Garden, etc.
Jun. 19th, 2008 10:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
helwenWoke up this morning and realized that I've slept straight through the night, three nights in a row. That hasn't happened in many months... since well before my surgery in November in fact. Don't know if it's a new trend, but it's certainly a nice change from the usual.
Put in a laundry early this morning and remembered it! Took in a couple of dry sheets already, to give the rest of the laundry room to be flung about by the wind.
***
Finished up the last two things from yesterday's work list this morning. As usual, real life has a way of changing plans :D
***
Checked out the garden, and did some energy work on the new apple trees especially, but also all the other plants in the fruit and veggie gardens, plus the older fruit tree at the east end of the backyard gardens (I think it's a peach tree, but we might actually find out this year, as there are fruit). Might sound funny to some folks, doing energy work on plants, but if it works on people and animals, why not plants? I'd done some last month on our little nectarine tree and it's definitely perked up.
Meanwhile, the apples are suffering from rust. I dislike using chemicals, even oil, so at the Holyoke house I used to pick off affected leaves and remove them from the property. I read in Greenpa's blog about his experience with fruit trees. He used to use the oil and then decided not to, because it occurred to him that what keeps the pest off also keeps the hunters of the pests off. So it was a little rough for a bit, but eventually the hunters showed up and now his trees are doing fine. My primary job is to make sure they get enough water and nutrients while they get used to living here, but I figure some healing energy isn't a bad thing to add in. Oakmouse recommended repeated treatments, which makes sense as I did a few for the nectarine. The apples being harder hit, I think they'll need more TLC than the nectarine needed. And then maybe next year, we'll get a few treats (along with the local critters, of course!) Hard to say, since it can be up to four years before fruit not only sets but matures. Still, aside from the rust they're all doing pretty well.
Anyway, while I was at it I checked out the garden to see how things were doing, and did some energy work there as well. Made me feel better too!
The sunflowers are going gangbusters. I need to thin them out, and although they supposedly don't transplant well, I may as well try it as throw them in the compost. The basil's doing well, as are the beans, peas, chard, onions, and potatoes, most of the squashes, pumpkins and cucumbers. I have a few plants that might be borage.
Oh and, cautiously optimistic, some of what I believe are hops seedlings are coming up in the hops row. No sign of the hops rhizomes.
The tomato seedlings all died. It's a puzzle, since I grew from seed last year, but something must have disagreed with them. We'll be shopping for some more herbs to add to the garden, so we'll look for some mature tomato plants as well.
On the other side of things, we appear to have nearly 100% successful germination of the corn, which is nearly the same height as the sorry-looking 4-year-old hybrid seeds my FIL put in the same area. His second batch of hybrids (newer seed) are doing better. The nice thing is that since he uses hybrids, we can have our open pollinator variety in the same area. Next year we'll have to try another variety as well, but make sure the beds are far enough away from each other.
The flax.... well, we might just weed the flax and gather seed for next year, and spend this year getting the bed into better shape. There's definitely flax there but the distribution is too uneven to guarantee good quality fiber, too many gaps. Still, at least they can grow here still, so that's something. The rest of the new field will continue to improve as well, so we can rotate where things are planted from year to year if need be.
There's still open space in the garden beds, but there's also mid/late summer crops to be considered, so that's okay. But I need to put more mulch out to cover some of the ground in the meantime.
***
Fed the chickens more grass today. Some of it was cuttings from L mowing the lawn, so that was pretty easy to gather.
***
FIL caught another raccoon in the trap by the feed grain that's been getting pillaged. The first he caught on Monday and drowned. He hates that part, but on a busy farm you deal with varmints as quickly and efficiently as possible. But, seeing as he hates that part and we were willing to take the time, L offered to take the critter far away and let it go -- initially he was thinking the D.A.R. State Forest, but instead we went over to the Bear Swamp Reservation. We went a short ways into the woods and L opened the box (wearing leather gloves just in case). The little guy, maybe a year or two old, looked up at us for a few moments and then made a mad dash away from us. Like as not if he makes it out of the woods, which are fairly sizable, he'll stay away from barns for a while!
