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Time for a break
30 Aug 2017 05:17 pmGosh, it has been a busy day. Today's focus is on homesteading. Last night I took time to go over planting guides for fall. Stacey Murphy has a great video on that, assuming climate change doesn't totally screw with your frost dates. Ideally, planting for fall should have started right after the eclipse. Some crops should have been started mid-June or mid-July. https://youtu.be/d0LLlcWp3Wk The One Yard Revolution also has a guide for an Eliot Coleman style winter garden. https://youtu.be/4Xe0OOvBvn0 Our earliest frost dat is Sept 21st, with an average frost date of October 4th. The last few years have been so screwy, I don't pretend to know what will happen. I am hedging my bets.
Today I started with bread making first thing. Bread takes a minimum of three hours. It was on our lunch menu, so off to work. I was doing good until I left the bread to rise.The bowl was too warm. Eventually it did rise. I got it into pans. It got too wet from the damp dish towel and then too dry. So two loaves of flat ciabatta-like bread. I need a recipe for a sandwich bread with a little more structure. Still tasty.
After the bread was set aside to rise, I headed upstairs to empty the bathtub water for the garden. Our water bill is way too high so we make all our water do double duty. I got five or six pails for the upper garden which is mostly bushes and some pumpkins. The honeyberries were thirsty. While I was at it, I dragged yesterday's bucket of coffee grounds up the hill. I could really use a wheelbarrow. An entire bucket of coffee grounds must weigh 35 to 45 pounds.
My next task is a little weird but bear with me. The mandala garden has a sawdust path. The mailman and our family walk it regularly, helping breakdown the sawdust into something resembling peat moss. It only takes about five months and the earthworms help out too. Sawdust by itself takes about 2 years to decompose, all the while removing nitrogen from the topsoil until its decomposed. Not something you want. So, we put it in the path until its ready. All the walking speeds up the process. I went out to harvest the decomposed sawdust, taking a bucket and an old knife. After a lot of scaping and work, I composted the weeds from the path, harvested a couple of carrots that reseeded there, and got five buckets of new soil. The herb spiral got the buckets of dirt. Nobody tells you just how much the soil goes down in the herb spiral. All the decomposed matter shrinks and the soil mass goes into the plants. The spiral was down almost three brick layers of dirt. Several bricks fell over because there was no dirt behind them. Can't be having with that. So dirt harvest is done.
Now on to other things. The ground wasps are gone. I think they moved over to the winter savory. There is a crack between boards in front of the savory. Seems a good place to winter. The wasps were hogging the savory blooms today and the honey bees got stuck with sedum flowers. Sedum is not their favorite. The honey bees gave the wasps a wide berth. This finally afforded me the opportunity to dig up my potatoes and get some cover crops planted. We decided on amaranth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaranth because it is a great micro-green and it should give the garden a nice pop of color. So I dug the hard, dry ground. Lot of work in the heat of the sun. I found some German Butterball potatoes, carrots, and Daikon radishes. The root crops were volunteers. I added some partially decomposed coffee grounds to help breakup the clumps of clay. Then I topped it off with comfrey leaves. It will be a few more days before I plant this area.
So I have this cabbage in the fridge and some brine from refridgerator pickles. Yup. Time to make slaw.
On to planting those fall crops. Since some are going into a cold frame we hope to build soon, I started by making paper pots. Compost mixed with potting soil, vermiculite and perlite was added and dampened with a spray bottle. French breakfast radishes (MI Gardener), Kohlrabi (MI Gardener), and Rainbow Beets (Renee's Garden) were planted so far. I plan to start Kale (Seed Library) in pots as well to transplant in two to three weeks.
Charlotte sent me some Egyptian Walking Onions. I remembered that onions should do okay near cucumbers but not beans. I put them in front of the cucumber trellis. The cukes did okay in this location so I will plant more in the same place next year. So a trellis of cukes, then tall green onions, then rhubarb in front of that. I like that. I will need to find some flowers to fit in between the rhubarb next near.
The deer fence around the Asian Pear is no longer needed so we moved it to the front yard. The neighbor's wooden fence is dying. So I put my little portable chicken wire fence along it for my peas to climb. I planted Laxton's early #9 Peas (High Mowing Seeds). I also added some lettuce at the base and some really old parsnip seed. I doubt the parsnip will grow but better there than kicking around my seed box. I gave everyone a drink.
