Cabin Crafted

Category: gardens

  • Oh to be a mechanic

    I mowed last week, parked the riding mower in the garage as usual. It took me 3 days to work sections to get it all done then, so this week, we called Grandson local to see if he wanted to get out of the house and earn a few bucks. Hubby had an early dental recheck of some work done two weeks ago, the weather was better than the forecast has predicted, so we took an early walk and went the couple of towns over (only about 20 -22 miles from our house, much less from the dentist office) and picked up the young one. Fed him lunch and brought him home to mow. The riding mower started right up, I put air in the tire that doesn’t hold air for more than 24 hours, and set him to work as I prepared to get the tractor and grade out some of the recent rain damage on the driveway. He pulled off and it was immediately obvious that the blade did not engage. Google sent me to check out various potential problems and it seems that the PTO clutch has failed, not repairable, just replaceable. The shop we have always used closed last year, so research to find a new one was done.

    Grandson local said he would do the front of the house with the push mower, not self powered, but it wouldn’t start. The spark plug was pulled and cleaned, reinstalled and three of us took turns pulling the cord to no avail. Yes, it has fresh gas and enough oil. He ended up using the string trimmer to clear an area from the front door to the side of the driveway.

    Daughter is going to come over tomorrow and hitch our trailer to her car as we can’t tow it with ours and is going to take us and it to the shop along with the push mower, and pick up a new gas grill to replace our old one that was seriously damaged blowing across the yard in a wind storm and the burners and grates disintegrating a year or so ago. She was going to help us do that in a couple of weeks, but since she has to come help with the mowers, we will go ahead and make that purchase now.

    I can’t replace the PTO clutch, the lawnmower issue is a mystery, and the grass is growing as I watch it.

    After returning Grandson local home, the driveway did get done, just in time for another intense thunderstorm. I think the driveway survived.

    Tonight, we will be rewarded with a couple of new potatoes pulled out from under a plant and a handful of fresh from the garden Sugar Snap Peas.

    I should have staked the Sugar Snaps, they are tall and have fallen over and the stems are quite brittle. There are plenty more to enjoy and freeze for later.

  • Gardens

    Every year the gardens produce new challenges and sometimes rewards. Two years ago, I couldn’t get corn to grow even after three plantings. Last year the popcorn was prolific but wouldn’t pop in the microwave or a pan of hot oil, but the chickens loved it and I still find dry cobs in the yard. This year in the adjacent bed, it is nothing but grass and about a dozen corn shoots about a foot tall in a 14 by 4 foot bed. Last year the peppers did nothing, but I was overwhelmed with cucumbers. Potatoes last year provided a little and volunteers keep coming up in the beds from the past two rotations, this year the bed is waist high in green tops, flowering, and hopefully producing plenty for our table. This year the cucumbers have not germinated, only three sunflowers germinated, but the peppers look great and are beginning to set small fruit and flowers. There were cucumbers and sunflowers in Jiffy pots on the back deck that were started a week or so ago and they were planted out as starts this evening.

    The tomatoes and peppers were hand weeded this morning and after our walk, a hoe was taken to the corn bed and most of it was done. After dinner, a hand maddock finished the job. I know the crows didn’t get the corn seed because the bed has a welded wire fence laying over the top of the wooden box frame about 3 inches above the soil. It has been wet. We have had enough rain in the past couple of weeks to destroy our driveway. This upcoming week there are rain showers several days, so maybe the corn will germinate this time.

    Corn bed before
    And after

    Peas and beans are thriving, sugar snaps ready to start harvesting to eat, blanch and freeze. Shelling peas will soon follow and the second planting has germinated nicely. No onions or garlic were planted this year, but garlic has been ordered for the fall garden. The asparagus are now as tall as I am, going into their summer fern stage so there will be more next year. Two quarts of asparagus pickles are in the refrigerator to enjoy until they are gone.

    Last year, the deer discovered the daylilies until I put a fence in front of them. This year the fence was put in place before they emerged and they are just beginning to bloom, but the deer discovered other treats in the walled garden so the ones they are favoring had low fence erected around them. The deer population is heavy and they have no fear of our ancient pups, coming right up to the house to graze when the dogs are in, lounging under the pine trees even when the dogs are out as long as the dogs don’t notice them.

