didn't really think of it . We didn't think we had enough logs to do anything really with them. Some are short and some are long. So we just decided not to deal with it and use them now, instead of wait to do something with it. They were out in the weather and they also would have needed to be stained and treated . Dh is not a carpenter nor am i LOL he doesn't like to build things . Just likes to move them with his big boy toys LOL
but i m going to try and make a chicken coop with the leftover T&G , 2x4's and other stuff. :)
April on the Homestead
Great GH, Tay! Love the tape work... LOL
I can't believe it... we awoke to 6" of snow this morning (thunderstorms were predicted). I love the moisture, but when's it going to warm up?! It's still snowing very lightly.
We started turning compost into the beds in the someday high tunnel (still don't have the cover on it) and yesterday I worked on the soaker system for the terraced pea beds... which will also be carrot, onion, beet beds. =0) Last year I did all my peas at once, this year we're going to try succession planting.
Are the peas heat tolerant? I'm planting Yard Long peas and Lady Finger peas which I think are technically both beans.
I'm planting Norli snow peas and Alderman. We don't get that hot up here... at least not usually. That's sounds like a death knell, doesn't it. =0) It'll probably get hotter than blue blazes up here this year just 'cause I said that (yes, I am that powerful... LOL)
50* and snowing hard... ???
bummer on the snow , yikes. Sunny and warm here :) in the high 60's and tomorrow will be in the 70's and then rain :( waaah
i am getting my straw tomorrow for my spuds. Its not bales , its just loose stuff.
kids are watching Harry Potter again !! sheesh.
that is great tape works isn't it ? ! LOLLLL
Jayryunen i hope it warms up for you soon :)
if it makes you feel better i will send warm wishes your way :)
later
sue
We had horizontal snow day before yesterday, after 2 days of psycho winds -- I went outside with my jacket unbuttoned the other day and the wind caught it and darn near sailed me into the next county. Today, just cloudy/sunny/windy/cold so I didn't even try to work outdoors, just fed & watered the chickens and went to town. I am SO ready for spring. Supposed to be sunny & warmer for the weekend. When it started to snow I went out and tossed a blanket onto the top of my Stanley plum, which of course was in full bloom -- and the wind blew it right back off, so probably no plums. The apples were blooming too so probably no apples. This is deja vu all over again. 8^( Meanwhile I'm eating lettuce from the GH and asparagus from the garden (yummy), and the peas are sprouting -- I did plant them all at once but the different varieties bear at different times, so hopefully I will get lots of peas. If get Pea One it will be a first for me!
For all they say peas are easy, it took me four tries to get a decent yield. Maybe they're easy someplace, but not in the southwest. LOL
I'm with you AZ... I am sooooo ready for spring! I am sick to death of cold wind... I'll settle for warm wind... no wind seems to be asking too much. LOL
Snowed most of the day yesterday, but melted faster, so this morning we only have a couple of inches left. My onion plants came yesterday; opened up the mailbox and thought "That's odd, it smells like onions in there". Well, duh. LOL Snow collapsed my little bitty hoop house/cold frame over the garlic, poly pipe permanently in a new shape. It lasted several years up here, so I can't complain. I'll just have to pick up some pvc in town to make new hoops.
Spent yesterday researching strawberries after making a strawberry rhubarb pie with the most tasteless strawberries I have EVER gotten... organic, no less. Found out the average strawberry patch only produces 10 days out of the year unless one gets everbearers, which will produce all summer but don't send out many runners, aren't quite as tasty, and will generally only produce well for 3 years. Oh, and they won't produce as much as the 10-day june-bearers. Which do produce a lot of runners, so you can keep the patch going for quite a while. Ruminate, ruminate....
Looks to be in the mid 50's today, breezy. 26* this am, but sunny, cloudless sky.
This message was edited Apr 18, 2009 8:22 AM
In Ruth Stout's book "How to Have a Green Thumb Without An Aching Back" she tells how she raises strawberries the "easy way". Still looks complicated and more trouble than it is worth. Luckily I'm not very fond of strawberries! Did you get the strawberries for your pie from a grocery store? Ergo, tasteless? I don't raise rhubarb for the same reason, plus I'd probably forget and put the leaves in a salad and kill myself. I just hesitate to grow anything in my veg garden that I can't eat!
