Version 6.0?

Have I really been doing this for 6 seasons? Ok I impress myself here. Slowly but steadily things have been increasing. I know I didn't do the postmortem on last years garden. I will, now that I have to get started with the new crop. Suffice it to say, the last one was a mixed blessing. Things did very poorly since that drought last July was so bad. But I did get some things that I never got before. Namely: PUMPKINS!!!!!! Yes I have pictures. We even carved a few for Halloween and one of them still exists even now on Feb 25th. I also got copious Bell Peppers, Cherry Tomatoes, Sunflowers and Cucumbers. Essentially everything else died. I planted spinach and lettuce in November and have been eating spinach ever since. (Even just now for lunch). The lettuce didn't make it. It never does, giving up on that.

This year I am not experimenting with new plants, or things we rarely eat. What I am looking for is increasing the crop size, or yield, of any particular species. This year: potatoes. They did amazing that 2nd season, but have been lacking ever since. I will try to do rows this year.

I must till the main bed. Its too full of crabgrass and such, and I need to mix in a ton of dirt and manure. I just have to find out where to rent the tiller. (Yes I know, "But Giant, you said you were practicing no-till agriculture?") but its really overgrown and even covering the ground with grass clippings and mulch could not stop the crabgrass and I simply don't have the energy or time to either pull it all out by hand, or let the plot fallow and cover in black plastic to kill everything. I really should be tilling in some bio-char, but I didn't make any this winter. I still need to make a kiln.

Anyway here is the 2013 Master Plan.

This weekend I will pull the grow house out and get the needed supplies. I also already have a bunch of seeds saved from Bertha (last year's earliest pumpkin) and the biggest Bell pepper I grew. Planting is April 14th, and I need to get started.

So God Made a Farmer/ Post-Morterm

I know its been a long time, and I didn't do a proper close down. But I do have some pics here. Its been a difficult last 9 months for the giant, and I will try to post more.

One of the 7 pumpkins we got. Her name was Bertha. Saved her seeds for 2013 season.

Carrots from last season, pulled in the spring. Didn't taste great, must have been the drought

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Some corn (before it all wilted in the July drought). With a Ladybug we bought to fend off the aphids. Photo: The Littlest. 

Tomatoes before the drought/wilt/blight took them all. Photo: The Littlest.

Ladybug on a sunflower. Photo: The Littlest

 As you can see that drought in July really beat the crap out of all my crops. The only ones that made it were the stuff that was already fruiting by May (Pumpkins and such). Even the potato crop was anemic. I guess I have to give it a LOT more water. But there was a severe drought everywhere that season.

So it closed out a bad season, but I did get Pumpkins and peppers a plenty so that's good.

Ending with something inspirational:

I had to share this from the superbowl ad. I know, it was intended to pull at heartstrings and get all nostalgic, but I think it sums up all that I want to be, and a lot of what I simply can't. Paul Harvey's "So God Made a Farmer"

And on the eighth day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, “I need a caretaker.” So God made a farmer.

God said, “I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the field, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.” So God made a farmer.

I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn colt and watch it die, then dry his eyes and say,’Maybe next year,’ I need somebody who can shape an ax handle from an ash tree, shoe a horse with hunk of car tire, who can make a harness out hay wire, feed sacks and shoe scraps. Who, during planting time and harvest season will finish his 40-hour week by Tuesday noon and then, paining from tractor back, put in another 72 hours.” So God made the farmer.

God said, “I need somebody strong enough to clear trees and heave bales, yet gentle enough to yean lambs and wean pigs and tend the pink-comb pullets, who will stop his mower for an hour to splint the leg of a meadowlark.”

It had to be somebody who’d plow deep and straight and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, weed, feed, breed, and brake, and disk, and plow, and plant, and tie the fleece and strain the milk. Somebody who’d bale a family together with the soft, strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh and then reply with smiling eyes when his son says that he wants to spend his life doing what dad does. “So God made a farmer.”