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!   

Whew - catching up - AGAIN!

Been so busy with work and the farm that I haven't had the time to post here properly.

The weekend of the 24th of May was memorial day weekend.  Katherine actually took time and came up with me!  I don't remember everything I did, mowing - I am sure! LOL  I do remember that I tilled and planted the garden over at mom's place that weekend.  I took my tractor and tiller over on my trailer - first time I moved the tractor that way.  Here is a pic:

The tilling was a little touch and go since I had an accident with the radiator fan blade on the tractor the weekend before.  A stick (large stick) had run up into the blade when I was moving some brush and it hit the blade while it was running.  Broke a lot of the plastic blade as shown here:

Because of the missing blade pieces the fan was no longer able to properly cool the radiator and it would get hot pretty fast when running the PTO (the tiller).  Anyway, I got the garden tilled and using the earthway seeder device I was able to plant corn and some carrots.  I also put a few melons in.  There is still room for a couple rows of beans - I will have to bring some beans up next time to plant in there.  

When we left for home we stopped by again and picked some rhubarb which we took home to freeze.  You only have to clean and peel rhubarb (and chop to about 1 inch long pieces) to freeze it.  I also vacuum packed them to help keep away freezer burn.  Here they are - 8 1 lb packages (about 4 quarts):

When we got back to the city I found that some of the turnips were bolting so I thinned them out and cleaned, blanched and froze what I had - was only about 2 cups!  I might end up doing that with the mustard too, maybe even the kale, since they are all ready.  In fact, the arugula was bolting too, but there isn't anything I could do with it - so I cut the bolting stems and we will see if they produce any usable greens.

A weekend of nothing but mowing!

I was able to get up to the farm last Friday and try to catch up on the mowing before the lawn was totally untamable!  There had been another heavy rain like a day before I got there (maybe that morning even).  The grass, however, was dry enough to mow at least some of the areas.

The gardens were showing some damage from the heavy rains - washouts and standing water on both of the freshly planted gardens.  Some of the corn and beans were coming up in the big patch - and I think I saw a cucumber coming through the soil!  Its too early to tell how bad the rain affected things until more plants are up.  I didn't take any pictures of the gardens this past weekend - I don't know wy I overlooked it.

Fruit sighted!

I did, however, get some pictures of the fruit on the fruit trees! I read in the online forums that you should take these fruits off the first 2-3 years to make sure the trees puts all of its energies into growing strong limbs - ARG!  Maybe I will leave one or two on.

A little peach!

Asian Pears!

Pears again

more pears - they are hardy and robust trees!

Peach?

See the little apples?

more apples

There are little cherries and blueberries on those trees and bushes as well.  The cherries are actually getting pretty big - a bit surprising.  Also surprised to see the blueberries - quite a few for plants that were just transplanted a month ago!

Waterfall

As I said, there was plenty of water running off the mountain yet when I got there Friday.  I did find a neat little waterfall on the upper end of "Lake Walipini" (the hole I am digging for the underground greenhouse).  Here are some vids:

Grease fitting and loader pin - found!

Oh, and good news!  I found the grease fitting/front loader bucket pin that I lost over 3 weeks ago!  I was out mowing near the sheep pasture and it was uncovered by a previous pass by the mower - laying there in the weeds!  I was able to re-install it after I went to the local hardware store to get a new snap-ring for it.  Also, while re-installing it I found out why it came off - the ring slot in the pin is too close to the sleeve the pin sits in and it doesn't let the snap-ring seat correctly in its notch.  Once I get my lathe up and running I may be able to make the notch wider and fix that problem!

Grease fitting pin for tractor front loader - found!

Those are the highlights for the weekend.  Mostly.  I did fix the Huskee mower (installed the blade deck belt), repaired and re-broke the Husqvarna (I broke a bushing mount of one of the blades  - I need to get another one - Kubota or TSC might carry these?).  Oh, and while moving some old brush with the tractor I inadvertently backed up and jammed a limb into the cooling fan (and radiator?)  After that I noticed the smell of antifreeze and small amount of steam from the front of the tractor.  Sigh.

I removed some more of the barbed wire fence above the orchard and below the garden and mowed the brush down in those areas.   Accidentally mowed over a snake.  I have no idea what kind.  Mower chopped him up pretty quick.  Not pretty.  I did lots of trimming around using the push mower.  I did as much of the elderberries as I could but it was so wet there; the water was deeper than the mower blades!  

Finally got my last 2 gardens planted!

