Old and New

The little ones hanging around the run.

I've been busy in the garden and with my chicken girls.  The little chicks have been enjoying pleasant days outside in their run, and evenings back inside in their brooder for warmth.  The big chicks have been busy, they left off laying for the winter and it took a while for them to resume, but they have bounced back with plenty of spring!

Looks like no one collected yesterday!!

There are beginnings in spring and there are endings.  Our crab apple trees is aged, which makes it so spectacular, but last night we had heavy rain and winds and it lost a limb.  One more chore to add to the list.

Flower bed by the driveway, needs some serious attention.

The apple trees we planted shortly after we moved in are just now maturing to the point of producing apples, if the deer will let it happen.  

Dwarf Liberty Apple Tree

Brassicas with floating row covers to keep out harlequin beetles and cabbage loopers.

Mixed very baby greens, salad in two weeks!!

Quince

Love this color!

Athena supervising my photography.

Ursula, curious, but camera shy.

I was recently asked why I don't write about my cats much and I present to you Exhibit A

Most of their action occurs between 10 PM and 1:30 AM, usually involving hockey with a plastic Easter egg that clatters on our wood floors , or else kitty opera.  At that time of day, I am usually not in the mood to take cute videos.  Their days, at 12 years old next month, involve aerobic napping, hard core snoozing, and, once in a while, illicit tuna mooching.

Pros and Cons of a Polar Vortex and my "To Do" list

The Polar Vortex is heading this way again facilitating a chore that I have been postponing for chilly weather, insulating the crawlspace under the house.  It could be done in warmer weather, but I choose not to for serious reasons. 

First, I put on one of those Tyvek suits to keep those itchy bits of fiber glass out of my clothes and it is rather warm in there. 

Second, the chilly temperatures change the critters out and about, namely snakes.  I've seen a ginormous king snake, a couple of rat snakes and the creme de la creme of giving me the willies, the copperhead.  The king snake, I know, is harmless, but he/she is so big that it really doesn't matter that I know it is harmless.  The rat snakes and I seem to have worked out a bit of an agreement that they stay out of my way and I'll stay out of theirs, but they keep shedding their skins just to the west of the foundation of the house, so I know that they are still there.  Then there was that little bitty copperhead, the problem with little bitty snakes is that odds are their siblings are also nearby.  The venomous bit isn't exactly a selling point either.  The polar winds will blow and those legless reptiles will wiggle their way into their little holes in the ground and stay there until spring.  Works for me.

Before the polar vortex gets here, I had a few things to get done. This morning, I patched the fault line that had formed in our driveway.  It had filled with weeds and bits of soil and to my surprise, many, many earthworms.  I cleaned it out and patched it.  I loved the instructions on the package that told me that if I didn't feel like renting a tamper, I could always drive the car back and forth over it.  So, with my little Scion, I tamped it.  Doing the pot hole that had formed on the shared part of the driveway was more fun to tamp, it is on a pretty steep incline and I have a five speed car.  Going back and forth over it, having to gun it a bit to pull back up the hill may have entertained the neighbors a little.

Later today my daughter and I will dig up the dahlia corms.  A month ago I should have dug up the irises that need to be divided, but I didn't, maybe that will happen also.  The daffodils need relocating and...it will be dark before it all happens.  Tomorrow is still supposed to be nice, the list will carry over.

The Bounty!!

It's cool inside, but it sure isn't outside. It was ninety degrees in the shade with 63% humidity, I can't imagine how women survived a hundred or more years ago all bound up tight in multiple layers of clothing.

Baby beach plum (and weeds) in protective custody.

I've been busy trying to reduce the impact the deer have on our trees.  Almost every baby tree has 4' high barrier to keep the deer from browsing.  Some day someone will look at our oddly shaped fruit trees and wonder why we ever pruned them that way and the answer would be, "We didn't, the deer did."

As I was out there cutting fence sections early this morning, the deer were hanging along the edges of the property.  I walked toward them and they did not behave as wild deer should.  They just stood there looking at me.  Some serious deer feeding is going on around here, they are not afraid.  There are two does that we see regularly, the larger buff colored doe and the reddish doe.  We see other deer sometimes, but these two are the regulars. 

