Never Quite Caught Up

This weekend was a busy one.  We got two inches of rain, but it was either fast-moving, or happened overnight, so I was able to work quite a bit still.  The biggest thing that I got done this weekend was to mulch my potatoes.  I hilled them with composted manure last week, and just now got around to mulching them.  I use waste hay, because it's available in large quantity, and it's dumped to compost in extreme proximity to the garden. 

In previous years, we've tried growing potatoes in a trench and filling in dirt as the plants grew, but we've had limited success with this method.   The benefit of that is that extra material is not needed to hill around the plants.  You simply use what was dug out of the trench to backfill.  Two years ago, my father tried this method and got a great yield.  For the last two years, however, we have not had nearly the experience that my father has.  I suspect that the flaws with this method are that we have rather heavy soil, and compaction is further encouraged by the digging and backfilling, and that by continually covering up the growing stems and foliage, the plant is weakened.  Then it takes longer to recuperate before growing nice tubers.  Instead, I chose to use a hilling method.  I buried my seed potatoes rather shallow; maybe 2 inches deep.  Once the first stems broke the surface, the plants grew vigorously!  Once they had reached their full height, I began hilling around their bases.  By the time I finished with the hay mulch yesterday, I noticed that many of the plants were blooming quite robustly, as I've never had potato plants do before.  I'll have to keep my eye of the hay level over the plants because I suspect that it will compact and break down rapidly throughout the summer, potentially leaving my tubers exposed to sunlight. 

Yesterday evening, I picked spinach, as it's starting to bolt.  I will replace it with New Zealand Spinach in the coming days.  This is a big event for me, because successfully growing spinach was #2 of my 2 garden goals this year.  The first goal has yet to be accomplished, but it's a long way off anyway. 

Washed and ready to eat!

I've always had trouble germinating spinach, and it's because I didn't understand the plant.  Usually I attempted to start it with my other brassicas, under moist, light, and relatively warm conditions.  This was a mistake.  This year, I did a little research.  I soaked the spinach seeds in water for 24 hours, and then put the seeds into plastic baggies with a wet paper towel, and then put that in the refrigerator until I saw their little white shoots coming out.  At that point, I probably could have set them in the garden to do their thing, but I wanted to keep a closer eye on them, so I arranged them in a flat tray and put it under lights in my living room until they had real leaves.  Then I set them out in the garden.  All of this happened late in the season of course, but I'm happy to have had a success!

Chickens

About a week and a half ago, we got chickens.  Well, not chickens exactly, but 6 Silver-Laced Wyandotte chicks.  For the past week and a half, they've been in a box in the kitchen peeping away every second of the day and night.  I worked like a madman to construct a coop (which happens to be the best carpentry project I've ever successfully completed).

We've talked about getting chickens for a bit now, probably ever since we started to stray from veganism.  We were trying to figure out what to do with the small garden by the house that we neglected last summer, when I came up with the idea to turn it into a chicken run.  The biggest step was getting permission from the landlord, which was a piece of cake.  Then I began with the coop.  I had an idea of how I wanted to coop construction, but needed some real plans so I didn't waste a lot of materials and time making it work.  I found some good free plans through Purina Mills.  I set out to building it, and finished in 3 days.  I'm really proud of that thing!  I kept thinking that I was going to modify the plans to suit our setup, and after much deliberation, I realized that everything in the plans was just fine. 

The coop is now done, except for the nest box, and a close-able door for the chickens to use.  Luckily, they're still too small to be outside, so I have time to finish it.  I also need to finish closing off the run on the top, but that should be easy to do as well.  The only thing that has been stopping me from finishing is trying to catch up on planting in the garden. 


Below are two photos for comparison.  The first is the little garden, taken on 5/28/10.  The second was taken today, 5/29/12 of the same garden, looking through the chicken run.  What a different place! 

I started off small with the part of the run that will be enclosed.  I designed it so that I can extend it easily and cheaply.  I will do so as the summer goes on, especially if we get more chickens (which I'd love to do!).  Finally, here's a video of the little peepies playing with a piece of lettuce:

Mrs. Dirty Fingernails

So, we had a wedding. And as much as I enjoyed it, it took entirely too much time and effort just for a party. I'm still rifling through piles of stuff to get my life back together. Thus, I haven't updated this blog in a bajillian years. Oh well, I'm back in the garden and back here.

