Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Notes to self: Landscape staples are not adequate means of holding down cardboard kill mulch if high winds are expected. The fact that Japanese Knotweed is edible does not mean that eating it is adequate kill plan. I hate lawnmowers the most of all the things that I hate because they have engines. However, I hate weed ordinance violation tickets just a smidge more than I hate lawnmowers.

If I was rich, the first thing I would buy is a garden slave.

Pigeons/doves like eating young radish leaves. Eating the leaves also pulls the tender young bulbs out of the ground. Plantings of beets & carrots went into the ground yesterday. No sign yet of lettuce planting done about Apr 19th. Potatoes all doing well.

@Gtoo: Interesting. There are hordes of pigeons around here, but none of them are eating my radishes. Likely due to the fact that the hordes of homeless cats are using my radish bed as a toilet.

bryan wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 10, 2017 8:43 pm

Since we don't have chickens or fish or anything.. I feel like it's slightly inefficient to let those little buggers to live out long lives only to die of old age (the compost bin is covered to prevent birds from feasting). So does anyone have any experience with eating these two species? I've been reading the how-tos online the last 30m or so..

I did end up eating a handful a couple months ago.. threw them in boiling water for a little bit and then fried them in oil for a little bit. Tasted fine but the exo-skeleton doesn't really chew up and gives it a bit of a chalky texture. Remedy was adding something crunchier into the mix.

Looks like some other Bay Area backyard gardeners are getting the same idea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOgdJXp07KM

Don't think I'll pursue the venture further...

Has anyone noticed whether you have more or less bees this year compared to the past...?

From our side, I was seeing quite a few bumble bees in April, but lately we haven't been seeing anything. DW pays attention quite a bit and hasn't seen hardly anything. I paid attention today and agreed, I didn't see one bee all day (I was outside all day). Lots of stuff blooming, but no bees of any kind.

Now that you mention it, I haven't seen any bees yet. It might be a little early for them, although the ones that like to eat my deck are usually feasting away by now.

I think I saw one bee. It's been quite chilly here. The weird thing I've noticed is that there are Canadian Geese wandering all around the city.

Edited to note that my fruit trees that are usually bee pollinated do appear to be setting some fruit.

Here in the hills above the Oregon coast, the bees in the soil were barely awake last week when it was cooler. Nights are still getting close to freezing. We've had plenty of bumblebees, two different varieties, buzzing around everything. Always cool to see them go down a row of strawberries or endlessly circling the blueberry bushes.

I mounded the rapidly growing red potatoes today. Earliest planted peas are climbing the trellis I provided last week. Hope to put the greenhouse back in action by the end of tomorrow... all but two panels blew off over the winter, so I'm gluing the roof & vent panels in place with silicon sealant and the side panels will be held with screws so I can still pull them off during warm days. Pulled all the weeds that slipped inside the greenhouse during the fall/winter.

Still trying to figure out what to do with my excess strawberry plants. If you want some and are in the region, send pm!

We have honeybees (not our hive, I don't know where they live) and bumblebees and other little bees that I can't identify. Maybe Mason.

All the bumble bees are over here. I saw three today (or the same one three times or other possible permutations). One just faceplanted on my window.

Can I jump in with my hydroponics? I promise, I'm not growing the devil's lettuce!

But of course!

I've seen several carpenter bees (look like bumble bees but bore into soft woods).

Also, I have a couple of pepper plants and a cherry tomato plant planted.

Our neighbor had some landscaping done and had a lot of stone leftover. He didn't want it so we used it to make a small walkway and patio-ish area for our fire pit. He wouldn't take anything for it so we gave him a couple bottles of wine.

It was just lawn before so we (meaning DH ) gave it a good till ...



Then he and the boys put a few stone in each weekend when the weather cooperated.



The finished area is just what I wanted. We've slowly converted to a cottage (read: messy/casual) look from the more formal look that people in Stepford prefer. The front is still mulched and starched looking, but the back is slowly becoming a recycled/upcycled haven. We did have to buy the chairs though. I had a gift cert from LLBean (people are always trying to get me to buy new clothes) so that helped a little. I wanted wrought iron looking chairs since our deck set is a wrought iron set (an old wedding present to my in-laws, so 51 years old).



We also used Deckover on the deck last year and I really like how that improved the look of our solid but old-looking deck. We also dumped some extra flower seed around the deck at the end of the year and a lot of it has come up already. I'm going to do that along the house this year. I'm not one to fuss over flowers (I prefer to spend my time on the edible stuff) but I like them.



Otherwise, everything else is planted ... tomatoes, peppers, beans, squash, peas. The herbs are doing well and the strawberries look great. I thought we'd lose them because of the strange weather but we only lost a couple (you can see where the gaps are -- I'll fill in with some new plants). The chives are from a seed trade with someone here.

Nice! I like how the stones are flush with the ground so you can just mow over it instead of fighting to keep the cracks grass-free.

We have one of those portable fire pits, but it eventually ported itself to the garage. I'm a little too antsy to sit and look at the fire for very long. Pretty soon I'm jumping up and doing something...unless there's wine, of course.

The potted potatoes from February are doing well, so I opened up the smallest pot to see what bounty I could rob them of. 2 seed potatoes produced 14 new potatoes. It's still a little early, apparently, as the new potatoes were no bigger than golfballs. Didn't stop me from taking all of them and boiling them for lunch today.

Fortunately we're still eating Yukon golds from the boxes in the garage, though the sprouts are beginning to take over.

Added a basil plant today. Was picking up weedeater line and they were on sale.

I had to water twice today because it hit 90 here today. Last weekend it was so cold I had to cover the plants at night. Going to be one of those years I guess.

We have strawberries.




@halfmoon--Yes, I love that I can mow right over the stones. You can see from the pic below how much grass we have to mow. (ok, it's not *that* much --GTOO and ffj have me beat by a mile -- but it seems like a lot in the heat of the summer) I also like that it doesn't look new.

The amount of grass we mow is completely embarrassing, especially in this forum. Not going there. Looking not-new is great, but the extra cool factor is how it flows without a straight, sharply defined border. You obviously aren't German.

I really like this, especially seeing the wider view. Not going to happen here, so I'll appreciate it vicariously.

We have tomatoes already. They're itty bitty, but it's still a record for us. I'm not sure if it's because it's getting warmer earlier or we're getting better at gardening. Probably both. These were from seed. (some from cmonkey's site, but to be honest we lost track when we were planting and I'm not sure if these particular tomatoes are from his seeds)