"0tterbot" wrote in message
...
"Jonno" wrote in message
...
what are joe blakes?
thanks for the help.
kylie
Joe Blakes rhymes with adders, actually seriously it rhymes with SNAKES

oh! of course.

i'm not at all scared of snakes (although i probably should be) but one
fun activity to do with my dh is to loudly say "snake!" while we're
walking through the bush. my, it makes him leap. i have to watch what i
say now, otherwise he's in a permanent state of nervous exhaustion just
thinking about it. it would be sad if it weren't so funny :-)
kylie who clearly needs a total attitude readjustment.



Lol I do this to my DH too....he dislikes snakes, whereas I'm a bit more
blase.

"0tterbot" wrote in message
"meeee" wrote in message

but one thing I do know is that if your tomato plants get bitten
and cark it, pull them out by the roots and hang them upside down;
you'll
get most of your green tomatoes ripening that way. I had tomatoes
half way
through winter with this trick!!

thank you! that's a good tip. i suspect there'll be a lot of hanging
tomatoes around here this autumn :-) (they're just going so
sloooooow!)

Or make lots of green tomato pickle.

"0tterbot" wrote in message
"Farm1" please@askifyouwannaknow wrote in message

A mix depending on location - some fixed sprinklers, some moveable
sprinklers and some I hand water with a hose. I understand that
drip
irrigation is now recommended as most water efficient

heh. i am thinking there might be pragmatic problems with putting in
a drip
system for the veg. (not least, having to rearrange all the
sticking-out
bits every time some new formation of soemthing-or-other went in!?)

Yep. You hit the nail on the head.

otoh, i
don't want water spraying between beds or anything, either.

No. Total waste of water so that is why I use such a variety of
techniques.

For our 'official' veg beds which are 2 railway sleepers long by half
a railway sleeper wide, we use the microsprinklers and they work well.
We have the a quarter circle head in each corner and then I think 2
(or perhaps 3) 180 degree heads down each side. They are put on in
the morning before the wind gets up and they do a good job. I have
also made a number of individual micro sprinklers of either half or
quarter circle on a click clack connector that I can use for various
odd shaped spots round the garden. Himself was disparaging about how
effective they would be when I made my first one but I notice that he
now uses them too. Must make some more of them.

I've also found a spkie sprinkler that just has a slit in it and that
is brilliant for the edges of beds where a round sprinkler always
leaves a few spots unwatered. I spent too much bloody time wandering
round this big garden retreiving the right sprinkler for the job, but
better than letting my investments die from lack of water. And as for
the money I'm spending on mulch of various types...........

otoh again,
doing it all by hand with a hose takes an exasperatingly long time
some
days.

Yep, and not to mention the pots that need watering cans carried to
them - sigh. I even use mulch (rice hulls or lucerne chaff) on the
top of pot plants now.

"0tterbot" wrote in message

did you cover thickly?

Be careful with mulch - too thick and you can't water through it. For
frost coverage, it depends on what you are covering - if its a crown
of a sensitive plant - put it on thick but only over the crown -
thinner over the root area as it's the crown that needs protection.you
dont' need the cover to be too thick

was it a hassle?

:-)) Depends on how you value the plant.

when i have an asparagus bed ( the
plants are only a few weeks old, and very tiny and cute ;-) i was
under the
impression you do this, but cut the plants down first & then just
spread the
straw over the top for the winter.

Asparagus is as tough as old boots. The mulch is really more about
feeding and building up height so that you are cutting long new stems.
I've changed my mind 3 or 4 times about the location of the asparagus
bed and each time I leave some crowns behind but they keep coming up
in all sorts of impoassible places. I have one which is still coming
up where I now have my clothes line and the soil there is as dry and
like concrete as it's possible for soil to be. That spot for a bed
must have been at least 10?? years ago. I was only saying yesterday
that it and the other rogue plants I need to be moved to where the
next asparagus bed is going to go.

"gardenlen" wrote in message
i don;t use straw as such it is way too dear and harder to get
around
here so i use what is readily available and economical and that is
sugar cane mulch and pasture grass hay.

you could use dense foliaged branches from other trees as a cove
also
anything to create that air barrier.

Slashed wattle branches are good too and the pruing does the wattle
good.

"0tterbot" writes:
i'm not at all scared of snakes (although i probably should be) but one fun
activity to do with my dh is to loudly say "snake!" while we're walking
through the bush. my, it makes him leap. i have to watch what i say now,
otherwise he's in a permanent state of nervous exhaustion just thinking
about it. it would be sad if it weren't so funny :-)
kylie who clearly needs a total attitude readjustment.

Memo to Kylie's husband: a rubber spider pushed into the toe of a fluffy
slipper can make a good snake jibe repellent . . . . g
--
John Savage (my news address is not valid for email)

A rubber snake would be better, as its unlikely there would be two snakes in
the same place at the same time....
But make sure its not the opposite (dare I say it) sex

"John Savage" wrote in message
om...
"0tterbot" writes:
i'm not at all scared of snakes (although i probably should be) but one
fun
activity to do with my dh is to loudly say "snake!" while we're walking
through the bush. my, it makes him leap. i have to watch what i say now,
otherwise he's in a permanent state of nervous exhaustion just thinking
about it. it would be sad if it weren't so funny :-)
kylie who clearly needs a total attitude readjustment.

Memo to Kylie's husband: a rubber spider pushed into the toe of a fluffy
slipper can make a good snake jibe repellent . . . . g
--
John Savage (my news address is not valid for email)

"John Savage" wrote in message
om...
"0tterbot" writes:
i'm not at all scared of snakes (although i probably should be) but one
fun
activity to do with my dh is to loudly say "snake!" while we're walking
through the bush. my, it makes him leap. i have to watch what i say now,
otherwise he's in a permanent state of nervous exhaustion just thinking
about it. it would be sad if it weren't so funny :-)
kylie who clearly needs a total attitude readjustment.

Memo to Kylie's husband: a rubber spider pushed into the toe of a fluffy
slipper can make a good snake jibe repellent . . . . g

what about a fluffy spider in a rubber slipper? (if i actually had rubber
slippers that would do the job on me completely.)

i might be cool with snakes, but i'm pretty uncool with spiders on me g
kylie