Three years. Actually, more than three years. Almost four full summers. I got a reminder that this blog still exists, and came over to look. Much has changed.
I am well. Mostly. A few joints are reminding me that I'm over 50 now. I live over the garage in an apartment we call "The Treehouse". We have cold running water at the kitchen sink in the summer and I carry water up in jugs in the winter. There's a composting toilet, and gray-water drains. There's a little wood stove that keeps us warm in winter. There's "us".
My last post must have been just a few weeks, or maybe days, before we met for our first date. I wasn't even technically divorced yet, but that's okay. We dated for a year, and she moved in on June 20, 2016. It's still really kind of wonderful.
There is so much that's changed, and so much I could prattle about, but what it comes down to is this: Ticia is a gardener too, and an artist (photography and other outlets), and she's homesteady like me. She knows how to give a gentle nudge to a project. She enjoys tending flower gardens and small animals.
The way this plays out is that I get a lot more positive feedback on my gardening projects, and company, and also some nudges to do things differently. And that's why we've virtually abandoned the old garden across the street.
A few years ago, I bought an electric push mower with a bag on the back. It has to have an extension cord to run, which means we don't mow anything over 100' from an outlet. And there was great rejoicing. Wives 1 and 2 both thought that the whole place had to be mowed. Now we have more "meadow", and when we mow, we think of it as harvesting mulch and chicken fodder. And that helps change our outlook on what various spots can be beside mowed lawn.
I don't even remember how it happened, but at one point I realized that I couldn't have a walkway right next to the garage that would lead to the Treehouse steps. There's too much snow that slides off the metal roof and lands right there. So I built the steps so that they land about 10' away from the side of the building. The walkway is just scrap 2xWhatever from the demo pile at the transfer station, cut to 2' and nailed onto sleepers dug into the soil there. It's almost like an upside down railroad, because the sleepers run long, like rails, but are underneath. Two feet is a little narrow, but it works well enough. It's much easier to shovel snow off of than half frozen soil.
And she said, "How about I plant a few things along the walkway?" Then there was some creep, and now we have a garden there, 16' out from the walkway and about 36' long, with a 5'x10' tomato greenhouse on one end and a small utility shed on the other. It's mostly beets, carrots, kale, cabbage, potatoes, nasturtiums, and callendula. There are some dead peas that gave up the ghost months ago along the fence, and one small area of scarlet runner beans and hollyhocks.
And she said, "I want to do some strawberry beds. I have an idea..." And so I spread what wood chips I had (~10 yards) into a 25' square, raked them into five beds, and put coop cleanings on the beds, and let it sit over the winter. The plan is to put strawberries in bed 3, then plant daughter plants into beds 2 and 4 next year, beds 1 and 5 in 2020, and then keep up a rotation. But for this year we had four empty beds that we planted to leeks, cabbages, turnips, mesclun, costata romanesca zucchini, pickling cukes, green beans, more beets, and some brussles sprouts. I put up a little stock panel fence around it, plus some old snow fence.
And she said, "What about this space outside the strawberry bed fence? We could mulch that and put perennials in there. And over there too..." So I mulched those spots over the winter, and in the spring we transplanted a bunch of stuff. There were no formal rows or anything, so I looked at a few bare spots and said, "Can I put a few squash plants here? If they run, I can train them away from the other stuff." We got those in late, but we may get some delicata from them.
And then we said, "Let's get that old hay wagon out of the back yard." The bare spot it left was really nice soil. Maybe a little powdery. Not the heavy clay of the old garden across the street. And we had some extra coop cleanings that got put in some open bottomed boxes I'd stacked there, and a neighbor asked for help getting rid of some goat poop. I got another fence around it and we've planted most of it to winter squash and more brussles sprouts.
There's a cabinet shop in town that works with solid wood for most things. I'm getting their planer shavings and mulching even more areas. I'd like to inoculate these with oyster and king stropharia mushrooms. We had bees last year but lost them to mites and withered wing virus, and the king stropharia mushroom is said to be an anti-viral they can self medicate with to protect themselves. The sawdust is a short-term nitrogen thief, but a long term fertility builder.
She's from Wyoming. Her immune system reacts more strongly to bug bites than mine. In the spring of '17, she suggested a screened sitting area shed. We call it "The Tea House", even though we're more likely to be drinking coffee out there. It's 10'x10', with screen that wraps all the way around above a 30" lower wall. The roof is a 12:12 gable. It's great. I've been sleeping out there much of the summer, weather permitting. We hang the sling chair and she sits out there with a drink and a book on quiet afternoons. Sometimes in the early summer we sit out and watch fireflies in the evening. It's on the far side of the back yard, just beyond the strawberry and perennial beds, where the land starts sloping off into field weeds.
I discovered (after 15 years) that the apple tree by the driveway makes pretty good apples IF I let them get ripe. They're Rhode Island Greening, plus that other thing I grafted on before I knew better. We can eat a lot of dried apple slices, so I built a drying shed. Some mice got into it last year, so now I want to build it a raised platform to sit on. And the Northern Spy in the back yard makes good dried apples too.
But the other thing that happened last fall was a wind storm that knocked all the apples off the trees. If I'd had a place to store them, I might have picked them ahead of time and saved a lot of the crop. And that's why I've been digging a root cellar in the back yard, behind the strawberry beds and Tea House. I'm building the walls with dry laid stone, and I'm debating how the vault roof will be done.
And finally, we have the farmhouse cleaned up and we're renting it out on Airbnb. This means that all my junk has to be tidied up or hidden, and the place really looks good. With luck, this weekend our tenth guest of the summer will give us our tenth five-star review, and we'll make superhost status. We aren't raking in money hand over fist, but the income is enough to pay property taxes, insurance, and materials for house upkeep and repairs. And she's overhauled the flower bed in front of the sunporch, and the other flower bed next to the farmhouse front deck.
Am I still gardening the hard way? Well, sort of. I still don't use a rototiller. It's still mostly hand work, and there's plenty to do. But it's getting easier, or at least it's getting more rewarding. The gardener's shadow is the best fertilizer, and now my shadow falls much more easily on my gardens.
Wednesday, August 29, 2018
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Recovering Old Beds.
Three years ago I had my beds laid out on 4' centers. The idea was that I'd have 2 1/2' beds and 1 1/2' paths. That mostly worked. I'd like to go back to that area and plant it again. It's basically been three years since I paid it any attention though. There was a row of trellises where I had tomatoes, and some beds of garlic that never got harvested. I thought I'd lost the garlic to the weeds, but it turns out I haven't. Once I raked off the dead grasses, I see clumps of garlic growing in the pattern I planted it in. A couple weeks ago they looked like this:
I was able to tease most of these apart, and if I really wanted to plant more, I could from this stock. But it will be easier to do that in the fall when it can be harvested and split into cloves without worrying about small roots.
So today I got to work laying out the beds again, and the garlic acted as a landmark. The first and third beds on the right as you enter the garden both have some of this legacy garlic in them. I cut myself some wooden stakes from some pallet boards I had laying around, lined up one on each end of the first bed with the edge of the garlic planting, and used that as the baseline to measure from. They aren't all dug, but I marked out 12 beds in sections 13 and 14 of the old garden map.
The first three beds look like this, looking south from the middle east-west garden path:
The brighter green visible in the first bed on the right is garlic. There's more in the third bed, between the white string and the black hose on the left. So the second bed is empty and needs the grass dealt with.
Rhizome grass is my worst weed. There was one year I tried carefully pulling out every bit, and it took me forever. One year I went out early and was turning over a few clumps of weeds with a shovel and I pulled something and tore the erector spinae muscle from the iliac crest on one side of my lower back. This year I've been doing my recreational ditch digging where I want the foundation of my cottage to be. I think it's toned up my back muscles nicely. And based on past experience, I'm not going overboard. I'm turning the soil once, and then I'll go through it a couple times with the three toothed cultivator, pulling what I can, and then I'll rake it and plant stuff. That's basically what I did under that low tunnel a week ago.
Bed 2 there is basically 100 square feet. It's 40' x 2 1/2'. It took me almost exactly a half hour to turn it with a shovel.
I'm thinking it looks like a good spot for a few rows of beets. I've got about two or three weeks until normal last frost. In that time I'd like to get all twelve of these marked beds ready to plant.
Grafting Apples.
