R. Ford

I'm in zone 8a middle of north carolina. Last I had bsf larvae was the day after Thanksgiving. I'm sure they will be back in March or so around here.  

I run multiple BSF larvae bins for my chickens. I also have a few rings of wire that I pile leaves and food scraps into, and once the fly larvae gets going pretty well in those rings, I will remove the wire and let the chickens dig through them.

American persimmons are easy to grow from cuttings, but I was told Asian persimmons are next to impossible by a friend who used to run a large tree and greenhouse operation.

Posts above nailed it, moisture is the enemy when it comes to keeping the coop smelling nice. Another thing you can do is put some crushed charcoal in with the bedding, especially under the roosts, thus inoculating it into biochar. You get the benefit of less smell, and your compost pile/garden gets the benefit of the biochar when you clean out the coop.

Ok, so i decided this year I was going to take a shot at doing some air layering. My first victim subject is a pear tree that produced like mad this year. We moved here in May and the house and property had been unoccupied for 35 years previously, so this tree hasn't been trimmed in at least that long. I picked a few new growth branches that were about pencil size or larger and did them like normal. I also had a branch that was growing out of the side of the main trunk about a foot from the ground that is around the size of my wrist. It grows straight up into the middle of the tree. I decided that it would be one that would need to be trimmed, but instead of trimming, I wanted to try to air layer it. I got a one and half gallon container so that it could try to make plenty of roots. The branch is probably ten feet tall and has a few other branches coming off of it. I'm not even sure this is possible to be air layered, but I figured i haven't lost anything if it doesn't work. My oddity is that of this giant pear tree, all of the leaves have already turned colors and fallen off of it, EXCEPT the branches that i air layered. They are still beautiful and green. Is this normal? I did use aluminum foil around the plastic containers that I air layered with to help seal in some moisture, and i was guessing that maybe they are keeping the roots inside warmer in the sunshine, but then that would also be bad when we've had 30 degree nights already, the foil would make the roots colder. Anyway, any help or insight would be greatly appreciated.

Give it a shot with a long soak and 1/4 teaspoon of baking soda per lb of beans. Then rinse well and add 1/4 tsp of baking soda to your cooking water for them. Try not to put anything acidic in there with them until they are the tenderness desired. If they still wont soften, they may be too far gone and would be a good candidate for the compost pile.

John F Dean wrote:This begs the question, how many BTUs are needed for a Wok?

25k is recommended for stir frying with a wok as far as restaurant design goes.

If it were me, I would build the rocket heater to heat a large volume of water with an open(ish) top. Something along the lines of a 200 gallon box with a large opening in the top so that there is no way to build pressure. Then I would run a separate coil inside the vat of water to heat the flooring. There would need to be fail safes of course, just like any other system, but this could mostly eliminate a lot of the worry. Only downside is the need to add water as you cook some off.

Tereza Okava wrote:

Timothy Norton wrote:I so want to be able to cook with a wok the way that it is 'meant' to be utilized.

I know this is not the question, but if you want to do wok cooking you need more firepower than the average US gas stove can give you.

A rocket stove, even a little dinky portable one (or a jerryrigged one made out of big tin cans, or bricks, or mud), however, CAN do that for you.
Just a thought. (nudge nudge)

edited to add:
(I do a lot of wok cooking so I bought a stove with a specific wok burner. I call it the "afterburner" because it's got 3 fire rings and HOLY CRAP it gets hot. An industrial kitchen burner might work as well. It is absolutely essential for the 'wok hei' taste you want, and there doesn't seem to be any real alternative.)

You are right about most gas stoves not really having enough heat for a wok. I use the fish cooker burner outside when i need to use the wok.

Sounds like you have an infinite switch/s that is stuck. It uses a bi-metal piece to control when current is applied to the burners. Look behind the burner knobs or if you have a control panel. They are easy and cheap to replace if you can source them for your particular use.