A Drip Before the Deluge

So here we find ourselves in the middle of July, with more work to do that there are hours to do it, and I'm not talking about weeding.  We started harvesting garlic on Tuesday, pulling out some 139 heads, equaling just under 16 pounds of garlic.  Lacking a shed or barn, we were hard-pressed to find a place to cure it.  We ended up stringing it up in an unused as of yet portion of the chicken run, and putting a tarp over it with a support pole in the center sort of like a mini circus tent. 

After not receiving and rain for weeks, we got almost an inch on Wednesday along with some hail.  Most of the corn is now lodged, the runner bean poles fell over, amongst other more minor things.  We learned last year to leave the corn alone, and it may straighten itself back up using its powerful brace roots. 

The Rose Gold potatoes that we planted in mid-April are ready to come up.  The leaves were starting to get pretty crunchy looking about a week ago, and after the storm hit us on Wednesday, I went to survey the damage.  The potato plants looked fine, it's just that the Rose Golds looked like yellow sticks coming out of the hay mulch.  Hopefully tomorrow it'll be dry enough to do some digging. 

Some tomatoes have blossom end rot, but I'm hoping it'll rectify itself.  BER happens due to a lack of calcium.  One possibility is that a large fluctuation in moisture disrupts the previous amount of uptake of calcium to the soil, temporarily causing a lack of calcium available to the fruits.  This is the case with us in the last week as we went from .05 inches of rain in July to over 2 inches in a matter of hours.

Our chickens finally learned to stay inside the coop when it's raining instead of miserably standing around in it.  A very large tom has been gobbling in the pasture every morning this week, and I got my first glimpse of this year's fawns. 

This is why we can't have nice things

I'd love to have broccoli, kale, lettuce, cabbage, sunflowers, and beans in my garden but this is why I can't:

Sprung

The first photo above is of our garden on May 22, 2011, and the second picture is from today, May 20, 2012.  It's quite a different place.  For a further comparison, see the header of this blog page.  We're doing some things differently this year.


First of all, we're implementing a more effective wide-row system this year.  I actually dug out paths between the beds and used that soil to create raised beds.  This garden plot has a tendency to flood or hold water in heavy rains because it's so close to the river, and the soil is very silty.  So far, these beds and low paths in between have helped irrigate water on their own.  Last year I tried to make wide beds, but didn't implement it well enough.

In the second picture- this year's picture, dead ahead you can see a strip of green.  This is annual rye grass and clover.  I planted it between a few of the rows to suppress weeds, hold moisture, create biomass for mulching, habitat for insects and animals, and beautify the garden so it would look like one lush green mat.  There is much more planted in the garden than it looks from the picture.  Off to the far left is where most of the action is.  There's a ton of garlic over there, as well as some peas.  The potatoes have really shot up in the last 2 weeks too.  I need to find time to hill some soil on them, as it's about that time.  Previously, I've tried starting the potatoes in a trench, and filling in the trench as the plants grow.  The problem that I found with this is that our soil is much too dense for that, and leads to further compaction, which of course the growing tubers don't like.  So, this year we're going to hill them.

Radishes are coming up, as well as corn and beets.  The jerusalem artichokes are coming up very very fast.  I hope that I like them, because I think we're going to have them for years to come.  Our spinach is coming along, despite the warm weather we've been enjoying.  The weeds are starting to overgrow the onions, but I started to remedy that today, and should finish in the next day or two after work rain or shine.  I still have quite a bit to plant, but it will happen as I can get around to it.  Sunflowers are coming up, and the wheat is starting to get going finally, too.  Hopefully in the next week or so, I'll get around to describing in more detail about the specifics of starting some of these plants.

As Naomi and I were weeding this morning, I was moving around some wooden boards that I haven't made into tripods yet, and I dropped a whole stack of them making a loud CRACK sound.  Instantly, I heard a turkey gobble in response, so I pushed over another stack of boards with the same result.  I had the camera with me, so I crouched down and headed in the direction of the sound- the river bank.  I looked across the river, and there he was...

