It's the same here, north of Denver. I was planting b and b conifers a few weeks ago and there was plenty of moisture in the soil then, but it's gone in most areas of my yard now.

It's a conundrum, 'cause if I water now, which is my inclination, I'm stimulating the plants into coming out of dormancy. With 50 mile an hour gusts predicted tomorrow and no precip. in site, I'm wondering if it'd be better to keep dormancy as long as possible and hope for moisture in the coming weeks.

I just got 15 mail order trees in on Friday and Saturday. I'd planted 6 when I saw the windy forecast. Most of the trees are from Oregon. I've decided to put the unplanted ones in the garage tonight and hope for less wind after tomorrow.

I'll probably end up watering everything and hope for the best!

Barb

I've watered the grass in my front yard twice now--slow and deep. And I've been watering all the perennials by hand for well over a month now. Started that not too long after our last "significant moisture event," tho I can't actually remember when that was. Have been doing that mostly to keep the surface moist to try to help conserve the deeper water Mother Nature gave me. But last nite I finally decided the grass in the backyard--AND the perennials--needed a good deep watering so I put out the sprinkler on the driest end and let it run for an hour. Everything on that end is Perky today! Will be doing the other parts of the backyard in the next couple days. Supposed to be W-I-N-D-Y here again tomorrow! That sure won't help!

I wet my compost pile down with city water whenever it gets dry, Les, and if it's causing any kind of a problem I sure can't tell. And since I grow the lazy kind of compost--throw whatever I happen to have at the moment onto the pile and let it rot--I don't even add anything special or anything to "help it along" and it seems to be working. I've seen theories on composting that say if you don't have Just Exactly the right combination of ingredients, or if you don't have Just Exactly the right level of moisture, it isn't gonna work! Sure can't prove that by me. And if I waited to have just exactly the Right combination of "greens" and "browns," I wouldn't have a compost pile. It just ain't gonna happen! My compost pile is about 80% dry leaves--still have more than a dozen bags of my neighbor's leaves from last fall to put on it--and the rest is mostly kitchen scraps, with perennial clippings to help in summer, but all my lawn clippings are used to mulch the veggie garden, so even in summer I have very little "green stuff." Like I said, a Proper Pile just isn't gonna happen here! Back in the 70's (I think it was) there was a book called Let It Rot, which pretty much described the method I use, and while I know it would decompose faster if I actually bothered to turn or "stir" it--guess I'm just too lazy for that---or---there are WAY too many other things that always need doin'! So don't freak out too much about getting it all "just right." If you throw a bunch of organic matter on a pile and be sure it doesn't stay all the way dry, it IS gonna rot! Mother Nature figured that out a long time ago--long before people started writing books about it to make money. In a lot of situations, as your screen name says: Les Is More.

Wonder if it'll ever rain around here again,
Skybird

I was complaining that my garden soil won't dry enuf here to allow cultivation . . . And, I'm not talking about rototiller cultivation. Just trying to get out there with a spading fork.

West Coast storms have been trending north, I've noticed.

When storms do slip over the mountains up here, they sometimes don't make it to the Dakotas before angling into Canada.

A lovely, sunny day here finally! Rain is in the forecast for all of this week, however. Where we can go thru a growing season without picking up an inch total in 3 months, it looks like this month should finish out with over 4" of precip.

Steve

We have fortunately received some moisture since October. Last year was year 4 of a drought cycle. I'm crossing my fingers and knocking on wood but hope it is a sign of a better more normal summer here moisture and temp wise. With the mild winter I'm pushing the envelope a little. I have maters on some of the plants in the lean to. Will pot some up to 2 gallon pots this week and start setting them out during the day. Have some of the new dwarf varieties ready to go into larger pots also. I started them early hoping for good fruit set before the hot temps arrive. Also I can move them into the lean to at night if needed. I feel for those of you not receiving moisture. I watched storms 2 & 3 years ago roll out of CO and miss us by 20-40 miles. As we continued to dry up. We had 15 inches of snow the Monday before Christmas and so far this year we are around 2 inches ahead of normal. We received 1-2 inches over most of this area last week. In 18 years of living at this location which is deep sandy loam I had never lost any new trees till the last 2 years. I don't plan on planting any this year. Have 3 to replace but unless I see a continued trend of increased rainfall I will concentrate on keeping what I have alive. Jay

Spent about 3 hours pulling weeds today. As long as its gonna stay this dry, no reason to let them hang around to suck up any more moisture.

Tossed the weeds into the compost, with about a yard of manure...plus the rest of my wet soggy leaves, lots of last years sawdust, and 2 gallons of tap water. (Argh! I know. Tap water won't totally kill the pile... but it will take longer to heat things back up now, which is why I don't use city water on those very often. With the cold piles, it doesn't matter.)

(I'm probably a freak when it comes to compost, in case its not obvious already. I'll be out with my flashlight at 3 am, checking the temperature of the hot piles...making sure it smells good. Happens all the time. Might be abnormal, but I won't even try to deny it. lol...)