Almost a month ago, I went to the MOFGA Seed Swap and Scion Exchange, at the fairgrounds in Unity. That was a fine day. I hadn't been to the event before, and it was kind of mind blowing. I'm told that it used to be about 20 seed savers sitting around and staring at each other. Now it's a melee. (I didn't mean to swat that guy over the head with an apple switch. I apologized afterward!) Tables are set out with scion wood from the Maine Heritage Apple Orchard and other sources. There were probably 100 varieties. Plus there was pear wood, hardy kiwi, a few basket willows, grape cuttings, kefir grains, and seeds! Among other things, I got seed for honeylocust, maackia, and rose acacia. These are all leguminous trees. And I got some ginko seed, and best of all, some chestnut seed from blight resistant breeding programs. I hope I can get all that to sprout. I built a quick and dirty rodent resistant box to sprout them in.
A couple of days ago I sorted out my 16 favorite apple scions and got to work grafting them out. I can't say that they're really my favorites, but I went through the list and tried to find interesting, multi-use apples with good storage qualities. In the end I had 16 of them out of 46 on the list, so that's what I headed out into the yard with.
I've got a small volunteer apple that blooms well but I haven't seen any fruit from. It's a dwarf. It was growing in my garden fence, and I decided it would make a good nurse for some of my scions. I cut the fence clear, did a little first aid pruning, and grafted a bunch of my selections to it. I marked each one with some flagging tape with the variety name written on it.
The cambium layer (which is the green growing layer just under the bark) of each side of the graft should line up, for as much distance as can be accomplished. Once I have the graft in place, I wrap it tightly with vinyl electric tape. I use a simple utility knife with a replaceable blade to make the cuts. I know special wax and special knives are traditional, but this seems to work. The tape should cover up and down the graft to make it water tight. If the graft takes, about when the branch needs to swell from growth, the tape will fail from UV exposure. It can be gently removed or will fall off around then.
There are several other places I grafted scions. I've got a few trees here and there that seem like good candidates for places to park the genetics.
On a related note, I also went in lines on the north and south sides of the garden and planted rotten apples. Maybe fermented is a better word. These are apples I picked last fall, intended to process for sauce, and ended up stashed in the apartment where they froze. So the seed is stratified (winter cold treated) and should sprout. About every six feet, I put in the shovel, opened a slit, pulled the shovel out, and stomped an apple in, getting it just below the surface. Time will tell if they're going to sprout. If they do, I'll be grafting to them.
A couple of days ago I sorted out my 16 favorite apple scions and got to work grafting them out. I can't say that they're really my favorites, but I went through the list and tried to find interesting, multi-use apples with good storage qualities. In the end I had 16 of them out of 46 on the list, so that's what I headed out into the yard with.
I've got a small volunteer apple that blooms well but I haven't seen any fruit from. It's a dwarf. It was growing in my garden fence, and I decided it would make a good nurse for some of my scions. I cut the fence clear, did a little first aid pruning, and grafted a bunch of my selections to it. I marked each one with some flagging tape with the variety name written on it.
Most of my grafts are whip and tongue. I did some cleft grafts when the branches seemed to resist the bending needed for whip and tongue. Properly put together, whip and tongue looks like this:
There are several other places I grafted scions. I've got a few trees here and there that seem like good candidates for places to park the genetics.
On a related note, I also went in lines on the north and south sides of the garden and planted rotten apples. Maybe fermented is a better word. These are apples I picked last fall, intended to process for sauce, and ended up stashed in the apartment where they froze. So the seed is stratified (winter cold treated) and should sprout. About every six feet, I put in the shovel, opened a slit, pulled the shovel out, and stomped an apple in, getting it just below the surface. Time will tell if they're going to sprout. If they do, I'll be grafting to them.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Daydreaming About the Future.
So the plan is to move out to the garage apartment in about a month. To this end I got nothing done on the garage today.
My plan is to also build a small cottage: A 16' x 16' saltbox, plus sunporch, on a basement short enough to be considered a crawlspace by many. I'm going to build it on the other side of the grove of trees across the street from the house, garage, and barn. It will be off-grid from the start, with as much self sufficiency as I can build into it. This will make it possible to get away from summer renters a bit further, and rent out the apartment for additional income. I've been eyeing the spot for over a year in an abstract way, but with the recent changes, I've decided to move ahead with it.
I've been told that I could rent a small excavator for $300/day, but that goes against the grain somehow. Instead, I'm digging my foundation hole by hand. I need a 17' square, dug 5' down at the high side of the slope, down to the water table. I started by marking out my space with boards on the ground, and stripping off the sod a little each day. Then I looked at where there was a puddle down the slope, and dug level with that back toward my square. The drain will come straight out the south side, then turn toward the puddle. I also dug a ditch to help the water further down the slope. Each day I dig some in the square. I've found a very large rock that I'm going to have to deal with, but no deal breakers yet.
My site is just out of sight from the house, mostly. All anyone will see is a little bit of roof, and with the right color shingles they probably won't notice. It will face straight south, away from the road, looking at the field and woods. This is old hayfield, but I don't see any reason for it to stay hayfield. I want something more like a permaculture orchard of low trees, possibly with a levy and canal that extends to the old well near the road.
My plan is to also build a small cottage: A 16' x 16' saltbox, plus sunporch, on a basement short enough to be considered a crawlspace by many. I'm going to build it on the other side of the grove of trees across the street from the house, garage, and barn. It will be off-grid from the start, with as much self sufficiency as I can build into it. This will make it possible to get away from summer renters a bit further, and rent out the apartment for additional income. I've been eyeing the spot for over a year in an abstract way, but with the recent changes, I've decided to move ahead with it.
I've been told that I could rent a small excavator for $300/day, but that goes against the grain somehow. Instead, I'm digging my foundation hole by hand. I need a 17' square, dug 5' down at the high side of the slope, down to the water table. I started by marking out my space with boards on the ground, and stripping off the sod a little each day. Then I looked at where there was a puddle down the slope, and dug level with that back toward my square. The drain will come straight out the south side, then turn toward the puddle. I also dug a ditch to help the water further down the slope. Each day I dig some in the square. I've found a very large rock that I'm going to have to deal with, but no deal breakers yet.
My site is just out of sight from the house, mostly. All anyone will see is a little bit of roof, and with the right color shingles they probably won't notice. It will face straight south, away from the road, looking at the field and woods. This is old hayfield, but I don't see any reason for it to stay hayfield. I want something more like a permaculture orchard of low trees, possibly with a levy and canal that extends to the old well near the road.
This will mean that I walk past the garden each time I come and go. This is what I'm calling "recreational ditch digging".
Today I got my antique transit out, made up a makeshift surveying pole and taped it to a step-in fence post. I measured that I have 5' 3" from the northeast (up slope) foundation corner to the water in the ditch at puddle level. This will be sufficient. I have about 4' down from the puddle/ditch water to the wettest spot in that drainage, where I might want a shallow pond/swale/terrace. From that point, the old well is uphill by nearly 3', over 100 yards away. If I wanted to play the rice paddy games that Ben Falk is playing in Vermont, I could use the well and slope drainage to irrigate across the field. I might even be able to catch the runoff from the culvert that comes under the road from the nasty little pond that I think my septic system drains into.
My thought is to have pigs level a space on that contour line, pushing up a slight levy/dike, and eating the grass, roots and all. I have five pigs coming in about five weeks. I wonder if they like cattails?
In other news, I got out a 72 cell styrofoam plant starting tray, filled it with soil, put it in a pan so it can soak up water, and plan to plant my tomatoes in it promptly.
Where To Begin Again...
We live in a world of economic decline. For me, that means that my enjoyable but erratic part time job paid me less last year than usual, and I supplemented that income by picking up work with friends doing carpentry. Last June I did a lot of that. I also did an emergency engine swap on my truck. Last June did not see me in the garden as much as I should have been.
The year before that, I started a garage renovation project that continues to the present. It started as simple cleaning, removing stored items still there from when my first marriage ended, and cleaning out the bat-shit and nasty sagging homasote wallboard. And then I had to acknowledge that the roof was shot and I had metal to put on it, but before putting metal roofing on, you have to make sure the foundation isn't moving, and that meant pouring new footings, one side at a time, while that side of the building hung in the air, having been lifted by 40 ton jacks. And if I'm going to do all this work then the thing better pay for itself, so why not an Airbnb rental apartment? And that meant a better floor up there, starting with new I-joists hung at a lower level to allow a 9' ceiling. The project isn't done and the yard is a mess because of it.
