So Much to Do!

I'm sure some of you are like me, it feels like you always behind because there is just so much to do. Spring and summer tend to fly by with all the attention you give to planting, weeding, watering.....and weeding again. Spring and Summer is also the time I move and stack the coming Fall/Winter firewood into shed One. Once in awhile Sue gets into the firewood action as you see in the photo.

Fast Forward: Sorry I let the above entry slide so long - its now 10/22/2011

Sue and I have certain tasks we share and ones which each of us handle pretty much on our own. The weeding we share because it without it the garden areas can simply be over run. Sue pretty much handles the watering chores and I pretty much take care of tieing-up the plants needing support structures. Sue and I share brush removal, though I handle the cutting down of small trees, she helps me move them to the firewood cutting area. Spring and Summer zoomed by this year but May, June and the first half of July were cooler than usual, and we had much more rain. This did not hurt the root crops but the bean, summer squash, table grapes and to some extent the tomatoes were held back. The tomatoes got a needed boost at the end of Summer and we did somewhat better than we feared.

The biggest change in the garden this Summer has been the installation of several raised beds. After trying to trap voles and failing miserably, it came to me that with digging front feet they would not be good climbers, so a raised bed might be good. But then how to keep the voles from tunneling under? Well, to the rescue came hardware cloth, in 1/2 and 1/4 inch mesh. I constructed the beds to be 36 inches wide, to the outside edges, the width that the cloth normally comes in. I built nine beds, using 2X10 Douglas Fir planks.

The harvest at Summer's End was decent for tomatoes, beets, most of the carrots, parsnips, strawberries and cane berries. The apple trees produced some fruit but the trees are still young, as are the blueberry shrubs, so the crops are still small. We did have some summer visitors, daughter Meghann and her two boys stayed one night, granddaughter Meghan stayed several nights and got to meet her two Moriarty cousins, Devan & Bria and he aunt Sasha. This Summer was fun and we learned lots and added to our homestead.

Spring Cleanup!

The month of May is nearly over and much of the garden is planted, except for the summer crops like beans, corn, squash and tomatoes. I have a few of these started in peat-pots or in small plastic pots and a some have even sprouted. Sue and I will purchase tomatoes in commercial pots so we'll have a jump-start going into the few hot days we have here in the foothills. Sue and I have been fairly busy this Spring, on the days it was not pouring rain and it did rain lots.

I took down a number of coppice trees, birch and maple, on the south side of our main garden. Most of these have been cut into what I call "loglets" and stacked to dry in wood shed #4. I also constructed 5 raised planting boxes, three of which have 1/2" mesh hardware fabric and the bottom side to deter voles from getting into the root crops we have planted. Sue and I purchased 6 more blueberry shrubs and planted them in part of the West Orchard.   I built a new fence line within the W. Orchard to  secure the new blueberry patch from the Hens. This new fence also allows me to secure the Asian Pears from the Hens. The area with the Asian Pears is where on of the raised boxes was installed. I plan to put one or two more boxes in this area. The new blueberr patch actually has 8 shrubs, 2 of which were ones transplanted from the western portion of the Main Garden.

Sue prepaired and planted a new strawberry bed at the south fence-line of the western part of the Main Garden. This variety of strawberry is called Reliance and are supposed to be very hardy and produce fruit for up to 10 years before needing to replace the plants. Sue has also planted several small beds of potatoes and a nice quantity of spinach. Onions, garlic, leeks, parsnip, beets, chard, carrots and peas have all sprouted.

By the way, the hens have recovered nicely from the April Hawk attack. We get 3 to 5 eggs per day now and lots sqawking when the "girls" think we'd not been attentive enough to their needs. I did double the size of their "bird-cage" area - this is an area off the main entrance of the coop where the birds can be outside but completely protected from predators. When Sue and I are outside we let then out into a larger area to roam around in, secure in most respects except from the brids of prey.

Sue and I have plans to expand south of the Main Garden, where intend to construct a sort of patio using lots of larger broken rocks, filled in with fist-sized stones and then topped with gravel. We also plan to expand planting areas,south of the Main Garden, to grow winter-squash and some grains, which we'll have to protect from deer and rabbits. Sue and I will stay busy, not only with the garden but doing some up-keep on the house but also with the well's pump-house. We also have to get educated on putting up food for we hope that the garden will produce enough that we'll need to put it up for winter use.