I got my strawberries from the co-op. It's just not the season yet, I guess.
I think we're going to add rhubarb to our list of one-of-these-days... =0)
we have a strawberry farm about 2 hr drive and a festival. We get them thar. I make the drive , buy several cases. Then do a canning marathon of strawberry syrup, jam and jelly. Oh yeah and pie. I make several to freeze for christmas :)
same wth apples. We have an apple farm down the road 1 mile . get tons , bake and freeze or can and do pies.
then we have a black raspberry farm 12 miles down the road and get 20 -30 Qts . freeze , can , pies. and jams. oh so good
i wish we had a blueberry farm :(
Yum! How I envy your proximity to all those good things.
Nobody around here grows anything. The local farmer's market they have in the summer has vegetables somebody bought at the supermarket, I think, and lots of crafts items.
If your veggies are like the ones they sell off the back of trucks here, those folks meet an 18-wheeler filled with produce (probably on I-10) and buy the cases. Usually the produce is from CA or Mexico. Sometimes it's good and sometimes is as bad as the stuff in the supermarket.
We have a U-pick raspberry place up the road a piece, but that's it. Not even any good apple orchards around here anymore... you can see the remnants of many old ones, but they've mostly died off and what's left has gone wild. We'd have to drive half way cross the state to find an orchard. =0(
Found out (in my research that started with strawberries and has branched out to raspberries) that the U-pick place up the road isn't even growing the best tasting ones. Just big and pretty. And for all I know maybe they're what grows well here. But now I'm dreaming of raspberries AND strawberries. LOL
NO WIND today, not supposed to be any tomorrow, so we're out hussling to put the cover on the high tunnel. Got the end panels on already and now I have all sorts of channels and boards to screw on before we can get the topper on. Will take pics...
Tah!
Jay
You are so right! My wind tunnel... LOL
We got both end panels on, the ribbon board and almost all of the locking channel before we just flat wore out... don't know what those are? Pictures being posted this evening. =0)
It's been absolutely gorgeous all day, and tomorrow promises more of the same. Hooray!
=0) Jay
Rained here yesterday, today and calling for it the next 3 days. But at least it is warm and calm.
It is misting out now like it has been for most of the day. It is getting a bit chilly now. I got 8 purple beauty sweet peppers planted today and 4 pickling cucumbers put in hanging baskets. I wanted to get some more planting done but I ended up having to go to the barn to feed up and pick stalls while DH took Firefly and Glory to the vet for coggins testing. We are going on a trailride in 2 weeks. DH's saddle horse of choice just had a foal so he had to get Glory tested so he can bring her. I plan to ride Shaq but if something keeps that from happening I can take Fly now. Of course, Knock will be taking Godiva. My radishes are coming up. I'm going to plant some more tomorrow.
Got the topper on the high tunnel yesterday, though that didn't go as smoothly or harmoniously as the day before. The SU has a rather unusual relationship with the english language... The front door is the one she's closest to, side and end are interchangeable, telling her to pull is as likely to end up with her walking towards me as pulling away. There was a little breeze, so the cover was a bit more lively than I would have liked. And I am not the most patient person in the world; I inherited my father's temper, so it all came together and we ended up yelling at each other. =0( I'm sure it made for interesting viewing for the neighbors... not much on TV at 9:30 in the morning, might as well watch the fight. [groan]
Be glad you have trees, at least when you go at it hammer and tongs with your partner, you're not providing a show for everyone.
But we pulled ourselves back together and the rest of the day went more smoothly, except for the stinky bits of the high tunnel. And this bit has many stinky parts. I've got to call this am to find out just how the roll up mechanism is supposed to go on... the instructions aren't very clear about this.
There's peas and onions to plant, more beds to turn, the dogs are going to the vet this afternoon, and when I went to water my seedlings last night I discovered the eggplant have APHIDS! Now how in tarnation did that happen?! They're in a shed where the only things that ever grow in there are seedlings in the spring. Major huge annoyance.
