Shadegardener said:jersey - I was just reading information yesterday about using garbage cans for potatoes and the article recommended drilling holes in the sides of the cans for better soil aeration. This will be my first year trying them and I wouldn't know what works and what doesn't. I would have thought last year would have been ideal for growing potatoes as we didn't have too many hot days and we did have more rain than usual.

Cindy I thought the same thing - and I did drill holes all around the garbage cans per the instructions. I don't know what happened - the potato plants were gorgeous but hardly any potatoes. Maybe my soil mix was too high in nitrogen or ? The weather was pretty good all season and the plants were really healthy and bug/disease free. But I'm passing on potatoes this year - there's a truck farm not too far from us and I can get a big bag and avoid the work. Although I do think potatoes are so fun to harvest - like finding the surprise in the Cracker Jack!

Catherine

I like the Cracker Jack reference! I don't know of a local farm here that does potatoes. I can get tomatoes, sweet corn, summer squash, peppers just down the road. Admittedly, we don't eat a lot of potatoes but I think it will be fun - if I get a harvest, of course.

Has anybody used Praying Mantis for natural bug control? I bought two egg pods last year but not sure if it did any good.

There about 200 eggs in each pod, but only one or two survive the predators, and they will remain in the area near their hatching location (on the property).

Just curious...

Nope not me. I usually find one or two around here.

Back when I first joined this site this thread, and some others now rather lethargic, were moving right along.
This year , again not only this forum, some former healthy threads are starting to look like the local news paper, not enough pages to use as packing in a six by six box, so; I am posting here for old times sake.

My four legged son Sammy had his stiches taken out today and I know he is feeling better as he was singing all the way there and most of the way home.
When he was not feeling the best he sang far less than normal.

I got the c card bill today and I spent a thousand dollars more than I thought I did so the net and I will spend a lot less time together for awhile but I have two new used chain saws and a Nikon F6 I ABSOLUTELY had no need for.
I was, and still am, going to send one of my Nikon F2 cameras in for a total refurb to sell but not till after Christmas.
Non digital camera repair shops in the U.S. are getting few and far between and it will be cheaper for me to send it to Japan than get it refurbed in the U.S.
I also just learned that Leica who only quit making their R cameras about five years ago, will no longer repair them. They sold all parts to a repair shop in Germany and will make no more, SO; my R8 and 9 will eventually become expensive paper weights.
New, and I mean brand new R9s are still selling for one thousand dollars or more, which is cheap as their new digital cameras and lenses are for people who can spend five figure thousands on lenses, per lens.
Nikon after decades of making sure their new lenses could be used, though some to a lessor degree on their SLRs way back to the original F (early sixties) , has now brought out a new line of lenses and camera mount that ceases that practice.
Neither will they work on their digital camers up to the D2X which was their top, new three thousand some dollars, professional camera less that twenty years ago.
They will not even be fully functional on their D3 top digital camera which is only ten years old and new was over five grand.
As the song to Storage Bins says -- Money rules this town.

One thing for sure, with this early winter weather, after Thanksgiving tomorrow, one will not have to worry about it not feeling like Christmas due to warmer than normal weather this year.

Now I hope the permanent snow holds off for another week or two but it would really, really be bad if this inch or two of here today , gone tomorrow snow was what we had for the rest of the year.

I have to get home to back the old Chevy out of the garage so I can get to my snowblower and put away the roto-tiller and lawn mower plus the garage needs to be straightened out again as in the past few weeks I let it look like a hermit lives in there.
I just may buy a small space heater for it, not that I spend much time in it in winter but it is the thought that counts.

Yep, it is. And my thought when reading about snow heavy enough to have a blower permanently on hand is...I am thankful to no longer live in Indiana. Not a cold person, not, not, nope.

So I like watching Charles Dowding on YouTube. I've watched a lot of his videos, many numerous times as I let them play in the background. Just watched his very latest video about a hot bed for carrots. LOL, in a good way. He has said previously that the people who say not to plant carrots in a bed with compost were digging the compost in to the soil and the taproots were hitting bits of compost and forking. So he tries an experiment of growing carrots in the winter on top of a hot manure pile with the very top being unsifted homemade compost. The carrots sprouted and grew but only to about the depth of the homemade compost. It was a totally cool experiment. I was wondering what would happen with a root crop that was planted on top of a medium that would be constantly shrinking in volume, but the manure pile didn't shrink as much as I expected it would. So basically the thought is that he needed to add more growing medium. I think I would have also covered it in plastic to maintain the heat from the pile.

