01-30-2022

 Left for 3 strange days.  During our absence, the pest problem evidence mounted.  This time, in the greenhouse.  Before we left, I was pretty pleased that I was able to carve out the time to plant a flat of snow pea seeds amidst plenty of chaos..  

Maestro mislabeled Alderman

 Before coming inside or having dinner, I took the first 30 minutes to take care of responsibilities immediately upon our return while Andreas unloaded the car.  Chicken coops cleaned, eggs collected and washed, greenhouse plants watered.  

 What I discovered in the greenhouse was a disappointment.  "Someone" (a mouse or rat) had slipped in through the door, which we had purposefully left cracked open for ventilation.  

 

 

Maestro Devastation

What you are seeing in the above picture are all the seed hulls left after someone digs the seeds out and eats them! 

This is spinach, with holes from the digging...

Even though these seeds are small and have less food value, they are still apparently worth the effort?

These were the Sugar Pod II

Sigh.  The flats of peas have  been molested, seeds picked out, munched and scattered.

Replanting...

    

    

The flats are now replanted and resituated.  Since I couldn't cover them, i at least put them higher up.  they will be more difficult for the little rodents to access.  We have also beefed up the arsenal of poison and traps.  let's see what happens...

01-23-2022

 Today I had hoped to do mint and oregano bed cleanup in the chicken yard and turn the compost pile.  Instead, I had to prioritize the snap/snow/shelling pea misteak.  

Planted a flat of Sugar Pod II and installed it in the greenhouse.  Grow!  Noticed the greenhouse needed water.  We had opened the door a tiny bit because it does get quite warm in there on sunny days, but when I went out at about 2pm the mustard greens were a little hot and thirsty.  The water was cold (coming from outside under the chicken house drip) and they did perk up.  Mental note to self; watch for a second waterer.  One can be filling while the other sits in the greenhouse.  Plants like their water at a neutral temperature, and the chickens like to drink out of the watering can.  

Next, I planted the far half of row 2A at the center with more Sugar Pod II seeds.  I think the slugs will eat them as fast as they come up.  Look for little nubs to come up, a central stalk with no leaves.  Slugs are responsible for this.  They live at the base on the underside of weeds; I notice that as I snip weeds off at the base, I often find slugs.  Lately, I have been feeding them to the chickens and they act like they've never seen food before.  Such hungry, neglected little helpers!

While out there, I noticed that Row 1 really could use some water!  Last year, we had good luck leaving some 5-gallon buckets in the aisle to catch water as it drips off the roof in the morning (or rains).  In each bucket we kept some other containers with holes in them to use as watering cans.  Today I did *not* manage to water Row 1 :-( and tomorrow we are gone all day, but as soon as I can scrape together a couple minutes I will recommission this system.

Had a neat potential idea for a better watering/automation setup in the greenhouse; looking into that... 

01-22-2022

 

 Today I decided to transplant the whatever-they-are-greens from the aisle by the artichoke bed.  

They are on the north (left-hand) side of the trellis in the middle.

12 or so are hiding in this picture.  I mulched with old pea stalks and weeds, which makes the plants more difficult to see while they're so small.

To the left of the big chard, there are more of these mystery greens.  I ran out of mulch, it was cold, and I was hungry, so the mulch can be added later?

 

The first section of the bed (2B, north side) was the last planted.  By this time, I was losing my enthusiasm to hunger and cold, so it's not work I'm terribly proud of.  However, if the greens live, and grow, I will eat them and be happy.

Today I also spent a little while cleaning up the artichoke bed.  Observations I made during this process are that nature likes to decay old vegetation by making it slimy and waterlogged.  How is the soil prevented from becoming anaerobic?  is it because the stalks are still standing in place as they begin to decompose?  This sure does provide an excellent habitat for slugs, of which I harvested and fed to the chickens.  They LOVED it!  

I really want to clean up all these old stalks

After cleaning up the old stalks, I mulched the ground with them.  This will either work really well, or be a colossal mess...  We'll see!

This entire flat is of MAESTRO pea, not Alderman.  They are mislabeled, FYI

01-21-2022

 Today I planted snow peas in row 2B.  Visit the link to see...

01-19-2022

 The other day I started cleaning up last year's mint stalks.  This is my progress:

east side of path to greenhouse, all cleaned up!

Progress is being made!  You can see from the top half of this picture where I stopped for the day.

Looking eastward along the front of the greenhouse

Yeah, there's more there to do before it's finished, for sure!

The wire hoops and remaining old stalks still need removed

All the old stalks I am placing here, in the fencerow between the chicken and people yards.

Mulching with old stalks, Fukuoka style

These are the hoops which need removed

These oregano stalks contain seeds, so let's be careful where we use them for mulch!  Along this fence row (on the chicken yard side of bed 11 the potato row) would be a good place for this mulch.  Also along the orchard row to the north of Row 1A, which is in the upper right of this picture. 

Also to be removed are old oregano stalks

 

 

Hopefully tomorrow?

