Garden Geeks thread

[walrus]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

You need to go all Rambo and stalk them all with a bow and arrow. that or find their burrow and start dropping cheap fireworks into their home. Don't really need a big boom, but something that would make a lot of noise with sparks would be enough to make em relocate to somewhere else.

we've got an arrowhead stuck in a barn rafter from when we took out a raccoon with one. Had him cornered there but really couldn't reach him for a finishing blow. Arrow went right through him, was a bloody mess.

One year we had Raccoons wreak havoc on our replacement hens. I used to go out to close them in the coop at dusk with a .22 that had a 4 cell maglite duck taped to it. Took out 8 that summer. I had electric fence around the coop that stopped them from getting the hens but they liked the feeder in the yard. Big oak in the yard, up they'd go and then down they'd come

[MadTownSioux]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

So, after no response on the food thread, I'll ask here. Does anybody have a recommendation on a good Black Walnut cracker? After no walnuts last year, there are quite a few this year. Thanks for any help.

[Carter]

So, after no response on the food thread, I'll ask here. Does anybody have a recommendation on a good Black Walnut cracker? After no walnuts last year, there are quite a few this year. Thanks for any help.

Both my Wisconsin family and my old Iowa neighbor used nothing fancier than a chunk of steel to serve as an anvil and a claw hammer. I'd be glad to lend you our old nutcracking anvil if you'd like to try it.

[walrus]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

So, after no response on the food thread, I'll ask here. Does anybody have a recommendation on a good Black Walnut cracker? After no walnuts last year, there are quite a few this year. Thanks for any help.

pair of large vise grips

[Bob Gray]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

Garlic came in yesterday from Forever Yong Farm. The kids helped put in the Ajo Rojo yesterday and probably today after work we'll get the Sonoran put in. If all goes well, we'll have an on-going supply of garlic for the foreseeable future.

[alfablue]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

So much for grape jelly. An animal muscled through my fencing, and got all of them. Bummer.

[MadTownSioux]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

pair of large vise grips

Both my Wisconsin family and my old Iowa neighbor used nothing fancier than a chunk of steel to serve as an anvil and a claw hammer. I'd be glad to lend you our old nutcracking anvil if you'd like to try it.

I tried hammering them two years ago, when I last had any. Too many shards of shell in with the walnuts. Looking for a better option for this year. I've found some good crackers online, but they are pricey.

[St. Clown]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

...they are pricey.

How To Speak Midwestern 101

[FreshFish]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

So, after no response on the food thread, I'll ask here. Does anybody have a recommendation on a good Black Walnut cracker? After no walnuts last year, there are quite a few this year. Thanks for any help.

I think there is a way to smash them and then toss them in water to separate shell from nutmeat and then dry the nutmeat out but I know nothing about the details (do the shells float while the nutmeat sinks? I don't know that even...) and I could have this mixed up with a different kind of nut.

a lot depends upon how many nuts you have and how much time and patience you have available. for conventional walnuts at the holidays a pair of cheap nutcrackers works fine and they double for use with crab legs and lobster claws too.

when I was younger, with regular walnuts the method I liked best was just to hold two in one hand and squeeze hard until one cracked (you line up the rims against each other). That was far neater than a nutcracker and it left most of the nutmeat intact too. I still have the strength to do it but it seems to shred my skin more now than it did then.

[FiveHole12]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

pair of large vise grips

What Wally said... just adjust them to the right pressure for each nut, and you'll have a handy tool as well.

Vice Grip Locking Pliers. $8.77
OR
Vice Grip Locking C Clamp. $11.04

[bigmrg74]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

One year we had Raccoons wreak havoc on our replacement hens. I used to go out to close them in the coop at dusk with a .22 that had a 4 cell maglite duck taped to it. Took out 8 that summer. I had electric fence around the coop that stopped them from getting the hens but they liked the feeder in the yard. Big oak in the yard, up they'd go and then down they'd come

Locking up the food would stop them from raiding the food.

Lost one of my hens today. I was just leaving for work and I look over to the mobile pen to see that they're all paniced up against the fence. I look over there a little closer and that's when the hawk must have looked up and saw me and took off from inside of my walk in chicken tractor, where he had my Iowa Blue pullet. Bugger must have just killed her as he really hadn't gotten into eating her it looked like. Rounded up the rest of the flock to lock them up, and put the body outside of the coop. One poor girl was in the nest box just terrified. Really think I'm going to turn the door on the coop into a Dutch Door now so that I can keep the top door closed.

[walrus]

Locking up the food would stop them from raiding the food.

.

After they killed most of our replacement hens and meat birds. I wasn't in the mood

[FreshFish]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

I can tell autumn is here. Morning glories are starting to bloom.

We also planted a companion flower called a moonflower which is like an "evening glory": white instead of blue, blooms at dusk instead of dawn. Both have been flowering lately.

[FreshFish]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

For people who like both big showy flower gardens and detective shows (murder mystery division), Netflix has a British import called Rosemary and Thyme about a plant pathologist, Rosemary Boxer, and a former police constable, now her partner, Laura Thyme. They travel around England and Europe fixing problems in people's gardens, and somehow, everywhere they go, a person winds up dead and they wind up figuring out who did it. Light fluffy fun, and some great gardens from time to time.

[FreshFish]

Re: Garden Geeks thread

We had a hard frost Monday night. Tuesday morning, everything in the garden was dead.

Fortunately we harvested all the beans, tomatillos, and tomatoes over the weekend. Have quite a few green tomatoes wrapped in newspaper to ripen.

I really miss the morning glories though. They were spectacular this year. Over a dozen every day on the trellis that frames the south gate to the garden.

Soon it will be time to dig leaves into the soil and cover with black groundcover fabric for the winter.