Happy Spring!

I really wanted to post last week on the first day of spring, but I spent all last week hustling to get my hoophouses finished, which they now are. The picture above was taken before I really fixed up the plastic to a more permanent state. I tucked the plastic under on all sides and then buried the frame because yesterday after work, I came home to find the plastic flapping in the 20mph wind gusts like a flag. Now it's all secure. Today after work, I put down black weedblock fabric inside both houses. It was 80 degrees inside around 4:00PM, when the outside temperature was about 50.

Later this week, I'm going to move some seedlings inside. I should also fill it with manure or compost, but I may just do that later, since everything inside will most likely be in trays for now. Once the plastic isn't needed for the summer, I'm going to put construction fence over the hoops and use it as a trellis.

Saturday saw a significant drop in temperatures to the nearly-80 degree highs we had last week. Last night it was in the low 20s, and tonight should be about the same, accompanied by the 20+mph winds again. The rest of the week will be cool, but not as low as yesterday and today.

It's probably a bit too early, but I'm getting anxious about putting out these onion seedlings that I started before the year even began. I may move the trays to the hoophouses, and put some in the ground to see how it goes.

This week, I started trays of spinach, broccoli, cabbage, collards, arugula, chard, basil, marigold, kohlrabi, and spearmint. Some are experiments, like the basil that I didn't even thresh out of the seed pods. I want to see what will happen. The marigolds are really early, but I want to see if I can get them a head start to an earlier bloom with the heat inside the hoophouse. The spearmint will go straight in the ground and I'll worry about it spreading later. I'd rather have something I like spreading than the mugwort and knotweed. I guess we'll have to see what happens. I'm going to start a few more trays of seeds tonight and put them into the hoophouse tomorrow. I still need to do a few things for the hoophouses, like get something to clip the plastic back when I go inside, and some boards to hold down the ends of the plastic so I don't have to cover/uncover out of the dirt every time.

There's also a mountain of manure to spread, and some tilling to do. I'm finally starting to get the no-till message, but the soil needs a lot of work. I'm going to work my way up with cover crops, green manures, and composted manure until I can start to see some progress past the compacted red mess that I have now. I should have planted a cover crop before winter, but it didn't work out. Now that the ground is workable, I've got LOTS to do. Hopefully I can get it all done in the next few weeks, and take a breather to get married.

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!

Fungus update

A week ago, something started to appear in the old Hood Ice Cream bucket next to the coffee pot. The mushrooms were starting to grow! I was really excited. I moved the bucket over near the kitchen window the other day, closer to the light. Here's what I saw on March 1:


And here we are today, only a few short days later!:


I might cut a few of the big ones loose later and cook them for sampling. I'm definitely hooked on this, and will look into cultivating some other varieties in the future.

Next on my reading list is Teaming with Microbes: A Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web by Jeff Lowenfels and Wayne Lewis. I've been interested in learning about micorrhizal fungi for quite some time. My father uses it in his pumpkin patch. I'm really "innoculated" with fungi!

In other news, a baby was born last week! One of the neighbor's cows had her baby, and she's such a cutie! The calf is currently running in circles outside.

I'm really hoping to get my hoop house(es) built this weekend; perhaps on Saturday with the help of my brother, who will be visiting. Then I need to worry about getting some manure tilled in. Spring is getting really close, and I have so much to do!!!

Last but not least, listen to Archagathus.

The King and Queen of Corn

On Saturday, there was a surprise wedding shower for Naomi and I, and it was state fair themed! Naomi and I received crowns of corn, and sashes that said "King/Queen of Corn" respectively. We ate corn dogs, baked potatoes, fried dough, and all kinds of other stuff! It was really great. There was a chicken, a rabbit, some "vegetables" (like a paper mache giant pumpkin!) amongst other things.

One of the gifts we received was a pitchfork, which I've wanted for some time now. You see, I've always neglected to turn the compost; the main reason being that it's harder than hell to do with a shovel. This evening as it was getting dark, I went out and forked out the contents of the compost bin onto the ground, picked it up, moved it over a few feet, and as I lifted the black goodness and mucky half-composted stuff, I mixed in a good amount of leaves. Much to my surprise, the pile was steaming in the middle! I didn't think it was actually heating up, mostly from its lack of oxygen (no turning, you see). Next time I see Roger, a proper thanks will be given to him.

I've got an itch

The lack of typical winter weather this year has really got me anxious to get outside and play in the dirt. This time last year, there were still a few feet of snow on the ground, and I wasn't really in a rush to get going. That may have had something to do with why a lot of my timing was a little off with getting things started. We were also new to that plot of land last year.

