Into the paw-paw patch!

But first, a little bit more sawmill work this weekend...

I am hell-bent on milling up that old wood left from the clearing for the garage.  That wood is almost 4 years old now!  It was cut in early 2011 (I think) and has been sitting around outside with its bark on since then!  Anyway, I took another log over to the mill Sunday morning and got to work.  After getting a few cuts in I observed that it was not a straight bole and really should have been cut into a 7 and maybe a 4 foot section.  I got the chainsaw after it and cut the pieces into straight sections to complete the milling process.  There was so much loss of the sap-wood that I decided to just cut what I could into boards and a new set of "sleepers" for a short-wood pile.

The wood pile (on the left) is shrinking!  Not getting a lot of lumber out of it - but I am salvaging some, so that makes me feel better.

The little pile is all from one log.  It was the log that should have been cut into 2 from the start due to a "hidden" bend ( ok - I got greedy and wanted more "big lumber" and ended up with a lot of little lumber because of foolishness)

I got the "sleepers" ( the 3 4x4's under the pile, a couple short 2x4's and some 1x4 boards from that log.  Oh, and of course som more stickers for stacking.

Not bad for a weekend where I had to mow almost the entire property and take care of the gardens and orchards!

Bok Choy Harvest

I showed the harvest of the cucumbers and broccoli in the previous blog update, but I didn't mention that I also tried harvesting some of the bok choy!  Surprisingly, I salvaged some from the bugs (bugs seem to REALLY like the stuff!).  Mom says the bug issue is why she gave up on raising it!   Anyway, I harvested 4-5 plants and decided I would try a stir fry for dinner!  It actually came out very nicely.  I just cleaned and chopped the bok choy into 1 inch size pieces, blanched them for about 1 minute, then stir fried them in with some chicken and ramen noodles (and instant clear gel and whatever seasoning was on the chicken breast).  I figure I had maybe a quart of bok choi pieces loosely packed (what was left after cleaning the cores) and 1 chicken breast and one ramen noodle packet.  Here are a couple pictures:

before the clear gel "sauce"

After the sauce.  It was good!

I wrapped the remaining nice bok choy centers in wet paper towels and put them in a gallon size zip lock bag.  I will take those back to make some stir fry down at the city house this week.  I have read that you can preserve bok choy fairly well by simple blanch and freeze.  I will have to do this (if the bugs left me any by next weekend)!

Paw-paw patch

I was finally able to get into the paw-paw patch!  It has been RUNNING WITH WATER almost since the day I planted it!   I really wanted to pick the green beans and de-weed around the sweet-potatoes.  Just getting in though was an experience.  The "cherry" tree (I think it was a wild cherry or something nasty) had draped a branch into the fence and weeds had grown up into the electric fence and shorted it out!  So I got the chainsaw out and "trimmed" the offending trees (at the ground) and weed-whacked around the electric fence.  I got to where the pumpkins were growing though and discovered that the pumpkins where going to be in the electric fence in a matter of days (maybe hours), so I decided to just turn the fence off and let the pumpkins take over.

I was able to get inside the patch and immediately began clearing around the sweet-potatoes.  I had previously counted 6 survivors so i wanted to be sure I found at least that many when I was cleaning around them!    Between weed-whacking and old-fashioned weed-pulling I got them under control. Here are pictures of all 6!

Then I attacked the big weeds in the pumpkins - a couple poke weeds!  I didn't get down into the lower part of the pumpkin area because it was still mostly just mud.

This guy is at the upper "dry" end of the patch.  He's making a run toward the electric fence!  Escape!  They are blooming too, BTW.

Theres a bunch of weeds left to take down - just can't get in there without making a muddy mess!  See how the leaves are yellow?  That area is just mud.

And finally, the Green Beans!!

I attacked the weedy rows with a vengeance - de-weeding and picking beans as I went.  I took about 3 breaks.  Maybe 4.  Four breaks is still pretty good though, its hard on the back!

Looking up from the lower part of the paw-paw patch.  The sweet potatoes are on the left.  Those three rows of things with the yellowish leaves are the green beans!

Looking down from the upper part of the paw-paw patch.  This is AFTER I de-weeded the green beans.  There are still many weeds left - especially towards the lower part where its really still too wet to weed without damaging the beans.

Notice how sparse the plants are?  Weeds really overtook a lot, That and I think some just rotted in the ground!  None-the-less, I got about 20 lbs of green beans from those 3 rows!!  Here they are:

2 bags with about 8 lbs each and a 3rd bag on top there with about 4 lbs

They are in really good condition too!  Very crisp and sweet!

I see many beans on the shell bean plants, but there is no rush to pick those as they need to mature a bit more then the green beans do.  Hmm, then again, I guess they could rot on the plant...