This year's projects

I will lose paper, so here's my list of projects I hope to accomplish around the house in 2014*:

--Finish the rock retaining wall in the backyard, at least the half that is excavated
--Start excavating the next portion of the retaining wall so we can remove all the old, broken-down, arsenic soaked timbers and dirt
--Finally plant the berry bushes behind the new retaining wall and maybe an apricot tree or two
--Learn to prune peach trees better
--Dig more swales and channels in the front yard to harvest the rainwater we do get
--Plant a few more bushes and perennial plants in the front yard
--Remember to start seeds early enough and get them into the ground on time
--Find a source for cascade hops that doesn't cost too much
--Fix up chicken coop fence
--Get rabbit cage holder built
--Finish back yard fence that has been broken for four years
--Perhaps replace the fogged up clerestory windows with remote opening ones
--Finish basement bedroom and living room
--Lift up music room floor
--Install drop ceiling in basement instead of stapled-up sheets
--Build a plant-wall and benches along edge of deck

List to laugh at because I hoped we could accomplish this, too:

--Sledgehammer out concrete fireplace and benches
--Install and Finish wood floor in main floor
--Install new carpet in master bedroom
--Finish all of basement including kitchenette and hot tub
--Switch dining room and living room
--Switch kitchen cabinetry around to accomplish that and to
--Finish kitchen remodel

*This is all contingent upon being able to get any outside work done at all, because somehow life seems to prevent me from leaving the house or doing any one thing for more than 90 seconds before another person needs me to solve their crisis.

Update from the past year or two

 This blog is sorely neglected.  But that doesn't mean nothing has changed around here.  A lot of projects and growth has happened, although never as much as I hope for.  Life has kept me busy in many ways.

This year we planted two more cherry trees in the back yard.  A month of snow storms in April stopped every single fruit tree in our area from producing fruit.  We build a number of raised beds in the back garden, finished the fence to stop the dogs from getting into the garden and to keep the chickens in the garden side.  We expanded the chicken yard and converted the shed into a better chicken coop than it was, although it has not turned into the greenhouse/rabbit/chicken/fish house that I dreamed of. I am realizing maybe those four things would not go so well together in a 12 x 20 space.

We babysat some baby goats.  That was fun and I'm glad it's over.  They and the chickens made a mess of the garden this year.

We got a cat to combat the mouse problem.  She is a great mouser.

I have changed my focus a bit from strictly annual gardening to perennial edibles.  So I expanded the garden to the front yard by planting fruit trees and building 'guilds' around them.  Guilds are plant groups that benefit the growth and food production of each other.

We have gone through several iterations of poultry.  Some we've kept for egg production and some were grown specifically for meat.  We've also raised a turkey that we have become quite fond of and she is still alive after Thanksgiving and Christmas.

People have even started giving me some of their elderly hens.

We built two chicken/rabbit tractors.  It worked pretty well to keep them moving onto fresh ground every day or two, but we don't have a lot of space to begin with.

I found a deal on large pots, 42 of them for $6, so I have populated the front, back and side yards with them.

Someone gave us old windows so I turned one into a cold frame.  It did not work out all that well because the structure was not air tight and the window was too darn heavy to make getting to the plants an easy thing to do.

I rearranged some of the raised beds and added a horse trough full of dirt.  The plants in there, blueberries, did not like it at all.  I think the metal got too hot in the sun and the soil dried out too fast.  Next spring I will try herbs instead.

I am planting more flowers and herbs than I used to do.  They have many benefits, besides being beautiful, and we also got bees this year (rented) so it made them happy.

Here you can see the start of a berm on the downhill side of a fruit tree in the front yard.  I am trying to incorporate water harvesting infrastructure into the front yard landscaping to reduce our need to irrigate.  I planted blueberry bushes in the front yard as well.  They did much better with a little shade, cooler temps, planted them directly into a bag of peat moss, and surrounded by pine needles.

