bit o bit and Asuna Minetest Luanti

 I've been rolling, had more vehicle problems with the truck, but the mechanic got the little car working again.  Our Sweetie dog is not doing so well now, she has more swelling with the other tumor they can't operate on, and we just gave her a little more time with getting the other one gone.   We've started her back on the antibiotics that they only had us use half of before they did the surgery and gave her a different one.  If that brings down this swelling I will call them and ask if there is more of a medication solution for this.

 

I had a 'brain is mush' headache Thursday night, which started out earlier in the day just feeling like a sinus punch to the forehead.  I haven't had one of those in a while, so it was worth noting.   My truck barely made it home - and then we took the other car out shopping.  Mark drove, which worked out really well.  I was supposed to drive the truck to the mechanic and then ride with Mark and Esme to the store - but the truck wouldn't even go up the hill - so we called to have it towed to the shop.  I was thinking through mud the entire time at the store - really glad Mark and Esme were there to help out, but we got it done and I put my head under hot water when we got home.  I was a bit foggy Friday but it all worked out okay.  I've been taking that methyl folate nearly every day for more than a month now, have the backup bottle ready for next month.  I'm not entirely sure there is a lot of difference.  I've taken the time to eat more eggs now that the chickens are laying again (eggs for choline), and I have peanut butter daily (vitamin E and A), and anti-inflammatory spices whenever I can work them in.  I have to be certain to drink enough liquid that is not coffee.  I started feeling clicky the past week and my left knee was moving wrong when I slept, not always getting back to where it should be even with my routine.  My jaw was clicky on the right side, but only the day before that headache (hmm).  I've felt better today after having more of a rest and a sleep in an hour or so in the morning (even though it was daylights savings time, so it probably wasn't much of a sleep in).

Besides running all the time and getting work done, I've been doing Finnish (segued from Japanese, through Czech and a couple comparative days with Czech/Russian/Finnish and now I've done just Finnish for three days).  Have been listening to more Japanese in some videos we've watched though, and been able to translate what I'm hearing and/or verify the translations given.

 

Asuna minetest Luanti - a chicken coop, also used the same format of two high fence and two high gate for gardens elsewhere that were being stalled by algae slimes.  You can only keep chickens in with two high fences, and two high gates added on.  Then you can pick up the eggs and burn them in the furnace to eat them, or pop them back to randomly get a chance to make more chickens.

 

I've also downloaded the 'Asuna' Minetest world for Luanti.  It has all the different biomes, thousands of plants, hundreds of new minerals and wood types etc etc.  I've been exploring slowly, after accidentally going through a jungle temple like portal thing and losing my first house entirely!  Don't hit that glowing block in those temples unless you want to be whisked away randomly and never return.

Asuna has the better farming and cooking, and fishing that I was definitely missing with Repixture.

 

Some things I learned so far:

 A lot of the typical Minecraft recipes are the same.  That's nice.  So you can make a pickaxe or a sword, a furnace, chest, hoe or a door all the same way you do in Minecraft.  Their recipes tab is pretty good and lets you look up most things and what they are used for.  The 'research' tab I'm still trying to figure out.  I don't know what the points are for research, but it gives you some of the properties, like letting you know which mushrooms are food items etc.  You can make mushroom soup by making bowls (three wood blocks in a V like Minecraft) and placing two mushrooms -of the same type- in the two blocks above the bowl in the crafting screen. 

 

I spent the first 'night' on top of my little banana wood house roof, waiting to see what kind of monsters come out.  All I saw in the grasslands biome was slimes of many types.  Finally, I decided to come down and fight some of the green slimes.  I made some wooden armor and a stone sword, and went about exploring and making farms.  I keep expecting to find more monsters in the deep caves or mining, but haven't yet. 

 

Wherever you place a torch, don't put it where you can walk into it.  This is tough, while mining.  It says on the message screen 'don't touch that' and you lose hit points.  Fire is bad!  I walked into the torch on my house about eight times before I realized what was happening.

