Babcock Family Forum

Been growing some greens this winter. The garden has been doing well. I set up a nursery to start seedlings so I can keep a constant supply of lettuce and spinach.

Mike, if you don't want to sweat the copper you can probably join then needed pieces using shark-bite fitting. Basically they are push-on fittings and they are sooo easy. More expensive than copper but if you don't have the sweating tools it may be a better way to go.
The garden looks good. Are you getting any diamondback moth on your cabbages?

Cool, I was hoping I would get some advice on this.

if you don't want to sweat the copper you can probably join then needed pieces using shark-bite fitting. Basically they are push-on fittings and they are sooo easy.

I looked into these and I think I will go that route. I might return the torch and stuff for the sweating. Although I kinda want to see if I can do it without any leaking.

Are you getting any diamondback moth on your cabbages?

Something is eating the leaves nearest to the ground but not doing too much damage. I'm not sure what though. They also have a lot of aphids - I'll post some picks when I get them off my phone.

Nice garden Mike!
If you do go for sweating together some copper, just make sure you get flux completely around the joint, and remember that the solder will always move towards the hottest place, and use the torch to that end. If you get good at this I will invite you to the McCloud this spring, because that plumbing system is such a hairball and very hard to drain well over the winter. Invariably got plumbing tasks once we try to re-water the pipes.

The culprits for lower leaf damage are slugs, snails and earwigs. They all like beer, so you can pour some into plastic containers (like cottage cheese ones) and cut big holes in the lids. Bury them level with the soil surface. Weak dish soap solution will help with the aphids, or ladybug beetles (but you have to cage them in with cheescloth or else they'll bugger off).

More Mathilda videos please!

Chris - i would like to voluteer to re-plumb the ranch house. etc. I have a few houses under my belt now and i think a few days of work will be all that you need. I am now a convert to Pex plastic pipe. freeze resistant, easy to install, no fire, and I have all the tools now.

got sun on the house this weekend. first time since november 16 ish. super exciting!!.

love the pictures.

The other great thing about Pex and shark bites fittings is that the unions swivel, the risk of mistaking hot copper from cold copper is minima and the meth-heads won't steal it. Plus it is so flexible it will snake around stuff that might have been an issue with copper. Plus you can join pex to existing copper so you can replace what you want when you're ready. So as it freezes and breaks you can replace it.

I put pex in the basement of the moon place and I haven't run any heat this winter when not there. I have a high-low recording thermometer in the basement and it has registered 25F but no freeze damage to any of the system (water heater, pressure tank and lines). I put antifreeze in the traps and drain the water back to the pressure tank and hot water heater but they have stayed full.

Sweeeeeet!