Les Frijo

Ben Zumeta wrote:To paraphrase John Hodgman, one of my favorite podcaster-humorists, “paying attention to all the bad things happening, then getting angry and sad, didn’t seem to be helping make them stop”.

Another fine ruling by the good Judge John Hodgman.

Not very long ago it was hard to get so called "news". It's quickly become pretty hard to avoid.

Every bag of potting soil I've ever purchased has had fungus gnats.

All of the above will help and eventually they will go away.

Mosquito bits, the stuff that you put in stagnant water. Add to the water and water in once a week or whatever the bag says.

https://summitchemical.com/products/mosquito-bits/

Let soil dry out in between watering. They like overwatered soil.

Edited to mention a small handheld vacuum can help more than you would think when the infestation is bad. The adults are easy to suck up while flying around the plants.

Hello!

That's a tough one. I would probably get 2 IBC totes. Pump into one set higher than the other and gravity feed into the other through some sort of filter to reduce alkalinity. Maybe sand/biochar? That would take some research. If PH is still way too high then it could be easily managed in the second tote.

At the same time continue to build the soil with as much biomass and bio diversity as possible and it will become much more buffering to PH swings.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Have you? Have you really? This dude has 132 varieties of garlic for sale, grown better than organic. And he's in Missouri too!

Holey Guacamole! That's a lot. I topped out at 14 once. I only have 3 now but 1 that he doesn't have. I better contact this place.

One particular one that sounds very interesting to me is number 71 "Jessie's girl ( swamp garlic ) H".
Tolerates wet conditions. After a quick search I found this...

https://www.facebook.com/GatewayGarlic/posts/todays-garlic-of-the-day-is-the-one-the-only-jesses-girl-the-river-garlic-named-/3112553192161368/

M Ljin wrote:I like garlic but only occasionally add it to recipes, at least the bulb. I look forward to ramp leaves in spring as well as garlic leaves and scapes. Maybe it is because of laziness or just a sense of the preciousness of a single bulb.

I think that each clove is a bulb. The aggregate formation is a head—for lack of a better term. In the wild (or feral) garlic will split into cloves (bulbs) and by winter time the outer skin will have weathered and sloughed away, and the new bulbs will be rooted firmly in the earth, each an independent new plant.

Ramps, YES!

The terms can be confusing. I agree with yours with this added...when I speak of it from now on I will go with whole head, that's hard to get folks confused. Individually, if it's going to be planted it's a bulb, if it will be eaten, clove. They are all possible future bulbs until I've decided they are cloves. They are precious so it can sometimes seem like work and destruction to break perfection up and eat it.

Hi T,

Here is another thread with some more suggestions, including one that can be made relatively inexpensively.

Good luck!

https://permies.com/t/209831

r ranson wrote:Got an email saying this today.  Anyone able to confirm?

A friendly reminder to our American friends: starting August 29th, the US government is removing the de minimis exemption—which currently allows orders under $800 USD to enter the country duty-free. This means that after this date, all US-bound orders will be subject to duties and tariffs, regardless of the order value. These fees will be the responsibility of the receiver.

That is a friendly reminder. At least there is a date I don't have to look up elsewhere. Uhg.