All this is to say, the garden has been neglected. Not that I regret those moves. The chances of me starving were low, and the financial and social needs of the other projects were real. With my change of marital status, I plan on moving into that apartment, hopefully in about a month, and renting out the house. At some point I should discuss further housing plans beyond the apartment, since it's garden related.
But today, let me record what's going on in the garden.
The greenhouse withstood the winter. That's saying something, as I know of several professionally built greenhouses that didn't. We had over 100" of snow this year, including some storms that came twice a week for a month, and some that dropped over a foot at a shot. It will need some major overhaul this year though. The 4-year plastic is 11 years old. The wooden greenhouse frame, built in 2008, has one rotted board that needs replacement. The white cedar foundation posts seem okay, but did get heaved by frost a bit, and digging under the posts at the west end might help level it back out a bit. The ledger board which the plastic attaches to, below the south sill, is completely rotted away and needs to be replaced. That means the plastic is loose on the bottom on the south side. I added some battens on the frames to hold the plastic over the winter, but it wasn't as warm in there with the air leaking along the sill. I want to board up the north wall/roof before putting new plastic on too, and hang a collection of large mirrors to increase light on the grow beds in winter.
Last year, spring got off to a slow start in the greenhouse because it was full of chickens, who much appreciated the shelter. Eventually a raccoon started picking them off and I lost nearly the entire flock (of geriatric low value birds) before building the new coop on the back of the barn. I lost the last two of the old flock to a fox attack in the fall, but I was given seven newer birds that survived the attack, and which are laying now.
As usual, last fall I left the dead tomatoes in there too long, and those were planted in the middle and on the south wall. No more of that! I'm going to make a point of planting them on the north side, and planting earlier, shorter crops on the south. I have a collection of simple improvised cold frames in there now. I should work on making better lids for them, and possibly an automatic opener for an assemblage of them.
I've been planting in there, and sometimes I've been dismayed by the morning temperature, but just now, on April 19, I have a single cucumber sprout, a single costada romanesca summer squash sprout, some bunching onions, leeks, nasturtiums, broccoli, endive, carrots, garlic (lots of garlic) cabbage, beets, radish, fennel, and maybe a lettuce or two. These are 3-4' rows, packed close in the frames, but it's a start. I haven't seen the kale or the chard sprout yet.
Moving on to the garden: A year ago, She told me that she wanted the garden looking neat, and that this would encourage her to join me there, and likely increase productivity. Thus I have four raised beds in what I believe I was calling plot 4. This is the area that's enclosed in a stock fence, just downhill from the rhubarb, high bush blueberries, and failed asparagus.
We did a lot to fill these beds with sifted "compost" from the pile I bought in for the pea shoot enterprise ten years ago. Last fall, I was lucky enough to have 25 yards of wood chips delivered, thanks to my "Wood Chips Wanted" sign by the road. I covered the beds with wood chips about 2" deep or more. And now I'm looking at those beds and wood chips and thinking "Do I need to move those? Should I plant into them? Nitrogen Thief?" Raking them back off would be work. I'm going to leave the chips in place, and plant things in hills of compost in them once things warm up. I want to do more Three Sisters stuff, and that will be a good place for it. I'll work the plots opposite, sometimes known as 13 and 14, for more stuff.
The one spot within plot 4 that I have worked up, just yesterday, was a 6' x 12' low tunnel frame. I had mulched this with cardboard, seaweed, and lawn clippings, and it was still full of rhizome grass. I rolled the frame off it, dug it once with that shovel, raked through it twice with the 3-tooth cultivator, and rolled the frame back on. I covered the frame with a scrap of old plastic that would have fit better in the other orientation, but I realized that after I had it stapled on. (I bought a 1/4" crown x 1 1/2" battery driven stapler for another project. This could be handy.) I planted more beets, carrots, kale, radishes, cabbage, and fennel in there. The ends are open and I should slide some chunks of cardboard in to reduce air flow. It's not going to be perfectly tight, but it'll be warmer than the rest of the outdoors.
So that's where I am just now. I'm finishing my brunch as I type this. It's sunny out and I should be back out there, so that I can be as sore tonight as I was last night. Despite the soreness, physically, I feel as good as I have in years.
Things I want to talk about: Feral garlic. Apple pruning. Apple grafting. The things from the MOFGA Seed Swap and Scion Exchange. Miserable old garden buildings. Recreational ditch digging. Future housing plans. An end to old hayfields. I'll get to that soon.
The year before that, I started a garage renovation project that continues to the present. It started as simple cleaning, removing stored items still there from when my first marriage ended, and cleaning out the bat-shit and nasty sagging homasote wallboard. And then I had to acknowledge that the roof was shot and I had metal to put on it, but before putting metal roofing on, you have to make sure the foundation isn't moving, and that meant pouring new footings, one side at a time, while that side of the building hung in the air, having been lifted by 40 ton jacks. And if I'm going to do all this work then the thing better pay for itself, so why not an Airbnb rental apartment? And that meant a better floor up there, starting with new I-joists hung at a lower level to allow a 9' ceiling. The project isn't done and the yard is a mess because of it.
All this is to say, the garden has been neglected. Not that I regret those moves. The chances of me starving were low, and the financial and social needs of the other projects were real. With my change of marital status, I plan on moving into that apartment, hopefully in about a month, and renting out the house. At some point I should discuss further housing plans beyond the apartment, since it's garden related.
But today, let me record what's going on in the garden.
The greenhouse withstood the winter. That's saying something, as I know of several professionally built greenhouses that didn't. We had over 100" of snow this year, including some storms that came twice a week for a month, and some that dropped over a foot at a shot. It will need some major overhaul this year though. The 4-year plastic is 11 years old. The wooden greenhouse frame, built in 2008, has one rotted board that needs replacement. The white cedar foundation posts seem okay, but did get heaved by frost a bit, and digging under the posts at the west end might help level it back out a bit. The ledger board which the plastic attaches to, below the south sill, is completely rotted away and needs to be replaced. That means the plastic is loose on the bottom on the south side. I added some battens on the frames to hold the plastic over the winter, but it wasn't as warm in there with the air leaking along the sill. I want to board up the north wall/roof before putting new plastic on too, and hang a collection of large mirrors to increase light on the grow beds in winter.
Last year, spring got off to a slow start in the greenhouse because it was full of chickens, who much appreciated the shelter. Eventually a raccoon started picking them off and I lost nearly the entire flock (of geriatric low value birds) before building the new coop on the back of the barn. I lost the last two of the old flock to a fox attack in the fall, but I was given seven newer birds that survived the attack, and which are laying now.
As usual, last fall I left the dead tomatoes in there too long, and those were planted in the middle and on the south wall. No more of that! I'm going to make a point of planting them on the north side, and planting earlier, shorter crops on the south. I have a collection of simple improvised cold frames in there now. I should work on making better lids for them, and possibly an automatic opener for an assemblage of them.
I've been planting in there, and sometimes I've been dismayed by the morning temperature, but just now, on April 19, I have a single cucumber sprout, a single costada romanesca summer squash sprout, some bunching onions, leeks, nasturtiums, broccoli, endive, carrots, garlic (lots of garlic) cabbage, beets, radish, fennel, and maybe a lettuce or two. These are 3-4' rows, packed close in the frames, but it's a start. I haven't seen the kale or the chard sprout yet.
Moving on to the garden: A year ago, She told me that she wanted the garden looking neat, and that this would encourage her to join me there, and likely increase productivity. Thus I have four raised beds in what I believe I was calling plot 4. This is the area that's enclosed in a stock fence, just downhill from the rhubarb, high bush blueberries, and failed asparagus.
We did a lot to fill these beds with sifted "compost" from the pile I bought in for the pea shoot enterprise ten years ago. Last fall, I was lucky enough to have 25 yards of wood chips delivered, thanks to my "Wood Chips Wanted" sign by the road. I covered the beds with wood chips about 2" deep or more. And now I'm looking at those beds and wood chips and thinking "Do I need to move those? Should I plant into them? Nitrogen Thief?" Raking them back off would be work. I'm going to leave the chips in place, and plant things in hills of compost in them once things warm up. I want to do more Three Sisters stuff, and that will be a good place for it. I'll work the plots opposite, sometimes known as 13 and 14, for more stuff.
