Broccoli without worms

My first suggestion is that you try Happy Rich "sprouting" broccoli from Johnny's Seeds.

It has a very open growth habit and small heads. It is like the Hydra in Greek mythology. Cut the first head and two come back. Cut those and then you have four.

Not my picture

In my climate it will produce heads and tender stalks (which outweigh the heads 5-to-1) until November if you keep it watered and feed it a bit of nitrogen and potash. Aphids, the little waxy-looking ones, become an issue late in the season. It is incredibly productive and I was sad when Johnny's stopped carrying it, but it looks like it is back in stock.

I think the open architecture of the plant makes it easy for little-brown-birds to find and eat the worms. Any frass (bug poop) is washed away by the rain.

A second possibility

Birds seem to be more efficient at finding and eating caterpillars on purple plants. Go figure. Cabbage worms are neon green.

There are several purple broccoli cultivars available. I linked to Johnny's because Happy Rich is an exclusive and shipping costs add up, but other suppliers also carry purple broccoli, although most of them are for "over-wintering" which doesn't work so well in Zone 5 and Zone 6.

A third possibility

Maybe floating row covers? 

Beating the rain

Today will be an adventure in beating the rain.

There are many burdock in and around the Upper Orchard. The neighbors closest to the Upper Orchard have a Beagle and a German Shepherd. Burdock burs are a pain in the behind if you have a dog with long fur.

Burdock is very "responsive" to 2,4-D applications when the main shoot is extending. The label says it is "rain-fast" six-to-eight hours after application. That translates as "enough product has been absorbed by the two outer layers of the leaf to diffuse through the plant and result in the target dying.

The weather-guessers predict that the chance of rain will be below 50% until 11:00 PM which means that if I get the product on the burdock leaves by 10:00 AM I should be OK. One of the "tricks" for spraying burdock is to soak the older, tougher leaves but not spray the youngest ones. The youngest ones will "burn" and trap the herbicide but the old ones will absorb the 2,4-D and pass it on to the main stem and roots.

One caution about 2,4-D is that it comes in two formulations. The ester formulation is volatile and can damage nearby, sensitive, non-target plants like tomatoes during hot weather. It also stinks (smells bad). The other formulation is the amine formulation. The amine formulation is much less volatile but is sensitive to water quality and penetrates the surface of the leaf more slowly. Both issues can be addressed by dissolving ammonium sulfate in the water before adding the 2,4-D amine concentrate. Using enough wetter/surfactant ensures total wet-out of the leaf surface which also helps get the 2,4-D amine into the leaf.

I will be using the amine formulation mixed to the maximum concentration listed for "spot treatment" on the label for perennial weeds.

One thing I like about 2,4-D is that the response can be seen in a couple of days. I can go back and spray the plants that I missed. 

After spraying, I intend to throw urea around some of the trees on in the Hill Orchard that are not carrying as many leaves as they should be.

Looks exactly like me in High School. Go figure?

 

Fine Art Tuesday

Probably not in an active earthquake zone

Louise Ingram Rayner born 1832 in Derbyshire, England. Her family moved to London in 1842. She died in 1924 

As an adult she lived in Cheshire which is close to the Welsh border. She traveled extensively during the summers of the 1870s and 1880s.

A tip of the hat

A tip of the hat to the still-tireless Lucas M.

Shade trees, Idiots and Statins

I looked at our thermometer and it read 86 F. The sensor is 5' above ground on the trunk of a Honey Locust, so it is in the shade. The trees branch at 15' so if there is any breeze at all, it can be felt beneath the shade trees. The 60' tall Honey Locust were the first trees I planted BEFORE we moved into our house outside of Eaton Rapids. They 12' and 18' feet south of our house.

Out of curiosity, I looked at temperatures in Lansing, the closest place that might qualify as a city.

This station is on the Groesbeck Golf course on Lansing's northeast corner. Roughly 17 miles as the crow-flies from where I live.

That is an eleven degree F difference. Most of the other sensors in Lansing were in the 93F to 95F range.

Micro-climate is for real.

In the news

So surprised. He never did that before

Lion bites idiot.

Gulf-stream showing signs of collapsing. Europe's climate will be the equivalent of Montreal, Quebec if the Gulf Stream fizzles. France is currently the sixth largest exporter of wheat after Russia and Ukraine and kiss those Bordeaux and Champaign vineyards good-bye.

Walmart and Target lobbying for $2500 fines for people convicted of stealing grocery carts. I had a neighbor in Lansing who was building a fence from carts he stole from Krogers. Cheap air-tags and geo-fencing is going to smack those people down. There is already a product that locks up a wheel when the WIFI signal disappears.

