Gunplumber

So far, she eats only the Bermuda Grass. Which is a good thing, although I fail to see the attraction in a carnivore.

"harvested" the first of my vegis. Ate a "non-GMO heirloom" radish and spinach leaf. Tasted the same as store bought - except smaller, more expensive, and covered with dirt and bugs (embrace it Mark, it's called "organic"). Anyway, progress report. Radishes and spinach have done pretty well. Beans seem to be doing very well. Squash had a slow start, but has surpassed all else in size. Peppers haven't done very well at all. Tomatoes not at all. Cilantro was another slow starter that seems to be catching up. I finished the second ring of planters and put in some trees, surrounding them with whatever seeds I had left. Not optimistic due to full sun all day (trees are Ebony, Sumak, and Live Oak, all of which should do well int he heat), We'll see what happens. Dropped 2000 red wrigglers (worms) into the soil the other day. We'll see how that works.

((smile))

Now have 3 bean shoots. Yay! And the other trenches of radishes have broken surface too. It may also have to do with how deep I planted. I tried various depths from 1-5" just to see if there was a preference. Planting from seed is new to me. I bought my tomatoes and peppers last time from Home Depot, but this time it's all non-GMO, so I don't want contamination from Monsanto seed. Not since the lima bean in the clear plastic cup with the paper towel in 4th grade have I done actual seeds. So forgive me if my newbie excitement is ho-hum to you more experienced. Now, what would be nice would be an encyclopedia of garden food plants that I can buy as a book. I've been using wiki, and somewhere I have my Encyclopedia of Country Living, but for survival & preparedness, I want something that doesn't go away when the power goes out. Now I'm not lazy, I can google it, but the result will be too many choices. So I'm wondering if anyone has a good recommendation - lots of color photos. My Sunset Western Garden is all color line drawings, and as a "keeper" reference, I"d like something more. see- only 29,000 results. That drops to 6000 when I click on hardcover. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_hi_1?rh=n%3A283155%2Ck%3Agarden+vegetables&keywords=garden+vegetables&ie=UTF8&qid=1396048039

Well that is makes me optimistic. It's just that I didn't put any root foods in that bed 'cause it has concrete rubble 8" down. I put the radishes in the beds that are 16" deep. Perhaps I got my labels wrong, or the seed company did. We'll see.

Well, I thought it was something I planted, because it's in a nice neat row in front of my Arugula flag, but now I have found another row of the same plant in front of my radish flag. So I think it is a weed. Weird that it's only growing in a line where I scraped a trench for the seeds. That makes the only "certified" winner, a 2" sprout of Bean (Pole) Kentucky Blue Wonder. I don't know when it broke the surface (today is day 10), but I know it ain't no weed.

And the winner for first sprout (that wasn't Bermuda grass) - Arugula ! 9 days.

I'm desperately hoping there will be something for a dramatic picture. But I learned if one has low expectations, one avoids disappointment. I've been watering to keep damp - about every 36 hours (temps are still 75-85, with night lows around 55). So far, I've gotten several sprouts - and as expected, they are bermuda grass shoots from some roots I didn't get sifted out. At least they tell me where to dig to get the whole root section out.

For the bush beans I put the flag in the middle and and put the seeds in a circle. I put those in the deepest are where it is 12' to the wall. I put some stepping stones in per recommendation. I figure if the grow bush like, they'll fill this harder-to-reach area. The pole beans I put parallel to the wall. Everything else I did in rows, alternating between a tall (tomato), a short (lettuce, basil) and a root (carrot, onion), with the flag on the end. I put the peppers (and there are 20 varieties, I love peppers), in the center planter that will have the least shade. I have half of the middle planter empty - I think I'll do more peppers there, as I only used half my sampler seeds. Except the planter against the house has rubble the bottom 8" under the soil so I avoided stuff that had a deep root there. I planted the seeds in trenches at various depths from 2-4" just in case they have a preference. There is also something called borage, which has a striking flower, but apparently also has some herbal uses, and supposedly a companion herb for tomatoes - still not totally clear - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borage I figure that if I get way too much sprouting, I can transplant some to the planters I haven't built yet. As far as the cross-pollination, I was thinking more along the lines of one type of tomato to another type of tomato (same genus, different specie), not from cabbage to broccoli to cauliflower (same family, different genus)