1/9/2022

Today I applied myself a bit more, and found some salad!  First of all, I looked in the greenhouse.  It was impossible to not get distracted by the tired, sad pepper plants.  The soil is not dry, but most of their leaves are wilting nonetheless.  There is no fruit, and there are no flowers, it is just time.  They have now been removed. 

 

 

 

     

 

 

 

 

 

Tired Peppers

With the exception of this one!  It has little peppers on it, and its leaves are not wilted.  It gets to live for a bit longer.  As an aside, at one point I transplanted some mustard from the garden aisle between rows 1 & 2.  There are now 10 mustard plants in the greenhouse which are doing fairly well, and one which looks like it might not make it.    

 

After looking in the greenhouse, I wandered out into the garden and found some endive in the aisle right when you walk through the gate. 

This is what you see when you stand in the east aisle looking south.  On the left is bed 8, the artichoke bed.  On the right are strawberry rows 6 and 7.  In the aisle here, amongst the weeds, are an edible culinary plant/weed.  It looks to me like Zamboni broccoli, a side-shooting variety.  It also looks like some sort of Asian green.  Either way, it can be eaten raw or cooked.  I'm going to try some in a salad mix and see how that goes.  Will keep you posted!

This is the east end of row 4; same or similar Asian/Zamboni stuff in the bed and also in the aisle at the end of the bed.  Let's eat it!

Salad includes some fennel, parsley, celery leaves (which I later decided to feed to the chickens, but haven't yet.  Yesterday I did scatter some celery seeds in the covered row 1 and also potato row 11, so let's see if we can get some new celery plants going)!  Anyway, salad also has kale from greenhouse, and a few mustard greens.

After this, I set about planting some seeds in 4" pots in the greenhouse.  To start, I got out the pots and selected some seeds from the list to which I refer often, from the Down to Earth garden center.  Using a white grease pencil, I labeled the pots with today's date and what will be planted there.

 

Next I collected and sifted some compost soil into Little Red the wheelbarrow.  

After filling the pots, I put about 5 seeds in each pot and covered them with vermiculite, which holds moisture and helps seeds germinate better.

                             The pots have seeds and now get covered with vermiculite

Finally, they are placed in the greenhouse on a seedling heating mat to keep them a little extra warm.  This will make them dry out more quickly, so they will need monitored more frequently until it is observed how long it takes for them to need water.

This flat is the one which was already in there.  The kale has been transplanted.  Slugs have actually eaten the baby leaves off many of them.  I'm not sure these will make it. 

 

 While in the garden my curiosity got the better of me.  In the house, I'm making some veggie pumpkin curry soup and I thought some chard leaves would be good.  Since I also added some potatoes, a beet  and some carrots to it, i figured some chard leaves would go well.  Curious and inspired, I decided to dig up the whole root and see if it is any good. 

In a bucket of water, I soaked and washed the root and took it inside for further investigation.  Of course I didn't take a picture, but it is now produce.  Since the soup is essentially done, I figure I'll boil it up proper and we'll eat it with butter and salt so we can really see what it tastes like. 

That was the day!

1/8/2022

Today I fenced off a patch of ground on the south edge of the property.  On the path from the back chicken yard to the front, I roughed up a patch of ground underneath the grapevines and female kiwi beside the wood shed.  Here, I planted 3 types of rice, basmati on the west, jasmine in the middle, and sweet brown on the east end.  Intermixed with the rice, i added some onion bulbs, lettuce, kale and carrots as a test.  The rice is to harvest, the rice straw is for mulch, and I'd like to see whether the veggies can grow in their midst.  The One Straw Revolution method of farming with nature utilizes more space, keeping the grain separate and growing the vegetables in the orchard.  Our orchard shares space with chickens, so we are trying a different combination.  

Another accomplishment today was a hokey repair to the side yard deer fence and boundary suggestion to the chickens.  Deer are not wanted in, and chickens are disinvited to venture out.  

While I'm not exactly proud of it, I am satisfied that it will do the trick until something better comes along.  A real live gate would be good.  Soon, we will have two heat pumps located  back here and the grapevine next to the house will be removed.  It is being rooted elsewhere to provide the ability to cut it back without losing significant foliage. 

Also I looked at the seed chart.  It says to plant tomatoes in the greenhouse in february (with rapid global climate change, it is suggested that we skip to the next month).  Also on the docket is basically everything.  Peppers, eggplant, and all the cool weather crops like bok choi, lettuces, kale of course, and whatnot.  I prepped a little for this, getting pots out and looking through the seeds.  Next on the agenda is to mark the pots, fill with compost soil and plant the seeds! 

Hopefully when I do that, I will take pictures.  Today, my phone was on the charger.  

Last thing I did today was tried to pick some greens.  Finally, there aren't any.  So I did scatter some carrot and celery seeds in row 1 a & b and also row 11.  Picked some weeds and used them for mulch, cleaned up some old beet leaves and random vegetation.  We'll see if the birds eat all these :-)