Black bear has bling removed by Michigan DNR. Now do nose rings on annoying 25-year-old SJWs.

In other news

I went to the doctor today.

About six months ago the old curmudgeon and I had a conversation.

"I don't like drugs" I said.

"These drugs have a good track record" he replied.

"You know, having 'The big-one' and falling over dead is not a bad way to go" I replied, referring to heart-attacks and high blood cholesterol.

"The chance of you having a stroke and not being able to take care of Mrs ERJ is almost the same as you having a heart attack. She would be burdened with having to take care of you" the curmudgeon snapped back.

My courage deflated. "OK, what is the very lowest dose of the statin with the fewest side effects..."

One of the things they don't tell you about statins is that the seem to put a little bit of extra starch in the noodle, if you catch my drift. Vascular system is vascular system and the noodle is a hydraulic cylinder. I only mention this because it might provide additional data for others who are confronted with this issue.

The curmudgeon was happy with my blood pressure at 132/80. Not the blood pressure of a teen-ager. I was happy because I had been chugging electrolyte that was rich in sodium the day before. I am guessing that little of that extra sodium was actually "extra". 

No rest for the wicked

 

Before

After tilling

 

Fifty-cell tray of Deadon cabbage plants and Kailaan broccoli seedings.

They are a little bit root-bound, but I have seen worse.

There is a lot of bare dirt and not much plant after putting them in on 21" by 42" spacing.

I ended up with two rows of 12 cabbages and one row of about 24 Kailaan and one 24' long row of bush beans.

Total time-on-task of 2 hours. I still have room for two more, 24' long rows. 

This was a good day for tilling/cultivating/weeding. The soil moisture was right at the Goldilocks level where it did not compact but there was enough moisture to make it easy to work with. That gives me today and tomorrow to weed since rain is predicted for Wednesday.

Two random thoughts on Iran

The Russians were twisting Trump's nose when they told him that "There are a multitude of countries willing to sell Iran nuclear warheads." 

Purchasing nukes after the USSR broke up was always a much faster and cheaper way for Iran to get a handful of nuclear warheads. They could have been hidden away in a warehouse and Iranian scientists could have pretended to have invented them. They could have the prestige and been able to demonstrate a big KABOOM!

Why didn't Iran go down that road? Maybe because their plans demand far more than a handful of nuclear devices. Maybe they wanted fifty or a hundred or maybe more. You know, it was almost as if they were thinking of them as a consumable commodity.

Straits of Hormuz

Over half of China's oil comes from the Persian Gulf. Iran shutting down the Straits of Hormuz will put a lot of economic pressure on China, pressure that the ruling government cannot afford.

It seems likely that China will "suggest" that Iran make its point...and then remove their blockade. The most probable path, as seen from Eaton Rapids, is that Iran will withdraw the blockade by late-Wednesday after demonstrating they can put a cork-in-the-bottle. They will list "Humanitarian reasons" for the reversal. 

Working in the heat

Mrs ERJ suggested we go to an earlier Mass so I could beat-the-heat AND still care for the trees at The Property. Sounded like a great plan to me. I drove to The Property directly after Mass.

I changed into my work-duds, drank eight-swallows of electrolyte directly from the gallon jug and set the timer for a half-hour. It was 9:35. I wet the shoulders and arms of my tee-shirt and put it on.

I started with 300 gallons of 300PPM Nitrogen solution (half pound of urea in 100 gallons of water) and I had about 30 gallons left when I finished.

I chugged more electrolyte on the half-hours. At the one-hour mark I sat in the air conditioned truck for four minutes. It felt nice but wasn't necessary. I did not repeat at the two-hour mark, just another eight gulps of electrolyte. 

I finished at 11:58 and drank another eight swallows of electrolyte still had 1/4 of the gallon of electrolyte in the jug. 

It was cooler in the Upper Orchard than the Hill Orchard because of the breeze. The weather-weenies were predicting a heat index of 99F at noon and that is about what it felt like. My clothes were very, very damp from the sweat. 

I did notice 10-year-olds playing baseball at the American Legion when I drove by and they were wearing full uniforms. In June of 2012 the Atlanta Braves played a game where the temperature was 104 when first-pitch was tossed and it got up to 106F during the game. Not much wind in those stadiums, either.

Not too hot to play. Not too hot to work. 

 

A distraction

Most of their material is NOT in English.

They look like they are having a lot of fun. 

Another distraction

Skip ahead to 0:23. It keeps getting better and better.