Well, I planted the seeds yesterday. I bought 100 varieties of $0.99 sample packs and planted all hundred - half of each selection. http://www.seedsnow.com/collections/new-99-sampler-seed-packs I bought these flags, usually used for marking irrigation systems, for labeling all the different varieties. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001DZBHAS/ref=oh_details_o00_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 I also bought this "survival seed vault". It has a lot of the same types I ordered, but seems a pretty good spread of types and quantities are much greater than the sampler packs. If I knew exactly what I wanted, it would probably be more economical to buy them individually, but for someone like me who doesn't know what to get, this product seems a good value. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GT49WS2/ref=oh_details_o03_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Gosh those fava beans are huge! I still don't have the irrigation connected to the electronic valves and timers, but used a 4-line hose manifold to tie the planters into the water supply for now. I'm going to be doing more landscaping before knowing for sure where the hard-pipe needs to run. Got a question. If I plant several types of (whatever) next to each other, will they cross-polinate and create their own hybrid? Has anyone had skin irritation from rutabaga? Did you know it's a hybrid? A Cross between a turnip and a cabbage. Wow! Anyway, I was scanning the wiki entry and it said the leaves had an irritant like poison ivy. Well, I'm cautiously optimistic. With enough varieties, a 50% failure in germination should still give me a veritable jungle. Seeds advertise an 85% germination rate. Most say 7-14 days to sprout, so we'll see.

I really wanted mint, but the only mint I could find were seedlings - I couldn't find seeds. I do a lot of Tai/Vietnamese style cooking with rice noodle, peanut, and mint. \

Typical summers here are weeks of 110, and a full month over 100. Hottest I've seen was 122. I can do shade material, but I'd rather not - I'd rather find plants that can handle it. We get heavy wind and it would take a lot to secure agricultural screening.

There are only two food items I can't eat. Liver and beets. I've eaten sea slugs, crickets, lizards and snakes . . . you name it. Even the smell of beets makes me nauseous. So that was quickly crossed off the list. So if the plants are too close together does that affect their growth or only make it difficult to harvest? I had a tomato jungle at my old house - They were so thick I couldn't move through them. I was throwing away bucket-fulls of tomatoes 'cause I couldn't give them away, and there is only so much salsa I could freeze. Good idea on the stepping stones. I recognized that would be a hard to reach area, but it is otherwise dead space. I was thinking of bushes in the corner. One of my beans tays (bush) after it. I'm assuming that means it is a bush and not a vine.

I added 20 tons of sand to the horse arena. It has really helped to loosen up the clay - with the help of my neighbor's tractor and roto-tiller, than is. The potting soil I brought in has a lot of finely shredded wood chips in it. I'm expecting the native soil I Put on top will substantially settle through it. Not sure what you mean about 2 years for carrots. Is that for full growth? Of for any growth. I guess I just assumed a carrot was a one season thing.

I expect the raised beds to be warmer, but I also figure they will have vastly improved water retention - to the point where I may need to install a few drains. For example, now that I'm done testing the sprinklers, I'm burrowing under the planter to run the (eventual) water line (I already have timers and valves from my failed lawn, I just need a new trench to connect the them) . I watered heavy last night - about 30 minutes. Today when I went to dig out the inside corner, I sunk down a foot. Yet 12" away, on the outside corner, I needed a pick-axe to dig the other side of the hole.

