Ducks and Strawberry Patch Success

This year, our strawberry patch produced many, many quarts of strawberries. Most of the plants back there are mature, and each one produced a handful of strawberries through June. I originally planted 75 bare root plants a couple of years back. Several died that winter, but the survivors did well this winter and they were all very healthy by June.

The main problem we had last year was slugs and snails. They probably destroyed 75% or more of the strawberries. This year, the ducks wiped them all out with a daily visit to the garden. The only losses we had were due to voles and birds. Those losses were minimal even though we have a million voles and birds. I think we'll get one more year of productivity from the strawberries.

I treated the garden with vole repellent--that worked very well. I'm planning to redo the fence this fall, and hopefully that'll mostly rodent-proof the garden for a while.

I also seeded sudan grass in the strawberry patch. If it takes off, hopefully it will stifle some of the runners and help shade the berry plants through the hot months. I tried planting some last year, but it never really got started, and only patches grew. This year I planted it over several days and it looks more likely to grow.

Cover Crops in the Garden 2019

We redid our garden beds last fall. I replaced all the old/rotting treated lumber with logs and reformatted the beds a little bit to give us some more space overall. I also planted cover crops--winter wheat, red clover, and hairy vetch. It took several weeks to get it all done as winter rolled in, so the maturity of the crops this spring varied so some areas in the garden were well covered and others were almost bare when the snow all melted.

By mid-May the most mature winter wheat was ready to terminate, so I crimped it with a 2x4 and some angle iron. That seemed to work reasonably well.

The crimped/smashed wheat then provides a mulch for the warmer weather crop, corn in this case. As the corn matures, I'll plant the next round of cool weather seeds and keep the cycle going. It will be interesting to see how the residue from the wheat is consumed by the soil over the summer. The soil in the garden has been significantly loosened and seems, by visual inspection, to have more worms and organic matter than the prior seasons.

First Redwing Blackbird Sighting

I saw the first redwing blackbirds of the season yesterday. Spring is not so far off! Here's a nice website that allows people to post such sightings: Journey North.

Birds Checking Out Nest Boxes

Every year I've been building some nesting boxes and putting them around our property. We're just starting to exit the winter of 2018-19 and have had a few stretches of warm days. The local bird population seems to be shifting from their winter habits into spring habits. The bird feeders, for example, aren't getting emptied out every day. Also, I notice the birds are starting to check out the nesting boxes.

Unfortunately, I've been slow to build a batch of bird houses for this year. I want to build some bluebird boxes (which often get used by sparrows) and also some platforms for swallows. Last year some barn swallows were scouting our property for a house, but didn't settle in.

It's probably not too late to get some new houses out there, but I better get out in the shop this weekend and at least get started. Here's a nice reference for bird house specifications.

Ducks in Cold Weather

refilling the pond after February warm up

Our 4 ducks (3 call ducks and 1 khaki campbell) made it through the hardest part of the winter (so far) of 2018-2019. They have a nice coop that's insulated and is heated with a 1500 watt space heater that was able to maintain the indoor temperature in the 60s when it was -5F outside overnight with the doors closed. During the day with the door open, it was able to keep their water from freezing.

Prior to the winter, the ducks didn't spend a lot of time in their coop even in crappy weather like rain and sleet. During the coldest days, though, they finally figured out the coop is a refuge and enjoyed the straw bedding.

It seems like the ducks easily tolerate temperatures above 20F, and start to get annoyed at temperatures below 20F, and generally dislike single digit temperatures. They like to go outside, though, even in brutal cold, at least for a while. They dislike snow, though. Once it starts snowing, they'll generally go inside. On the coldest days they avoided the pond, but if the temperatures were 10F or above they'd go into the water.

We put straw down on top of the snow on the brutal cold days. Typically the ducks would stand or sit on straw on the coldest days.

Duck Pond Aeration Keeps it Open All Winter

The smallest opening in the ice so far after a very cold night

We've been aerating the duck pond water since day one. The aerator I use only consumes about 30 Watts so (EasyPro KLC25 Linear Diaphragm Pond Aerator Air Compressor 23 Watt). It's been running 24/7 for almost a year.

I was really curious what would happen in the cold temperatures. For the past week or so, we've had below freezing temperatures and some very cold overnight temperatures (single digit Fahrenheit).

The pond stays open immediately above the aerator bubblers. If the temperature is warmer, the hole is larger. We break up some of the ice that formed overnight on a daily basis. Since we only have 4 ducks, they're all able to get in the water and stay clean and play around.

The aerator I'm using is for a 5,000 gallon pond which is roughly the size of the duck pond. If I ever need to replace it, I'll probably get a larger one.

Geauga Glacial Landforms Resources

Geauga County Glacial Landforms Map

I've been reading up on the glacial geology of northeast Ohio lately. There are many resources available for free online. I thought I'd put a collected list here.

The map above is a combination of one from ODNR with a topo based terrain map underlay. It looks like the maps projections are slightly different. The topo map geauga outline is from the shapefile that the state and Geauga auditor's office seem to use. The ODNR one is close, but looks a little bit off.

The legend is:

• Green is ridge moraine
• Pink is kames and eskers
• Light Blue is lake deposits
• Yellow is Outwash

Big Creek starts in the Defiance Moraine, which was depisoted around 14,800 years ago. What's now Geauga County was covered and uncovered by sheets of ice for thousands of years prior to the current geological era.

A really interesting map which shows all the glacial landforms of Ohio is this one:

http://geosurvey.ohiodnr.gov/portals/geosurvey/PDFs/Misc_State_Maps&Pubs/Landforms_withCitation.pdf

A detailed list of ODNR provided maps is here:

http://geosurvey.ohiodnr.gov/publications-maps-data/free-downloads/maps