September Morning

It was foggy again this morning, and when I went outside the air was heavy, warm and still, with the undulating thrum of insects in surround-sound. I flashed-back to when I was a little girl, visiting my grandparents' farm in late summer in southwest Minnesota. I am sure that is where my life-long farm-yearning originated.

Foggy sunrise over the garden, birds on the wires.

Last night I weeded the former garlic bed, hand-tilled it and planted rows of mesclun and beets for fall. So dismaying that it now gets dark at 8:30.  I love gardening in the cool of the evening and could get so much more accomplished if there were a couple more hours of light...

Took a little walk around the farm in the fog before letting out the  demanding poultry from the coop.  They follow me everywhere like the pied piper. I love that, but they are always underfoot. Here is how the front of the barn looks now that the commercial kitchen project is complete. Still have to paint a bunch of doors, put up some window boxes, and install some exterior lights.

The big head planter now covers the well so no cars drive over it. Rog noticed he is facing toward Mecca.

The fairy garden has been totally neglected the past busy month but it still seemed rather magical this morning.

The wild chickens came running down to the fairy garden to fetch me to get them some breakfast and cows were waiting impatiently at the gate, so had to end my walk and tackle chores.

Seed Starting!

Feb 29 -Planting begins.
This year, I invested in a couple of seed blockers to start my seeds:   rectangular moulds divided into small compartments that are pressed into the seed-starting mix, then the blocks are ejected into a tray and seeds are planted into them. The smaller seed block create 15 3/4-inch soil blocks. The larger blocker, for larger seeds, creates five 2-inch blocks. Getting the soil blocks was a strategy to reduce costs and  avoid plastic -no pots required.  Also, by using the smallest size blocks, I can start 300 seeds in one tray and fit 2 trays on the heated mat, speeding germination of  600 seeds at once.

I ran into one complication with the blocker. I intended to use Eliot Coleman's recipe for seed starting mix, but it called for "green sand" and I could not find that anywhere. I ended up concocting my own mix, with organic potting soil, seed starting mix, and compost. (approximately 1:2:1), adding water until a handful of soil would hold the shape when squeezed tightly. That mix seems to be working just fine.

The first tray of seed  blocks, planted. The mould forms a little divot  in the top of the block for the seed.The hardest part is placing just one seed in each block (especially with those teensy flower seeds - today I planted  Night-Scented Tobacco and those seeds were like dust specks.)

March 7 - Eight days later! The  tomatoes are  seeking the light, and the slower onions and peppers are just starting to germinate.  At this point I moved the tray from the heated mat to wire metal shelves in my office. I hung 4-foot fluorescent shop lights from the shelving and set the trays under the lights, very close to the lights.

March 13
A second tray of tomatoes was started a day later on March 1st -- this is how they are looking today. Not quite so leggy - I think they appreciated being moved under the lights sooner.

The seed blockers come in graduated sizes, with idea that you can just pop the smaller block into the next size block as the plant grows bigger.  The larger soil blocks get more expensive. I haven't ordered the medium size mould yet, so I decided to create little pots by recycling old paper towel rolls and the corrugated paper tubes the fluorescent bulbs came in.

I labeled each "pot"with the tomato variety, filled it with soil, poked a hole in with my finger and set the  small soil block into it. I will just set the cardboard tube into the ground when I transplant so the roots aren't disturbed. The tube should decompose quickly.

A silver antique butter server turned out to be the perfect tool to lift the mini soil blocks out of the tray. (Please don't tell my mom I used it this way.)

Tomato in a light bulb box pot. The repotting of all these tiny plants is rather labor intensive, Perhaps popping them into the next size soil block would be worth the investment in the bigger mould.

More seeds started that will very soon need potting.  And still more on the heating mat. A lot of  work ahead.
The crazy thing is that I am starting my seeds at the appropriate time to be able to  transplant outside on our traditional frost-safe date, Mothers day, almost two months away.  But we have 80-degree weather right now!!    The weather is just too, too weird  these days.

Miscellaneous Tidbits Interspersed With Chickens

It's not often I go an entire week without a blog post, but it is even more unusual for me not to shoot a bunch of photos every day.  That just goes to show how busy life has been lately. Here is a brief rundown on recent farm happenings, some illustrated with random chicken photos, since my camera seems to have taken a few days off.

Notice the bare ground and sunshine. It feels like spring, which makes me  feel kind of panicked and  behind schedule - I don't have my seeds planted yet!  We are  forecast for a huge snowstorm with freezing rain tomorrow, so it's not quite spring yet, but  the last three predicted storms missed us entirely so I'm not holding my breath.

That doesn't mean I am not prepared, however.  I picked up chicken feed and grain for the cows today so I don't have to drive the slip-slidey truck if we do get freezing rain.