 Slimes are these cube or jellyfish-cube things that wander around.  They come in different colors, and some of them are aggressive and some are not.  The green cubes and the purple cubes are aggressive!  And they steal your stuff with every hit, so they can actually steal the sword out of your hand while you're defending yourself.  After you kill them, they pop back out whatever it was they stole out of your inventory.  The goo they leave behind is edible, but not the purple ones (poison goo) obviously.  If you accidentally poison yourself the algae goo is an antidote.  If you accidentally eat a poison mushroom, the algae goo can help, as well. 

 

a 'seaside' garden when I was testing how far from water items needed to be.  I planted multiples of the same item next to each other and watched the stages they went through.  When this garden was five times as large, I put small signs in front of the rows to remember what the plant was.  You don't get a screen message about what the plant is until it is broken and is a separate item. Sometimes, if you break a plant in an intermediate growth stage, you don't get a food item or a seed, it's just wasted.  Careful gardening with the signs happened after losing a few interesting things.  The sheer variety of the plants is astounding.

 

Most crops in most biomes need to be near water, within four squares of it, in order to grow.  There are some exceptions, and in other biomes, that same plant may not grow away from water.  For example : I was able to harvest a crop of oats in a grasslands biome away from water, but was not able to in the Alder swamp.  In the Alder swamp, you must be within the four squares of water, and replace the dirt with the regular soil brought with you from another biome.  Then you can use the hoe and plant the seed.  In the Alder swamp you can find single squares of water scattered throughout, and use them to make fenced-in gardens with double-high fences and gates.  The algae slimes, otherwise, will come and congregate on your gardens and hover on the plants, making them not grow as quickly.  If they hover on regular dirt that does not have anything planted in it, even hoed dirt ready to plant, they turn it into Alderswamp dirt.  It makes for quite interesting living there, along with the Poison slimes wandering about.

 

 Some plants need supports, which are called bean poles (for green beans, but not for peapods) and trellis, which are for grapes.  I'm running an experiment if you can grow grapes away from water in the grassland.  I know that you cannot in the Alder swamp.  Blueberry saplings DO grow in the Alder swamp, and once they expand the hedge, you can take one leaf block a few blocks away and place it and smash it repeatedly until it gives you another blueberry sapling.  One smack with a tool or a piece of wood will give you blueberries off the hedge, more will break the block.  A blueberry sapling has the chance to make three or four more blocks of blueberry-producing hedge.

 

green beans on bean poles, shown with the ripe stage on the right hand side, the flowering stage is the middle-stage, and the growth stage is in the middle.  There are pea pods plants in the foreground with the ripe one being on the left.  This is in one of the Alderswamp gardens with the two-high fences and two-high gates.
 

Lots of the plants have multiple stages they go through until they are ripe.  Some will produce a ripe food item and seed when you hit them, but only when they are in full formation.  You will have to plant as many things as you can and watch them and see what the full formation is.  Sometimes plants in the wild will have their younger stages around them, and it will look like two different plants - pineapples and onions are good examples.  I busted a lot of young pineapple and onion plants, yielding nothing, before I realized they were immature forms.

 

Cactus can only be broken with an axe.  You might find some free cactus blocks in some of the little 'hampers' (chests, that look like wicker basket hampers) that are scattered in the biomes, with random things in them that you can scoop up and then use.   Cactus needs to be planted on sand and then allowed to grow.  Papyrus can be found growing wild or in these hampers, as well.  It can be used to make sugar, or paper, just like in the original Minecraft.  Papyrus, oddly enough, did not multiply when I placed it on sand at the water's edge.  I left it like that for about an hour play time and I was there and back harvesting other plants around it.  It didn't grow an inch.  When I replaced the sand under it with regular soil, then it began to grow in minutes.  Watermelon grows in the wild but sometimes there is a glitch or something that they do not bust into multiple melon slices when they are broken.  The watermelon plant is small and has yellow flowers, and when it is in full formation it will drop one melon slice and seed for making the plant.  The blocks drop eight slices or so, but no seeds.

 

I have found coal, tin and copper - but still no iron.  I tend to explore and make roads for a long time and get the food and survival figured out before I go deep into the mining.   I found a few steel ingots in the first hampers that were lost in my first house.  I haven't been able to make a bucket of water to transfer water to other places and make gardens that way.  So, I've had to grow on the coast, around lucky water formations, or around the single squares in the Alder swamp.

