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SPierce
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Re: Almost Spring '16...what are you doing (or have done) To

I started hardening off some of my Brussels Sprouts, Broccoli plants today and even the peppers a little, although they're no where near ready to be planted out yet! 65 degree weather- kinda crazy for April!

ButterflyLady29
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Today I partially filled a couple 10 gallon tree pots with soil. I was in the middle of the project when the electric went out so the pots aren't ready for planting. (no electric, no water, no way to wash my hands) So I took a break and we all went out for lunch. Raining now so the rest will have to wait.

But I can sort my seeds and find some broccoli and radish and when the wind stops gusting dangerously I can plant my radishes.

Nyan
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Planted one cabbage plant my kid was given at school. Actually three plants, rootbound together so I couldn't separate them, so I stuck it in one of the huglekulture beds just to see what happens.
Then I planted a Prime Ark 45 blackberry (my first one!) and transplanted about 32 more Navaho berries in the other garden plot. Dug about a dozen more to give to the neighbors too.
Then I finished the first layer and a half of a concrete block raised bed (4 X 16 ft.) with ramial wood layered on the bottom, then peat, compost and soil mixture about 12 inches deep. And finally, I picked up about 25 bags of pine needles to use for mulch in the berry patch...

Yeah, I'm sore... LOL

JayPoc
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ok....last few days update...

Up-potted tomato babies into individual solo cups. Planted out about 90 onion plants. Transplanted 4 lettuces into the ground. Weeded where my peas are planted and my over-wintered kale and collards are growing.

imafan26
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I transplanted dill, caribbean red habanero, mucho nacho jalapeno, and kale yesterday until I ran out of room. I took 4 trays down to the garden so I can pot up more of the seedlings. I divided the multiplier onions and potted them up to gallons and I am cleaning as much of the old stuff off the bench to make more room. I put one of my mother plant trays on another pot, but I will have to repot them to make sure they have not got any slugs or snails in them before I put them back on the bench. I took all the sprouted seedlings out of the covered tray so I can plant more. My lettuce is too big, I will have to transplant them to the garden or pick them as fingerlings. I did not time it right for the sale they were too small and now they are two big to last another couple of weeks.

We inspected the beehives today. One is not doing well, the brood is spotty and there aren't that many bees. It will need to be treated even though we did not see any hive beetles or mites. Another hive was running out of space and there was capped honey so it can be harvested soon. We took the super off the weak hive and put it on the strong hive since they needed the extra space more than the weak hive. The other two hives looked o.k. but now we have no queen excluders in any of the hives so we will try to build up the bees. We did spot one of the queens and some drones and geckos in the hives. One hive can be split but there aren't any queens available till June, so we will have to wait on it. Hopefully the hive won't swarm again, the swarming prevented us from splitting the hive earlier. At least we have good queens now and the bees are docile. The relatively cold weather helps that too, the bees don't move that much when it is colder.

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Allyn
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I put some tomato plants in big SiPs today. It should have been done already because they have blossoms on them. I went to TSC and got some tomato cages for my pepper plants while I was there to get feed and other accoutrements for my chicken coop. I noticed my first baby green beans on a couple of the vines today. I also harvested a couple of lettuce heads and planted some new lettuce sprouts to perpetuate my lettuce supply. Oh! And my black petunias are starting to bloom, so I stood and admired them for a while.

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jal_ut
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Planted a bag of onion sets, then some radish and lettuce seed.

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applestar
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Weeded some beds to get ready to plant. Planted some started broccoli plants and pre-sprouted pea and pre-germinated spinach seeds.

DH went fishing with BIL and brought home a present for me from his brother -- several containers of red worms from the bait shop. :-() ...so I set up a new can-o-worms tray for the vermicomposter :wink:

Mr green
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I'm about to go out and cut some firewood, will be needed for the next winter. Hard work...

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lakngulf
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I have some tomatoes blooming but not sure night temps are warm enough for them to set. Up potted lots more tomatoes. Planted some squash and corn that I had started in the green house. It is spring and after last frost, right?????
Cleaned out my Mother's garden where I grew tons of tomatoes last year. Will concentrate on Cherokee Purple, Betty Boy and Amos Coli there this year.

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SPierce
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Putting the Brussels Sprouts seedlings out to harden off... it's a little cold, but I keep trying to convince myself that they can take it! in 2 weeks I'll hopefully be starting my tomatoes and the rest of the plants to plant out when it gets actually warm!

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applestar
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Harvested these veg greens and edible weeds today to make a Japanese spring risotto/kayu. I added some shiitake from the mushroom garden as well, maybe including another one I harvested today. :()
image.jpeg
Purple Passion asparagus, Egyptian walking onions, Garlic Chives, Red Russian Kale, Parsley, Mitsuba/Japanese Parsley, Chervil, lemon balm, blood veined sorrel, common sorrel, dandelion, violet, henbit and dead nettle, chickweed, upland/bitter cress, garlic mustard...