Accoding to the weather I've got about 4 more days to finish up with the tunnel construction before the winds come up again. I think I can do it, I think I can, I think I can....
LOL Jay
I hope you took pics between rounds. LOL
What do you mean when you say roll up? Does it do like a window shade? I thought once it was on there it just stayed.
Are the dogs getting a checkup?
I am off to plant my beans and peas. Likely gets some herbs in some containers if all goes as planned.
Yeah, it's just the dogs yearly whatever. I let the big lunatic out all morning, let her chase bunnies and wear herself out, so hopefully she'll act like a semi-civilized dog at the vets.
The sides, to about 4', roll up like the old fashioned blinds... without the spring. They help with venting. There's a gear box that turns a long pipe that the bottom of the sides is attached to. I've just come in from spending the morning fussing with it. But I think I've finally got it kicked; they seem to be rolling up nice and evenly. Lots of back and forth and fiddling to get there. I'm on my own, the SU at work today.
Now I've got to put in the anti-billow ropes, so these wonderful magical roll-up sides don't flap when they're down. Then the chicken wire along the insides so the bunnies, etc can't get in when the sides are up. The thing is already filling up with bugs and there isn't even anything planted in it yet. There are a couple of bees... they can't figure out how to get out... the bugs come in the sides, but then fly up and being bugs don't think to come back down to get out.
Time for el lunche!
Jay
I got a lot accomplished in my garden yesterday. I got all my beans planted. Also planted my yard peas in containers. I moved the swing frame a bit and cleaned out around it. I'm going to trellis the yard peas on it. I also have the cucumbers in hanging baskets on the swing frame but I'm likely going to move them. I built a small bed for my huckleberries but I have to fill it with compost. I recycled some landscape cloth from an old flowerbed for the bottom and I weighted it down with rocks to kill the grass. I used some plastic edging that is supposed to look like rocks. DH had bought it for the front porch a few years ago. It should do the trick. I planted some purple beauty peppers on Monday. I need to get the area ready for my watermelons. That is going to be a trick but I'm sure I'll figure something out. I was looking at 2 of my purple plum trees. They are supposed to be ornamentals but some years they do set fruit. Last year I got about 5 plums off the 2 of them combined. This year they have lots on both of them. I sure hope they hold them all. They are delicious.
Gotta get to that huckleberry bed.
I've made pie from those little plums... they ARE delicious!
I got the tunnel finished this morning and I'm going to start posting all those pictures I've promised. Boy, am I glad to get that done; I'm so tired of taking little pieces of my hands off from the little sharp edges of metal. Bah! Now my hands can heal up and I can get to the really fun part... making all those beds in there. =0)
LOL, well hopefully now that it's closed in it's less of a wind tunnel and more of a greenhouse. LOL But only time will tell. =0)
Tomorrow I'll start on the beds... today I'm going into the big town... Santa FE for groceries and visiting.
Congrats on finishing the high tunnel. Will your beds be in the ground or raised beds?
Planting that high tunnel sounds like fun, Jay -- plenty of room for everything?
Re plums, Cajun and Taynors, I am SO hungry for a fresh plum. It's kind of like wanting to smell the ocean one more time before I die, I want to eat a fresh plum one more time before I die. The good news is that my Stanley has lots of new blossoms after the snow we had last week. The bad news is that I was looking at old email messages and found one from a year ago where I'd said it had just snowed, on MAY 24th.
I could just spit. 8^(
In two weeks I'm going to Alaska, leaving my newly planted vegetables and the stuff in the greenhouse to fend for themselves for a week. To think it might even snow before I get back!
The mason bees seem to be doing fine, though, the third bee tube finally got nibbled open so I assume all the little bees are out doing their bee thing.
I sure hope the plums make it. I still remember how good those 5 or so were last year. A lady from our church has a tree also and she doesn't eat hers. I'll be watching her tree, too.
I'm planting in the ground... the idea of making raised beds at this point just moves my planting date back... like into next year! LOL
AZ, you oughta get you one of these tunnels... at 10'6" they're tall enough for a pruned fruit tree! Create a couple of spring hot beds to warm the sucker during our late cold snaps and you could be inundated with plums. I am definitely thinking of the potential for figs here. I have the same dream of fresh figs that you do of plums....