 

Making bread : Requires 4 of wheat or oats (I'm still growing my barley, that is a bit different)  Then you need to make a mortar and pestle using three burned cobblestones (smooth stone) and a stick.  First you will need to make a furnace, to put the cobblestone in, and make it smooth.  Then place the stones in a V formation with the stick above it.  Place the mortar and pestle in the middle of the bottom row, and place one grain item to the left of it, and three above it.  This makes flour.  Place the flour in a furnace, and bake it to make bread.  You can use ferns, grass or many other flammable items as fuel.  There is a hemp plant that you can use the seeds to make a fuel oil.  I haven't grown enough of that yet.  Apparently you can turn the plant leaves into fiber with a bucket of water (which I don't have yet) and then make building blocks with it, as well, similar to the thatch blocks that were in Repixture.

 

Soy milk : If you collect five soy beans, and a glass bottle filled with water (make the bottles the same way as in Minecraft) you can make raw soy milk.  Put that in the furnace and you get regular soy milk.  This can be drank or used in baking recipes.

 

Stevia : This is a plant you find that looks like small white flowers on long stems. (Rice also looks similar)  When mature it will yield a sheaf of stevia and some seeds.  Four stevia make sugar.  Papyrus also makes sugar (in the furnace, I think, haven't done it yet).  Rice yields seeds, which can be planted or burned in the furnace to make rice food item.  Sunflower seed head yields five seeds on the crafting table, which can be replanted or put in the furnace to make toasted sunflower seeds (food item).  Sunflower seeds are also used in baking some things, with barley for bread.

 

 At the edge of a 'Mediterranean' biome and a Jungle biome, and an Enderman never-ending city biome.  That one olive tree on the left yielded 47 wood blocks and three saplings, along with olive food items, which have a variety of uses.  There are so many interesting blocks you will need multiple multiple chests along your road network to sort things into, as your personal inventory is only so big.

 

This is just a tiny bit of what I've discovered working with this so far - there is a LOT more.  I highly recommend trying Asuna Luanti!

 

 

Thistles in August and September

 

The thistles in the 'valley' - in the town to the west of us, they bloom in May and June.  They have long since lost their flowers and even fallen down to the roadsides where I cannot even see them anymore.  Our thistles have been growing slowly the past few months, growing tall - and now, today, on August the 20th, they have finally begun to show signs of blooming.

Our thistles always seem to bloom in August and September here - in our 'lonely mountain' as Mark calls it.  We are some 300 to 600 feet above the town - which really isn't much compared to some places, but it sets our entire property into a different climate, which trickles down into many other strange (and sometimes wonderful) things happening.

We had those cedar waxwings the other day, and numerous turkeys, deer with fawns etc etc...  There is a family of grey foxes that argues constantly down in the little creek here.  The Joe Pye weed is also finally starting to bloom on the roadsides down in the valley - I always look for it about this time, covered in butterflies.  The bees and butterflies will be covering our thistles again soon, as well.

I saw the bedstraw blooming, as well, and the Devil's Walking Stick (Aralia spinosa, Angelica tree) was blooming a few weeks ago, covered in pollinators and is starting to form it's berries down along the creek.  I found tomato hornworms for the first time yesterday, and fed those to our chickens.

 

 

Continuing to work on my Japanese.  Hoping to hear back from someone about a little car we are looking for. 

Did the level 19 Japanese on one app, and some 'round' study - rewrote my notes, checked multiple spellings, tried to remember everything I could and then went on to the vocabulary app and saw how much more I could remember.  Review Level 10 later on the phone, just to get it done, and then maybe repeat the vocabulary and go on to the clozemaster.

our Daphne dog came for a walk with me, her joints are getting pretty stiff lately - but when she goes and runs and hollers through the woods she can barely get up for a while after she lays down.. I've been telling her to take it easier.  Charlotte is the 'puppy' and even she hears Minerva out in the woods often and says 'too tired for that' and flops back down

fed the chickens some lespedesza, then changed their water, looked for more hornworms but didn't see any - doesn't mean they aren't there  I would have put a banana bread in the oven but Mark has the end of the monthly pork loin that I got yesterday and the temperature is right for it but not for the banana bread.  Will go look up freezing bananas for that sort of thing and how the defrost should go.  Talked with Esme this morning about things, while we were waiting for the school bus.

after a long route

Well, the route actually got done about 1:45 pm.. which is a bit early for it - but it wasn't easy, either.  Then, I ran all over returning library books and getting the last of the groceries that I had forgotten / wasn't sure about getting the other day.  Then I made a quick soup to go with the bacon sandwiches Mark was making for dinner. Fed the animals, and watered my garden, and I'm headed to bed.  Dishes and laundry can wait until tomorrow.. I truly hope so.  Did a few different languages - oddly, French was not one of them today.