Then I came in to take a break...read the part about the WIND thats expected for tomorrow. Went right back outside to secure any potentially hazardous projectiles.... Took the rest of the night, was almost late for starbucks. lol.

I haven't watered any of the grass yet...but you can tell exactly where I've applied compost. Most of the yard is still brown and dingy looking...except for these peculiar patches where the grass is coming up in an obnoxious shade of bright green...lol.

Conundrum is a good word, Barb. For instance... I planted a bunch of garlic in my raspberry beds last fall. The garlic is trying to come up now...its probably thirsty. But if I water, the raspberries might wake up way too early. I can't decide what to do... I'll probably just keep pulling weeds until I figure it out. It usually rains after I wash my truck, maybe I should try that...

I have been watering a few of the perennials... the iris, the herbs. I started to wonder if the deer got desperate enough to eat all my tulips, but I see they are just coming out of the ground now. with all the warm weather... everything seems late now, but I'm probably just early this year. All the dust is starting to get old though, it'll be nice to finally get some rain.

Maybe Steve can take some RAIN pictures for us, so we don't forget what it looks like...lol

Off to take some Ibuprofen for my sore arms, and going to bed.
Leslie

4 am. Compost is fine. Watering the whole place right now, feels much less dusty already.
Les (Les awake than usual.)

I can't send you the rain but here is what the Weather Service thinks will happen over the next 7 days:

The most "activity" is today and tomorrow. Yes, it is raining HERE this morning but you see how the L scurries off thru the Dakotas, into northern Minnesota and off above the Great Lakes. But, by April 2nd:

An L shows up about in Jay's neck of the woods and dances around, back into Colorado. Maybe rain will show up with that low pressure area. Despite being chased by a H, it certainly doesn't seem to have any thought of hurrying out of the area right away.

Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: 7 Day Loop, 3/26 to 4/2

LOL! Hey, thanks for the cool graphics, Steve! I was starting to loose hope. Surely, I'll appreciate rain more than usual by April anyway, so the timing would be excellent. It just feels wrong to have spring without rain, but I'm happy for those of you who are getting some.

BTW, how come GW lets Steve imbed cool graphics into his posts like that, while I can't even add a picture to mine?!?...hmpf. lol.

Update: The wind has started here, and everything around me is dusty again. It seems, I'm the only one who got up to water in the middle of the night? Shucks. And it seemed like such a good idea at the time...

On the bright side, I probably won't need to pressure wash the east side of my house before staining this summer... It's basically getting sandblasted by the gravel driveway next door. I'll be out to check the compost just as soon as I find my eye protection, then I'm off to the dentist.

In any case, my tulips seem happier today. :)

Les

>>> (I'm probably a freak when it comes to compost, in case its not obvious already. I'll be out with my flashlight at 3 am, checking the temperature of the hot piles...making sure it smells good. Happens all the time. Might be abnormal, but I won't even try to deny it. lol...) LOL! As long as it's workin' for ya and it makes you happy---you go girl!!! Not the first time we've had folks here posting about gardening with a flashlite!

But, uhh, when do you sleep??? I thought I was the one with the awful sleep habits! So you went to bed shortly before midnite---and you were out checking your compost and watering at 0400??? That even beats me!!!

I have pretty much EVERYTHING actively growing in my yard already--can hardly believe it, and if we get sudden extreme cold a lot of things are gonna have a problem! But I didn't start watering individual things till they were already clearly starting to grow and no longer dormant, so I guess it was their decision--for better or for worse! About the only things not actively growing yet are the REALLY late things like Hosta, but even that is showing signs of life under the mulch. My old-fashioned bleeding heart has been up for a good month now and it's budding--I did stick a pot over that one one nite when we might have gotten down to freezing since the foliage and buds freeze amazingly easily on that one, which is surprising since it comes up so early! Have so many things starting to bloom already I can hardly believe that either--most of them a couple weeks early. But it sure is NICE to be seeing some color already! I've decided I'm going to just relax and enjoy it--and if The Worst should happen I'll deal with it then!

About posting pics! You need some sort of a photo hosting site and once you have that most of them give you a HTML Code (I think is what it's called) that you put in the text where you want the pic. If you don't have a hosting site yet, I HIGHLY recommend using Picasa and Picasa WebAlbums. Picasa is free and you can do pretty much all the same kinds of editing that you can do with the free versions of PhotoShop. (Crop, modify colors, add captions, put text right on the photo, add special effects, and lots more!) Then after you download your pics into Picasa and do any editing you want, you transfer them easily into WebAlbums and from there you can VERY easily copy the "code" for the individual pic (or the whole album) in whatever size you choose, from thumbnail to large.