Keep on Scratchin'

I've been working at building my hoophouses, slowly but surely. I got a ton of help from my brother last Saturday with hauling lumber out of the old barn, dragging it all over the place, and doing some crazed cutting. I got all the wood painted while it was still bone dry, before subjecting it to a life out in the elements. I'm gonna reuse the plastic from the old collapsed greenhouse, at least until that falls apart. I wish I got this done a few weeks ago, but better late than never I guess.

On to the more exciting news, I bought MORE SEEDS today! As I said a while back, I'm going to grow some new stuff I've never grown before, and I'm really excited about it. Here's a list, to the best of my knowledge:

Luffa gourd (too cool!)
Calabash gourd (like a little bottle)
Tomatillo (yummmmmmm)
Nasturtium (I went overboard and bought about 7 different varieties)
Poppy (love poppyseeds in breads!)
Bushel basket gourd (they can get bigger than 20"! unique containers!)
Jerusalem Artichokes (I've passed over buying them a few times in the last month. I'll just have to wait until I have my own! I've never tasted them!)
Amaranth- (I just "discovered" amaranth the other day. I'm interested in its "grains")

As warm as it's been, I wish I had some stuff already started. Tomorrow, I'm going to try to plant some peas, fava beans, and runner beans. It's still been pretty cool at night, despite being near or over 70 practically all week now. I really need to get some manure into the garden, and get it turned in, but I can't wait any longer for some of this stuff, so it's gotta happen, and I can put manure later!

I'm especially looking forward to having so many more flowers in the garden this year. It will surely brighten things up and look even more inviting. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for those pesky woodchucks, too. They ought to be popping out any time now. If only they weren't so selfish, but they didn't leave any beans for me at all last year, and just chomped the vines right down to the ground. Perhaps my vigilance will pay off, and I can enjoy more sunflowers, beans, and radishes this year.

I've got to say that I'm happy about daylight savings time. I can spend a little more time outside in the evening in the garden. Soon indoor tasks, like this blog, will be saved for after dark.

By the next post, I hope to have my hoophouses up, so keep an eye out for that!

I love onions!

For the last 2 seasons, I've been meaning to keep track of our garden. This year, I decided that I'd do so with a blog in hopes that someone will follow along, and can glean something from what we've figured out so far.

We started 2012 on Wednesday, December 28, 2011 with 12 packets of onion seeds. They were sown in seed starting mix in flat trays without the cell dividers and put under lights. Right now they're getting 10 hours of lamp light from 7 A.M. until 5 P.M. After 5, I put a blanket over them to keep any residual light out. Here's one of the trays on the 28th.


Here we are a week and a half later, and the little guys are looking great!! What we've got here are Red Wethersfield onions, American Flag leeks, Southport White Globe onions, White Barletta Onions, Australian Brown onions, Giant White Stuttgart onions, Extra Large Carenten leeks, and Yellow Dutch onions. You can see from all this green, that we're making progress!


I've got my fingers crossed and my eyes open for signs of damping off. This is an experiment because the last 2 years of trying onion sets proved to be frustrating at best. I've never had this much success with germinating onion seeds, so I'm feeling positive at the moment. The time when the ground will thaw, however, is a long way off. I've got really high hopes for the leeks. I got some leeks from Grandma's garden this year, and they were awesome!

It's not too late if you want to get some onions started. I only started as early as I did because his giant onion growing friends started theirs a few weeks before me. If they can do it, I can do it!

Allium fever continues outside the house too with all the garlic I planted back in October the day before we got a freak snow storm. This is my first time growing garlic at all, but everything seems to be ok so far. Here are some of them sticking their way out of the hay.


The rest of the garden plot is a sad-looking frozen brown slab at the moment. Well, partially frozen, because it was in the low 60s yesterday. I'm ready for more of that cold we had earlier in the week!