Dirt Diva's Gardens (USA)

Love it!

If you drop a 1/2 inch dowel down the tube you could also push the seed in a little so its covered up. The dowel could be held in the tube by cutting a slit right through the pipe and passing a nail though the dowel - in a pre-drilled hole so the dowel doesn't split - such that it can slide up and down a couple of inches.

My first elderberry crop. Picked about 2 gallon with maybe another 2 gallon on the bushes.  Elderberry is a native that was once plentiful in the ditches and wet areas. These days they spray all the ditches etc with weed killers and they are harder to find.  Solution I just planted my own patch with 4 bushes that are now about 8 foot. 

Elderberry is one of the most commonly used medicinal plants in the world.

Traditionally, Native Americans used it to treat infections, while the ancient Egyptians used it to improve their complexions and heal burns. It’s still gathered and used in folk medicine across many parts of Europe.
Today, elderberry is most often taken as a supplement to treat cold and flu symptoms.
Black elderberry extracts and flower infusions have been shown to reduce the severity and length of influenza
Commercial preparations of elderberry for the treatment of colds come in various forms, including liquids, capsules, lozenges and gummies.
One study of 60 people with influenza found that those who took 15 ml of elderberry syrup four times per dayshowed symptom improvement in two to four days, while the control group took seven to eight days to improve
Another study of 64 people found that taking 175-mg elderberry extract lozenges for two days resulted in significant improvement in flu symptoms, including fever, headache, muscle aches and nasal congestion, after just 24 hours (10).
Furthermore, a study of 312 air travelers taking capsules containing 300 mg of elderberry extract three times per day found that those who got sick experienced a shorter duration of illness and less severe symptoms (11Trusted Source).
Further large-scale studies are required to confirm these results and determine if elderberry may also play a role in preventing influenza
The flowers, fruits and leaves of the elderberry plant are excellent sources of antioxidants. For example, anthocyanins found in the berries have 3.5 times the antioxidant power of vitamin E

www.healthline.com/nutrition/elderberry#health-benefits


My intentions are to dehydrate the berries and use in a hot tea mixed with local unprocessed honey throughout flu season. 
On a side note dehydrated elderberries can sell for as much as $40.00 a pound
The berries can also be used for jams, jellies, pies and wine. 

Picked 8 cantaloupe today! Lost 1 to some sort of critter probably an opossum or raccoon. They pretty well ate the whole thing. Picked more tomatoes. Seems as if every flat surface in my home right now has some sort of vegetable waiting to be dealt with. Squash, cucumbers and zucchini are out of control. Okra still being picked every 2 days. Figs are coming along and hope they ripen before the first frost. It's a crap shoot every year. Got shell beans canned so I am caught up on that for the time being.

That looks amazing.

I tried looking up where to get some here. It's US$8 for a tin at Walmart over there but $125 a tin on eBay Australia!!

I wonder if there's an equivalent you can get at nurseries or something? Otherwise its just sticky-paper moth traps

Try this:

www.fertilisersonline.com.au/fruit-tree-glue

I prefer to use yellow oil traps when the need arises - easy, clean, effective. I used yellow sticky traps (commercial grade) for a while but they lost effectiveness fairly quick due to dust.

Could you elaborate on the yellow oil traps, Not familiar with an equivalent U.S. product. 

It's the end of the season here. First frost over the weekend. The last of the summer crops harvested and the plants pulled.

This week the chickens and ducks are giving the gardens a good going over and enjoying every minute of it. Those ducks look like hogs rooting around for those grubs and bugs.

We will plant cereal rye cover crops on some of the garden area and allow it to grow until dormant. It will again grow about march and then the chickens and ducks can graze it until spring.

Some of the gardens will receive what is in the compost bins over the top of the soil and then covered with cheap tarps to rot until early spring. The fall leaves are being ground up with the mower and bagged then added to the compost piles that have been refilled with chicken house and duck house bedding and leaves to start a new compost heap. Sometimes my husband also hauls in some stable manure also. We burn the tomato vines and potato vines and also squash vines to discourage squash bugs. 

There are a couple cool weather crops still in the raised beds such as beets, turnips and mustard greens. 




The last of the watermelons. This is an old heirloom variety that turns yellow when ripe. 




Lots and lots of seeds saved for our own use and possibly trade.

Happy Gardening DD

Sorry.  I thought I'd replied to this ages ago.

Basically this is just putting 10mm of cheap vegetable oil in bright yellow, open topped containers and placing them in and around plants.  I use old plastic butter tubs with the outsides painted black.  Insects are attracted to colour of the inside and the oil traps them the moment they land.
They can also be dug into the ground with 5mm of the upper edge left sticking up above the ground ... in this configuration its good for catching beetles that chew the stems of young seedlings.