DUCKS for THEE in 2023

[ducks4you]

DH had his first cataract eye surgery last week. aMAZING!! Great success!
He went for the much better lens that was inserted after a laser broke up the cataracts. 15 minutes.
ONLY complaint was that he got a call the afternoon before to give the time for the appointment, 7:30AM, check in at 5:45AM.
He sees long distance and fairly close like never before. No pain. A regimen of 3 types of medicated eyedrops 4x/day, a plastic protective eye patch for the first few days. Now, no restrictions until after the 2nd surgery, scheduled for next Tuesday.
DIfficult to drive. Left eye (dominant) wants to take over.
He has stolen one of my readers to see tiny print, but he can read almost ALL of the eye chart with his right eye.

 

[ducks4you]

Dunno about You, but I have better memories of Christmas gifts that are hits, rather than the ones that I receive, although my new bag mower IS pretty sweet.
I gave this to youngest DD and she wears it almost every day, Probably bc she IS always cold.

 

[ducks4you]

I did look at my garden beds today. I noticed that my garlic is up. Dunno WHAT the rest of the winter will be like, but we have had a non winter in recent memory. Seems like we can't get a solid freeze.
My prediction?
It will be warmish until April. After my fruit trees flower out, I expect a surprise April snowstorm.
I AM prepared. I have 6 packages of old and heat producing outdoor C9 Christmas strings, not yet used. If I hear of such a storm my peach and pear and probably one of the cherries will be lit up.
I bought them 2 years ago, but I noticed that most stores are phasing them out.
They are colored, but it's the heat that I need, so that doesn't matter.
For the new people here:

Protecting Trees From Frost with Christmas Lights - Hitchhiking to Heaven

I want to say it’s going to get crazy cold here, but I know that’s going to make a bunch of people either laugh or get irritated. Oh well. This is California.…

hitchhikingtoheaven.com

Late Freeze and Christmas lights - in the ground fruit trees

It is headed down to 35F on Wednesday, which means I will be 25F. I’ve used incandescent Christmas/holiday lights for frost protection, but only on smaller plants. I’ve put them around early planted broccoli (they only need 3 days to adapt, but the weather always seems to plunge on the second...

growingfruit.org

 

[ducks4you]

Seed testing and stratification

Are my seeds still good? Testing seed germination

Have you ever found a packet of seeds lying around and wondered if you could grow them? Every year when I get ready to start seeds, I inevitably find a half-full packet or a packet I forgot to plant altogether. Unfortunately, as seeds get older, their germination rate decreases. Fortunately...

extension.illinois.edu

 

[ducks4you]

So,,,I see this Farmer's Almanac article on planting dates. You type in your zip code and you get the results.
I do this, and then try to copy/paste it to a Word document. Won't work right, so I copy/paste it to a Notepad file, then transfer Back to a Word file. After I was struggling and trying to tab results to line up in colums, I realized that I didn't give a green bean for their MOON DATES, so I deleted All of those. After a good 30 minutes of manipulation, I now have a planting time list based on the frost date some 30 minutes north of me.
I can live with that.
Don't know WHY there wasn't a "Print" option on the page, so I could have directly saved it.
TOO MANY codes!!!
Man, I REALLY miss WordPerfect.
Portion of my list looks like this:

We won't debate HERE about early starts for onions, which they Don't recommend.

