One of my more productive days

May 6, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

On Thursday morning I weeded one side of the Chandler strawberry bed, picked a basket of strawberries, and fertilized the old strawberry bed (kelp/fish). In the afternoon, T and I spread some green onion seeds out in the summer strawberries. That evening, T and I planted a packet of Dragon Tongue (Territorial, seeds from last year) and Painted Mountain Corn (Johnny’s). T is really good at using the jab planter that I still can’t quite get to work for me. If I can get him to plant in a line near the drip tape someday, I’ll be happy. If I can get that thing working for me, I’ll also be happy.

I then picked 2 more baskets of strawberries and pulled a bunch of old leaves and stems, rotting berries, and a few growing plants – oops – out of the bed. After that I turned the compost since I hadn’t done that in like a week. It smells so much better than a few weeks ago!

Z used the chisel plow on the 2 new beds yesterday

and he raked them Thursday. I have a lot of work to do by hand, though. He put in a loader load of compost but I’d like to have more in there. We’ll see.

Took pictures of a few bugs that were in the Chandlers:

that not a ladybug, is it? nah. something else.

unidentified caterpillar on a strawberry leaf. webbing is present. (i think it was wrapped up in the webbing when I found it)

I think I’m finally going to get a copy of Whitney Crenshaw’s book Garden Bugs of North America

First summer crops have sprouted!

May 4, 2016May 4, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

Yay, on my way out of the garden today I saw that the beans (Trilogy, iirc) and corn that I planted last week have emerged from the ground. Hoping that some of the flowers we planted will follow suit.

I haven’t gotten that much done in the last several days, aside from picking 2 baskets of strawberries each day! Z mowed a lot of the garden with the tractor, and I did some with the push mower last night. This morning (Tues) I hoed along one side of the Chandlers. The weeds are getting bad in the summer strawberry patch (where a lot of the plants have put out runners to start new plants).

I checked how bad the grass situation along the garlic is today. There are like an average of 6 inches of grass between the path and the garlic. I can’t mow there because the debris would fall into the Chandler (early summer) strawberries. Some of those strawberries have been too far from the drip tape, while others are getting flooded. So annoying. Z picked a basket of berries very quickly. He said he saw a lot of bugs and spiders running around.

Z tried using the landscape rake on the old corn bed tonight, where I’d like to plant some late greens (is that a good idea?). Maybe the bed next to it could be used for pole beans. We’ll see. I think we need to get sprinklers out there because the ground is rock-hard. There’s drip tape peeking out of the ground here and there in the old bed- it was buried by gophers. 😦

Production seems to be picking up

April 30, 2016April 30, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

I didn’t make it to the garden this morning because we bought our (first?) farm truck! It’s a used Ford F150 with room for the carseat in the back seat. My buddy Chris advised against getting one because they need a lot of what he calls “wrenching” all the time. He told me about his friend who has a graveyard of Ford parts from trucks he’s had over the years.

I got out there tonight, turned on the water, and realized that the pressure we’ve been running it at was too low. There wasn’t any water coming out of the drip tape in the 5 beds we’re trying to water at the moment (3 strawberry, one alliums and weeds, and the new corn/bean bed). I turned it up and left it on for longer than I meant to- about 75 minutes.

I got to take a leisurely walk around the garden. I found our first ripe Chandler. I am mostly still picking buds off of the smaller plants, but I need to stop doing that. I had intentionally let this one form a berry, though. It was pretty good but could have used more water.

Then I went out to the strawberries and picked 2 baskets! I can’t believe how much old debris still needs to be taken out of there. I take so many fistfuls out every day! I even accidentally pulled out at least 2 strawberry plants!

The Seascapes that I planted the other day look terrible. Maybe I should just compost the rest. It’s either that, or plant them! I’m concerned that they’d be more vulnerable to diseases and pests because they’ve been in the fridge for so long.

We’ll see what can get done this weekend. It might be a good time for flailing, except that I think the mower still needs to be lubed and have its belts checked (Z burned them up last year). I heard that Sunday won’t be as windy. I can only hope. It’s time to get that chisel plow and landscape rake out and put them to work!

More strawberry weeding

April 26, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

I’ve spent the last few days’ garden time hoeing and weeding (mostly) the new strawberries. Work on removing old leaves continues in the old strawberries. For some reason I took this picture before I removed a bunch of grass at the edge of them:

We’ve been getting about a basket per day. The ones that I picked on Friday (?) were so delicious when we ate them on Saturday. Tonight we drank some frozen ones that Zak blended.

You can see that I overfertilized the summer strawberries:

After the .7 inches of rain we got on Friday I was hesitant to do much other work on the bedprep, and the last 2 days have been very windy…

Soil too wet again! Rotting berries

Image ~ April 15, 2016April 15, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

Well, I got out there tonight and pulled flowers off of the newer berries. i tried to pull some weeds but the soil is so hard that i can’t get all the ones that are close to the plants.