My husband and I are going to a Zone 4 new plants seminar tomorrow night, Wednesday, over in Mahtomedi. I'm kind of looking forward to it and I'll be surprised if I can see something new there. I just hope there's something she talks about that will be beneficial for the meadow. We have a shop not too far from here, it's called Prairie Restorations, in Scandia, MN. They sell native Minnesota species. I look forward to visiting there come spring.

Has anyone ever grown Kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate? I'm growing that at the northern end of the meadow and I'd like to know if I have to worry about it spreading too swiftly. I love the look of it and the pink catkins.

Bobbi - have you checked our Prairie Moon? They seem to be able to recommend different native plants for different areas. I think originally they were into remediation.

I fixed the carb. on the old Chevy so now it once again idles which makes moving it in and out far more simple.
I spent over one hundred dollars on new gasoline jugs and gasoline, I had a 25 cents off per gallon coupon from Kwik Trip, so now I have around fifteen or so gallons at home for the power garden equip. and snow blower.
I spent forty bucks a month ago fill up the cans up North.
I used only alcohol free gasoline so it is now averaging fifty cents more per gallon than regular; for awhile Holiday stations sold it for 30 to 40 cents a gallon more but suddenly it jumped up , WHEN, gasoline prices on a whole were dropping.

Both snow blowers are running OK but I can tell just from how they sound come spring I will haul them into a shop for a look see tune-up.
It is such a pain in the arse to get to the carb. that paying for it is worth not having the pain in the arse doing it yourself.
Bought new spouts for several of my gas cans which now cost as much as a gas can did fifteen years ago.
I have come to the conclusion that some times while a snowblower is quicker, in some types of snow and areas it is just as much work as a shovel.
Up North is used to take me two to three hours to shovel car drive and side walks with a shovel and now with a snow blower it still take two hours and with a shovel you never have to deal with the wind blowing the snow back in your face until you can no longer see out of your glasses.

I could put this in a garden thread but did not want to start a new thread and the Northern Gardening thread is comatose, SO, I will put it here.
Put in six types of potatoes up in the North garden .
A 1 pound bag of potatoes on line is usually five to seven potatoes, which is nice as you get variety without the problem of where do you put and what do you do with the yield of 2.5 pound bags which can contain from over a dozen to over two dozen potatoes.
Well I found my taters from the Maine Potato Lady and they were all 2.5 so plus I have a few dozen carry overs from last year, SO; I already have approx. 70 plants in and have enough for another forty to sixty, therefore; some of the carry overs will go into the compost pile even though I hate to do that.
My potatoes are split evenly between North and South gardens right now but most room is down South.
Unless I get a horrid yield, I will have far, far, far, far more than I have use for and my friends can only eat so many also.

I put ineight of eleven tomato plants I am putting in, but put some in just to get them out of the pot and will move them again shortly.
I called Piedmont Gardens about the tomatoes they are supposed to send , and said mail them now, if they are not on their way, but the dude who deals with that was not there and the secretary apparently has not, access to files.
I found all my corn seed and have too many varieties to even plant little 4x4 plots of half, much less all of them.
My taste buds worked for at least a short while today, I have been able to taste little more than sweet, sour, bitter, tainted flavors for near two months, so I may put sweet corn in although I am not sure.
It was nice to take a couple swigs of coffee and for once taste more than what is usually called the after taste.
I have been digging in the dirt with bare hands and that does not seem to affect them much for the first time in a long, long time.

Garden is in, unless I find a real bargain at a closing garden shop.
Now I have to dig out the Catalpa roots so we can put a new one in.

Lawn went from needing mowing every five days to longest part now showing lack of water color, go figure.

Garden is doing very, very well.
Weather has cooled down from high heat and at least for the next few day humidity is down also.

We went to the Little Log House site in Hastings, Minn. last week end, something I have wanted to do for over twenty years; as an odd thing with getting to be an old fart, it seemed to me I had wanted to go for forty years but the summer vintage farm event has only been going on for 29 years.
It was not as good as I though it would be but I am glad I finally went. I go/have gone to a a lot of such vintage farm events and while the grounds are groomed to a park like degree, it is far too spread out and a lot of the old building that are old school house, log cabins etc. are buildings that were built for something else a long time ago and then repurposed into what the show grounds made them into.

Sharon rented a golf cart, for 40 bucks, and now I am glad. We spent two hours there and saw all there is to see but with Sharon not able to walk long ways, much less quickly, she either would have sat down while I wandered or we would have been there three time longer.
It was a nice drive and getting through the Twin Cities at seven A.M. on Sunday morning is a breeze.
I was surprised just how little traffic there was but on the way home, the South bound lane of U.S. was thick with cars in the Twin Cities and worse North of the TC, it was bumper to bumper for miles out in the boonies.
As this was a non-big event weekend, I was flabbergasted to see that.