    Each year, I change up what is in the vegetable garden with the staples of tomatoes, peppers, peas, beans, cucumbers, and spinach. I really want a dent corn patch for cornmeal and chicken scratch, sweet corn can be purchased as desired at the Farmer’s Market, but success with corn has not been good. The freshly weeded bed was replanted with dent corn, but there is no more sweet corn seed here. The pumpkins were planted out today even if there is no corn, the seminole pumpkins make good pie, are nice for stuffing with rice and sausage, and they are good keepers.

    The hydroponics were shut down and the parts that could go in the dishwasher were run through a cycle. When lettuce at the farmer’s market becomes scarce and the rest of our spinach bolts, the larger one will be reseeded for salad greens. The herbs were all planted out and that one doesn’t need to be reseeded until near frost time so there are fresh herbs for the winter.

    The garden is rewarding, but the work to keep it up is getting more difficult.

  • Hot stuff and bees

    The week has warmed a bit more each day with intermittent thunder storms, not producing much rain, just a lot of noise and light. Today it broke 90 f. We got our walk in when is was 6 degrees cooler than that, but on a section of the trail with little shade.

    A few days ago when we walked our hay guy down to see the bee installation so he and his helpers were aware, three of the feeders were still half full. Last night they were empty. This morning while it is still below 80 f, the heavy bee jacket and veil were donned and the hike down the hill to fill the feeders and flip the inner covers to give them more ventilation. My local mentor suggested cutting a notch in the inner cover, my brother said to use shims, the internet suggested craft sticks diagonally across the two back corners to slightly lift the outer lid and provide additional cooling when it is going to be brutal. I like my brother’s idea, but lack the acrylic to cut the shims. My “craft sticks” are coffee stirrers and not thick enough to provide space if laid on the inner cover and not sturdy enough to put diagonally. The syrup I had wasn’t sufficient to fill all the jars, so syrup is being dissolved now and I will look for another shim solution today. I don’t have a battery operated jig saw, but do have a battery powered drill and some hole saws that fit it, so maybe a semi circular hole in the back of the inner cover with the screen material provided by my mentor is the solution. After the syrup is fully dissolved and the bees are quieter in the dusk, a solution will be devised. All 4 hives are filling brood and making honey.

    A few weeks ago, Mountain Mint was ordered from a Tennessee nursery, three plants, $20+ dollars. They arrived yesterday, 3 dried out bare root segments in a couple tablespoons of potting soil in a plastic bag. I’m quite irritated by this. My bee mentor has Mountain Mint that she recently divided and she said she would give me a start. The bare roots were planted and watered, but without much hope of success. The Baptisia nearby is blooming gloriously.

    It is such a pretty plant and the dark seed pods that form, dry and make interesting addition to dried flower arrangements.

    The Wren eggs in the spider plant have hatched, but the babies don’t raise up with open mouths yet, so the count hasn’t been made yet.

    Once they fledge, the baby spider plants in the starters around the mother plant need to be set it soil. They aren’t sufficiently set in and the one below the nest in this picture is totally uprooted.

    The electric around the fruit was a waste of time. The single strand wasn’t slowing the deer down at all. After our walk today, since we were close to Lowe’s, a second bird net was purchased. In the afternoon heat, the grass within that area was weed whacked down, cardboard put down around the plum and a fence erected around it. Several long coated steel posts were angled over the grapevine, a long cord tying them to the end posts and lashing them together and the net was draped over the line and covering the grapes. There are many clusters starting and the deer can’t have them this year.

    a bag of mulch needs to be spread around the little tree.

    Hopefully, they are protected now. The electric is just around the top of the garden again, though there has been no evidence of deer in there. The pintos, bush beans, second planting of peas, and some of the sunflowers are sprouted. Not much of the corn is up and no sign of the cucumbers yet. On a cooler day, some work with the hoe is needed out there though. For now, a bottle of water and a rest under the ceiling fan is in order. I like spring, not summer heat. It will be cooler after today for a while.