The seed orders have arrived!  These came from Seedsavers a few days  ago and a few more packets of tomato seeds from Tomatofest arrived today --they sell 600 varieties of heirloom tomatoes! I intend to start planting tomorrow.

Thanks to Facebook, we reconnected with a high school friend, Kat, who came for a visit  with her husband Spike.  Spike is an author working on a book featuring farm building projects, so he was curious about our farm enterprises. (I am now immersed in his recent book, A Splintered History of Wood,  a great read!)   We fired up the  clay oven and made wood-fired pizza with them. We also had an embarrassing mozzarella-making fail - it turned out more like ricotta than mozzarella but still tasted good.

Even though my own sofa reupholstery project is not yet totally done (that's why you haven't seen the finished photos yet) I am undertaking another upholstery project - the sofa of my friend Gael.  She and our friend Robin came over to help me with the hardest part: unupholstering. Gael and  Orange relaxed in the sofa  one last time before we tore into it...

and here it is two hours later, totally naked.  I am eager to  get this sofa covered and then finish my own darn sofa before the crazy busyness of spring hits.

That friendly, stray black cat in the barn that might be a pregnant female?   I named her/him Poet and no kittens have arrived yet, although Poet is very rotund.  A second stray cat, a gray tiger, seems to have taken up residence in the hayloft, but it is totally wild and unapproachable.

Lastly, I am working part time again for the Clean Energy Resource Teams this spring in the far SE Minnesota counties.  It is great to be back working with such wonderful people on renewable energy! (It may mean less frequent blog posts, however.  I'll try to keep up.)

18 Days After Planting Seeds

The fall plantings in the high tunnel are growing quickly!  This is how everything looked this morning when I rolled up the side for ventilation.  Actual rows!

The radishes are the furthest along. They are Watermelon radishes - large and mild with magenta interiors and pale green exteriors.

Two rows each of red Bull's Blood beets and Golden beets.

The red beets, close up.

This is the Biondi di Lyon chard. So far, it's a bit larger than the rainbow chard one bed over.

These grassy straggles will be baby leeks

and these are scallions.

The broccoli raab is growing exuberantly.

Carrots were the last to emerge and even they are getting their first true leaves now.

This weekend I need to weed, mulch, thin the rows

and seed grass on the bare ground outside the high tunnel.

End-of-the-Season Plantstravaganza

The dining room has been taken over by two monster plants!  They didn't look quite so imposing yesterday when they were in Sargent's big greenhouse. Everything was marked down  to rock-bottom end-of-the season prices and I couldn't resist.
The plant in the foreground is a banana tree. (It was only $2!)

I hope I can keep the spectacular  bougainvillea alive through the winter.  I have a brainstorm idea, though--the guest bathroom has a large south-facing window above the bathtub.  That bathroom could be turned into a little conservatory this winter...

It would be a tropical getaway during the long Minnesota winter - especially with these three little citrus trees, a lemon, a lime and an orange I got for $1 each at Lowe's (had been $19.99 each)!

There are a bunch of plants on the patio that must be brought in before the cold front arrives tonight.  One is this brugmansia I purchased at the garden club plant sale last May that finally decided to bloom this week.  Another pink brugmansia also has buds.  And there is a tall braided Oleander, a Mandevillea in bloom, and a fragrant Rose tree.
 
Now I am picturing taking a luxurious bath in the bathroom conservatory full of exotic tropical plants...this could work!

My Future Wildflower Glade

This past weekend I worked on transforming the woodland area around the big rock from overgrown buckthorn thicket to magical wildflower garden. I ordered a shady woodland seed mixture from Prairie Moon, a wonderful native plant nursery in nearby Wiscoy Valley. The mixture contains about 2 dozen different forbs , including jack-in-the-pulpit, wild geranium, and Virginia Bluebells (my very favorite) and half a dozen different grasses. I supplemented the mix with a few other favorites: nodding wild onion, bloodroot, and wild leeks (wild leeks, also called ramps, can be sold for a very good price at the Farmers Market!)
My seed order was enough to cover 500 square feet. I had already removed buckthorn, but I didn't have time to ideally prepare the area by killing all existing vegetation and tilling. Since I don't own a rototiller, my solution was to hand cultivate seven swaths in long, irregular islands, curving around the rock at the best vantage points. This seemed like a better strategy than broadcasting seeds over the entire area because I could more thoroughly remove competing plants, choose what seemed to be the best growing sites, create walking paths between the islands so I don't walk on the young wildflowers, and mark each island so I can more easily identify the emerging sprouts. In the spring I will add some other favorites that aren't available from seed: trillium, Dutchman's breeches, and trout lily.

Most of these plants will probably take a couple years to bloom, so I have to have patience. If they succeed, I dream that the wildflower drifts will gradually expand and fill the entire woodland with a carpet of spring wildflowers. How magical that will be!

