The Garden Shed

J. Musser

00:19

@CrusaderJ currently no.

wonder why no one else noticed that HA!

cv-plz ot gardening.stackexchange.com/questions/21853/…

I added a custom vote reason linking to the meta

my first Health answer:

2

Q: Can basil affected by Fusarium wilt be eaten safely?

I have a Basil plant that appears to be affected by Fusarium wilt. Let's assume my diagnosis of the plant's issue is correct. Can I safely harvest the whole plant and eat the leaves that haven't wilted yet? Does the fungus that causes Fusarium wilt affect humans at all? Sources are preferred.

CrusaderJ

00:46

@J.Musser Incidentally, while I'm fine with the legality argument, I would actually strongly question the knowledge-base argument. Marijuana growers know more about nutrient deficiencies than the average gardener.

I say that because I work in crop production and if I search for a plant nutrient deficiency picture online, the results page is usually mostly marijuana unless I ask for crop-specific pictures.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ hmm

I think I know more about nutrient deficiencies than the average weed grower xD

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser Fair enough, but just for the heck of it, google a plant nutrient deficiency (ie. Nitrogen deficiency) then count the pot leaves on the first page. ;-)

Just don't google Zinc deficiency. That effects humans, and is not pretty.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ eh. No pics of weed...

only one weed-related result in the front page

CrusaderJ

weird

I get like 3 in the first 2 rows

Including this beauty: 420magazine.com/gallery/data/500/malady_chart.jpg

J. Musser

01:02

@CrusaderJ huh

must have to do with what we (individually) google more xD

CrusaderJ

perhaps so

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ on a different note - have I made your acquaintance before?

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser Not directly I don't think

J. Musser

I've been almost completely inactive for the past few months i used to do a lot here.

Well hello! Nice to meet you :)

You have some nice answers here

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser I think the majority of my time here has probably been during your absnce

absence*

J. Musser

01:06

@CrusaderJ Apparently!

CrusaderJ

Nice to meet you as well

J. Musser

Ag consulting sounds fun

do you have to travel a lot?

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser Sort of. When things are busy in the field I think I average about 500 miles a week.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ Not too much then...

I do some consulting, as a plant health care guy for residential landscapes, but I usually do the work lol

CrusaderJ

Not really, my current coverage area is mostly contained to one county

J. Musser

01:09

Lawn care also

@CrusaderJ what part of the US?

unless you'd rather not say of course

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser Western New York

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ oh, ok. So kinda similar climate to where I'm at - Southeastern Pennsylvania

CrusaderJ

Almost all of it within a half-hour drive from Buffalo

Similar, you'd be averaging a little more heat than us

J. Musser

I've only been to New York a couple times - both in winter.

Lots of snow

Yeah, more heat (I'm in a zone 8a microclimate, most of my area is 6b)

Possibly more precipitation also

This site went from 8 unanswered to 125 unanswered during the time I was gone :(

CrusaderJ

6b is actually pretty close to northern Niagara County, so I guess not that much warmer.

J. Musser

01:14

still better than the average old beta

@CrusaderJ how about precipitation?

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser Lately? It seems like we're either drought or flood with about 2 weeks of transition

J. Musser

we get 45-60"/year

which is a good temperate climate precipitation

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser I think half my farms would be underwater if we had 60 inches in a year.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ if it's timely, it's good here

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser timely. that's always the trick.

J. Musser

01:19

we have mostly heavy clay, so it does get pretty wet sometimes

actually an awesome summer until a few weeks ago, it dried to a crisp, but we just got dumped on so we're back to normal

@CrusaderJ ikr

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser Similar here, except we got a little over 2 inches during the last 2 days of May and another inch per week the next too. If it hadn't dried out early this spring things might have gotten ugly

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ Was over 90 every day here for a while this summer - the ground can use a lot more water when it's like that

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser There's that Southern PA difference. I think we broke 90 once this summer. Otherwise just Mid-High 80s with about 95% Humidity

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ Right now we're hitting 85 in the day and 55 at night

everything's getting tired

the cool-season grasses are greening up

CrusaderJ

01:35

Yeah, my sunflowers have decided they're done these past few weeks, and the bell peppers decided they'd do me a favor and ripen before the frost.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ Wish they'd do that here

around here the tomatoes and peppers put on a productivity surge that has to be ripened indoors

Usually we don't get frosted til near the end of october, but I feel it may be earlier this year

CrusaderJ

Tomatoes do that up here too, if they don't get diseased first.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ lol

you have problems with late blight up there?

CrusaderJ

Some years, yes.

J. Musser

hate uncurable stuff

CrusaderJ

01:40

Couple big potato farms in the region, and one with fields within a mile of the house. I suspect there's enough spores in the area to keep it going for a decade.

