More started seeds

Last night I got some more seeds started.  Bell peppers and tomatillos are now in the ground.  Since the tomatillo seeds are from last year, I'm a little apprehensive that they will actually sprout.  I've been told that seeds up to a few years old will still sprout, but I can't remember if I've ever tried it before.

I followed the same method as always. 

• First I put the peat plugs in the mini-greenhouse and pour a lot of really warm water on them to make them grow.  
• Then I use a chopstick to poke holes to the required depth of the seed (which varies).
• Set the seeds in place.
• With the chopstick, gently push the seeds into the holes to the required depth.
• Loosely cover each seed with some of the peat.
• Label the cells so you know what's growing in what spot.  This is particularly important if you're growing multiple varieties of the same type of plant.

We are on the board!

It's the end of January.  I had planned to have a lot of my seeds started by now and as of early last night haven't planted any.

That came to an end, though.  I now have Lacinato Kale and Green Globe Artichokes started.  I have a lot more I need to start, but this at least is a start on spring veggies (the kale) and something that'll take a while to grow (artichokes).

Impromptu garlic planting

Wifey is cooking Mongolian Beef for dinner.  While husking some garlic for her for the meal, we came across a fair amount of sprouted garlic.  Not one to waste time when gardening could be done, I quickly took a half dozen of the cloves out to the garlic boxes.

It didn't take more than a few minutes to plant them.  I just poked my index finger in the soil up to my second knuckle, swirled it around to widen the hole somewhat, then dropped each clove in their own hole so the top (pointy end up) was just under the soil surface and gently covered up the top with soil.

Easy peasy.

Useful Book: What's Wrong With My Fruit Garden?

A week or so ago, Wifey checked out a book from the library called, "What's Wrong With My Fruit Garden?; 100% Organic Solutions for Berries, Trees, Nuts, Vines, and Tropicals" by David Deardorff and Katheryn Wadsworth.

I don't know that I'd really say that we have anything wrong with our orchard (aka fruit garden), but I'm sure there are things we could be doing better.

As Wifey has been leafing (no pun intended) through the book, she came across a section about planting polycultures.  In that concept, you're doing interplanting of a number of varieties of different species of plants that can all benefit one another.  For example, under a fruiting tree, you can plant other plants that could attract pollinators, deter pests or critters, or provide other benefits.  Unlike what many people (me included) think of with an orchard, with a polyculture planting approach, you're more emulating a fruit forest and implementing more of a permaculture approach to gardening.

Basically, this is a larger scale approach to the companion planting I've been doing in my garden for years now.

One picture (and caption) that resonated with me mentioned an underplanting of rosemary that "helps protect an apple tree from deer as would other highly aromatic plants like lavender, thyme, and sage.  Herbs such as fennel and dil attract beneficial insects to help control insect pests.  Flowers like yarrow, cosmos, and rudbeckia also attract beneficial insects."  They also reinforce my approach to using French Marigolds to deter pests.

The authors also recommend attracting beneficial insects and critters to your garden.  This is a concept I've been gradually working on since the final years of the garden plot.  The authors mention:

• Pansies, violas, and other flowers with streaks or dark lines (aka guidelines) on their petals help attract bees
• Queen Anne's lace attracts parasitic wasps to kill caterpillars.  It also attracts lacewings, syrphid and tachinid flies, assassin bugs, and honeybees.  Dill, coriander (cilantro), parsley, cumin, and fennel do much of the same.  Fennel also is good to lure ladybugs (which are predatory insects) to the garden.
• Members of the daisy family (Asteraceae) attract a variety of bees and butterflies, and tiphiid wasps which help kill beetle grubs as larvae and pollinate flowers as adults.  Daisy family plants also lure other parasitic wasps, ladybugs, lacewings, syrphid flies, and soldier beetles.  Other daisy family plants include: tarragon, chamomile, cosmos, sunflowers, anthemis, echinacea, gaillardia, bachelor's butons, and yarrow.
• The mint family (Lamiaceae) attracts ladybugs and lacewings.  Other mints are: agastche, catnip, catmint, thyme, rosemary, hyssop, lemon balm, horehound, sage, and pycnanthemum.

