a busy week!

May 29, 2016May 29, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

I had to check what I wrote in my last post, since it’s been a while!

I did a bit of digging and probably doubled the length of Z’s potato bed, but never got around to putting in a longer line of drip tape and planting. I was going to work on digging this morning, but then Z pointed out that mowing would be a good idea. I think I cut more than half of the grass in the garden bed area. While I was out there, I realized that the winter greens could go in the northwest 1/8th of the garden. So we should get cover crops in there soon. I also mowed where we want to put tomatoes, and alongside the newer strawberry beds 🙂

Z did some chisel plowing this afternoon. Even after 2 or 3 passes, the beds still need a lot of work. Like rototilling work. There are humongous clods and there’s no actual bed to plant in :(. I wish we could leave it this way. Maybe for some cover crops, but not for flowers or veggies! Hopefully we can get the potato situation dealt with and get water onto some of these beds so we can plant stuff. This is a holiday weekend, so by Sunday or Monday there probably won’t be many good seedlings left at the stores. Maybe this gives me a few days to get things ready before buying more plants (?). I also don’t have a potassium-rich fertilizer for pre-planting (for the tomatoes and ‘taters).

a garden bed that has been chisel plowed. Note the huge clods of dirt. I think maybe this bed could be for pole beans

On Friday I did some fertilizing (with Biomin Booster 153). The older corn and beans had been looking pretty stressed. I guess I put kind of a lot on the strawberries (though I ran out about 80% of the way thru the old strawberries, oops). The summer berries had been looking stressed.

I spent so much time this week pulling strawberry runners! I swear that you can pull a couple off a plant and then 2 plants later you can look back and the 1st plant has more runners. The summer plants look like they are slowing down their runner production. I kept too many of them, but I guess I can thin later. Those are probably famous last words that led me last year to have a bed that looks like this:

Old strawberry bed. The green grass in the background has already dried out and was mowed on Saturday

I think my newer plantings of strawberries’ roots are too shallow. It’s pretty easy to pull a whole (what do you call it?) section of a plant off when I’m just trying to break a runner off near the plant. I should be using one of those little pairs of scissors that people use for trimming herb, shouldn’t I? I actually do have such a pair, but it’s in a hard-to-get-to place in the house.

The latest planting of beans and corn has emerged. It’s past time to plant more!

corn and beans seedlings. Note end of grey kitty’s tail in front left

It’s amazing how much the weeds can differ from one bed to another. There is so much pigweed around the corn and beans. Thankfully I haven’t seen much in the strawberries. Bindweed is terrible everywhere. There is some bermudagrass at the end of the bean bed. I have been pulling it out and putting it on a gopher mound to make it visible so I could put it into the green waste bin. I think I forgot to do that and mowed it this morning. D’oh!

Most of the greens that I planted last week are still there, but haven’t grown much – except for the Fordhook Giant chard! I think Z ran over some greens with the tractor tires – we’ve been trying to get the potato bed to go in-between the greens.

It’s hard to explain just how dry the soil is out there. After I mowed today, I went out with a rake and tried to cover a lot of the bare soil (from old and new gopher activity) with some of the cut grass.

I planted the rest of the greens!

May 24, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

And not a moment too soon, since there’s some doubt about kale, broccoli, and maybe even cabbage being transplanted this late in the spring. I did 4 6-packs, which took up maybe 80 feet (times 2) of the bed. I got about 15 plants per flat, since many had up to 3 seedlings in them. We’ll see how they do. T helped me – I don’t know why I showed him the thing about crunching the bottom of the cell to get the roots to loosen up before you take the plants out. He emptied 3 cells and sort of stuck the plants sideways into the ground. Very cute.

I haven’t been spending much time in the old strawberries, but the areas that I visit frequently look pretty good. I’ve been eating berries right out of the patch, but not picking very many since I’m not spending the time…

I managed to hoe one side of the corn and beans this morning :).

Now I have to figure out what to do about Z’s potato planting project. The ground there is really hard and dry, and I am not going to use a pickaxe. We had talked about planting tomatoes in the bed that still has the trellis T-posts set up from last fall, but I am worried that pests could be hiding at the weedy bases of the posts… we could try to get the tomatoes in with the potatoes, if there’s space. But the potatoes have likely not been getting enough water…

20160523_202026 — amazing sunset on May 23rd

Strawberry runners come back fast!

May 22, 2016May 22, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday morning I fertilized everything except the old strawberries. In the evening I started a new compost pile and picked up 2 buckets’ worth of strawberry waste. Then I worked on the old strawberries and picked up another half a bucket of junk! Ugh!

On Saturday I didn’t get out there to do anything besides water seedlings until the evening. Z had a productive day- he mowed the yard and a lot of the garden, including the area around the compost. I planted 2 six-packs of seedlings – white russian kale and another dino kale (did 1 or 2 the other day). So now that bed is full! I will try to get the other bed covered with more compost and hoed/weeded a bit more tomorrow and get another 2-4 packs of seedlings in. I would like to be able to use our transplanter from Johnny’s, but the ground is mostly too hard or too wet. My hands are killing me!

