This weekend I improved my garden mechanization with piece I named Hechtor.
Four stroke, gasoline, single cylinder, 5.5 hp, 3+1 speed transmission, 12" wheels (not original), 40" blades wheel
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Just a thought here to the members of DOW. Has anyone contacted Mother Earth News to see if they would be interested in running a follow up story on people who now DOW years later and the now new interest all over the world since they did their original article back in the 70ās.
They might be ready for a follow up story 50 years later, of what they helped get started in the world of gasification.
Bob
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Iāve wanted to ride up to their North Carolina place for some time now. Wonder if they kept any of the old gasifiers.
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You really need to be making syrup, donāt they have maples or birch or something you can tap. You are a shoe in for running the evaporator. 
bury it in about 6"? plastic sheet, cardboard depending, mulch, wood chips, etc.
Nematodes will infect and kill grubs before they turn into leaf eaters. I posted in Kristijanās Slovenia thread about them in some notes. how to capture, multiple/raise,etc. You can order solutions with the critters, but it is expensive. or you can order a solution then try to clone them so you cover all your property. It does not get rid of the problem entirely, because they will miss some, and some will fly in from elsewhere. but it should reduce the issue.
Then you can use other tactics and they will be more effective.
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I intentionaly left natural predations out, its how l do it too. But its not for every one. The thing is, if you want to go this way, you need to go all the way. You need to leave every āpestā alone. Its sometimes hard to wach an invasion of catterpillars divouring your brassicas but surely, in a couple of days, wasps and hornets and birds will clear them to a managable level.
But this is what l sayd with going all the way. This means hou also cant kill wasps then. No insect for that matterā¦ And people will watch and think unpleasant things of you.
Did l mention l have a hornet hive in the attic of our house that l left live? I think thats about as crazy as you can get 
Ofcorse, most people cant afford this. Doesent matter if you practice this āintervention celibateā if your neighbour next door spray kills every ant and fly. Its why l searched for a land in the biddle of nowhere with no possibility of neighbour chiming in. Well, actualy thats not completely true. My closest neighbour being a cemetery 
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I was just mentioning one specific one that was fairly easy. You saw him working his butt off drying wood.
Certainly you could go all the way, but that really requires a lot more work because you need to have flowers blooming all the time, in order to keep the higher level predators around. You have to plan and plant that. 
If little microbe critters can knock down 80% of the problem, Iām good with a few bug holes, but they get bad and knock out entire plants.
I think a number of issues can be at least partially resolved by creating healthier soil.
I am no longer good with stinging wasps around the house though. i let some go last year, and finally one stung me in like September, and I went to the emergency room because I couldnāt breathe well for a bit. Iām not doing that again. They can go nest 50 yards away.
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I watched a program about a Danish grower yesterday, he had a specific net against the insects that eat cauliflower and carrots, I think I should try it.
We usually have fabric over the potatoes, otherwise the common crane eats it up in the spring, but it is a bit tender.
Wife, loves flowers, she probably has more flowers than vegetables.
I have moved the potato field this year, what should I grow on this, vegetables or feed for the sheep?
By the way, when I went out and checked the sheep this morning at 4:30, we had our first lambs, I checked them at 1:00 last night and saw nothing then, so they were brand new.
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[quote=āKristijanL, post:65, topic:6453ā]
My closest neighbour being a cemetery
Neighbors are pretty quite then and with no complaints about your wood gasification.
Bob
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people are just dying to be there.
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Carrot flies overwinter in the soil and turn into grubs which probably can be killed by nematodes as well as the potato beetles. But otherwise, this bacteria is widely used globally and you can spray it on.
It isnāt super expensive.
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Sounds like ideal neighbors to me. They only visit if you foolishly call them in. And even then, eat nothing.
S.U.
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I save the plastic two liter bottles we get apple juice in and place them over some of my plants when they first start to make leaves and they stay on until the plant reaches the top of the bottle. Cucumber beetles can destroy any cucurbit in a couple of days and they are real hard to get rid of. Luckily Iāve never had much problem with squash vine borers, but squash bugs have driven me crazy for years. Then come the japanese beetles. Neem oil, Spinosad, BT are my friends. I didnāt know about the wood vinegar and never saw it mentioned in organic gardening literature. Iāll have to explore that. Still two months and 9 days until our last frost date.
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The bottom one on this list, attacks the japanese beetles, and cucumber beetles.
There double
death ones are half the price, and I -think- they cover what you listed.
Double-Death Nematodes, 1 Million Count?
These are expensive, and might be what I end up trying to clone to get 4-5 acres worth. I am not paying 400 bucks when wax worms are 15c each.
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Might be trading the Buick to a friend. He has a late 90s Chevrolet Cavalier sedan. He says it has the 2.2L pushrod OHV engine. He will be sending me more pictures and the VIN to see what all the options it has.
Says it needs a new fuel pump and either new gaskets for the fuel injectors or new injectors all together. Thatās no big deal for me, Iām sure the J Body cars have the tank and pump in the same location as a W Body like my Buick.
Not entirely sold on the idea of the trade, Iād like to get him to have it at least running before the trade. He loves the W Body cars and actually races late model Centuryās in dirt track. One thing that puts me at ease is the car was primarily owned by one person and has changed hands to just two others to have as spare cars. If he didnāt live hours and hours away I would go to his property and fix up the Cavalier to see how it runs first.
I will add that I much prefer I4s over a V6, as cool as the 3100-3800 V6 engines are.
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If it is the same series I had, that thing was a beast. I drove it for 2 years and about half the time with a cracked head. Im not sure it didnāt have a cracked head and the guy put sealant in. It had a sprung frame too. But I only paid 500 bucks for it and using pl/pd insurance saved me a lot more then I paid for it.
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Heās finally off work so I got some photos of the car. I looked up the VIN and itās a 1996 with the 4T40e transmission. 180,000 miles but it ran when he bought it and just parked it because he had other cars to drive.
90s model clear coat for GM was a rough time.
Pretty clean interior considering itās a 26 years old car, nothing I canāt detail out. I can knock that dent out of the hood and plastic weld the bumper.
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I think I had the '92, it might be the same power plant though, but I donāt know for sure. If it is, it was a pretty solid engine and mine burned a bit of oil.
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Yeah it probably had the same engine. Little 100hp 2.2L, they also had a DOHC 2.3L engine to replace the V6 they had for the 2nd Gen Cavaliers.
Edit: they changed to Aluminum heads after the mid 90s, same cast iron block.
For Tom thatās the 122CI 4 banger originally, I think it was embiggened to 134CI by 1996.
I wish this was a 2nd Gen Cavalier, I like the body style more than this one but the 3rd Gens are awesome on gasoline and apparently can tolerate ethanol blends so that should be a good sign for coal gas.
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Sean. I have a buddy in NC that is a market gardener. Grows mostly in hoop houses now but he is a big advocate for the nematodes. I wasnāt aware of wax worms for anything.
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Nematodes will infect wax worms and multiply in them, then they crawl out looking for a new host. at least according to a michigan state extension article. Thus you can buy the smallest package, then clone them.
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