The soup was just a can of chicken noodle soup, a can of sliced carrots (with water), white onion and spices - and I let it simmer for a half hour, but it really could have used a whole hour.  It is the first week of school and everybody in the whole world seems to be sniffling - bus driver, people at work, people at the grocery store.  I told my daughter the soup was 'triage' ahead of time - and I gave her a small dose of pineapple juice in tea this morning before school, as well.
 

bits of smurf, plants and rocks

 

 

I didn't even sleep until 5:30 this morning.. and I can't say it was a specific dog or chicken noise... it just was, and it was morning, and I was awake.  It was 5:23 and I turned off my 5:30 alarm.  And then I puttered around until 8:30 to feed the chickens!

I made curry rice and egg, and drank two pots of coffee (12 cuppers), and potted two houseplants, took pictures, and did the dishes, and some laundry, watered the gardens and worked on this bag, and French, and Danish, and Russian.  I still need to do something on my mobile Duolingo.  I looked at art supplies, and yarn, and plants online, and a few other things.  It just makes me want to use what I have all the more... although some Italian sketchbook paper did catch my eye enough.  The paper I currently have is so bright white that sometimes it annoys me.

begonia plants

the begonia cuttings we had ordered came, after being lost for TWO days in the mail (misdelivered) and we were a bit unhappy, not with the seller, but I told her we'd give them every chance we could and if they don't bounce back she said to let her know.  This was the picture Mark took right after he opened it.  When I came home after work Esme said 'That package finally was delivered, although it didn't turn out well...'   She and Mark put them in pots and in the room with the other begonias and we can see if they do anything.

 

 

apparently, I'm a penguin

I have rocks in my pockets, my wallet, my purse, on my desks, and in numerous dishes and drawers...

Amanita type mushroom (poisonous, of course)

I succeeded at making a 'dog joke' today, when I told Charlotte not to eat that, just because I was taking a picture of it.  She 'said' to Daphne beside her something on the order of 'sheesh, humans / can you believe she said that?'  and Daphne must have 'said' something that I didn't catch entirely as she was looking the other way towards Charlotte - and then Charlotte 'said' 'LOL oh you made a joke!' to me.  

  

spider plant

 I checked the umbrella plant - it's almost ready, but not quite.  The roots are just beginning to be tiny hairs on it, and I need to change it's water and hope it gets some good light for another few days.  BUT - as I was doing that, there were several little spider plant babies (this is one, just one! - and then I put two smaller ones in another pot together) that had fallen down behind the shelf and I clipped them and gave them pots.

Community Scrabble Game at the flea market

 

We were out at our local flea market and showing off the 3D printed things, the magnetic Scrabble game, and our greenhouse plants.

 

gardens and plants

 

Blue Angel hosta (and Frances Miller, in the middle)

 more crocheting projects while watching films or reading books - did a few more bags, and four rugs (for our own house) and am working on a sort of lap blanket in grey stripes with yellows and oranges

front bed full of greens, weeded some and planted in the empty places 

there is : hamburg parsley, green onions, kale, lettuce and radishes growing right now - every few days or so I harvest what won't hurt the plants too much, and freeze what I don't use  There is more in the main garden as well, but not any more than this

 

chickens, sapphire gem, cinnamon queen, olive eggers and maybe an americauna

 

wild pink dog rose we took cutting off out of the woods (during that electrical power lines project where they tore a bunch up in the ditch) - there is a white one too, usually, not sure if I've missed it or it hasn't started yet -- these are in our garden with the hosta now to replace the domestic pink rose that died off

there is a pink 'trailing confederate rose' as well that I took a cutting off out of a ditch around Trezevant, TN when I did mail out there - it is just starting to get buds ready to open, but not yet  Those roses are very tightly packed little heads

 commelina communis (dayflower) that blooms all over this time of year by our water hydrants