Other things, researched electricity options. Locked in a slightly lower rate by signing up for a two year contract. It only saves $4.00 a month. More work to do. Looking at alternative appliances, both propane and DC, smaller, more efficient appliences, a Small PV system http://realgoods.com/the-weekender-complete-solar-pv-kit , solar oven, and just plain using less. Currently taking measurements of freezer and fridge. More work to do on dehumidifier efficiency research.
Now on to making dinner, canning tomatoes, and bottling rhubarb wine. Break is over. Back to work.
Today I started with bread making first thing. Bread takes a minimum of three hours. It was on our lunch menu, so off to work. I was doing good until I left the bread to rise.The bowl was too warm. Eventually it did rise. I got it into pans. It got too wet from the damp dish towel and then too dry. So two loaves of flat ciabatta-like bread. I need a recipe for a sandwich bread with a little more structure. Still tasty.
After the bread was set aside to rise, I headed upstairs to empty the bathtub water for the garden. Our water bill is way too high so we make all our water do double duty. I got five or six pails for the upper garden which is mostly bushes and some pumpkins. The honeyberries were thirsty. While I was at it, I dragged yesterday's bucket of coffee grounds up the hill. I could really use a wheelbarrow. An entire bucket of coffee grounds must weigh 35 to 45 pounds.
My next task is a little weird but bear with me. The mandala garden has a sawdust path. The mailman and our family walk it regularly, helping breakdown the sawdust into something resembling peat moss. It only takes about five months and the earthworms help out too. Sawdust by itself takes about 2 years to decompose, all the while removing nitrogen from the topsoil until its decomposed. Not something you want. So, we put it in the path until its ready. All the walking speeds up the process. I went out to harvest the decomposed sawdust, taking a bucket and an old knife. After a lot of scaping and work, I composted the weeds from the path, harvested a couple of carrots that reseeded there, and got five buckets of new soil. The herb spiral got the buckets of dirt. Nobody tells you just how much the soil goes down in the herb spiral. All the decomposed matter shrinks and the soil mass goes into the plants. The spiral was down almost three brick layers of dirt. Several bricks fell over because there was no dirt behind them. Can't be having with that. So dirt harvest is done.
Now on to other things. The ground wasps are gone. I think they moved over to the winter savory. There is a crack between boards in front of the savory. Seems a good place to winter. The wasps were hogging the savory blooms today and the honey bees got stuck with sedum flowers. Sedum is not their favorite. The honey bees gave the wasps a wide berth. This finally afforded me the opportunity to dig up my potatoes and get some cover crops planted. We decided on amaranth https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amaranth because it is a great micro-green and it should give the garden a nice pop of color. So I dug the hard, dry ground. Lot of work in the heat of the sun. I found some German Butterball potatoes, carrots, and Daikon radishes. The root crops were volunteers. I added some partially decomposed coffee grounds to help breakup the clumps of clay. Then I topped it off with comfrey leaves. It will be a few more days before I plant this area.
So I have this cabbage in the fridge and some brine from refridgerator pickles. Yup. Time to make slaw.
On to planting those fall crops. Since some are going into a cold frame we hope to build soon, I started by making paper pots. Compost mixed with potting soil, vermiculite and perlite was added and dampened with a spray bottle. French breakfast radishes (MI Gardener), Kohlrabi (MI Gardener), and Rainbow Beets (Renee's Garden) were planted so far. I plan to start Kale (Seed Library) in pots as well to transplant in two to three weeks.
Charlotte sent me some Egyptian Walking Onions. I remembered that onions should do okay near cucumbers but not beans. I put them in front of the cucumber trellis. The cukes did okay in this location so I will plant more in the same place next year. So a trellis of cukes, then tall green onions, then rhubarb in front of that. I like that. I will need to find some flowers to fit in between the rhubarb next near.
The deer fence around the Asian Pear is no longer needed so we moved it to the front yard. The neighbor's wooden fence is dying. So I put my little portable chicken wire fence along it for my peas to climb. I planted Laxton's early #9 Peas (High Mowing Seeds). I also added some lettuce at the base and some really old parsnip seed. I doubt the parsnip will grow but better there than kicking around my seed box. I gave everyone a drink.
Other things, researched electricity options. Locked in a slightly lower rate by signing up for a two year contract. It only saves $4.00 a month. More work to do. Looking at alternative appliances, both propane and DC, smaller, more efficient appliences, a Small PV system http://realgoods.com/the-weekender-complete-solar-pv-kit , solar oven, and just plain using less. Currently taking measurements of freezer and fridge. More work to do on dehumidifier efficiency research.
Now on to making dinner, canning tomatoes, and bottling rhubarb wine. Break is over. Back to work.