 

[ducks4you]

2nd amendment to my small 3' x 6' bed north of the inner sanctum. First amendment was Fall of 2021. I deposited dry and mulched leaves from DD's yard and covered them with the lawn and leaf bags I used for transport. The weather and water never got to them and they didn't break down and I never planted anything last year here.
So, I ripped open the lawn and leaf bags. Late last year the leaves started to break down. Yesterday I was cleaning mostly straw with fresh horse manure, so I emptied 2 wheelbarrow's worth here. Instead of spreading it out I decided to document the progress, so this is what it looks like today, after a light morning snow, so you see the rotting leaves. Tomorrow I will rake the fresh soiled bedding to fill this bed.
I intend to move 2 wheelbarrow's full of well rotted horse manure and (probably) hay from the shelter soon and top the bed off to the level of the wooden sides.
If I need to I will hand rake that before I plant in it.
This should be a very rich bed. It has been amended 12 inches down in the past with horse manure only.
I am limiting tilling. I did that to this bed several years ago and the soil became compacted.
Starting my leek seeds this week and I want this to be a leek bed for 2023, so I want good and loose soil.

 

[ducks4you]

Can Interactive Mapping Tools Guide Shellfish Restoration?

Over the 19th and 20th centuries, oyster populations worldwide have been decimated; at least 85 percent of habitats have been lost due to overfishing, pollution and disease. Despite a recent rise in farming and eating oysters, their habitats have yet to recover. But with the help of interactive...

modernfarmer.com

A New Egg Co-operative Has Hatched in the Western U.S.

It doesn’t always pay to be an egg farmer—just ask Cliff Lillywhite. The owner and president of Oakdell Egg Farms, in North Salt Lake, UT, says he’s never experienced a year more difficult or more disruptive than the one that’s just passed. “Our farms were not spared from bird flu,” says...

modernfarmer.com

This Modern Farmer Wants You to Grow a New Potato Strain

At 30 years old, Curzio Caravati moved to the United States from Switzerland, settling into the lakeside town of Kenosha, WI, where he purchased two acres of land and began filling it with crops. It was 1995, and Caravati raised all sorts of produce, though he focused mainly on potatoes. Now...

modernfarmer.com

 

[ducks4you]

Found aNOTHER seed starting calendar on Johnny's Seeds site. THIS one copied just fine, and I color coded by month of 1st date to start seeds. They ask for your average last Spring frost. Mine in April 26th. Here is a sample:

 

[ducks4you]

So, DD's got nostalgic and asked they we 4 go out to eat on Valentine's Day AND I resurrect the "gifts for all".
I don't mind bc I can find nice gifts cheap, but packaging was a problem. It is Very easy to forgot a gift after dinner at a restaurant.
I decided that I will make 4 pillow cases as gift bags. I found a nice pattern fabric at JoAnne's fabrics, 1/2 price with lots of discount codes but the site would NOT let me complete the order bc they wouldn't accept my billing address.
Finally, after advice from DD, I used a different CC.
I have always wanted to learn to make pillow cases! Here is the fabric, and I will be making 4 colors of piping from ribbon (which I'll buy with the piping cord at WM bc of the price difference), red, powder blue, pink and white, and use same ribbon to tie the "bags" up. (I won't need 3 yards of ribbon per pillow, you see.)
Fabric should be in next week.

 

[Dahlia]

So, DD's got nostalgic and asked they we 4 go out to eat on Valentine's Day AND I resurrect the "gifts for all".
I don't mind bc I can find nice gifts cheap, but packaging was a problem. It is Very easy to forgot a gift after dinner at a restaurant.
I decided that I will make 4 pillow cases as gift bags. I found a nice pattern fabric at JoAnne's fabrics, 1/2 price with lots of discount codes but the site would NOT let me complete the order bc they wouldn't accept my billing address.
Finally, after advice from DD, I used a different CC.
I have always wanted to learn to make pillow cases! Here is the fabric, and I will be making 4 colors of piping from ribbon (which I'll buy with the piping cord at WM bc of the price difference), red, powder blue, pink and white, and use same ribbon to tie the "bags" up. (I won't need 3 yards of ribbon per pillow, you see.)
Fabric should be in next week.

Sounds fun! I taught my kids how to sew when they were around 5 years old. One of our first projects was making pillow cases. I let them pick out the fabric for their projects. They turned out really well. Now my middle daughter loves to sew. She made me this bag for Christmas!