the garden thread

I am trying to convince my wife that we need a couple goats to keep the fields mowed but she is not cooperating.

 

Mini goats!

 

When we first moved in we babysat a couple goats for the landlord till they could go to another family members home.
I had never been around goats before. They acted like a couple puppies. Would almost knock me over trying to see if I had a goat treat hidden in my pocket. Or anything remotely edible. They were smart too. It didn't take them long to learn my name. When I would come home from work and get out of the car, they would both call out " MAAA AAAAA AAAAAA RRRRRRK"

 

So what do you think this is a bloom from?
Some type of vine it looks like.

 

Here in zone 5, I have strawberry's producing, been picking sugar peas now for about 3 weeks, tomatos are on the vines but a long way from ripe, pole bean plants about half way up the poles, bush bean plants about a foot tall, pepper plants have tiny peppers forming, cabbage that the rabbits haven't gotten are about half way there. How's this compare?

 

Passionflower.

Zebra longwing butterflies love it if you have them where you live.

 

Dang your good! Exactly what it is. Just growing wild in my front yard.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passiflora_incarnata

 

I was at my brothers house today and his Tomatoes have little green tomatoes on them. I thought I saw a few blooms on the pepper plants too.

Here in middle TN, not sure what zone that is.

 

I want a fainting goat.

 

Back when I was working we had an acoustic test facility out in a field. Basically a small rocket motor as a noise source on a vertical x-y table so you could run the noise source on different trajectories. Had to pay to have the field mowed. I tried to convince my boss that we needed fainting goats instead of mowers. Light off the rocket motor, the goats would faint and wouldn't affect the acoustics since they'd be lying on the ground. Save those tax dollars. And enormously entertaining.

She didn't go for it.

 

Lots of green tomatoes setting here, but none big enough to fry yet. Getting veg from the Farmers' Market. Our local grocery is real big on "local" produce. The spinach has been fantastic, and the stone fruits and berries are really going strong. This morning I got a bunch of tayberries (a blackberry/raspberry cross) at the grocery. The cobbler is cooling right now.

 

I would have promoted you.

 

early peas are about done the later ones might have issues with the heat we are gettign ready for. beets are jsut about rady to start coming out green beans have not been great this year and im not holdig out hope for the carrots (tators kind of layed over on them ) black beans seem to be doing well. pulled about 4 qt black raz off of 5 plants so far and they are about done so i ll be prepping the canes for next year

 

These guys are supposed to be working, eating bugs. But they just want to play in their kiddie pool all the time.
And the little one keeps pooping in the pool. So I change the water a couple times during the day and water the plants with the poop water.

 

And I bet they fuss at you the entire time you're cleaning out their pool!

 

They make a whistling sound and peck at my ankles until I get it set back up.

For doing things wrong, I got a pretty good batch of potatos. I planted these in soil so hard that it was difficult to dig with a shovel. Next time I will plant them in loose soil. I dug these up yesterday evening.

 

Jack hunts for potatoes that I missed.

The ducks dispose of any lettuce that has bolted.

 

We are setting up plans for some chickens in an enclosed garden area with raised planting rows. We hope the chickens will also keep the gophers busy elsewhere with the chickens scratching about all the time

Not enough water out there for ducks but how are they doing on bug control?

 

The ducks hunt non stop for bugs. The only thing that they eat in the garden are strawberries so I leave the ugly ones on the plants for the ducks. They will eat wilted lettuce and greans but only if I make a pile for them. So far they don't mess with the live plants. We are like a desert here this time of year so I keep the kiddie pool and a bucket of water for the ducks and they seem content. My wife it trying to convince me that they want a fountain and a water slide. The ducks seem a lot smarter than my chickens. Pretty soon I will be building a duck house for the garden. During the hot part of the day they like to nap in the shade. At night time they stay under the porch light and feast on bugs that the bats miss.

 

Sometimes I wish I were a duck at your place, Mark