Dreaded Puncture Vine

I went to the post office to pick up the mail and on the way home I noticed this tall yuca plant that is budded

I got my camera, smart phone, and took the above picture of the yuca.  The top buds were thickly covered with brownish aphids. The yuca stem is about five feet tall.

While walking over to the yuca, the Puncture vine, Tribulus terrestris, was everywhere.  Some where small seedlings and others had long vines with ripe seeds, called goat heads, with sharp points ready to cling a shoe or to the foot of some animal.

Using my heavy shovel I dug up all of them except for a few that were in part of the driveway that contained a lot of rocks.  l filled a large nursey can with the puncture vine.   

I walked to the row of green arrow peas to see how close they were to harvest.  There may be some ready for Sunday Dinner.

 I dug a lot of wild lettuce in and around the strawberries.  I threw a bunch of them into the chicken run.  The scared the chickens.  One hen flew up and got caught in the twine that I use to hang the lettuce.  I quickly took the above picture and removed the twine.

I worked for over an hour pruning the trees and vines just west of the hen house and the chicken run.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Hot and Windy

Our chickens are doing quite a lot of flying now.  This hen flew on top of the hen house.  With a long stick I encouraged her to fly down.

Carol wanted me to take down the geranium basket so she could do some dead heading.  I took it down and put it in a larger basket, added more soil, and hung it back.

The corn in house two has been doing very well.  From time to time I would squeeze the ears to see if there were any kernels.  I could feel some and also feel places where there were no kernels.  I picked it today.  It was not ripe and there were a lot of places where pollination did not occur.  I gave it to the chickens, and they did not know what to do with it. 

The potato plants have little holes in the leaves which I thing were made by flea beetles.  I made a mix as described online.  One part rubbing alcohol, five parts water, and a tablespoon of liquid dish soap.  I put it in the sprayer and sprayed our two rows of potatoes.  It should have been sprayed a couple of weeks ago.

A home caregiver brought Carol a C-PAC.  She was here for over an hour explaining the breathing device works.  Water is used to maintain the humidity.   It required distilled water.  I drove to Fillmore and bought two gallons.  I also bought motor oil for the lawnmower, chicken scratch and lay pellets, and hamburger buns.

I weeded the strawberry patch.  Much of the weeding was on my hands and knees using my pocket knife cutting weeds close to the strawberry plants.  Most of the weeds were wild lettuce, crabgrass, and mallow.  The above two pictures are from the back of he garden looking east.

I have not planted any corn in the garden.  I made two rows for the sweet corn and was going to directly seed it.  Today I changed my mind and planted two seeds in each cell of this 1206 tray and I planted two trays.  They should be ready to plant out in a couple of weeks.  I covered them with potting soil.

At the end of the day, there was still time left before the 5:30 news.  I pulled weeds from several different pots.

This evening I had a little time to make these Toma Hooks.  I would call this photo a fistie instead of a selfie.

Comments and questions are welcome.

  

 

  T

    a

Frost Damage This Morning

Killer freeze that froze all of the vine plants.  It did not seem to harm the pepper and tomato plants.

First thing after breakfast was to take the dead chickens to the dumpster.  There were two in the nests, two at the south end of the chicken run and one outside with its head caught in the netting.  I put them in a large garbage bag and drove to the dumpster.  The photo shows the two at the south end on the left side behind the netting is the third one.

Cow panel collapsed because of the heavy fruits and foliage.  This is the first thing I saw when I checked the luffas and Italian squash.  The trees are in the background and the cow panel at the bottom edge of the light is almost flat.  The conduit pieces were bent into an "L" shape.

This is what it looked like from the south side.  The goose neck object is a mature Italian squash.

Did more cleaning.  There a lot of pots where plants have died I need to empty.  What to do with the soil other than dumping in on the ground somewhere was somewhat a problem.  That is when I decided to build another raised bed.  I put the soil in the raised bed.

Last night I put the surviving hen near the heating lamp to help dry her of and keep her warm.  She hadn't moved and this morning.  I opened the gate so she could leave the hen house.  She didn't move until this afternoon.   She did come out, and I gently herded her to the north side where she could get in the sun.  She stayed in the shade.  She did get a drink of water.  I threw her some chicken scratch.  She didn't move.  Later she was out in the sun, but she stayed out for a short time and then sit in the corner looking out.  It looked like she wanted to watch for a fox and being the corner the fox could not sneak up behind her.  I picked up as the sun was going down and put her back into the hen house and shut the gate.

Frost revealed some sweet potatoes.  I have been closely watching the sweet potato vines the last couple of weeks.  The vines have grown so thick they hid the potatoes.  I looking at them this early afternoon and found two large sweet potatoes.

I covered them just before it got dark.  I don't think that the coming freeze tonight would hurt them but to be safe if covered.

Made framework for another raised bed in house two.  I have a stash of lumber.  From this stash I got two 2x6x12' for the sides and there was another 2x6 that was about 11 feet long.  The one left is badly twisted I have a wood clamp with a cement block holding it. It still has a way to go to remove the twist. The one on the right is slightly twisted.

The photo below shows the left corner.  You can see how much more I have to twist it to get it in the right plane.

I made four 2x2 corner blocks  that were 1 1/4 inch longer than the width of the 2x6. They would hold the raised be a little higher in the air.   The one in this corner split while trying to remove the twist, so I used a 2x4.  It seems to be holding.

I picked the watermelons and a Topaz melon.  Some had a drying or a dry tendril and others did not.

This is the biggest melon that I have ever grown, 27 1/2 pounds.  The tendril was not dry.  We will see if it is ripe or not.

Watermelon vines, Armenian cucumber vines and Topaz melon vined badly damaged by the frost.  Burpless cucumbers some slight damage.

Comments and questions are welcome.