The inside of the house has changed in the past few years as well.  We have:
--built a room in the attic space above the dining room
--remodeled part of the kitchen
--started building a hot tub room in the basement
--started building a library in the basement
--started building another bedroom in the basement
--added wood floors to an upstairs hallway
--installed an egress window in the basement bedroom
--installed radiant floor heating in a bathroom
--recarpeted and painted a bedroom
--fixed problems in the roof and gutters
--plus other stuff I don't remember

Next up:
finishing the basement, but it is big and we are working on it as we save up the money
adding wood floors to more of the main level
remodeling the kitchen a little more so we'll have two dishwashers

Beginning to change the shed

Here is what we are starting with:

 Our shed.  Tired, wood-rotted, shingle-peeling shed.  I think the dimensions are around 12x20.  My plan--to transform it into a greenhouse slash chicken coop slash rabbit house slash fish house.

It has a doorway opening, but no door.  It will need a door to keep predators out.

The rafters are pretty solid, but I haven't closely inspected them.  First thing to do is find double layered polycarbonate, UV-protected panels.  They are sold as hurricane window covers at the big box stores, but we are not in hurricane territory so they are not stocked here.  The panels will be for the roof.  Then once we have those in hand, we'll take the roof boards off.  Next will be a coat of exterior white paint over all the wood framing members.  Then we'll install the clear panels on the entire roof.  Not sure just what sort of filler strips, pre-drilling, screws or cutting tools I'll need.

 After fixing the roof, the side walls will be the next to go.  The north wall will stay siding, but the other walls will be replaced with plastic sheeting or more polycarbonate panels as money allows.  We'll need to frame for window vents and a fan in the upper portions of the short walls.

Here you can see the broken fence between our yard and the neighbor's unused dog run.  He said we could put chickens in that space.  Woo-hoo!  So the idea came up that since the shed is adjacent to the run, we should put a pop-hole in the north wall of the shed and use the shed as a chicken coop.  Not sure how well that would work out for a greenhouse, but it seems like a good starting plan.

The east end of the dog/future chicken run.  It needs work.

Planning for next year

The Bountiful Gardens catalog showed up in the mail today. I haven't had time to read it because I have been reading many other books and getting many ideas (never a good thing).

-The Victory Garden Cookbook-really, really good. I may need to purchase it.

-Aquaponics-I Love this idea, growing fish and plants together. Would like to start it.

-How to build your own greenhouse-Meh. But I plan to convert our shed into a greenhouse this year

-The Hydroponic Greenhouse--good book, quick read. I love the idea of a pit greenhouse, where most of the house is underground to take advantage of the insulating power of the earth. I am currently in negotiations with the hubs about renting a backhoe.

-Raising Rabbits--Neat idea, I'd like to try it some day.

-Organic Gardening--good encyclopedia

I am trying to plan out what to accomplish this next year. So far this is my wish list:

-Convert existing shed into greenhouse--the shingles are coming off its roof and the siding is rotting so something will need to be done soon anyway. My biggest question is whether to try to find cheap windows at the salvage yard or go with polycarbonate panels.

-Finish fence down middle of yard to keep dogs out

-Do something with the compost pile so the mice will not find it so attractive and I can actually use it as a compost pile for kitchen scraps

-Keep working on the raised portion of the backyard to get rid of the arsenic-laced timbers and build a stone retaining wall for cheap

-Finish building the chicken tractor that fits onto the raised beds

-I found giant pots at the recycle yard that I drug home and plan to use for squash along the raised portion of the back yard, maybe the front yard, too, although the hubs is not too excited for me to expose my weirdness to the neighbors

-Find cucurbits that are resistant to powdery mildew

-Amend the soil with some peat moss, vermiculite, compost--the soil does not hold on to water well

-Get an automatic watering system going

-Get better at this whole plant raising thing and better at cooking what I raise too

-Attack pests and problems early

House projects:

-Address the gutter issue in the front courtyard

-Finish ceiling above dining room

-Cut out hole for egress window in basement and install it

-Possibly start framing for new bedroom in basement

This could be a lot, but I hope we get it all accomplished and more. The house should be paid off, fingers crossed on the economy not tanking, in 12 years and I want to be done with all the projects by then.

Did the garden save us any money in food costs this year? No. I probably used $100-$200 worth of produce out of it. But it was never about just one year. This year I will be spending some more time and money on it, but not as much as last year. And hopefully with last year's experience, I will be better at raising and already I am definitely better at using our veggies.

