Christmas is Comin'

Thanksgiving is over, the semester is almost over and Christmas is almost here!!!

Enjoy the Christmas holiday, everyone!

Eye of the Tater (and Other Scenes from the Farm)

Just pulled my seed potatoes out of the cellar. Some I had bought earlier this spring, others I had saved from last year. They all had shoots on them (some 2-3 feet long) and were growing through all the boxes, but since the shoots were white (due to lack of light), I had to pull them off and let them regrow. In a couple of days when the green "eyes" show, I will be planting them. All in all there were around 150-200 potatoes. I'm seeing mashed taters this Christmas!

Since spraying our property, we haven't been free-ranging out chickens for obvious reasons. We have been wanting, though, to build a portable run for them so that they could get out of their coop, but be kept from eating the areas of the yard that they shouldn't eat (including my pathetic garden). While my cousin Chris was here, he bought materials and helped me assemble a portable run. It is made from half-inch PVC, a handful of couplings, a bird net and a couple dozen tie-wraps to hold the net in place. Here are the chickens enjoying there new playground. (Thanks Chris!)

Speaking of chickens (no, not Chris), here is a picture of one of the little fluff-balls that I posted a picture of back in May... they do grow fast!

Yeah, we even have a rooster; he can't crow yet and is rather wimpy. While I was chasing him down to take his picture, he tries to hide... under the legs of another chicken! But I got a couple pictures of him anyway.

Next up, my pathetic garden. Had more problems with germination this year. The seeds that came up are doing beautifully. Problem is... most of the seeds didn't come up.
Here is a picture of some of the few survors:

Beets

Kohlrabi

and Rutabaga

We had some pathetic cilantro, basil and lettuce come up... don't think I could show it to you without tearing up. The kale and spinach didn't even show! Ah, the life of the student gardener; but then again, a good GPA does look better on an engineers resume than a green thumb.

Strawberries came and went. They did pretty well. Here are our late growing raspberries and a picture of the only bowl of cherries we got off the tree.


Better luck next year, I guess...

How could you resist a face like that?

Friday we picked up some more chicks at the feed store to replace the dearly departed nine that disappeared over spring break... I hope the coyotes choked on the bones! We were originally going to get buffs like we originally had, but these austrolorpes are supposedly really good layers, are very similar in personality to buffs and, besides, how can you resist a face like this!
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After some messing around we finally got one of our brooding buffs to accept the little chicks as her own. She makes a cute mommy and seems to take good care of them. Right now she is occupying the large coop. The other eight chickens are occupying the original (small) coop; they are drenched in the rain and haven't laid today... hopefully they recover from the cruel and unusual shock!

Anyway, here are some pictures of some of the seventeen cutest fluff-balls you've seen...
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...and a picture of some very upset buffs.

Reflections on why I wasn't at school yesterday...

The pictures say it all... enjoy!
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Loudly whistling
through dark snowy woods
December winds
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Garden Update

Wow... I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to post anything. The garden is alive, but I am finding that I will need a lot more practice to have a terribly successful garden. One of the biggest things I have found is that the garden needs a lot more water than I have been giving it... sometimes more than twice a day. This especially shows up during the germination process. If you don't keep the soil moist, the seeds are either going to germinate extremely slowly or simply cook in the soil.

So, this is what I started with just after getting out of school for the summer... a ton of weeds!!!

I planted the second half of my garden after getting out of school. The beets, which I planted earlier, weren't coming up (probably as a result of too much water... a lot of local gardeners were experiencing seeds rotting away in the ground from too much rain). The carrots and parsnips were sort of coming up (here is a current carrot picture below).

However, they weren't coming up in the proportions in which they were planted. The lettuce did pretty well at the beginning. As it got hotter, it didn't come up as well (again, it probably needed more water for proper germination).

