Erin from The Impatient Gardener tells us about the Jumping Worm that is moving its way across the country. Not many have heard about this, myself included, but its not a good thing.
These worms, which hang out on the upper layers of soil, are massive digesters of soil. This is not a good thing. What they leave behind is loose soil resembling coffee grounds and largely devoid of nutrients. Give them a little time and they destroy the composition of the soil to the point where plants are no longer anchored.
They reproduce without mating, laying impossible-to-find cocoons in the soil that overwinter even in cold areas, and oh, by the way, they mature so quickly that two generations can be produced in one season. They do their damage quickly.
My vegetable garden fails were pretty obvious this year, and in the video below we give you a garden tour. Watch the vid then read through our thoughts below.
At least the sunflowers and the kale are growing!
The garden heated up quickly this year and I found that any of the greens or mustards that I got as transplants bolted very quickly. I was surprised how quickly they did. Maybe those plants were already stressed in the plant pack trays and I couldn’t do anything about it.
My bed of salad greens, which is the shadiest bed in the yard, turned into weeds. I think the compost I got was full of weed seeds. Boom, a bed of weeds. I think I will use the string trimmer on this bed and then replant.
The sunflowers are doing well. I even transplanted several from the other garden beds. They key to transplanting sunflowers is to dig out a large root ball and water them often after replanting. They also like fertilizer. I did sow the sunflower seed too early, so a lot of them did not germinate. But I re-seeded and that batch has taken off. I made sure to have the taller varieties in the back of the bed. It should be a good cutting garden soon.
The sugar snap peas (watch our how to grow sugar snap peas video here) are doing well. They are just now browning out after a good season of producing lots of Labrador snacks. I tried the Sugar Anne variety with not great success. I really like the Super Sugar Snap peas. You learn how to build the trellises we use in a video here.
Our string beans are just starting to flower. I really like the Rattlesnake Pole Beans I get from Fedco Seeds, or you can save your own string bean seeds. they don’t get stringy or woody and can stay on the vine a few days after ripening. They are on the same kind of simple string trellis we use for the peas.
What are your garden fails? Let me know below. Meantime some more cool posts are below.
Tired of being dive bombed? Here’s how I get rid of deer flies when I’m working in the yard or woods. Yes, it looks weird, but it works.
Deer flies like to attack from behind and land on your head or neck. Put on this double stick tape, and they tend to aim for the strip of kinda sorta flesh colored tape instead of your neck. Then their feet get stuck in the tape. No more deer flies buzzing you.
Being the DIY guy, I first bought this online, and I thought, I can get rid of deer flies myself. So I went out and got a roll of double sided carpet tape. But it doesn’t work nearly as well. I’m not sure what’s up with this special tape, but its cheap enough that its totally worth it for peace of mind.
I can’t stand the dive bombing of the flies. And while I do get stung while beekeeping, the deer flies drive me crazy. Not sure why. Their bite seems to last longer.
According to Wikipedia, only the female deer fly will bite. The male eats pollen. And the deer fly can be a vector for anthrax, nice! But the deer fly also has predators: nest building wasps and hornets, birds such as the killdeer, and dragonflies. This is why I don’t remove wasps nests unless they are in an area where we are walking around. Leave them be to get the deer flies!
Tree Pruning is best done on dormant trees, so this being winter, now is the time. I was walking through the park and saw the staff had done some tree pruning. I took these pictures to show how the tree should look after its done. Here’s a video we did on how to prune a tree.
When pruning a tree, after determining which branches to cut, you make 3 cuts to the limb. This is done to keep the tree bark from stripping back down the tree trunk. First is a bottom cut about an inch away from the finish cut, then a top cut an inch farther out on the limb to cut the limb. The bottom cut keeps the bark from stripping down past the cut. The final cut is made flush to the growth ring near the trunk.
Why 3 Cuts When Tree Pruning?
This may seem like a waste of time, so go ahead and prune a few tree limbs, you can see how the bark rips down the trunk, not a good thing.
When doing the final cut it should be close to the trunk, however, you don’t want the cut to be flush with the trunk. Though it can be hard on some trees, you want the cut to be just past the growth ring of that limb. As a result, cutting at the ring will allow the tree to heal faster, like the one below.
On some trees, the ring isn’t obvious, so do the best you can. Trees are amazingly resilient. Do not paint on any kind of coating after making the cut. The tree will create its own chemical barrier inside the wound to prevent bad stuff from enter the tree. If you apply paint or some sort of tree wound product, it will only keep bad stuff in the wound, not out.