At the end of the night I checked on the Chandlers. There are like 3 gopher mounds in different parts of that bed! 😦 The runners really do seem to grow right back. I wonder if the plants are extra-stressed because of our cooler nights. The corn and beans look terrible by the end of the day and seem to perk up in the late morning. Hm.

There seems to be less garlic in the allium bed today than two days ago. Another “Hm.” There’s no sign of soil disturbance, but it’s rough enough that the gophers could have just sucked it under. We have a really hard time with garlic and gophers. And grass – need to mulch better from the start.

Busy week in the garden!

May 20, 2016May 20, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

view of the hill and the northeast corner of the garden. You can hardly see the remains of the pile of purchased compost behind the fence.

blurry photo from around sunset tonight. it shows the new bed of chard, cabbage, and kale

I started transplanting the cabbage, chard, kale (and, to come, broccoli) seedlings on Monday or Tuesday. I had to take a break for a few days because it got so hot out (93 degrees, I think). I put compost out over a lot of the 2 beds I’m using because I just couldn’t stand seeing all that bare soil. Dust sometimes comes up when I walk on the paths. That’s soil erosion right there. Still considering trying out some landscape fabric and/or burlap for the paths. Just need Z to stop at our local farm supply store on the way home from work.

Z got excited about getting the potatoes we bought into the ground. It’s probably too late, and the potatoes are somewhat overgrown already, but hey, we bought them, so we have to use them. I suggested putting them between the two greens beds, since there’s so much space between them. He got started today, opening the ground with the mattock and planting like 20 feet of potatoes!

Today I planted 8 or 10 feet of Trilogy bush beans and Ashworth OP yellow corn (from Fedco). Both are organic, of course ;). I also transplanted 2 6-packs of dino kale. This morning, I didn’t have much time out there because I’d had a doctor’s appointment. I weeded and pulled yet more runners off of the Chandler strawberries, and found 4 slugs. Yay for getting those out of the way. I saw a box elder bug today, I forget which bed it was in (not the old berries, though). At the end of the night I pulled runners out of the summer strawberries. It’s crazy in that bed!!

the north end of the summer strawberry row. too many runners! and the weeds are/were encroaching on the bed

I’m hoping to get a new compost pile started in the next few days. I haven’t had any empty buckets for some time, and there is (or was, before the current wind storm, which seems to have broken the outdoor table in our yard!) so much debris on the ground next to the old strawberries. Probably 3 5 gallon buckets’ worth. I picked and ate a half a dozen strawberries this evening. We’ve still been getting less than a basket per night.

Someday I’d like to learn about windspeed. I grew up in a place that had hurricanes and strong winds during winter storms, and I have to say that this is not a mere 21 mile per hour wind.

Got some things into the ground!

May 17, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

On Monday I planted 2 varieties of chard (fordhood giant and perpetual spinach), 2 varieties of cabbage (1 green 1 red), and 1 variety of kale (white russian). Didn’t really add compost at beginning. Ground had been chisel plowed and raked ~2x and Z had put some compost in. I hate having the ground exposed like this. 1st plants may have drowned or gotten too hot from the ground/watering after planting. Have 8 more six-packs of greens seedlings. Will have to use 2nd bed. That stinks, because I have to hoe and rake it before I can plant there! 😦

There is so much debris in this bed! I don’t think it would have gotten digested if we’d waited another week… there are also hard spots where the soil has already dried out too much (or the plow didn’t affect it).

Here’s a strawberry I picked and ate this morning! Z picked a basket from the old berries tonight.

Report from this weekend

May 16, 2016May 16, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

Well, on Saturday I pulled grass around all the blackberries I could find along the northern part of the fence next to our neighbors – and cut out the biggest parts. I put that stuff into the green bin for someone else to compost it. Then Z mowed that area and then I went back and exposed the blackberries again and then yesterday, Z dug them out. I did some raking and hoeing in one of the new beds this weekend and on Sunday we bought seedlings- greens, tomatoes, some peppers iirc, one (!) tomatillo (is that enough for pollination and stuff? gotta look that up), and potatoes. T was excited to help me water the seedlings yesterday. Z put drip tape out in one of the beds this morning.

I did a bit of work in the old strawberries last night, and ate another delicious Chandler 🙂

Make Your Own Compost seminar

May 16, 2016May 16, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

Yet another thing I would go to if I could. Hm, actually I could ask about an extra afternoon of preschool…

At my (more recent) alma mater: http://ucanr.edu/makecompost

Make Your Own Compost Seminar for landscapers & small-scale farmers

Wednesday June 8th, 9am-2:30pm
SRJC Shone Farm, Forestville CA
$25 through June 6, $40 after and at door. Includes lunch.
Register: http://ucanr.edu/makecompost

Feasibility, Benefits, Regulations, and Local Resources

Speakers include David Crohn, UC Compost Specialist; Will Bakx of Sonoma Compost; Andrew Logansbill, NRCS Soil Conservatist; Paul Vossen, UC Specialty Crops Farm Advisor for Sonoma & Marin Counties; Leonard Diggs, Shone Farm Manager; Paul Kaiser of Singing Frogs Farm; Paul Bernier, Sonoma County farmer; Josh Beniston, SRJC Sustainable Ag Instructor; Michael Scott, Sonoma County Farmer.