The one spot within plot 4 that I have worked up, just yesterday, was a 6' x 12' low tunnel frame. I had mulched this with cardboard, seaweed, and lawn clippings, and it was still full of rhizome grass. I rolled the frame off it, dug it once with that shovel, raked through it twice with the 3-tooth cultivator, and rolled the frame back on. I covered the frame with a scrap of old plastic that would have fit better in the other orientation, but I realized that after I had it stapled on. (I bought a 1/4" crown x 1 1/2" battery driven stapler for another project. This could be handy.) I planted more beets, carrots, kale, radishes, cabbage, and fennel in there. The ends are open and I should slide some chunks of cardboard in to reduce air flow. It's not going to be perfectly tight, but it'll be warmer than the rest of the outdoors.
So that's where I am just now. I'm finishing my brunch as I type this. It's sunny out and I should be back out there, so that I can be as sore tonight as I was last night. Despite the soreness, physically, I feel as good as I have in years.
Things I want to talk about: Feral garlic. Apple pruning. Apple grafting. The things from the MOFGA Seed Swap and Scion Exchange. Miserable old garden buildings. Recreational ditch digging. Future housing plans. An end to old hayfields. I'll get to that soon.
Friday, April 10, 2015
Three Years Later...
One of the hardest things about gardening is gardening alone. At least that's true for me.
Right now, I've looked at this blog for the first time in three years. I see pictures of daffodils and green grass. Right now, in 2015, at the same time of year as those posts showing new growth, I've got maybe half the ground still covered in snow.
It's a rough time right now for other reasons. My wife, who's been with me for eight years, has decided that we're too different of people, with too different of goals in life, and she's moved out. I think of all the times I stood in the garden and wished I had her company there. Sometimes she'd come out for an afternoon, once or twice a year. Sometimes she'd critique my gardening, saying I'd be more productive if I had a system, or if things were more organized. That's why I have raised beds in one section now.
But I'm alone. I suspect I will be for some time. I can't argue that we're not two very different people, but dammit, I tried. I was supportive and helpful. I got us to go to counseling for years, where we both learned things about dealing with each other honestly. And in the end, she honestly didn't care to stay with me. It's hard to convince her to stay when that happens, and it's hard to want her to stay.
So now I'm heating the house as though it was normal spring weather, which it isn't, but I just don't care to keep tending the furnace. Last fall I bought a pellet stove and installed it in the kitchen, and it's been nice. It's cheaper than oil, even though oil is back down for the moment. It's not cheaper than the firewood blocks from Peavey, but still not bad. But I still don't heat much. The house stays around 50°, and I've got an electric blanket and a featherbed on top of me at night.
I can't stay in this house. It's too damn big for me. It was too big for the two of us, and now it's worse. Three bedrooms, a living room I hardly use, a dinning room that seems like a hallway with a big table to collect junk...
For the past two years I've been working on the garage. It started as an attempt to clean out some stuff and make it better for storage, but it needed enough work that I figured I should try to make the top into a rental apartment, so that it would pay it's way. Now I'm thinking I should rent out the house and move into the apartment. I've got a month and a half until June, when the rental season should begin. Can I get my ducks in a row?
Actually, I don't have ducks. I have a cat and seven chickens. I have a one legged rooster at the moment, but I don't know if I'm keeping him. Chances are poor. I should be getting five piglets in a few weeks too. I'd better arrange housing for them.
Nobody is going to be joining me. I'd better get to work. There's no use wishing she'd come home and join me.
Right now, I've looked at this blog for the first time in three years. I see pictures of daffodils and green grass. Right now, in 2015, at the same time of year as those posts showing new growth, I've got maybe half the ground still covered in snow.
It's a rough time right now for other reasons. My wife, who's been with me for eight years, has decided that we're too different of people, with too different of goals in life, and she's moved out. I think of all the times I stood in the garden and wished I had her company there. Sometimes she'd come out for an afternoon, once or twice a year. Sometimes she'd critique my gardening, saying I'd be more productive if I had a system, or if things were more organized. That's why I have raised beds in one section now.
But I'm alone. I suspect I will be for some time. I can't argue that we're not two very different people, but dammit, I tried. I was supportive and helpful. I got us to go to counseling for years, where we both learned things about dealing with each other honestly. And in the end, she honestly didn't care to stay with me. It's hard to convince her to stay when that happens, and it's hard to want her to stay.
So now I'm heating the house as though it was normal spring weather, which it isn't, but I just don't care to keep tending the furnace. Last fall I bought a pellet stove and installed it in the kitchen, and it's been nice. It's cheaper than oil, even though oil is back down for the moment. It's not cheaper than the firewood blocks from Peavey, but still not bad. But I still don't heat much. The house stays around 50°, and I've got an electric blanket and a featherbed on top of me at night.
I can't stay in this house. It's too damn big for me. It was too big for the two of us, and now it's worse. Three bedrooms, a living room I hardly use, a dinning room that seems like a hallway with a big table to collect junk...
For the past two years I've been working on the garage. It started as an attempt to clean out some stuff and make it better for storage, but it needed enough work that I figured I should try to make the top into a rental apartment, so that it would pay it's way. Now I'm thinking I should rent out the house and move into the apartment. I've got a month and a half until June, when the rental season should begin. Can I get my ducks in a row?
Actually, I don't have ducks. I have a cat and seven chickens. I have a one legged rooster at the moment, but I don't know if I'm keeping him. Chances are poor. I should be getting five piglets in a few weeks too. I'd better arrange housing for them.
Nobody is going to be joining me. I'd better get to work. There's no use wishing she'd come home and join me.
Sunday, April 15, 2012
Mid-April Update
I haven't written in two weeks, but that doesn't mean I haven't been doing things. I have to say I was a little stunned by the response to my last post. For a few days there I was getting ten times my previous all time high traffic level.
The yurt is turning out to be very handy. I've got my cot, my folding chair and table, a trash bucket with lid, some cooler clothes if I need to play in the sprinklers, thermometer, clock, lantern, and a sheet of plywood as a hard, clean floor. I write here, both for personal and work reasons. I take naps when necessary. I sort seeds and keep records. I change bandages on my injured rooster. I keep water bottles in the shade. I keep tools out of the rain. I even slept out here overnight last night. What I still want are some wall and ceiling cloths, because it's a little bright in here when on the computer in bright sunlight.
Beyond the success and comfort of the yurt, I guess there are three main things to talk about: Spading v. Mulching, Irrigation, and Planting Progress.
Spading v. Mulching:
I think I've said that I'm focusing my efforts on sections 11 to 14. Section 11 had corn in it last year, with the idea of doing Three Sisters. Then I hurt my back, so it turned out to be thin hills of corn and lots of weeds. The corn was planted at intervals along mounded ridges. This spring, the chickens have done their best to tear those ridges apart, doing a lot of weed control in the process. Something about that system discouraged the rhizome grass too, so that area is fairly clean. It's biggest shortcoming is the comparatively low level of soil carbon. It needs organic matter.
Section 14 is my most worked section. I've dug, cultivated, picked weeds and rocks, and planted. It's in good shape.
Top, beds 1 & 2.
Middle, beds 3 & 4.
Bottom, Beds 5 & 6.
All looking south from the central path.
Section 13 is in progress. I'm almost through digging it all up, shovel by shovel, and turning it over. I'll still have to do a lot of cultivation and rhizome picking, and then it could use more soil carbon.
Section 12 is in the worst shape. It's coming up heavy in rhizome grass. If I get it within the next week, I should be able to control it, putting it in the same boat with section 13.
I was reading on line where an old guy was talking about how 70 years ago, his father would hire someone to come in and spade up the garden. Then they'd rake it out, form rows, and plant. He pondered how nobody spades their garden any more. This prompted a discussion of what's the right and wrong way to manage soil. Opinions ranged: Dig, double dig, dig only every couple years, never dig, turn weeds and cultivate, mulch with cardboard, mulch with old hay, rototill.... Clearly there are diverse opinions. One zealot devotee of Elaine Ingham even stated that digging your soil will damage the Soil Food Web for years.
My take is that your methods have to suit your resources. In my situation, double digging is hard and useless work. (I hear it was invented by a Calvinist.) Excessive digging will not help my heavy clay soil, and neither will (or has) mechanical cultivation. The biggest argument that organic methods won't work is that farms will never be able to get enough organic mater to maintain soil carbon, and it's true that this is an issue, but not an insurmountable one. I'm able to get carbon, just not quite as quickly as I'd like.
So what am I going to do? Well, I need to disturb the rhizomes. They're too thick in sections 12 and 13 to simply fork over like I did in section 14. They need to be cut up. Yes, every cut section will be capable of re-sprouting, but there's not much else that will let me make headway, so I spade the soil.
