nw baltimore wx

12/4 T On the board!

BWI: 24.3” DCA: 15.1” IAD: 27.5” RIC: 10.3” Tiebreaker SBY 10.7”

That is odd. WxUnderground has the hourly report (bottom of the page linked), but I doubt they have access to any max/mins in between. https://www.wunderground.com/history/daily/us/md/baltimore/KBWI

@C.A.P.E. The Black Beauty has germinated! The yard is beginning to look like an old man with hair plugs.

I’m late with the decorative gourd harvest this year, but in spite of the drought and my neglect, it was another good year.

Looks great, CAPE! Funny story here.i was going to seed yesterday with the black beauty you recommended but I felt I needed a larger bag. So on the way to the beer fest, I stopped in to the hardware store and exchanged for a larger bag and was going to seed when we got home. But we met some friends at the fest and they came over for a night cap. I ended up falling asleep to the game (in the 8th inning!), woke up on the couch at 3am, checked the radar and saw that rain was getting close. Hopefully none of my neighbors saw me seeding at 3:15am this morning.

My Stihl trimmer is nearing 20 years old and it’s been puttering and stalling for the past year or two making it a real chore of cutting the grass. I thought it was water in the gas, bad lines, or a dirty fuel filter, but changing all of those just brought on a temporary fix. Finally did a little research and thought what the heck, let’s try changing the carburetor. Holy crap, what a difference. It feels brand new. Starts fast, idles well, and the trigger is super responsive. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed working on the landscaping.. I’ve just finished cutting what’s left of the burned up yard, and now I’m going to aerate and seed. Next spring will be here before we know it (ie, January 20th or so).

I was walking barefoot through the yard today and it’s bone dry and hard as rock. I’ve been waiting over a month for a good deluge so I can aerate and overseed, but I think I’m finally going to pull the sprinkler out. Hopefully I can get it at least wet enough before early next week so that any rain with the frontal passage will soak in so I can aerate and seed midweek.

BWI: 11/8 DCA: 11/22 IAD: 11/1 RIC: 11/8 Tiebreaker: 11"

Didn't he first make the statement about Dorian impacting Alabama on Sunday morning? If so, why did he use a cone from last Thursday to justify his thinking? The NHC had the turn north as early as Saturday evening.

When did you leave the Ville?

Fixed your post.

Pump some air in to make some bubbles and it's a hot tub!

This evenings storm blew over my very full plum tomato plant. The roots were still intact and the stem didn't snap, so I pulled the whole cage back up and maybe it'll survive.

And the occasional brachiosaurus would randomly eat them.

An update photo on the spontaneous sunflowers. Should be peak bloom next week here. Btw, if anyone is in the Poolesville area, I read today on WTOP's site that there's a 30 acre site out that way at full bloom now.

I did something different this year in the garden that's really helped keeping the weeds down. My normal routine was to collect all the leaves in the fall, pile them several feet high across the garden, let them compress to a flat slurry-mat over winter, rototill them under in the early spring, plant, and collect grass clippings throughout the summer and spread them over the garden. The grass clippings helped a lot but I still spent a lot of time over the summer weeding. The difference this year was that I didn't till under the leaves in March/April and I haven't had to weed at all. Now I have to decide whether to till before I pile on the leaves this fall. Does anyone have strong opinions on the benefits of tilling?

I had to look them up but may have to get one or two of those. If you want some company, let me know when and where you're going.

That's always a problem for me too. I've used stuff like the Scott's DiseaseEX with success, but I've found it works best as a deterrent rather than a cure. I haven't put it down yet this year, but probably should.

I always wish that I had a more open and bigger space, but I know I'd still get frustrated. I'm pretty fortunate that I don't have the battle what I know a lot of you have to because of the size and openness of your domain. Considering all the varmints that I could have patrolling my yard, I'm fortunate that a few squirrels and rabbits are the worst of it. There are plenty of cats in the area that keep the mice and mole population in check, and though there are tons of deer very close by, rarely do any come into my neighborhood. We had a family of raccoons try to move in under the back porch once, but a rag soaked in ammonia drove them off quickly and they haven't been seen in a couple years. I always worry about rats because I'm so close to the businesses and their dumpsters on Reisterstown Rd, but, knock on wood, I've never seen any. Between the cats and the several foxes that patrol the neighborhood, small critters are kept in check. But I know what you mean about the squirrels moving seeds all over the yard. There's a walnut tree close enough to my yard that I am regularly digging up saplings, and they're always in the most inconvenient places with a deep tap root that's never easy to remove. And don't get me started on the ground ivy that I have to constantly battle on the backyard perimeter... Higher cut turf also cuts down on the opportunity for weed seeds to germinate.

The birds here aren't picky but, out of convenience, in March I picked up a bird seed from a "bird store." Unfortunately, within a few weeks, a bunch of seeds sprouted under the feeder and I thought that's the last time I'll use anything other than the cheap box store seed. But, out of curiosity, I thinned the "weeds" and let them grow to see what they might look like. Now I've got a nice cluster of sunflower stalks growing under my feeder. The squirrels took the tops of a few, but the heads have set on about 10-15 so it should be a good show in a month or so.

Ha! I'd never put good beer out for slugs! Natty boh or nothing for them!

I did a little more searching and this bottle trap claims to be far more effective. Also watch the embedded video. That's a hardcore gardener there! https://www.earth-ways.co.uk/resources/slugs/

Moving from the obs thread.