Saturday, March 26, 2011

I want a flame thrower

and, no, not for the zombie apocalypse.
I want a flame thrower for the garden!  I had to work at my paying job today but I've been itching to get out into the garden for a while.  It wasn't ideal conditions after I got home.  It's cloudy and mid 30's but it's been reasonably dry, the ground has thawed and I had a little time- so I headed out for an hour.  I did a woefully poor job at cleaning out the garden last fall and it will take quite a bit to get it ready for planting my early stuff mid April (that's SOON!!).  It would be so much easier to just burn off the old pumpkin and tomato vines (and all the grass- oops).  But, I don't have a flame thrower- although my dad has one.....  it will most likely be the old fashioned pull it and pile it for me.
The seedlings are looking quite good.  So far everything is up but a couple of varieties of peppers.  I'm still missing sprouts from my Volcano (hot wax), red bell, and poblano peppers.  Of course, I'm not even sure that the poblano seeds are viable.  I should have done a germination test on them. oh well.
While I was outside I peeked at my 'small fruits' (blueberries, raspberries, currants and strawberries) and everything is looking good.  The strawberries are peeking up and, unfortunately, I noticed that the deer had munched a few leaves.- grrr.  The columbines we planted last year are up and looking lovely as well as are a few other flowers in the goth garden.  The anise hyssop is already up and the chives and walking onions are looking lovely.  The tulips and daffodils are up in the yard but no flowers yet.  Oh, I can't wait for spring to REALLY get here.

7 comments:

  1. My poblanos are doing the same thing, fairly old seeds but I think they are always the last to sprout. It's always a toss up whether to get fresh seed or wait a bit....

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  2. I want one of those, too! Let me know when your "giveaway" book arrives...I want to make sure it actually gets to you :)


    Robbyn/thebackforty

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  3. I have one, well hubby does, and I love it. We went out a week or two ago and burned around the strawberr bed. On my list today is burn around garden beds, after I hand cut the grass that is now gone to seed and seeding my beds. Grass seed has blown into my newly filled beds, so cutting it by mower or weed eater will spread the seed, so will burning it as it. So I have to get out there with the scissors and trim the grass. Tell you what, let me borrow your weed eater, and you can borrow my flame thrower!!!

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  4. Spring is coming I think. We woke up this morning to the ground covered with snow.

    I never really thought about the flame thrower for weeds but I'd like to have one. I don't like taking the string trimmer to it and I don't like pulling; so burning sounds great to me.

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  5. My dad has a flame thrower- well, not really, it's a torch/wand that attaches to a propane tank. He has used it for years to burn off weeds. He generally uses it on fence lines (or especially under the electric fence around the garden) and on the asparagus bed early in the spring before it's up.
    I think we may try burning some brush today- we've got a brush pile where the chicken coop is to go. So, I think I'm going to burn brush in the garden and just add the garden debris as we go. My parents till in some of their ashes from the wood furnace into the garden so I'm not worried about the wood ash. Dad warned me only to not put the ashes where I'm planting potatoes but since we're not planting potatoes this year, I think I'm safe.
    J

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  6. Good luck on your weeding! It's interesting reading these comments and realizing people really do use flame throwers to kill weeds! Next year it might be easier. Last fall I read a blogger who had chickens and had some sort of movable pen. She would put it in the garden and the chickens not only ate bugs, they cleaned up the vegetation. Then she would move the pen to a new section. Chickens sound like wonderful additions to a farm.

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  7. LOL, we have a flame thrower, and hubby loves it, he uses it for everything except what it was designed for, of course :)

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