rachel johnson

Thank you Thomas. I don't think there is a shutoff outside. It is a spigot that is next to the well, maybe 100' from the house. Although I do believe there might be a shutoff by the tank, also the tank is on a separate circut from the well.

Hello everyone. I have a cabin that I am fixing up to live in full time, but I'm not there yet. I'm zone 4a, our last frost date is June 1. We winterize our cabin in fall and keep it off until last frost in the spring. I want to plant a lot of plants this year, and would rather not hump water up from our pond. Here are my questions:

1. For the pipes inside the cabin, is there a difference between a frost and a freeze? Like, if we turn it on mid-may, but we get another frost or the air temp hovers around 30-32 for an hour, will that burst the pipes? FWIW the cabin is usually 10 degrees warmer than the outside air temp.

2. We have a frost free electric well spigot outside. Would it be possible to turn the electricity on to the well, but to keep the electric off to the pressure tank in the house?

Hello everyone, I fear my potatoes have verticillium wilt. I started the bed from scratch last fall with cardboard and lots of spoiled hay. I am wondering what I should do with the hay now. Is it safe to compost? Should I burn it? HALP

I have a bunch of wild ground cherries. I can save some seeds and ship them to you.

Hello everyone. I have about an acre of weedy pasture (lots of quackgrass, some brambles, some wildflowers) that I would like to turn over to gardens, nursery and food forest. My plan this year was to broadcast a bunch of random cover crops + extras, harvest what I can, slash what's left this fall and sheet mulch over it. I'm hoping to improve the soil this year and obtain a yield, I don't have the time this spring to sheet mulch, but I will this fall.  

My question is, is this just a waste of seed? Stuff online says to rake first, but I'm assuming that is in garden beds - too much grass in the rhizosphere right now. I might as well till (I don't want to till). If I mow first, is there a chance that these things will come up through the grass? FWIW I'm planting buckwheat, oats, field peas, yellow sweet clover, daikon radish, cowpea, kale, and winter squash. I can time it before a rain this weekend. Any thoughts on how to proceed or is this a fool's errand?

IDK if you would have any interest in living up by Superior in WI, but there is a lot of great land in Ashland and Bayfield counties that are not cornfields. Bayfield and Washburn are actually in a bit of a warmer microclimate as well. I know a man up there who says he is in zone 5. We're a bit south of the lake in Ashland county, so we're zone 4a, some corn maybe a mile away, but our land is too hilly and wooded for any of our neighbors to start farming corn.

My last house had a garden that had a huge slug problem. They seemed to avoid tomatoes, but ate the heck out of my hot peppers. I think I got one good habanero that year. They devoured young bean seedlings and leaves, but by and large left the actual beans alone. They didn't seem to bother zucchini or bac choy, but other greens were demolished. I put down boards and then flipped them over in the morning and killed them. Beer traps were too much trouble and eggshells, copper etc didn't work. I also planted a ton of marigolds as a trap plant, which seemed to be the #1 slug food choice, ymmv. Good luck!

Thank you both so much! The drawing is especially helpful. I'll definitely use it for the posts, but the caging is actually really stuck and embedded in the soil. I think this will work for that too - THANK YOU!!!

I have a few apple trees that are ready to be liberated from their protective caging. The previous landowner put welded wire cages (pig or cattle panel maybe) and some t posts in the ground. I tried to pull them out but wow - they are really in there. I started to try to dig them out with a shovel but stopped when I realized I was cutting the tree roots. The part of the land they are on is not accessible with a car, so I can't use that. Does anybody have any ideas? Or alternatively, am I being too precious about the roots? HALP

Gray Henon wrote:Is your basement concrete other masonry?  If so, it already has a tremendous thermal mass.  In zone 4a, I'd be looking for ways to add insulation, seal gaps, improve windows, etc.

It has a concrete floor, and it is a walkout, so it is earth sheltered, with concrete block walls on the sides built into the hill. Thank you - I'll focus on those things. That is very helpful to think about.