What a great post and a great concept.What I see in the comparison photos may not be what others see. What I see is you are a true work horse. The amount of labor to do it the first time and then change it so much is astounding. And what a good job you did. Although it could show that as the hobbits have grown you have changed from being more carefree to actually being a bit of a control freak. Now there must be order, so to speak. I tend to be controlling and very orderly with my vegetable gardens but more natural and carefree with the rest of the gardens.
Concerning the Bull Nettle, here is some relief remedies, but only if administered promptly. Tobacco mixed with a little bit of water and rubbed on it is good if you smoke, dip or chew. Urinate on it. No joke, it really works, uhhh, people tell me. Adolph's meat tenderizer mixed with a little water and rubbed on it. All these also work on insect stings. As horrible as this plant is, I've read numerous times that the seeds have the highest concentration of natural antibiotics found in nature and they are supposed to be deliscious. Who would have even tried after getting the whiz stung out of him.
In the picture just to the right of the self dug imitation of the Panama Canal. What yucca or agave is it that has the bright yellow blooms?
As always another great post Philip. I really enjoyed it. Bob
Hi Bob. When I look back at what the ESP looked like in the early days and all of the grunt work that had to be administered to get some semblance of garden from it, it makes me appreciate it even more today. I think I have much more of an intimate connection with the terra firma of the ESP because of all the hacking and slow building of the soil I have had to do over the years to enable plants to grow and thrive. I still know where the poorer areas of soil exist in the patch because I have manually dug into almost all corners of it at some point! I plant plants in different areas armed with this invaluable knowledge. I think you are totally correct in the fact that I have definitely become more of a control freak over the years, striving for more order. This controlism has most certainly helped create a lot less overall work, I welcome that. The more free-form "before" shots of the ESP in this post, ironically, needed a lot more maintenance and weed pulling, something that I knew had to change. I am planning a larger area devoted to vegetables, (that I know little about) in the patch. More on this later.
Interesting on the Bull Nettle front, I will most certainly try some of these remedies the next time I get hit by one. The urination remedy may be a little too difficult, image-wise for me to visually document, and even more difficult to execute whilst trying to get an appropriate blog image of the process? I fear I may lose the handful of readers I have built up! ...sounds a little familiar?
The bright yellow blooms are from some type of Aloe Vera in the "Panama Canal":-) I ran water pipes and electricity pipes through this canal some years ago, before I filled it back in, and planted it all up. I still need to install a couple of GFCI boxes at some point, so that I can illuminate the patch at night, my ultimate goal! Well, that and a small hop-in and cool-down pool... Ah I continue to dream.
As always, good to hear from you Bob, glad you enjoyed the post. Philip.
Concerning the Bull Nettle, here is some relief remedies, but only if administered promptly. Tobacco mixed with a little bit of water and rubbed on it is good if you smoke, dip or chew. Urinate on it. No joke, it really works, uhhh, people tell me. Adolph's meat tenderizer mixed with a little water and rubbed on it. All these also work on insect stings. As horrible as this plant is, I've read numerous times that the seeds have the highest concentration of natural antibiotics found in nature and they are supposed to be deliscious. Who would have even tried after getting the whiz stung out of him.
In the picture just to the right of the self dug imitation of the Panama Canal. What yucca or agave is it that has the bright yellow blooms?
As always another great post Philip. I really enjoyed it. Bob
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When I look back at what the ESP looked like in the early days and all of the grunt work that had to be administered to get some semblance of garden from it, it makes me appreciate it even more today. I think I have much more of an intimate connection with the terra firma of the ESP because of all the hacking and slow building of the soil I have had to do over the years to enable plants to grow and thrive. I still know where the poorer areas of soil exist in the patch because I have manually dug into almost all corners of it at some point! I plant plants in different areas armed with this invaluable knowledge. I think you are totally correct in the fact that I have definitely become more of a control freak over the years, striving for more order. This controlism has most certainly helped create a lot less overall work, I welcome that. The more free-form "before" shots of the ESP in this post, ironically, needed a lot more maintenance and weed pulling, something that I knew had to change. I am planning a larger area devoted to vegetables, (that I know little about) in the patch. More on this later.
Interesting on the Bull Nettle front, I will most certainly try some of these remedies the next time I get hit by one. The urination remedy may be a little too difficult, image-wise for me to visually document, and even more difficult to execute whilst trying to get an appropriate blog image of the process? I fear I may lose the handful of readers I have built up! ...sounds a little familiar?
The bright yellow blooms are from some type of Aloe Vera in the "Panama Canal":-)
I ran water pipes and electricity pipes through this canal some years ago, before I filled it back in, and planted it all up.
I still need to install a couple of GFCI boxes at some point, so that I can illuminate the patch at night, my ultimate goal! Well, that and a small hop-in and cool-down pool... Ah I continue to dream.
As always, good to hear from you Bob, glad you enjoyed the post.
Philip.
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