Sometimes you can’t get close to the trunk, so do the best you can. Your tree will take care of itself. Be happy that you took out the branches that are dead and dying, making the tree look better and grow better.
I made this video to show you how to plant garlic in the fall, which is the best time to plant garlic, FYI. Watch the vid then read through the how to notes below, there’s lots of info here!
To Plant Garlic, Do These Things:
Order garlic ahead of time
Prepare the garden bed
Separate the cloves
Plant root side down
Wait Until Next July
Probably the biggest mistake people make when they want to plant garlic is to wait too long before ordering some seed garlic. The stuff sells out fast, so order early. The seed garlic supplier will ship just before planting time in your area. I order from Filaree Farm. Most seed garlic is not cheap, but keep in mind you will get many plants from one bulb. You can save your own seed garlic going forward.
You can obsess about prepping the garden bed for the seed garlic, or just do as I do. I make sure the bed has a good mix of compost and soil. Loosen the soil up with a garden fork. Garlic likes some nitrogen, so I sprinkle over the bed some time release fertilizer. I do add some rock powder like azomite, but I can’t say it makes a big difference, its just feels right. I can say that garlic does not like clay soils, or soils that are too sandy, but isn’t that true for most garden vegetables?
The ideal is to plant garlic 2 weeks before the hard frost in your area. For those in warm weather areas, you will usually plant between November and January.
Why Separate The Day Before?
Depending on who is doing the talking, some say you must separate the cloves of the garlic bulbs the day before, I don’t. Usually because I forget, and I have yet to see a difference in doing so. I would suggest getting some help splitting up the bulbs. Many hands make light work.
I plant garlic about 6″ apart in rows about 8-10″ apart. Its not rocket science. Garlic doesn’t like to be crowded, and it doesn’t do well with weeds. Plant about 2″ down, with the root tip facing down. The grow tip should be about an inch below the soil.
I don’t mulch my garlic with straw. I will put down a light layer of leaves I have run through the mulching mower, but its not a thick layer.
If your garlic starts to grow in the fall, don’t worry, the green tip will die back a bit with the frost, and will restart in the spring.
What to do in spring? Watch more of our how to grow garlic vids here.
You can grow salad greens in fall and winter, its not rocket science, even I can do it. Watch the video and read on below:
Couple of key things to grow salad greens in fall and winter
Plant cold hardy lettuces, mustards, kale.
Use a mini greenhouse
Start seeds earlier than you think
Plant in your sunniest raised bed
Luckily, most salad greens don’t do well in hot weather, they actually like cold weather. You have that going for you when you want to grow greens in winter or fall. I usually have too many packs of mescluns, greens, etc, so I drop them into a shallow row right next to my soaker hoses [video here]. Fedco sells fall and winter salad seed mixes, which make this even easier.
Be sure the seed rows are on the sun side of the soaker hoses. The way my raised beds are oriented, one side of the hose gets more sun than the other, so I drop seed on that sunnier side.
The other key ingredient here is a mini greenhouse, aka hoop house, to extend the growing season [how to videos here]. The mini greenhouse will keep the plants warmer in the fall and early winter months, and can extend the season greatly.
If you don’t have a mini greenhouse, you can surround the salad greens with hay bales. Lay an old storm window over the bales. The bales will hold in the heat nicely.
In the northeast U.S., where we are, the salad greens will eventually freeze, and stop growing. But if you can manage not to let the frost melt and drown the plants in late winter, you can get the salad greens to start growing again. They may bolt, so plant new seed as well.
How do you extend your growing season? Let us know below.
I put together this DIY soaker hose irrigation system for my raised bed vegetable garden and made a video for you. With this and a timer, I don’t have to spend time watering by hand, and wasting water. Soaker hoses are great for slowly watering your garden while saving water. In another video I show how to run a garden hose underground to your garden beds.
Steps to build your DIY soaker hose irrigation system:
The video explains it quite well, I think, but here are some photos and tips to make it all work.
Soaker hose is available in a few different diameters. Lately I’ve been seeing mostly 3/8″ diameter hose. Buy the hose tubing connectors that match your diameter. Either a farm supply store or a hardware store will probably have the T and elbow connectors.