They also identify a number of ways to get rid of a variety of insects such as the Japanese beetles that kept munching on the apple tree foliage this past year.

The takeaway

There's a lot of good info in that book.  This only represents the tip of the iceberg.  It also has application to the garden and property as a whole.  I think I may end up buying the book to have as a reference.

So, I guess we're building a greenhouse - part 1

Today we made the odd decision that we wanted to build a greenhouse.  Wifey must have been thinking about it for a while because I received a book about how to build one for Christmas.  Although I have been interested in having one at some point, I didn't think it'd be coming any time soon.

Apparently today was the day.  I think the catalysts were an article in the Mother Earth News magazine where a reader shared how she built a small greenhouse within a small budget and another article in the same magazine about creating thermal mass for an off-grid greenhoue.

After The Bear went down for his nap, we went out to try to sort out a prospective location and an appropriate size.  After a bit of discussion, we decided that since we want to remove the juniper next to the driveway pad that's where we're going to put the greenhouse there.  For now, anyway, it's going to be a 6'x8' greenhouse.  The plan is to have two pairs of windows on each of the long walls, a window next to a windowed door, and another pair of windows on the back wall.  The idea is to have corrugated clear plastic for the roof.

Later on, Wifey did some searching online and found someone in Virginia selling some used wooden windows.  After all was said and done, we got fourteen 27"x32" windows and a glassed-in door for $100.  Considering they originally wanted $10 for each window and $20 for the door, we think that was a good deal.

Most of the windows will need to be scraped, sanded, putty, and paint.  The door needs paint at the least.  The juniper needs to come out.  Everything needs to be assembled, obviously.

It'll be a fun project.  Can't wait!

Bluebird house is finally up

A year or so ago, we somehow came to own a bluebird house.  I never mounted it to any trees.

I did research and posted about the right way to hang it up once or twice right around Christmas, but mounting it never came to mind when I was outside for any period of time.  It finally occurred to me to mount the bluebird house after I finished spreading the mulched leaves in the garden today.

Per my research, I mounted it a little over 6' off the ground on the east side of a tree in a relatively open part of the property.  I simply used the two wood screws included the house it and ran them in with our cordless screwdriver; no pilot holes.  Although, I read you can mount them as high up as 15', I wanted to be able to clean it out every year without needing a ladder.  It is also near to some shrubbery for baby birds to hide in when they finally leave the nest as well as low branches and/or fencing to stand on.  It's mounted it to a tree about 12' behind the pool fence.  I also intend to buy and mount a few more elsewhere on the property at a later date.

 

I hope we're successful in attracting bluebirds to the property. 

Adding leaf mulch to the garden

I took the afternoon off from work to spend some time with the family.  Since the big kids were watching some tv, The Bear was taking a nap, and Wifey was sleeping with her eyes open, I retrieved the mower from the shed to pick up the leaves I mulched a few weeks back. 

I wasn't able to get all the leaves I mulched (ground is still a little wet for the bagger to work correctly), but I got a lot.  More leaf mulch has been added to parts of the garden in need of nutrients.

No picture because it didn't warrant it.

Making a hoop house

I've been interested in using hoop houses or cold frames for a few years now.  For those who may not be aware, both are structures that help extend the growing season (earlier in the spring or later in the fall/winter) by being used as something of a mini-green house.

A cold frame has traditionally been a box with a window on top.  They can be very simple or made to be ornate with a hinged top, stands to help keep the window up for occasional ventilation, and more.

A hoop house works similarly, but is a bit more temporary.  In a hoop house, you have half hoops made of metal tubing (often conduit) or PVC either mounted to a frame or stuck into the ground with garden fabric or plastic mounted over top to create the greenhouse effect.

