The Dino-Aspie Ex-Café (for Those 40+... or feeling creaky)

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Congratulations, Hartz!!

Wow! Totally cool, Hartz, enjoy enjoy enjoy!

Thank you, all!

Garden Woes - Something with teeth got through the fence at the garden plot and ate two hungarian peppers (one yellow, one red). Or, rather, something chewed the tops of them off so that 98% of the pepper was laying on the ground, uneaten. I would assume it didn't like peppers... or that the ones from the garden are hotter than the ones I've been growing in pots at the house. Which are pretty bland.

Guess I need to go over after the heatwave ends and redo the fence. there are some small chinks in it down lower, and it's possible that a vole could have gotten in there. But we're due for serious heat and low humidity this week, so maybe next week. Right now it's lovely, 75F, but it's not 9 in the morning yet. They said things were supposed to heat up this evening and then start scorching tomorrow.

Of course, I just planted two toddler-pools full of organic garlic yesterday evening. But I watered them really well and put mulch on the top, so they should be ok until Tuesday. I hope. Watered the beejeezus out of everything else last night, too. The Kid's pumpkin vines are going full out and there's at least a dozen of the mini-pumpkins getting close to picking. She's thrilled.

The place looks like Guantanamo Bay, though. We've got wire mesh under, wire mesh nailed to boards on the sides, bird netting over the pumpkins and tomatoes to try to thwart the squirrels, one bed is completely boxed in like a huge cell (the onions are in there and going great). The whole thing has a perimeter fence for the rabbits and larger critters. I just got a couple of old heavy-duty rigid plastic kiddie wading pools, punched drain holes in the bottoms, set them on wire mesh, put wire mesh around the perimeter, filled with garden soil (purchased), and have bird netting on top of all, with some poles across the top to be sure the mesh stays in place. Hopefully that will do well enough for that garlic. The pools have a kind of lip on them that goes back over on itself and, so, creates a good barrier to anyone climbing. They'll either have to gnaw through the fence and then the pool, or they'll have to scale the 2ft fence and get in under the bird netting to get to the garlic. Which I do hope grows - we got Italian early red, which is supposed to be really nice, and some Hungarian hot, which I could smell from 10 feet away when the kid was peeling the cloves apart to plant.

The whole thing looks, as my daughter says, "ghetto" - nothing's level, everything's just holding together. But I did it mostly with recycled and repurposed items, it didn't cost much (except the builder's cloth and the good soil). It seems that all the people who had come down and started gardens last spring and invested in fancy raised-bed wooden kits (some of those look pricey!) have given up. Even the guy who hauled in 100 bags of horse poop in his car - his plot is sitting there behind its chicken wire doors with tomatoes rotting on the ground and what's left of the vines. I think that out of 10 people there are only three of us left keeping up with the gardening. I think maybe some of those folks kind of got enamored with the idea of going organic and growing their own food, being "green", but then decided it was too much work. Dunno. Some of them put a lot of money into it - some of those raised bed kits look really nice- brass hinges on the doors, etc. I couldn't make myself pay that kind of money for a kit, just hit the scrap lumber bin at Home Depot as I expanded. It may look like hell, but we've been getting a good number of onions and carrots out of it, and bell peppers, and the pumpkins are going great guns, so..... We'll save the seeds and replant, and see if we get "true to variety" again.


When it cools off (or next week) I guess I'll redo the tomato cell - make a hard-sided (i.e., builder's cloth nailed to a solid frame) and think about maybe making it a bit taller as well. The tomatoes were doing great, nice and lush, just starting to be covered with blossoms. We went over the next day and found like half a dozen HUGE tomato hornworms on them, with several branches just stripped. Threw the hornworms to our friends the ever-waiting birdies. (One had to do battle with the largest worm, we watched it rear up and fight back!). Then within a week the tomato plants started wilting out, turning black. There is one, count 'em, one tomato on it that is still growing. That's the only tomato the poor plant has produced. I sprayed it down with neem oil to keep things from eating it and am hoping it has a chance to ripen. I'm going to give the plant maybe another couple of weeks, then go in and cut it back severely, rebuild the security fence around the plot, throw in some ground cover seeds to help the soil, and let that plot rest. I have never seen a hornworm that big. it was literally as big around as a cigar and as long. Ewwwww. Eww ewee ewww. The kid happened to be looking at the plants close up when she saw it and literally jumped back three feet with a "girly"scream.
She has never seen one before, just pictures in book.