In section 11, I don't have to spade so badly. As a stopgap before I get to it, I've added the rest of my wood chip pile to it instead. That was about eight garden cart loads of half rotted chips. The chickens continue to work on it. I'm still trying to decide if I need space now (and section 11 would be easier to do next) or I need grass control now (in section 12). Maybe I need to be going to the co-op and getting cardboard. (Never come home with an empty truck.) I can soak it and lay it out as a semi-solid cover. That won't stop the rhizome grass indefinitely, but it will hold it in check. So, spade or mulch? Both!
Either way, I guess I think of these things as being for fallow time. Once I start growing things, I mostly want to be able to cultivate as they get going. If I'm short on mulch material, I'll use it where I can suppress weeds over a large area, rather than fiddle with it, making a tight collar around a plant. It doesn't look like a problem this year, but some years mulch is too much of a cover for slugs. The couple things I would like to keep mulched if I can are garlic and potatoes. Garlic needs it over the winter, and if I can get another layer over it in the spring it helps. I still have to pull weeds coming up through it, but it helps. And mulch is the only thing I've found that stops potato beetles, in addition to keeping the new potatoes from growing out of the ground.
Irrigation:
It's the middle of April, and we're down on precipitation, since the first of the year, over 40%. This has worked really well for me in some ways. I can go dig in dirt instead of mud. Weeds laid on the surface dry out and die. It's been really beautiful.
However, plants are going to need water. The grapes, rhubarb, and raspberries need water to get leafed out. As I've started planting things, I need to be watering seeds in. I have no electrical power on the garden side of the road, nor do I have pressurized water. So I need to have an irrigation system, and I need to water with a watering can when I'm doing a small area, which requires a handy place to dip out of.
This town has an unusually high population of plumbers, per capita. When I first got here, I thought used black plastic water line was a hard item to come by, but eventually I learned better. Plumbers don't like to re-use it. It's awkward to throw away too, because you have to cut it up into chunks before it can be hauled off, so the two biggest outfits in town both have piles of used poly pipe hidden in the bushes near their shops. I found that all I had to do was ask for it.
I've had a series of pumps to work with too. The first one was a bladder-piston trash pump, which pumped in spurts, about 20 per minute, and each one made the hose creep just a little. I used a briggs powered impeller pump, which used to be a fire pump on a passenger boat, but the motor gave more and more trouble. I used a belt drive pump, which had the advantage of letting me change motors fairly easily, and the disadvantage that it'd throw the belt and I'd have to hunt for it in the tall grass. What I use now is a 2" honda powered impeller pump. I think I had to give it about 8 pulls to get it started this spring. Not bad.
The pump draws from the long pond, which is actually a dammed section of a small brook. There's a swamp upstream that used to be a meadow. It used to be a meadow because of cycles of beavers that would dam it up, so the water is shallow and the vegetation makes the water slightly brown. At the downstream end is a dam, built by the former owner of this place. The pond and stream are the property line, and I don' think either my neighbor or I have any great interest in re-building the dam, even though it's on it's last legs. There'd be too much bureaucracy. But it's a wooden dam and one of these years it's going to go. This year there are beavers "improving" it. This raises the water level in the pond, and I'll have to watch out so that the pump doesn't end up under water. It did make the pump prime easily though. Generally I try to keep the pump 50' or so back from the water.
So the pump pushes into a 2" poly water line, which goes up the field, through the fence, and into the middle of the garden. From there it splits four ways, which is a bit of a plumbers nightmare. Four 1" lines lead away. I have a good collection of 1" hose, and I once got a big bag of 1" plastic barb elbow fittings for $2.00/pound at the notable surplus and salvage place. These work great because you can hammer them in and out, where a straight barb fitting has to be shoved and pulled on, and is much more work, especially when the water is running and you're getting sprayed in the face.
With the 1" line I can get to anywhere in the garden or nearby. For the final section of line, I use some that I've drilled 3/32" holes in every 1 1/2', so it acts as a long line sprinkler. Some have caps in the end and some have a factory sealed pinched and melted end. This has worked well, although I think I need to add some T-fittings so that I have multiple emitter ends on the hoses. The beds are 4' on center, and if I had an emitter hose ever three beds it should keep the ground wet. My topsoil is loose, but my subsoil should limit the water going down. I should be able to set up hoses and leave them in place most of the summer.
That reminds me of eight years ago, when we'd (meaning I'd, with direction) drag 1 1/4" poly water line around trying to water, dragging it over lots of things by accident.
Anyway, that takes care of the bulk watering, but I still need to be able to hand water rows of newly planted stuff. So I need a dip-tank that I can pull watering cans out of. Over the years I've managed to get my hands on several used above ground metal swimming pools. These are medium weight sheet metal, slightly ribbed, and are either three or four feet wide, and long enough to enclose a 12' or 16' pool. That seemed too big, so I cut one about in half, giving me enough for a 6'ish pool. I joined the ends with a wood 1x2 on either side and a galvanized deck screw every 2" up the seam, lined it with an old carpet and an old piece of greenhouse plastic from a previous cistern.
When I filled it up I found out there are some small (1/8"-ish) holes, so that in a few hours it drains down to 3/4 full. Maybe I'll patch those, but 3/4 full is good enough, so I'm happy with it. I did patch one larger hole with zip-tape, which is supposed to be for taping the joints on a type of pre-painted OSB sheathing. I've been using it to patch small holes in the yurt too. Handy stuff. For the pool, I just cleaned the area with rubbing alcohol and a paper towel first, then slapped it on. It's rubbery, 3" wide and about 1/32" thick.
Planting Progress:
The way it's going to work, mostly, is that I'll have six 4' beds per section. I go back and forth on bed spacing. I try to maximize growing area and minimize path size, but if I have 30" beds and 18" paths, that seems workable.
A couple years ago I built myself a weeding cart. I lay on it, face down, and it suspends me over the growing bed and a comfortable working height. It stretches my shoulders a little, but ergonomically, it's better than being bent over for the same amount of work. I just have to take breaks. The wheels are 36" on center, so if I'm careful, it'll work with the 32" wide beds.
So at this point, bed 1 (west edge of section 14) is garlic, and I planted some lettuces in three rows in the last 6' of it. Bed 2 is kale and chard, planted several weeks ago and coming up slowly. The chard is a little spotty, but the kale has good germination. Bed 3 is garlic. Bed 4 is a few dahlias (all the same dark red) and about 75 gladiolus, then three rows down the bed of spinach. Bed 5 is three rows down the bed, parsley (curly and flat leaf) peas, and beets. I'll be putting up trellis down the middle for the peas soon. Bed 6 is almost ready to plant. It might get carrots and endive, but I'm not sure yet. I'd like to get in another bed or two or garlic.
And then it's dig, dig, dig. Control the grass, make beds ready to plant, and watch it get warmer.
The yurt is turning out to be very handy. I've got my cot, my folding chair and table, a trash bucket with lid, some cooler clothes if I need to play in the sprinklers, thermometer, clock, lantern, and a sheet of plywood as a hard, clean floor. I write here, both for personal and work reasons. I take naps when necessary. I sort seeds and keep records. I change bandages on my injured rooster. I keep water bottles in the shade. I keep tools out of the rain. I even slept out here overnight last night. What I still want are some wall and ceiling cloths, because it's a little bright in here when on the computer in bright sunlight.
Beyond the success and comfort of the yurt, I guess there are three main things to talk about: Spading v. Mulching, Irrigation, and Planting Progress.
Spading v. Mulching:
I think I've said that I'm focusing my efforts on sections 11 to 14. Section 11 had corn in it last year, with the idea of doing Three Sisters. Then I hurt my back, so it turned out to be thin hills of corn and lots of weeds. The corn was planted at intervals along mounded ridges. This spring, the chickens have done their best to tear those ridges apart, doing a lot of weed control in the process. Something about that system discouraged the rhizome grass too, so that area is fairly clean. It's biggest shortcoming is the comparatively low level of soil carbon. It needs organic matter.
Section 14 is my most worked section. I've dug, cultivated, picked weeds and rocks, and planted. It's in good shape.
Top, beds 1 & 2.
Middle, beds 3 & 4.
Bottom, Beds 5 & 6.
All looking south from the central path.
Section 13 is in progress. I'm almost through digging it all up, shovel by shovel, and turning it over. I'll still have to do a lot of cultivation and rhizome picking, and then it could use more soil carbon.