Back in '07 I desperately wanted to post pics but didn't have a clue how to do it so I started a thread asking for help! I GOT IT! If you decide to go with Picasa and WebAlbums, scroll all the way down to the post by Stevation at May 2 and he walked me thru how to do it step by step. Some things have changed a little bit since '07, but if something doesn't look exactly like he described and you can't figure it out, let me know and I can help! (Normally when you post a WebAlbums pic the people looking at it can click on it to see a larger version, but the pics I linked in that thread don't work anymore--I think because of the "changes"--when I first started using it, posting one pic gave the viewer access to the whole album, and that's not true anymore--unless you want it to be--so I think that's why pics going back beyond a certain date aren't clickable anymore!)

If you do decide to install Picasa, post it here or PM me before you do! They put "facial recognition" in the program a few years ago, and there's some things I think you should know before you do it if you're gonna use it, but I'm not gonna bother to type it all out here if you're gonna use PhotoBucket of something else. There's info in the linked thread about other possible hosting site too.

AND, if you already know how to create a HTML code from your picture jpg's, then you don't need any of this at all---I think! But I can't help you with it if that's how you're gonna do it! Don't have a CLUE!

AND---if you're gonna be working on this at 0400 tomorrow morning---uhhhhh---I won't be answering for a while! That's about when I'm usually going to sleep! ;-)

Skybird

Here is a link that might be useful: Photo Hosting Sites!

I use photobucket. I have three accounts now, because I forgot the password to the first two. :-)

Speaking of DRY and WINDY...there's a big wildfire happening north of here, west of Evergreen, CO. Been listening to Jefferson County police dispatch for the last 2 hours, its gone from 5 acres, to 10, to 30...just now, one of their fire officials just said over the radio, "this thing is off to the races"... Evacuations in progress for Pleasant Park right now.

With this wind, it's really getting ugly. As I understand, fire was on both sides of Grapevine Road, is now moving straight north. Also heard them say that containment isn't an option until the winds stop... if you are in the path of this fire, you might want to think about getting to a safer place, in case it gets worse ...just saying.

There's another (smaller) fire in progress to south of me, in Pueblo county...and at least one more up north. (also smaller) Switching back to the scanner, but hope everyone up north stays safe until that situation is under control...its a huge fire at this point, and still windy as hell.

Les

(p.s. Skybird, I slept during my dentist appointment earlier today...lol. Does that count? ;)

Posted by LesIsMore1 . . .
BTW, how come GW lets Steve imbed cool graphics into his posts like that, while I can't even add a picture to mine?!?...hmpf. lol. . .

I find GW really awkward to do things with. It is all html code as Skybird says and if I knew something about putting together cool webpages, maybe I could figure out how to do more here. Or, maybe not. Sometimes, I get an "illegal string" notice from GW.

Pictures all have to be from online galleries, as far as I know. Most forums allow you to post a "gif" and downloading a program to make gifs is simple. Then, you can just connect a series of still pictures. That's what I did with the map. It was good practice for me since I've only made 6 or 8.

Raining, sleeting and snowing - it was a difficult day here, made worse because it was the most pleasant day of the year, yesterday. Might have been just a dream and I may still be hibernating. Certainly, it still feels like Ground Hog's Day - at best.

Steve

Skybird...what kind of facial recognition are you talking about with Picasa? The reason I'm asking, I installed it on my Android (phone) a few weeks ago, and haven't encountered that yet. (remember, my pc is not even working right now...lol. I'm limited to what I can do with my phone) I downloaded a thing called 'picasa tool' so I can upload to my albums faster... Maybe theres a better way I don't know about?

And I can post links to my picasa albums here... one at a time, but only as a link at the end. I can't post anything in the body of my actual post, like Steve did. (unless I teach myself HTML...is that what you guys are saying?)

I did make all my picasa albums 'public' ...because I don't care who see's my compost...lol. (though, I'm sure most of my neighbors would be shocked, I'm notoriously discreet with my composting endeavors... not for my neighbors sake, mostly its to keep the local wildlife out of trouble - the bears in particular. I don't want to tempt them, its one reason I try to cook my hot piles as fast as I do.)

The current hot pile is HUGE, and only 13 days old. (I think. I'm starting to loose track...) I've turned it twice so far... it took 3 days to get it back up to 140 degrees, after I added the tap water. (With rain/spring water, it heats back up overnight.) It's only shrunk by about 20% so far, but its hard to tell because I added more than 2 yards of new material to it since I first started it. I won't add much more to it now, since I ran out of room. Anything new will go into the next hot pile - but I need to wait for this monster pile to cook down by about half first. That gives me time to work on the rest of the yard while I wait...

Speaking of...I'm ripping out all my raised beds in the back yard, and moving the raspberries out of there. Its all falling apart any way, and at this point... starting over from scratch seems to make the most sense. I better get back to work, only a few hours of daylight left.

Les

Here is a link that might be useful: Latest hot pile...

Ok, I'm at a real disadvantage here! The "smartest" thing my phone can do is RING so I know I should answer it! I googled Picasa Tool to see what I could find out about it, and didn't find very much!