I did some shopping at our local Ace Hardware store to look for conduit or PVC.  Conduit isn't cheap and neither is PVC if you're on a budget.  Also, when I tried bending the PVC, it wasn't overly happy by being bent.  I guess I could heat it up with a heat gun, but, still I was concerned about ruining it.  I also contacted a local rental place to find a conduit bender tool.  They didn't have one, but thought an all-thread bending tool might work.

Stymied, I shelved the whole concept and pondered and read more about it.

This morning, my office-mate at work sent me a message letting me know about a concept he found on his Facebook thread.  HGTV did a mini program about making hoop houses out of half-hula hoops.

BRILLIANT!!!

Hula hoops are inexpensive, are readily available, and already come pre-bent.  Looks like I may be making myself a hoop house or two this weekend to protect our spring crops.

Side garden has been roto-tilled

After I got the rain barrel stand in place, I did the first cut of roto-tilling the side garden.  I'll want to do at least one more pass to the garden before planting anything, but at least the overwinter weeds and winter wheat are all turned under.

Rain barrel stand is in place

Thanks to the govt furlough, I was home early today.  Before I got tied up with anything else, I leveled out the soil by the closest downspout to the garden then put the rain barrel stand in place.

Once we get the barrels plumbed into place, I'll likely end up installing some sort of retaining barriers to help keep the barrels from falling off.

For now, though, it's a good start.

Rain barrel stand is made

We had some unseasonably warm weather today.  As such the family spent the bulk of the day post-church outside.  Wifey worked on cleaning up/out the garage and I constructed the stand for our rainwater collection barrels.

We had a minor disagreement over how high above the ground the stand top needed to be.  Wiefy wanted it to be pretty short whereas I knew that they had to be up a bit off the ground to allow for gravity to get the water fed to the garden.  Since I was running the power tools, I won the debate and the stand is 40" tall.

I'll post pictures tomorrow.  It was getting dark by the time we finished with other work around the yard.

Is it obsession or wisdom?

I was awakened shortly after 3am this morning by a nightmare.  In my hellish dream, I had gone out to the orchard only to discover that some particularly insistent deer had taken the top two feet off of most of our apple trees.  They had bulled their way over and through the deer netting and removed the most tender branches in a particularly brutal manner leaving green shreds behind as evidence of the ripping and tearing they'd done to the trees.  Despite my best efforts, I wasn't able to drift back to sleep until shortly after 5am.

My dream hung with me through the morning, through Pastor Robert's again-excellent sermon, and all the way home.

So it was that I found myself just a little bit ago copiously applying deer spray to the ground around everything out in the orchard.  So what if it's only 23 degrees outside?  Those flea-ridden deer won't eat my goodies! 

(This is where you imagine a crazy-eyed Greg shaking his fist at the invisible deer out in the woods behind the property as if they were kids riding bikes on his grass.)

Just for good measure, I also resurrected the riding mower and mulched the last batch of leaves that came down in the fall.  Because that's a common-sense sort of thing to do in the dead of winter, after all.

This homesteading thing is lunacy.  Craziness.  And I'm doing snow-angels in the stuff.  At least my babies (the orchard) are safe from those brutes!

Good grief.

Indoor citrus: Take 2

Yesterday afternoon, in an attempt to alleviate the winter doldrums, we made a trip to Homestead Gardens to wander around their facility and wallow in some green.  Wifey had been on a mission to try to find some more household plants (succulents, etc) but she didn't find anything that she was all that excited about.  We did, however, come across some citrus for sale.

Last year, Wifey and the kids got me more citrus plants to add to the surviving lemon from a few years ago.  Unfortunately, they died.  For quite a while I thought we'd done something wrong (over-watering, not enough sunlight, nutrient starvation, etc).  Based on my new theory that our water softener is killing our plants, we figured it's time to give indoor plants another try.  This time, we will use less of the household water.

Hopefully, we have more success this time around.

Making use of melting snow

I went outside this afternoon to do something (can't for the life of me remember what it was, though) and noticed that despite the really cold temperatures outside, we had some melting snow trickling down the roof drains.