My Mom has fig trees in South La.
And your point is...?
I mean really, flaunting in front of the fig-deprived. Pffffft!
LOL =0)
Maybe next year on the high tunnel. I even have thought of putting dwarf apricots & peaches in my Big Greenhouse along with the dwarf fig, tangelo, grapefruit, and hopefully Meyer lemon & navel orange. Maybe even a dwarf avocado. (Uh oh, ran out of room.) At this point I'm not even sure when or if the Big Greenhouse will get done. DSon is opening the restaurant full time on Mother's Day, won't be around to help me with projects. There is an auction the end of May where they usually have pallets of lumber, I'll go and see if they have any 4x4s. Re the fig, Jay, I have a dwarf fig from one of the catalogs (Gurney's or Burgess, I suppose) and I don't know what kind of figs it will have, but it has been in a 5-gal pot for 2 years now and can be brought in and taken out as the weather dictates. Right now it is in the Small Greenhouse and someday will be planted in the ground in the Big GH. I hope. But my point is that it is doing great. Last year it only had 4 or 5 leaves on it but it did have one fig! The fig fell off before it got ripe. This year I am hoping for some eatin' figs. So you could get a dwarf fig, if you don't mind moving it around.
When I was a kid in Phoenix, we called a big, unguarded fig tree in the neighborhood the "June bug tree". Nobody ever ate the figs as far as I knew, but it was always loaded with June bugs, which we climbed up the tree to catch and fly. (Not much to do in the summer in Phoenix back then.) 8^D We'd tie a thread to one of the legs and fly it around. You could tell if a June bug had been flown before, if one of its legs was missing. (Hey, don't tell PETA.)
Moving a fig tree in and out... of what? I don't have an in, only out. LOL
PETA can jump off a dock for all I care... take a long walk off a short pier, as my G'dad used to say. Though you no doubt were a rotten little kid.... =0) would this be back when Pheonix still had orange groves? I remember being handed a blood orange when visiting some friends of my mom (I grew up in Wickenburg) and being so seriously freaked out.... I think I musta been about 6... a BLOOD orange!?! Eeeeeew. I think I chased my kid sister around with it....
We spent the summer stuffing up rattlesnake holes.... when we weren't in the swimming pool.
I don't recall which particular thread it was we hijacked with a discussion of the possible merits of a homestead vampire, but I've come across new information that addresses the [possible] drawback of them only being available once the sun went down... apparently there is "dandy new drug" that makes sun damage passe. My source is "Posted to Death" by the eminent Dean James... not James Dean, he's dead, very, very dead. Not undead dead, just dead-dead. A great loss to the swooning class, I'm sure. LOL Right up there with the young John Wayne.
In any case, the possibility of a denim clad ruggedly handsome eternally youthful and maybe even useful around the place vamp becomes even more alluring....
Now, where to place the help wanted ad?
LOL
Jay
I wish I had a GH. I wish I had room for a GH.
Wish I had room for a
"denim clad ruggedly handsome eternally youthful and maybe even useful around the place vamp"
Oh, wait, I'll make room!
I think my June bug days were pre-orange orchards. Well I guess they existed but I lived in what is now a "historic district" and didn't know anything about orange groves. I don't think I was any more rotten than any other little urchin in Phoenix, anyway! LOL
There's a real historic district in Phoenix? Is it adobe, wood, or stone? I'm surprised they hadn't plowed it down and put in a golf course... Apparently there used to be quite a few orange orchards around there... the orange trees planted down the median of the freeway are a nod to that history (snort).
Ever go to gold rush days in Wickenburg? Growing up, I knew a real live old prospector... he'd been rattlesnake bitten several times in the course of searching for gold... didn't use a donkey anymore, though, just an old beat up pick-up. He was in his 60's when I was a kid in the 60's.
Also met an old woman in a nursing home who was born and raised in a town down near Chiracauhau (sp?)... she was 101 and her dad had worked in the mines down there. She remembered him going off on his mule every Monday to the mines and returning on Friday. She'd gone to a one-room school house, and her mother took in laundry.
Ever read any A.B. Guthrie? Or Ivan Doig?