I do not have a green thumb. I took horticultural management in college for my botany credit, and worked in the Fullerton Arboretum. I once had a (failed) cactus and succulent business. But I have been a dismal failure at growing anything but African Jade, peppers, and cactus/succulents. There are a variety of problems in my Sonoran Desert region, that make growing a challenge. Arizona is actually a major agricultural area, with corn, carrot, cabbage, broccoli, and cotton fields all around the low lands. They use canals for irrigation, as the Maricopa Indians did for a thousand years. I have alkaline, clay soil. My previous attempts to grow grass in by back yard failed. My short-term plan is to hardscape the back yard, with a fire pit, and raised planters, with a ring of desert trees. I figure the planters will give me the ability to control the soil. Kindof like this, except inside a ring of raised planters, the front of which will be benches. http://0.static.wix.com/media/c30cfd13a9511b23927d303fbd4df364.wix_mp_1024 Anyway, I was making a curb for a brick walkway out of cinder blocks. I figured the 8" blocks, minus the 4" bricks, would leave me a 4" curb. Then I discovered that chipping the mortar off the used bricks was a greater cost in labor than in just buying new material. And the best bang for the buck in covering large areas is with 1" native flagstone. An that would leave 7" curbs, which were too high. So I figured, I'd raise the curb another 8" and turn them into planters. Which became 4 large planters (and also gave me a great place to "hide" several tons of crushed cement and rocks, underneath a foot of planting soil/mulch mixed with our crappy clay dirt. I have an unlimited supply of horse poop to mix, but I avoided it and bought sterile potting soil for this test, as I assume the horse poop will have a lot of grass seeds in it. With my luck, the same grass that wouldn't grow where I planted it, will thrive where I don't want it. Anyway, I tested the irrigation yesterday and am ready to bury it and plant. I found an on-line seed store with $0.99 samples, with seed quantities ranging from 20 to 300 depending on variety, and I bought 100 varieties of heirloom/non-GMO seeds to play with. The website http://www.seedsnow.com will filter choices based on season and climate zone. I picked spring and the desert southwest. Came up with a variety of herbs, radishes, peppers, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, etc. I avoided melons and squashes due to their size. Now understand - the food value is secondary. I want "green" for it's aesthetic value, but figured I may as well have green that I can eat. This corner of the yard is essentially dead space, and it also has the least sun, due to the walls. The main part of the back yard has full, blazing hot sun, all day, so will need extremely sun-tolerant plants. So this "dead" corner is my testing ground. Whatever grows best I'll put in the main part of the yard. So I'm reading the directions that came with the seeds, and they say I should be sprouting them in vermiculite in a green-house type environment before transplanting the seedlings into the garden. This is NOT going to happen. My plan was to plant the seeds directly in the beds, and hope for the best. I haven't the time or interest to make gardening my full time job. I have a full-time job. I just want a bunch of green, and would rather they be edible and pretty, rather than just pretty. I expect high attrition this year, both from my inexperience, lack of interest, and rabbits, but the results will tell me what grows best with least effort in my challenging environment. So I really don't know enough yet, to know what questions to ask, so I'm just kindof wondering if anyone has any anecdotal comments on hot + dry + full sun + raised beds?

Well the little boxes of Rice-a Roni, which are a mix of rice and rice sized pasta, say to brown it first in butter. I've used olive oil or bacon fat as well, each with a different smoke point, but that's another subject. so I was doing brown rice, and the recipe said to do the same thing. So I'm wondering on rice that hasn't been "polished" like traditional American rice, if this cracks the outer layer and allows it to cook faster. Something else I like to do is to drain canned corn really well, and cook it on cast iron (I use almost exclusively cast iron) so that it browns or even chars here and there, and then mix it in with the rice (and some rinsed black beans too). I googled it, and apparently there are two versions. "Toasted" is dry, and also called toasted, but really should be sauteed (?) is in oil. There are a variety of ways of doing it, from the white turning slightly opaque, to light tan, to brown, to a few chars. I think the style goes well with BBQ, and will sometimes "burn" vegis around the edges on my gas stove, especially peppers going into salsa.

I'm thinking of a couple things here - rice seems to cook faster if it is "fried" in butter first. And cofee beans go through a chemical change at roasting. It would be interesting to compare cooking times of oats that are fried (sauteed?) first, versus simply boiled.