This year, I've got PLENTY of plans for the big garden. One of the major plans has to do with putting up a few tunnels to get some stuff started outside in the sun, instead of under lights in my living room like we've been doing. It should also give some of the seedlings a leg-up in both being hardened off, and getting to a better size before getting chomped by a marauding woodchuck with a death wish. The only thing keeping me from putting up the tunnels now, is that I need to get all the materials. The ribcage-like hoops that will be the frame are coming from Naomi's sister, Jesse, who snagged them from a closing plant nursery or something like that. Then I need plastic. Probably for the first year, I'll use some cheap stuff, and see how I like using the tunnels before moving on to some greenhouse-grade stuff.

At the end of last summer, Naomi and I took a trip to Old Sturbridge Village (a living museum of 1830s colonial America) to take a look at their main garden behind the Freeman Farm house. We wanted to see what they had growing, and how they were doing it, and I really wanted to see the way they had their garden laid out. What I found was that they were using a wide-row planting layout, which I had tried to do myself last year, but with little actual planning or insight into how to do it. As you can see from the picture below, they have quite wide rows, with equally as wide paths between.

In addition, there was a border around the entire garden. The rows didn't go straight up to the fence. From the fence, there was about 8 feet of space before the rows began, but immediately abutted to the fence, were various herbs and things, which I imagine gave a protective barrier to the stuff in the middle of the garden from unwanted insects and small animals. I will try to do this myself this year, while also hoping to keep out the creeping mugwart that's always trying to make its way into my precious garden.

Our garden is approximately 4,923 square feet. Thanks to my brother Mike, we measured it this past weekend. (I told you I was anxious!) I've been trying to decide what would be the best row width, so that Naomi and I can reach into and over all of the row in order to save energy and our backs. Unfortunately, neither of us are very tall, nor do we have abnormally long arms, which means our rows might end up being rather narrow, at least when compared to the rows at Old Sturbridge Village. The other option is to make them twice as wide as we can reach, and we'd have to work the rows from both sides for weeding and such.

I've got loads more plans that I will divulge in the coming days and weeks in another post. Next time, I'll talk about some of the vegetables and varieties of things that I'd like to grow for the first time, and some past success stories that I'm excited to repeat.

Fun Guys part 2

Fungi Perfecti is the company from where I got my Espresso Oyster Mushroom Patch kit. It was started by Paul Stamets, who seems to be the King of Fungus. He's written multiple books, has all kinds of fungal patents, and seems to be some kind of wizard if you ask me. I just watched a video of a TED talks lecture he gave in 2008 about how mushrooms can save the world and got my mind fully blown. Here's the proof:

Fun Guys

For a few years now, I've wanted to grow mushrooms- not this kind, but something for the soup pot or skillet. I'm constantly cleaning the bathroom to avoid mold growth, so why not try to cultivate some kind of fungus for the table? It can't be that hard, not to mention mushrooms are usually more expensive than I'd like to pay at the grocery store. There are various kits and things out there in the world for just this thing.

Finally I got the nerve to order one of the kits. It was under $30, and I figured what the hell, why not? It arrived early last week. This particular kit is for Oyster Mushrooms, which I've never actually eaten to my recollection. I'm sure they'll be yummy... well, mostly sure. For this particular kit, you save a bunch of coffee grounds and then mix in the spores and then wait. Much to my dismay, I didn't know how much delicious breakfast beverage substrate I'd actually need. When the giant 5-lb-or-so box showed up last Monday and I read the instructions, I discovered it requisitioned a whopping 3 GALLONS of coffee grounds. I started bringing containers to work and asking family and friends for their caffeine-induced cravings' waste product. Naomi told me that Starbucks has a recycling program where they give out their grounds to gardeners. I called the local Starbucks, they told me to call back, I called back. When I went in to pick up the black gold in a bag, they had forgotten. It sure seemed like they didn't want to bother, so I gave up on them. Finally I decided to go for it today.

So now there's a 3-gallon Hood Ice Cream bucket sitting in the corner of the kitchen between the stove and the coffee pot with a plastic bag over it. Maybe in a week, maybe two, I should see the off-white shelves of the mycelium sticking out of the bucket.

I've got grand ideas of cooking with mushrooms, putting them in my dehydrator and storing them, and having so many that I get sick of them. I've really got my fingers crossed for a grand success story. I hope that it will be convincing and some of my friends, or even random passers-by of this blog will get the feeling that this is a great idea. Even if you have zero outside space in some crappy apartment (well, crappy to me because it doesn't have outside space!) you can grow some of your own food!

My major concern only sprung up (not unlike my fungal friends I'm attempting to cultivate) just this morning. What if the spores run rampant, and mushrooms start growing where I don't want them inside the house? Kitchen cabinets, baseboard molding, under the bed?!?!?!?! It's probably REALLLLLLLY unlikely, but that little notion is going to proliferate in the back, damp, dark corners of my mind. I guess it goes with the territory. So, I will consider moving them outside at some point, which I will probably do in the summer anyway, where the fun-guys will probably be more content anyway.

Whenever it so happens that I'm chowing down on the soft rubbery not-really-fruits of my labor (or intended negligence as it were), I'll post about it, along with some pictures.

Picture from Wikipedia.