# Bad growing season



## Huskybill (Aug 11, 2021)

I need to manure the chit out of the garden, what little sun were getting just isn’t growing.


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## holeycow (Aug 11, 2021)

drought and hoppers

I am full of sh!t, but no rain and the hoppers are eating everything. Wildlife is hungry, cows are wandering all over looking for little green spots. Thank God I have lots of bush where moisture is somewhat retained in places.
we'll have a frost soon which will slow the hoppers down. I hope.

almost no hay. 10 bales in fields where I normally get over a hundred (I have lots of 20-50 acre fields). Gotta sell some of the herd. Prices down because of widespread drought on the continent and no pasture available and very little hay being put up. Meat prices at the grocery store should plummet for the consumer, but they won't. The thieves will take advantage of the farmers, as always.

the hoppers breached the greenhouse a while back, so we've been killing them constantly in there. I'm sick of squishing them. Every time I think I have found the hole more get in somehow. They always slowly but surely win.

It's not our first go-around with these hurtful conditions, so we can at least deal with it mentally

gravity, bugs. Unstoppable forces.

did I mention I am full of sh!t? Haha. I have cowshit, chickenshit, and even batshit if I scrounge it up.





a couple of squash rescued from the hoppers...

Bill, composting everything is the way to good dirt. It reduces your manure requirements considerably


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## holeycow (Aug 11, 2021)

Woodchips, grass clippings, sulphur, lime, diatomaceous earth, vegetable scraps, and on and on...


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## holeycow (Aug 11, 2021)

potato decimation in progress. We are doing ok-ish compared to some who have lost their gardens completely over a month ago. A ridiculous amount of overwatering keeps the hoppers slightly at bay. The watering program is messed. We leave the weeds cause that gives the hoppers something else to eat. It is a fricken mess, but oh well. Everything will eventually be eaten to the ground. Then the buggers will start eating each other and the paint off of the buildings.

and tasting us too. They bite. Hard!


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## cookies (Aug 11, 2021)

Two years ago the grasshoppers got so bad they ate the weather stripping out of the both exterior doors so I started putting systemic insecticide on certain areas and using liquid seven on vegetable plants. It really knocked them down and killed back the Japanese beetle grubs.


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## holeycow (Aug 11, 2021)

I could easily use chemicals. But I don't. I haven't for at least 25 years, except for Raid a couple of times to kill wasp nests about 10 years ago.

yup, hoppers are nasty. I ran across an article yesterday on a gardening website where the author listed about 20 plants that grasshoppers don't eat..
I guess she doesn't know much about them, cause they eat everything, like EVERYTHING! They start with their preferred stuff and carry on until there is nothing left of anything at all.
haven't lost any weatherstripping yet. But I'm not surprised in the least.


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## Huskybill (Aug 12, 2021)

Only planted tomatoes and a few others. Good drainage, rain every other day. Manure super charges the sunny days.


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## Del_ (Aug 12, 2021)

I've been lucky and have never had such a bad hopper infestation.


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## holeycow (Aug 12, 2021)

I'm not sure what's worse; hoppers or tent caterpillars. We've had both. Nuckin futs.

The hog panels in the pic are supposed to be covered in peas and beans. After a great start, the bugs set the plants so far back that they had no chance. We were going to have NICE gardens this year. Oh well, not our first rodeo.


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## holeycow (Aug 12, 2021)

Hoppers don't like the woods. Tent caterpillars don't care, they eat the woods too, as well as the grass. They completely defoliate the deciduous trees and all of the bushes in the forest.


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## Huskybill (Aug 13, 2021)

No hoppers here no tics here nothing but snakes in the woodpile seeking to get away from the rain, high ground, the bear stopped by he already ate everything.


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## sonny580 (Aug 14, 2021)

We are starting to get hoppers and other stuff we never had before too. I think the get thick and migrate to greener areas.
As for manure and compost, I dont have time to wait for it to rot down so I just dump it on a foot deep after I subsoil 3 feet deep and plow it under 18 inches deep. Neighbor has one big plow and it turns the stuff under great.


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## Huskybill (Dec 17, 2021)

Need to change plans. I want to go full bore when planting, a corn plot, potatoes, string beans, green squash, winter squash, tomatoes. Looking for a successful food plot.


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