In article ,
enigma wrote:
Billy wrote in
ct.net.au:
While the sitting president and the potential Presidential
candidates are good sources for garden fertilizer, if you
have you can vote for a third party candidate without
scaring yourself, I would strongly recommend it. The
Democrats will win in California, so I can safely vote for
anyone else. I truly can only see a nickel's worth of
difference in the candidates. All of them would keep us
mired in, what I see as, a phony "war on terrorism", keep
troops in the middle east, and leave us with this abortion
of a farm bill.
fortunately that bit of stupidity seems to be hung up in the
"system"... indeed fortunate, because it makes NAIS
National Animal Identification System
mandatory.
perhaps i could farm without livestock, but i don't want to.
i also don't want to register my premises with the Feds for
the "privilege" of owning a horse, goat, sheep, llama, cow,
pig or a few chickens. not their business & not in any way
going to "protect the National Herd" 
If you were raising steers for commercial consumption, there could be
some sense to it but the rest of it just seems like meddling intrusion.
Speaking of agriculture, my two dwarf peach trees are
flowering and I have some wild onions that need a
reapplication of newsprint and mulch. Bought an artichoke
yesterday and now need to put it in the ground with another
one that I have in a pot (It was in the ground but was
being pillaged by rampaging gastropods. Speaking of
gastropods, while your garden is still damp is the time to
get out there and give them a good dose of iron
phosphate.). I plan to separate them (the artichokes, not
the gastropods) by five to six feet. Think that's enough? I
hope to get some echinacea and a half dozen or so mammoth
sunflowers to grow around them. This will be in front
(south side) of a trellis for bitter melons.
i think you should separate the gastropods by at least 6 feet
too...
With the iron phosphate, it seems I've done better than that.
i'd love to grow artichokes (my kid's favorite veggie!) but
they don't like my climate. i really need a greenhouse.
i have some old type echinacea (purplish pink). are any of
the newer colored cultivars non-patented & suitable for
medicinals?
I haven't got that far yet, Echinacea purpurea is all I've played with
to date.
i won't plant anything with a patent if i can
avoid it. i think plant patents are one of the modern evils.
I tried some fancy mesculim salad mixes last year. All were
disasters that only left me with arugula, which grows like
a weed here, and which I can't stand the taste of.
my tortoises love arugala & it's very good for them. is your
area too warm for mesculin mix? how does mustard do there, or
don't you like that either?
Animal fodder, that sounds about right. Right in there with eating seal.
I think it was the earwigs and the rolly-pollys that did me in on my
mesculin mixes. Goin' back to the tried and true.
Mustard? Hoo-ha, do we have mustard. About the middle of january, the
vineyards around here turn a light mustard yellow from the blooms of
wild mustard and we got a lot of vineyards. I got some chinese mustard
that sorta floats around the garden, although it may have gotten buried
under the mulch this year. I like a little mustard in my salads but I
don't want to swamp out the flavor of the lettuce. Slow growing, home
grown lettuce has flavor and crunch that is missing in store bought
lettuce.
This
year it is back to romaine, lolo rosso, and the basics. I
was told that my purslane (omega-3 rich) would become an
invasive weed but so far, no sign of its' return.
you want purslane? i have that *everywhere* in my garden. it's
invasive here, but the chickens do keep it in check (& i get
omega-3 rich eggs)
I was just starting to get a couple of purslane a week from my garden
when it went dormant (I hope that is what it is.) Doesn't have an
interesting flavor but I will eat it with a garlic-herb vinaigrette in
hopes of being healthier.
Most of my herbs, known and unknown, made it through the
winter although the local gray squirrels pawed through them
looking for something to eat. I was surprised to see the
bird feeder down in sunflower seed. I've heard birds,
including our blue colored jays (happy?) but I haven't seen
any at the feeder which is mostly for wrens and bushtits.
wrens like smaller seeds, or shelled sunflower seed, or at
least east coast wrens do. i mix smaller seed, like millet, in
with rendered beef suet so as not to attract English sparrows.
My Bay Area bird book identifies them as house wrens. They are about the
size of my thumb and when they get goin' I have to fill the feeder two
or three times a week. I have a hanging pot of cascading geraniums to
which I have attached a flat bottomed, plastic, plant holder underneath
of it, so that the birds can do one stop shopping, food and water. I
have to keep it elevated because our daughters have left us with five
cats.
Sunday, looks like a barbecue day here (full Sun and temps
in the high 60Fs. I'll carp my diem while I can. Who knows
how long it will last?
my weather says Sunny, high around 37 for Sunday. good. i'll
get some sap 
we've got about 10 gallons in the freezer, but
we're really pushing the season still. another 5 gallons &
we'll boil it down with the 10 (15 gal) to 5 gallons & brew a
nice maple beer with it.
What makes it beer instead of maple wine? With beer you have to
germinate the barley, then bake it, and then brew at varying temps to
get the right mix of dextrins (if I remember correctly) for mouth feel.
To make wine, you would add water to bring the solution to 21% to 25%
sugar, add 7 - 10 grams of tartaric acid/liter, a handfull of raisins
for nutrient, and a kilo of yeast/1000 gallons. See instructions for
making mead. With wine the sanitation is crucial. With wine the acidity
keeps the micros under control although a little potassium metabisulfite
at the end of fermentation is called for.
lee
Later.
--
Billy
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