I have at least one small rabbit in the enclosed garden. It has been eating my pole beans.
 |
| Baited with a bit of apple with a few small chunks scattered nearby |
Two rat-traps were deployed and I hung the netting for the pole beans.
 |
| Not a rabbit |
I checked them yesterday evening when I put the ducks in jail. Not a rabbit. I rebaited and reset the trap.
I probably need to replant the beans...again.
Opportunistic meso-predators
That is what the smart kids in graduate school call raccoons, 'possum, skunks, coatimundi and monkeys. Most of their calories don't come from meat but they will consume it when they find it.
One characteristic of opportunistic feeders is that unlike obligate carnivores their population does not follow the boom-bust cycle of their prey.
It could be either small raccoon or possum. If I had to guess, it was a raccoon that got his paws wet when he checked out the duck's swimming pool and then walked on top of the dewy truck-cap. That means it was an early morning foray.
 |
| Raccoon |
 |
| Possum |
It looks like I will be carrying the 20 gauge with me when I go out to open the duck-jail in the morning. I will also be freshening up the bait in the dog-proof raccoon traps; scrambled egg in the trap inside the enclosure and marshmallows in the outside trap. I will fry up the egg fresh this evening.
Burning brush
I was planning to mow but the brush-pile had gotten out of control. We have been cutting bamboo.
So I spent a couple of hours supervising the fire. I did not get around to mowing.
There is a small Carpathian walnut growing in the ashes just outside of the burn area.
Vines and Thatch
I spent about a half-hour pulling vines out of fruit trees.
I also spent about fifteen minutes raking the thatch off of the area I set up to capture mulberry seeds. I want to expose as much mineral-dirt as possible. Seeds that land on top of thatch are unlikely to germinate.
Those two tasks will make an interesting set of muscles hurt.
I have a doctor's appointment scheduled for the middle of next week. One of the standard questions is "Do you have any new aches and pains?". I now interpret that question as "Do you have any unexpected pains of unusual intensity?"
Potatoes
I did not add any fertilizer to my potato patch this year. The site had been fallow for at least two years and had heavy vegetation on it.
I hired Kubota to drive the garden tractor over it to smash it down.
Then I shredded it with the push-mower followed by tilling.
So, how is that experiment going?
Glad you asked. In previous years I would fertilize with between 100 and 200 pounds of Nitrogen. The potatoes grew so fast that I had to be Johnny-On-It to get them hilled before they canopied over the space between the rows. I had, perhaps, two weeks between the vines at 6" tall and then sprawled out across the 40" rows.
 |
| Photo taken at 6:25 a.m., June 20, 2026. In previous years you would not see any dirt in a photo taken this time of year. |
This year...no sprawling. Like nearly all things, there are some good sides to that and some bad sides.
On the good sides, the plot is drying down more quickly than it would be if it was congested with vegetation. Sunlight falling on soil dries it out quickly and, in turn, the humidity of air in the potatoes' canopy drops quickly after a rain or dew. That is good for snail control and for slower leaf disease development. Given how wet this June has been, that is a very good thing.
The downside is that there will be a smaller harvest. Less sunlight is capture by the leaves. Less CO2 is turned into sugar, moved down to the roots (stolons for the nit-picky) and turned into potatoes. Since about 2/3 of the sunlight is falling on dirt, it is reasonable to estimate that my harvest will be somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of what I get when I fertilize.
I am sure I could throw fertilizer around and get a bump in top-growth but I don't anticipate need more potatoes than I am likely to harvest. If I needed to feed people, aka SHTF times, I would fertilize in a heart-beat.
Shamelessly stolen from Midwest Chick
I think I will pre-print the "My Name is..." stickers for the next family reunion with various "Topics I don't discuss in polite company"
I use peanut butter on traps, it cannot be easily removed without setting off the trap
ReplyDeleteIt would be interesting to do some trials in your potatoes with an unfertilized row, a row with a low/moderate amount of fertilizer, and a row with a no-holds-barred maximum amount of fertilizer. Then you would sort of know what is the optimum amount of fertilizer to get the yields and sized of potatoes you want.
ReplyDeleteReal farmers, the ones who do this for money, use spread-sheets to determine how much nitrogen has banked based on prior history and soil type.