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digitS'
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:shock: Image :shock:

And here I thought it was a ..

. Big Deal to chop up some chives for the Sunday brunch omelets as our first harvest from the '16 garden!

Yay, AppleStar!

Steve

jasonvanorder
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Onions are in and the garlic I planted a couple weeks ago is coming up. And now looking at the forecast they are calling for lows in the 20's next weekend. Hope everything makes it.

TatiEva
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I planted some Garlic cloves and started seedlings for strawberries, basil, parsley, and sage.
:)

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Gary350
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I am still looking at 6" of mud. 2 days of frost and colder tomorrow. All my potatoes rotted in the wet soil. Thunderstorms expected Thursday. So far no earth quakes, no title wave, no volcano, no land slides but tornadoes are expected soon. We have frozen mud this morning.

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Last edited by Gary350 on Tue Mar 29, 2016 7:30 am, edited 2 times in total.

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applestar
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When did you plant your potatoes? (Too lazy to go back in the thread to see if you mentioned it :> )

I noticed all the Callery pears and forsythias in the neighborhood are blooming as are the early plums. To me these are the phenological signs that signal the beginning of potato planting time, and when my backyard crabapple is in full bloom a couple of weeks later, that's the last chance to plant them.

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Meatburner
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TatiEva, where are you located that you are planting garlic this time of year?

Taiji
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Today I bought something I have never bought before, a couple of bags of mushroom compost. I have seen you folks talking about it all these months/years, but thought, that must be something very exotic, I will never of course, be able to find or afford to buy it. Imagine my surprise when I saw it today at one of the big box stores, and fairly cheap, only 2.29 per bag.

So, now that I have it, what is so special about mushroom compost? And, how do I use it? After setting plants out, scratch it into the surface of the soil around the plants? Use it to cover seeds for easier sprouting? Mix with something else as a potting soil? Or all of these? :?:

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Allyn
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Taiji wrote:....Mix with something else as a potting soil? ...
This is what I do with it. :)

PinkPetalPolygon
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I have in my possession 5 tomato seedlings. ^_^ (Among many other things, but these 5 are special no matter what they are! They are my first tomatoes from seed!)

I didn't use the best starting medium (I will next time!), and I know I started them a little early and kept them in their cups a little too long maybe. I somehow have to say they are doing alright. I have a really interesting relationship with these 5 seedlings.

my main goal with these seedlings was that they weren't leggy. I can say that they are not leggy! (Seedlings become leggy when they don't get enough light.)

I don't remember which ones are which except 1, well, to be honest:

one I know is either an indigo rose tomato seedling (or an indigo rose tomato crossed with a black cherry)::: a few months, before I tilled and amended my main plot, I noticed a seedling in my garden: right where my indigo rose tomato had been the year before.

(Indigo Rose tomatoes are AWESOME. They are actually dark purple like absolute purple and red when ripe. they tasted wonderful to me besides how they looked but I might be bias because I love tomatoes and never met a garden grown tomato I didn't like? :P)

the other 4 are either black cherry seedlings (possibly crossed with the indigo)

I was kind of funny, and I tried to emulate nature if I could? I let a few tomatoes fall into the yard praying they'd do whatever they did by themselves and they actually did ^__^ !!

I did something I KNOW shouldn't have and I let the tomatoes sit dead in my plot for a long time. I really was hoping they would turn into unicorn zombies and come to back to life instead of being dead. Of course they didn't. Anyway, in February I pulled the dead tomatoes, and there was actually a huge black cherry tomato on the newest/last created sucker vine just sitting there.

I planted like 10 seeds out of that last black cherry tomato, and *9/10* seeds germinated ASAP.

but I also planted some "Rutgers" tomatoes at the time I planted the black cherry seeds indoors

many of them fizzled out due to using the wrong starting medium and not strong enough light or maybe too much light killed some of them in some cases! (^__^;; hah, lessons learned! I had fun!)

at the time, I didn't want to even contemplate whether my ultra beloved second generation seedlings had just died or if it were just the random rutger seeds that had fizzled out ???

so I am just shooting for purple oversized or indigo possibly cherry black Tomatoes and will still be more than happy if they come out red ^_^

(I don't mean to be down on rutgers, especially since I have never had them, I just was particularly attached to the black cherry plants ^_^)

Anyway, today I put my seedlings them all in their forever homes, 7 gallon containers <3

they are all growing perfectly and dark green, I have a lot of hope for them, but if they don't make it I'll try to understand!

