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Around here,

the neighbors would complain if I tore up that much of my yard!

Very nice!

Do you have a problem with worms eating your cabbage heads? I pull over a dozen green ones off of my cabbage heads every day.

What do you treat them with?

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I don't really treat anything ever and haven't had that problem with cabbage (knock on wood). I've sprayed neem on some really young stuff just to get it through the wimpy stage but I mostly just move stuff around. The neighbors in that brick house are old folks who are leasing. They depend on us to maintain the road and bridge etc., and get veggies. He likes to mow our grass down there on his ride-on and pile it up for us. Flat yards are pretty rare around here - they cut hay across the road though. It is about .5 acre or a little more out of 2 total. That whole lower section was 12' tall roses and shit before we bush hogged it down. This is part of the actual yard -

http://i212.photobucket.com/albums/cc111/mycologist/summer%2008/PICT0144.jpg~original

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You must be north or west of me.

Nice territory where you are at.

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Slugs can eat lots of things, to the ground.











The big ones, feast on radishes, turnips and other veggie produce as well.





I usually have a free beer party for them. They drink, get drunk, fall into the traps, then drown.





I sleep well knowing that they are in the "drunk tank".

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Success!  

After application of these two products, whatever was munching down on my sprouting garden has decreased by at least 90%!
Things are growing again.... BTW, the stink of that Repels-All repels even me....


http://m7.i.pbase.com/o9/72/325172/1/160382337.9WY8sMp9.GardenPests.jpg

 

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Really nice set-up you have there. So your telling me that weeding only takes four hours if you have Asian Hoes? Where do I get one?

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Really nice set-up you have there. So your telling me that weeding only takes four hours if you have Asian Hoes? Where do I get one?

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My problem is, that I seem to want to cram too much into too little space!



I have seen the Square Foot gardening approach. Not ruling it out as a good alternative to conventional ideas and concepts. I always like to hear about how well others are doing in their methods!

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Dawg!







I`ve heard that one can can meat. Never tried it. I am thinking that it is becoming a lost art.



Thank you for commenting this evening and I have enjoyed speaking with you and others in this thread!

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How does that stuff work on green worms and such, on cauliflower and cabbage plants?

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Is the field behind you higher than your raised beds?

You might be better off trying to improve drainage than the berms, because it's possible the water just might eventually seep through a berm or go around them.

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Actually some of the canning done in the past is unsafe. I can meat, it's a fun hobby! I can my venison and also meat I get from the store.

It's actually very easy, you need a pressure canner of course. In choosing one, try to avoid the ones that have a pressure guage only. A jiggler only is OK. Both is idea.

Canning jam is an art, all the pectin and temps and stuff. Canning meat is easy, and made easier by properly pressure canning it. I can mine raw, some people brown it. The times and other parts of the process is the same. The blue book of canning is a good safe guide that every canner should own. Basically it's this:

*put meat in jars

*add liquid up to the proper level (some people dry pack the meat since it make's it's own liquid but meat sticking out is icky and I make gravy so I add the water or tomato juice)

*tighten the rings to the proper level. You don't want them too tight, but you don't want them too loose. They have to vent while they are heating. The books describe it better.

*put water in your canner, I add water to about an inch, maybe a little more up the jars.

*close the lid and turn on the heat.

*VENT FOR 10 MINUTES. This is important. Don't put the jiggler on just yet, all the air has to be expelled for the proper temp to be achieved. You just turn up that heat and when steam comes out of the vent tube, start your timer. It will be shooting out pretty good by the end of 10 minutes.

*put your jiggler on. In my area it calls for 10 lbs of pressure. The jiggler will probably show 11 lbs on the gauge. The jiggler does all the work, it's awesome!

*It's going to take awhile for the canner to come to pressure. Once that jiggler starts you can start your timer. It doesn't need to jiggle constantly, as the contents heat the jiggler will jiggle more and you can adjust your heat. I probably adjust mine 2 or 3 times throughout the process.

*DING!  90 minutes for quarts, 1hr 15 minutes for pints. Now you can turn the heat off. It will take awhile to depressurize. You don't want to hurry this, that's where people run into problems. NEVER EVER take the jiggler off before it goes to zero. This will cause the jars to explode. This is why it's great to also have a guage.

* After it reaches zero, remove the jiggler. If you wait too long to take it off sometimes a vaccum will form and lock the lid on and even deform the canner. The over pressure plug on my old national #7 has a metal thing in the middle that pops up and down which is awesome because it prevents that. Also loosen the lid

*I wait 5 or 10 minutes after it's loosened to removed it and even then it's kind of just propped up. Keep in mind that the liquid in the jars is superheated and over the boiling point.

*I wait another 5 or 10 minutes to remove the lid. You may hear the sweet sweet sound of jar lids pinging as they seal. You can very carefully remove the jars with your jar grabber thing. It's best to just let them set overnight before you move them. You may notice boiling in jars that are not very hot. It's a wierd canning thing.



That's pretty much it. It sounds like more work than it is, it's just time consuming between steps. After the jars are done I take the rings off and clean them before I store them.

Here is a shot of some pints of stew beef. There is some fat on top, venison won't have that.

https://farm4.staticflickr.com/3893/14618870070_474e5c03ec.jpg

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I wish I would have kept up with this thread better.


I had good luck with the liquid bacillis stuff. It pretty much took care of the caterpillers!  

In the past I've had big problems with leaf footed bugs. They are the devil. Then I read they are attracted to sunflowers. I also noticed that they clustered on the tops of zinnias. I love to have a couple mammoth sunflowers in my garden but the only flowers I have this year are impatients (for prettyness) and marigolds. I've not noticed the leaf footed bugs.

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Miracle Grow is MUCH better than poop in a bucket.  I promise.  

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People have gone crazy obsessing over "chemicals" and such.  The fact is, plants don't know the difference between N,P, and K derived from petroleum or poop.  They are elements--molecules.  

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You have a nice combination of veggies going in your locality!

Thank you for posting and I hope that your garden is productive for you this year!