Although the soil in the old bed is so wet that berries are rotting:

last year’s seascape strawberries. not as good/edible as they look at the moment

The soil in the newer berries is cracking. We had a bit of rain last night and today.

That bed’s been hoed!

April 6, 2016April 6, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

It took about 4 hours of work to get the weeds hoed out of this bed and 6 or 10 inches away from the plants!

Alrighty, the Chandlers have been hoed. The plants are so small and most of the buds have been so small that I think these may have to stick around until next spring. I guess I need to stop pulling the buds off, though. We (mostly Z) have been getting our irrigation going – the leak on the right was fixed! Now maybe I can fertilize (starting with a kelp/seaweed product). This reminds me that I need a new sprayer.

My hands are killing me from hoeing, but the bed needs a good going-over with the Cobra weeder (http://www.cobrahead.com/). No time. Last year’s berries need some maintenance, and I need to hoe alongside the summer berries I planted this spring and last fall. I also have more to plant. The water line doesn’t quite reach the end of that bed. I think that if I run out, I might just put the crowns (if they are still ok to use) at the end of the Chandlers…

One of the next beds I’d like to get going (because it has so little grass growing) is last year’s bean and pea row (it also had one cherry tomato plant). There are all these weird holes there- check oneout! Hopefully just from gophers, but why were so many holes not closed back up? The surface of the ground is scarily dry. 😦

A rather large hole that has a crack coming off of it. The ground looks like a cross between Petaluma Adobe and cement

I hoed enough that it looks like I need to hoe

April 5, 2016April 5, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

I hoed the Chandlers, so now they can get some daylight! This photo shows “after” with “before” below. I was hoping to put a bunch of compost on the ground, but I’m rethinking that as the sow bugs get to be really bad after I put compost down. I hate to leave the ground bare!! Hopefully these plants will grow a bit more very soon. They really want to make berries. Meanwhile, Z and T picked a couple of strawberries from the old patch this weekend!

those Chandler strawberry plants are just to the left of center- you can see a few taller fava (or bell?) bean plants in there

In other news, I got 2 packages of seeds today 🙂 Z and T worked on getting irrigation to the “new” strawberries, as it’s going to get hot this week!

Sometimes getting things done hurts

April 2, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

Yesterday morning I had kind of a rough time in the garden. I couldn’t get the mower started. It has to be on perfectly level ground and it can’t be in grass that’s taller than like 4 inches. Then I kinda punched myself in the face trying to pull up my shirt sleeves. THEN I was putting compost out around the new strawberry plants and stepped YET AGAIN in the trenches alongside the bed and sprained my ankle. I kept going and didn’t elevate much and it hurts a lot more today.

I did hoe a few more feet where more strawberries can be planted soon 🙂 But we need to fill in those trenches before mowing, fertilizing, or even planting can happen. It’s just not that safe out there. And I need new boots. (and sneakers, which is impossible for me to find) I really like these boots, so hopefully I can find another pair. This is an expensive week, with our trash bill and preschool and seeds all being paid for in one week! I guess that’s what bank accounts are for.

Soil is drying out

March 30, 2016April 8, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

Well, I still can’t quite plant anything because the soil is so wet. T found a moisture gauge today and kept sticking it into the soil. It was either extremely wet or off the end of the thingie. He and Z spread some wildflower seeds around because he was desperate to plant things. Aww!

I weeded the strawberries and put compost around the Chandlers because the soil is starting to crack. Gotta get more organic matter mixed into that sandy clay loam. The gophers are out there in the Seascapes again 😦 (we do not have time to trap them and Z doesn’t want them to be set in case T is in the garden and curious about them). I started weeding the north end of that bed so I can maybe plant a few strawberries at that end.

T and I did a bit of organizing our seeds today. They were stored up high but he got to them. I have moved them to a place where they are out of the sun, but I need them to be on a bigger shelf. I also need to order seeds!!!

I am wondering what other folks store their seeds in- I had plastic shoeboxes inside of a clear plastic tub, but the lids were moved around the house and there have been moths and other bugs in there 😦 The bugs may have gotten in from open packets of seeds that I left out after planting sessions (like, if I knew I was going to plant more the next day). Sigh.

Oh, I found a weird egg sac. I wasn’t sure what it was so I picked it up and smushed it. It was white, around the size of a marble, and the eggs inside were pink. I threw it out of the bed and I feel bad that I did that since I don’t know what kind of creature it was from.

Things are starting to get moving

March 27, 2016 ~ FarmingMum ~ Leave a comment

Today Z did a bunch of mowing on the north side, and a bit on the south side. In a lot of places you can still feel your feet sink a bit so I’m glad he skipped a lot of the south side. He did do the path to the compost – I’ve been planning that as my next wood chip project.

This week I weeded the strawberries and put out more wood chips and turned the compost mess once. The kidlet was sick Thurs-today so I haven’t gotten as much done as I might have. Today I was able to find most of the garlic and onions (including that which was mowed and a few gopher holes). More weeding to come.