Rasided bed status and produce. Cabbage patch mulched. Mowers broken

This is a fast update - mostly captions on pics!

I thought I should do an update on the raised beds in MD since they are the main producers right now...

I harvested some collard greens and cooked them with homemade chicken stock.  I took some of the old chicken bones from the freezer and added a leg quarter and pressure cooked with some celery and onions (and a bay leaf and salt).  I canned 8 pints of the chicken stock in the PC!  First time that I have canned chicken stock!  Anyway, the good news is that I like collard greens!

Collard greens from the MD raised beds!  Cooked in homemade chicken stock.  

The cucs and the sunflowers looking good! Smokey approved!

Peppers (middle bed) are doing ok.  They need staking.

Another pic of the sunflowers and cuc's

It was a hard weekend on equipment.  Broke 2 mower blades on the husq and 1 on the Huskee.  When replacing the blade on the Huskee I stripped the spindle! ARGGG - NEVER use an impact wrench to tighten ANYTHING!!  I went to TSC and ordered spindle and picked up a spare deck belt for the husq. - the grinding up of the straw really burned out the old belt - which was already pretty old and worn.  Total list of problems is unavailable since I was overwhelmed!   husq deck weldment repair failed (fixed now), blades broken an replaced, spindle stripped, belt broken (good thing I picked up spare at TSC!), rear tire of Huskee leaked then flat and bead broken.

Finally got to mulch in the cabbages and Kale.  I was scrounging for mulch - even used some freshly gathered from mowing.  

MULCHED!  Weeds and grass subdued giving the cabbages a chance (I hope)  I also sprayed Sevin on the brassicas since many were almost completely stripped by cabbage worms!

Some cabbages are already dead I am afraid.  Even a couple of the big ones in the front of this picture are so water logged they are likely not to make it.

Kale

I got 3 solar powered lawn ornaments for kicks.  I like them!

Another weekend of mulching - 2nd garden patch done (mostly)

I went up to the farm Saturday morning - it was raining - again!

I spent some time putting the frozen greens away.  I used a couple old packs of beet greens and a pack of corn and a pound of sausage (italian sausage - purchased, I don't make that - yet!).  I fried it all up together and then added 2.5 cups cooked jasmine rice and some oregano.  Was edible - needed salt.  Beet greens are not my favorite!  I am tempted not to save of them this year...

I went to putting up the remaining high-tensile wire for the grape-vine trellis and trimming with the weed wacker.  That's about all that I got done Saturday!   Everything was so wet - this is getting serious!  I needed to get into the front garden patch to WEED and mulch.

Apple orchard status:

Sunday morning I removed more black plastic from around the trees - didn't get all of them up, but most I think.  Found 3 good sized garter snakes under the plastic of the trees in the far right highest portion of the orchard.  I was careful not to hurt them.  Fortunately, I didn't find any other kind of snake!  I weed whacked around the trees that I removed the plastic from.  I definitely think the black plastic was a mistake.  I want to advise anyone looking into putting in trees - use the tubes, but not the weed protectors!  Do not use the plastic weed protection if you are able to mow around the trees!  The plastic gives varmints and bees a place to live and if you are able to mow, then the plastic gets caught in the mower!  BTW:  the fruit looks good on most of the trees.  I did see some insect damage.  I applied Sevin before I left this weekend.

Cherry orchard:

I observed some damage from deer - I think.  I noticed that the cherries were gone last weekend.  This weekend I looked closer and noticed some of the limbs broken down....  I figure the deer were able to reach up and snatch the cherries and broke the limbs off in the process.  I don't think that varmints can climb the tree protectors.  I also  noticed that the Japanese beetles were starting to really eat - so I sprayed them with sevin.  Some of these trees have significant growth of foliage inside the tubes - tempted to break the tubes and trim that off to keep disease under control.  Not sure - will do some reasearch.

Mom's patch status:

I may have a crop failure on the corn there. I checked mom's patch - only about 6 plants survived the onslaught of the crows.  Mom over-planted with a small pack of short season corn, hopefully the crows will leave that alone!  If that comes in then maybe there will be enough to eat fresh corn, although not likely enough to put any up.

Big patch status:

The corn in my big patch is growing - poorly.  I think I still need more nitrogen (and way less water).  The mulch has helped, I think.  General improvement in all plants.  The eggplant survived the flea beetles.  I applied Sevin to the eggplant and some tomato plants.  I hate to apply sevin when plants are blooming, so I left most of the tomatoes alone.  No sign of pests there yet anyway. We will see.  Squash, cukes, and pumpkins look OK.  Looks like I may have inadvertently got a couple pumpkins planted inside the garden fence - I am trying to train them to run to the garden fence and away from the squash and tomatoes. The pumpkins and sunflowers on the outside of the fence are coming along.  I need to put supports up for the sunflowers and tomato trellis up - SOON!