  • And More Rain

    The crazy boomerang storm has alternated between partly cloudy skies and real rain storms with thunder and lightning. When it leaves this time, it will keep going and it is going to get hot, summer hot.

    When I went over this morning to free the chooks into the yard, the path is between the garden and the young plum and grapevine. The plum has fruit for the first time, but it also has new deer damage. Since the fence charger was taken down to use on the bees then returned to the garden as a stronger charged one was needed for the bees, it had been sitting by the post on the ground, and not remounted and turned on. After the Saturday morning routine of breakfast, Farmer’s Market, and daily walk, efforts were made to try to deter the deer from finishing off the plum and grape leaves. The charger was remounted on the pole with new mounting screws and new poly wire strung as the old wire was several years old, showed some burned spots, and wasn’t long enough to go around the fruit and the garden. Because the wood pile, uphill from the fruit and garden already had a couple of T-posts set at the ends, insulators were added at a lower height than the garden wire and the fence wire strung to enclose the plum and grapes. This will require relearning to walk above the wood pile to the chicken coop, but may protect the plum tree and grapevine. If it doesn’t deter the deer, a fence will go up around the plum and another bird net purchased to drape over the grapes.

    My portion of the sweet potato bundle was planted out in the half barrel and just as water was about to be set up to sprinkle them in, it began raining a very steady, heavy rain. The sprinklers haven’t been needed on the flowers or vegetables for a couple of days which is nice. The only thing left to be planted out in the spring garden are three Thai peppers, but they are still in the hydroponic starter and not large enough to go outside. They could be planted with paper tubes around them to deter the sow bugs, but it is better to let them get some size on them. As there is still about a full quart jar of dried Thai’s from last year, it is no hurry.

    The hay is getting tall and deep.

    This doe is standing, not lying down.

    It is broody hen season, too. One of the Buff Orpingtons has been sitting on an empty nest for two weeks. She would make a good Momma hen as she growls, puffs up, and pecks at me every time the egg door is opened. If she is removed from the nest to the yard, she growls and stays put until the door is closed or one of the other hens pecks at her weird noise, then she runs right back to the nest. No real effort has been made to deter her as past efforts on that front have never worked. A fleeting idea to put fertile eggs under her was quickly abandoned as the coop is already too small for the 13 hens that live there at night. About another week, she will tire of it and return to the laying flock. If not, she will go to freezer camp as a non productive hen doesn’t need to be in the coop.

    Her most indignant self.

    In anticipation of a bumper crop of assorted hot peppers, most of the remaining hot dried peppers from last year have been started as a hot pepper ferment to make sauce in a couple of weeks. Last year’s sauce is nearly gone. There are still enough dried peppers left for cooking purposes.

    That is the spring’s second ferment begun. The asparagus are delicious and a second jar of them will occur as soon as another quart jar of them are available.

    For days, the buds on the peonies have been opening more and more. This is the first year that there have been more than a couple and one is full of buds. During college years and when available, a small bowl of a floating bloom adorned my desk. This green glass bowl was hand blown at Jamestown Historical site and was perfect to float two beautiful peony blossoms.

    Spring is a wonderful time of the year here in the Virginia mountains. It is great to be able to get the garden in and still cool enough to keep it weeded. The hot, humid summer will be upon us too quickly.

  • And Then Came the Rain

    After yesterday’s errands and walk, the last tomato was caged, two more peppers planted and staked, the blueberries netted against thieving birds, so I can enjoy all of that luscious blue fruit. A stop, no, 4 stops to try to get sweet potato starts were a failure, but the last stop said they had been shipped and should be in today or tomorrow, so today’s check in was a winner and a bundle purchased. It is much too large for our garden or our family use, so the bundle will be shared.

    We got our walk in just before the rain began and between showers, the half barrel that will contain the sweet potatoes was moved to the garden on a cardboard layer to deter weeds from growing through the bottom or up around the sides and then filled with fresh soil. The slips are soaking in a pot of water for a few days to freshen the roots and they will be planted out. Herb seed and transplants were also done between showers, but now it is raining in earnest, good for the freshly planted seed and transplanted starts.