Ooooh I just remembered I have a picture of the indigo rose tomatoes from last year, 2015 ^___^ I'll post it! Then you'll know why I wish all 5 of my seedlings are indigos, I meant to save seeds but I just didn't. (I wil post current pics of stuff soon/in the near future)

My MIL said she wanted one this year last year, I will remind her with my pictues and buy another one from the store. (I bought mine as a plant last year.)
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Those are nice looking tomatoes, PinkPetalPolygon! :) I'm going to see about acquiring some seeds, I think I may still have some time!

Nice member name, too!

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Gary350
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applestar wrote:When did you plant your potatoes? (Too lazy to go back in the thread to see if you mentioned it :> )

I noticed all the Callery pears and forsythias in the neighborhood are blooming as are the early plums. To me these are the phenological signs that signal the beginning of potato planting time, and when my backyard crabapple is in full bloom a couple of weeks later, that's the last chance to plant them.
I made a special raised bed just to keep the potatoes out of the mud and swamp. I bought compose garden soil at the Amish garden center to fill the raised beds. Potatoes were sliced and let dry 2 days then planted about 3 weeks ago when we had 84 degree weather for several weeks. Now we are having freezing weather again down to 30 degrees just about every night. Potatoes are not coming up so I dug some up they are just a blob of black rotted mush. The other raised bed has onions they are growing but they look hungry. I gave the them all 1 pint of 15-15-15.

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jal_ut
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Its been snowing for three days.......... so I sit here at the computer and play. About six inches of snow covering my garden this morning. I guess it is water for the onions?

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applestar
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...and nitrogen when it melts, right?

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Allyn
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I moved a few more tomato plants into SiPs and picked the first pole beans of the season today :) and ate them while standing right there in the garden. Yum :)

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rainbowgardener
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Filled and planted another raised bed! Transplants of tomatoes and broccoli with some parsley and marigold.

PinkPetalPolygon
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I replanted/transplanted my 2 cilantro plants today. ^_^

I read a thread here on HG where someone asked if they could grow cilantro in a similar sized pot as the ones I had my cilantro growing in and the answer was "nope" (lol!) at which point I did seem to recall never looking up whether or not cilantro liked being potted or not. (I learned on HG it has a long taproot and preferred the ground. Then I picked up the cilantro pots to see if the roots were growing out of the bottom of and they were a little! :o)

so thanks HG! I love my cilantro, and have gotten pretty attached to it. I want it to do the most it can do, I did notice it wasn't thrilled where it was over the last few months but I had no idea its roots were too adventurous for the mid/small sized pots I had them in.) I got two last fall and overwintered them (obviously >_>)

I take their flowers as soon as they give 'em, cilantro flowers are delicious in rice. Well, everything. Cilantro flowers are delicious with a side of cilantro flowers. ;)

I was pretty careful so they should be fine. They couldn't stay in that pot with the roots coming out in any event.
P.S. mulch coming soon ^_^;
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imafan26
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Not much, I was out all day and my plants were wilting by the time I got to water them. I did pick some green beans and stopped to smell the orchids that are blooming. I went out early this morning to get some fertilizer and more snail bait.

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SPierce
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I realized yesterday that I was trying to force out my Broccoli and Brussels Sprouts seedlings too quickly (to harden off and get planted outside) and I was killing them off (RIP 3 plants :( ) So I've pulled back and will leave them inside another week or two to recover, THEN work on planting them out. Slowly. They're probably going to bolt because of the hot weather, but there's only so much I can do. At least I tried and will feel less like a plant murderer!

Found a bunch of decently priced and sized containers (6.99, and they look terracotta even though they;re plastic) so I picked up 15 from the local nursery. Once I get another paycheck I'll go back for soil.

2 weeks and I'm going to start my tomatoes and stuff. Peppers are doing well and starting to grow their first set of "true" leaves which makes me excited.

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digitS'
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Hardening off is a difficult task. I'm lucky that I'm around where I can mess with it on almost an hourly basis.

Of course, there are spring hailstorms and clouds and winds. But, just the frost in the morning and 65°f afternoon highs can be difficult to deal with. If your plants have never been in temperatures below 65°, or something - you don't want to toss them out into 40°. If it's 25° colder than they have ever experienced, that is gonna be difficult for them!

Then, there is direct sun. I'm here to tell you that light through glass or from an electric fixture is a lot different from unfiltered sunlight.

I have a few "sweet spots" in my backyard. When plants are first introduced to the outdoors, they go in these locations. First, they aren't even in the sun. They may be out for only a couple of hours. I try to give them a nice, long hardening off time of several weeks. They don't spend a night out unless it's right at the end. If they are tuff enuf to be out there 24 hours, they can be transplanted into the open garden. Babying ... it pays off.

Steve

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SPierce
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digitS' wrote:Hardening off is a difficult task. I'm lucky that I'm around where I can mess with it on almost an hourly basis.

Of course, there are spring hailstorms and clouds and winds. But, just the frost in the morning and 65°f afternoon highs can be difficult to deal with. If your plants have never been in temperatures below 65°, or something - you don't want to toss them out into 40°. If it's 25° colder than they have ever experienced, that is gonna be difficult for them!