Berry Bad Dilemma

Last weekend Cadence and I tackled cleaning up the garden for winter. While Cadence harvested the remaining potatoes, beets, and herbs (coriander, in this photo) I pulled out the 98 spent tomato plants, which can be seen in the background.
In addition to pulling out the vegetation, I removed the wooden stakes by each plant, untangled and wound up the red cords that I had woven through the plants as they grew to support them, pulled out the tall metal stakes, and rolled up the soaker hoses I had embedded in the mulch for watering but only used once. Seems like undoing the garden is more work than putting it in, but I guess that is because it is all in one big effort, not in stages.
The vines still held a lot of big tomatoes that had frozen, which I threw over the fence to the appreciative chickens, turkeys and geese. It was evident that if there had been even one more week of nice weather before the unseasonable cold, snow and endless rain set in, we would have harvested a lot more tomatoes--we surely would have surpassed 1000 lb. Our total tomato harvest this year was just over 900 lb.
We piled up all the vegetation from the nightshade family -tomatoes peppers, eggplants,potatoes and tomatillos - to be burned instead of composted, to avoid spreading disease to next year's crop. Today I burned the pile--but that was easier said than done. There was still a lot of moisture in the vegetation. BUt, we are forecast to have more rain so now seemed better than later.
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Although our first year garden was a great success, one of the things I was a bit disappointed in not accomplishing was getting a raspberry patch started. But then, on Sunday I noticed an ad on Craigslist (the farmer's most valuable resource) from a woman who was overrun by raspberries and would give the plants away for the digging. Yesterday Sara and Cadence drove over and dug two baskets full. They are this summer's canes, which should bear fruit next year.
Today I planted 65 raspberry plants in three rows, six feet apart. They look beautiful! I had concluded that the best place to site them was in the former tomato bed, since none of the nightshade family can be planted there again for several years. However, this evening I pulled out my various resource books and looked up raspberries to find out what they would prefer for mulching and was dismayed to read that raspberries are susceptible to many of the same soil-borne diseses that tomatoes are... They should not be planted where tomatoes have grown in the previous 3 years (one book said 5 years.) Now what?!!?

If you have any raspberry-growing experience, I would love to hear your advice! Although my book advises not to plant raspberries where tomatoes have been, it also states that red raspberries are not as susceptible to verticillium wilt as black rasperries and blackberries are. The woman who gave us the plants assured us they are very healthy and productive, but unfortunately, I do not know what variety of berry it is and whether it is a resistant strain. On the optimistic side, we did not see any evidence of wilt in our tomatoes this year -- it was a totally new garden space that had never seen tomatoes before and we started all of our tomatoes from seed, not nursery stock, if that makes a difference. Although I really do not have time or energy to dig up and replant 65 raspberry plants, I would do it if the risk of disease is great. What do you think?

April Flowers - and Other Growing Stuff

The first half of April was weirdly warm -as high as 90 degrees - and extremely dry, but the past few days have been more normal and the earth has been quenched by April showers. Now spring is bursting out all over. We have begun planting, selectively, until the promised frost-free date of May 15th, anxiously aware that that's when the real craziness will begin.

At our closing last September, the realtor who helped us with the purchase of our farm gave us a gift certificate to Sargents nursery. I used it this week to purchase a magnolia tree like the one I loved so much at our old house. I can't wait to smell those fragrant blossoms.

We got a silver maple seedling at the Arbor Day event and three swamp white oaks at the RNeighbors Think Green conference. Cadence, who is a trained citizen forester, planted them on a windy afternoon, two oaks in the front yard and the other two in the back.
There are two, huge, wonderful old crabapple trees along the east edge of the yard. They have buds just aching to open, as well as a few hanger-on apples from last fall.

Couldn't resist planting a few columbines by the front entrance

and some color by the door. Ever since we moved here I have been dreaming of a carpet of spring wildflowers -especially Virgina bluebells - amid the grove of trees in the back yard. My friend Flo generously offered to let me dig some Virginia Bluebells from her spectacular yard, which we did in the thunder and raindrops just before the hailstorm hit. The next day, Terry and Joyce brought over another favorite -wild ginger - from their yard. My wildflower carpet is underway. Thanks, kind friends.

Our vegetable garden is not much to look at yet. In fact, it is sort of an embarrassment right now. We are experimenting with the "lasagna" method -no till, deep mulch, and so we have grass clippings, leaves, cardboard, horse manure, and shredded corn stover all over the garden. This is the west bed, where we have begun planting onions, many varieties of lettuces and greens, Kennebec and German butterball potatoes, and a few early cabbages.

The onion sets and cabbages are tucked down into the mulch, not even in the soil!