Rich Conley

Nothing specific at the moment.

I'll be looking for some apple scion wood later in the year, and I'm always looking for things like figs I don't have, or any other fruits that can easily be rooted.

I just moved to the area a couple months ago, so I don't really have any sort of gardening network.

Cortland, I'd be interested in any sort of exchange/group you could find.

Been looking for somewhere to organize/participate in group buys, trade things, etc.

My wife has a bunch of runner ducklings for sale. Drake is a Holderread's show quality white runner. Eggs come from two females, one is another unrelated Holderread's white runner, while the other is a fawn-and-white runner from an unknown source (who is also a good looking bird w/ good stature).

She's looking for $7/ducking, and would prefer not to ship.

We'll also have some Sebastapol goslings in a couple of weeks.

More info/pictures in this craigslist listing: http://richmond.craigslist.org/grd/4374151958.html

Galadriel Freden wrote:Looking at nature, most ecosystems "in the wild" don't have these problems that conventional gardeners do. In the wild, an increase of a certain pest would mean an increase in the predators of that pest!

The problem with this sort of thinking is that for nature, 50,000 years is the blink of an eye. We've moved so many pests out of their natural range that some of these things have no predators in certain ranges, and it may take thousands of years for a predator to develop. Or that predator may never develop and the pest kills off its host and then goes extinct. Nature heals the niche over afterwards. These are perfectly natural processes, but they're not really acceptable to us.

In the mid-atlantic states, we've got a problem with invasive stink bugs. Pretty much nothing eats them. They have no predators in the US. You pretty much have to do something about them or they destroy your crops. For nature, fruits with a whole bunch of rot spots on the outside isn't a big deal... seeds are still viable. For us, it is a big issue.

So, part of the answer to the OP's question of how our Pioneering ancestors dealt with this, is that they didn't. We've introduced an awful lot of pests over the last 100 years that nature hasn't really sorted out how to deal with yet.

So, do what you can. Rotate your crops. Encourage predators. But don't worry too much if you need to intervene every once in a while.

Jay C. White Cloud wrote:
I am also sorry Matu, but Paul is correct in his worry about "toxic gick," just because you can't find science or evidence for it's precedence does not mean it is not there.

Just because you're afraid it might be there, doesn't mean it is.

Jay C. White Cloud wrote:I can't tell you how many grocery warehouses I have seen with boxes piled to the ceiling on pallets sprayed down with some of the most toxic pesticides you could imagine. Some in the same family as DDT. I even heard a woman say during a gardening presentation that cardboard is, "safe enough to eat." Not only would I not eat it, I would not even touch some of it without gloves.

I spent a couple years working in a grocery warehouse, and have never seen, nor even heard anything like this.

Lisa Paulson wrote:This is just a fllippant idea off the top of my head and may not be feasible but if there were chilli flakes sprinkled and the ducks ingested them I bet the would reconsider foraging there. I am tying blue beads from thrift shop necklaces in clusters on my blueberry bushes before they ripen in hopes I frustrate many of the resident birds that try to peck them before they get my ripening crop so that idea sort of creeps into my head of deterants .

The vast majority of birds can't taste capsaicin. They're the preferred distribution channel for chili seeds.

Thanks Wayne ( and R Scott, and everyone else), that looks pretty close.


Found this: http://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/pg_chfa2.pdf

Partridge pea is considered an excellent
species for planting on disturbed areas for erosion
control and improving soil fertility. It establishes
rapidly, fixes nitrogen, reseeds, and slowly decreases
as other species in the seeding mix begin to dominate
the site. Nitrogen fixation is greatest during the
flowering stage

Sounds like Cattle can get sick if they eat lots of it. Anyone know if it bothers sheep or ducks (Have ducks, wife wants sheep)? Other than that, it sounds like a great cover crop.

paul wheaton wrote:My understanding is that getting a marketable/decent apple is a 1 in 20,000 chance.  In other words, people start lots of apples from seeds, but what they end up with is usually pretty lame.  So it is far wiser to find a really good apple and then graft a twig onto an existing root stock. 

Just wanted to comment on this. For a lot of people, marketable is not really a goal. There are a bunch of things that go into fruit being marketable (appearance, taste, storage, shipping qualities, etc). For me, of those qualities, storage and taste are probably the only ones that matter. I don't care if an apple ships well, because I'm probably never going to be shipping apples.

So while an apple from seed may never be marketable, it may be useful to me.