Growing Hops and Racoons Be Gone

Hops traditionally grows tall on supported vines. Or you can grow them like I did, horizontally along wires. Then you dont have to climb up 12 foot ladders to pick the flowers.

Wires. Hmmm. I pounded in two iron snow fence poles at each side of the garden at the back and rigged a 100 foot clothsline back and down and forth three times, drew it tight again and tied it off. A perfect trellis kind of rig.

Back up 5 years. Originally this was so I could grow grapes. Four years later we have beautiful big, juicey, black grapes, climbing up and along the smooth strong clothsline. Tons of grapes, jackpot.

Just a night or two before they matured for picking and eating, the raccoons got them. Every single last grape. All gone. Then the little @#$%$^&* Sh** all over the deck and the roof. Big piles of black grape sh** everywhere, a huge racoon picnic. How demeaning is that?

Not funny, all done with grapes, lol.

Anyway we all know they use hops for beer so I got a plant and took some pics of the three year old vines. By the way, I'm drinking hops tea from the flowers saved from last year. Sedating, induces sleep.

You can see the green hops flowers in the pic, where a vine has come around the corner and claimed the downspout. The main hops vines are in the background.

But the flowers have no seeds and you cant transplant the whole vine.

So how do hops they reproduce? Hops is a Rhizome. Rhizome roots shoot out little sprouts that often mosey along undergound sprout out and spread. All you do to reproduce is snip one of these root shoots off and replant it. Or put 3 of them in 3 pots and give them away as in the other picture.

Rhizomes are an interesting species.

johann

Storm Dream

Storm Dream.

predicting the storm yesterday from a 3 day old dream when the weather network said no storm in sight was stupid. not even gonna rain it said

putting the truck in the garage to protect it from hail pock marks was stupid. why do that when it's not even gonna rain?

predicting the huge wind and rain and lightning was like.... holycrap, what going on?....the dream storm is suddenly a real storm!

predicting the huge hail content, just like in the storm dream, would be the first live hail wifey dear had ever seen in her life. so she says don't get weird ....and then the hail hit.

predicting a small tree snapping off next in the wind in the storm dream seemed wrong in the real storm because there was no tree like that across the street.

the real tree, the exact one in the storm dream that snapped off in the real storm, was up the street and around the corner.

johann

Scary Encroaching Flowering Vine

This vine belongs to the neighbours yard. It trys to snag me as I go by with the lawn mower, scary I tell ya. Ohhhhhhh

johann

Name This Flower

One more flower without a name.

johann

Multiuse Blue pot

Buzz wonders if this would make a good Basil growing pot next year.

johann

Monsanto Takes Over The World

Hey Monsanto, NYSE (MON) Who made you God anyway?

http://www.infowars.com/monsanto-trying-to-take-over-world-seed-supply-nation-by-nation/

http://www.naturalnews.com/030967_Monsanto_evil.html

You took the real God's grain and wildflower and other seedstock of the world, genetically altered it, applied for patents and made it your own.

Who authorized Monsanto to do that? Oh right, the courts, silly me. Did you ask God? Duh?. No. Big mistake.

So if we save seeds from crops under Monsanto's control, we are in patent violation.
OMG Patent violation.
It's printed on all the packages.
Who owns all the seed houses now. Monsanto.
Who initiates legal battles with the worlds farmers and forces them out of farming and off the land. Monsanto.

Monsanto, shame on you. You have no rights here at all. None.

Just so you know...your generic alteration authorizations and patents are deeply flawed and invalid. God's custody prevails, not yours. Screw the courts.

Read the link above and the links within that link.

I hate you. Me and Willy Nelson. We both hate you. Look what you did to him.

Everyone hates you.

Shame on you again.

Are you coming to plow my offensive illegal garden under now?

johann

Loser

Did you ever notice how some of the best loser-dogs come from animal rescue and become total winner-dogs?

In August 2009, long after all the best garden center transplanting flowers had been overly over-picked, I spotted this sad, wilted, bedraggled Zinnia loser-plant still for sale. For sale. HA! It was marked down to 10 cents. How degrading. No one wanted it even for 10 cents.

It was a hopeless, pathetic Zinnia loser-plant.

It was also an orphan. Like me. All alone in a black plastic tray that once held 6 dozen mini boxes of its brothers and sisters and cousins, by now growing proudly elsewhere in the town's best flower boxes.

Two nickles later and a quick trip home to the watering can, and it was MINE. I know what you are thinking. You are thinking, hmmmm 10 cents, was that the best use of a dime?

Valid question.
Stay tuned.
Hold on.
I transplanted it.
Tore some of the deranged and tangled roots apart.
Oh my.
That must have hurt. What next?

September 2009. Whoaaa. It's still alive.
October 2009. It's perking up, going a nice orange.
Nov 2009, arghhh it's done. " Quick take my seeds"
Two seeds. Not 30 seeds. Two seeds. Sheeez. Loser.

May 2010. I plant the two seeds.
One comes up.
Nice. Zinnia plant, looking good.
October, "it's been a blast, take my seeds".
November I strip off 30 seeds from the one flower. THIRTY. Jackpot.

May 2011. I planted 30 Zinnia seeds in different places and up comes.... 30 Zinnia plants! Look at the picture attached. You can see several of the Zinnia plants with 6 flowers and 7 buds on the way.

OMG keep looking. Now they are giving more than one flower per plant!

Oct 2011. By then they will offer 30 plants X 50 flowers X 30 seeds per flower = 45,000 Zinnia seeds

Oct 2012. 45,000 flowers X 30 seeds = 1,350,000 seeds

Oct 2013. 1,350,000 flowers X 30 seeds = 40,500,000 flowers

Oct 2014. 40,500,000 flowers x 30 = 1.2 billion seeds

Oct 2015. 1.2 billion flowers X 30 seeds = 36 billion flowers.

In May 2016. I will rent 500 acres of dormant farmland and plant 36 X 30 billion = 1.080 trillion Zinnia seeds. 1,080,000,000,000

I will post a sign on the land.
"Welcome, please pick all the Zinnias you want. Then go home and plant the seeds, OK?"

Mars is the red planet. Earth will be the orange planet.

How's that for a 10 cent loser?

johann