Show your hobby/hobbies

Well as far as i can see you have a talent , I can barely draw a stickman and not guarantee its gonna be flawless

 

now thats a really long time, my interest in music tho i love playing bass guitar regularly thats how i fed my soul

 

I actually just started learning guitar yesterday, my roommate is teaching me. I'm excited.

 

Umm .. I get a little embarrassed about my hobbies tbh .. I'm basically the Granny of MyM .. I crochet which means I use a hook to make a lot of knots that eventually make pretty things. My favorite thing to do is crochet characters and animals which is called amigurumi.

 

I like to garden. I've been trying to learn grafting and propagating by cuttings. I got a rose bush to root recently, and a grape branch that finally sprouted a couple leaves. So that's exciting for me. I am trying to get a couple banana trees to where they'll produce fruit. I'd love to
grow my own bananas (not cavandish, but a smaller 'natural' variety).

While I try to grow edibles like tomatoes, onions, squash, artichokes, beets, ginger, and trying to get some tumeric going, I also grow some various flowers. Carnations, poppies, roses, daisys, jasmine, milkweed, most my succulents flower, and this year I've planted some daylilies (tigridia, which I guess technically have edible roots).

I'm also trying to grow some root stock, orange and avocado's mostly, so that if I can get some small trees established I can practice grafting other plants to them. I have some blood oranges I'd like to graft, and who wouldn't want to get a bunch of avocado trees?

I try to compost a lot of stuff, which in itself is something of a hobby, and it supports the gardening. I also have several different worm beds I'm experimenting with so I'm getting a bit into vermicomposting I guess.

I also have fish, Tilapia, in three tanks. I started with one tank, but they actually reproduce pretty quickly so I have to keep dividing them. They're in part why I want to raise the worms. Tilapia like to eat worms.

I also like Raspberry Pi's (small ARM processor project boards), mainly because they don't take much power. I'm trying to use them to learn to do micro services, and I also appreciate that they can use a lot of different sensors. It's allowed me to dabble in node red, graphana, mosquito, and mysql.

 

I don't think it's a large property, but for years I had a dead lawn. I started during the covid thing and I had a lot of time at home, I bought some cornerstones and enough wood for a 10x5 raised bed which I put right where my lawn would be. Then I gradually started to reclaim the rest of the area that would have been my lawn with tomatoes. I just sort of tacked on various patches leaving a pathway around so I can water/tend the plants.

They don't all take. And I occasionally have trouble with gophers and some bugs (mealy bugs, aphids, pincer bugs). I'm trying to stay natural though, and that too is something I've been working on. Using neem oil/suds and diatomaceous earth to combat the pests without resorting to chemicals.

I have a number of cactus too, though that's mostly because I want to juice the apples. They're supposed to be really good for anti-inflammatory characteristics.

I don't focus on the things that don't work, I try to instead appreciate the things that do. I have a lot of pretty butterflies that are attracted to the milkweed. I find it fascinating that out of nowhere these butterflies can find that plant. They have neat caterpillars, and the butterflies are really pretty.

I have been trying to encourage hummingbirds, and actually have one nesting in the back in the morning glories (a fairly invasive plant, but pretty). But I even like seeing the bees, and I also find a lot of other birds that visit the garden now. Sparrows, songbirds, some jays.

As I mentioned I have some oranges and hope to get avocados eventually. Encouraging the local bees helps ensure I have pollinators around to support the trees.

I was originally inspired by youtube videos, the first being Growing Your Greens, which turned me on to Jake Mace, and both of them regularly feature people who've replaced their lawn with edible plants. I liked the idea a lot. I'm still trying to get my moringa tree going. I've gotten maybe 10 to 6" or so, but they never seem to survive transplanting.

I hope to get one eventually. I'm in zone 10-11 (right on the line), so it's really hot and arid, but I believe those trees are indigenous to Africa so you think they'd be able to make it in Southern California. Finally the ginger and turmeric I started watching Rob Bob Aquatics (also why I originally got the tilapia).

I didn't do the aquaponics, but I do flush my aquarium filters out into a concrete mixing tub, and then I transfer the water out into the garden...so it's a variation on a theme. I also saw some great videos on using pi's to automate aquaponics, so I may still try it out at some point.

Here's a Tigrida flower...if the link works.

 

My wife likes crochet, but she makes most of her animals with beads, little tiny seed beads. She's got pretty bad arthritis but still manages to get through them, which amazes me that she's still able to push through that kind of challenge and produce so many neat things.

She's just finishing up a moon rover, and she'll do little boxes too, some quote ornate.

She seems to enjoy it a lot though, and I guess as hobbies go that's important. As long as you enjoy what you do then it's successful.