    In my quest to use open pollinated vegetables and save seed, the small Oui yogurt jars seem the perfect size for seed storeage. A google search produced silicone lids that fit the jars. A dark box will be scrounged and the seed will be stored in the back of the refrigerator between seasons. For several years, flower seed has been saved and replanted each year, beans and peas have been saved without much thought to how they were stored.

    The next year or two, the open pollinated varieties may be switched until the ones that best suit us are tried and approved. The beans and peas that have been the spring and summer staples are already on the list. Dent corn varieties will be tried to provide corn meal and chicken scratch. Seminole pumpkins have been favored. Cucumbers are different each year, but maybe the best one has been selected this year. We use a lot of Jalapenos, but often grow several hot peppers, and they will cross pollinate, so that choice might be more difficult. The same with tomatoes. A good paste tomato for sauce and canning is great, but a fresh sliced tomato can’t be beat in the summer and again, there is the cross pollination issue. Lettuce and spinach are planted out repeatedly and not allowed to seed.

    The battle with grass and weeds in the paths of the garden has been ongoing. Cardboard and mulch work for a short while. A huge load of wood chips would be ideal and could be added to each year, but it costs an arm and a leg to get it hauled up the mountain. Weed whacking around the beds seems to be the best that can be done for now, and hand pulling those that will come up. Some weeds are so persistent they will go through the barrier layers. It is exciting that the garden is coming together and fresh homegrown vegetables and fruits will soon be on our table and in our pantry and freezer.

  • Another Stellar Day

    To vary our retirement routine today, we went up the mountain instead of down. The top of the mountain is Mountain Lake Conservancy and Lodge. The lodge property is the site of the filming of most of the original “Dirty Dancing” movie. Signage abounds identifying what occurred where, including one that says they spray painted the grass and trees green because it was autumn. We had a very nice lunch on the porch (where Baby first saw Johnny) looking out at where the lake used to be. Unfortunately, within a couple of years of us moving here, it disappeared through a fissure in the bottom of the lake. It has done that before and refilled, but it probably won’t happen in the rest of our lifetime. We were fortunate to have visited when there was a large, full, deep lake. The feeder streams still flow down, but the water disappears into the fissure. A few years ago, attempts were made to plug the hole, the lake partially refilled then failed.

    After lunch, we took off on trails through the woods. The Conservancy is about 2,000 feet higher elevation than our house and spring time is just beginning. Flora and fauna abound.

    Red Trillium
    She wasn’t 20 feet from us and unconcerned.
    May apples, past bloom and forming the fruit.
    Not many leaves on the trees yet though.

    Lots of fiddlehead ferns, violets, tiny white wild flowers. A cool breeze and lots of sunshine.

    Once home, it was back to the garden planting.

    Sweet corn and Bloody Butcher dent corn fill this bed, then topped with a sheet of fence wire to deter the crows until the corn is 6″ high. Pumpkins will be planted in that bed too, but the third sister was a purchase error and the Pinto beans are a bush bean, so they were planted in a separate bed nearby. The tomatoes were caged, the peppers staked, cucumbers and sunflowers planted, and the sprinkler started on it all. Once sweet potato starts can be purchased, they will be planted between the blueberries or above the potato and asparagus beds. There are a few more peppers to plant out when the starts are large enough and some basils that are in the hydroponic to intersperse between the tomatoes. Hoops were installed over the blueberry bed to support netting which will be purchased on the next Tractor Supply run, maybe tomorrow. The garden is now in maintenance mode until time to begin harvest. Late season beans will go in after peas are done, and garlic and fall greens when the time comes. So far, only spinach and asparagus are being harvested.

    Last weekend’s rains are a storm that is boomeranging back to hit us again this weekend with the same storm. That really is a thing according to the local weather blogger for the newpaper. The garden won’t need watering again after today for a while.

