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1. Hugh, you might try a 50/50 solution of white vinegar and water to soak your hoses in, fill the hose and soak in a tub to kill anything growing on the outside also. Be sure to soak all the other fittings involved. Rinse well. Perhaps this will help.

   1. Joe, I think the vinegar is a good idea.
      Hugh, you might also plan to swap your hoses out on a certain schedule throughout the growing season. Sanitize, then rotate the cleaned hoses in.

      The root cause might be the drip system allowing water to sit in the hose. I am thinking that while camping, if we take water from a steam we look for fast moving water. I know the water warms up quickly in our rubber hose when we leave it charged. The warmth might allow some growth. Adding a valve to periodically flush those rubber hoses might also help. Might need to get that water moving.

      On a semi-related subject I checked the water in my rain barrels. The water was stagnant. I had ignored it all summer. I used products from an American company, Well Safe, to clean the water in my barrels. I will now flush the barrels and let them recharge this new rain water. That product is chlorine based so not suitable for gardening.

2. The GREAT REORGANIZATION has started. We continue our preperation for our move to the BOL in early summer 2019. Worked on the bench in the pole pole barn workshop. Move even more equipment and supplies to the pole barn. I had several tool boxes that I have been consolidating into 2 rolling tool boxes my father gave me. Printed off labels for the tool box drawers and labels for other totes/containers. This will help others, like the kids, find them. The pole barn has multiple foot lockers, totes and other containers laid out as we re-organize containers and their contents. For example we took all of the stored wooden clothes pins and put them in a non-food grade 5 gallon bucket.

   Today I’m headed out with the kids. My son will be cutting the grass and continueing with the insulation. My daughter will be wiping down all the foot lockers, totes, etc from all the cement dust from construction. We are headed to Lowes first for more plywood, insulation etc.

3. Maybe replace the filters, sterilize the System or both could help.

4. Monsoon season here in Iowa. Grass grows 3″ a day (exaggeration, but not by much) of course the mower croaked and had to spend a day fixing it. Don’t know how many fixes are left in it.

   Oodles of pears coming on. Tomatoes are all but done. Potatoes are all dug, not an impressive yield this year. Sweet potatoes look exceptional, but haven’t dug any yet. Still have peppers and tomateos coming on. Kale is going crazy but I got burnt out on it.

   Rivers are all at flood stage so no fishing. With all this rain i’m sure the mosquitoes are thick in the woods, going to have to wait for a frost before squirrel hunting.

5. Here in the UP of Michigan, we seem to getting back to somewhat normal weather, This spring and summer have been very hot rainy and humid. You would think that would make for good growing, but alas not so. My tomato plants are huge but hardly any tomatoes. Cabbage grew to basket ball size and then split in half. allowing lots of ugly bugs to infest them. This year is the off year for my apples. There are some but not very big. Sweet Corn was blown over flat in late June, but managed to upright itself in a couple of weeks. This seems to have cut the ear sizes, but did still harvest some. My cucumbers for pickles went nuts. I had enough to make about 14 quarts and still sell some.

   I am getting a bit older and find weeding difficult in the dirt garden, so I am going to completely change how I garden next year. I am going to raised beds and containers. It will be an arduous task, hopefully I can hire a local high school kid to help with work in the spring.

   God bless you all

   Carl in Da UP

   PS, does anybody know whats going on with Ol Remus?

   1. His pc must have died, he posted this:

      Relax, all is well.
      I have not gone gently into that good night.
      A new Woodpile Report follows PC replacement post haste
      or double your money back.

6. Hugh, a possible solution may be that you need a finer filter. Your source water may have changed. AW

7. Hugh,
   Your irrigation line problem sounds like you’re dealing with a biolfilm, not just bacteria. Here’s what the scientific journal Nature (nature.com) has to say:

   Biofilms
   “Biofilms are communities of microorganisms that attach to each other and to surfaces, for example by bacterial adherence. Biofilms consist of both the cells and the extracellular matrix produced by the cells. Biofilms can be problematic in certain places, for example inside pipes or on medical implants.

   “A biofilm comprises any syntrophic consortium of microorganisms in which cells stick to each other and often also to a surface. These adherent cells become embedded within a slimy extracellular matrix that is composed of extracellular polymeric substances (EPS).”

   Biofilms are hard to get rid of–once the conditions for formation are met, they come back persistently as long as conditions are right. I fought a similar problem with a biofilm causing recurrent clogging in a 2mm plastic filter and even with repeated chlorine disinfection, it would recur.

   Finally, I decided to try salt (table salt) as a drying agent. Scrubbed the filter with the dry salt and an old toothbrush and left it to sit, covered in salt, for a morning, then wiped all the salt off and exposed the filter to strong sunlight for the afternoon. That solved the problem for most of a year. It does seem to recur in late summer when air and water temperatures rise.

   In your situation, you may be dealing with a biofilm that has infested the hoses too–which would make eliminating the biofilm even tougher. Joe has a good idea about the hose soak with vinegar.

   Basically anywhere there is a substrate, moisture and bacteria/fungi/algae, the slimy stuff can form. Biolfilms can be a cooperative effort with more than one type of cell, which makes them particularly hard to treat. (As an aside, if you have a biofilm in one place, it pays to check others since the stuff will form just about anywhere, even on metal filters like faucet filters.)

   Hope that is some help.

8. Hugh, It is not rocket science. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.) But it I engineering.

   What is the source? As you state, something is growing in there. What is it using for food? It is either organic matter in the raw water or your piping is damaged and something from the soil is providing either nutrients for what is growing or is the origin of the “bugs”.

   My suggestions: First, remove the filters and flush the system completely, the higher the flow rate, the better. Second, super-chlorinate the system and let it sit for a while, maybe a day. Be careful where you discharge the chlorinated water as the high chlorine concentration would kill vegetation that you might not want to kill. Third, consider if the sun warming the above-ground hoses/piping could be making the growing environment just right for whatever is growing. Shade the pipe or cover with dirt?

9. Greetings Hugh, I too keep the Feast of Tabernacles and the rest of the Holy Days. I am alone in doing so. If there is any one who would be willing to communicate via email, I would appreciate it.
   Michele

10. I purchased four boxes of tomatoes, and have canned 26 quarts so far. There’s still a box & a half of under ripe ones that I’ve put in the garage for now, until Mrs Deplorable and I can get back to them. Hopefully they will have ripened enough by then.

11. Bacteria? Or mold? Bleach will tend to fix the latter for a while, but you have to get every last spore. Any kind of mosture will let mold grow even in areas that seem like there can’t be anything to feed on.

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