2024 New England/Upstate NY Outdoor Growing Discussion

I have a 2 stroke pump I have hooked up, I go to run it every 30 min to keep it all good. I’m 99% sure I’m buying a battery backup system for the main pump this weekend. And plumbing in a hard line for the 2 stroke pump to make that easier when needed

3 Likes

I can’t find my garden. It was there yesterday, now it’s covered in FUCKING SNOW!!! I hate winter, so so so much.

6 Likes

I don’t have a battery backup for the sump pump, but it seems like a good option to keep them going short term when power goes out.

2 Likes

Fingers crossed for my plants sitting in a dark cold outbuilding… 23 hours and counting.

I really should get backup power, usually they fix it fast but on occasion it has been a couple of days

5 Likes

Even an old kerosene heater would keep the girls warm, and I know you can keep the light cycle with something pretty minimal like a flashlight, I think I’ve seen Shevchenko going through this one a bunch the few years, being in Ukraine. I’ve been building up a little collection of old white gas or kero camp stoves and heaters both for fun everyday use and also as cheap insurance for this kind of thing.

4 Likes

It should hopefully be back on tonight… I’ll
Have to wing it on putting the timers back to something similar to where they were before.

But thanks for the suggestion, I don’t know why I didn’t think of the gas lantern method.

Fuck it I’m going to go do it right now.

2 Likes

If not already mentioned, check out hurricane lamps as well.

image

5 Likes

I miss sitting in the garage as a kid in the winter with the double mantle Coleman lantern roaring like a jet engine on top of a 25# LPG grill tank- that’s New England baby!!

6 Likes

Yes I love hurricane lamps too but haven’t dipped my toes into that pool yet- my partner has quite a few of the old household style from Grandma in the attic, she lived by herself on the side of a mountain in the Catskills with two big Rottweilers and sounds like she didn’t make much fuss about losing power all the time back then. She passed down a lot of nice stuff and we got about a half dozen of these still boxed:

This is the spirit!

4 Likes

There is certainly nostalgia associated.

They put off a ton of heat with some designs being pretty safe if they get knocked over. Downside is that kerosene fumes can be bothersome and probably not too healthy to breath. I don’t believe white fuel can be used with those.

2 Likes

Nope! I’m pretty sure we’d die instantly if I put white fuel in them. We use cheap clear paraffin lamp oil for casual use in the yard and with the windows open. But I have a jug of this stuff to fuel them with if we ever have to use them in the winter in the house for heat and light during an extended power outage, I use a lot of Klean-Strip products and think they’re a pretty trustworthy old company:

$16/gallon at ACE Hardware, I had my local True Value order me some and they were like this stuff looks great we should carry it

2 Likes

I’m adding that to my bird list for my spring trip down to the shore, I’m planning to go post up for a day or two on the coast between New Haven and New London somewhere and bring binoculars and bird guides for a change

Also noted, thanks friend!

2 Likes

New testers available from Copa Genetics for the season if anyone wants to try some mystery fire, I’m sure he’d be okay with guerrilla patches if nobody wants to commit their home spots to an unknown:

3 Likes

There’s a community of them in the Short Beach section of Branford, so you wouldn’t need to go far from New Haven. Not that you couldn’t find them elsewhere but if you park on the street the Post Office is on and walk to the end you can walk along the track used by the trolley museum… there’re Osprey nesting boxes on posts in the water alongside the tracks, and you may get to see some rad old trolleys.

Hammonasset’s good for birds too, I’m sure.

1 Like

Turns out the power came back on almost exactly 24 hours after it went off, so I didn’t need to reset timers or anything.

1 Like

Branford Trolley Museum is one of those places that I’ve yet to get to when it’s open, but I have seen them running on their loop. I ride the Branford Trolley Trail every time back and forth from the MA train in New Haven, unless it’s truly horrible out or I’m beat and then the Shore Line East saves my ass every time. I’m slowly working out a “reasonably” direct route over to Clinton/Chester/Colchester where I know a bunch of folks and places. I usually take CT 337 down the shoreline from East Haven and then the Shoreline Greenway Trail all the way to CT 142 across the Farm River, and then Shore Drive/Short Beach Road into Branford, across Indian Neck, and then up to the quarry/rail crossing off Ark Road where the Shoreline Greenway boardwalks begin and eventually lead to the BTT and some other conservation land that gets me most of the way. Up in Colchester I can pick up a spur of the Airline Trail which gets me basically to Providence/South Shore, but I usually turn up the Farmington River and follow a series of crushed limestone rail trails that get me about 2/3 of the way up to the MA border near East Longmeadow. That one’s nice, three or four separate trails but they all connect and your basically riding gravel through the woods for 40 miles

3 Likes

Mine too. About a whole day. My new Honda generator, used only once ever just a couple months back, wouldn’t Start. Solar lights had no charge. Couldn’t find the remote to turn them on if they did…flashlights dead, batteries old. What a cluster fuck. I thought I was prepared lol. Had to heat my room with hot coals in my ash bucket, and went and bought $250 in batteries, headlamps, lanterns and a flashlight for next time. I’m growing tropical plants, and already found a fresh hermie from the screwed up light cycle. Lights were out from the middle of one cycle til the middle of the next. Couldn’t have been worse.
Well that’s not true. It can always be worse. I suppose I ought to be thankful it wasn’t.

8 Likes

Bummer about your Honda generator not starting up. I always put the premium (no ethanol) gas in my portable generator, and sometimes add the marine grade Sta-Bil to the fuel. Also try to run it, with a load, about once every couple months if it is just sitting without use, just to keep it in good shape.

5 Likes

I signed up. Tested or not, copa is like outdoor bodhi. I’ll find room

7 Likes

Thanks for the great tips. I just read last night that’s what I should have used and I didn’t. I also didn’t dump the gas out Of the carburetor like I should have, nor did i add sta-bil. Apparently the little fuel ports that make this generator so good on gas get clogged easily too. (eu 2200i).
I’ll remedy this situation for next time. Seems like it was just a couple months ago I used it for the first time. I was pretty surprised it didn’t start. Pretty cranky about it too lol.

3 Likes