Went up to farm on Friday, with Katherine to plant the gardens.  The car was packed with plants!  Poor Smokey had to ride on mommies lap!  Anyway, we got there we ate, and then I got to tilling right away.  The ground was still a bit wetter than I liked in some places, but I wasn't going to risk planting any later!  I did the big patch first and tilled in all the mulched horse manure and straw/hay & dirt that I took out of the red barn in the previous weeks.  I didn't use any of the baled hay/straw though - just the stuff that was mixed with manure and dirt.  Then I tilled the paw-paw patch.  I used some of the mulched wood chips from the pile up by the house (the oldest pile - i wanted them as mulched as possible) for mulch - just about 5 loader buckets full.  I also had 2 hay bales there that I dropped off a couple weekends ago that I decided to till in.  BIG MISTAKE!!  DO NOT TRY TO TILL HAY/STRAW BALES into your soil!  I had to go over it many times, compressing the soil more each time - grrrr.  Finally got the soil to an acceptable state (barely) for planting.

The next day, Saturday, I started planting the big patch.  First I put down the black plastic around the borders.  This was made more difficult because I did not label or put aside the plastic that I needed so I had to filter through all of my plastic rolls to get it right!  Also, of course, I had to reset the end fence.  The first thing I planted was greenbeans.  I put down a row of bluelake 274 and then a row of tendergreen (? name ?).  Then i put in 6 rows of white and yellow sweet corn.  I planted both the corn and beans using the earthway seed planter.  Everything seemed to work OK, but I felt that the corn was not put down at the rate I thought it should have been.  I didn't even use 1/2 lb of seed for those 6 rows!  We will see in a week or so when this comes up.  I might have to overseed more.  Also, because of this I didn't plant any of the pure yellow corn, which Katherine wanted.  After the corn was in I started transplanting the tomatoes - 144 of them!  It was backbreaking to hoe out the rows - but I thought it was the best way after doing the potatoes that way.   So, 4 rows (?) of tomatoes and then my onions (from seed) and then the eggplant were transplanted.  Then I popped in some cucumbers, spaghetti squash, summer squash, and butternut squash in the remaining space.  Not near as many as I did last year!  Also, this year NO pumpkins or sunflowers are going in the patches!  I plan on tilling some rows outside of the big patch, but inside the electric fence for the pumpkins and sunflowers.  That will be next week - weather and time depending.  I really don't need pumpkins or sunflowers - but I want to see how they grow in those conditions.  Local farmers warn that deer LOVE sunflowers - so that is why they will be inside the electric fence.  In any case, after I finished planting the big patch I did some mowing in the far field - the grass grows so fast there!

OK, so next was the paw-paw patch.  I did that the next day to give it more time to dry out.   First I put in Kale in two rows along the paw-paw side of the patch because that seemed to be the best soil. I hand planted the kale seed because I didn't have much seed and I wanted it in as perfect as I could!  Then I transplanted the cabbages, broccoli and cauliflower together (because they were all mixed together and I lost track of which were which).  Then I put in the artichokes partially into the hay mixed soil - we will see!  Some of that soil feels like bricks!  A couple more seasons and much more organics will bring the soil into a good state - its still pretty 'rough' for a garden.  After the artichokes I used the seeder again to plant beets and carrots.  The beets were partially going into the hay mixed soil and the seeder couldn't handle that, therefore, I simply skipped over that soil, planting beets in rows on either side of the hay area.   The carrots went in next.  I forgot were I was and started planting some of the carrots overtop of the Kale!  ARGGG!  I hope I didn't screw things up too bad.  I broadcast dill seed over the hay mixed area since there was really no other way to seed in there.

OK, here are the pictures of the big patch:

Here are some of the paw-paw patch:

See the hay-mix there in the center? What a mess.  Never again.

The hay mix is very visible here.  See the cabbages on
the left?

Rows from the left: 2 Kale, 4 (?) carrot, 4 (broken) beets - dill planted in the straw

Cabbages, broccoli, and cauliflower

Here are some pics of the front patch - the onions are doing well - and the potatoes are starting up!

Three rows of potatoes on the left!

closeup of potato

More potatoes sneaking out!

I have not idea what this is - lol, will have to look at the front patch blog post.

Ahh - the onion sets are doing great!

Again, no idea - check front patch blog-entry!

Planting peppers - finally!

Warm Enough

I got home form work tonight and decided it was finally warm enough outside to plant my peppers!  I have been wanting to get them out for sometime now - several of them have died in the pots (turns out they were too wet and rotted off!)   I prepped the last raised bed and planted most of the pepper plants that I had (there are a couple left - may be needed as replacements.)  I put a total of 18 pepper plants out.  While I was at it I also put out 4 of the Jerusalem Artichokes that I am trying this year.  I am going to put some out up at the farm too.  Just an experiment.

Here are some pics:

The final raised bed!  The Peppers are in!

See the artichokes?   Meh - bad picture.  See the video!

And here is the video which I will use to remember which plants are which! I wish I had done this last year - I lost track of a lot of plants last year!  Remember: Good record keeping makes planning easier!