J. Musser

We don't have too many tomato farms around here

but I'm in amish country

almost every farm here is amish

and almost every farm has a big kitchen garden, that they sell extras from in a stand out front

so we can eat local and homegrown all spring/summer

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser There's an amish community up near a few of my clients. Lots of BIG veggie gardens.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ Yes. That's the whole countryside here

I'd say over 50% of my neighborhood is Amish

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser Not nearly so dense up here, but seems to be growing. Some of them come from down your way I think.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ That doesn't surprise me. Lots of tourists come down here, and take pictures of the horses and carriages, and the teams of mules working in the fields

novel to some people, but so everyday here

CrusaderJ

01:48

Think it was two weeks ago I headed home and passed something I hadn't seen before. A pony-drawn buggy. 3 kids in it, couldn't have been much more than 10 years old

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ Yeah they do that here sometimes

like a mini pulling a yard wagon - often on a short commute to neighbors, transporting produce, etc

Ooh I love my powers, I can fix my typos in old messages :D

CrusaderJ

lol

@J.Musser One of those too. My guess was they were done with school for the day.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ They have the cutest little school houses

little one room buildings

so old fashioned

CrusaderJ

It's weird, I've been through the area dozens of times when they were going to/from school, but I still have only a rough guess as to where the school itself actually is.

J. Musser

and they only go to grade 8

Yeah there are 4 schools in my local area, more and more the further you go

they have to be withing walking/scooter distance for the youngest students

CrusaderJ

01:57

@J.Musser Or bikes. So many bikes.

J. Musser

Bikes aren't allowed here

They recently allowed caertain tractors though

they have steel 'tires' and are yeally bad for roadways

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser And there's the other fun part about amish communities. They all make their own rules.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ haha yup

CrusaderJ

Up here I think there's probably one bike per Amish person over 5.

J. Musser

I actually have some Anabaptist ancestry

not amish though

On one side I'm part anabaptist (swiss-german) and part french. On the other side I'm part German, part Irish, with some other stuff

Thankful for a wide gene pool

CrusaderJ

02:01

@J.Musser Now you've got me wondering about what the tires on the tractors they've got around here are made of.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ What do they look like?

What do they call their language up there?

Down here it's 'Pennsylvania Dutch' or sometimes just 'Dutch'

I only know a little

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser Not sure, I actually work with two members of the community but it's never really come up

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ hmm

They're very hard workers

once the corn harvester they used around here broke down, and the whole family went out and hand picked into a hay wagon til it was done

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser wow. That's some dedication

J. Musser

I know.

I'd almost rather let it get snowed on lol

Got a lot of tobacco up there?

what are your most common field crops?

CrusaderJ

02:10

@J.Musser Not a leaf

as far as I'm aware of anyway.

@J.Musser Corn by a long shot, about half of it for cow feed, the other half for grain. Lots of Hay, most with alfalfa, some with grass. Good deal of Soy, lots of Wheat

J. Musser

Down here, in order of acreage:

Corn
Wheat
Oats
Barley
Sorghum
Soybeans
Alfalfa
Dry beans
Tobacco
Sunflowers

Already combining the first grain corn starting a couple weeks ago

and the last batch of soybeans are about 6 leaf right now

CrusaderJ

A few clients get into Oats, Barley is showing up a little in the past few years, thanks to a growing micro-brew industry. No Tobacco, almost no sunflowers.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ Tobacco is a high labor, high capital crop, but there's a ton of it in my area

CrusaderJ

Some Peas and Green Beans for the food processing plant (frozen veggies). While I don't get into it much there's actually a LOT of cabbage in the area.

J. Musser

Lots of Rye here, as a green manure, almost never for grain.

So the fields are nice and green all winter

CrusaderJ

02:18

@J.Musser Seeing some more of that the past few years, mostly as something to hold the soil together till May.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ They planted corn so early this April I thought they were crazy.

Even before the last frost.

Somehow it all did great

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser Up here the last frost was the third week of May. Many acres of Soybean plants did not appreciate that surprise

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ ha! That always stinks when you lose a big planting

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser Up until about 5 leaves or so corn is very resilient against frost. The growing point is still about an inch underground, so it needs to get REALLY cold to do much long term harm

J. Musser

one year we had a lot of trouble with so many lodging cornfields.

CrusaderJ

02:22

It does however look like hell for a week or so aftwerwards.

J. Musser

It was really wet.

Lots of emergency silage

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser Lodging Cornfields? What happened?

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ Lots and lots of rain and almost no sun for weeks

and everyone around here puts down a ton of manure every spring and that didn't help

everyone's a dairy farmer lol

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser Sounds like the town of Perry. The only reason there aren't more cows there is because there isn't any land left to grow more cow feed.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ lol

You got a lot of hills there?

