A Parlour for a Plague

Less plague than we thought!


And we can exercise immediately!


https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-11-20/sa-coronavirus-hard-lockdown-to-end-early/12903834

Well YeeHaw

coffee grounds in your compost is great for clay soils to improve their tilth. Course it takes a lotta coffee grounds for a whole garden. You better get started now.

Just drop them on top? Or put in compost?


Have muchily clay.

Coffee grounds wont help your problem. Id add bags of wood chips to your soil and let it decay naturally, that will help the soil from being brik hard. By Making compost on the other hand, It sorta develops in layers as you add other stuff. Try to keep it aerated so it doesnt go anaerobic and then it takes a year and you have to keep turning it.

A buddy of mine has a deal with the local coffee joint where they save all the grounds for him in five gallon buckets which he provides. He does the same thing with local crab pickers. Needless to say, he produces some beautiful compost. I recently bought a paper shredder for the sole purpose of adding shredded newsprint and brown paper bags to my pile. It's getting so that I enjoy composting more than gardening!

Gypsum is another additive which works to break up clay soil.

problem with gypsum is that, unless the soil is kpt aerobic, yull have H2S gas smells being created from the anaerobic decomp of the hydratd Ca SO4. The SO4 turn to H2S and the whole damn area smells like a MAine Papermill. Weve tried to get the commercial mushroom composters to go to some other "slickenside" product but gyp board is cheap and easily added to the mix.
The German aerobic method keeps the smell down but theres still a bunch of stank cause the mushroom guys dont follow the recipes.

I know its only a home compost thing but over a year, if not cared and kept aerobic , the compost will really stink like sulfitic cabbage.

I love Maine, but if only theyd change their damn pulping methods it wouldnt stink as much. You can smell it all the way out on Monhegan

CRAB SHELLS< Now that sounds very interesting. **** Id have to drive 75 miles to Tilgman Island to the crab picking houses.


HEY, you got any advice for planting blueberries in non acid soil??

Cottonseed meal for fertilizer (it lowers pH) and a good thick mulch of wood chips — they lower pH as they rot and also help keep the soil cool.

I use a product called Liquid Gypsum that's very efficient — and odorless. Egad, I remember the stench in Rumford, Maine when all the mills were running and the stink of rotten cabbage made your eyes water. The locals didn't mind it — they called it the "smell of money". Hey, next time you're in Monhegan take a side trip over to Stonington.

Any kinda wood chips?? No special conifers or whatever?


You grow a few blueberries?? Naah, I guess you guys dont purposely grow em when theyre all over the barrens and God lays out all those little strings into square patches.

Ya know, I dont know whether a highbush is even considered a real blue berry. The Maine wild ones have a much more spicey taste

As to the kind of wood chips, I think any will do. It might be interesting, though, to find out where wild varieties flourish and try to select chips from species that grow around there. More likely to support the proper soil fungi that way.

Actually there were a few highbush blueberries here when I bought this place in 1980. I've kept one alive and it's an incredible bearer. They're great in salads or to eat out of hand but when it comes to pies, I like the wild ones.

I will be over even later this coming summer (IF ... yah know?) ed been by twice this past year but we were always keeping ourslves separate , you understand.

I love Stonington and Blue Hill, Owls Head, SW Harbor . I used to go over to Newry and Minot to hunt tourmalines and Garnets on the way up to Eastport. Wed come down either on the Airline or geton 3 where wed often putz around that whole area. We have some pottery friends live in Owls Head and a Colleague in Hancock, and were usually towing a bigass RV.

Since I got a Bil o helath with my cancer, weve been staring doing boat trips again> I want to come up to our lot in Eastport and stay a couple months just to paint and rockhound. MAYBE 2021.

OH YEH. There was a restaurant(I hope it still is) in MAchias that had somma the best blueberry pies. (Think it was called Helens or Helens Kitchen ).

The best. used to get it with GRAPE NUTZ ICE CREAM. Better than booze almost as good as sex

Yep....use lots of gypsum.

My 2 yoga mats arrived!

Pray for me.

I have to call customer service at AT&T

You ask us to do perpetual praying, 24/24, 7/7?

But if it helps ...

We understand


Any progress reports?