I'm assuming if you have WebAlbums that you do have Picasa installed on the computer that you currently can't use! When I first installed Picasa back in '07 it was still fairly new and kind of a work in progress. There were some fairly major changes with some of the "updates," and one time when I did one of the updates, after it finished installing the update it went directly into "scanning" ALL of my pictures for "faces"--which was a LOT of pics by then, and it took a LONG time to do it! I didn't have a clue what was happening! When it finally finished it "gave" me an album with all the "faces" it had found--including a couple "angel candles" I had taken a pic of at Xmas! All kinds of recognizable and unrecognizable and blurry faces that it "identified" on it's LONG scan!

I spent a couple days trying to figure out what was going on and finally started finding rants online from people who had even more pics than me, that had taken 24+ hours for it to scan all their photos--and eventually figured out that this was a New Thing that EVERYBODY was supposed to love (and it's supposed to tie into things like Facebook so when you "name" your faces, other sites automatically identify them and put a name with them!), but I was not the only one who did not love it. Since that update anybody who installs Picasa AUTOMATICALLY gets Facial Recognition whether they want it or not. It's enabled by default and you need to go into the settings to disable it if you don't want it! I checked your few albums and that's probably why you haven't even noticed it's in there. I didn't see any "faces," and you don't have that many pics, so you wouldn't have noticed the scanning time!

Luckily I don't have very many pics with "faces," they're mostly garden stuff, but what I considered even more of a problem than all the wasted scanning time was that the "faces" thing was also active in WebAlbums and--even AFTER I had disabled "faces" in Picasa--anytime I went to a pic in WebAlbums that had people in it, a NASTY "box" appeared over the face of each person and the only way I ever found to get rid of THAT was to INDIVIDUALLY--one "face" at a time--click on it and tell it I "didn't want to name it!" I had just been to a family reunion in Illinois where I had taken lots of People Pics, and I was SEETHING by the time I got rid of the Nasty Box around each and every face! I haven't tested this theory out yet--what with the hard drive crash and all--but I'm hoping, really, really HOPING, that when I download pics into Picasa with the Face Recognition disabled, I won't have a problem in either Picasa OR WebAlbums! The whole world will hear a loud scream if I continue to have to "unname" EACH face in WebAlbums from here on out!

About your "linking problem," since I have a Dumb Phone and can't check this out--but I'm thinkin' the app you have doesn't have the same "link options" next to the pics as you have in WebAlbums on a "real" computer! On a computer when you go to an album and then click on an individual picture, on the right side of the picture it says, "Link to this picture," and when you click on that there's a drop down menu with the HTML links all ready to use. For posting online, under "embed image" you first set which size you want to post (drop down menu under "select size") and then decide if you want to "hide" the album link or not (or post "image only--no link - but I've never used that one so I'm not sure exactly what it does--I THINK maybe if you check that box people can't click on your pic to see a bigger version of it!), and once you've made those choices you just click on the HTML code in the box to highlite it and then copy/paste it where ever you want it in the text--and the link with "become" a picture when you preview/post it.

Like this!

No need to figure out how to create the HTML code! It's all done for you!

So I don't know if you can do that on your Smart Phone or not, but when you get back to a real computer you can--and if you have any questions when that happens, let me know. The nice thing is that it's easy to "play" with it by "previewing" it and then if it doesn't work you can try again--and again--and again, till it works, and you can just X-out if it isn't doing what you want! The preview will show the pic the way it's gonna post if you're copying the right thing.

And the other link in the box that just says "link," is what you use to send a quick link in an email. That's the one that just has "https" in front of it and not "a href" before the "https!"! There are also links on the "album page" for use in email or on websites, but I've never posted a "whole album" online, so I'm not sure how that appears in the text--if it just shows the "cover" of the album or if it shows thumbnails of ALL the pics in the album! Will need to try that some day to see how it works!

I'm curious if you'll find the links I'm talking about on your smart phone app, so let us know if you find them. Seems to me there must be SOME limit on how much stuff they can get on the teeny, tiny little screen! Curious! If you have a couple hundred pics in a camera (not on the phone!) can you actually download them into PICASA thru the phone? Can you edit them with your app? Just me being Typically Curious---like I am about just about everything!

Glad to hear your not within Burning Range of the fires this time--and hope it stays that way all thru the summer!

Nice to have you here on RMG,
Skybird

My DH just informed me that we are in store for CRAZY winds this weekend - again. I guess I should be happy that we don't have many plantings in yet. We've watered our lawn, trees and a the few shrubs we have. Everything looks like it made it another year which is always good to see (all steps forward and none backward).

Skybird, I'm getting your book recommendation Let It Rot from the library...sounds my style too of composting.

