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Archive for 'Worms'

Predators, Parasites, Persistance

I’m discouraged, lately. I think we both are. The only thing that is really thriving is the bees. (Murphy — back off. We do not need to have something happen to them now, thanks!) The sheep are having huge parasite problems. Selina and Fiona both showed awful bottle jaw, so we were worming them frantically,

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wang wong

Down to the wire

We got quite a bit done of the chicken palace, I mean coop over the weekend. The weather on Saturday was awful, clear and cold, but really windy, so we didn’t do much outside at all. Sunday was gorgeous, though, and we made real progress pretty quickly. Having two cordless electric drills was a

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wang wong

Valentine’s Day Blizzard

On Tuesday, we went out to stock up on groceries and stuff, along with the rest of the state, of course. When we got back, there was yet another sheep break-out, which is really frustrating. I think what happened is Bill and George, who are in with the llamas, worked open their gate, which doesn’t

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wang wong

Bulbs and Brush

We finally attacked the bed where I want all of the new bulbs to go. I was dreading it, but it wasn’t that bad. We pulled all of the glads and dahlias, and I’m amazed at how great that soil is. This is the new bed I did this spring, with the lasagna method and

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wang wong

Mid-winter update

Even in midwinter there’s some gardening activity worth preserving. First the mushrooms. The enokitake had to get moved out of the fridge to the basement to make room for holiday food. Unfortunately stuff in the basement gets neglected, and we’ve had only one half-hearted flush. We’ve gotten two pretty good flushes from the pioppino

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wang wong

Triple blooms and worms

After almost a week of waiting, all three blooms on my amaryllis are open. I’m still giving all the credit to the worm casting tea. I don’t follow any of the rules for caring for this, such as an enforced period of dormancy, and still, this is my third year of happy blooms, so I

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wang wong

Tractor buckets & triple blooms

We headed over to just north of Concord today to pick up the new bucket for Frank’s tractor. He’s very psyched to get it, and we’re not quite sure how he’s going to get it off the truck and onto the tractor. But that’s a problem for another day — today, we just brought it home. I wanted to give a great should out to the wonders of worm tea. This is the third year on my amaryllis, and this year it’s huge, tall with a very thick stalk, and has triple buds on it. So far, only the one is open, and it’s beautiful. Worm castings are magic stuff. Frank noticed today that the pond heater seems to be doing the trick. There’s a little hole in the ice and snow right where the heater is. I wonder how cold it can get and when the heater won’t be able to keep up? So far so good, though.

wang wong

Gargoyles and indoor blooms

Even though it’s not specifically about the garden, it is about the outside part of the house, so I’ll mention it here anyway! Our anniversary gift to ourselves this year were two of these gargoyles, now climbing the sides of our log home. We absolutely love them, and are only sorry that they are so

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wang wong

Nice start to November

I’ve been gone all week in DC, so coming home to a serious day of gardening was just what the doctor ordered, and the weather cooperated nicely. There wasn’t really much blue sky, but it was warm and it wasn’t raining, and I’ll take that after the cold and wet fall we’ve been having

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wang wong

Worm bin update

We’ve been going slow on adding garbage to give the worm population time to build up, but we seem to be okay now. We’ve got the second bin about half full of garbage, and it’s just squirming with worms. We also got a quart of worm tea for the houseplants. The first bin still has a bunch of worms in it, which is good because the coir bedding that came with the bin still has a lot of decomposing to do. I suspect we didn’t add enough garbage, because that seems to be gone. I’m taking this as meaning that we can now start putting all our garbage in there, which is great since it means I won’t have to go out to the compost pile in the snow. The downside seems to be the flies. They’re there there, and the manual for the composter pretty much implies they’re a normal feature. Oh well.

wang wong