Then, there is direct sun. I'm here to tell you that light through glass or from an electric fixture is a lot different from unfiltered sunlight.

I have a few "sweet spots" in my backyard. When plants are first introduced to the outdoors, they go in these locations. First, they aren't even in the sun. They may be out for only a couple of hours. I try to give them a nice, long hardening off time of several weeks. They don't spend a night out unless it's right at the end. If they are tuff enuf to be out there 24 hours, they can be transplanted into the open garden. Babying ... it pays off.

Steve
They were OK until the wind yesterday. I checked on them hourly before that and they were OK.

It was definately the wind that was my mistake. I should have known better but did it anyway. We have like hurricane force winds coming thru and 40 degree temps. Not sure what I was thinking, really! They're back inside, standing upright, with mininal damage so baby steps now...

In previous years it only took me a few days to harden off, so my mistake really. I grow in soil in little pots, and they grow in my window sills and get light that way...

PinkPetalPolygon
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Today I planted another round of sugar snap peas into my homemade "pea teepee". The kind of seeds I have say the vines are supposed to grow around 3 1/2 feet so I tried to be ready for that. :mrgreen:

(As soon as I see a pea growing onto my makeshift pea teepee I will document it with a photo, until then I am giving it my best shot. I did a lot of research hah! my biggest pea shoot might grow on it eventually? I have no idea, but I already have an idea of what I could do if I needed to help it grow in that direction - it is so small I don't know which way it'll go. The jury is out!)

I did better at growing pea vines this year than last year though!

Psssst... Last year I bought bush beans and got sad they weren't going to really climb. ;)

I'll tell you what already knows what my pea shoots taste like... :(

Slugs! (Haha, truth be told: before my pea teepee area was a pea patch it was a slug patch, I just noticed this a few nights ago and have been on slug patrol. I have 3 pea shoots already sprouted from the last time I planted seeds and they are growing fast now they aren't being eaten.)

I was thinking most of the seeds I planted at an earlier date didn't sprout?! Then I found one that had sprouted and then been entirely killed by slugs: made me wonder how many maybe DID sprout for slug food before I realized I had a particular problem with baby slugs in the soil/area? >_<

This fact and the fact I know I planted the pea seeds a tad too deep the first time caused me to replant at least 9-12 pea seeds all around the structure I am attempting to grow the peas up.

I decided I was done being overly concerned about crowding them and wanted peas now please! Plus, one of those plants is TOTALLY going to grow on my structure! One out of fifteen at least! <3. :-()

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jal_ut
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At sundown clear, 41 degrees and still 4 inches of snow on my garden plot.

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jal_ut
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rainbowgardener
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It's spring, I'm busy planting! Planted four clumps of flower seeds along the backyard side fence lines -- just mixed a bunch of different zinnias, cosmos, marigolds, nicotiana and baptisia seeds together and threw them down randomly.

Also planting the containers on my deck with flowers and herbs, both transplants and some seeds. Planted a few flower seeds in my veggie beds while I was at it.
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Rue Barbie
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It's the height of spring here with volunteer lupines and Cal poppies in full bloom. Also Calendulas, lantanas in their various shades of yellow, orange, white and red contrasting with the purple/blue of the Mexican sage. Plus too many weeds. :roll:

That's what the flowers are doing.. I watered the blueberries (which are beginning to ripen), did some weeding, repaired 2 soaker hoses, and laid them out in one of the numex pepper beds.

Tomorrow: mulching, and maybe put more stuff in compost pile.

imafan26
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Today I went to my community garden. I haven't been for a couple of weeks, so as usual I pulled the same weeds again. I planted won bok , spinach and some melon. The spinach seeds were old so I am not surprised they did not sprout but even with the neglect the won bok and the melon germinated. I had some over the hill lettuce seedling and more won bok in pots that I decided to plant out anyway. I also planted a sad early girl as a last chance effort. It isn't much of a help since that garden is not really great for tomatoes since it is alkaline at pH 7.4. I did add peat moss to it early this year so maybe it will be better.

Yesterday I weedwhacked the weeds and pulled more nut sedge from the driveway planting and added some compost and fertilizer.

I picked two broccoli heads, a cucumber, and a handful of beans in the last 3 days. I think the beets are almost ready. I think the garlic is blooming. Can anyone tell me if that is normal? The green onions will bloom at this time of the year but this is the first time garlic has. It is also the first time my garlic greens got this big.

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jal_ut
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Nice sunny day with a gentle breeze. I went out and planted some radish, lettuce, cabbage and spinach seed.
Daffodils are sending up flower heads, but have not bloomed yet.

NJ Bob
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Going into the 20's tonight! Moving everything inside and throwing some old bedsheets over some stuff outside. :shock:



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