I tried keeping the plants going into the winter with plastic sheeting creating a low tunnel over two beds. It did not work out all that well. A book I read, "Four Season Harvest", talked about having fresh veggies/leafy greens all winter with the right wind break, plants and buffers from freezing. He talked about plants not growing in the winter but simply staying alive for you to harvest when ready. I did not get my plants in the ground early enough for them to reach harvestable size before winter set in. Plus the low tunnels are very cumbersome to take care of each day. I will need to come up with a new plan next year. The hydroponics book I read explained to me even better why this occurs. Around October 21st the sunlight simply does not have the intensity or length of time to allow plants to grow. The sunlight comes back in February and your plants are ready to begin growing again around the 21st of that month. So I will wait for then to try out the low tunnels again. Until then I will keep reading, making plans, marking my catalogues and starting seedlings indoors.

End of season update

Wow! It's been a long time since I added something here. Let me write stuff down before I forget because I also forgot to write notes in my garden journal.

July was an amazing month because we had rain and lots of it. Over 4 inches. The plants took off like crazy, esp with being irrigated on the non-rainy days.

Three sisters did not work out well. The beans did not have time to grow before being shaded out by the squash and the corn, well we had almost 100% germination rate so the 4 kernels per hole and 5 holes per mound did not work out well. 20 stalks were trying to occupy 4 sq ft of space and even though I tried thinning them, those things are tenacious little buggers and kept growing back.

The squash grew so much so fast with all the rain that they shaded themselves and did not produce much fruit until I drastically cut them back.

But we also got hit with powdery mildew which took out the zucchinis, cantaloupe especially, straight 8 cucumbers and damaged all the cucurbits. The most resilient: yellow moon and stars watermelon and the Georgia rattlesnake watermelon. The lemon cucumbers were massive producers even with the powdery mildew hitting them later in August; I had to cut them down just to stem the tide of little, prickly yellow balls of cucumbers. The zuccs, yellow squash, patty pan and pumpkins have done OK after the attack esp if I remember to prune away affected leaves every day.

Corn was not a real winner. The festivity blue did not taste that great as a sweet corn, but I did not have time to dry it because... A stinking corn-eating wasp took over the garden. They could mow through 2-4 cobs in a day. The golden bantam didn't do that great either.

Mice took over the tomato section and ate the best and sweetest tomatoes. The black Krim, a russian variety, are not that attractive being a nasty green/black/red/brown shade, but they taste great and are quite large for our arid clime. The roma tomatoes do not taste all that great and I am afraid to try another one, but they have produced a bumper crop. The cherry tomatoes are troopers and usually sweet, we get a handful or more a day from about three plants and they've produced this way for over a month. The yellow tomatoes are still turning color as are the best boy/big boy variety we got from a neighbor; haven't tried them yet. I have wrapped a bunch of green tomatoes in paper and stored them in the pantry to keep them safe from fruit flies until they ripen.

One lone green pepper is still out there trying to grow. It is the only fruit on the only pepper plant that survived the summer. And we only got 3 peaches. They were not that tasty.

Cold weather is already damaging some hot weather plants.

Two eggplant fruit from 6 plants. Maybe the cucumbers shaded them out too much during August.

Potatoes are fun! Digging for them is like unwrapping Christmas presents. Not sure how to convince the green ones to turn brown, but maybe those will be our seed potatoes for next year.

Pests that have damaged plants this year:

-DOGS

-MICE

-grasshoppers, but not too bad, esp for the number of them we had

-WASPS

-Mexican bean beetle

-tomato hornworm, only seen two but they do a lot of damage

-aphids--nasty little things

-some sort of microbial thing bothered the hops, or it was water stress, I can't tell

-POWDERY MILDEW on the cucurbits--hit all the gardens I can see in our area

-cabbage moths and their larvae

-black swallowtail caterpillar, one ate my entire dill plant--it smelled like dill too!

-asparagus beetles

-can't remember what else, but it felt like everything in the book hit us

Strawberries, supposed to be ever bearing, stopped flowering after mid July.

