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).