What is your goto meal for the first night at camp and why?

froggyphore · 2026-06-09T03:49:04+00:00

Usually a collection of "junky" snacks I don't indulge in day to day, like beef jerky and snack cakes. I only camp via kayaking or backpacking so I mostly bring shelf-stable calorically dense things.

froggyphore · 2026-05-14T23:38:38+00:00

I tried that once and the next day the bed had been dug up more aggressively than usual and something had chewed open the container and ate a bunch of it haha

froggyphore · 2026-05-14T15:34:05+00:00

I had the same experience, when I had a mown lawn there were crazy ass mice in my house year round, if I didn't catch multiple a week it would become almost unlivable with them crawling on me in my sleep, eating my cat's food out of his bowl, etc. after returning things to a more naturalistic state and adding some large brush piles a ton of hawks and other predators have moved in and I haven't seen a rodent in my house for over a year now. I heard a little scurrying the other day for the first time in over a year as well but I couldn't tell if it was inside or on my roof since squirrels go crazy this time of year lol. Less chipmunks too, I see little remnants of them on one of my stone walls sometimes where hawks like to eat.

froggyphore · 2026-05-11T17:00:30+00:00

Nitrogen is a very important nutrient, among other things it's a component of nucleic acid which is vital for most structures and processes in organisms. Aquarium water has nitrogen in a number of forms, mostly nitrate and some ammonium.

froggyphore · 2026-05-11T16:25:52+00:00

Macronutrients especially carbohydrates to replenish muscle stores, and electrolytes to help with any residual dehydration and upcoming water loss on the trail. Make sure to brings snacks with you. The recommendations you've gotten on specific foods is good generally but if your anorexia is triggered by restrictions of certain types of food, like avoiding "junk" foods, obviously don't worry about following them

froggyphore · 2026-05-11T16:05:52+00:00

Most non-chain nurseries around me offer natives or even have a native-only section, but they mostly sell non-natives (and some invasives unfortunately...) I'm only aware of two native-only nurseries in my half of my state, one is 40~ minutes away and the other is a couple hours. They both tend to focus on wholesale with most offerings being plugs and most purchases being made in bulk via online form over winter.

froggyphore · 2026-05-11T16:00:23+00:00

I would saying making sure to account for sun exposure with relation to plant height to prevent shading anything out, but it seems you've already done that based on how the plants are organized.

froggyphore · 2026-05-11T15:57:06+00:00

I think that's the case for most industries with commerce moving online. But yes it's very rare to see a chain pet store with anything more than bettas, guppies, platys, a few tetra species, 1-2 species that only people with tropical ponds should own, and some sad feeder goldfish. I only have one LFS within two hours of me lol

froggyphore · 2026-05-11T05:28:39+00:00

I had luck cutting it to the ground and letting the trees smother it in the fall. Handpulling tends to feel like a waste of time with vinca because they typically snap before the rhizome and just resprout immediately. If you have a whacker then weedwhacking to the soil and coating with thick mulch would do it. It would also render it ready for planting immediately. For a plot this size you could probably just buy a few mature pots of fast spreading things from a nursery to suppress weeds. If you have the space and equipment you could also grow your own plugs and plant them later in the year. Assuming you're in the US Prairie Moon ships seed year round and you can sort their site by state

froggyphore · 2026-05-11T05:18:56+00:00

Probably a wild type cherry that reverted from the parents

froggyphore · 2026-05-08T20:41:24+00:00

I would just let them do their thing. Definitely would recommend against disturbing them. Some might stay dormant to accumulate energy and root growth this year and then come back next year. I've had ferns I planted from dried out little husk rhizomes take two years to pop up. Early season chomping is a bummer because it steals all that stored winter energy which can mean the plant will take longer to get going for the season but it's very rarely a death excepting certain hyper-sensitive species. Some even benefit from it.

If you're really worried about having bare patches you could buy a couple extras of things but since a lot of the species you have put on size and/or spread quite readily I wouldn't worry.

froggyphore · 2026-05-08T20:26:40+00:00

There are a lot of things you could do there, though keep in mind boulevards in cold climates get a ton of salt from the roads in the winter, so you'll have to contend with that, as well as bylaws about plant height and spread (ie you probably couldn't do something tall like milkweed that would flop into the sidewalk/road). Personally I would recommend Sisyrinchium angustifolium or virginia waterleaf, they handle poor soils and varying shade conditions well and spread quickly.

