Claud The Backyard Farmer (self proclaimed)

kingofnobbys

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Claudiusx":le91razy said:
It hasn't been too productive this go around.

I don't think any of my broccoli are gonna make it. Even if they do, they are way behind schedule I think. Every day I had to go and pick off these little caterpillar things eating holes through all the leaves on the broccoli. It was bizarre, there was only ever 1 per plant. It was like if there was already one on one plant, it would travel on down the line until it found a plant without one of these green devil bugs on it.
They pretty much decimated it.

Carrots are growing well though. So is the corn, but it's also way behind.

Huge wind storm yesterday. The 1 variety of pea had grown taller than the netting I made (4 feet+) and the parts of the plant that had grown higher than that got blown and folded over. Shame because their were quite a bit of flowers on the top parts.

-Brandon

My approach is
> it's a learning experience
> so learning from the mistakes

Have the bush fires and grass fires been near you ? Been following the fires here ( all over the news ).
 

kingofnobbys

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Claud , if you are in one of this purple tiered counties , I'm bet you're glad you have your veggie and herb patches up and going now.

I see MOST Ca is going into 1 month of "lockdown" , bet it is extended to 3 to 4 months if the Gov is REALLY serious about leveling the covid epidemiological curves for the counties in Ca.
 

Claudiusx

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Yeah, gardening is definitely a learning from experience type of thing.

The wildfires did affect us a little bit. Not as bad as some other areas of Cali. Nothing really burned too close to where I live, but their was so much smoke in California from the wildfires that we had ash raining down for days and days, and when ash wasn't raining down, the sky was red and nasty from all the smoke and ash up higher in the sky. What really sucked is that we also had a massive heat wave at the time. Over on the coast where I live, 99% of people don't have AC since the climate is so mild. When it gets warm, we open our windows. Well, can't do that when the air outside is hazardous to breath. So we just lived inside our hot hell-hole of a home for a week or two lol.

In regards to the lockdown, it's still nothing compared to what you saw in Australia. I wouldn't even call it a lockdown. We are just going "back" to the way of life we were in a few months ago. Which truth be told, isn't much different than what is going on now. Moving from purple to red tier only made minor changes such as now certain indoor activities were allowed (eating inside restaurants and working out inside gyms at capped capacities, etc.) The only real thing that I even noticed from us going down a tier earlier this year was our big box store costco, wasn't counting the amount of people allowed to go in. Now that we are back in purple, I imagine they will start counting again. But it's really not an issue.

What is new this go around, is our governor putting into place a curfew. Which, for the record, a few sheriffs have already stated they will not be honoring. And I'd imagine more will follow suit in the disregard for the governors curfew or his hypocritical "rule" on thanksgiving gatherings (he was caught eating dinner at a fancy restaurant with a group of high profile people, all of which sitting closely together and not wearing masks).

So in reality, we are just going back to life how it was a few months ago, which as I'm sure you're aware, wasn't really much of a lockdown to begin with.

For what it's worth, cases in my county have sky rocketed (along with many other counties in Cali). Back when we were in purple, we were getting like 5-7 new cases a day. Once we moved down a tier into red (looser restrictions) we slowly started going up to maybe 12 cases a day, 15 cases, then 20 became an average number. But in the last week or two, we have seen 50 cases a day, 70 cases a day. We are averaging around 70 a day.

But here is the kicker, back in march or april, when we were averaging only 5 or so new cases a day, we were also averaging like 10-12 people in the hospital with covid. This week, we have averaged around 70 cases a day like I mentioned, and we have also averaged 7-11 people a day in the hospital with only 2 in ICU.

So, there is some interesting conclusions you can come to based on that data.

Back in march and april, we were probably seeing similar infection rates as we are now, we just weren't testing as many people. (everyone who wants a test can now get one, and many people are getting weekly tests now because their employees want it to be done, so testing isn't an issue here anymore, we are catching way more asymptomatic patients that way)

If you are curious as to my specific county, here is the Gov page on it with the data:
https://www.emergencyslo.org/en/covid19.aspx
Note the total hospital beds available, and total ICU beds available.

The whole point for the "lockdowns" for us, was to allow the hospitals to not be overwhelmed. IMO, we shouldn't reach stricter lockdowns again until we are getting to a point where they can be overwhelmed. As I stated, we have about 10x the daily cases now as we did months ago, but the hospitalization numbers have stayed the same.

Not that the lockdowns affect me much anyways, I don't have time in my day to day activities really to go around eating out, and hanging out having a good time out in public. Even in our worst lockdowns, I still never had to go without any needs or wants really when it came to foods and supplies.

And that's good, because at this point, I'd probably starve if I had to rely on my gardening haha :mrgreen:

-Brandon
 

Claudiusx

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Carrots still doing well, and the Peas are doing OK I think. Had lots of wind storms that damaged them a bit, and we had a frost the other night, but they seem ok for the most part.

-Brandon
 

kingofnobbys

BD.org Sicko
I saw on the news tonight California is now in LOCKDOWN . Been reading scary things about situation in California and elsewhere in USA regard ICUs filling up and morgues being overwhelmed .

