James Freyr

The plants and onions aren't really going to increase in size anymore since all the plant energy is going to producing seeds for the next generation. This is fantastic if you want to save seeds and even develop a landrace variety adapted to your local microclimate. I've pulled and eaten many an onion that have gone to flower, they're still good!

Hey Stefan, welcome to Premies.

It looks like others have identified what kind of plant it is, and I learned something new because I didn't have any idea what it was. But, I can see in the picture, the plant is showing symptoms of fertilizer burn. The curling leaves and the burnt/brown leaf tips are sure signs of excess soluble nitrogen. Flushing the soil with water will greatly help the plant.

After looking at some pictures of grasses online, I think #4 is a variety of meadow grass, a common name for grasses in the poa family, and there are some 500 varieties according to wikipedia. I think grass #7 is some variety of bromegrass, but I could be wrong.

Hurray ground bees! I just noticed I have ground dwelling bees living under my front porch. I looked up ground bees on the internets and cornell university says while the females have a stinger and can sting, they are gentle and non aggressive. I think I can get along with them and I'm delighted to provide a home for some pollinators under my porch. I won't be going under there for anything anyway.

Hey Artie, if it were my tree, I'd stand it back up right away and tie it off in 3 equal directions. Let's assume a root or two broke, trees can respond with prompt new root growth, and that really needs to happen with the tree in it's final upright position so as these new roots spread out over the next growing season or two they provide good anchoring. Even if no roots were damaged due to the tree leaning like this, it's evidence that the tree cannot support itself and needs to be tied down so as roots grow, they will be the new anchors.

The extension agent came over this morning and I really enjoyed his visit walking the farm with him. He helped me identify some of the things I have growing around here, including some of the grasses in my post above. #3 is orchard grass, #5 is a type of sedge which he thought is probably globe sedge, #6 is ryegrass, #8 is he believes a type of signal grass, and #9 he confirmed is johnson grass. I'm still trying to figure out what #1,2,4 & 7 are.

I totally believe it works. I dowsed my own well, and in my case, it worked for me but I don't have a good answer for how it works. I took two equal lengths of 12 gauge copper wire, bare with no jacket or insulation on them, and bent them into L's. Off I went. Seeing those dowsing rods move in my hands gave me goose bumps. I marked a big orange x on the ground where my dowsing rods crossed, and approached the spot from several directions, and the rods kept crossing over that spot. It was kinda spooky to take a step forward over the spot, the rods cross, then take a step backwards, and the rods uncrossed, over and over and over. When the well drillers showed up, I pointed to the location, and the guy said "Why there? was it dowsed?" I said yes. I didn't tell him I did it. Admittedly I was nervous, because well drillers charge by the foot, so I'm thinking about the hundreds of dollars which turned into thousands of dollars as they kept screwing 20ft lengths of drill pipe together and keep drilling. At about 190-200ft they hit water, and an ocean of it. I have a thread about my well drilling here: https://permies.com/t/76472/Sand-ground-water-casing

The symptom you describe of having a hot pulse then weak pulses and again at some point later a hot pulse is the exact description of what I had going on with my fence a few years ago. The pulse energy on my fence tester went in a repeating cycle; a good hot 10kv pulse, then a couple weak ones, then nothing, then a good hot 10kv again, and repeat. I even had a buddy, who farms, has electric fences, and happens to be an electrical engineer come over. We tested the battery, energizer, ground, all good. It turned out, on my fence, the bottom poly wire had slipped off the fiberglass post and was barely touching the metal spike in the soil. I shimmied it off the metal post spike and back onto the fiberglass post, and problem solved.

If I read everything correctly, it sounds like your grounding, 8' high main hot wire and energizer are all working properly, and problems only occur when lower strands are connected. I suspect either something is unknowingly being grounded somewhere, or, one of the switches or disconnects is functioning poorly and not allowing the hot pulse to get through to the other side of the switch. The other thing that comes to my mind is 6 joules is not enough. It may be plenty for the main hot wire, and is why when it's tested it shows a good zap, but adding more and more conductor weakens the pulse.

Hey Mel, welcome to Permies.

I think your approach with the compost & manure and cover crops is great, and I want to mention that dolomite is very unlikely to help your soil situation and here's why. Dolomite has magnesium in it, and magnesium makes soil particles, the colloids, stick together. Regular lime, or even calcitic lime, will yield much better results helping loosen up the soil. It's the calcium in lime that loosens soil colloids and keeps them from sticking together. Gypsum is another great resource to use to get calcium into a soil, and it will not have a pH adjusting affect like lime will. With your soil's pH at 5.5, it's perfect for plants that need acidic conditions, like blueberries. It's not ideal for other plants, such as most garden veggies like beans, tomatoes, melons, etc., that grow better in and prefer a less acidic soil with a pH of somewhere like 6.5. Hope this helps!

After some googling on the internets, I think J Davis is right, and my memory is unreliable, and I believe picture #9 is indeed johnson grass.