Random crap with Uno.

[Unorthodox]

I'd enjoy that meeting. The Council isn't going to sound too knowledgeable talking insects with a guy who knows them by their proper names.

It wasn't pretty.  One of the baffoons had Dragonflies, Damselflies, and crane flies (which they thought were mosquitoes) pegged as harmful insects.

Closing this down will eliminate predators, not mosquitoes.  And bees.  Don't forget the bee habitat.  You know, since they're all dying and all.  (I only feel a little dirty for playing that card, ccd doesn't impact the species in question)

Subject was tabled for a later date as they now have 2 different University studies in hand on the beneficial insects that arise from such habitats that I may or may not have had a hand it writing.   

UPDATE TIME. 

While the council had tabled the issue, I took to edumicating neighbors, and convinced many to apply for new water rights (which go through a different department) as THE WORST DROUGHT EVAR! (news term) is going to crush us ALL!!!! 

So, the next town meeting saw the council with a waterway with more than just a couple old standby's with a stake in it. 

However, the drama is not yet over.  The city has imposed water restrictions on our secondary water, under threat of  shutting down your secondary water.  I decided early we would just not use our secondary this year, and just flipped the valve so our irrigation pump ran our sprinkler system.  My water rights give me a set day/time to water from the irrigation.  This does not line up with my secondary water day/time.  Thus, to outward appearance, I am in violation of the secondary water restrictions, and someone turned us in on it, so we got a warning in the mail yesterday. 



The Drought is no laughing matter, seriously.  There's a city south of us that is imposing restrictions on CULINARY WATER.  (granted it's because their idiot residents are using culinary to water their precious lawns)

[Rusty Edge]

I've made several mistakes in my attempt at the 3 sisters garden this year.  Nothing to do but learn and apply it to next year. 

1:  It's not designed for sweet corn.  I knew that going in, attempting to adapt it AS I DID was a mistake.  The whole planting sweet corn every 2 weeks to keep you in corn, and having to wait to plant pumpkins after each set of corn is just too problematic. 

2:  Idiot...I should have made many shorter rows of corn running the other direction instead of fewer long rows.  Would have allowed easier access later on. 

3: The beans...are not working out well.  I'm going to replace them with fish emulsion fertilizer.
[/quote]

I'd encourage you not to give up. I don't have a lot of experience with pumpkins, and what success I did have may have been more due to good luck than good management. Or maybe good weather.

Sweet corn I know more about. I grew up on a farm and we sold roadside for decades. Contract commercial sweet corn, too.

I think #2 is the key point. No, you're not an idiot.  Common mistake. For one thing, unless you are hand pollinating, or orienting your rows towards the prevailing wind, sweet corn will pollinate better when planted in a square than a long narrow rectangle.  So I think the shorter rows are the way to go for multiple plantings.

Also, even if you don't have as many plantings of pumpkins as corn, can you guide the vines ?

Or reserve spots for future cornstalks with something like stove pipes, or tomato cages until the corn grows above the pumpkin canopy?

On the other hand, if it's primarily decorative stalks/Halloween, I suppose you could switch to popcorn, or ornamental corn, or just plant the sweet corn all at once and then process and freeze the surplus.

Just food for thought... so to speak.

[Unorthodox]

I'd encourage you not to give up. I don't have a lot of experience with pumpkins, and what success I did have may have been more due to good luck than good management. Or maybe good weather.

Sweet corn I know more about. I grew up on a farm and we sold roadside for decades. Contract commercial sweet corn, too.

I think #2 is the key point. No, you're not an idiot.  Common mistake. For one thing, unless you are hand pollinating, or orienting your rows towards the prevailing wind, sweet corn will pollinate better when planted in a square than a long narrow rectangle.  So I think the shorter rows are the way to go for multiple plantings.

I knew that to be better for the corn.  But, Pumpkins are the priority, so this design was specifically to maximize the number of pumpkin plants.  What I failed to realize is just HOW MUCH corn I'm really able to plant.  It's a deceptively large garden.  I could run the other way and not really significantly impact my pumppkin numbers, but possibly double or triple the corn.  I'm doing 3 plantings of corn this year (2 of pumpkins, 3 varieties of corn), and could easily make room to do 5 or 6 smaller plantings next year.  More likely I'll do 3 plantings in 6 plots next year. 