Paw-paw patch status:

The paw-paw patch is looking really bad.  I think tilling in the straw and wood chips was a bad idea - they weren't mulched enough and I have read that is they mulch in-place in the soil that they steal nitrogen from the soil.  Along with the water issue hasn't been a good year so far.  Even weeds aren't growing in most of the paw-paw patch!  However, the transplanted plants still seem to be holding on.  I see some beets and carrots up - but not many.

Front patch status:

The weeds were so prodigious that I really couldn't see most of the plants.  I had to wait until midday to get in just because of water on the plants.  The ground really was too wet to be walking on it - but I had to!  I had to use the weed wacker to get the bulk of the weeds under control.  I did find about 6-8 parsnip plants that had survived!  Long story short - I busted my ass and got it mulched!  I didn't get the potatoes mulched.  I think I will use wood chips to mulch around potatoes.  I hope its no too late to put mulch down - at least I hope to keep weeds at bay later in the season.  Right now the potatoes are pretty much blocking all the light from the bulk of the weeds.  Some of the potato plants are 4 ft or more!  I did find some potato bugs eating them up - so I treated the potatoes with sevin as well as many other plants in the main garden (carrots and kohlrabi).  Here are some pics:

Front patch - as I was leaving - taken from my car, because thats how busy I was!

potatoes!  They still need mulch - but at least bulk of weeds are gone.

onions and kohlrabi (garlic on far right - just a few - up front) .  The beets and carrots are behind the kohlrabi

Dehydrator Arrived!

I finally bought the dehydrator from cabelas!   Katherine had brought it to my attention again about 2 weeks ago when she found that it was on sale.  I had stumbled onto another dehydrator ad - I forget where - maybe a google suggestion? and after some reading I went and looked at the commercial dehydrator in the Cabelas sale page.  It was actually a good deal and got great reviews.  So I pulled the trigger and ordered it along with some special trays for fruit leather and fruit slices.  Here are some pictures:

I haven't assembled it all - I just took it up and unpacked it.  Seems very well built and solid.  It must be run indoors - I was hoping to run it in the shop - but maybe that wouldn't be great idea anyway.. I will have to think about where to run it.  Maybe, during the day - on the porch?  Maybe I could make a special structure for it?  I am thinking about moving the canned storage downstairs (need to either beef up the shelves down there - or build new ones) and then use the upstairs storage room for running the dehydrator (I would leave the windows open to help keep moisture levels down).

Processed greens in Silver Spring

I finally got  around to processing some of the greens growing in the raised beds at my place in Silver Spring.

Turnip:

I pulled the remaining turnips and processed the greens by blanching, vacuum packing, and freezing.  I got 1 pint of turnip greens frozen.  Also, I got a handful of turnips!  I will probably roast these later - they are in the fridge in water right now.

Radishes:

I also pulled all the radishes.  They are getting too much shade I think.  The bed they are growing in is a major disappointment this year.  Nothing seems to want to grow there!  It might be a shade issue.  I got 2 pints of radish greens frozen and about 2 pints of radishes.  Radishes are in the fridge in water - I have to think of something to do with them!  I will make a couple of radish sandwiches - pumpernickel, butter and sliced radish - supposed to be good.  We will see :)

Kale:

All of the greens I processed today have been in good health, but the kale was superb!   I froze 2 pints of the greens.  The freezer is getting full!  I will have to take some of these things up to the farm deepfreeze this coming weekend.

I don't have time to process the mustard or collard greens.  Next week?

The battle of weeds

I worked on cleaning more of the straw/hay out of the red barn and grinding/vacuuming it up for mulch.  The goal was to get the weeds under control in my gardens since I didn't use black plastic row covers this year.  The big garden with the corn, beans, and tomatoes was the first target since those crops are my biggest concern this year.

OMG, it was hot and DIRTY work, but the cyclone-rake and mower combo really helped "clean" the really really disgusting and moldy and dirty old straw/hay.  I wore my respirator doing this as the dust was prolific and some very fine (and full of mold spores and god knows what).  This was a real respirator - not a simple white paper filter mask.  It was a pain to wear - especially in that heat, but I remember that dad did this task last year without a mask and he got farmers pneumonia!  

I should have done before and after pics - but it was too painful to show the before! Anyway, after lots of hot and miserable work here is the big patch:

Some of the tomatoes are blooming!

You can actually see the plants now!

There are some eggplants in there - but they are being eaten by flea beetles!  I need to sevin the garden!

