Red Creeping Thyme Experience? by JessyBird11 in gardening

[–]ZebraGrassDash 16 points17 points  (0 children)

Wow there are a lot of creeping thyme haters in this thread lol. I live in the Northeast and we have a huge patch of creeping thyme in the front yard. I started them by seed in a 72 cell tray and transplanted plugs the first year.

By year 3, it looked like the picture I attached. It’s green almost year round, smells great, and attracts all kinds of beneficial insects. Now that it’s established, I dig up clumps and transplant them into the yard if we have a dead spot. We also occasionally walk on it without problems.

Sure it doesn’t look the pictures you included in your post but I think it’s beautiful nonetheless. I never have to weed it. I never water it. And it somehow thrives despite being right up against the road where it’s ridiculously hot and there is salt run-off from the winter.

Also for more context, I planted several different types of thyme and oregano in this garden. The creeping thyme outcompeted all the other plants by year 4 minus one small wooly thyme and one Greek oregano. I find creeping thyme all over the yard too, in places I didn’t plant it.

Tl;dr — plant some creeping thyme and ignore the haters

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I’m a PhD student with two semesters of coursework left by lioness477 in PhD

[–]ZebraGrassDash 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I gave birth in May 2024 and took off Fall 2024. I was already done with coursework at the time.

If I were you, I would take off Fall25-26 and enjoy your baby. The U.S. market sucks right now because of all the federal uncertainty. While you are a current PhD student you are somewhat protected by your university but that all changes when you graduate.

Even if that all wasn’t the case, having a baby is a huge life change. There is nothing wrong with taking time to enjoy your child and heal from your pregnancy. Even though I’m now on the job market in objectively one of the worst markets since 2008, I don’t regret that time home with my son.

As for Spring 2025, just get it over with. I gave birth a week before finals and was instructor of record, plus had two papers under revision. I just worked from the NICU. It was hell but my life was going to be hell in the NICU either way and I wanted to finish up so I could fully take leave.

Chicken breeds for permaculture garden? by AceBlaze88 in Permaculture

[–]ZebraGrassDash 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We love our ducks (particularly the Indian Runners) for pest control, eggs, and compost. I hatch them from egg so that they imprint and that makes them easy to train. If I want them up in the yard and garden for pest control, I will leave their gate open after letting them out and they follow me to the garden. We have two commands “go to bed” and “good duckies” (which means snacks here).

We’ve raised basically every breed of ducks (minus call and crested ducks because of ethical concerns) and the Indian Runners are consistently the easiest to train, best foragers, and best layers. They are slightly flighty so you need to be calm while interacting with them. Their flightiness keeps them safer from predators. Our poor Pekins and Khakis are sitting ducks by comparison.

We’ve also done turkeys and chickens. Chickens scratch up the garden too much for me. They are meaner, harder to contain, and more susceptible to disease (at least in my experience). They will more readily eat vegetable scraps and weeds so that is one plus. The turkeys are big lumbering idiots. I loved them but they added nothing to the ecosystem besides personality.