Wheat never sent up stalks, but maybe I didn't water it long enough or planted it at the wrong time of year.

Onion sets went in too early and were fooled into thinking they lived through a winter. Those produced flower stalks which limited their size and keep-ability. Pretty though.

Broccoli was very tall and not such a good producer. Cabbage never headed. Turnip greens taste much better very young, as do the turnips. Beet greens are delicious wilted as are swiss chard leaves; a bit bitter raw. Chioggia beets sometimes turn out white. Having a hard time figuring out parsnips.

Carrots are iffy. Most of ours did not grow very big. The little ones ate all the early season carrots they could dig up, but they are not liking these late summer ones as much. Arugula not to my liking and it goes to seed quickly and spreads even faster. Green onions got shaded by the tomatoes too early in the season.

Asparagus slowly coming up. Black-eyed peas in the same bed were nice producers. Two plants gave enough beans for 1 or 2 people for one meal. Had wasps sucking on the ends of the bean pods all August and September--weird.

Putting in winter compost crops and winter harvest crops the last few weeks--hoping they'll make it to a big enough size to weather the cold.

Lessons learned:

-trellis! The cucurbits would have been much happier climbing high and it may have slowed down the powdery mildew if more fresh air circulated around the leaves.

-stake the tomatoes strongly--they bent over every cage and made passing through some of the walkways impossible.

-get a wasp attractor/killer out early

-chickens might help with the insect problem

-got to keep the dogs out and the mice too

-more beans, less summer squash, less corn, more winter squash, more tomatoes, more succession planting of carrots and lettuce, more potatoes

-tie up the potatoes so they don't flop all over

-more basil, dill, cilantro

Mid-June

Three sisters mounds. Corn is up, beans aren't but I transplanted a couple, squash is just starting to germinate at the bottom of the mounds.

Potatoes are growing well.

Golden bantam corn 8 or 9 inches on center. Plus I planted beans to help fertilize the soil.

Covered bed. Cucumber transplants not doing well, I didn't harden them off. Eggplants just emerging, then parsnips.

Parsnips with cucumbers in the back of row, carrots, lettuce, peas.

Peas are producing everyday now. One problem, we want to eat them so much that we haven't allowed the peas to swell in the pods and we just eat them pods and all.

Broccoli is starting to pop its flowers up.

Peas, radishes all got harvested/red romaine (hiding behind peas), chard/collards, kale/broccoli

Kale/broccoli, seeds I planted last month are starting to get bigger so I am harvesting the older spinach and lettuce to give them some sunlight, spinach/lettuce, turnips, spinach

Blackeyed pea in the asparagus bed and if you look closely in the right corner an asparagus frond popping out. Only one side of the bed has produced shoots. I planted two different varieties, one on each side of the bed, so only one variety has come out of the soil. I wonder if the other roots were not viable or they are just slower.

Hops bine is growing tall but the lower leaves are browning and that is slowly working its way up the plant. I'm not sure why. I think I took care of the aphids with diatomaceous earth and I saw a ladybug on there yesterday, but a lot of tiny fly-ish bugs are sheltering underneath the leaves. Not sure what they are or what they do.

The neighbor's tree was making such a loud hum this week. I don't know what kind of tree it is, I will try to get a picture. Whatever it is, it produced some sort of bloom (that didn't even look like flowers to me) that drove the bees wild. There were thousands of bees on that tree. The buzzing was so loud that you could hear them inside the house with doors and windows shut. Glad to see that honeybees are alive and kicking by my house. I found out that my leafy greens are getting buzzed by leaf-cutter bees--who knew there were such things? But why are wasps so interested in the leafy veggies?

In the 90's

The asparagus patch is now all full with dirt. A few fronds are poking up through the soil. But it looked empty, so I planted some blackeyed peas to see what they would do with all that space.

End of the 8' asparagus bed, the soil goes downhill from 15" high to 7" high. Wonder if I'll have run-off problems? Chioggia beets next, more seeds have sprouted now that the weather has really warmed up. 80's and 90's the last 5 days with night time temps above 55.

