John Weiland

Can you give a bit more information on when you typically get your chickens and when you start getting eggs from them?

Also, you may already be aware of the natural autumn slow-down or stop in laying, but just in case.....   -->  https://www.chickencoopcompany.com/a/blog/understanding-how-chickens-lay-eggs-in-fall?srsltid=AU7gw4UBRjmodVQwwNTvNTQ-LMwEjWIHIpi2fJT7xaxas-as5ca8KOlT

Jay Angler wrote:I am definitely noticing the cooler nights and darker mornings! Mother Nature has worked hard all summer - she deserves a rest, although I hope she'll ripen a few more tomatoes for me first!

Glad for the change-over to my favorite time of year!  Just astounded this year at how late the tomato ripening was/is.....but also how quickly things are catching up.  The official prediction for tonight is a low of 40⁰F......which is flexible enough to mean potential frost in some areas.  The tarps are at the ready.  Bring on the fall coolness and colors!...

Dan Fish wrote:Oh that looks pleasant...

So I live in clay too. Right before I bought my place they put in a 250ft long, 2-4 foot deep french drain just like the one you outlined above and it failed completely the first season. Clay and "normal" french drains are incompatible, What I did in the interim was just trench down 4-6" on top of the drain, just down to the top of the aggregate, Like has been said above, it worked well but I can see that your situation is different. I had much more slope to work with.

A good last post within this thread to provide an update.  Below is a photo from the same vantage point as my muddy photo #4 above.  But it's not really a fair comparison since we were in a drought year this summer whereas all photos in the OP were from spring melt.  But to echo Dan F's comments, we were only moderately successful at controlling or redirecting water in this heavy clay with the very shallow slopes available to us.  My best efforts (most arduous) yielded drainage only slightly better than the shallow depression used before.  That effort was a pretty solidly replicated 'burrito' of trench coated with rock at the bottom, then porous geotextile fabric onto which was laid drainpipe (6" diameter, perforated on underside). The trench/fabric/pipe then received more of a rock-sand mix after which the outer uncovered edges of fabric were laid over the top of the pipe.  More rock followed and then a bit of driveway composite (called class #5 here...used on the gravel roads in the region) to make it a bit smoother.  

The whole set up worked okay with a few storms that followed, but that drainage depression is surrounded on all sides by bare topsoil/clay (no grass, shrubs, landscaping) to hold back run-off of this sediment.  So within a few weeks and a new spring season, there was not much improvement to the saturation and mudiness of the yard.  Oddly, I'm not sure to what extent slope would necessarily help us here without a wholesale changeover to a much more porous surface of about 1-2 ft. thickness.  I suspect some of the farmyards locally that have had the equpment and budget have done this in the parking areas of their homesteads.  At any rate, that is our experience so far.  As an aside, the buidling off to the right was constructed on an elevated 4 ft compressed pile of the class #5 composite noted above.  Even with this height and composition, water *still* pools even here for about a day before finally percolating downward and providing a firm walking surface.

Joylynn Hardesty wrote:Looks like the following to me....

Lenticel breakdown occurs because of microcracks and abrasions on the epidermis layer of apples preharvest. These microcracks and abrasion can occur due to irregular water supply, as well as high humidity (> 95%), and low wind. Influxes of water in addition to low rates of evapotranspiration causes fluctuations in the amount of water within the apples and equate to this irregular water retention. Lenticel breakdown occurs mainly on the apple skin around the lenticels of the fruit, on the less exposed side of the fruit. They are characterized by precise circular darkened spots concentrated in multiple areas on the skin of the apple. Early symptoms are similar to small dimples, visible in angled light. During storage, as flesh firmness decreases, spots grow in depth and diameter and may combine. Flesh is not generally affected. From here.

I've had what looks like that on my apples. Mine also got very slightly past the skin into the fruit. I just cut those out. A tomato corer worked fine for me. Or the tip of a vegetable peeler has also worked.