Sweetie dog

Mark's coleus, grown from seed

and dragonwing begonias (Rex line)

Pineapple Banana Cake, projects, garden thoughts

 

I had read somewhere that pineapple juice will curdle milk, but that heat-processed canned pineapple will not do this.  I had saved some pineapple juice from dinner last night and when I made my banana cake (which has milk and egg in it) I put the pineapple juice in after I had added the flour, and thinned it back out, and then put it directly in the oven.  We'll see how that turns out.

OK, it was a success, and I ate it with peanut butter

2 eggs

2 bananas

some milk

a couple of packed tablespoons of brown sugar

mixed all together - add all purpose flour, baking powder and salt

slowly mix in pineapple juice with the flour 

bake immediately in 350 degree oven for 30-40 minutes until edges are brown

Working on some projects, looking up things on seeds and trees :

The Hazel tree we have needs a partner (or more) in order to produce nuts.

--looked into costs and season times etc.

The Black cherry tree we have is having a problem that looks like the trunk is splitting - asked an extension agent (from the wrong state, but they answered, awesome!) and they told me perhaps frost split and it might heal itself - but it will also be a place where fungus and insects can further damage the tree.  We will watch it this year for more of either of that - brown withering leaves etc etc.. and we might finally chop it down.

 

 possible frost split on a black cherry tree, or black knot, or cytospora canker

I got a hori-hori knife for one birthday for the garden, and I use it, both to dig with and to cut small razor vines and underground roots and such.  I got a Japanese sickle last year or the one before as well (boy the tractor supply guy's eyes were wide on that one) and have used it to cut grasses and lespedeza around here.  I talked with Esme about what both tools were, and that maybe I will look at getting a little hatchet this year to cut down small trees and bushes - Dad got her a machete for one of her birthdays but she doesn't use it, and I don't really feel like that is the right thing for my tasks, either.  I need to track down where my hoe-axe went that I normally keep upstairs here but somehow disappeared during the Fall.  I took the hori-hori out to plant peas yesterday because I could not find the hoe.

Bought some lemon cucumber seeds, they did unexpectedly well last year when the other cucumbers planted with them failed.  Need to plant kale soon.  Been thinking about trying Kenearly beans again, in that front bed where the peppers were - and putting the peppers only in the one bed (I had separated hot from banana this year after mistakenly buying both).  The one little squash I was thinking about planting is not available from the place that was selling it - Lakota, so I dug in my collection and found Little Gem which I had bought and not started any of.  Carrots need to be planted in March? for July.  Sorrel has to be planted in March.  There are already potatoes planted and will have to see if they bring up leaves.  Esme keeps looking for the lambsear plant but I think something dug it up and ate it - so we have talked about getting some more of those.  I see them on my route in several places growing in 'you have to be kidding' conditions between gravel etc.. so I think it had to have some help to entirely disappear.

a Raised Bed garden for vegetables

The raised bed garden I built between yesterday and today for Irene. 

along with her cat and dog helpers :)

It is 16 standard cement blocks, and about 12 bags of different soils, a third of which is 'container gardening mix'   We lined the bottom of the area with cardboard before we put the soil on top, just like I did in my own raised bed garden three years ago.  The next step is to water it down good, and let it drain a little, and plant a few test quick-germinate things to make sure the ph level is good. 

Radishes like pH of 4 to 5.  If they come up purple instead of green - it is WAY too 'hot' of soil.  Komatsuna and mustard greens like 5 to 6 pH, and cabbage likes 6 to 7.  All of these things should show 'signs of life' within 3 to 6 days if the soil mixture is good.  If it is, then put the greenhouse plants in it.  If you see any warning signs, get a pH kit or, in the case of knowing that it is 'hot' - add pelletized lime, water down and let drain again before trying again.

