sensors for the weather

sensors are hand to have,
what it is temperature, rainfall, wind speed, or humidity ?

they can help you figure out when to plant things, and how much to water,
so set up some
thermometers are likely the most tricky to set up,
if they are put out where the sun can hit them, they can read way to high,
so I put up a shield from the sun,
and it did not work entirely well, so I put up another past the first one

and that ended up working,

most weather stations have a shield built in to the sensor,

but they are usually entirely insufficient, so either put them in the shade, or make more sun shields for them

rain gauges are very handy,
a straight walled cup left out in your garden can get you close enough
but make sure it is level,
this one is no longer level

it drifted over the last 15 years and needs fixed if I am to trust it again.

to many weather stations are installed wrong and don't give good data because of that,
so pay attention to how you install them,

good luck with the weather

buckwheat

buckwheat is great !

it is super fast growing (2 months to finis is what I have been told), makes great pancakes, it is grown as a cover crop, and
it makes a great distraction crop
animals love to eat it,
here a bird was snacking on one in stead of the radishes I just planted

I saw the bird but was unable to get it's picture, it made unhappy noises at me when I came up on it.

I am so glad that I finally have a good distraction crop,
I got the seeds in the grocery store in the bulk bin section,
it is organic unroasted groats, and they seem to have sprouted just fine, all the seeds I use in the future will be from the ones I am growing so I don't have to risk seeds that don't work due to being sold as food.

here is a sleeping kitty cat

cats

I have lots of kitty pictures on this blog,
and found out that some of my friends are horrified by how they live,
but I can tell you they are well fed,  have lots of freedom and seem happy, they play all the time and are clearly having fun with life.
no one touches them, they never come inside, they are wild, you could not catch one if you try, and if you did manage to catch one then you would be scratched up badly till it got away.
they reproduce freely and sometimes get eaten by the other wildlife here, if they get sick they sometimes die, there is no doctors for them, it is the way of nature, and the numbers are mostly stable that way. if we could manage to spade them, then we would run out of cats fast.
these are not to be confused with cuddly pets, they are wild and feral and appear to like it that way. (the few kittens that are super friendly we find homes as pets for them, and that is not hard in this area, and that has been 2 in the last 4 years)
so why do I have them ?
mostly they first showed up on the door looking for food, and how can you say no to that...
but we feed them so they stay and hunt small animals.
mice and rats carry all kinds of bad things with them, anything from valley fever to the plague, 
and before we had the cats were were overrun with mice, and that is just not safe,
so less than a pound of cat food a day keeps all the mice and squirrels and some snakes away,

look at the history of london when they made cats not legal,
the plague took hold of the city, and many many people died.
cats are a very handy farm tool, they are a handy city tool as well,
they are worth it even though I am allergic to them.

here are 4 new ones only a week or two old, the mom is a very neat cat, very fast, good temperament, and a good hunter, and I have fed it many gophers this year.

ceramic crocks

ceramic crocks are great for fermenting things that need oxygen,

like kombocha tea, or cucumber seeds (for seed saving), or fun things like pickles and pickled beets, or even vinegar
I have 3 sizes from this place
http://ohiostoneware.com/products_crocks_petfeeders.html
and they are high fired, so they can take the lactic acid trying to dissolve them
unless you get antique ones, they are really all that are out there that are really good.
canning jars are a good second for most uses though.

make sure to cover them with a cloth securely so insects can't alter your brew (although ants seem uninterested in fermenting cucumber seeds)

and infrared kittens are not so clear at night when to far away

the farm that won't wear out

I have linked to this before,
so if you had not read it and ever plan on dealing with farming at all...
read it, it is eye opening about how bad modern agriculture really is
and teaches you how to keep your farm very productive forever

"THE FARM THAT WON'T WEAR OUT"
it is only 37 pages and worth printing.
read it for free here
http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglib...010134toc.html
down load it for free here
http://archive.org/details/cu31924003695636
get it on amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Farm-That-Wont.../dp/1406568430

fractional winnowing

so I have a millet that is wild in the garden, it has choked out all other weeds, and grows with very little water (but it does need some water), and I like that part of it.