I used a lot of the hay from the barn, which I am happy about - having it there attracts varmints which attract snakes!  I got all of the fire wood off the floor and separated it from the straw. I piled all of the fire wood up near the "lake" and burned it - it burned all night!  I ran the straw through the mower-cyclone-rake combo and it made a good amount of mulch.  I used a lot of the intact bales as well for mulching.  I think there may be 6 or so left - I hope to cover all of the front garden (except maybe for the potatoes - I think i might use wood mulch on them for convenience of application and maybe it would help to grow more potatoes!

I hope the weather permits me to do more mulching next weekend.  Seems like its very rainy this year so far.  

Here are some pics of what the inside of the red-barn looks like now - its starting to look under control!

No more loose firewood and straw on the floor!

Running low on straw!  Maybe 6 bales left.

A little bit of free straw left yet.  Look how much light comes through the far wall!  That side was for hay storage so they made it more porous to help ventilate and dry the hay.  I am debating with myself whether to cover the outside with metal siding or placing wood slates over the open spaces like they used to in the old days.

Friday the 13th farm survey

I came up late Thursday so I could be here early Friday morning to be here for the tractor to be picked up (I called Hines in Everett to fix the radiator and maybe the backhoe!)  Well, I am here now around 10:30 am and no sign of them!  I called and they said sometime this afternoon!  ARGG.  With facing afternoon traffic out of DC and the rains (heavy rains and flash flooding in some areas along the way - Clear Spring MD looked like a hurricane moved through there!) it took me almost 4 hours to get here!

Anyway, I have been out and about to survey the farm.  The gardens look like the weeds are going to win :(  I can't get in to put down mulch!  The "paw paw" patch looks like some of the plants might survive.   Very poor showing on the carrots and beets though.  The kale looks a bit rough too - but I planted so much I might get some anyway.  I just cant bear to post picture of the patches yet.  I should, I know - maybe later.

Many of the elderberries that I planted last year are bloom!  I hope I get a nice crop this year.  I want some elderberry jelly!

Dead red-tailed hawk .  Weird.  I found one last year near a utility pole too.

Grape trellis top braces are on and lower wire in place.  I have been rushing to get this up.  I am now training some of the little grape vines to the lowest wire! 

Greens!

I have been getting some greens off my garden in the city!  I have frozen a couple pounds of turnip and radish greens and one pound of kale so far.  I blanch, then dry somewhat, then vacuum pack and freeze.  I have also picked some of the mustard greens and braised them with some sausage.  The sausage I used was a bit strange and didn't really match the greens very well, but nonetheless, it was still pretty good.  I had it for several meals.  Katherine wouldn't eat it - she really didn't like that sausage flavor!  

I picked some more radishes when I got back this past weekend and just cleaned them, sliced of the radish root fairly thin, and did a quick stir fry - wilting with olive oil and some salt.  Was actually pretty good.  Here are some pictures:

Mulching, mulching, rain rain...

Sole purpose at this point is to mulch the gardens!  The weeds are coming up strong and fast and if I cant keep them under control I will be in big trouble!

Snake-a-geddon!

I worked on clearing out the red barn of the remaining hay and straw (and boards, and firewood).  Scarey work, since its snake season!  Here is a pic of one of the two big blacksnakes i encountered this weekend:

No poisonous snakes spotted this weekend! YAY!

Radiator Leaks

I did discover that the tractor radiator does in fact still leak.  The stick actually did puncture the coils. I am researching replacing it - early info hints at about $400-$500 for replacement cost, not counting labor.  I am looking to do it myself - I want to make sure I know how to do all of this stuff in case of unavailability of help!  I think I will keep the old radiator and try to patch it via weld... we shall see!

Mulching

Well, to continue with the mulching story.  I replaced the spindle that broke on the Husqvarna riding mower.  It went much smoother then I expected.  The air-impact wrench was very handy.  I am so glad I got that,  Having said that, it is very important to remember that there are situations where you MUST NOT use an impact wrench.  For instance, bolting the spindle to the mower deck - I was careful to set the impact wrench to its lowest setting and stop it when the bolt came close to tight.  I got the mower deck back on and then hooked up the cyclone rake to the mower.  

I took the mower-rake over to the red barn and ran it over some of the hay/straw I had taken out of the barn.  The mower/rake combo did as I hoped - it ground the straw up and in a sense "cleaned" it!  The dust and mold were thrown airborne and just the straw (cut up into more manageable pieces) was saved in the bag.  This stuff was perfect for putting on the garden.  I ran the mulch down to the garden and mulched a little around the front end of the garden.  Then I tried grinding up the straw that I had out in the weather next to the garden.  It was a bit damp, but using a fork to take it and spread it around on the ground before mowing over it made it workable.  I started mulching the beans and corn - focusing on the weedy area first.  I did manage to get the beans covered and part of a couple rows of the corn done before the rain started.  See the pictures below.