Hi. Got up late today, and my arms are almost too sore to type. I've been sifting mulch like crazy; mixing the fines with coffee grounds and spreading everything out on low spots in my yard. The big mulch is going down on top for now. It looks like a mess, but maybe will help hold everything down for a while if I drench it really well before weekend. Most of the grass in my yard doesn't survive in dry conditions like this, the ground gets too hard in some spots. Watering doesn't help, it will just run off...and carve out mini-craters all over the place. I'm thinking about experimenting with some ground covers/green manures back there this summer...maybe some clovers, if I can get them established. Its not usually this dry in the spring... so I'm just mulching everything, not sure what else to do...

Winds. They are predicting 60 mph wind gusts for Sunday. Thats worse than the last windy spell when the fire started up north of here. No sign of rain yet.

I didn't use picasa om my regular computer. Those albums were all created with my phone, my mom wanted to see all these projects I'm working on in the yard... Some of my albums might be locked still, I should check. Trying to figure out how to embed a pic here now, but might run out of batteries first...lol

https://picasaweb.google.com/107677277907537328063/Forest

Theres no option to embed that I can find...see if that works. Need to charge quick, Les

If there's a link on your app that starts with "a href," that's the one you need to embed it so it comes up as a picture. The "https" one you copied above is a "regular" link which can be copied/pasted to view it, but won't be active on GW/RMG unless you put it in the box on the bottom like you've been doing.

Skybird

I can't find it...lol.

Here is a link that might be useful: Hmmm

I right-clicked on your picture and selected "view image info" - I copied that. After that I put a [img src=" on the front of that and a .jpg"/] at the end.

Except: I used a instead of a ]. If the "correct" combination of symbols appeared here - they'd just disappear as a broken image link. So, you have to change those brackets: [ to .

Remember the img scrc=" and .jpg"/. Maybe you should copy this information and keep trying "Preview" until your image appears to you. It will then appear to us when you click "Submit."

Steve

lol...ok. I'll copy the info, and try. But, I can't right-click on anything. (no mouse) That I know of...my only option is to 'tap and hold', (on the image) but "view image info" does not appear on the popup list of options. (I tried to do that with one of Skybirds images last night, did the preview over and over, but it's not giving me the info in the right format...erm, I think.) Maybe I need to try a different Android browser...I've been using Dolphin, but they all work a bit differently.

I fiddled with photobucket again, because it might have the 'a ref' link that Skybird mentioned. It won't let me upload new images on the non-mobile site. So installed the mobile photobucket app, which won't let me log in. ROFL...could they make it any more complicated, I wonder...

My regular pc. (eMachine) got infected with a rootkit, someone hacked into my Facebook account, and then used PayPal to empty my bank account. Uh huh. I kept trying to roll it back to the factory state, but the rootkit wouldn't die. As I understand it, I need to re-format the hard drive, then write over the whole thing with 1's and 0's, re-partition, re-format again...then use the recovery disks that I ordered from the manufacturer. I'm not sure how to do the 1's and 0's part... If I do it wrong, the rootkit will still be there or the pc will be unbootable forever. Rather than put more energy into trying to fix it, I disconnected my regular internet access, and use my phone instead. I'll fix it eventually, but need to wrap up my other home improvement projects first.

BTW, that picture is the eastern view of Pike forest from my backyard. :)

I need to go relocate my rasperries... Be back later.

I suspect the version of WebAlbums you have in your phone is a really bare-bones version and probably doesn't have half the stuff in the online version. Not really too surprised you can't find a "ready to use" HTML code.

I don't want to dis photobucket too much because I know there are people here that use it and like it, but over the years I've continued to occasionally check out the various hosting sites, and of everything I've found so far, Picasa/WebAlbums is the easiest to use (idiot proof -- for me at least!), and has the best options for editing--free. And I also have problems viewing pics others post sometimes when they're in photobucket with extremely slow loading speeds or problems going from one pic to the next when a whole album is posted. A few times I just x-ed out and gave up without looking at all the pics because it was so frustrating. So, based on my past experience with photobucket, I'm not really surprised you had a problem when you installed their app. Just my opinion, guys. Like I said, I know there are others who really like it.

About your computer! I have some 0's and 1's I can give you!!! This is years ago now, but the last time I turned on my first (HP) computer, it immediately started talking to me in 0's and 1's---line after line after line of them! As soon as my brain comprehended what I was looking at I turned it off--and never turned it back on again! Don't really know the "name" of the problem it had--but it sorta looked to me like it was doing a Core Dump!

Would your rewriting the hard drive with 0's and 1's be to irretrievably destroy the info that's on it--or is there some other reason to do that? If you want to just destroy all the info, there are programs you can find online to do that. Don't remember what I was looking up but one time I found out that that's what you can do if you're going to give your old computer to someone and want to be sure they can't retrieve any info about you--and I thought that might be useful sometime "in the future" so I remembered it! (Taking a hammer to the hard drive works too---but I don't think that would help you right now! ;-) )

I really enjoyed looking at the scenery in your pics,
Skybird

Okay...now Im really frustrated. Cleaning out a bin where Ive been piling up old wet straw and ashes, so I can redo these raised beds. (my seed potato came today...yay!)