  • Garden Time

    Last week, my spinning friends that were visiting went out to the garden with me to see if they could identify this:

    It starts like this and becomes this…

    It has a matt of copper colored roots with below ground runners that can go a couple of feet from one plant to the next. It was overtaking the blueberry bed and beginning to take over the adjacent bed that is slated to be the three sister’s bed. After our glorious walk on a beautiful day yesterday, an attack on the weed was tackled. When done, the above bed was clear (for now).

    My experience with it is that if you don’t get all of the roots, which is impossible, it just comes back, so I will have to keep at it. The blueberries are full of tiny berries. Bird net may be in order this year as it looks like it could finally be a good harvest if I beat the birds to them.

    The two nights of potential frost didn’t get cold enough to freeze and the forecast looks like spring nights have finally arrived, so the tomatoes and peppers that have been in and out of the house for a while, were planted out today after that bed was weeded. The tomatoes spaced out nicely for the number I had and there is room for the Thai and Serrano peppers once they have achieved enough size to transplant them into the garden. The bed is getting a good watering in right now. Maybe later, the second planting of peas and the first planting of beans will be sown. The three sister’s garden will be a day in itself. My garden plan has been altered somewhat so the cucumbers need to find a place to be planted.

    Yesterday’s walk was an extension of the walk we do from the end of the Huckleberry Trail. About 3/4 of a mile into that walk, another trail that travels through the Heritage Park, also known as Brown Farm. The farm was a dairy and beef farm and was purchased by the town of Blacksburg under the New River Trust. It has a large pond and trails through the fields and old farm buildings.

    Wonderful old buildings and silos. The shot up through the silo was taken by holding the camera through a hole in the side from outside.

    Interesting nature finds, a nut shell, an all white daisy like wildflower, and just look at that tree. Hubby is 6’1.5″ tall to give you reference to it’s size. We finished the rest of the usual walk with this side trip.

  • Tick Season and preparing for new garden

    It is only May 1 and already many ticks have made their way into the house on our bodies or on the pups. Three bites already on me. It is going to be a bad year for them I fear.

    There is a mowed path to the bees that will stay mowed as the adjacent hay grows, but sometimes you have to walk through the branches of a cedar tree to brush off any hitchhikers and in spite of pants tucked into socks into boots, the bee jacket, veil, and gloves, they are still finding their way in. I dislike chemical sprays even around my pants legs, much less on upper body, especially since most are from going to the bee yard. I’ve had folks suggest wrapping a dog tick collar around my lower pants legs, but that doesn’t stop them from the cedar branches above the lower legs.

    They are disgusting, creepy crawlies, disease carriers. We need Guineas, but doubt they would stick around and they are so noisy, but definitely tick gobblers. This will be a difficult year to wild berry pick because of them.

    This week, the last of the tomatoes frozen toward the end of the season last year were finally processed into pasta sauce. That puts 11 pints of pasta sauce on the shelf to start this year. Three from last year, 8 new ones, plus 3 in the freezer, 3 pints of canned tomato puree added this spring. There is still a supply of assorted tomatillo sauces/salsas/jams, and a bag remaining in the freezer, so they won’t go in this year’s garden. There are 8 peppers ready to plant in two weeks, plus another variety started from seed that will be a bit later. One of the Farmer’s Market vendors had several varieties of tomato starts so one each of two varieties were added to my purchase to give me 8 tomato plants, 2 more than originally planned. The huckleberries didn’t come up in the starter flat which gives me some space to accommodate the extras. The corn patch will be half sweet corn and half Bloody Butcher so seed can’t be saved, but extra seed of the dent corn was purchased to use next year. The plan this year has two varieties of beans and two varieties of peas, so again, seed can’t be saved. Already, a plan for next year is in the works to grow only single varieties of heritage vegetables and save seed for future planting. This will be somewhat limiting, but our primary hot pepper use is Jalapenos, primary tomato use is sauces, sweet corn is such a short season, the Bloody Butcher will provide corn meal and roasting ears. Though we enjoy bush beans, young Pinto’s can be eaten green and if enough are planted, dried for winter chili and goulash. With peas, we enjoy both sugar snaps and shelling peas, but if only shelling peas are grown like year’s past, seed can be saved. It will be an interesting experiment to see if the lack of variety bothers us or if the variety will just come from Farmer’s Market purchases. Seminole pumpkins are great for stuffing or pies and will be the third part of the Three Sister’s garden. Spinach will be planted, but I have never tried to save seed from spinach or lettuce. Cucumbers of course will be in the garden to eat fresh and to make pickles. Garlic was not planted for this year, but will be added back in for the fall garden to overwinter and provide bulbs next summer.

