These are a variety called Pink Reliance. Last year, I ordered a stem, we picked a spot on the eastern side of the property, laid it in, ran a rudimentary trellis, and then figured it probably would die either because of the soil or during one of our infrequent freezes over the winter.
It didn’t. After the frosts ended, we walked out one morning and noticed all sorts of green leaves coming back on the bare stem. Soon after, tiny clusters of grapes appeared, and they’re now moving in to about half an inch in diameter. This after we didn’t do much of anything to protect it after it was planted.
The next project is to build a proper trellis, since it seems intent on being a healthy plant after all. We picked up a couple of 4x4x8 end posts and some galvanized wire for what I hope will be many years of production.
Last year’s corn experiment was derailed by various things, including either a dog or a deer crashing through the plot. We’ll be redoing that plot again this year, but decided to also try a little experiment.
These frames were set and then seeded on April 20. The photo above is from May 4. So far, so good. These frames were placed in an area where I had planted watermelon and canteloupe last year. We didn’t get anything from those plantings, although there were several watermelons that showed up to get chewed by the ants. We left the fruits and the plants to die off in that area, because as everyone who reads this knows, the soil can use all the help it can get.
Given that, I expected to see some volunteer watermelons show up this year. What I did not expect was to count 41 of them between the frames, and two in the frame above – how they got there, I’ll never know. Most or all of these will need to be relocated, as we’ll need the space between the frames to walk. What we’ll do with all this watermelon, assuming any of it comes in, I don’t know, but I’m sure the people and the animals around here (including the chickens) will take care of a good portion of it.
I’ve also decided to plant part of the front of the property in corn. We’re going to till up a plot in the front and put in a variety called maple sweet. It’s also highly likely that we’ll be putting frames around the front of the property. This all occurred to me as I was cutting the grass at the road side of the property, and before I ran out of gas in the tractor along the fenceline. I don’t mind using the tractor to mow, but growing cool stuff to eat is much more fun and if we ever go the CSA route – something we’ve been discussing more seriously than “one day, we should…” – we’ll have areas already started to hold more goodies.
Going to be a busy season around here. I’m already thinking ahead to winter (greenhouse, wiring the barn for seeding racks, keeping the chickens warm, and so on) and next year (bees, hopefully). I’m also thinking about tomorrow, which will find me at the dentist having two crowns put in my face. No doubt I will not be as chipper as usual after that particular activity, although I hope to be in minor enough pain that I can single line trellis the sungold tomatoes, which are beginning to fruit and need a bit of support.
Spring has been a busy time here at the ranch. That’s understandable, given that our growing season starts early, and we’ve been working to get things in shape to actually grow things this year rather than struggling with the soil, such as it is, which will take years for me to build up organically.
We had started off with a couple of rows of frames: getting them built, filled, and planted. March 19:
The front of that frame second from the right has the snow peas, along with carrots and some herbs. We were still in the process of mixing and filling the built frames and putting together more.
As of early April, the peas were starting to take off – as was everything else, in fact, given the much healthier soil. April 2:
In mid-April on one weekend, my brother and his son built the rest of the frames out for me while I prepped the area that would hold our experimental frames for corn. The already-planted items continued to fare very well. April 13:
I laid down weedblock in the new frames and my brothers finished filling them while I was at the NOC one day. The snow peas were finally at the point where they needed to be picked (past due, really). The catnip had gone bonkers and I did a little massacre on it (it has not seemed to care much), and I pulled the entire bunch of thyme up and dried it, then planted new from seed in the same square from which I had pulled it. The carrots are doing incredibly well – that is the frilly green stuff on the right, and in the front is several basil plants. April 27:
The first snowpea harvest, steamed that very evening.
The other things that have been planted/transplanted in have taken off with the warmer weather, regular watering, and available nutrients. May 4:
The snow peas continue to be productive, and need to be picked again tomorrow.
The additional strings running from the frame to the right are for runners that refused to go up the trellis. Since it’s difficult to get the plants to cooperate in one fashion, I’ve given them another direction to run so they’ll continue to put out pods without lying on the ground. The only other issue we’re having at the moment is a good one to have: the peas are climbing higher than I set the trellis. Next time we’ll know that just over five feet is not quite enough.
This is a front view of the frame with the snow peas, carrots, basil, catnip, and lavender.
When planning out the raised beds for the garden – since the soil is crap and will be for years while I work on it – we decided on 49 to 51 4×4 raised beds. Alone, that would be somewhere north of 800 square feet in planted beds just for things we intend to eat and provide to others.
That, my friends, is a lot of frames.
The frames themselves, though, are not the hard part. The hard part is filling them. Think about this: each frame is made of four foot sections of 1 x 6 x 8 lumber. Those of you who recall your volume measurement formulas can do the math. In our scenario, that equals 4 cu ft of peat moss, 50 pounds of chicken manure, 80 pounds of cow manure, and coarse vermiculite sufficient enough to give us the consistency we’re after – per two frames. That is quite a lot of mixing and more animal poo than most people will handle in their lifetime.