Yes, this looks like the issue here. I had not heard of this condition in apples even as I likely have eaten many that had it.  Interestingly, it seems quite similar to a condition in potato called 'pink eye'....and again involves the lenticels on the surface of the tuber.  In potato, the surface pink discoloration is evident upon fresh harvesting, but fades somewhat quickly when exposed to air.  But a cut tuber with pink eye will have the same subsurface brown spots that do no largely affect flavor and texture of the potato if just a few spots.  

https://potatoes.decisionaid.systems/articles/potato_pink_eye_is_not_pink_rot

Doug McEvers wrote:....... I like Red Norland here, very rarely is there any hollow heart, maybe one or two per hundred (usually jumbos) in an odd weather year. The last three years here have shown quite a variation in precipitation, 2024 and 2025 adequate to above and 2026 very dry. No hollow heart of any consequence in Red Norland for those 3 growing seasons.

This is a nice overview of red potatoes; Red Pontiac was widely grown in the Red River Valley.  https://gardenerspath.com/plants/vegetables/best-red-potato-varieties/

Yes, although white chippers are pretty common as contracted for that industry, it does seem that local soils and conditions favor the reds.  Red Norland is a good one....can't recall if it was that one or a next stage variety that I planted this year.  Russets do well enough, but the western state of the US seem to do best with those for consistency and yield.  Below is some additional regional information to go with what was posted above.....many of these would be worth trying in any region just to see if they would do well for one's specific garden/storage/culinary needs.  We had a good year with spuds after several years of bad disease or flooding.  This year, drought....but was able to keep everything watered from an early stage and kept at it through the season.  Also planted deeper this year (5-6") than in the past which may have helped.

Nancy,  This link probably will give information overload, but poking through this slide presentation may offer some varieties for your area that would exhibit lower levels of hollow heart (internal heat necrosis probably not a great concern in your region).  You might try compiling a short list from this slide presentation and then consult with some local producers over which varieties they have seen to have reduced hollow heart incidence, while stlll providing good disease resistance and storability.  Good luck in the search!

https://archive.sebs.rutgers.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011-Observations-Potato-Varieties-Presentation.pdf

Just a distant memory in retirement now.....

Just offering a similar story which may provide some other ideas....of a non-animal nature.  I'm honing in on your first description of the sound of something "sliding down a wall".  Many years back, we had a similar mystery that we solved after the third incident.  There was a sliding sound accompanied by a reverberating sound and it would last only a few seconds.  So of course you are left to try to locate *where* the sound had even come from, much less what had actually caused it.  On that third instance, I was in the main living room next to the open stairwell which rises along the south wall of the house.  Half-way up that staircase is a landing where a window was placed and that window (older and part of the original house build) was typically raised full open in summer.  If memory serves me, the incident started about this time of year....late summer, early fall....when the humidity of the summer had departed and the drier air was affecting the woodwork.  The open window had apparently (still just an assumption) lost sufficient moisture, and and long since lost adequate spring tension, to keep it risen in place.  As it lost its grip on the window guides, it somewhat slowly dropped closed, creating a sliding sound first, but a more noticable reverberating sound as it dropped....enough reverberation to shake the window pane.  So I don't know if you have a window in the house that could be doing that....just a possibility.

Outside of that, "who you gonna call?...." :-)

In the spirit of "good fences make good neighbors", we have a 5 foot tall perimeter fence around the garden to keep out deer, rabbits, and other large omni-/herbivores.....including chickens!  It's some solid work to put one in, but once in place and good gating added to allow access for people and equipment, it pays dividends in the end.

bruce Fine wrote:not sure if is blight or not but something wiped out my 6' tall sunflowers and all my zucchini , yellow squash and green beans. we had flash flooding a couple weeks ago. but I dont treat my garden with anything, no chemicals or fungicides allowed,  except in spring plowed in what I clean out from chicken coop floor all winter. but that is where the butternut and pumpkins are and they are still growing like crazy. I need to take picture of the sad sunflowers with there heads hanging dow all bent over.

Based on these three crops being hit hard, I would suspect you had 'white mold' (Sclerotinia sclerotium).  The squash is most affected by this fungus during warm, wet weather, but the other two are notably susceptible to Sclerotinia and will wipe out a crop in bad years.

Link for the sunflower disease here:  https://www.apsnet.org/edcenter/pdlessons/Pages/SclerotiniaSunflower.aspx

A link for bean disease here:  https://extensionpubs.unl.edu/publication/g1786/2013/html/view

Maybe worth looking into for future control measures.