Chives were/are doing well... these little fellas take their time when growing, but they do come back every year. Spinach didn't grow at all... actually a couple of weeks ago I saw it popping a couple heads through the ground, but these got picked by a couple of overambitious weeders a couple days later (he he). The spinach might not have made it anyway since it isn't very fond of hot weather. The peas have done nicely, but I had some problems with them pulling my trellis down; of course, I made the transition to a more robust (2 x 4) trellis. Even so, the peas put a good deal of force on the strings of the trellis pulling them off to the side. I am going to try wire next year. I think I might also double my pea crop, as the trellis we have now doesn't hold enough peas for our family.

Onions are doing great... not much to say there. I mulched them with straw (which I should have done a long time ago) because they need a lot of water and the straw helps them to maintain there moisture levels. Grass clippings are supposed to be a good alternative.

Cilantro is likewise doing well. I let the silly things flower because I wasn't exactly sure if I had to harvest them when they got to a certain height and... well... now we are growing coriander. I might plant some more cilantro this summer so I can make some fresh pico de gallo when the tomatoes and onions are ready for picking.

Now for this summers plantings: I put beans and cucumbers in, supported by my homemade "tee-pee" trellises (dimensions given in a later post); Three trellises were for beans, two were for cucumbers. The beans are only six inches high and growing well, but I doubt that they will produce enough beans for our family. I might have to make a couple more trellises next year.

I planted 5 zucchini and four squash. From what I hear about the prolific nature of the squash family, I have a feeling that I will be cutting back on my squash plantings next year. The neighbors might get tired of squash offerings and we might might get tired of zucchini bread (if that is possible).

The broccoli had problems with the first planting. Several came up, but only one made it (probably a water problem). I replanted several indoors and they all came up; I ended up losing a couple more. I think I ended up with six altogether. They are pretty small and growing slowly. I am wondering if there is a nutrient deficiency or if broccoli is just naturally slow growing. I sprinkled some bone meal around them because some had a pinkish/purple tint to the leaves; I suspected a phosphorus deficiency. I'll have to see if this helps.

The tomatoes are the next heartbreak. I planted over 60 tomatoes.

I transplanted them 6-8 weeks ago in nice weather. That night it hailed. After suffering through some more bad weather, they finally got there sunshine; it was too late for some though. I am down to 35 (after buying 12 full grown beefsteak to replace some of the dead tomatoes). The bright side is that the ones that did survive are gorgeous and full. I am just hoping that the season is long enough for them to produce. I have heard that an old Amish trick is to place red tiles under the tomatoes. They absorb heat and release it throughout the night and, what's more, the red color in the tile encourages them to produce early. I am going to check Craigslist and see if I can get some red tile for my tomatoes.

I planted some basil alongside the tomatoes (supposedly growing the tomatoes and basil together will improve the flavor of the tomatoes); I also planted kale and filled in the carrots and parsnips. Germination was not great. So the other day, I covered the carrot bed, parsnip bed, basil and kale bed with newspapers with straw on top (I was careful not to cover the already sprouted seedlings). I am going to give it a week or so and then uncover the beds to see if I can manipulate some of the seeds into sprouting.

Oh, can't forget about corn. That is planted and is coming up nicely. It wasn't knee-high by the forth of July (unless you got down really low), but it is growing quickly and I hope to get some good corn from it. I have been watering it every now and then with fish emulsion in the water. I think the corn has enjoyed this special treatment.

A couple of improvements I made to the garden are covering the rows between the beds with newspaper and straw. This makes a nice neat path and cuts down on the weeding that needs to be done.

I also added a drip system to the garden. This is a nice addition as it cuts down on my watering time... it took nearly and hour-and-a-half by hand.

Here is the drip system running through my potatoes.

To install the drip system, I had to first install three extra water spigots around the garden. This involved digging a foot-deep trench half-way around the garden and laying down piping... that was quite a job, but I had some lovely assistants who were a big help.

