[Bluesky63]

Mid-Missouri Zone 6A “It is RAINING”! Too late for the garden but great for the cover crops. We have been talking about getting a green-house. So far, we only have a small one for plant starts. We did fence 1/2 acre to keep deer and coons out. See Donna and Nori in the garden and Donna with sweet potatoes.

[Bluesky63]

I have a 50 x 60 foot barn and put a wood-shop in one corner. It is 15 x 30 feet, insulted and heated. Also built a 4 x 8 foot solar hot air collector on the south wall. You can see it on the barn wall. It helps heat the shop in winter, but more importantly, it keeps the area dry. My table saw, router table and thickness planer all have cast metal tops that rust very quickly if there is humidity in the air.

[Bluesky63]

I have some apple vinegar and some pear vinegar brewing, both about 8 days old. Two gallons of each.

• This reply was modified 2 years ago by  Bluesky63.

[Bluesky63]

Enjoyed! We have talked about this in our church; not a large church but we make a large difference in our community

[Bluesky63]

Even when your fig tree “freezes to the ground”, be patient with it; mine took over a month to send up a shoot after the other figs had budded.

[Bluesky63]

I have 2 Chicago Hardy figs and 3 Improved Celeste figs growing in the ground. They were all started indoors and planted outdoors the following spring. I live in central Missouri Zone 6A; Don’t know of anyone else with figs. About December 1, I prune trees and put a plywood box over each tree with 1 inch of rigid insulation. About 1/2 of the branches will die to the ground each winter but the tree grows in the spring. They have lived through 3 winters and producing figs through August and September.

[Bluesky63]

Mid-Missouri- We have lots of deer also; so the decision was to build a fence. We enclosed 1/2 acre for our garden and orchard with a 5 foot tall horse fence with 2 x 4 inch woven wire. We do have several strings of LED lights strung along the top. No deer in our garden for 3 years. And the 2 x 4 wire keeps out adult rabbits, coons, opossums, etc.

[Bluesky63]

Yes. Washing has no effect on the curing process. Everything I read says that the potatoes will not keep as long when washed; I’m not sure. I have lots of clay in my soil, so the sweet potatoes have a lot of dirt/mud on them when dug. So I always wash them to get off the worst. They don’t keep well going into Spring, but some do and I usually have enough to make “starts” for the next year. I think most of my storage problem is the room is too warm until the weather cools. Mid-Missouri Zone6A

[Bluesky63]

You never said what animals nor how many. This is a picture of the “hammer mill” that my dad and I used for 30+ years to grind ear corn to fed 20-25 calves. It was powered by a flat belt from the pulley on the John Deere tractor. Thy are also made with a pto drive.

They are excellent grinders and ours was still in good repair when I sold it.

[Bluesky63]

Foe eight years, I would get leg cramps and sometimes low blood pressure so that I would have to lay on the floor so that I did not faint. Then last year, a doctor said I might be low on salt. Yep, he was right.

Now I use a little salt every day and no cramps or blood pressure issues for over a year. I also take a multi vit/mineral each day, a magnesium with calcium, potassium and vit. D3.

Praise the Lord!

[Bluesky63]

I always used two ground-rods – spaced no less than 10 feet apart.

[Bluesky63]

Thanks. We normally have wonderful air. I grew up the first twenty three years of my life drinking water from a cistern. Now and then, we would have to toss out a fishing-worm, but my dad said that “they don’t drink much”.

[Bluesky63]

We live in mid-Missouri in a rural farming area. Our main water source is the county water line (which has good water} and backup is rainwater off our garden house with a metal roof; held in a 55 gallon food grade barrel. It may be good enough to drink as is, but I may need o filter out a tree frog or two. What would you do before drinking?

[Bluesky63]

We had a heavy frost last night. Glad I had the sweet potatoes in the shed already. It was the best crop of sweet potatoes that I have ever raised (over 200 pounds). Yesterday, I picked all the red tomatoes, bell and banana peppers which also did quite well this year. The summer has been dry, not as bad as Kansas, but I can pump water out of my pond when I need it. I had to chuckle when I was picking the tomatoes because the soil was muddy from watering two days ago.

Also had great crops of Concord grapes (now making 5 gallons of wine), blackberries and more blueberries than we could eat.

Our major problems this year was keeping the cucumbers and squash alive. I could pump plenty of water for them, but the sun was so hot (uv was very high) that the leaves would wilt in the afternoons.

Mid-Missouri Zone 6A