Category: Farm

In spite of it still be sunny, chilly, and windy, the outdoor part of the summer garden was begun. All of the existing boxes that aren’t planted with garlic, asparagus, or blueberries were weeded and amended. One box was shifted to the left and this week, I will rearrange the stored wood in the barn to pull out a few of the long joists left from tearing down the old deck and they will be cut and built into a long box that will hold this year’s tomatoes, and will rotate with corn and potatoes in other years as they are the crops that require the biggest beds. Another double box will be built and a narrow long box will be build. I will have to purchase more Black Kow to help fill and amend them and may need another run by the pet supply store where they willingly give me the large cardboard boxes that come in. I have enough in the garage to put down for the longest box and maybe one more. The narrow box will go where the old compost pile was and that soil is good, it just needs to be regathered from where the chickens spread it out in the fall.

To the left of those two boxes is where the longest bed one goes, the other right where my shadow is.

The box on the cardboard is the one I shifted to give me space for the long box. The narrow one goes to the right of the two rows at the top of the photo. I realized that I am going to have to restring the hot wire before I turn the charger on, it is sagging enough to touch the metal fence in spots. I dug out some of the more stubborn weeds in the paths, but most of what is there will die off once new cardboard and mulch is laid over them.

Since we only have my old CRV now, and nothing to pull the trailer, the bags of compost and mulch will have to be brought in in smaller loads, enough to wear me out each day.

Last summer, I set two 5 gallon buckets full of comfrey filled with water that makes the best, stinkiest fertilizer along the fence. I used a bit of it on the fall peas that froze before they produced and the lid blew off that bucket so it filled again with rain and snow. It was used to fertilize the transplanted raspberries and the blueberry bushes while I was out there. The other bucket will be diluted and used as I plant the tomatoes and peppers later in the spring.

I finally received a notice that the tomato seed shipped, so they will be started this week. It is nice to be outdoors again and know that the garden didn’t get ahead of me with weeds before I could get it ready. Onions and peas will go in this week, probably late in the week when it is supposed to warm up and be followed by showers next weekend.

I tried to move the half barrel that I thought was still semi sound and the bottom fell out of it too, so I have loose staves and barrel rings to clean up. Maybe the staves can be pounded in the edges of the asparagus bed as it lacks a box. Soon it will be time to pull the mulch back from that bed and start looking for the first fresh green vegetable of the season.

We took a short noon time drive and you can see the hints of buds coloring the tops of the trees, not green yet, but the pinks and reds of the bud covers that swell first. This winter of isolation is going to end.

Late this week, when it has been two weeks since my second COVID vaccine, we are going out to replace the dishwasher that failed a couple months ago. I still don’t feel “safe” in the big box stores, but safer than I did 6 weeks ago.

I took advantage of the beautiful evening last night and in the last hour of daylight, I removed the 3 half barrels from the walled garden, transplanted the plants that were beginning to come up in them directly into the garden. One at a time, the barrels were hoisted over the low stone wall and put in the garden cart to move across the yard to the vegetable/fruit garden. The wooden half barrels that are now 15-16 years old and were “containing” the raspberries were rotting away, the bottoms were gone and the slats rotted more than half way up. Only the metal rings were sort of holding them together. Though it really isn’t the right time of year, I know that killing raspberries is like trying to get rid of a guest who overstayed their welcome, so I dug them out of the rotting barrels, thinned them, pruned back the canes that were old and dry and shortened some that were so long they draped over the hot wire on the top of the fence. The wooden barrels were moved aside, weeds and volunteers that had come up between them were pulled and the three plastic ones set in place. I removed about half the soil from each of them, divided up the rooted canes and planted a third in each barrel, adding back enough soil to hold them in place. I’m seriously thinking about putting a tomato cage in each barrel to hold the canes more upright.

The one barrel closest to the camera is still semi sound with a bottom in it and I may move it back to the walled garden and set it on the stone wall to replace the plastic one that has the bird feeder pole planted in it. That one is filled with soil and rocks to keep it from tipping over in the wind and the wooden one is heavier, especially if half filled with soil and rocks piled on top. The remaining two would be fun to learn to rebuild, there is another in pieces behind the house that isn’t rotted out, but fell apart.

Today isn’t quite as warm as yesterday, but still dry and clear. The trips into the garden last night revealed that the weeds have a head start. I should spend an hour or so each dry day with the hoe and see if I can beat them back before it is too late. We need to go out to get a bale of straw for cleaning the coop so maybe I will get a couple bags of Black Kow compost and lay the cardboard for the bed where the mint grew and was fought all last summer. That would be a good bed to plant potatoes in this year.

We still have about a week of clear drier weather with mild days and cold nights, so it would be a good time to start getting the garden cleaned up to plant the peas and onions mid March. I really need a good load of wood chips to put down over new cardboard between the beds. And now that the chickens don’t have the run of the garden, the mesh over the garlic can be removed as can the fence around the asparagus bed.

The morning was begun with cleaning the chick’s brooder box. They have been here a week now and it was time. As they grow, that task will have to be performed a few times a week. I didn’t lose any last night, but one is standing away from the other, less active, and not as large. I suspect she will fail too, which will bring me down to 9 out of 19, not very good odds. Early on my chicken adventure, I found a gal in Floyd that raised Buff Orpingtons and two years I got healthy, strong, several week old chicks from her, but I can’t find her information anymore and I haven’t seen her advertise on Craigslist in a few years. I could go back to Rural King with my receipts and get a few more. At $3 each, the loss so far is $30 worth of chicks, though they did replace 4 so far. I am unsure about adding ones that are a week younger to the brooder. Chickens tend to pick on the smaller, weaker ones and I don’t think that behavior begins this young.

Last night while browsing the internet, I found a 12 pod hydroponic starter garden with light for a reasonable price. Since I want strong determinate tomatoes for DD and GD’s garden, I ordered the starter and the seed. They should be here by mid week and I will get a dozen tomatoes started. She will get 3 of each variety, total of 6, I will plant the other 6 and see what else I can find when the garden center offers them in late spring to give me the rest I will plant, usually about 9 or 10 tomato plants provide enough tomatoes for our canned tomatoes and sauces for a year. Once the starts have some size, I will put them in 4″ pots in a transparent crate that can be moved in and out of the sun on the back deck and indoors at night until time to plant the in the ground and I will start some salad greens in the hydroponic garden on the kitchen counter then. Last year I planted Thai, Serrano, Jalapeno, and bell peppers. The Thai peppers were so prolific that I still have a half gallon jar of dried peppers after giving away strings to Son 1, DD, and a friend, so I won’t plant them this year. I can the Jalapenos for DH and make a Sriracha style sauce with some of them and the Serranos, so they will be in the garden and I want some bell peppers. I only got 2 or 3 small peppers last year from the plants, I think the marigolds overshadowed them before they got good sized. Now that DD and GD’s garden plan is done and given to them, I need to work on my own. I need two more 4 by 8′ beds and a 4 X 4′ bed with new cardboard and mulch between them. A good load of compost to fill the two new larger beds, the smaller one will go where last year’s compost pile was, so it just needs to be raked on a mound until the box is built around it then raked smooth in the new box. It is nice to be able to get outside a little. I know winter isn’t over, our last frost date isn’t until Mother’s Day, but it is time to get things going.