Mark Reed

I don't know if there are more or less this year, but I am definitely on alert for them because I encountered a nest in my garden just a few days ago. I'm fairly tolerant of them in general and much more tolerant of their venom than most people. Had it just been me I might have tagged the spot and let them be, but the girl here is allergic, and the cat likes to stick his foot in holes, so they had to go.  

Your saying "they're kind of cuddly for murder-flies" is interesting because these were less aggressive than normal, I never thought about it being a time of year thing.

Maybe there are different strains of them because these were small, I thought at first they were hover flies attracted to where I had spilled water and even walked through them a couple times before they attacked. I'm tolerant anyway of bee venom but theirs was particularly mild, I don't know how many times they got me because they didn't enough of a swelling to count the individual spots. The pain lasted a minute or two and the itch, a couple of hours.

What to do when a yellow jacket nest is in your sweet potato patch? Pour gasoline or spray poison in the hole, ABSOLUTELY not! Shop vac can work, if your tolerant of a few stings, which I am but no extension cord long enough so I went in and got a big pot of water boiling, it worked a charm.  Next day I dug to make sure I got them, rather than causing them to move and I found the nest and a much larger one which I guess is the queen. Now just the karmic debt for murdering the poor things in such an awful way.

Anne Miller wrote:Problem animal and traps might be okay.

Animal do what comes natural.

Big choice, keep predators, nuisance animals or use live traps?

Big choice, do these animals bother your dogs, cats, or crops?

Your choice.

Animals will completely destroy my garden if left alone to do so. I do use live traps but don't always release them alive. This year so far two coons were so miserable looking, nearly bald and covered with scabs and ticks that they were shot out of compassion and the bodies buried deep in the ground. A particularly large and aggressive one was shot on principal and left for the buzzards; it chose the "no I don't want out alive" option. Five more were released over on the state-owned hunting preserve and at least one remains at large. Possibly just two possums have been caught and released on site several times. Squirrels and chipmunks also get a ride to the preserve; chipmunks get a good meal of peanuts and sunflowers and a good drink of clean water beforehand.  

Squirrels totally freak the crap out and smash their faces into the wire until they're bleeding. Stupid squirrels.
Possums just lay there with their mouths open drooling a little bit, hoping you'll go away.
Racoons snap and snarl and make you ask, "you want out of this cage alive, or not". Really stupid racoons.
Chipmunks just chill, give them a peanut and a bottle cap of water and they jump online to shop for a new couch.

We dry them all, sweet and hot alike then blend them together in mixes with varying degrees of heat. Sometimes a mix includes other things like garlic, various herbs or sea salt.

Dennis Barrow wrote:Living here in the mountains of Montana, my favorite wild fruit to harvest and eat is, by far,

HUCKLEBERRIES !

I love huckleberries but have only eaten them one time during a camp trip in the Teton Mountains. We shared a patch for a brief time with a grizzly bear. The bear looked as us, we looked at it and we all went back to eating huckleberries.

My favorite wild fruit where I live are wild black cherries, mulberries and persimmons that have hung onto the tree into winter and basically dehydrated or freeze dried.

Just made a little video about my how my sweet potatoes are doing this year. Hope you enjoy it. Note - I accidentally called my ornamental plants "Ms Bloom" and "Likes to Climb" culinary. If you like sweet potatoes greens, you can eat the leaves, but they don't make big storage roots.

Not really a joke, the last post about the bow-flex just made me think of it.
When my mom sent us out to get a chicken for supper, she didn't mean go the store.
Hey you in the red feathers, I saw you shit on my bicycle seat this morning.  You won't be doing that again.

We use outdoor curtains made of shade cloth. Something called "coolaroo" shade cloth works very well. We bought it in a roll and made our own, lots cheaper than buying ready-made ones. I think it is made of recycled plastic bottles and is much more durable that I expected, we've used it for years. It really keeps the heat out, but some light gets through and you can see though it, a little bit.  A lot of things would probably work, old shower curtains or bed sheets, anything light in color and made of something like polyester although I guess cotton would work too.  If one layer not enough just double it up. Keeping the heat outside is much better than trapping it between the glass and an indoor curtain.

It sounded to me like the primary issue might be obtaining the material to compost rather than how to compost it. I myself do not compost as it is often thought of. I don't worry over proper mixture of green/dry or whether or not a proper temperature is achieved to make it biologically sterile. I just put stuff in piles or use it as mulch until it rots.

I'm also not accustomed to gardening in an urban environment, but I think gardening as much as you can, wherever you are, is really important. To get stuff to compost maybe you can scrounge it in the neighborhoods or in a rural area if one isn't too far off, and you have a way to collect and haul it. If your neighborhood or one close by has trees you might find people who would let you rake and take leaves or just swipe them already bagged up by the curb. A simple rule to me of what I might call "natural" gardening because I don't like any of the other words people use is just don't poison it. With that in mind try to make sure you don't collect stuff from a "chem lawn".

If you do have access to a rural area lots of good stuff often accumulates in roadside ditches, especially if the area is wooded. You might be able to jump out of your car with a big trash bag and swipe some. I'm not all that sold on the whole Hügelkultur thing especially if you don't really have space for it, but rotted wood is great to compost, bury in the ground or put in the bottom of containers. It needs to be well-rotted as in you can tear it up with your hands or it will take too long to break down, it works kind of like a sponge too. You might could even swipe that from a public park or something. You're allowed to collect and burn downed wood in campgrounds so why not just bag up some of the more rotted stuff and take it home.

I think closed loop system in a very small space might be tough, but I think the budget issue might be solvable and without wondering just exactly what might be in that purchased stuff.  

I went to pick up a new truck one time, turned out it had options I didn't ask for, and the price was adjusted accordingly. I basically asked, do you want the check or not? Price was adjusted back to the agreed amount and I drove it home.

My mom told the story of when my granddad bought his fist car somewhere around 1920 if I remember right.  Similar situation, price was three dollars above previously agreed. My granddad's response was, "kids get back in the buggy". Price went back down then too.