Freezing & 80 degrees

April 17, 2014

I'm really hoping that these are Apple trees. I tossed ALL the rotten apples into this old apple tree stump and crushed them, shoveled deer poop on them, threw grass clippings on them etc etc... last year there was nothing green growing inside this stump...

The weather is crazy around here. We are having wild fluctuations high of 80/low 26... a couple days of near or below freezing followed by a couple days of sunscreen and tank tops... Our little baby plants still live at home. They aren't even hardy enough for the greenhouse. I think this will all smooth out in about another week. We'll be starting new seeds for predominantly trees and bushes in the green house this week. It gets really hot in there now and should be good for sprouting plants.

There's precious little time for forming thoughts with text these days. I'm still spending 5 hours or more each day fixing the bullshit that my internet client has gotten himself into and we are doing our best to use the extended daylight and occasional warmth to move all of our various little projects forward. So this post is really just a slide show of things that are happenin'. If you are seeing this in email you are probably not seeing the pictures. Click the Title of the post from the email and it should take you to the slideshow.

1 less mole

Asparagus trench being prepared for decades worth of Asparagus. The soil is amended with phosphorus for root growth, compost, bone meal and intensely weeded to give our food a good start in life

about 30 yards upstream from the previous picture is another speed bump. I'm using a modified "1 rock dam" and using cinder blocks as its base.

The 1st dam I made several months ago is holding nicely. this is "up on the hill" as part of "location 1". It catches a lot of sediment which gets shoveled out to reinforce/up-size the dam.

I've begun throwing the rock down there but no attempt to level it up has been made yet.

Pepper the Swamp Curr really likes all the little puddles we've made in the creek. We use these small water caches to fill our watering can.

5 raspberry plants. the mound just above them now hold 3 blueberry plants.

Tilling the New Annuals bed.

we made 2 of last years plant spaces more official. now to decide what to put there.

We think we discovered the reason that last years harvest was 12 potatoes. This is Potato trash version 2.0 with a lot more holes for air to get in. the 12 we got were all on the very top or on the very bottom.. where there was air. We started 1 can with Kenebecks and 1 can with Dark Red Norlands.

Finished the 3rd annuals bed. the walk path down the middle is seeded with clover to help supply nitrogen to the soil.

Completed Asparagus planting. It's kind of a smiley face.

Peas

This the GARLIC! it lived through winter and is now almost twice the size of this picture from last week.

Our amphitheater seating at the fire pit collapsed during the freeze/thaw cycles and has been reformed and reseeded.

Last year we spent a lot of time digging dirt out of the mountain and sifting through it to get the rocks out... we don't have time for that this year. I bought 3 scoops of top soil 1 scoops of compost and 2 scoops of creek pebble. the rock is 1st for leveling out our pallet gazebo that still lives in my head.

the holding area of the previous dam.

The sediment each of these will collect will become building material to enlarge the dams over time.

! of 4 speed bumps in the creek. There is method and research involved in the creation of these little dams even though they just look like a pile of stuff in the creek.