Farming While Female

     Have been having a problem with Isabellas rabbit kits escaping the big cages, which I had thought were secured with hardware cloth and chicken wire. Luckily for me, lawnmower 1 and 2 came back several times to their moms cage, no doubt because they realized they needed her milk.

     Stopped into a big box hardware store not near my house, and wandered around for a while trying to find hand shears, which I never did find, and also vinyl covered hardware cloth, which I absolutely need to fight the baby rabbit escaping problem. I had just previously bought a new dog crate to use as a rabbit tractor from rural king, where everything is easy to find. Except buckets.

     Wandered around. Checked the Fencing section. Checked the wood section. Checked out every section.  Then finally decided to ask employee, who happened to be male. 

     "I'm looking for hardware cloth, preferably 1 cm by 1 cm, it's like a mesh, preferably vinyl coated, where is that on this store?"

     Him, "Hmm. Not really sure, Trish do you know?" He asked as he stopped another employee. 

     So I described it again, and she said that the only cloth they carried was painter's drop cloth on the painting.

     When I realizes how north this conversation was going, finally I (probably) literally rolled my eyes and said, "It's for the chicken coop."      (I don't even have chickens.)

     He pointed directly at one of the walls and said, "The chicken coop wire is right there."

     When I made it over there, the hardware cloth was there, and I did find the vinyl coated stuff behind the other stuff. And it was called hardware cloth, I wasn't speaking a foreign language or using butter knife house repair tool language.

Pond plant question

 

Hi. I’m in Riverview. I have a small pond 4’x4’, with waterfall. Looking to get some plants for it. Can’t find anywhere. Lily, hyacinth, etc. Havecsny suggestions? Thanks, Matt iy, hyacinth, etc. , Matt

Welcome to the world of pond plantings! I have several large and small ponds here at my house in spring hill, the taro in the picture I originally purchased from a vendor at one of the USF botanical gardens spring or fall events. It was tucked in behind stuff and very overlooked. My whole garden theme is permaculture and edible, and of course it is hard to find and grow most of those plants well. We can feed Florida with water plants if people were just open minded.

I have this black Taro and the regular large elephant ears, and papyrus. I also have water hyacinth, which I eat, the rabbits eat, and the ducks I got this spring love to eat. I bought them originally online, possibly because you aren't allowed to sell it here due to it invading local waterways (it is a problem at some state parks south of here.) I sell it on Etsy here and can ship it to you.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1206813854/water-hyacinth-edible-floating-plant?ref=listings_manager_grid

And grow it in all of my ponds, none of which have waterfalls or circulation.

One of my other favorite pond plants is cannas, of which the native variety has yellow flowers. The leaves and corms are edible.

I have experimented with azolla and water cress, neither of which worked out for my big pond, possibly due to frog predation or heat stress. I use goldfish as my mosquito control in the two larger ponds and nothing or bt dunks in the smaller ones like in the picture.

But you asked where to get these things. Hmm.. there was a pond place I liked very much in Dunedin, it is small but has a lot of different (expensive) lilies, which I am not as interested in. You're in Riverview so you're not far from Tampa Pinellas and Sarasota, maybe you could find the local pond shops and let me know! As far as edible plants, there is a very nice nursery in Howie in the hills I quite enjoy called A Natural Farm. And I'm always scoping the sales at any botanical gardens I stop at, like nature coast botanical gardens by me and boo tower gardens near Orlando.

Huh. Riverview. You can grow avocado and sugarcane there. The cannas might not even freeze in the winter there. I'm jealous.

Muscadine Grapes

      One grapevine planted several years ago now yields more grapes than I can ever harvest. This year I was able to reach four quarts of grapes for eating. They are sweet and crunchy. You know they are ready to harvest when the grapes are soft and springy, if they feel hard then they need more time on the vine. They seem to last quite a while in the refrigerator. Yes Muscadine grapes have seeds in them unless you are able to get a variety without seeds. 

Pretentious Flower

      It must think it's hot stuff being the biggest only flower blooming in the entire neighborhood. Also pretty much every plant in this picture I would be willing to part with.