Section 13, mostly dug.
Section 12 is in the worst shape. It's coming up heavy in rhizome grass. If I get it within the next week, I should be able to control it, putting it in the same boat with section 13.
Section 12, coming up grass, and the windmill needs fixing.
I was reading on line where an old guy was talking about how 70 years ago, his father would hire someone to come in and spade up the garden. Then they'd rake it out, form rows, and plant. He pondered how nobody spades their garden any more. This prompted a discussion of what's the right and wrong way to manage soil. Opinions ranged: Dig, double dig, dig only every couple years, never dig, turn weeds and cultivate, mulch with cardboard, mulch with old hay, rototill.... Clearly there are diverse opinions. One zealot devotee of Elaine Ingham even stated that digging your soil will damage the Soil Food Web for years.
My take is that your methods have to suit your resources. In my situation, double digging is hard and useless work. (I hear it was invented by a Calvinist.) Excessive digging will not help my heavy clay soil, and neither will (or has) mechanical cultivation. The biggest argument that organic methods won't work is that farms will never be able to get enough organic mater to maintain soil carbon, and it's true that this is an issue, but not an insurmountable one. I'm able to get carbon, just not quite as quickly as I'd like.
So what am I going to do? Well, I need to disturb the rhizomes. They're too thick in sections 12 and 13 to simply fork over like I did in section 14. They need to be cut up. Yes, every cut section will be capable of re-sprouting, but there's not much else that will let me make headway, so I spade the soil.
Section 11, with about 8 cart-loads of wood chips.
In section 11, I don't have to spade so badly. As a stopgap before I get to it, I've added the rest of my wood chip pile to it instead. That was about eight garden cart loads of half rotted chips. The chickens continue to work on it. I'm still trying to decide if I need space now (and section 11 would be easier to do next) or I need grass control now (in section 12). Maybe I need to be going to the co-op and getting cardboard. (Never come home with an empty truck.) I can soak it and lay it out as a semi-solid cover. That won't stop the rhizome grass indefinitely, but it will hold it in check. So, spade or mulch? Both!
Either way, I guess I think of these things as being for fallow time. Once I start growing things, I mostly want to be able to cultivate as they get going. If I'm short on mulch material, I'll use it where I can suppress weeds over a large area, rather than fiddle with it, making a tight collar around a plant. It doesn't look like a problem this year, but some years mulch is too much of a cover for slugs. The couple things I would like to keep mulched if I can are garlic and potatoes. Garlic needs it over the winter, and if I can get another layer over it in the spring it helps. I still have to pull weeds coming up through it, but it helps. And mulch is the only thing I've found that stops potato beetles, in addition to keeping the new potatoes from growing out of the ground.
Irrigation:
It's the middle of April, and we're down on precipitation, since the first of the year, over 40%. This has worked really well for me in some ways. I can go dig in dirt instead of mud. Weeds laid on the surface dry out and die. It's been really beautiful.
However, plants are going to need water. The grapes, rhubarb, and raspberries need water to get leafed out. As I've started planting things, I need to be watering seeds in. I have no electrical power on the garden side of the road, nor do I have pressurized water. So I need to have an irrigation system, and I need to water with a watering can when I'm doing a small area, which requires a handy place to dip out of.
This town has an unusually high population of plumbers, per capita. When I first got here, I thought used black plastic water line was a hard item to come by, but eventually I learned better. Plumbers don't like to re-use it. It's awkward to throw away too, because you have to cut it up into chunks before it can be hauled off, so the two biggest outfits in town both have piles of used poly pipe hidden in the bushes near their shops. I found that all I had to do was ask for it.
I've had a series of pumps to work with too. The first one was a bladder-piston trash pump, which pumped in spurts, about 20 per minute, and each one made the hose creep just a little. I used a briggs powered impeller pump, which used to be a fire pump on a passenger boat, but the motor gave more and more trouble. I used a belt drive pump, which had the advantage of letting me change motors fairly easily, and the disadvantage that it'd throw the belt and I'd have to hunt for it in the tall grass. What I use now is a 2" honda powered impeller pump. I think I had to give it about 8 pulls to get it started this spring. Not bad.
The pump draws from the long pond, which is actually a dammed section of a small brook. There's a swamp upstream that used to be a meadow. It used to be a meadow because of cycles of beavers that would dam it up, so the water is shallow and the vegetation makes the water slightly brown. At the downstream end is a dam, built by the former owner of this place. The pond and stream are the property line, and I don' think either my neighbor or I have any great interest in re-building the dam, even though it's on it's last legs. There'd be too much bureaucracy. But it's a wooden dam and one of these years it's going to go. This year there are beavers "improving" it. This raises the water level in the pond, and I'll have to watch out so that the pump doesn't end up under water. It did make the pump prime easily though. Generally I try to keep the pump 50' or so back from the water.
So the pump pushes into a 2" poly water line, which goes up the field, through the fence, and into the middle of the garden. From there it splits four ways, which is a bit of a plumbers nightmare. Four 1" lines lead away. I have a good collection of 1" hose, and I once got a big bag of 1" plastic barb elbow fittings for $2.00/pound at the notable surplus and salvage place. These work great because you can hammer them in and out, where a straight barb fitting has to be shoved and pulled on, and is much more work, especially when the water is running and you're getting sprayed in the face.
2" line from the pump. Its about 300' from the fence to the pond, and a 20' rise.
2" pipe feeds four 1" pipes.
1" barb elbows connect sections.
With the 1" line I can get to anywhere in the garden or nearby. For the final section of line, I use some that I've drilled 3/32" holes in every 1 1/2', so it acts as a long line sprinkler. Some have caps in the end and some have a factory sealed pinched and melted end. This has worked well, although I think I need to add some T-fittings so that I have multiple emitter ends on the hoses. The beds are 4' on center, and if I had an emitter hose ever three beds it should keep the ground wet. My topsoil is loose, but my subsoil should limit the water going down. I should be able to set up hoses and leave them in place most of the summer.
That reminds me of eight years ago, when we'd (meaning I'd, with direction) drag 1 1/4" poly water line around trying to water, dragging it over lots of things by accident.
Anyway, that takes care of the bulk watering, but I still need to be able to hand water rows of newly planted stuff. So I need a dip-tank that I can pull watering cans out of. Over the years I've managed to get my hands on several used above ground metal swimming pools. These are medium weight sheet metal, slightly ribbed, and are either three or four feet wide, and long enough to enclose a 12' or 16' pool. That seemed too big, so I cut one about in half, giving me enough for a 6'ish pool. I joined the ends with a wood 1x2 on either side and a galvanized deck screw every 2" up the seam, lined it with an old carpet and an old piece of greenhouse plastic from a previous cistern.
Cistern, as full as it will stay.
When I filled it up I found out there are some small (1/8"-ish) holes, so that in a few hours it drains down to 3/4 full. Maybe I'll patch those, but 3/4 full is good enough, so I'm happy with it. I did patch one larger hole with zip-tape, which is supposed to be for taping the joints on a type of pre-painted OSB sheathing. I've been using it to patch small holes in the yurt too. Handy stuff. For the pool, I just cleaned the area with rubbing alcohol and a paper towel first, then slapped it on. It's rubbery, 3" wide and about 1/32" thick.
Planting Progress:
The way it's going to work, mostly, is that I'll have six 4' beds per section. I go back and forth on bed spacing. I try to maximize growing area and minimize path size, but if I have 30" beds and 18" paths, that seems workable.
A couple years ago I built myself a weeding cart. I lay on it, face down, and it suspends me over the growing bed and a comfortable working height. It stretches my shoulders a little, but ergonomically, it's better than being bent over for the same amount of work. I just have to take breaks. The wheels are 36" on center, so if I'm careful, it'll work with the 32" wide beds.
Weeding cart, built mostly of old bikes.
So at this point, bed 1 (west edge of section 14) is garlic, and I planted some lettuces in three rows in the last 6' of it. Bed 2 is kale and chard, planted several weeks ago and coming up slowly. The chard is a little spotty, but the kale has good germination. Bed 3 is garlic. Bed 4 is a few dahlias (all the same dark red) and about 75 gladiolus, then three rows down the bed of spinach. Bed 5 is three rows down the bed, parsley (curly and flat leaf) peas, and beets. I'll be putting up trellis down the middle for the peas soon. Bed 6 is almost ready to plant. It might get carrots and endive, but I'm not sure yet. I'd like to get in another bed or two or garlic.