We went to the old Red Wing Shoes factory which is now a office antique shop building.
To me, the antique shops were full of lot of the same stuff, i.e. a few categories of antiques was in all the shops with very little not in those categories.
It was a good day trip but sadly that means any trips I make into that part of Minn. will be solo as the last time I got Sharon down there was approx. ten years ago, give or take a couple of years.

Well weather is normal for this year, going from 10 above average to twenty below average but night time temp. will be much closer to average but a freeze is coming.

I planted a couple of dozen tulips today but saw the way the other half planted the Iris, far too deep so I will redo them.
First time all summer I picked what was left of the rhubarb and am making some rhubarb sauce.
Do not know why I did not do it earlier, I thought of it often but it seem to get myself going is unnaturally hard .

I know what you mean. Sometimes I really have a hard time getting myself outside to tend my flower beds. My arthritis has been awful this year which seems to be my biggest excuse. My back and hands can only take so much abuse. But I love being outside and playing in the dirt so I keep going.

I really should go get some of my rhubarb and freeze it for later use. I gave a lot away this summer and never did get any for my own use. Thanks for giving me the idea. We are suppose to get a frost one of these nights soon so I had better pick some tomorrow.

I have a few more bulbs to get planted and plan to do that tomorrow. They may not go into their permanent place but at least they will get into the ground. I would like to dig up and replant some Iris but not sure if that will get done before the frost. There is always so much to do this time of the year. Who am I fooling , there is always a lot to do all the time outside especially in my BIG yard (except in the winter).

Had to turn on the furnace last night. Would be nice to have a couple weeks in between AC and heater.

So I love watching documentaries. I watched the civil war doc by PBS which is phenomenal. Over the weekend I watched a doc on Mayo Clinic. Have to respect Dr. Mayo. Both documentaries are available on Netflix.

Got home yesterday and it was 48 degrees in the house, I considered toughing it out but turned the heat on any way.
I never installed AC in the windows this summer

We had our first frost up North two days ago but one down here, at least a week ago, kinda odd.
Potatoes are still growing, so it was not a hard frost but t wiped out the Datura which up North are unfazed.
I will dig the potatoes, at least the Peruvian Purple ones as it is supposed to rain again next week and the black soil here is a bitch to work with when wet.
I am going to have my picture in the Church year book this year, the first time in over a decade.
Last time we did it my brother , ma and I all went as a family; kinda odd when you do it by yourself.
Our preacher had fainted in church last week, so his retirement is probably going to be before the end of the year
I liked him, a lot . He did a lot for me with my mom's and Tanta's funerals; the new second in command seems to be a decent fellow but I do not know him like I did this one.

RpR said:Got home yesterday and it was 48 degrees in the house, I considered toughing it out but turned the heat on any way.
I never installed AC in the windows this summer

We had our first frost up North two days ago but one down here, at least a week ago, kinda odd.
Potatoes are still growing, so it was not a hard frost but t wiped out the Datura which up North are unfazed.
I will dig the potatoes, at least the Peruvian Purple ones as it is supposed to rain again next week and the black soil here is a bitch to work with when wet.
I am going to have my picture in the Church year book this year, the first time in over a decade.
Last time we did it my brother , ma and I all went as a family; kinda odd when you do it by yourself.
Our preacher had fainted in church last week, so his retirement is probably going to be before the end of the year
I liked him, a lot . He did a lot for me with my mom's and Tanta's funerals; the new second in command seems to be a decent fellow but I do not know him like I did this one.

I hear you about changes at church. After I got married, my wife found a church that she started going to. After a lot of persuasion, I went with her to test the water. It was an Easter special event and NOT the normal service. It included artistic dancing and very little sermon. My wife kept telling me it wasn't the normal service and I should try again. I gave it a second try, and something clicked. Nothing like born again, but the church was more relaxed then the catholic upbringing I had. The pastor wore everyday clothes, the music director was pleasant. I felt comfortable attending. So we were going there for a couple years when one Sunday the pastor told the congregation of the vision he had. A bigger church. Mega church. Uh... no. And it happened. and it changed things. and I wonder if in reaching more people the pastor and church board even considered if that's was what the congregation wanted. I stopped attending. My inlaws stopped attending. My wife stopped attending. A lot of people stopped attending. Haven't found another church.