Wouldn't want to live over there.

So stay safe and obey the social distancing rule folks.

I guess panic shopping is now full swing in California with people buying up dunny paper, tinned goods , basics , and making a mad dash to set up veggie patches and get some chooks to provide eggs ….

Meanwhile in land down under ( in my State = NSW and in Victoria ) today is being called FREEDOM DAY
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/melbourne/freedom-day-in-nsw-and-victoria-as-raft-of-restrictions-lift/ar-BB1bG6T2?ocid=msedgdhp

seen a big swing in optimism in my neighbours in response to the latest incremental release in covid restrictions
https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/huge-covid-19-changes-coming-to-australians-in-nsw-and-victoria/ar-BB1bGFOt?ocid=msedgdhp

and finally WA is open to NSWelshmen to visit w/out a requirement to go into 2 weeks enforced quarantine https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/wa-confirms-it-will-reopen-border-to-nsw/ar-BB1bGeOW?ocid=msedgdhp

Been only 1 new local case in Australia for over a week now.
 

Claudiusx

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I do not want this to turn into a pandemic news thread please. For what it's worth, it's nowhere near how bad the news is portraying it, at least where I live.

-Brandon
 

Claudiusx

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Carrots are basically the only thing I'm growing right now. Some broccoli plants ended up surviving once the cold weather killed all the worms eating them. Now one of the broccoli plants is actually quite big. No idea if it will actually produce though.

-Brandon
 

Claudiusx

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All of the broccoli plants that survived are producing a broccoli head right now. One is quite bigger than the others. I'll try to take some pictures today. It's actually quite warm and the broccoli plants are wilting a bit from the heat and the lack of water i've been giving them.

-Brandon
 

Claudiusx

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Thinned out the carrots
Here is that harvest
31715-5069441553.jpg
PS. these are just the acceptable ones, I probably had like 30 or 40 more that were small and crummy from me never thinning them. Still have maybe 2 dozen or so planted that have been thinned to hopefully grow proper.
Also here is a picture of one of the broccoli plants. This is the biggest one.
31715-2384215300.jpg

Got a bunch of seeds and sets ordered today. Strawberry roots will be here in march. Same with my onion sets, and two potato varieties i'm going to try.

Funny story, in one of my beds this "weed" popped up. I figured it wasn't hurting anything so I just let it go. Mainly because I hadn't seen a weed like that yet, and wanted to see what it turned into (was expecting one of those spinney weeds that sticks and pokes you). As time went on the leaves got much more round and smooth, unlike any weed i've seen around here. I let it grow for maybe 3 or 4 weeks but last week when I was thinning out the carrots, I decided I'd finally pull that weed. Well, once I pulled it, I noticed 3 potatoes handing off the roots. I was shocked! I looked down at the hole and there were 4 more little potatoes! Now I was upset that I pulled this phantom potato plant early! I dug around and found like 3 or 4 more little potatoes! I couldn't believe it haha. I was so disappointed.

I have absolutely no clue how a potato got in there. All I can think of is that when my container potatoes failed, I dumped the soil from those containers into my bed. I must have missed 1 of the potatoes and after a few months it sprouted and grew! Quite the surprise. It produced more potatoes than I got when I was actually trying to grow it haha.

-Brandon
 

kingofnobbys

BD.org Sicko
At least you'll know what a potato plant looks like in future.

Been bucketing down rain here for over a week , closer to two weeks , even had flash flooding in low lying suburbs like Mayfield, Hamilton, Broadmeadow, Hexham and the harbour is full of flotsam from up river and very dirty with thick silt laden layer on the top.

Kiss good bye to fishing for livebait in the harbour , or snapper of the breakwalls for month or so , and the seas too big to risk fishing the walls for monster jewfish ( which will be there ) because of the TC north of Fiji ( seas up to 8 m here last few weeks , been several rockfishermen taken by rogue waves , near here ( Fraser NP , Wybung and Snapper Heads ) and even as far south as Pt Kembla ( some fishers killed there when the platform was hit by a 10m plus rogue wave ).
I like fishing for monster jewfish if I have live bait on hand, but it's not worth risking your life to catch them , might be relatively safe 8m to 10m above the water on top a break water , but you still have climb down to close enough to gaff the fish ( most guys only have 12ft to 16ft long poles on their "cliff gaff" and you cant always use a flying gaff - so you run the risk of being in the wrong place when a rogue wave hits with no quick easy escape to higher / safer ground.).

Does this mean the water restrictions have been lifted ? NO

So my beds remain fallow for now as there are big fines for anyone caught using fixed irrigation or hosing for longer than 1 hr per day .
Wish I'd taken the opportunity to plant some silverbeet, peas, spring onion, carrot, lettuce, beetroot, spinach, rhubarb ( my wife lives rhubarb pie ,her grandmum used to make it) and broccoli a couple of weeks ago when wet season set in up north in NW WA, NT and NQLD, as we always get a lot of wet weather drawn across the continent from NW WA & NT in Feb of the monsoon is strong.
But it was heatwave conditions here then ( very low humidity ( < 20% ) , and daytime temps peaking at 38 to 42 degC for near 2 weeks here even though we're only a few km from the sea and the big tidal lake ( Lake Macquarie) ) .
I didn't want to risk planting the seeds in the beds only to have die from being cooked because we were back up to Lev 2 water restrictions here when the heatwave arrived
.
Lesson learnt - should have put the seeds into small seedraising coir pots and got them started indoors if need be.