And then it's dig, dig, dig. Control the grass, make beds ready to plant, and watch it get warmer.
Daffodils for cutting, starting to open.
Daylilies sprouting.
Section 10: Thin grass.
Section 9: ridges of thick rhizome grass.
Section 7: Last year's leftovers.
Onion sprouting from last year's unharvested crop. I hope for seed.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
New Garden Architecture
As I finished up last time, I talked about building a new garden structure, a small yurt. Well, I did it.
I spent several days trying to figure out what to do about a platform. Most yurts these days seem to get up up on platforms, which is kind of funny. The original design is of course Mongolian, even though there are plenty of variations. But it's designed to be a house for nomads, yet it gets set up on a platform. The platform is heavy, not mobile, and removes the mobility of the structure.
So in the end, I got a shovel and roughly leveled the ground where I wanted this thing so it's not 6" taller on one side than the other, then I brought in two cartloads of wood chips and raked them level. Then the chickens un-leveled them.
I had originally built this thing about five years ago as a small smithy for my hand-cranked forge. My wife came on the scene soon after that, and ever so gently convinced me that the back yard was a poor place for it. (She was right. It wouldn't have looked good there at our wedding.) So I took it apart and stored the pieces. And a yesterday I hauled out those pieces, which were basically two stock panels, 16 rafters, and a door frame.
I marked out my site before leveling it, so I had a circle the size I knew I'd end up with. Last time, I used quick links to tie the two panels together, overlapping by one 8" interval between verticals. This time I cut off the end vertical on opposite ends of the panels, then I used 9" sections of old copper pipe as sleeves. I should have had 13 of them but I only cut 10. Oh well. It works.
So in the end, I got a shovel and roughly leveled the ground where I wanted this thing so it's not 6" taller on one side than the other, then I brought in two cartloads of wood chips and raked them level. Then the chickens un-leveled them.
I had originally built this thing about five years ago as a small smithy for my hand-cranked forge. My wife came on the scene soon after that, and ever so gently convinced me that the back yard was a poor place for it. (She was right. It wouldn't have looked good there at our wedding.) So I took it apart and stored the pieces. And a yesterday I hauled out those pieces, which were basically two stock panels, 16 rafters, and a door frame.
I marked out my site before leveling it, so I had a circle the size I knew I'd end up with. Last time, I used quick links to tie the two panels together, overlapping by one 8" interval between verticals. This time I cut off the end vertical on opposite ends of the panels, then I used 9" sections of old copper pipe as sleeves. I should have had 13 of them but I only cut 10. Oh well. It works.
I bent the other ends around and tied them together temporarily with some thick soft wire I picked up at the dump a while back. Then I set up the rafters. One of them split and broke, but I figured 15 would be good enough. The upper ends are cut so that they're vertical when in position. The lower end has two vertical sections, the upper one 1/2" out from the lower, so that that short horizontal can bear on the top of the stock panel. Both ends have holes drilled a few inches from the ends.
I started by wiring the upper end together and spreading the bottoms to make sort of a tipi. Then I lifted one bottom end at a time and wired the ends to the top horizontal of the stock panels. With three up, it looked like a pile of rafters hanging vertically from a tripod. One by one they went up, and then I had to reposition all of them, one by one, so that they'd be equally spaced. The way they come together at the top still isn't quite right, but I'll live with it. It's good enough.
And then I used heavy fence staples to attach the door frame.
I wrapped the wall in a few strips of old greenhouse plastic, and covered the top with some old white plastic tarp. There are a few holes in both of these that I'll want to tape up, and I need to arrange doors, but overall, I'm happy with it. It'll be a place to store tools, get out of the mist and wind for a break, work on my computer in a quiet place (I haven't tested to see if wifi reaches.) and maybe take a nap out of the sun in the summer. I'm still considering a floor. If I get around to it, I'll lay down more plastic on the ground and then have a few sheets of plywood over that, as a hard clean surface, good for sorting seed packets and such.
I've got some shutters in the barn. Maybe a pair of them will work as double doors to keep the chickens out.
UPDATE:
Last night I did as threatened and found some shutters in the barn. They're 47" x 14", which is just right for the 48" x 29" opening. They had half hinges already, so I drove in some large finish nails and then bent them up to serve as hinge pins.
This shot shows the fold in the roof tarp. I'll probably need to tape that down somehow.
Here's a detail shot of a rafter butt:
And here's my lantern, which meant that I had more light than if I was just working with my flashlight in my mouth last night:
Monday, March 26, 2012
First Post of Spring!
Last Wednesday it was up to 80° here. This morning it's snowing. It's just light flurries, but there it is. I can't complain. A late March or even early April snowstorm is to be expected as often as not around here. The ice is gone from the ponds and you have to really hunt to find a little bit of snow that hasn't melted yet. The Canada Geese are grazing in the field below the garden every evening. Two nights ago I heard spring peepers and wood frogs. Crocus are in full bloom and a few daffodils are open in front of the sun porch. The grass is starting to green up.
Of course in the garden, controlling the grass is one of my highest priorities. Section 14 is pretty well under control. I still need to root out some rhizomes on the downhill (east) side of it, but it looks good. I planted more garlic and got a fence around the section. The fence is none too soon, as the chickens were scratching a dust bath area in the first garlic bed, and I may have to re-plant a few there.
Toward the bottom of the picture there's a horizontal line of damp soil. That's where I stopped planting garlic. The last few feet are still open, although it seemed like a good spot to tuck in some short rows of lettuce.
I'm working with a general pattern of beds four feet on center, which should usually come out to 30 inch growing beds and 18 inch paths, but I crowd the paths a little.
I want lots of garlic, but I also want to have things mixed in so it's not just a solid block. I planted the next bed space with two rows. One is chard and one is curly kale. These are both fairly cold tolerant. It's supposed to go to the low 20's tomorrow and Wednesday mornings, but they aren't up yet so they should be fine. It occurs to me that if I can round up enough scrap boards (half rotted is fine) to set on top of the rows, that will keep the frost out of the seedbed. I've been watering them lightly on the warm days. The national weather service says we're in a light, short term drought.
And then there's the third bed, which I planted to garlic again. There's about 100 cloves that are well sprouted transplants from the section 7 bed where I grew garlic last year and didn't get quite all of it pulled out. Their leaves are about 4" tall already, showing me how far behind the stuff I'm planting as less sprouted cloves is. But it's an early spring, mostly, and there's time for it all to do well.
Here's the third bed in the center, just before planting all the garlic. The poultry net fence is set up around the section, but not electrified. On the right, I keep digging and pulling out rhizomes.
I think the fourth bed will be spinach, but I'm not there yet.
As I move through and watch the grass starting to sprout, I know I can't be too fixated on one spot. I'm going to miss stuff, and it'll have to be dealt with again later. The goal is to keep any one spot from getting too bad to deal with later. Were the grass is sprouting fastest, I go in with the digging fork and turn over the most advanced areas, shaking their dirt onto the green grass around them as a mulch. Instead of being meticulous about working down a row, I look around like a grazing animal, cherry picking the most lush clump to go after next.
Sections 13 and 12 are going to be the hardest. The grass and the rhizomes are thickest there. I did some experimental digging and the spading fork isn't going to work. It's too dense of mat. Instead, I'm going to turn it all over with a square point spade, cutting the rhizomes into little bits, all of which will sprout. Then I'll go through it repeatedly with other tools and slowly pull out the little bits.
Section 11 had corn hills in it last year, and was supposed to get squash and beans but that never happened before I hurt my back. The corn had been planted on ridges, and this seems to have discouraged running rhizomes. The soil needs more organic matter, but the weed problems are going to be from annuals that can be controlled with normal cultivation.
Section 4 looks promising. There are some rhizomes, but there's a lot of organic material in there, including lots of year old wood chips and crab shell. Digging is easy. Using my hit and miss method of going after the most noticeable grass sprouts, I've turned a lot of it over somewhat. already.
I've recruited one other gardener, who's going to take on the west half of section 7. That's about 1000 square feet. That area had a lot of hay added a few years ago. I paved most of the section and let it rot there, and then last year I had a lot planted there that the weeds took. Again, with normal cultivation for weed control, it should do fine.
So, weed control and cultivation tools:
I've been using the spading fork a lot, and it works fairly well. I notice it has a crack in the fiberglass handle, and I'll have to watch that. New handles are something that I shouldn't need for most things if I'd only take care of them.