Happy Thanksgiving. Girl-child is on her 4th sweet potato pie (baking, not eating) and they are getting better as she refines her experiment. Of course, she puts enough sugar in it to make sawdust taste good. . . . . I did my "eats like a meal" stuffing. Just need to pop it in the oven in a few hours to warm up. I was talking to a cashier at the grocery store and she said that it's a scientific fact that there are no calories this week - so I should be good to go.

there was a time, maybe, when there were front lines and safe areas. But not anymore. Jessica Lynch (her completely fabricated heroics aside) is a prime example. The enemy doesn't care what your MOS is. But if women were only assigned to the less dangerous jobs, would they be happy with lower pay for the lesser work? I don't think so. It's silly really, even down to female uniforms. On one hand, the military claims that females are just another service member and to be treated no differently - but they get different PT standards, and different uniforms designed to accentuate their differences. I'm not talking about a different cut fo9r different shapes, but a different style altogether. There's the argument that there's lots of supporting jobs in the military women can do. Perhaps, but I do wonder about keeping around significant numbers of people who wouldn't qualify for an "honest" combat job. It also increases the chance that someone else gets assigned to the front lines instead...messy debate, that.

From another guy - nothing at all, other than scrambling for a witty retort. From a woman? there would be some stumbling. Hey - that's a woman, can I use my same witty retort or will she start crying? Should I care?

Women are not men with different plumbing. They are completely different from men - socially, chemically, biologically, and mentally. Note I did not say superior or inferior, just vastly different. The attempt of modern society to identify men and women as interchangeable biological resources has caused great consternation. You are making the mistake of "feeling" a response to a male off-the-cuff observation. In male culture, a normal greeting among comfortable male co-workers would be "hey bitches, howzit going" to which a typical response would be - hey a-hole, you look like you got drug under a truck". This roasting is a sign of camaraderie. A guy shows up with his leg in a cast, and the response is not, as it would be with women, empathizing. The opposite is true. He will be the butt of jokes. Hey Bob, hop on over here . . .. and many worse that I cannot type here. And he will love it because it means he's accepted as a part of the group, and is still a "man" not to be pitied or coddled. While it is possible that the guy is just a jerk, it is just as possible that he thought nothing malicious about it, and was actually treating you as an equal - making the same ribbing comment that would be "normal" to another guy, and in an indirect way, complimenting you. I do not expect you to "get it". Women in general do not think they way men do. It is what it is. It is no more rational to expect men to assume the mental processes of females, as it is to expect women to do the same heavy lifting that men do. Trying to socially engineer boys and girls into "same" is destroying our society. Note - I am not endorsing sexual harassment, or discrimination not based on actual ability. I am simply trying to present a different perspective. There are some jobs for which women are the equal of men, and some jobs where women outperform men. And there are some jobs where only certain special men, and almost no women, can perform well. But the laws and our social engineering refuse to acknowledge any differences whatsoever. And then women get upset when a male coworker treats them the same as he would a man. As to pregnancy - if a guy applied for a job, and said (or it was assumed) that he would work for 6-9 months at gradually diminishing ability, then expect a paid vacation and to have his job back when or if he decided to return, it absolutely would affect the hiring decision. But our laws discriminate against men, by giving such special privileges only to women. Women clamor for equality - when that is the last thing they want. Equality means, if you can't perform the same job, to the same level, you get paid less or lose the job,. If you can't work for a month or more, you get replaced. If your physical condition renders you incapable of performing to the same standard, you get replaced - regardless of plumbing. It's like putting cats and dogs in the same group and demanding that they all work together toward a common goal - they don't even speak the same language.

Summer appears to have finally broken. Temps dropped to the high 80s, so girl-child and I could go riding. I'm really sore - which is odd, as the horse was doing all the work. Does my ass make my horse look fat?

I ran across this by accident the other day - I haven't read all of - just scanned through and cut and pasted into a word doc to read later. I'm particularly interested in, and have written extensively on the subject of what to carry - weight versus benefit. Anyway, it seemed well thought out. http://mountainguerrilla.wordpress.com/

In bad times, it is even more important to get value for every calorie spent in effort. I'm self-employed in a labor-intensive field, and work flow ergonomics and efficiency are issues I deal with daily. If it takes you 500 calories of energy to collect 400 calories of fuel, you die. I embrace the concept of using cans for shingles - as an academic idea with possible application. I made scale armor for my daughter's Halloween costume in a similar manner. But from an energy output to benefit perspective, I suspect there will be other options for water-proofing a shelter that will require less exertion. Such as using the shingles from your neighbor's house. Since he was eaten by zombies, he has no more use for it.