My nasturtium plants ( in the top front 3x3m bed is growing like crazy, loves the soil there and will soon cover the entire top half the big 2 level 6x3m bed at the front of my house ) , the bees and butterflies love the flowers !!
Tough are as nails these nasturtiums - all the flowers wilted and dropped in the heatwave but the leaves and plants were otherwise fine ( with an 10min water from a handheld misting nozzle each evening about 5pm).
Will start harvesting some flowers and leaves for the dragons and bluetongues to add to their salad, might eat some myself too.

The Pomegranate cuttings ( 2 of 6 cuttings are growing , one near the edge of the pot much more vigorously ( gets warmer ?? ) .
The black mulberry sapling is still going good , likes the spot it's pot is in .

The seedlings from my seeds in Jun are now in one of the beds.
( The herbs and veg that survived being neglected and just watered - carrots were tiny and replanted in the bed nearest our back steps.)

I keep forgetting to plant the berry seeds that I have in the freezer …. might do this job this week if it's not too late in the season.

Noticed Woolworths sell Macro Organic Sweet Potato , we usually don't bother with organic produce , but might add a small bag (500g) to the next grocery order and have a go at trying to get them as starters.
I never managed to get the "standard punnet packed" ( treated / sterilised ?? ) sweet potatoes to sprout , ended up rotting in the planter tray. Might be more successful with organic sweet potatoes.
 

Claudiusx

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Yeah, that's the only positive thing about that, I know what a potato plant should look like now haha.
Funny thing is it did better thrown out as scrap in my bed then it did when I actually tried to grow it. Maybe I had the wrong timing, or wrong soil mix?

Anyways, spring is around the corner so I have been getting excited. Bought a bunch of seeds, and been buying plants here and there because I get impatient and just want to have plants instead of wait for seeds to sprout lol!

Although I am really trying to sprout quite a bit of stuff. We picked up this really cheap walk in greenhouse from amazon for like 60 bucks, and I am very happy with it! It was so cheap and it actually fits quite a bit of seedlings, and it's staying quite a bit warmer than outside air. Probably a good hot and humid 75-80 in there with outside temps being around 50.
31715-3408469646.jpg
That's the cheap ol thing but I love it!

I have about 5 different tomato varieties in there i'm trying to sprout. I also have some squash varieties, cucumbers, lettuce, zucchini, and just today I put in a whole tray of flower seeds i'm going to try to sprout.

But, home depot had some decent looking plants, so I've been picking some up like I said.
31715-6860649735.jpg
In this picture we have 3 jalapeño plants furthest away, then the next row is 3 bell peppers. Then we have a poblano pepper (honestly have no idea why I bought this, but it's fun to grow stuff anyways), and then a roma tomato plant. Might squeeze one more roma in there, and the rest of the space in that bed will be reserved for when my onion sets come in next month hopefully.

31715-4210989312.jpg
Here is another bed. This bed will have 1 of my tomato varieties that hasn't sprouted yet, then we have the cherry tomato, and then the right half of the bed will be for the pea variety we did a few months ago that did really well. This will be a better season for them so they should do even better.

31715-5855344473.jpg
Lastly, here is some kale from last season that did a whole lot of nothing, but it's actually starting to grow now.... so I kept it around lol.

Still have some potato and onion sets to come in. Will be doing some of the tomato varieties in pots this year to see how it goes. Not sure if i'm going to try the potatoes in the beds, or in pots again.

Oh and in regards to the broccoli, it never headed properly, started flowering, so we pulled them all. Maybe our timing was off because at our market, we saw young broccoli plants being sold, so maybe now is the time to plant them in our area?

-Brandon
 

kingofnobbys

BD.org Sicko
Mid Feb - Near end of summer - time to sow the seeds for some more herbs and veg & maybe some edible flowers ( for the skinks and dragons too ).

Got busy this avo sowed a bunch of new plants' seeds in seedraising coir pots as follows
14-feb-herbs-flowers-veg-seeds-sowed.png


Will sow some more seeds in next week ( when I decide which ).
 

Claudiusx

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Woo! All of my zucchini has sprouted, all of my yellow crookneck has started, and 1 of my yellow straight has started.

1 of my dixie reds has started, and I have 3 baby romas that have started. Unfortunately, those were the two varieties I was LEAST excited for, so i'm still holding my breath for the rest to pop up. It's been about 8 or 9 days I believe.

-Brandon
 

Claudiusx

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Basically everything I planted has sprouted, except for some really poor germination on some 2 or 3 year old lettuce seed I had. Don't care about those very much at all though.

Will update with pictures and more later.

-Brandon
 

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