it came from the bird food and went nuts from there, (it seems to be a foxtail millet)
but over the last 5 years from it's escape it has gone from large dense seeds to light wispy seeds,
it is now growing to reproduce, and not to do what I want it to do,
so I want to fix that, (yes I want more plant slaves)

and I think that fractional winnowing is the answer
most winnowing only separates the grain from the chaff,
but I want way more than that,
I want to sort the seeds by density while also getting rid of the chaff, so I want fractional winnowing
(zero matches to that phrase on yahoo or google before this post)
so I got some stiff paper to make narrow bins with

they are 1.5 inches wide and 8 inches wide for the first 9 bins, then I got tired and made them wider (they are under the narrow bins in this picture)

so I set up a powerful fan and the bins with walls to keep the seeds from leaving to the sides

with all my bins in a row I turned on the fan and put the seeds through it

the first bin was empty (the seeds are not made of lead)

the second bin had seeds that I am still not sure what they were (maybe some rocks in there or crazy mutants)

the 3rd bin had many dense good seeds

the 4th bin had less dense seeds and some sand

the 5th bin had some clearly wild seeds that are not doing what I want at all

the 6th bin was just sad

the 7th was just as bad

and the 8th was a wide one (or I counted wrong as there should be 9 narrow ones), and was just chaff and some seeds trying to get my attention

so I took all the seeds form bin 3 and saved them
the others got tossed out on the ground where they can be happy weeds,
after a few years of sorting this way I hope to get better seeds from this millet.
(prozo millet might be better to grow anyway)


here is a cat trying to pretend to be growing like a weed

raised beds

raised beds are way more popular than I would think they would be,

from what I can tell they were traditionally used for 2 reasons,
one was for areas where the ground freezes hard,
so in spring the raised area defrosted faster so you get some vegetables earlier,
the other reason was in very wet areas,
being over ground level they have great drainage

but lately it seem like many people because they saw it in a book,
or "it is just the right thing to do"
it is not like they are going to hurt anything if you are not using one of it's advantages,
but you sure can't scale them easy at all,
I have also seen people use them where the local soil is all rock or concrete,
and they work great for that,
or some people put wire mesh under them so that gophers can't get in (but often they leave off the metal flashing on the sides that will keep them from climbing in),
so I am not saying that they don't have some good uses,
just that many many people spent lots of money on them when they are not getting anything out of it at all.
it can help if you figure out why you are doing what you are doing

and at least someone takes the time to smell the weeds

sat morning update

the sorghum seems to not be doing lots lately,
wondering if I will get seeds out of them, they did very well 2 years ago...

 the rice seems to still be growing,

the dill is done,

the zucchini is going to seed (because I let it)

but these 2 are still going, but production has slowed lots

the southern peas seem to be doing well

the tomatoes are doing ok

this silverline melon seems done

peppers are still going

this corn is all done

this bee is about to be fish food,

the squash are still setting new flowers and having new fruit

the peanut seems happy enough

these 2 apricot trees seem happy

the rest of the planted trees have not come up yet (or are not going to)

the beans seem happy

the buckwheat seems to have sprouted well

the new radishes are still happy

the shallots are sprouting again

my native bunching onions are doing well (and well caged so nothing hurts them (I am not loosing them again)

the cucumbers are still going to seed

the cactus seem happy, as well as the other peanut

the watermelon plant has died back (and it sure made a tasty watermelon)

the potatoes I planted the correct way are still doing well

the other squash plot is doing ok

and is still putting off squash

this silverline mellon is doing well

the runner bean is big

but seems to not be setting fruit, but it sure is pretty

this corn plot is also done

the chuffa is doing well

some of the ground cherries are still doing well

the sweet potatoes are doing well

I have more dirt waiting for the weather to cool a bit so I can put in some winter crops (I hope they can take shade)

and I still have small piles of onions around

this kitty likes following me, I bet it thinks I have more gophers