While doing this, I found a plant growing under ther...(yep, alive and growing under almost 3 feet of STUFF) ...Im wondering if it might be horseradish, but heres yhe weird part... Half of this plant is BRIGHT PINK. Picasa wont let me upload any of the pics that I just took....lol.

If it is horseradish, I want to try to save it...but why pink? Could that be frim lack of sunlight? I might try to dig it up and taste the root to see, hopefully its not something else...lol

Les

Just a guess about your guess, Les -- I'd guess it is probably a fairly good one.

Horseradish has lots and lots of energy stored in those roots! And, you may be able to get an idea about the ID by just tasting a leaf. It'll have lots of that flavor, too.

Steve

I agree with Digit! Horseradish is virtually indestructible and it would probably try to grow under a concrete slab. If you figure out that it IS horseradish, be forewarned that that stuff is totally invasive and it will wind up taking over wherever it is. My brother and sister-in-law put one in and enjoyed it for the first couple years, and then they figured out it was a monster and spent some ten years trying to destroy it--unsuccessfully! They just sold that house, so it's somebody else's problem now!

Skybird

It doesn't taste like horseradish, but I didn't eat very much...even the roots are pink. Maybe it was suffocating...

The reason I suspected horseradish...I yanked a weed from that spot two years ago, with a huge root. Later, reading about companion plants for potatoes...I found info about horseradish, and have been kicking myself since...thinking that's what I pulled out. But never did get the whole root out, it was growing underneath the hardware fencing...but I didn't think the plant ever came back. But, I removed all the fencing around that bin today, and found this pink plant in the same spot. Posting pictures below, I think...

Another fire started yesterday, this one in my county; they got it 100% contained already, thank goodness. And, 30% chance of rain/snow in the forecast for Sun./Mon...crossing fingers.

Les

Here is a link that might be useful: Pink Mystery Plant...?

LesIsMore, I doubt you have to do a low level format but it's not all that difficult to do. I would format the drive and all drives that were ever connected to the computer and then reinstall your operating system. Really it's pretty easy stuff. If you need advice you can email me.

I got a "Sorry, that page was not found" when I clicked the link.

Might have trouble helping to ID it anyway, if it has been growing under stuff, out of the sunlight.

If the plant doesn't taste like horseradish but reminds you of it - with a big root - I wonder if it is burdock.

Steve

Steve - I made a new picasa album for the pink mystery plant...might try posting it on the 'name that plant' forum too. Let me know if the new link works? :)

I don't know what a 'low level format is'...I'm just going by what the malware removal guy told me. Regular formatting doesn't work...and the hidden/locked factory restore partition is infected too. Its a mess, and need to finish my bathroom first. (Right now, I'm sponge bathing in the kitchen... it started out as an adventure, but the novelty has worn off.) Especially now that I'm out getting really dirty in the garden every day...lol. The painter is coming to pressure wash the rest of my fence any day... So I need to have everything moved out of the way before he gets here. I started tearing out all my raised beds too, so the yard is a mess. Then I want to get it all stained, so I can put everything back together and PLANT. I'm feeling a little overwhelmed... my sleep pattern is all messed up.

I'd be working out there right now (wearing my headlamp in the dark) but I keep tripping over stuff, and one of these times I'm gonna land on one of those pieces of rebar that are sticking up everywhere. Tomorrow I'll be out there with my truck jack and a chain...trying to suck all those pieces of rebar out of the ground so I don't trip and accidentally impale myself. There's always something...

Tonight I'm inside sharpening all my garden tools, and thinking about hanging some cement board in my bathroom. Finished insulating my shower walls last night...lol. I'm a busy girl this week...

Going to the 'big city' next week to buy ground cover seed, grit for my potting mix, and the new drain that I need to put my bathtub back where it belongs. Also, my dryer broke this week... so need to find a new belt so I can fix that. It's WAY too dusty to hang clothes outside...lol.

Back to sharpening... But let me know if you recognize the pink mystery plant.

Les

Here is a link that might be useful: Pink Mystery Plant...take 2

Those pics work! (Do you know you can check to see if the links work from the preview? On the computer I just right click and open it in a new window so I don't take a chance of loosing my post---not sure how that would work on a phone!)

I don't know what you have there! since there are some green leaves visible, I'm pretty sure all the pink--it IS kinda pretty--is just because it's been growing in the dark. Since you have one in a pot, I recommend letting it grow for a couple weeks and then post another pic. Once it starts getting some "real" leaves it should be easier to at least TRY to figure out what it is. If you put some of the root on your tongue, was there any "heat" to it?

Digit or anybody else who's looking at the pics, with Picasa you can click on the little magnifying glass on top, give it a couple seconds to load, and then you can zoom it more to see it closer up. Even close up, tho, I can't tell what it is in the state it's in.

Your "sleep pattern is all messed up?????" Ya think!!! You're getting up at 0400 to check your compost's temperature! That would mess up anybody's sleep pattern! ;-)

Not sure but I think maybe you need a little bit of Ritalin!

