still working hard

[ursulas_alcove]

I broke down and bought some decent organic soil today. I mixed it with perlite so I could transplant tomatoes. It was close to 80° today. I must have transplanted 30 tomatoes. I still have another 10 to do. Two types of tomatoes were crop failures. For giggles, I tried some really old seed. I'll live without them. I may still plant some of the Black Plum tomatoes or Amish which I appear to have forgotten to plant. I put a few Napa cabbages into the ground. I also transplanted Collards. Not done yet, I have many more to plant into the ground. I wanted to see if the deer would eat them first. They've been walking through that area. Another today project, I am putting up a very short temporary fence to keep Frank out of my yard. Frank is the neighbor's dog. Let me explain. Both of my neighbors on either side have a dog named Frank. Often when Chris calls Frank, Bobbie's dog, Frank comes running across my yard. Neither of us can afford to replace the ancient fence so I am turning my 6' trellises sideways to keep Frank in his yard. They end up 2' high because that's the size of the chicken wire. I only have one trellis in so far. I need to make at least two more. Today's effort was Proof of Concept. Unless all of them are up, it won't work. Good thing Frank is a tiny dog.



Trellis


Fence



Next up, fixing the herb spiral. Gravity works, I guess you could say. Also conservation of mass. When a plant grows tall, the soil level goes down. Mass is conserved. Soil gets turned into food. When bricks on a hill have no more soil holding them in place, they fall. I have a mess. We have one more day before it rains. I need to fix this. I want to see if the Bulb Fennel will like the herb spiral. Since I have 9 of them, I thought I'd try them in a couple locations. I want to get them planted before the rain.



Some of the peas did show up after the squirrel had been digging. I am very thankful. We also saw our first asparagus this week. It was a volunteer in another part of the garden entirely. I'm hopeful that everything may actually survive and fruit this year. See my YouTube video, https://youtu.be/W6HUmlWxz4s
We also found a hole in the ground under the tarragon. We're thinking it's a rabbit. I'm covering the plants each night but my fabric's seen better days. I could really use some kind of wire mesh. Here's a cool idea but it would cost a small fortune. https://www.gardeners.com/buy/chicken-wire-crop-coop-plant-protector/8609080.html

Besides all the gardening, yarn is getting dyed. I have more colors on order. I've 40 pounds of linen to process. This week, I did a custom batch (4 colors, 4 pounds) for a client. I have one more spool to wind. Because of that, next week I should have green and navy in 40/2 linen back in stock on the website. Yes, I dyed a little extra. I've also got Terra Cotta, Emerald, and Eggplant coming in this week. The goal is to process the linen before the natural dyes grow. Soon there will be rhubarb and oregano to dye wool with. I'm trying to stay on schedule. Lofty goals!

Comments

[dantesspirit]

I still haven't started tomatoe seeds.

At this point, I'll likely just hit up my favorite organic growing greenhouse for a couple plants.

It hit 80 here yesterday. Ugh. This summer is going to be brutal.

Hot here too

[ursulas_alcove]

Yes. It's been a relatively dry spring after last year's drought. If I had money, I'd buy transplants too. Our food co-op had everything I'm growing in stock right now. But, I save seeds. Some are getting long in the tooth. I don't want to lose the strain. My Stupice and Borghese tomato seeds are no longer viable. I don't want to lose my Long Island Cheese Pumpkin. The seeds I save are suited to my environment. They've grown here a number of years. I know my grower buys from either Johnnies or Fedco. Most of those seeds are raised in Oregon. All our local greenhouses sold their land to CVS, Rite Aide and Walgreens. Only the food co-op carries starts. The co-op is in a poorer community and the local people need the plants more than I do.

I also established that 1) I can take care of plants daily in case I need to switch professions to being a grower. And
2) My basement is healthy enough of an environment to support life. If I decide to grow micro-greens full time, I needed to know if this was an option. The yarn business has not been good as of late. If something does happen to my husband, I need an income to survive. These are just things floating through my head. I don't expect anyone to chose this lifestyle. It is hard and not all homesteading has to be done from scratch. Climate change is going to hit everyone hard.

Re: Hot here too

[dantesspirit]

Yup, wet winter, now we're dry. Doesn't really bode well for summer that we're so hot already too.

I should just plant my tomato seeds. They'll be in containers that will be relatively easy to move, so even if it's a late season for them, I can move the to the back porch.



I wish my cellar was good enough to to a seed starter setup. Growing greens year round would be awesome.

And yeah, fiber art in general has dropped off a lot lately. No shows didn't help.