The beans are just being a pain in the ass.  They're whole purpose is to add nitrogen, we're not going to eat more than a couple (I'm the only one that would eat them).  I can accomplish the nitrogen with a fish emulsion routine just fine...maybe even just bury a couple buckets at the start of the year.

Also, even if you don't have as many plantings of pumpkins as corn, can you guide the vine?

That's what we're trying in corn batch 3.  The pumpkins are already planted and growing, will be planting the corn this weekend. 

Or reserve spots for future cornstalks with something like stove pipes, or tomato cages until the corn grows above the pumpkin canopy?

Stove pipes? 

On the other hand, if it's primarily decorative stalks/Halloween, I suppose you could switch to popcorn, or ornamental corn, or just plant the sweet corn all at once and then process and freeze the surplus.

Just food for thought... so to speak.

Sweet corn is one of the few things out of the garden the kids will all eat.  So, SOME of it is for eating. 

However, I'm producing a TON of plants here, some is just for decoration.  Batch 3 of corn is a silage corn unsuitable for human consumption.  Waiting 3 weeks between batch 2 to make sure no crossbreeding/taste contamination on the sweet corn. 

During my hiatus of work last October, I spent several days driving through farm country, and found a farmer selling a few stalks for decoration, and bought a lb of seed from him in the spring.  It's impressive stuff, if it'll grow in the small garden.

[Rusty Edge]

Not necessarily stove pipes... that's my foolish idea.  Chicken wire would be better... Something to hold the place and let light in for the corn.... it's all moot anyway if you have enough space for your corn.


The silage corn is usually bred for tonnage, and to be digestable, so it's a softer stalk.  Grain corn is bred to have a hard stalk so that it can stand late into the season and dry as much as possible naturally.

So- if you get more of those high winds, you might need to support them with some stakes and twine trelis,  sort of like a row of sunflowers in a backyard.

[Unorthodox]

Yeah, this is a 15' tall variety bred to be wind and drought resistant.  There's a little question as to how wind resistant it will be in a small garden as opposed to a huge field, but I'll have one row supported by the fence, and the prevailing wind plays to that. 

If it does well, I'll cut back my aggressive splitting of the raven grass (going to be a horrible harvest of that this year, I transplanted and/or split 80% of it last fall.  Lost some, too).  If not, I'll just stick to the raven grass plan for Halloween decor.  Raven grass rows on half the bed (leaving room for pumpkins between them) would be just as effective for my purpose as the corn/pumpkin combo.

[Unorthodox]

well, all done planting for the year.

[Rusty Edge]

Great!

Since I know your views on corn pesticides with regard to bees...  What sort of insects and other natural controls do you use to control the beetles and moths that attack the corn stalk and roots?

[Geo]

UnO, since you have so much unused veggie yield, and appearantly don't use pesticides, there's no local market for organic grown veggies?

I assume it's the manhours needed to harvest that's holding you back? 

[Unorthodox]

Great!

Since I know your views on corn pesticides with regard to bees...  What sort of insects and other natural controls do you use to control the beetles and moths that attack the corn stalk and roots?

Between the tachinid flies and trichogramma wasps I've been actively encouraging as predators on squash bugs, they naturally predate on the corn pests as well, we had 2 ears get a borer last year.  That's acceptable numbers for me.  One of the bigger things to get used to is that your bugs need stuff to predate on, so you're going to have some pests, you just have to live with it, and hope to keep the numbers acceptable. 

So far, in my monitoring, we have 3 new species of tachinid flies this year, and 2 unidentified trichogramma wasps along with mantids, FINALLY, and ladybugs (which were also absent last year).  We also have an impressive natural  population of green lacewings that I've never had to actively encourage.  In fact, they are occasionally annoying. 

I'm attempting to get some orbweavers going this year as well. 