DeleteBack-in-the-day, farmers figured one pound of N for every bushel of corn (for instance). There were downsides to that approach. For one thing, they were throwing money away for fertilizer they didn't need. For another, dry-down took longer to much longer which exposed the grain to weather and mycotoxin risks. Finally, the excessive nitrogen impacted water quality, both in rivers and in wells.
There are other complications. Three varieties. Three planting dates (four if you count Southern Belle's patch). Also, maximum economic "pop" occurs when the N is available for the entire growing season and the season is 1/3 gone.
I am not crapping on your idea. I whole-heartedly endorse that approach for pasture/grazing situations. Conventional soil tests usually assess a sample that is a collection of a dozen "random" (no such thing, really) slices of the top 8" of soil. But sometimes the limiting factor is the top half-inch of soil...an example being frost seeding of clover or other legumes. It is cheap information and powerful information to broadcast lime in a 100' long strip east-west and then a K strip north-south with a P strip that overlaps the K but has a just-P portion as well. Then frost seed your legume-of-choice without cultivating the soil. You will know pretty danged quick which levers to pull on THAT pasture in THAT section in YOUR township/county/state.
Just spit-balling, I probably had a credit of 70 pounds of N from the prior years' vegetation in my sandy-loam. Commercial potato farmers in Michigan budget 200 pounds of N in sandy soil. Another 70-to-100 pounds per acre would not have been wasted.
I would have said that this year was a one-off but I probably am going to rotate between a year of red-clover cover crop and then plant potatoes. That might give me a 120-to-150 lb N credit and then I will be off to the races.
20 gauge? Research "Savage Rascal". 22LR single shot - no magazine. Youth gun with a comically small stock. 3D printer crowd makes 2" stock extensions. Rest of it is full size, v. heavy and accurate barrel. Easily mount a scope or red dot. Not that loud, for more discretion, get 22 shorts. Even more so, get the threaded barrel and add a suppressor, with subsonic 22's.
ReplyDeleteAlan E.
That would work spiffy if I could count on the bunny stopping just before he got to the cover or if I sat in the garden and waited to snipe him. Sadly, he is usually a blur when I see him.
DeleteMy last salary was $8750, ecom only worked 12 hours a week. My longtime neighbor yr estimated $15,000 and works about 20 hours for seven days. I can't believe how blunt he was when I looked up his information,
ReplyDeleteThis is what I do................ Homeprofit1.site
I appreciate the nametag idea, ERJ. Although we pretty much do not talk about much outside of polite conversation at family gatherings, the reminder would not be bad.
ReplyDeleteNo point in growing more than you can use these days. Just sayin...
ReplyDeleteMaybe Joe reads the bible which is quite supportive about feeding the poor and widows. For example:
DeleteMatthew 25:35-40 emphasizes that acts of kindness and service to others are equivalent to serving Christ Himself.
I'm trying not to flood this page with all scriptures about this so read Matthew please.
About the 20 gauge and rabbits eating your crops.
Unless you're carrying that shotgun at the ready while working your gardens Rabbit will be gone before you can do the Elmer Fudd on it. No offence but the Bugs cartoons come to mind here.
That little roughrider 22 revolver in your pocket is far more available and frankly cheaper to feed than shotshells.
Me I do a little plinking now and then while gardening for fun and practice.
Cheapest 20 gauge is around 44 cents a round vs 22 LR bulk around 9 cents around.
Traps work 24/7 as long as they are baited. That is my second line of defense. My first line of defence is de fence.
DeleteSo how do you keep rabbits and woodchucks out of your garden Joe? My fencing seems to slow them down a bit as they get in often enough.
DeleteMy trapline also works well both at my homestead as well as several neighbors I help.
More than a few times I needed to finish the job, and the little roughrider garden gun does it well.
I've harvested a plump groundhog or three over the years because it was in my pocket, not in the truck or such.
BTW don't bother with hollow points in a 22 pistol. Not enough velocity to expand. I use 40 grain solids.
At less than a dime a shot I can practice a lot while I am gardening.
I have used a
ReplyDeleteAmmonium sulphate applied just before hilling the row. It has the added effect of helping the ph down if your soil is a little high and thus helps reduce scab.