:-)
Skybird

P.S. Please be careful not to impale yourself! No more nitetime temperature checking till you get rid of the rebar!

I just got back inside from testing shovel sharpness. Its a nice night, about 40 degrees. Was able to yank 8 pieces of rebar out of the ground, without the jack.

Ate more of the pink plant... I'm almost sure its not horseradish now - unless its a tasteless variety?Its very bland...whatever it is, tastes like...nothing. No flavor at all. Just a bazaar experience... finding a flouescent pink plant growing under all that straw...lol.

Its funny you mentioned Ritalin... I am supposed to be taking it 4 times a day, but missing doses this week from sleeping too much. I have Narcolepsy, so maintaining a regular sleep pattern is practically impossible for me. Its even harder these days, since Roofus isn't here to wake me up in the mornings anymore. I just do my best to stay busy while I'm awake...whenever that happens to be. Sometimes I'll sleep 5 hours, other days I'll sleep for 15 hours or more. Its a pain.

Speaking of sleep, I'm on my way there right now. Another busy agenda for tomorrow...

Les

Woke up at 'normal' human tome today, and remembered to take my ritalin.

Pikes Peak looks stunning this morning, took a picture for Skybird.

The pink mystery plant is very unhappy. Still obnoxious Pink, but it either has an allergy to sunshine, or doesn't like being in a pot... I tried to take a better closeup...posted it to the same album linked below.

Along with pictures of my MESSY yard, where I'm tearing out those beds! I almost regret posting them, but always kick myself for never having BEFORE pics to go with the AFTER'S. Speaking of...better get back to work, or it might be fall before I finish.

Les

Here is a link that might be useful: New pics added here

Great pictures of the Peak. Enjoyed them. Jay

I'm starting to feel pretty fond of that mountain...before moving here, always thought of mountains as solid, unchanging, static, ageless. But I swear, that mountain is constanstanly changing its appearance. It never looks the same from one day to the next. Some days...it looks different hour by hour. Or, over the course of a few minutes it might vanish in a fog... and hide right In plain sight. You'd never believe it was there unless you'd seen it before. Maybe all mountains are that way... but I'm from a flood plain... that a mountain could be so fluid and changing, it was an astonishing discovery for someone like me.

I took another picture later on, and posted that too...the snow was melting up there today. It feels like we skipped straight to summer, totally bypassing spring. Its no wonder the plants are confused, turning strange shades of pink...and so on, etc.

Lots of dust out there now, I can tell the winds are about to pick up soon. I'm in the habit of keeping a giant bottle of of mouthwash by the sink lately. Helps to loosen the dirt out of my throat after being outside all day, breathing in all that dust. And SWEEPING the floors... Argh! Might be simpler to just leave the dirt where it is, and start planting in the house until it rains. (or in my case, until it snows...lol.)

My raspberries are wide awake after today, lilacs too. So, tomorrow night when it dips back down below 25 degrees... whats going to happen to all this stuff? I set my tomatoes out on the porch this morning, and lost one to heatstroke before noon. They all think its summer. I'd need a round bale of straw just to mulch one of my lilacs. I'm starting to loose hope here.

Speaking of, I'm facing a new kind of a dilema with ants now, maybe. I need to go figure that out before morning...

Les

I enjoyed the pics of Pike's Peak too, just didn't have time earlier to come post! I like the last one best, with the blue mountains and the Colorado Blue sky in it! When I lived north of Parker I had a view from Pike's Peak almost the whole way up to Long's Peak, and on days when the air was crisp and clear Pike's Peak used to look like it was so close you could reach out and touch it! Amazing how relative "distance" is! I love the mountains! Always changing--and always feel like Home to me!

When I mentioned the Ritalin! You had just posted about going ten different directions at the same time, and it sounded VERY much like me--and I was thinkin' ADD, not narcolepsy, LOL!

Your Pink Plant, is very definitely "allergic" to sun right now since it's been "growing" in the dark for who knows how long. Stick it in the shade maybe with a little bit of morning light or VERY late day light and see what happens. If it doesn't have any taste at all, I'm starting to suspect you have some sort of a very ordinary, tap-rooted weed on your hands. That's a pretty big pot you stuck it in, so be sure the soil is drying out almost the whole way before you water it again if you want to let it grow enough to figure out what it is--if it stays too wet for too long it just might rot on you.

And your tomatoes, too, are probably allergic to sun right now. Glass doesn't let UV thru, so assuming they've been by a window inside, they're not used to "real" sun either and will need to be put out in the sun a little at a time for several days.

Here's a Mountain Pic for you from the northern end! Rocky Mountain National Park!