I put in some cucumber seedlings, lemon variety, yesterday. I am not diligent about hardening off my plants. We will see if they survive. Next to that is the eggplant area. A few have pushed themselves up through the soil and also some cucumber seeds I put in the ground in March finally popped up. Nifty how that works.

Then the parsnips. The one in the bottom left has been growing since March, then I pushed in more seeds in April or May and 2 more sprouted. I thought I was just a bad parsnip planter, but maybe they like warmer weather than I thought because all of a sudden there are about 20 new sprouts. In the center is a pepper plant I put in yesterday, carrots, then lettuce and peas.

The pea plants are flowering and setting pods. I am excited. I hope they are able to produce peas before the hot weather wilts them. Then red romaine which is hiding behind the peas/radishes which we've pulled most of them-tasty!, Collard greens are growing fast/swiss chard which is not, Broccoli is about to push up their flowers/Kale.

Here you see the broccoli/kale then lettuce/mystery cole plant I can't remember what I seeded & spinach, turnips, more spinach.

Hops are growing tall, but we are encountering issues. Aphids and brown spots on the lower leaves which I think are downy mildew. Need to limit watering from the top and get some ladybugs.

Potatoes growing well.

One giant peach and a few little ones in this photo.

Growth this week, before the wind

Forecast 50 mph winds today, so who knows what will be left by tomorrow. I will be taking the bird net off the beds tomorrow because the plants are growing bigger and the birds can't eat the seeds anymore. Will have to figure out something else when the plants fruit out. Also aphids showed up yesterday on the hops bine.

Lettuce that finally germinated after I killed off the first sowing with plastic sheeting. Found some seeds that rolled downhill and are now growing in what is supposed to be the cantaloupe section. Should have some explosive growth this week with temps in the 80's and lots of sunshine.

Green onions finally showing their heads above ground.

Onions, white and red and green in the near right section, carrots in the middle and beans on the left that haven't sprouted yet.

Potatoes--I love how they come up so big through the earth that it looks like the dirt is giving birth. Or an alien is exploding out of its belly.

Should really plant more stuff in this one. But the elephant garlic has now come up through the ground.

What is this peeking out of the ground? Asparagus! Unfortunately I have to add more dirt and the shoot will have to keep seeking the light.

Parsnips, carrots, lettuce, peas.

Peas-which started to flower yesterday, romaine/radish, collards/chard, broccoli/kale

broccoli/kale, lettuce/spinach, turnips, spinach

Three Sisters

Pictures posted in reverse order, but too tired to switch everything around. Try reading from bottom to top.

But three didn't look like enough so I put 5 mounds in.

See all the colors: red, blue, yellow and black.

I planted festivity corn heirloom seed from Bountiful Gardens. Should be very pretty.

The sites I read listed anywhere from 1 to 4 corn plants in the center of each mound. I must be an overachiever because I made 5 holes for planting and put 4 kernels down each hole. "One for the rook and one for the crow. One to die and one to grow." My germination rate has not been that great this year and I can always thin them later.

Started with 5 gallon buckets of dirt to create mound. The bed I wanted to plant this way is only 4'x6' so I started with 3 mounds.

Ever since I heard the children's song "Three Sister's in a Mound" I've been a little fascinated with this concept. The idea is that farmers in the western US in days long ago planted three species in close proximity for the symbiotic and healthy relationship they give each other. Corn, beans and squash are the 3 sisters. They each occupy a different layer of sunshine and root zones.

"Squash grows on the bottom. Beans grow all around. Corn grows up high. Three sisters in a mound."

Not sure why the mound shape is needed for the dirt but I thought I'd go with it. The corn gets planted first, in the center, so it has time to grow high. Two weeks later the beans go in, planted in a ring 6" or so outside the corn. The beans (pole beans) will use the growing corn as a trellis. The beans also fertilize the soil for the corn with their bacteria-laden nitrifying nodules. The squash, which goes in a ring further outside the bean ring, gets planted at the same time or one to two weeks later depending on which website you read. I suppose fast growing squash, like zucchini, should go in later so the other two plants have a chance to grow higher. The squash shades the soil, acts as a living mulch, and expands around the other two plants. Not sure how it helps the soil.