    Here’s hoping for a great garden season and more putting by for the off seasons. I need to start gathering jars for processing vegetables and later for when honey gathering commences, probably not until next year though.

  • The Pin Cushion

    With the onset of Covid and advancing age, there have been many vaccines administered in the past months for protection. With 4 Covid vaccines and boosters, a pneumonia vaccine, and the two vaccine series of shingles shots, I feel like a pin cushion. Most of them didn’t bother me except for a sore arm, but the second Covid shot and the second booster, both made me feel yucky. Today I got the second shingles vaccine and first off, that injection burns and often causes the recipient to feel poorly. We will see. Another reaction I get with every vaccine, also the three times I have had imaging dye is a metallic taste that lingers for several hours. But hopefully, protection levels are higher at this point.

    We have been experiencing very warm weather and the lilac has blossomed with it’s delightful scent in the front of the house. Behind the house, the first Bearded Iris have bloomed and they are the grape iris that are not only light purple, but smell like grapes. Soon the other iris colors will bloom, then later the Dutch Iris and then the day lilies. Some of the deck pots and the small annual garden have been seeded with Cosmos and Coreopsis, a half barrel awaits the herbs that were removed from the hydroponic garden, but more potting soil needs to be obtained first.

    It amazes me that those two iris that couldn’t be dug out have come up between the stones being set for the patio. Most of them are not bound in by stones.

    Tomorrow will be about 20 degrees cooler than today and will remain in the 60’s during the day for the next 10 days or so. Fortunately, there are no freezing nights in the forecast, hopefully no more for the spring season. Mother’s day is the target date for planting out the tomato and pepper transplants and seeding out the rest of the garden.

    Water has been set up for the bees so they can drink without drowning. With the boggy bottom of the sink hole, they may discover that as well.

  • A Bee-utiful day

    The weather is glorious and we took a walk, followed by a visit with my local bee keeping friend and her husband as they did their post winter box inspections. That was delightful and a bit overwhelming as we asked questions and got answers, they offered other information, showed us around. I am glad we live where we do as their property doesn’t have a flat spot on it that they haven’t created themselves. To the point that many areas are being made into gardens so it doesn’t have to be mowed. They also don’t have a lot of open space for sunshine and they are only a few miles from us, less as the crow flies. One of my issues was how quickly the bees are emptying the feeders, and they suggested switching to quart jars instead of pints.

    Once home, new batches of syrup were started and the son that got us going and is the official owner of our hives called for an update and he answered more questions. I hope my feeble brain can hold all this information. As we were talking, he walked back to check on his two hives and his feeders were empty too, so I passed on the suggestion of quarts.

    Because we haven’t had rain in a few days, the hoses were moved around and the back garden was watered. And the little garden built last year over the septic clean out received a bird bath half filled with rocks so the bees can find water and not drown. To keep the chickens out of that bed as seedlings of flowers are beginning to germinate there, a section of old fencing was cut as a cover with a hole in the middle to allow the birdbath base to fit through.

    After dinner, it was still bright sunny and hot, but the bee garb was donned, the quart jars of syrup loaded into a large bucket and the bees were fed. They were pretty agitated that the empty feeders were removed, but calmed back down when the larger feeders of syrup were placed in the hive openings.

    The very novice bee lady.

    What couldn’t be captured with gloves through the veil net was a picture of the cloud of bees circling the hives and me. This turned into a bee filled day and is quite an adventure. I had read that the hives could/should be different colors or decorated, so some of the remaining boxes are going to get painted and decorated before they are installed on the existing boxes. I need to get some acrylic paints and get creative.