocks got it 90 percent weeded; filled two 70 gallon containers doing it.