The handle of my square point spade was treated last year with "Boat Soup", which is a mix of melted parafin, turpentine, linseed oil, and pine tar. It probably should get another coat, as should many of my tools.
I've mentioned the three tooth cultivator from Glasier. It's due for the treatment. The nice thing about that handle is it's just a conical point, and if it breaks, I can make a replacement easily enough.
My largest hand cultivation tool is my broadfork, which I got from the dump. Amazing what you can get there. I've put it to heavy use and there are a few repairs visible if you look closely. I think the reason it was at the dump was that the tines bolt on with one bolt each, and they turned too easily. I welded them so they don't turn. I've also broken one of them off and welded it back on with a reinforcement, and I've nearly ripped the whole thing in half and welded the cross bar back together.
And then there are the wheel hoes. I've got one that's an old Planet Jr., and I have multiple attachments for it, but it doesn't get much use. It needs the handles replaced and some things tightened up. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it seems like most of the tools aren't very well suited to my soil. They tend to get caked with mud and fine roots and then they don't cut.
The wheel hoe I use is one I made myself out of old bike parts. It's propped up at an awkward angle here, but you can see the geometry well enough.
The tool bits attach to a holder from an old commercially made wheel hoe. I got that bit at a junk shop for $5. It's bolted on to a bike handlebar gooseneck that's designed to clamp into the head tube with a wedge and bolt set up. The idea was that I could pop that out and change tool heads easily that way, but instead I've been bolting and unbolting tines from the holder. The holder can take five tines, and I can make tines from any small square stock. The originals were 1/4", but the one that's in there now is extra long and made from 3/8" stock. This is the first useful thing I've made on my little hand cranked blacksmith forge. If the soil was loose it'd be about right, but because I've run into some heavier clumps with grass root balls, I bent the tine. I was able to bend it back without heat, and then I added the wire as a reinforcement.
The original tines were almost vertical in the soil. I intend to forge a set that will run horizontally in the soil the way the ones on the three tine hand cultivator does, not too deep. The stock for these will have to be much longer than the originals to work right. I actually tried using hose clamps and attached the three tine cultivator to this wheel hoe. That worked well. Of course bike parts are cheap and I may just build a variety pack with different tools on each one. Because of the welding, it's impossible to change a tire once the thing is put together. The tire on this one is actually flat, but it doesn't seem to matter much.
The last thing I have to talk about is how I want a new garden building. Call it Nominative Determinism. My last name actually means "small house". For the last several days I've had the Eze-Up market canopy set up low in the garden, and I've got a low table/cart and a folding chair there. I've had to take it down today because of the forecast wind. What I want is something durable that I don't have to take down. Several years ago I had a small yurt set up, made from two 16' stock panels. I still have the parts. I just need a level platform to set it up on. It would be just inside the gate, 11' diameter, and give me a place to get out of occasional showers, as well as a place to stretch, keep a few tools, a water jug. And it'd have to have a door to keep out bugs and chickens. The trick is finding the time, between the garden work I need to do and my day job.
Of course in the garden, controlling the grass is one of my highest priorities. Section 14 is pretty well under control. I still need to root out some rhizomes on the downhill (east) side of it, but it looks good. I planted more garlic and got a fence around the section. The fence is none too soon, as the chickens were scratching a dust bath area in the first garlic bed, and I may have to re-plant a few there.
I'm working with a general pattern of beds four feet on center, which should usually come out to 30 inch growing beds and 18 inch paths, but I crowd the paths a little.
I want lots of garlic, but I also want to have things mixed in so it's not just a solid block. I planted the next bed space with two rows. One is chard and one is curly kale. These are both fairly cold tolerant. It's supposed to go to the low 20's tomorrow and Wednesday mornings, but they aren't up yet so they should be fine. It occurs to me that if I can round up enough scrap boards (half rotted is fine) to set on top of the rows, that will keep the frost out of the seedbed. I've been watering them lightly on the warm days. The national weather service says we're in a light, short term drought.
And then there's the third bed, which I planted to garlic again. There's about 100 cloves that are well sprouted transplants from the section 7 bed where I grew garlic last year and didn't get quite all of it pulled out. Their leaves are about 4" tall already, showing me how far behind the stuff I'm planting as less sprouted cloves is. But it's an early spring, mostly, and there's time for it all to do well.
Here's the third bed in the center, just before planting all the garlic. The poultry net fence is set up around the section, but not electrified. On the right, I keep digging and pulling out rhizomes.
I think the fourth bed will be spinach, but I'm not there yet.
As I move through and watch the grass starting to sprout, I know I can't be too fixated on one spot. I'm going to miss stuff, and it'll have to be dealt with again later. The goal is to keep any one spot from getting too bad to deal with later. Were the grass is sprouting fastest, I go in with the digging fork and turn over the most advanced areas, shaking their dirt onto the green grass around them as a mulch. Instead of being meticulous about working down a row, I look around like a grazing animal, cherry picking the most lush clump to go after next.
Sections 13 and 12 are going to be the hardest. The grass and the rhizomes are thickest there. I did some experimental digging and the spading fork isn't going to work. It's too dense of mat. Instead, I'm going to turn it all over with a square point spade, cutting the rhizomes into little bits, all of which will sprout. Then I'll go through it repeatedly with other tools and slowly pull out the little bits.
Section 11 had corn hills in it last year, and was supposed to get squash and beans but that never happened before I hurt my back. The corn had been planted on ridges, and this seems to have discouraged running rhizomes. The soil needs more organic matter, but the weed problems are going to be from annuals that can be controlled with normal cultivation.
Section 4 looks promising. There are some rhizomes, but there's a lot of organic material in there, including lots of year old wood chips and crab shell. Digging is easy. Using my hit and miss method of going after the most noticeable grass sprouts, I've turned a lot of it over somewhat. already.
I've recruited one other gardener, who's going to take on the west half of section 7. That's about 1000 square feet. That area had a lot of hay added a few years ago. I paved most of the section and let it rot there, and then last year I had a lot planted there that the weeds took. Again, with normal cultivation for weed control, it should do fine.
So, weed control and cultivation tools:
I've been using the spading fork a lot, and it works fairly well. I notice it has a crack in the fiberglass handle, and I'll have to watch that. New handles are something that I shouldn't need for most things if I'd only take care of them.
I've mentioned the three tooth cultivator from Glasier. It's due for the treatment. The nice thing about that handle is it's just a conical point, and if it breaks, I can make a replacement easily enough.
My largest hand cultivation tool is my broadfork, which I got from the dump. Amazing what you can get there. I've put it to heavy use and there are a few repairs visible if you look closely. I think the reason it was at the dump was that the tines bolt on with one bolt each, and they turned too easily. I welded them so they don't turn. I've also broken one of them off and welded it back on with a reinforcement, and I've nearly ripped the whole thing in half and welded the cross bar back together.
And then there are the wheel hoes. I've got one that's an old Planet Jr., and I have multiple attachments for it, but it doesn't get much use. It needs the handles replaced and some things tightened up. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it seems like most of the tools aren't very well suited to my soil. They tend to get caked with mud and fine roots and then they don't cut.
The wheel hoe I use is one I made myself out of old bike parts. It's propped up at an awkward angle here, but you can see the geometry well enough.
The original tines were almost vertical in the soil. I intend to forge a set that will run horizontally in the soil the way the ones on the three tine hand cultivator does, not too deep. The stock for these will have to be much longer than the originals to work right. I actually tried using hose clamps and attached the three tine cultivator to this wheel hoe. That worked well. Of course bike parts are cheap and I may just build a variety pack with different tools on each one. Because of the welding, it's impossible to change a tire once the thing is put together. The tire on this one is actually flat, but it doesn't seem to matter much.
The last thing I have to talk about is how I want a new garden building. Call it Nominative Determinism. My last name actually means "small house". For the last several days I've had the Eze-Up market canopy set up low in the garden, and I've got a low table/cart and a folding chair there. I've had to take it down today because of the forecast wind. What I want is something durable that I don't have to take down. Several years ago I had a small yurt set up, made from two 16' stock panels. I still have the parts. I just need a level platform to set it up on. It would be just inside the gate, 11' diameter, and give me a place to get out of occasional showers, as well as a place to stretch, keep a few tools, a water jug. And it'd have to have a door to keep out bugs and chickens. The trick is finding the time, between the garden work I need to do and my day job.
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