The garden on April 9th during the COVID-19 lockdown

It is my garden philosophy that I don't have to pull every single weed.  I don't use mulch, and I tend to let the garden lead me where it may... which some years means harvesting the fruits of the greenhouse plants, and the first flush of seeds from the heirloom beans to save - then letting the rest go by the wayside...  Other years I'm out there every other day making soup from every little bit I can scrounge.  Every year is different. I'm thinking this will probably be one of the latter years, with everything going on.

This year I have changed up the infrastructure a little.  That circle of bricks to the right in the bottom picture was there maybe seven years ago?  But the raised bed was not there until three years ago.  The time felt right to put it back, and I even put up a bean fence and put the Mayflower beans next to it.

The pictures do not show the last bit of what I did before sundown.  I was out in the garden at sunrise this morning -- and in the afternoon -- and at sundown, but not a lot of the time in between.  I sat for a while and knitted in the sunshine before noon :)

Before sundown I planted seven hills in the front of the long section.  Each hill has about five Kenearly Yellow Eye beans (bush) and a Zephyr hybrid squash seed or two on the right hand edge.  This is flying by the seat of my pants here.  It was about 6 pm and I looked over at the seed box and said 'ok, this is what is going down right now.'  Up until that very moment I was saying 'yes I will put the Zephyr somewhere' and 'yes I will put some sort of bush bean there, but I don't know what or how, yet.'

I took sixteen of the cement blocks and made Irene the start of a raised garden.

But, we are in the year of COVID-19, and the plan I had made to go back and get dirt at that garden center was upended by a new city ordinance pertaining to 'quarantine lockdown' someone posted about that is 'food, fuel and work only or be arrested'.. I'm sure that is a bit more than the actual law intends - they conveniently did not link to it - but I don't want to be subject to bad interpretations.. so now I'm avoiding that city like they must have wanted everyone to do.. right?  So that business I support doesn't get one of the few orders I might have done this year because of this? And it will probably all change again next week.  Last week they were still saying that garden plants were okay, but don't linger and don't browse.  This week, they've gone Machiavellian... but probably only according to people posting on Facebook who are a bit bored?  I'm not sure.  I'll remember this in a few years.

There is another store in the other town that not only has internet ordering (which the other one didn't - 'in store buy only'), but has curbside pickup without getting out of your car.  So I guess they get the money and we still get an extra vegetable bed for Grandma.

Who knows how 'essential' that is going to be this year, but in almost any year I would call it essential if someone wants to put the work into the soil for fresh food.

((climb down off the soapbox))

I guess I get a little worked up about gardens, and especially because without them, gardens that is, we are stuck buying everything out of a box that may or may not be there when we go to pick it up again.  We found that out a month ago - with all the empty shelves.  It's warm enough now (it wasn't then) so let's grow.

Make sun shades for indoor start seedlings, prevent sunburn!

Are you ready to garden this year?
Our calico cat is, and she swears she's helping.

I am going to show how to make a cheap effective sun shade, to prevent sunburn on your newly transplanted indoor seedlings.

This is very important!  A lot of people will sunburn their seedlings without knowing it, because they forget to harden them off - or they buy them from a hothouse that did not harden off properly.  Sometimes, the sun is just too much for an indoor-raised plant.  It will show by bits of the leaves turning white or pale yellow and flaking away, like brittle paper.

To help prevent it, we are going to try to block some of the noon and afternoon sun from hitting the plants full force.

It is also important that this be a light colored, but not bright white cloth.  Bright white will send too many rays reflecting back off the cloth.

I grabbed this cotton cloth because it is handy.. and I don't care that it will not survive to next year.  The sun will damage the cloth over time and make it brittle, too - but by then, your plant will have grown up healthy, we hope!

Cut a rectangle off your fabric about as wide as your tomato cage and at least as tall, maybe more.  Cut an inward gash on all four corners, but not too far, as you don't want the fabric to tear completely and the strip to come off easily.

Now you will tie the top two strips to the wires above your plant, creating a little 'tent' for it.  I do this on the WEST side of my plants, because I have trees to the EAST that block most of the bright morning sun.  If you pull the fabric a bit over the middle of the cage as well it will block direct noon sun...

If you are out in the open and need protection on both sides - make two shades, one for each side, or tie the rectangle more over the top - we aren't blocking all the sun, just the hottest sun so that the plant can have a rest.