Put in a laundry early this morning and remembered it! Took in a couple of dry sheets already, to give the rest of the laundry room to be flung about by the wind.
***
Finished up the last two things from yesterday's work list this morning. As usual, real life has a way of changing plans :D
***
Checked out the garden, and did some energy work on the new apple trees especially, but also all the other plants in the fruit and veggie gardens, plus the older fruit tree at the east end of the backyard gardens (I think it's a peach tree, but we might actually find out this year, as there are fruit). Might sound funny to some folks, doing energy work on plants, but if it works on people and animals, why not plants? I'd done some last month on our little nectarine tree and it's definitely perked up.
Meanwhile, the apples are suffering from rust. I dislike using chemicals, even oil, so at the Holyoke house I used to pick off affected leaves and remove them from the property. I read in Greenpa's blog about his experience with fruit trees. He used to use the oil and then decided not to, because it occurred to him that what keeps the pest off also keeps the hunters of the pests off. So it was a little rough for a bit, but eventually the hunters showed up and now his trees are doing fine. My primary job is to make sure they get enough water and nutrients while they get used to living here, but I figure some healing energy isn't a bad thing to add in. Oakmouse recommended repeated treatments, which makes sense as I did a few for the nectarine. The apples being harder hit, I think they'll need more TLC than the nectarine needed. And then maybe next year, we'll get a few treats (along with the local critters, of course!) Hard to say, since it can be up to four years before fruit not only sets but matures. Still, aside from the rust they're all doing pretty well.
Anyway, while I was at it I checked out the garden to see how things were doing, and did some energy work there as well. Made me feel better too!
The sunflowers are going gangbusters. I need to thin them out, and although they supposedly don't transplant well, I may as well try it as throw them in the compost. The basil's doing well, as are the beans, peas, chard, onions, and potatoes, most of the squashes, pumpkins and cucumbers. I have a few plants that might be borage.
Oh and, cautiously optimistic, some of what I believe are hops seedlings are coming up in the hops row. No sign of the hops rhizomes.
The tomato seedlings all died. It's a puzzle, since I grew from seed last year, but something must have disagreed with them. We'll be shopping for some more herbs to add to the garden, so we'll look for some mature tomato plants as well.
On the other side of things, we appear to have nearly 100% successful germination of the corn, which is nearly the same height as the sorry-looking 4-year-old hybrid seeds my FIL put in the same area. His second batch of hybrids (newer seed) are doing better. The nice thing is that since he uses hybrids, we can have our open pollinator variety in the same area. Next year we'll have to try another variety as well, but make sure the beds are far enough away from each other.
The flax.... well, we might just weed the flax and gather seed for next year, and spend this year getting the bed into better shape. There's definitely flax there but the distribution is too uneven to guarantee good quality fiber, too many gaps. Still, at least they can grow here still, so that's something. The rest of the new field will continue to improve as well, so we can rotate where things are planted from year to year if need be.
There's still open space in the garden beds, but there's also mid/late summer crops to be considered, so that's okay. But I need to put more mulch out to cover some of the ground in the meantime.
***
Fed the chickens more grass today. Some of it was cuttings from L mowing the lawn, so that was pretty easy to gather.
***
FIL caught another raccoon in the trap by the feed grain that's been getting pillaged. The first he caught on Monday and drowned. He hates that part, but on a busy farm you deal with varmints as quickly and efficiently as possible. But, seeing as he hates that part and we were willing to take the time, L offered to take the critter far away and let it go -- initially he was thinking the D.A.R. State Forest, but instead we went over to the Bear Swamp Reservation. We went a short ways into the woods and L opened the box (wearing leather gloves just in case). The little guy, maybe a year or two old, looked up at us for a few moments and then made a mad dash away from us. Like as not if he makes it out of the woods, which are fairly sizable, he'll stay away from barns for a while!
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Tomtoes
Date: 2008-06-19 05:08 pm (UTC)Re: Tomtoes
Date: 2008-06-19 06:02 pm (UTC)