Soaker hose is easiest to work with when it has been sitting in the sun for a few hours. Lay it out flat, use some rocks to hold the ends and keep it from curling. It cuts easily with a wire cutters or scissors. Be sure to cut off about 6″ of hose with the feed end of the hose before cutting the lateral lengths that run down the bed.
If your hose pressure is enough to pop out the elbows and Ts, use wire or cable ties to connect the hoses. At the hose ends, I use a wooden dowel or bend over the end of the hose. Sometimes bending the hose doesn’t work.
Here is a diagram of the watering system for my raised bed vegetable garden:For my beds, I run a hose across the bottom end of the bed for a trellis. I usually plant snow peas or beans on a trellis at both ends, and the lateral soaker hoses don’t do a great job of getting to all the seeds I plant along that edge.
For connecting the garden hose to the bed, I show in this soaker hose installation video how I bury the hose so the lawn mower doesn’t run over it.
I have found it best to use your soaker hose drip irrigation system once or twice a week in the early morning, you want long deep watering, not short shallow watering. Here is a garden hose timer that works well for automated watering.
Learn how to build a raised garden bed in this video we made while building some for our own vegetable garden. This isn’t rocket science, not hard to do at all. Watch the video and start building.
Steps To Build A Raised Garden Bed
Figure out the size of the bed.
Purchase the lumber and hardware.
Assemble the bed.
Add soil and plant.
I like to build 4′ wide raised beds. The width is good for me, I can reach across the bed from either side. Plus, this width is great if you use floating row fabric or plastic mulch. You can cut the fabric to one width for all your beds. The mini greenhouse I built drops right on top of these beds. So yeah, I like this width.
For brackets to attach the sides of the bed, I use whatever I have. Shelf brackets, angle brackets, or the metal brackets you use for roof trusses, use what you got. They will all work and last longer than the wood itself.
Position the lumber where you want the bed to be, and build it in place. Don’t worry about making the bed super level. You can shovel out high spots, and some dirt will come out the bottom of the bed to fill in low spots.
After you are happy with the placement and assembly, drive in some pipes or rebar or metal stakes in the middle of each long board and secure with metal banding. This keeps the sides of the bed from warping out. You could use wood stakes, but I wouldn’t, it wont hold as well.
What kind of soil do I fill the raised bed with? I’m a big fan of the lasagna gardening method of filling up raised beds. Again its some of the ‘use what you got’ thing here, but assemble a mess of cardboard, straw, compost, soil. Watch this video.
If you don’t want to do the lasagna method, don’t use pure top soil, see if someone nearby sells a garden soil, its needs to have a mix of materials, not straight topsoil. Let me know your comments or questions below.
Can you use pressure treated wood for raised beds? Watch our video to find out if pressure treated wood is safe for gardening.
This question gets asked many times each season, and I thought I should see what new research has been done, and what the current thinking is.
Part of the issue here is that for years treated wood was infused with arsenic, which is bad stuff. In the last decade, two types of new treated woods have arrived in stores, and arsenic treated wood is no longer sold in the U.S. I don’t know if it is available anywhere else.
Untreated wood exposed to soil.
So, Can You Use Pressure Treated Wood For Raised Beds?
The new pressure treated wood contains an insect repellent and a mold inhibitor. From Wikipedia:
Alkaline Copper Quaternary (also known as ACQ) is a water based wood preservative method recently introduced in countries where there is a demand for alternatives to Chromated copper arsenate (CCA).[1] The treatment is made up of copper, a bactericide and fungicide which makes the wood resistant to biological attack, and a quaternary ammonium compound (quat) which acts as biocide, increasing the tolerance of treated timber to copper-resistant bacteria and fungi, and also acting as an insecticide.
In other words, it has chemicals to repel insects and fungus, the two main culprits in rotting wood.
Copper is the main ingredient in treated wood. If you’ve ever wondered why it has a green tint, its because of the oxidized copper. And we already use copper in our gardens to fight fungus in spray-on products we buy at the garden store.
Plus, we are exposed to copper in our home water pipes, many of which are made of copper. I read that one will ingest more copper from their household water than they will from copper from treated lumber.
A 2007 study of the safety of ACQ published in Human and Ecological Risk Assessment concluded that exposure to copper from contact with ACQ-treated wood is not expected to have adverse effects on the health of adults or children.
So there you go. Considering how many airborne chemicals rains down on our gardens from the air, and we haven’t perished from that yet, it looks like its OK to use pressure treated wood for raised garden beds.
