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!   

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.