The Rain

OMG, the rain came down HARD and FAST.   A second storm came through a bit later and snuck up on me - so quiet and serene rainy day then BAMM!!!  Lightning strike that sounded like right on top of me!  Whew.  Here are some pics of the garden after the first wave of rain:

The two rows of beans are mulched, but the rain chased me out before I could get the corn done!  See the weedy section on the right about midway?

Water is standing there now - I hope that I can get in to mulch more next weekend.  The weeds don't stop growing when its wet!

I got a little mulch down in the front around a squash and some of the eggplants and tomatoes.  Lots to do yet!

The rain really came down later that day.  Here are some pics and videos:

This is the ditch I have been trying to dig to put the drainage tile in for the house.  Its been too wet to dig it out since last fall!  Well, there were some times that I could have been digging, but I was mowing or putting in the garden those times!

Here are some videos of the rain:

Grape Trellis Progress

Oh, I almost forgot!  I got the tops on the grape trellis and the lower high tensile wires on!  I still need to paint the whole thing with copper naphthlate paint and put up the rest of the wire, but I am safe for a while!  I tied a couple vines to train them to the wires.  I need to start paying more attention to the grapes - evidently you do have to trim them as they grow the first couple seasons.  

Another weekend of mowing! Well, a few other things...

Lawyer and Tractor fan

I got up to the farm early friday so that I could go to the lawyer with Tom and Connie (and Mom).  I think we got this stuff all settled now so that should let mom relax about it a bit!  Anyway,that pretty much took the entire day.  I think I did do a little mowing Friday evening.  I did have time to replace the broken tractor fan blade with a new one that I ordered.  Thank goodness it fit.  Its a bugger to replace that blade because of the limited room between the radiator and the fan.  I did remove the shroud/duct bolts from the radiator, but it only helps a little bit since I didn't want to remove the hoses and the shroud wont move too far with the hoses in place.  After install the blade I fired the tractor up - seemed ok!  I haven't used it yet but I am fairly confident that that should fix the overheating problem.

Mowing and planting over again

Anyway, besides mowing all day Saturday, I also managed to over-plant the beans and corn in the big patch.  The wet weather had caused some of them to rot so I went back and replanted where I saw some missing.  The weeds are starting up in my patches - I wish the plants where big enough to put down some mulch!  Well, technically the potatoes are big enough, but I didn't have time anyway.  I did set the mower to a lower level, hoping that will buy me some time - maybe I can skip mowing next weekend!

Grape trellis progress

I noticed that the grape vines were really getting to the size where they will need to start being trained on a trellis.  I decided to put connecting beams across the tops of my posts before stringing the wire so that I don't have to brace the posts at the ends.  I measured the distances between the posts on the first (top) row and then I went into the red barn with my chainsaw after I spent about an hour replacing the chain (turned out that I grabbed the wrong chain initially and it was the wrong size - I didn't know I had different size chains in that length!)  I found some old wood that was long enough so I sawed what I needed and took it back to the vines.  I got the tops put on the first row of posts (after trimming the posts to same height with the chainsaw), but I only got two wires strung on the first two posts - the wire I have is not high-tensile so it breaks easily when tensioning.  I need to find my high-tensile wire!

Trimming, removing weed protectors and SNAKES!

I removed the black plastic weed protectors from the cherries, paw-paws, and persimmons.  I had caught those damn plastic things in the mower enough and I don't think they help anyways since I mow around those trees!  I still need to remove the ones around the apples, pears, etc.   While I was removing the plastic around the persimmon trees I found a couple small snakes.  The first one was about the size of a large earthworm and I was pretty sure it was a rat snake.  Anyway, considering the number of moles around there, I had no problems leaving the snake alone!  The next one was considerable larger - a bit over a foot long.   I first thought he was another rat snake - similar markings.  I left him there and continued working.  Then I though that maybe I had better get a better look at him...  lo-and-behold, it was some kind of venomous snake!  It had the big diamond head and you could see the venom sacs!  The body was wide, reminding me of the rattle-snakes from last year.  I dispatched him after he struck at the stick about 10 times!  I am still not sure if it was a baby rattle snake or a copper head.  Anyway, I was very cautious while mowing/trimming for the rest of the day!

Big spider scare

Oh, and I found this HUGE spider in the house last night while I was relaxing:

I checked it out online (after spraying and killing him!).  I think its a fishing spider.  Mostly harmless to humans.  Scared the crap out of me though!

Beans and electric fence at mom's place

Oh, AND I set up the electric fence around mom's garden and planted 2 rows of green beans in the garden over there.  Please note that in the future, maybe wait until late May to plant the beans and corn as the ground seems to be too cold and wet before then and they just rot - and even if they don't rot, they don't grow much!