If you are still not convinced, you can line the inside of your raised garden beds with plastic as barrier between the treated wood and the garden soil.
This is the first mini greenhouse build we did and we learned a lot. We have built several more since, and they are great garden season extenders. I start my salad greens early and can keep kale growing into winter with a PVC mini greenhouse. Watch the how to video:
A few tips on the Mini Greenhouse Build
You can use 3 mil clear plastic from the hardware store.
Buy the most flexible PVC tubing you can find.
Be sure to have plenty of staples for the staple gun.
Use at least one thermal vent.
You can get a UV resistant greenhouse plastic, but I don’t. My thinking is a tree branch or dog is probably going to crash through the mini greenhouse before the plastic is broken down from sunlight. Be sure to double over the plastic where ever you are stapling it to the frame. Where the plastic wraps over the edge of the plywood end, you can run duct tape or a slit rubber hose over it to reduce the chance of tearing.
There are several kinds of PVC pipe available. Go to your local hardware store and test the different kinds to see which bends well for the size greenhouse you are building. Pick up some pipe holder brackets from the electrical department of the store to hold the PVC to the wood frame.
Buy more staples then you think you need. I always run out! Hammer in any staples that don’t go in all the way themselves. Fold over the plastic where ever you staple it to reduce tearing.
Thermal vents are key here. The mini greenhouse build can overheat easily. I use at least one vent, if you use two, put one high and one low on opposite ends. Buy the vent here.
If you are building this to sit on top of a raised bed, make the dimensions slightly smaller than the raised bed size, so the hoop house will drop just inside the borders of the bed, makes it much easier to deal with that way.
Our cold frame hoop house greenhouse is based on those built by Eliot Coleman in his book, If you follow the procedures outlined by Elliot in his book, you can harvest food all winter. nice. We also learned a bunch from Nikki Jabour’s book. (affiliate links)
We talk about Fruit Walls, which we read about on the site Low Tech Magazine. Fruit Walls are tall thick walls made to absorb the heat of the sun and create a micro climate to grow warm weather fruits in France, Belgium and Europe.
This is where the espalier concept of pruning – training of a fruit tree came from, we think. The tree was trained to have lateral branches that would spread along the fruit wall and benefit from the heat being put off by the wall. Previous to reading this article we were clueless about this.
The fruit walls advanced with the addition of chimneys built into the walls, with fires burning in a part of the wall and the hot exhaust heating the walls.
By R&@E CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons & Low Tech Magazine
A neat version was a fruit wall with the addition of what was basically a window frame to become a greenhouse. As greenhouses became popular, the fruit wall became part of it, absorbing the heat of the day and keeping the greenhouse warm at night. This concept is still used in China today.
In late 19th century greenhouses as we know them today became popular, and fruit walls fell from favor.
Then the show starts going on a tangent into concrete, and how the Romans made really good concrete, which is called cement, depending on who you talk to and how its used.
There is a lot of this solar heating and hot beds examples at Colonial Williamsburg, Rick says. We’ll have to look into making a hot bed with horse manure.
Want to keep weeds down without spraying? Natural weed control is the way to go using this woven weed fabric. This video is an update to our previous how to control weeds video, showing how the weed fabric has held up to 6 years of New England weather.
I’m using the term natural weed control in a broad sense here, not wanting to get into the weeds about whether using a plastic material is natural. But rather in the sense that we are not using chemical weed killer, and by depriving the weed seeds of light, we keeping the weeds down in the garden.
This was purchased from a local greenhouse supply, you can buy the weed fabric online also. I’ve seen this fabric used as the floor of greenhouses and nursery yards. The fabric comes in rolls, and my neighbor got a friend to sew the fabric into a one giant piece. Each fall, the plants are pulled up and the fabric is rolled up and stored in the barn.
Large cement blocks hold down the edges of the fabric, and bricks are interspered between the plant rows throughout the garden to keep it from blowing up and away. To plant seedlings in the fabric, a propane torch is used to create holes. The torch singes the edges of the plastic, keeping it from fraying.
This natural weed control method works great for squash cucumbers, and whatever other vines you want to grow. It makes it much easier to harvest squash when the plants aren’t covered in weeds. It also makes it easier to spot damage by insects – watch our squash vine borer treatment videos.
This weed fabric is UV stable, meaning it is resistant to the sunlight degrading the material. If you use regular plastic sheeting, it will break down in the sunlight. You can see us use black plastic mulch in this tomato video.