Flat land here is very hard to come by

CrusaderJ

02:28

There, yes. But that's a bit south of my own area

J. Musser

all hills, and no-til is becoming popular recently

CrusaderJ

Niagara County is pretty much dead-flat.

Only exception is these two big ridges that run across the county, one of which is actually the reason for Niagara Falls.

@J.Musser Hills like No-Til

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ I know. Less inches of sediment on the roadways after a storm lol

CrusaderJ

We have had some monster rain storms this year. I have a co-worker that got 4 inches in a day. Then an inch and a half the next.

J. Musser

whoa that's a lot

the most we've got in 24 hr's is 11 3/4 inches. About 13 inches for the whole stretch.

That was a few years ago, in a hurricane

CrusaderJ

02:37

@J.Musser I believe they called that one a 100-year storm event.

J. Musser

ah

CrusaderJ

Washed out culverts and bridges, ripped the ground right out from under a few roads (left the pavement intact at first)

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ ooh that could end badly

CrusaderJ

And one person I talked to said he went from having a finished basement to an indoor stream in about 20 minutes.

@J.Musser A combination of a really bad storm and a few bad town-planning decisions. Lots of development, not a lot of stormwater retention ponds mandated.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ There are a ton of little creeks and wetlands around here, and that helps

My front yard is about 2' above water level and it never dries out. ever

Some springs it is acually submerged and I can't mow

CrusaderJ

02:44

fun. My backyard runs right to a creek bank. If the snow melts too fast, or if there's an ice-jam downstream it's been known to flood. Then I go from having about 200 feet of backyard to about 20.

@J.Musser eesh. Luckily mine drains out quick when it floods.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ I just drained my wet side of the yard across the driveway, into a swale that drains under the road to a conservation wetland

CrusaderJ

Good deal. that should help

J. Musser

You can see pics in this question:

2

Q: Is my newly planted weeping willow in shock?

This spring, I planted a weeping willow tree (salix x) in my yard, in an attempt to help dry things out. I'd heard they love wet conditions, and can grow up to 8' a year. Well, it has been almost two months, and my tree has not grown. It has turned yellow and developed dead areas on the leaves an...

diagnosis plant-health weeping-willow

It actually shows the 'dry' side

the big pipes are what I put under the driveway

CrusaderJ

That reminds me, I probably ought to actually plant my little willow before winter hits.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ haha good plan

the one pictured in my post is now 15' tall and quite full

CrusaderJ

02:55

I was on a field edge and saw where someone had dumped a heap of old willow branches. For the heck of it I grabbed a few green-looking shoots and stuck them in a glass to see if they would root. One did.

Around this time last year I potted it because I didn't have a better idea, then sank the pot into the garden to not let it freeze over the winter.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ Weeping willow?

CrusaderJ

Now it's about two feet tall, in spite of my having forgotten to water it at all this July and every leaf on it turning brown.

J. Musser

Those are some of the most resilient trees ever

next to some old pros like Sycamore

CrusaderJ

Yeah, I accidentally let it dry out completely, no green leaves left. I watered it, it proceeded to leaf out again.

I have concluded it holds no respect for my ability to neglect it.

J. Musser

ha

u got bermuda grass up there?

CrusaderJ

03:00

Heck if I know. I'm fairly terrible at grass identification if it isn't a grain crop.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ oh haha

CrusaderJ

Based on what google shows me though, I'm thinking no.

J. Musser

ok

yeah it's a warm season lawn weed

lawn grass in texas where it stays green in the heat

here it is a pain

CrusaderJ

I imagine it's somewhere, but if I have it my lawn it hasn't bothered me yet. I mostly save my rage against lawn-weeds for creeping charlie.

J. Musser

@CrusaderJ use lime

That stuff is in paradise when it's acidic

well limed and fertilized ground makes lawn grass much harder to crowd out

CrusaderJ

03:10

I may have to do a few ph tests around, I think the lawns pretty well neutral

Fertilizer on the other hand...

J. Musser

lol

My lawn gets no care (except mowing)

despight how nice I can get other people's lawns xD

CrusaderJ

@J.Musser THERE'S MY METHODS

J. Musser

two thumbs up

CrusaderJ

And I've forgotten to even do that for 2 (or 3?) weeks

Was going to do it this past weekend. Then it rained all day Saturday and half of Sunday.

J. Musser

On our hill (a south-facing hill with shallow, rocky topsoil and a lot of trees) the grass grew so little, I haven't mown it in 5 weeks and it looks ok

CrusaderJ

03:16

Strange, my clock says it's 11.

I should probably go to sleep or something.

Good talking to you.

J. Musser

Yeah you too

quarter after... wow

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