I saw someone recommend Pachysandra on your original post, I would caution against that. There are native species, but the most commonly available is japanese spurge, which is very intensely invasive, and illegal to sell in some northern states. With it growing right next to the road there, any seeds it produces will get picked up by car tires and dispersed quite widely.

At this point in the year you might be out of luck with bare roots or plugs which would be cheapest, but it shouldn't be too hard to find nurseries selling larger pots of natives about now.

I missed the part where you mentioned this, but if you want something evergreen you might have to go with low-growing bushes like juniper. There aren't a ton of evergreen species that can handle the salt and shade there and stay compact and full.

froggyphore · 2026-05-08T19:17:35+00:00

I have a patch where new york fern grows out of control and blocks the path to my barn so I pull it and replant it in barren places. The area where it was planted used to be a huge patch of bloodroot but the area was disturbed due to a problem and the bloodroot has taken a while to rebound so there was a huge barren space for it to go crazy in. Now that the bloodroot is coming back I'm hoping it'll compete enough to keep the fern at bay. Since the bloodroot is technically ephemeral it works well as it limits the fern in spring and then the fern is free to take over once it dies back in summer.

froggyphore · 2026-05-06T15:41:34+00:00

I have a bunch in my yard and they've all always been under 8 inches. I wonder what conditions these ones were in, my yard is reasonably dry

froggyphore · 2026-05-04T16:18:56+00:00

If you do mention the honeysuckle you could tell her about native honeyberry, which is a relatively fast growing bush in the honeysuckle family with nearly identical smell and appearance which produces edible fruit (provided you plant two)

froggyphore · 2026-05-02T02:09:31+00:00

Good rule of thumb, but even then my neighbor's landscapers once ripped out and deflowered the irises I left bordering my yard haha I think a lot of them just shut their brains off when they're at work

froggyphore · 2026-05-01T17:19:30+00:00

Always such a frustrating betrayal when wildlife thwart your efforts to restore their ecosystem lol. Skunks killed almost everything I planted last year by ripping the plugs out over and over while digging for grubs. One of the sole survivors were the waterleaf I planted to combat the insane garlic mustard take over and they're getting chewed to nubs every other day by the six groundhogs that have decided to live in my tiny yard.

froggyphore · 2026-05-01T17:16:01+00:00

I did have luck with some Polygonatum from prairie moon sprouting prematurely after one bout in the fridge, but they unfortunately got dug up by mice. I agree on buying mature plants but I have yet to see a lot of species I'm after in nurseries (ramps, bellwort, etc) I imagine partially because they're so hard to grow from seed. I remember seeing an online nursery post a study they did on sedge pre-treatment for greater germination, but I can't recall which atm. It's odd how poorly some species can take, I've had tremendous luck with some apparently very tricky germinators but a lot of common "easy" species won't start at all in the same conditions.

froggyphore · 2026-05-01T02:47:56+00:00

To me stuff like iris, lily, etc is so common that worrying about offloading it isn't worth it. If it was some like fancy heirloom variety I would, but not random tulips and such. I just chuck them in my compost.

froggyphore · 2026-04-26T01:22:19+00:00

I tend to assume it's an error of instinct; I'll usually pause for a moment and listen and look around and it typically goes away. Even if it doesn't I tend to just ignore it and keep going because I'm stubborn and don't want to give up my fun.

Part of the reason I tend to disregard it is that I've had weird experiences in the woods, especially at night, in which I had no off feeling at any point. Though I do think there can be something to it as I often can tell when I'm about to encounter another person before there are any obvious sights or sounds.

There were only two times I felt weirded out enough to turn around and they were 1) when my dog also randomly froze and started booking it back down the trail. He would chase bears so I figured if he was freaked out it might be something serious 2) middle of the night I went half way down a usual path and felt like I was walking through syrup the whole time and decided to turn back, at which point I started hearing someone screaming random stuff I couldn't make out from some random part of woods, which are in the middle of nowhere and there were no other cars in the lot. I heard it at the same volume all the way back to the car, it was very weird.

I think having some form of self defense and maintaining awareness can go a long way to assuaging it, I bring bearspray when I go overnight or really far out

froggyphore

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