Learn here how to plant a window flower box, like the one we built in a previous DIY video. Watch as we show a few tips for window box plantings. The first tip: simple is good. Here we go!
A few things to keep in mind in planning how to plant a window flower box
Choose heat tolerant plants, especially if these window boxes are on the sunny side of the house.
Use a good quality potting soil with a time release fertilizer.
Water window boxes regularly, they will dry out faster than you think.
For this window box, we used some shade plants as this side of our house is shady most of the day. The few hours of sunlight are ok on these guys. Plus its on ground level, so its easy to water – a big plus not having to haul water upstairs.
The more window boxes you have, the simpler the design should be. Window boxes are great but they are, as Tim Gunn would say, “a lot of look.” If there are too many colors or textures going on, your house is going to look like the little shop of horrors. Keep your plant choices to one, maybe two or three at an absolute maximum (and then only if they relate closely to each other, such as a light pink and a dark pink petunia) and then plant every box the same. I know it’s hard to pick just a few plants when there are so many great ones around, but pick one or two this year then do something totally different next year. Just don’t do it all at the same time.
Erin also suggests moving away from sweet potato vines, which do appear in our flower box video.
Better than most anything I’ve said yet. But then Erin is more of the designer kind of person than I am. I make stuff. Like flower boxes:
Wade from up north asked if we could help with this strawberry pest identification, so I am posting his email to us below, along with some photos.
________
Last summer we decided our hoop houses in the middle of the yard were unsightly, and just not performing that well. We tore them out and built a single (building a second next week) 3×8′ box on the north fence. I transplanted 6 sad little strawberry plants and had low expectations. All summer they thrived and shot off as many runners as they could. About 20 plants were well established and still bearing in late fall.
We had a very mild winter and early spring. The little strawberries kept trying to poke up through the snow in February!
I picked my first ripe berry Jun 2nd (last frost by almanac is 25 May) and now I have to go out and pick 3 cups of strawberries every other night! This is starting to feel like work! 😉
I’ve started to notice some berries are chewed on and caught this little guy in the act. Can you identify him, and is there anything I can do other than hose down my delicious strawberries with pesticide (this is not an option). I had chicken wire over the box to keep the birds out, but have now removed it in hopes they’d rather eat bugs than berries.
_______
Any ideas on the strawberry pest identification? At first glance, I do not recognize this caterpillar, but it clearly has a taste for strawberries. Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments below:
Here’s how we harvest potatoes. It isn’t rocket science, its just dirt. Watch our how to video first.
Like I said, its not rocket science to harvest potatoes. The most important thing is to not pierce the potatoes when harvesting them. If you use a shovel or gardenfork, you may pierce them. No big deal, just cook those pierced potatoes for dinner tonight.
I think the best tool to harvest potatoes is your hands. Gloves help. Most of us don’t have massive rows of potatoes, so hands work pretty good. Besides, we have them nearby. Just add gloves.
Storing potatoes is harder than harvesting potatoes. For best storage, the potatoes need to be mature. Dig up a potato and see if the skin rubs off easily. If it does, the potato is not mature. You could still harvest potatoes at this point, but they would be for cooking in the near term.
To store them long term, you need to ‘cure’ them. Two weeks of dark storage at high humidity, about 80-90%, and then 40-45F at high humidity. A cool basement may be a good place for storage, check the humidity level first. Cook up any damaged potatoes, they can ruin a crop if left in storage. Learn more about potato curing here.
What are your thoughts? Suggestions? Let us know below:
There are edible wild plants in your backyard that you can forage for and make a great salad from. No need to go to the farmers market, you’ve probably got edible greens in your yard you can eat. Identifying and harvesting edible plants is called foraging, but I call it free food in your yard.
Below are some photos for plant identification, but be sure you know what these plants are. These are fairly unique plants, but be sure, OK? And make sure the area you are foraging has not been sprayed with fertilizers, herbicides, etc. You don’t want that stuff getting into your food. You can buy Leda’s Foraging Book here.
Some Wild Edible Plants:
Dandelion
When harvesting dandelion, you can choose to leave the plant in the ground and growing if you want. Just harvest the outer leaves and the plant will continue to grow. The leaves get stronger tasting when the dandelion flowers, but I think you’ll find the taste pleasing.
