Bill Ramsey

Jay Angler wrote:

Gail Gardner wrote:

Bill Ramsey wrote:Wild lettuce is my favorite these days. I do nibble on it but I also let it grow around my trees to attract browsing deer as they walk through.

Now is the best time to eat wild lettuce if you can recognize it. It isn't as bitter when it is little. I've been throwing it to my ducks daily as they love it more than I do. I eat some of it, though.

Here we have what's called "Miner's Lettuce" which is Claytonia perfoliata. Do either Gail or Bill know if the plant you're referring to as "wild lettuce" is the same thing or different? I hadn't thought to give it to my ducks, and if it's the same thing, I'll try it:
https://www.ediblewildfood.com/miners-lettuce.aspx

Miner's lettuce is a different plant, and there are several species in the Lactuca genus growing in North America, from what I understand; L. canadensis, serriola and verosa. The sap is used as a pain reliever but since I'm not sure of the accuracy of what I've read about them, I just eat small amounts while I'm out playing in the garden.  The deer eat a LOT of it, though, and if it's between the pathways and my fruit trees, they are what gets browsed.

Wild lettuce is my favorite these days. I do nibble on it but I also let it grow around my trees to attract browsing deer as they walk through.

I'm glad to see some photos of your place.  I know you're enjoying it!

Band On The Run, but only because I find myself running the tune through my head while I'm at work and wanting to be in the garden... if I ever get out of here...

Maybe combine option 2 with a worm bed.  The urine can be rough until it breaks down but the earthworms will go to wherever it is good for them.  I'm not sure how letting it compost is work but let the worms do the aeration and just put new material to the side of what is already broken down.
Edit.. I read it again and see what you were saying about more work but that would still be my suggestion, since it seems like you need a place to continue putting used bedding.

My evening "walk the farm" time. It isn't a farm, but it is to me. I get home from work in town and feed the critters, make sure they have water, go in to have some supper and spend time with my wife but when she settles in to watch tv, I'm ready to go back out and spend a little time observing, planning, soaking up the peace in the green space, see what new seedling has sprouted, what old limbs have come down, where I can chop and drop to help some sapling, etc.  Not actually doing much of it but seeing where things are as it all changes.

Those root cuttings look much more substantial than the little dry chips i got from other sources. I'm in zone 8b and those little chips surprised me how willing they were to create plants out of nothing.  It has been several years since I bought them and I divided them extensively last year. They are already blooming this year.  I agree with the comments about putting them in the ground where they can get plenty of moisture. Mine do much better in some places than they do in others but having plenty of water and not too much sunshine seems to be their main requirements.

I'm in southwest Georgia and have been trying to get good pears growing ever since I bought my property. I planted some that I think were called Moonglow but they have so much difficulty growing where they are that I later planted Orient pears between them.  I've had flordahome trees for years and several pineapple pears.  So far, there is one orient that produces rock hard fruit and I got just enough fruit from a pineapple and one flordahome to get an idea of what they are. The flordahome is the only one soft enough to enjoy eating fresh, but mine generally either bloom too early or not at all. I'm still in search of the right one for me but there are others that I want to try. My parents had an heirloom that grew from a cutting from my maternal grandparent's tree and they always just called it an apple pear, since the fruit was rounded. My dad gave me cuttings from that tree but that didn't result in any trees so i need to try again. Just fruits and exotics has a hood pear that sounds good.  

I wish my sense of esthetics and appreciation for "weeds" hadn't taken so long to evolve.  I was just outside watching my ducks eat the florida betony, spiderworts, wild lettuce and grass and thinking how all that would have been mowed over by now in past years.  I had just been thinking that betony was getting a little too shaggy and time for a trim, but they are just starting to bloom and the bees like them at that stage. Besides, those root tubers are pretty good for snacking on.

I leave a wide strip of my front yard in a semi-wild state and haul tree limbs and leaves into that area.  I stopped burning yard debris years ago and other folks don't see it as the resource that I do.  That strip is sand that dries into sun-baked desert so I also dug a swale that receives rainwater from the driveway, which got a "speed bump" to redirect the flow. The wild lettuce is spreading in the backyard and I'm encouraging it. The deer love it more than my fruit trees, it seems.