April to Post Morterm?

Sorry folks, I didn't mean to lapse until now to get anything online. Doing a lot of work so when I get off the computer at the end of the day, I don't want to keep blogging. Also, working on another novel so I...well its just too much typing.

So here is the deal with the 2013 season: It sucked.

The season was really cool, we hardly had any 'hot' days down here. Spring was really wet and cold, and when summer got here it was perfect, but has no water. Fertilized numerous times, watered, etc. but things just didn't yield like I wanted them too.

I planted a bunch of sweet corn in the Main Bed that got pulverized in July in a hail storm (really felt like Laura Ingalls dad in one episode of "Little House on the Prairie.") After they all got smashed I replanted. They finally came up and I got some sweet corn out, but they were really stunted and only had 3 ears or so that we big enough to eat, although they tasted good.


That was pretty much it.

Killing Frost

The week before Halloween this year. They seem to be getting earlier and earlier. I planted some spinach last week in the hopes of having some green  veg over the winter. I even improvised a cold bed for them. I have a bunch of pics from this very unproductive season. I think it's time to let the main bed go fallow next season. Or at the very least just plant beans. Going to try my biochar as well. Hmmm, guess I need to buy the pieces for the kiln. Ok let's see if I can put up some pics.

 Baby green peppers. Everything was dwarfed this year.

Tiny, but tasty corn. After replanting from a hail storm in July.

Dragon chillies. HOT!!!!! I have no problem growing anything spicy.

Beans drying nicely on my twine trellis.

The only pumpkin that made it. All of my other 8 vines died. This one is in my window now, still green.

Volunteer cherry tomatoes. They were still growing until this morning.

The ones I did plant. The Wife and the Littlest Giant loved them.

Regular yet dwarf tomatoes. Apparently they tasted good too.

I had dozens of sunflowers. This one is drying on the porch so I don't have to buy new seeds.

So that's pretty much it for this season. Pretty disappointing as I got none of the potatoes I planted. Only 1 pumpkin. Oh but I did get a bunch of watermelon but they were really tasteless. Might just buy a sweet one and replant the seeds. 

Hopefully I can get some pics up of the cold bed I am making. But who knows. ;)

The smell of a good crop

What does 20 bags of manure smell like? Like 20 bags of horse poo. ;) But it also smells like completely full beds that I will probably never have to fill again. I didn't take pics of it yet, I probably will today and then put them online. Its supposed to be in the 70's this week, so that's good to warm the ground up (since the manure is black) and warmer ground is better in the spring.

The plants in the grow house are coming along slowly since it has been so cold until recently. The sunflowers have popped up, and so have the pumpkins, also the cat grass went nuts, and of course the cats ignore it. Still quiet on the tomatoes and peppers, but they don't germinate until the soil hits 70 or so.

I have a bag of seed potatoes, but they don't have any eyes yet, as soon as those come up, they go in the ground. They aren't going in the bags but rather will be planting in rows to see if I can get them in larger quantities. Also, they are red potatoes which seem to do better in my soil than russet potatoes. Keeping my fingers crossed on them.

I need to order my bird poo and then that's pretty much it. I may get another compost tumbler and leave it next to the main bed, simply because its easier there for garden waste. I have to get creative with the water barrels since the termites have come back and the bug guys tell me to get all sources of water as far away from the house as possible. Maybe some underground hoses I'm not sure yet.  Sunflowers and pumpkins should go in the ground on the 20th.

Pics soon!

I made my bed, wish I could sleep in it

The beds are prepped, except for some more dirt and manure that I have to spread out over the main bed, but that's the easy part. I spent 4 hours on saturday tilling the bed by hand. Yes, I know I said I would use no-till, but the crabgrass was taking over the entire patch. And these roots were big, one was at least 2 meters long. I'm not joking. I am so sore it takes me 1/2 an hour just to get out of bed, and I find myself fighting to stay awake the next day. I didn't take pictures, I'll do it once everything gets planted in a few weeks.

The patio grow house is set up and ready with the new seedlings already planted. Its so cold this spring as compared to last that I am really worried that they won't make it, or at the very least wont germinate for a while. By this time last year it had already hit 80, today it was snowing. The 'onion snow' apparently, as it happens after the onions have been planted. I still do not have my seed potatoes, I will go to whole foods tonight and get some.

More to come.

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.”