The other day, we went out and filled almost six frames (I say almost, as one of the vermiculite bags was fine rather than coarse, so the levels were a bit off).
A little out of alignment on the left, which will be fixed. The frames get knocked about a bit because of the weight of the dumping process. Which, by the way, means mixing half, dumping, mixing another half, dumping, and on and on. Heavy, sweaty, dirty work that leaves you sore and tired, but in the best possible way because you’ve spent some time working outside in the fresh air.
That streak on my right leg? Chicken poop, from a bag that got wet.
It’s also a lot of each part of the mix, given the rather largescale plans we have. That’s ok, though, because this particular backbreaking part only has to be done once unless we decide to move the frames around. I don’t think that’s in the plans for any time in the foreseeable future.
Last fall, I threw down some seeds from a butterfly/bee mix in an area around one of the hoses, just to have something in the ground when spring came. Winter was so mild, with only a couple of severe freezes, that we’ve had flowers almost all winter.
They’ve been maintenance-free, too, chugging along on their own with nothing special from us.
It had rained – a lot – but we had a break in the weather and it was time to do some layouts and cleanup, as well as check the progress of some of the things growing out in the beds.
Carrot tops are popping up, and the carrots will probably be ready to pull next month.
The garlic continues to look robust, but I’m worried about it rotting in the ground because the rains decide to come in huge storms that dump a couple of inches at a time rather than something a bit more gentle.
We managed to get a small burn pile going even though things were still fairly wet.
Some prep on the ground and the layout of (some) of the frames.
In the foreground by the chair is a frame with snow peas, thyme, rosemary, and catnip, along with another round of carrots. The snow peas are erupting and since we know how quickly they can get out of hand, my goal in the next day or so is to get the trellis in place. Shortly after we wrapped up for the day, the weather turned stormy once more, with another three and a half inches of rain before it subsided. Nice for our water shortage around here, but not so good for the remaining areas on the property that need to be filled and leveled.
It isn’t just animals that die, of course. People can (and do) die both suddenly and not so suddenly.
Case in point: one of our customers, who had been with us since almost the very first, died unexpectedly early in February of a heart attack. We did not discover this until late in the month when one of his clients contacted us directly. While it probably will not be the last time we have to do this, it is a bit odd and sad to have to make arrangements for the disposition of his client accounts with us, as the rest of his family knows nothing about what he was doing and has no idea how to provide hosting support to those clients. I’ve been working on notices to those clients, straddling the line between breaking news they may not know and yet being businesslike enough to make sure that they understand what has to be done.
But life carries on, no matter what happens to us. It may be difficult, it may strain the people left behind (one of my chief concerns should anything happen to me), but on it goes.
Another case in point: one of my mom’s old long-term neighbors (Jo, in case those of you reading this knew her) died in February as well, the same week Boots did. She had been receiving treatment for cancer that had invaded her brain, and they found out it had spread to her liver. She’d been in the hospital for a bit, but when there was nothing more they could do, they brought her home with Hospice care. She died that same night, around midnight.
But again, life carries on, and we move on with it.
I knew someone once who was incredibly anguished about all the bad things that happen in life, and dwelt constantly on that aspect: wasn’t it horrible, life is unfair, it all seems such a waste, how can we possibly go through all this, and the same, ad nauseum, with no break of sunshine, ever.
I’ve been sick for about a week now. This in and of itself wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t for the incessant coughing, some of which is so hard that it feels like I’ve pulled muscles. There’s also been so much coughing that the constant flexing of the abs has led to a severe ache, like overdoing situps or going a few rounds with a boxer.
My mom forced me to go to the doctor, which I did. Since I was coughing up and blowing out green gunk, they gave me a scrip for some anti-robotics…I mean, antibiotics: something very cool, and suited for me, since I can’t swallow pills and crushing them up all the time is nasty (and makes me not want to take them). It’s called Zmax, a one dose, extended release antibiotic that, as a bonus, comes in an oral suspension. Perfect for those of us with pill issues. How well it works remains to be seen. I can say that the smell (cherry/banana) is not bad. The taste, however, is, as it tastes like roasted ass. Or at least bad fish, something with which I’m a bit more familiar. Unfortunately, it isn’t for cough, and that’s what’s just killing me here. It makes it very difficult to sleep, makes my throat hurt, my ribs hurt, hell, I think I even almost pulled a groin muscle coughing so hard last night. There is only so much Nyquil one can take, and it tastes horrible anyway.
I’m hopeful that this is not going to hang around for three weeks(!), the length of time the doc said most people have been seeing this last. My ribs and abs can’t take it, and I’m anxious to get back out in the yard and get some more things in gear for the impending chicken arrival and the arrival of less schizophrenic weather so we can get our seedlings out of captivity and into the semi-wild of the garden.