A Short Weekend

Too wet to plant! 

I went up to the farm last Friday (I get every other Friday off because I work 9 hour days the rest of the time - its called compressed work schedule - CWS). I got there about 2pm and immediately noticed how wet the gardens were. Damn! I had taken my starter plants up - the tomatoes and cabbages, etc. No way i was going to be tilling in the two patches I have left to plant - portions of the plots were literally under water!

Barn Cleanup

Anyway, I decided to make the best of my time so I got the tractor out and went to clear out more stuff from the old red barn. This barn was meant for livestock and eventually I will use it again for my goats (I hope), but for now I want to clean it up so that it doesn't provide a home for SNAKES! Last year I killed a HUGE rattle snake sitting right at the door of the red barn - he almost got me while I was mowing in front with the riding mower! He was coiled up, rattling and ready to strike - I couldn't hear him over the mower engine so I got way too close for comfort! Normally, I would leave such a snake alone - they serve their purpose eating up all the varmints - but this was just too close to my personal space to let go. Bottom line is that I needed to clean up this barn so that snakes just aren't attracted to hang out there for dinner. I used the pallet forks on the front of my tractor to tear out an old partially rotted wood floor (and some rotted hay that was on the floor). I piled up the wood near the front of the building to sort through later - some of it was salvageable. I used some old wood to form a platform on the pallet forks to hold the loose hay so that i could haul it off to the garden patches.  I didn't put the hay on the gardens but placed it next to them.  I want to use the hay as a mulch on the patches this year instead of relying only on plastic row covers like I did last year.  Once I had a big nasty section of the floor done I used the tractor tiller and the front loader to regrade the floor - it was in rough shape and very uneven.  It will need more work, but it is much better then it was before.

Some "on the fly" landscaping

While going back and forth over the farm delivering my loads of hay I noticed that there was an unevenness in the "yard" where I removed some fence posts last weekend.  So I used the tiller to loosen the soil and the frontloader to grade the ground.  The front loader has a mode called "float" that adjusts the loader blade so that it kind of remains level with the plain of the tractor wheels (thats what I think it does anyway!)  I "float" the blade over the loosened dirt and it smooths it up quite nicely!  I love this technique of landscaping.  I will be making much more use of it in the future - especially where I removed those tree roots last year!

Useful find

I discovered that some of the 4x4 posts that were used as an underlayment for part of the wood floor were still in good shape and long enough to use for my grape arbor posts!  I managed to get 4 of them that were serviceable as posts.

Fire FIRE!

I finally got back to the scrap wood and sorted through it - there was A LOT of junk wood that was useless to me - so I thought I would burn it!  The ashes would be great on the garden - lots of potash in ashes (go figure!)  So I loaded up the front forks with a big load of old pallets and some scrap wood and drove it down into the big garden patch.  The tractor wheels sunk into the wet ground almost 8 inches!  I tried to follow the same path out as I took into the garden so as not too compact too much of the soil.  I poured some diesel fuel on the wood and set it ablaze!  Here are some pictures:

The first load.  See the tracks in the mud from the tractor wheels?

I added 3 more loads of wood to the fire, but I did it by carrying the pieces from the tractor loader by foot rather than driving the tractor back over the garden!

The fire burned for HOURS!  I was up until midnight with it to make sure that it wasn't going to get out of control.  It was still burning at midnight - but the flames weren't leaping up high like in these pictures.

Here are some videos of the fire!

Weekend cut short

I got up Saturday morning and immediately checked the fire.  It was still a bit warm, but only a few embers were left.  Almost nothing was left!  Not even ashes.  The winds over night must have been enough to blow away the ashes.  I got my tractor and took the 4x4's I had salvaged and put them in the ground.  Then I got a call from Katherine (my wife).  She was having some chest pains.  I wasn't alarmed as she has had issues with a tachycardia for a number of years.  However, this was worse and recurring too frequently.   I encouraged her to wait a bit and see if it would subside like it usually does before calling 911 (in retrospect a bad idea!  If you get chest pains and you know you have a heart condition, call 911!)  After the call I get to working on stripping the bark off of the last two posts that I I need for my arbor.  Its hard work - I used a broadaxe and a drawknife to strip the bark and shape the posts.  Just as I was getting close to finishing the last post - I get another call.  This time Katherine just tells me to come back home as quick as possible and she will call 911 right away!  I packed up my plants, Smokey (our dog) and hit the road! She called me again (from the ER) while i was driving back to let me know she was ok and that she was stable and not in danger so that I wouldn't be worried while driving.  So 2 1/2 hours later I get home and call her in the hospital.  She was being admitted.  Anyway, long story short - Katherine is ok - she had an aortic spasm due to an inflamed pericardium (the sack around the heart) that was probably caused by a viral infection.   Not the tachycardia related at all!  Whew!