Plantain
Plantain grows close to the ground usually. Once it sprouts its flower stem, you probably don’t want to forage for it, as the older leaves are not as great to eat. They can be stringy.
Chickweed
Chickweed grows in nice big bunches, and if you cut off just the top 3-4″ of the plant, it will keep growing. It self seeds if you let some of the plants flower and go to seed. Then you’ll have more free food!
Garlic Mustard
Garlic Mustard is a non-native invasive plant. I see it along roads a lot. Harvest it by pulling up the whole plant with the roots. This plant will crowd out native plants, and most states want to get rid of it. The leaves taste like mustard greens, though not as strong. It has some good vitamins, so eat up.
Violets
Violets grow like weeds. There are some cultivated varieties, but the ones in our yard are wild edible plants, and easy to identify. They are low growing and have white – purple flowers. Harvest the flower and stem for your salads. They look great on a dinner table.
Back in the middle of winter I got an email from Troy-Bilt asking if I would like to work with them this year. I’ve known Troy-Bilt for their rototillers, which are the Mack truck of garden power equipment, for as long as I can remember. My neighbors have Troy-Bilt equipment from 40 years ago that works to this day.
So yeah, I said yes.
In early March Troy-Bilt flew me and 5 other DIY – Garden bloggers to Charleston, SC for a 3 day get together. Why Charleston? Because when I got off the plane it was 80F outside. What a change from freezing New England. Sap season hadn’t even started and I’m in a t-shirt testing out mowers and tillers.
I got to meet people from Troy Bilt and their media agency, plus the 5 other bloggers, we are called The Saturday6. We toured Charleston, which is a beautiful city full of history, and had several great dinners.
Really humbling was meeting Katie Stagliano, a 14 year old who founded her own non-profit, Katie’s Krops, to grow food for America’s hungry. Troy-Bilt works with her organization, which inspires and helps kids start vegetable gardens to grow food for the hungry. The Saturday6 will be working with Katie’s Krops this summer.
Yes, My eyes are closed.
We spent a morning learning the history of Troy-Bilt, and their plans for the future, and the new products they have for this summer. More on the new products here soon, plus some videos demonstrating their gear.
Then after lunch we went outside and tested the new gear. I’ll be making videos about Troy-Bilt outdoor power equipment and writing about their gear this summer, but in short, they have some great new tools:
The Mustang Pivot is a zero turn riding mower that doesn’t cost a fortune. I was skeptical until I drove it around in Charleston, but it does what the name says.
The Flex system is a power unit with multiple accessories – mower, power washer, snow blower, leaf blower.
The Bronco Axis. A Troy Bilt walk behind tiller with blades that turn vertically. Think of a kitchen egg beater made of steel.
Erin testing out the Axis TillerVertical tines like an egg beater. This rig doesn’t jump around like a regular tiller will.
Full Disclosure, I am being compensated by Troy-Bilt, plus they are giving me some of their products. I wouldn’t work with them if I didn’t truly like their products and the company behind them. As usual, i’ll be open and honest with my opinions about Troy-Bilt and life in general.
Mike joins Rick and Eric to talk about first time gardening again. Mike has been without a vegetable garden for a few years and we talk about raised bed gardening, straw bale gardening. There’s some info on RootSimple.com about straw bale gardening.
As an example of how to dial back expectations and bite off more than one can handle, Eric talks about not tapping every sugar maple available to him, because you then have to haul all the sap from that tree through the snow and boil it. So plan and dream, but don’t do more than you can handle.
This post may contain affiliate links which won’t change your price but I earn a commission from. Thx! www.GardenFork.tv/amazon
Mike brings up Chris Kimball of America’s Test Kitchen, suggesting he has a more elaborate maple sap collection system than Eric has.
Mike has started doing DIY bike maintenance, repairing his own bike, especially the fine tuning. He has an expensive bike and didn’t want to mess it up, but it also goes again the collective nature of GardenFork types to have someone else repair your bike. He needed some sort of bike stand that he could make himself and after some web research came up with a simple strap that hangs the bike from the ceiling.
But we’ve decided to still have the experts tune the wheels and deal with the spokes.
We then touch on rude car drivers and rude cyclists, and find that there are people like that in all groups. Share the road!
For my beds, I run a hose across the bottom end of the bed for a trellis. I usually plant snow peas or beans on a trellis at both ends, and the lateral soaker hoses don’t do a great job of getting to all the seeds I plant along that edge.