In some years when I only had one or two plants I would set up a few buckets and a board on the west side and be done with it - but this is the way to ensure each plant gets some shade when it needs it most.

Just loop a slip knot around the wire and then pull it shut - but not too tight, as it could tear.

I usually tie the bottom ties as well, positioning the shade so it blocks most of the sun at 2 or 3 o clock in the afternoon, putting them out about this time will ensure you are blocking the light all the way to sundown.  

You can do this with old shirt fabric or an old sheet and protect your time investment in your seedlings.  Sometimes I will tear up some of these shades later to help tie bits of vines loosely to the cage, once the plant is big. 

The other tips I got from my mentor was to bury my tomato seedlings 'all the way to their ears' in the hole, but not with the leaves actually touching the soil!  If the leaves touch the soil that keeps them moist with dew and that can invite viruses and bacteria to the plant etc.  Add a little loose dirt and water at the bottom of the hole, and then put the seedling pot contents into it.  Gently press loose dirt in and around the seedlings pressing the outer corners of the pot soil down into the dirt, while trying not to break the stems of the seedlings.

Sources :

I was taught to do the sun shades by Tom Carpenter, of the University of Minnesota Experiment Station, way back in 1994 when I was at one of my very first employments.  He had also had my father on the farm when I was a small child and he was in the National Guard with Mr. Tom.  I was proud to hear about the gardens, see my father's picture on the wall and learn the different ways to take care of plants.  The plants we made 'much larger' sunshades for were delicate shade plants that were part of experimental seed trials.  But, he explained to me it could be done for even a small plant or with a large sheet for an entire area, as long as it was secured well, and to take it down in a high wind or heavy downpour.

 My 'bury them to their ears' comes from Mr. Harold Cole who I worked with at Lowe's.  It was a long time ago, but once in the breakroom he was talking about planting and gardening and I was all ears. Ha!  He said the plant will grow extra feelers / suckers in the stem to take in more nutrients and be stronger if you bury it all the way up to the leaves delicately and water it in gently.  He said he planted 90+ tomatoes every year from seedlings!

Also be sure to water your plant in and check on it the next day and the day after that.  It is only common sense - but you want to make sure the shade has not been torn or blown away.  And remember if it is going to rain hard you will want to maybe put a 5 gallon bucket over the top of your seedling and 'squidge' it in to the soil (so it doesn't just collect water under the edge)  Remove the bucket as soon as you can - or it will get hot under it the next day.

Enjoy, good gardening!

Rudbeckia weeds loved by chickens, garden in April and hostas

Our Cherokee Rose bush will have white flowers in a few days.  This is what our goat was trying to eat behind the fence the other day.  When it blooms the flowers will be so fragrant.

  

Our little red chickens have been loving the 'rudbeckia' weed flowers I have been feeding them.  They are giving us four to six eggs per day, little brown ones and once in a while a bigger one.

 

 This is what they are eating.  I have called it 'white aster' in the past, but the Tennessee weed gallery I found a few weeks ago called it a relative of the black-eyed susan, or rudbeckia plant.

and this is what they look like from a bit back.. they are behind the area I tilled outside, so they are going to stay there and be good chicken fodder when I need a handful of something they can eat.

What the garden looks after my work yesterday

The 'Blue Angel' hosta

we have several of these coming up

The Frances Williams hosta, it will get a lot bigger!  

And Esme's lambs ear plant behind it.

The Blue Angel always 'gets up early' in the Spring.  The Frances Williams starts to come in behind it, about now, and the Aureomarginata won't wake up until the first week of June or so... and I am not sure why but it just is always a late riser.

Esme's dianthus plant from the Amish greenhouse, still strong!

My mom used to call the perennial version of this (biennial, I've actually learned) 'sweet william'.  That was in Minnesota.  We grew them around the side of the house in town, with lilies of the valley, blue grape hyacinth and tiger lilies.  She had bluebells on the other side of the house, and red Appledoorn tulips.  I was always so fascinated by gardens, even back then.

So this is actually a biennial - and then it reseeds itself every year from the first plant, and becomes 'almost a perennial'.  It is a fascinating little plant.  The edges can be fringed, like this one, or smooth - depending on the variety.  It can come in a wide array of pinks, reds, whites and purple combinations.