Love them thar hills,
Skybird

Skybird thanks for the picture. What a way to start a morning. Now if only you would include the mountain smell when you post them. LOL.
Les you said you set them out on the porch. Is it covered? If moving from the light shelves outside being that I work on the weekdays and can't gradually adjust a plant to sun shine I use several methods. Also remember wind is just as bad till they get acclimated to it. If I'm going to put them out for sometime I put them against the north side of the house with some morning sun and protected from the afternoon sun. Then I will move them to the east side of my house so they get morning sun. I have moved some out the last few weeks while I've been around on weekends and days off and even on the east side an hour around noon with the temps hitting close to 80 is enough. Then just gradually increase. The other method I use a lot is my cold frames. One has tinted windows and the other I just pull a shade cloth over. A person can use different things for shade cloth which also serves as a wind break. I've either hardened off on in the process of hardening off around 300 tomato plants already. I sunburned a few and windburned a few when the wind kicked up and I was gone for a few minutes. Neither hurts a plant long term. Remember when you set them out they are well watered. The water will go away fast. I had a tray I set out Friday morning that looked fine. Didn't intend to water it till later that afternoon. After 2 hours they were laying over. I took them inside and water them well and they were fine. The problem with them is they are 5-8 inches tall and needed potted up. So the small cells especially those with 2 plants in them don't hold enough water when their uptake increase rapidly. It was the last tray I was going to pot up and finished it yesterday. Now have some in 18 oz cups I need to pot up. Growing plants isn't hard but we all have had to learn the tricks and also I continue to make mistakes. I get busy doing something and don't get something else done on time. I enjoy it and also it is rewarding when all goes well. I'm experimenting with grafting this year. A total new learning experience. And at times I've been about to throw my arms up. But you never learn if you don't try. In your area containers might work well if you have a place to move them inside and back out when needed. They sell some with wheels. Mine are either nursery pots and the biggest are molasses feed tubs. Which are too big to move much. There is some new dwarf varieties available. I'm trying a few this year just so I will be able to recommend them if they do well. Best of luck with your gardening this year. Jay

Global Warming . . . Climate Change -- people get so excited over the terms! I know that it is "fueled" by some very aggressive rhetoric and I won't post my picture of some very serious air pollution just to try to make the point that dirty air, of any sort, is what we should really, really be trying to avoid.

Here is what is happening just a few hundred miles to your north: Record March Rainfall (That 10.80" for Pritchard, that was previously 5.7" for March, 2009 with records kept for the last 98 years.)

Linked below is a current picture of the falls of the Palouse. No, I didn't take it. Keep in mind that this is in a very arid part of the world. The annual precipitation for the nearest community (Washtucna) is only 10.4", weather.com tells us. Also, most of this record rainfall has been snow in higher elevations, snow down here has not amounted to anything over the last month so, only some of this water is snowmelt.

At this moment, it is snowing outside my window. There was a record slow warm-up for this part of the world, last year. Spring 2010 was nearly the same.

Weather patterns. That is a more comfortable term. What has been going on with record early heat in the middle of the continent is that storms are pulled in hard from the Pacific. They tend to hit the Rockies or Sierras and begin moving north, not east. East of the mountains, there is a very large balloon of air - high pressure.

Steve

Here is a link that might be useful: eastern washington

lol....Steve. Stealing all our precip, and blaming it on global warming. Please, just spare us a little rain? Before it starts snowing? (Monday and Tuesday now...expected highs below 40 degrees.)

Steve is starting to remind me of my all-time FAVORITE professor in college now, who once put a live goldfish in a girls hand, and made her stand there as he continued with his lecture on density independant factors... she almost cried, he felt bad. The goldfish survived. But it was an important lecture, and I'm sure none of his students will ever forget it. He was a great professor, and global warming is nothing to joke about. Thing is, we don't really know how it will play out. We can make guesses about what might happen...as the polar bears are already running out of ice, and stand by to witness bazaar outbreaks of epic floods, droughts, and storms. Global warming is like trying to watch a tree grow, only its more complicated than that; you can watch the leaves blow in the wind, but you can't stand there and watch a tree get larger, except over time. In terms of climate change, some people have a much clearer picture of what to look for than others do... Because it's thier profession, or whatever, there are also those who just don't care...and lots of variation in between. It's hard to say if anything can be done to reverse the kind of damage that has contributed to global warming, or not. Some believe there is a threshhold, that we may have crossed already...

My tomatoes are hardened off already, they sleep outside, and live under the lilacs. I'll bring them in if it gets cold at night. They raise their leaves up when they get thirsty. The tomatoes that are having trouble are the ones still in peat pots, with seed starting mix. I should have repotted them weeks ago, but I'm out of mix...and need to make more.

The pink plant is unhappy. 'name that plant' forum thinks its chard or rhubarb, and that its pink because I've 'effectively blanched' it. (huh?) Whatever that means. I'm putting it back in the ground today...let it live under a pile of straw if it wants to.

As for me, I think I've got a huge colony of carpenter ants living in the raised beds that I'm trying to move. What should I do...fry them in the vompost, or start cheering them on? I'm undecided...

Here is a link that might be useful: Ants...(gross, and I hear they bite)