Sea Skinley

Thekla McDaniels wrote:
...Good to know about the dragon flies and muscovy ducks, as I am in the establishing systems phase.

Breeding habitat for dragonflies is what?  A pond or a creek?  If a pond is what they need, what’s mosquito prevention?...

I can't really answer your questions except to say: 1. We encourage dragonflies to eat mosquito larvae so there ya go. 2. I did not realize they eat flies too.

I saw a provocative video (some gardener) showing that high poles and wire give dragonflies somewhere to sit and watch for other bugs to eat. I have only put up a few in the backyard, which is where we have a skeeter annoyance, and definitely see them sitting on them, but now I'll want to multiply and also extend elsewhere.

Also looking forward to the breeding habitat answers!

PS Pretty sure this is the video I saw before, at any rate same system:

We have a large utility room that has a concrete floor, mostly covered in light throw rugs and rug scraps. We use it for storage, appliances, various hobbies, and an extra TV room. (Way back when, our house was a bachelor's apartment above a garage that was meant to be a mechanic shop - now our utility room with the house expanded around it.)
Anyway, lying on cool concrete, which pulls heat out of the whole body, is a great option for cooling core body heat.

Also concur with the points about drinking or eating bananas *before* hot weather exertions, and listening to your body. Having few processed foods in daily/weekly diets means being more conscious about sometimes needing salt!

I'm certainly happy to find this thread. For no real reason, I wanted to grow bronze fennel -- perhaps originally to draw pests and generally as a perennial. Somewhere I got the idea it was a decorative variety, inedible if not poisonous as commented above. Because my first casual efforts failed, I had to work very hard to get anythng going, and when I finally got one in the ground, it got eaten to pieces and definitely looked dead.

Last year it came back, and I ignored it for other priorities. This year it's gigantic and has multiple stalks. I never noticed flowers this year, but walked down to check it after reading this thread -- the top leaves have been thoroughly defeathered but the lower ones are still fennel-ish; there are yellow flower umbrels in full bloom and others just starting, and a number of volunteers on the slope continuing down into the bull pasture. Very exciting!

I definitely have to move the volunteers because the big daddy was unfortunately placed where we have a thistle problem, and I already have some ideas for those. Any tips on transplanting bronze fennel? I will poke around on the internet of course, but experience-based wisdom here is much preferred. (Ever notice how most of the info 'out there' is word for word copying each other?)

I'll recommend forsythia and brideswreath spirea, since we have several clumps of these that are simply full of birds. We also regularly have nests here and there in rose bushes, and I expect when my hardy oranges get bigger, they'll have inhabitants.

We originally (10-12 years ago) put out bird feeders to encourage anything that would eat any bugs, as we were reclaiming a very neglected portion of the farm that included woods encroaching almost to the house, chiggers everywhere, and constantly having to check for ticks after every step outside. Happy to say it worked like a charm, maybe too well now that I am fighting the flocks for our share of berries, fruits, pecans, and veg! We still occasionally put out some seed or cakes for the woodpeckers, but not as faithfully.

Years ago I noticed that the catbirds (also good tick-eaters) would follow behind the lawnmower to get fat on the disturbed bugs. That was somewhere else; we don't have so many catbirds here.

We still feed the hummingbirds (skeeter-eaters) because we like to draw them into our line of sight and enjoy the aerial combat.

We have more room & more existing diversity - but less planning! So, great topic (even though I thought it was going to be about how to keep the farm in the family... that kind of succession, which is more daunting, even depressing, so I like dwelling on this idea better!).

Mainly the family farm is cattle and hay. But our piece of it has cleared land (currently a lot of lawn) as well as the bull pasture. Technically I get to decide all of the planting stuff, but practically we have requirements that are fixed, such as places I can't plant anything (because that's where the trailer needs to go when we're moving bulls, for example). Indeed a lot of the property is set aside for one reason or another, and we have giant white oaks that cast shade over much of the rest. Maybe I have an acre? But also wooded acreage around the edges. As we move toward retirement from both day jobs, we've done a fair amount of revisions to meet varying needs, and frankly just this year I'm starting to see something like a strategy emerging.

1. Medicinal, herbal, useful, sustainable.
Besides not-very-serious veg farming, this is the original foundation of our approach. First, things that meet our own health and welfare needs, with about a decade now learning what will grow easily or not, and establishing areas for this and that, especially focusing on perennials and root-harvest things that need time to sustainable harvest. We have this and that all over.

2. Two gardens.
The upper garden we built first. Because of deer, groundhogs, and assorted other felonious beasts, it's fortified with 9-10' fencing of three to five types: "rabbit" type down low, then alternating barbed wire and electrified, with reinforcements in a few vulnerable places. Then we added a lower garden on the other side of the bull pasture, but I'm still broadforking that one into submission. The upper garden gets planted every summer, rotating sections with our favorite stuff, and last fall I used a section for winter garlic, while the lower garden so far has been more experimental. Each one is about 15x25'.

3. Trees berries guilds and forest.
We started with a few apple, plum, and pear trees from big box stores and suboptimally situated. Then I got interested. Now we have heritage apples all around, mulberries, and a wide variety of other berry/fruit/other productive patches in the open areas and edging all of the woods. We also have black walnuts (their own special opportunity and challenge!) and pecans. I'm now encroaching into the woods with my schemes, but all of this is far less developed, mostly unplanned and evolving as we go. Some of this is medicinal, as well.

So that's the big picture! It's kind of sprawly and a ton of work, but I can hardly wait to retire and enjoy the process full time. Hope this may spark some ideas for a few others.

I grow peanuts every year in 7b, NC, in the upper garden (I have two sizeable patches protected from deer, above the bull pasture and down by the side) where I've worked the soil for a while. Otherwise it's red clay and mostly rock. They do well and I often get volunteers in the old section as I move them around year to year, replenishing soil in my crop rotation. We had a rotten drought last year at just the wrong time but I got maybe 5# off 6-8 plants anyway.

I originally got a packet of "seed" peanuts years ago, probably from Southern Exposure but that's just a guess. I decided to grow Carolina African as one of the most flavorful and obviously suited to my location, and also usually a few of a different kind, much bigger black ones (name lost in the mists of time). Once you grow them, just save your own seed to get more of what does well in your location.

However - they do need a fairly long growing season. Even here I usually start them weeks before last frost. They need the ground to be pretty warm before you put them out, and they get big fast (relative to something like a tomato), so plan ahead. I find they're quite reliable, though.

If you have a good dry spell, you can harvest and just leave them on the ground to cure in Indian summer heat. I usually hang the whole bush in my small greenhouse (sauna) and separate the nuts later, but I find they're a super easy and no-fuss crop.