NOW, as long as the new neighbors don't go plastering insecticide, we should be good.  They start spraying, and it could be problematic.  Their kids already freaked, a couple days ago (5 years and under).  So, I got the net and observation box out (basically just a box with multiple magnifying glasses), and taught them what was what. 

There's also 4 species of bees, 2 of which are new, and I'm attempting to cultivate a hive of one of them, as I have the queen and quickly made her an suitable home (the other is a solitary species).

However, we do have a rather impressive amount of activity over there...and it's an intimidating SOUND at some times of the day, as in nightmarish amounts of buzzing.  If I didn't know what I knew I'd be spraying in a heartbeat.     

We know one of the neighbors on that fenceline sprayed a hive in the past.  I can just educate and hope. 

[Unorthodox]

UnO, since you have so much unused veggie yield, and appearantly don't use pesticides, there's no local market for organic grown veggies?

I assume it's the manhours needed to harvest that's holding you back? 

Legal issues, basically. 

I'd have to certify as an organic grower, then licenses and crap.  I'd never make back the costs therein.  TECHNICALLY we could get in trouble for the pumpkin stand.  But then, kids can get in trouble for lemonade stands, TECHNICALLY.

What we'll have unused this year is a lot of corn, and a few beans.  We'll give away the sweet corn easy enough. 

I'm considering what to do with the corn from the silage/silo corn.

[Unorthodox]

Love working clay...

[Rusty Edge]

Between the tachinid flies and trichogramma wasps I've been actively encouraging as predators on squash bugs, they naturally predate on the corn pests as well, we had 2 ears get a borer last year.  That's acceptable numbers for me.  One of the bigger things to get used to is that your bugs need stuff to predate on, so you're going to have some pests, you just have to live with it, and hope to keep the numbers acceptable. 

So far, in my monitoring, we have 3 new species of tachinid flies this year, and 2 unidentified trichogramma wasps along with mantids, FINALLY, and ladybugs (which were also absent last year).  We also have an impressive natural  population of green lacewings that I've never had to actively encourage.  In fact, they are occasionally annoying. 

I'm attempting to get some orbweavers going this year as well. 

I fooled around with trichogramma wasps on the farm. I had no idea they were so versatile, but I guess an insect egg or larva is a lot like another insect egg or larvae from a food source / egg laying standpoint. I don't think they stayed around any plants where I tried to introduce them.  On the other hand, I thought they made a big difference over time in the fly population on the crust of the stored hog manure and around some of the buildings .

Do you need ladybugs if you've got plentiful green lacewings?

[Unorthodox]

I have an advantage over a large farm situation re: trichogramma wasps.  Most the surrounding area is unsuitable habitat.  So, I create the habitat, and they pretty much stay where introduced as there's little in the way of alternatives.  I've read that some reporting up to 80% effectivity with them in an agricultural setting.  That's approaching pesticide levels, but it was not the most scientific reading I've ever seen claiming such either. 

The Lacewings are excellent...I'd actually like to REDUCE their numbers though, as they keep making themselves annoying.  They seem to LOVE to clog up the propane lines on the grill.  Don't fret, the grill has a charcoal side for when I want to do real cooking as well, and even a smoker attachment, thank you, but it's just easier to fire up the propane to grill a few burgers for the kids, and I LOVE the propane side burner that works as a charcoal starter...which they've presently clogged up, gotta clean it out. 

Plus I have a 5 year old daughter...ladybugs are 'cute' lacewings are 'icky'.

[Rusty Edge]

That sounds like an awesome grill!  I used to cure, smoke, and slice porkbellies... 
Here and now, my wife likes teriyaki marinades for steaks, lemon-garlic marinades for pork and charcoal grilling so that's all that normally happens.

[Unorthodox]

My grill:

http://www.gas-grill-review.com/char-griller-duo.html

I'd say it's a jack of all trades grill, so it works for us, but there's better out there if you're going to specialize in any one aspect.

We keep it in the garage during the winter, and I happily wheel it out and grill in sub freezing weather in the driveway to the amusement of neighbors.