I took Will’s #compost class at the Junior College and I’m interested to hear from him about the state of compost in our county (didn’t go to the event about this the other week). Also very interested in several of the other speakers…

We’re getting a new neighbor!

May 14, 2016May 14, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

While I was hoeing alongside the Chandlers this morning I talked with the… uncle? of the couple next door who have kids around T’s age. He was mowing the field next to ours because his son has bought the place, had the front house fixed up (I noticed this winter that a dude was there fixing it up all the time and the family had moved into a single-wide trailer), and will be moving in. They have a kid T’s age, and one who’s around 3 years older. He seemed to dismiss the possibility of T and the kid playing together cuz she’s a girl. We’ll see. Though I don’t know about him playing on the roundup-ed swingset, which was installed months ago. Well, I haven’t seen anyone spraying around it in months.

He asked if I wanted him to spray the blackberries that are along the chainlink fence between our 2 properies. I told him that we’ll dig them out. He’s all, “I hate these things.” It doesn’t matter – it’s not your property. I told him that for organic (certification) I’d have to not include anything grown within 50 feet of the fence. I’m sure he doesn’t care and if we don’t deal with it first thing in the morning we’ll have a problem. I should have dealt with it today, but I didn’t get that much time outside tonight and I wanted to work on my hoeing some more. I noticed that the mattock is in the well house with the tools that I use most frequently, so that’s convenient.

After dinner, I got outside to the old strawberries and managed to pick about a half a basket. The sun had pretty much set, so we’ll see what they look like in the morning. I’m not going to deal with them now. I haven’t been eating any all week because Z tends to bring in berries that are mushy. 😦

The beans are emerging nicely. I should find the edamame seeds and pop them in. The raccoons discovered that bed last night:

evidence of digging, most likely by raccoons

If you look closely, you’ll see a lot of bindweed, some cheeseweed mallow, some grass, and maybe a wild radish. I have been waiting to weed until I am more sure if any of the flowers or herbs we planted are going to come up. I have a real problem with recognizing them in the seedling stage, though!

In other beds I’ve also got lots of (curly?) dock, redroot pigweed, still some lambsquarters, that thing that could be wild chamomile, purslaine, that thing that gets really long and woody (no idea what it is), more grass, and maybe some chickweed still. Also a few bristly oxtongue, some prickly lettuce, and another broadleaf weed whose name I always forget.

Another thing I did today was pull at some of the 5-foot-plus grass that’s starting to lean from the garlic bed into the Chandlers. I always get a cut on my hand when I do that, and I’ve got little bits of something embedded in my skin.

Missing a day= even more days behind

May 13, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

I had a really productive evening on Tuesday. I think I did some hoeing, some weeding, and some picking. Maybe I turned the compost or something, too. Yesterday morning I weeded one side of the Chandler strawberries. This morning I cleaned the house because we had someone official coming over.

I got out there tonight. The first thing I noticed was that the corn and beans we planted last week have sprouted! Yay!

Org. Dragon Tongue beans (60 days) (Territorial seeds) packed for 2015 and 1 packet of Painted Mountain OG Dry Corn (85 days) (Johnny’s) for ornamental, dry, or popcorn

I read in the California Master Gardener’s Handbook that I should have taken all the runners off the Chandlers, so I did that. Well, maybe I left a few that looked really good. One plant had wilted leaves and I easily pulled the crown and whole plant out of the ground- hoping it was due to a gopher. I have 2 berries that are just about ripe. One might be too wet on the tip.

I saw 2 different kinds of toads in that bed. The other one moved too fast to be able to get a picture.

toad on a strawberry leaf. Note discolored spot on another part of the leaf. Looks fungal. I usually just remove leaves that start to look this way.

I also removed more of the runners from the Seascape bed.

Hoping to do more hoeing tomorrow, and more weeding. It is so wet next to the Chandlers that it’s hard to hoe very much. There’s a leak right near where the soil was waterlogged for a while this winter.

Mondays are often slow

May 10, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

Well, I did house and personal business stuff this morning, so I only got outside for like 20 minutes. I raked some more of the soil, compost, and dirt around in one of the new beds. Then I worked on the strawberries for a bit. This evening, I picked some fava and bell beans. Then I raked up 2 wagonloads of grass that Z had weedwhacked (brush cutter blade) and moved it over near the compost. Then I… worked on the strawberries some more. There are starting to be some gaps between plants from my having removed dead and dying leaves, and accidentally pulling out whole strawberry plants in the process.

Our comfrey reappeared! I think we had originally had 2 plants, but I am not sure if the other is still out there. More below.

I would like to have 2-4 perennials at the head of each bed (shorter-term goal). I bought plants last year and that didn’t work out very well – they were too expensive, and too big, and some got eaten by gophers. Including a 4′ long bog sage. I also want to have perennials along the borders of the garden. And a perennial herb bed somewhere in the middle. Oy, what do I need 100 feet of herbs for, though? (selling them. where would I process and dry them?) Mummy needs a greenhouse for starting her own plants.