The third improvement (which I am in the middle of completing) is putting a weed barrier down around the garden. Since the garden is backed up to a hay field, all sorts of obnoxious weeds find their way into the garden. To slow this down somewhat, we are digging a clear three-foot wide path around the perimeter of the garden. Then we are going to lay down black garden fabric and then cover that with stones. We'll see how that works!

Here are some more pictures for your enjoyment:

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My strawberries haven't been allowed to flower so as to direct all energy into growing big... the raspberries produced a couple berries each, but should be more productive next year.

Little bro cherry pickin'...

... and here are the "fruits" of his labor.

Here is a final up-to-date picture of the garden; it is definitely looking a bit better!!

Planting the Garden

Had to get some of the early seeds into the garden on Saturday. A lot of the seeds we have to save till May or June to plant, but carrots, onions, peas, broccoli, lettuce, spinach, parsnips, beets, cilantro, oregano, parsley and chives can all go in at this time of year where I live. I'll post a scan of my garden plan when I get a minute to give an idea of where everything is going to be placed in the beds.

The book "The Vegetable Gardener's Bible" gives a list of companion plants that supposedly "like" each other. Some plants attract the predator of the pest of their companion plant or they repel the pest of their companion plant due to their odor; or some plants supposedly increase the yield of their companion plant or improve the flavor of their companion plant. Anyway, there are literally books written on the subject of companion planting, but I haven't gotten deeply into it; I tried as best as I could, however, based on the list in the book, to plant seeds next to each other that would benefit each other.

Anyway, there isn't much to say about planting seeds except follow the instructions on the back of the package. Actually if planting in beds, you can plant seeds a bit closer than the packages say because the roots do a lot more growing down than out in beds. The Gardener's Bible discusses spaces for individual plants, as do the other books I mentioned in an earlier post. Most of the herbs that I put into the garden won't be put in beds. Some herbs (especially mint) are extremely prolific and can be a bit of a nuisance if not kept under control. So, I devoted a corner to herbs in the garden. I sunk a bunch of pots (below) into the soil and plan to just plant most of the herbs in those. The exception is cilantro, which we will probably need in larger quantities for salsa and cilantro pesto.

The only other thing worth posting about is my pea trellis, which I put up Saturday to plant the peas around. It was pretty simple to make; I got a 1"x2"x8' pine board (the real dimensions are .75"x1.75"x8') at Home Depot for 87 cents. (I love those things; I am making bean and cucumber trellises of a different style out of these things for really cheap... more on that in a future post.) First, I chopped a foot off of it because I didn't need all the length, then I sawed it in half lengthwise to get two poles .75"x.75"x7'.

I then marked it with a pencil two feet up from the bottom. This will be the depth to which I pound the stakes. After this mark, I make a mark every three inches on each stake until I reach the top. Using a manual miter saw, (the electric miter saw would give me a curved cut instead of a straight cut because of the radius of the blade) I cut along the pencil marks to a depth of about 1/8" or so. After I was done, I realized it might have been simpler to make these cuts before I sawed the board in half, but who cares.

After making the depth cuts, I pounded the stakes in the garden about 9 feet apart...

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...and using the string left over from laying out the garden I tied sections of string up the posts at the three inch marks making sure each string was securely in the grooves on both stakes. When tying the strings on, the stakes like to flex near the top since they are relatively thin and you have to be careful not to pull the strings too tight as you work your way to the top or the bottom strings will go slack.

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After the horizontal strings are all tied, then comes the vertical strings. I tied these every 6-8"; the tedious part is that you have to tie the vertical string to each of the horizontal strings to create the netting.

The trellis is very simple, but somewhat tedious to make. I had it made, though, in under an hour. After the trellis is up, you can plant the peas. I spaced the peas 1" apart staggering them on either side of the netting. I should have a thick wall of peas in a couple of months... good eating!!!

Here is my lovely assistant standing in front of the finished trellis...

... and my little girlfriend again with her bouquet of dandelions.