Our Rutgers tomatos here at the house in the pots were doing wonderfully, then caught some sort of blight and died a horrible death. The Roma vine out on the balcony looks like hell but is still giving us two or three little romas every week, which we make into bruschetta and enjoy. Small, but packed with flavor. Hmmm, bruschetta sounds pretty good. I think I'll go make some. Seeyas.

Ok, we are now at Goper-Con five.

The little bastard(s) chewed through the builder's cloth (metal mesh) that I buried three feet under the tomato/pepper bed and have a large burrow in there. The foliage is now much thinner and my peppers much less plentiful. That's how I spotted the burrow. They must have been the guys who chewed all the hot peppers off and then left them.

As soon as that one lone tomato, should it survive, turns anything like ripe I'm picking it and then pulling the plants out of there, digging down the the mesh. I'll mend it. The current plan is to then put down pavers or cheap large tiles from the Home Depot, a layer of gravel over, then shovel back in some of the native soil, and make the top six inches be store-bought garden soil. The sides are coming off, will be reconfigured, and then there will be a six ft long by three ft wide, four ft high enclosed growing area.

I can't believe the little snot chewed through the wire! I guess I could always electrify it, but that's kind of hard on the plant roots.

Arrrrgh. I'm wondering why I didn't crease his little head with a shovel the last time I saw him sticking it out of his burrow. Too fast for me, probably.

So I come home to a 19 year old cat that is now losing litter-box training. It just never ends....

Wasn't there a a movie done about this?

And ya, Gromit, gimmie two seconds from being a dunce and I'll look up those words in a "very special" dictionary...honest as soon as I feel better.

Our specialist in wordologyisticks, Lau, has been missing on a couple of fronts and I do so hope is well. Amyone heard from him as of late?

Nan, I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

Damn, not only is the lone tomato gone, the entire 3 ft tomato plant is gone.

This, of course, means Gopher War! I'm gonna buy the "Skull-Creaser 9000" this weekend.

Hey, lucky us, but in the last 48 hour the price of gasoline (regular) has shot up over 30 cents a gallon. We're now at about $4.70 a gallon for regular. Glad I'm not driving much, and that the kid only has to go 20 miles each way to school 4 days a week.... What the hey?

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etpHKueh6S0[/youtube]

$4.84 a gallon.

what the hey is going on???? somebody nuke the middle east, or what?

Haven't heard anything and I tried logging into Eipsa, but that seems to have disappeared as well.

I think oil or its products are becoming overvalued again.

Hereabout it is sometimes 2,34 $ liter
1 gallon is 3.78541 liter

3.78541* 2,34 = 8,85$ a gallon

This will be the first post in the 40+forum since I have realized that I actually belong to the creaking sector

Hi Helles. Welcome to the geriatric set.

You have public transportation available, I hope? We have that only in very small areas. My daughter drives 20 miles to school and 20 back home again... the cost of gas has now gone up by almost 70 cents per gallon in two weeks - it adds up, over time when one is a student.

Most of my co-workers live farther away from the workplace than 20 miles. I'm lucky in that I've been able to get into a place that is subsidized by my employer (and that is extremely rare here) that is only about 4 miles away and there is a free bus that they provide. I put gas in the car last night to top it off and paid, at the cheap station, $4.89 a gallon. It makes little sense - why is there a huge price increase here in so California when not elsewhere?

Whatever, they've got us by the... they've got a captive market, so we have to pay what they ask.

I have out an SOS.

AKA Lemon, on the hopes she has real contacts, if'n anyone else might, I'll take any blame for using them, if you would please use them or pass them on to me, thanks. The man prides himself in his machines not going down, let alone a need for updates, he is ill or not near, or my worse thoughts......

No stops here, anyone know anything, get it done!!

Go figure, I had his home phone, no answer, left a message and now i at least see his machine on (skype), but not active right now, but, on line. Love the f**k out of this guy and I always hate to think one of us will drop off the face of the earth, without a wimper from at least another whiner ;p

So, has our missing person been accounted for?

No and I have no idea on what more to do to, either find him or, inquire about his well being.