Once again, it made me want to set up some rainwater retention barrels.  My current plan is to build a structure about 3' above the ground and set up two separate rainwater collection barrels tied into our downspout by the garage.  That will collect rainwater and snowmelt and allow for gravity-fed watering to the front and at least part of the side garden.

Last year, I bought a few plastic barrels off somebody through craigslist with the idea of putting them to use for rainwater collection.  I got so busy with other projects that I never got around to doing the work, though.

This spring, it shall be done!

E.coli scare from Canadian Romaine lettuce. Solution: Grow Your Own

It would appear that somebody did something bad up north.

It's hard for the average citizen to know exactly where the problem originated (company, trucking company, etc), both the United States Center for Disease Control and Canadian Government have released statements about the recent outbreak of E.coli bacteria found on Romaine lettuce.

Quoting the Canadian article directly:

How does lettuce become contaminated with E. coli?

E. coli are bacteria that live naturally in the intestines of cattle, poultry and other animals. A common source of E. coli illness is raw fruits and vegetables that have come in contact with feces from infected animals. Leafy greens, such as lettuce, can become contaminated in the field by soil, contaminated water, animals or improperly composted manure. Lettuce can also be contaminated by bacteria during and after harvest from handling, storing and transporting the produce. Contamination in lettuce is also possible at the grocery store, in the refrigerator, or from counters and cutting boards through cross-contamination with harmful bacteria from raw meat, poultry or seafood. Most E. coli strains are harmless to humans, but some varieties cause illness.

There's a great way to avoid this sickness, though.  Grow your own.


Growing Lettuce

Depending on the variety of lettuce you want, it can be between 45 and 80 days before you harvest.  Looseleaf lettuce can be harvested at a number of points along its development which is why that's the variety I prefer.  Romaine is more in the 75+ day range.

How to Grow Lettuce

1. In a 1 gallon pot, put two layers of pebbles in the bottom.  This helps to prevent your potting mix from leaking out the bottom.
2. Add in enough potting mix (organic) to fill the pot 1"-1.5" from the top.
3. Carefully set your seeds in a circle 1" from the outer rim with about 2" from each other.  Try to put two seeds in each location.    Once the circle has been completed, put another pair of seeds in the middle of the pot.
4. Gently dust a tiny bit of potting mix over top of the seeds.  You only want to barely cover them with no more than 1/4" of mix  to help keep the seeds moist when you water.
5. Gently water the mix. 
6. You may consider covering the pot with plastic wrap.  This helps to create a greenhouse effect within the pot.  Remove the plastic wrap later on if it appears there isn't enough moisture inside, add more water, then put wrap back on top.  Once the seeds have sprouted and are 1/2" tall, remove the plastic wrap for the final time.  You want to do this to prevent mold from starting.
7. As soon as your seeds and mix are uncovered, water once a week if the air is relatively humid or more frequently if the air is dry.  
8. Once your seed sprouts are taller (1/2" - 1"), thin out any duplicate seeds that may have sprouted in each pair you planted.  You only want a single plant in each planting location. 
9. Depending on the variety of lettuce you planted, that will determine when you harvest it.
10. Congrats!  You now have grown your own lettuce that is free of E.coli and is fresher than any you could obtain from any grocery store, market or farm stand.

Seed order has arrived from Southern Exposure!

I'm happy to report that the seed order -- minus some seasonal items like onions which are lagging -- from Southern Exposure has arrived.

I have some Spring planting stuff (kale, especially) that I may need to get started sooner rather than later.  I don't plan on starting the Summer stuff for another few weeks.

The farm market might stay open after all?

Because The Bear was up sick last night, so were Wifey and I.  While we had a break in the action, she was checking Facebook and saw a post on the local market's page that made us curious and cautiously optimistic.

The community's response and out pouring of love at the Gathering, in person and online has moved us more than words can express. We are working out some of the details and think we can give the [north county market] another shot if we make some changes and have your support. If you really believe in us, we are willing to put our trust in you. We promise more information soon!

Interestingly enough, despite that post being up only 16 hours there are 431 "likes" for it.