But Will never stopped working in the garden. I could go on a feminist rant about how, as the woman, I was forced to be in charge of our wedding, but the fact was, I was busy and he was marginally less busy so he took it upon himself to keep the boat afloat. I kept myself pretending that I was still farming by reading farming books and spending my few free moments sitting outside with my laptop and cell phone, as opposed to sitting inside with my laptop and cell phone, just to get some of that sweet vitamin D that I crave. I really didn't have time for much else in the last 6 or 7 months.

There are many reasons why we got married, but not the least of which is the reason that we're in this together. Having a garden is hard (and enjoyable), but trying to do it on your own is even harder (and perhaps less enjoyable?). If I didn't have a partner in this thing, I would just be starting my garden now, instead of being able to jump in and help weed the peas. For the rest of the year, I would be resentful of my wedding, and how it stood in the way of me eating the foods that I enjoy eating. I would be SO behind. But, luckily I have an awesome husband (!) and we just keep plugging along. One piece at a time, we'll feed ourselves.

(I am really going to try hard to make this the ONLY wedding post, I promise.)

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...

Real Life

I've been severely neglecting this blog lately, and not keeping my promise to myself.  Naomi and I got married, and I've been hustling ever since to get stuff done for spring, and catch up on lost time from the previous 6-10 months. 

In the next few days/weeks, I'm hoping to catch this blog up with all the great stuff that's been going on in and around our garden.  I've been opting to spend what limited free time I have outside working on stuff, rather than inside posting about it online.  More news, updates, info, and pictures to come!

Pictures and Things

Naomi and I just got back from a walk along the river to get more fiddleheads, and came back with a basketful. We picked some more daffodils for my mom, along with a branch with apple blossoms on it, and some unfurled ferns for a bouquet for her.

Down the river a ways, we found a seemingly endless stand of ostrich ferns in their prime. We picked until we didn't want to pick anymore, without even making a dent. I made a comment about it looking like Jurassic Park.



Sometime in the late summer or fall, I don't remember which, I had been exploring along the river, and I had seen what seemed like endless ramp seed stalks sticking out of the ground on the river bank, and I've wanted to go back out and see if they were growing. Sure enough, we encountered RAMP LAND- where ramps are king! I'm getting really impatient waiting for the bulbs to swell.


Below are some pictures of the garden, including the rows of onions, the garlic doing its thing, a pea shoot amongst the weeds, the open hoophouse (that's 100 degrees inside), Naomi with the basket of goodies, and the calf.

Spring is Delicious

It's been a busy few days here. I was off from work on Thursday and Friday, so my brother and I finished spreading the manure and tilled it in. I'm working toward not tilling anymore, but I need to add a lot of amendments and rid myself of more mugwort, but it's coming.

Back in the last week of December, I started 15 packages of onion and leek seeds. They've been growing in flat trays under lights in my living room since then. We've got 2 of the trays planted, but have a lot more to go, and I've already exhausted the space I allocated for onions and then some. It's one of my goals to grow onions this year, since I've never had any success with them. That's why I went overboard with them. My other major garden goal this year is to grow spinach, which I've never even gotten to germinate. I've learned that it needs to be pretty cold, all things considered, and I was always trying to germinate it too warm. We're fixing that right now.

The hoophouses I built have been great. Yesterday when the air temp was a little under 60 degrees, it was 110 inside one of them. A few mornings ago, I went to check the temp inside, and there was frost on my car windows. It was 50 degrees inside the hoophouse. I'm going to start some tomato seeds, and put them in there to see if they can make it. That would be great!

Since you can't work all the time, my brother and I went across the river yesterday mid-morning to shoot a few rounds, and while we were out there, I wandered off a bit and picked some fiddleheads, which are perfect right now! The ramps are still a few weeks out I think, but they're coming along. I also walked up on a hen turkey and froze and watched her until she flew off. As I meandered deeper into the swampy area by the river bend, I found a stand of daffodils blooming in the swamp. Naturally, I picked one stalk from each clump, and brought them back for Naomi. She was thrilled!

With two weeks to go before our wedding, I've still got a LOT of work to get done in the garden. We saw the woodchuck for the first time on Friday, so they're going to be coming to munch. That's high on the list of priorities to get done. I'll probably want to plant the wheat and corn, as well as greens. The latter I might hold off on just so they don't get cleared out by that woodchuck until that problem is taken care of. I'll probably end up putting most stuff in later than I want to, just on account of the wedding so I can keep an eye on it better.

Now's a great time to go outside and walk around. Buds are popping out everywhere, things are greening up, and there's lots of wild plants to be munched! We're planning to go for a little walk this morning and look for more fiddleheads! Hopefully, I'll get a glimpse of some of those monstrous toms with the 10" beards out across the river.