One nice flower bud on top, tonight they feast!

They find my Julia Child roses very tasty, which is both amusing and annoying.  Each time the rose gets close to blooming, the buds get nibbled off in the night.  I ran out of fencing. I need to get more.

The critter count for this week is pretty high: bunnies, bunnies and more bunnies, one woodchuck (ground hog), two deer (seen repeatedly), crows (trying to steal eggs, but the girls are laying where they are supposed to and the crows are missing out), blue birds, bluejays, cowbirds, a pileated woodpecker, a snake (in the potato patch), cabbage loopers, harlequin beetles, tomato horn worms, skinks, stink bugs, dog ticks, slugs, deer flies and more.

I haven't seen the box turtle yet, he must be hiding from me.

We have had sugar snap peas for dinner almost every night this week, after having some sort of greens every night for the previous two weeks.  I spent a couple of mornings blanching and freezing greens, now we have ten meals worth of greens ready to go. Now a few days have elapsed, I should get out there to pick some more (when it cools a bit). I'll probably blanch and freeze some of the peas tonight, so we can have more variety later. 

Alpine strawberries

Blueberries, not ready!

The mulberries (no work, and they are one of my favorites!) and strawberries are ripe, the blackberries will be ready shortly.  The raspberries will be ready on about the same time as last year, late next week!

Sorry girls, no cabbage loopers this time.

The girls are laying 3-4 eggs a day.  I have been in a bit of a baking frenzy, so we have been keeping up with them.

The bounty!!

Turtles, Crows and Deer, but not an Aesop's Fable

I've been rather busy, but it's the kind of busy that I have trouble defining what is actually taking all of my time.  Much of it is the garden, I head out there and whoop, two hours--gone!  Not so today.  It is starting to warm up significantly (just checked 86 degrees F, in the shade) and I'm not quite used to it yet.

I'm in the process of mulching the garden with straw, so that the weeding doesn't run my life any longer.  It also cuts down on the watering, which can also be a bit of a time suck.

Baby tomato and watermelon plants, with greens and sunflowers in background.

Three bales down, probably 2-3 to go.  Time to drive the XB over to the nursery to get three more bales.

I bought some blue potatoes at an international grocery a few weeks ago, they were amazing.  Some started to sprout pretty quickly, so I guessed that they hadn't been treated with any anti-sprouting agents that are often on potatoes in the supermarket.  I planted an 18 foot row in the back garden alongside the banana fingerlings and the Yukon golds.  The little blue guys have come up in the past 24 hours!!! 

Banana fingerling (left) and Yukon Gold potatoes

The greens are doing an amazing job in the front garden, we have been having kale and Swiss chard almost every evening, in many different forms.

Lacinato Kale

Swiss Chard

Tonight we start on the collards!  I'll do them up with a cider gastrique sauce that my husband found on the internet a few years back for one of the special meals he prepares for me.  It is brown sugar, half as much water made into a simple syrup (boil it for a couple of minutes) and then add the same amount of cider vinegar as the water, a pinch of hot pepper salt and some sort of allium (garlic, onions, chives, shallots, whatever).  The original recipe called for shallots, but I rarely have any and the markets here often don't carry that sort of stuff, so whatever I have goes in.   The original recipe also called for a bazillion steps, which I refuse to do, and have simplified it to the point where it takes about three minutes from when I pull the ingredients out of the pantry. Beyond this collard dish, I haven't a clue what else I am serving for dinner, last night we had whole wheat rotini pasta tossed with garlic, tuna, olive oil, red pepper, and red Russian kale, with beets on the side.

Red Russian Kale

The strawberries have been doing pretty well, but I've been finding a few with one bite out of them, which means my little friend the box turtle has walked his way back to my garden. I'm going to have to find him and walk him farther away into the woods this time, maybe to the other side of the stream.  Luckily, most of the strawberries are planted in another spot in the west side of the yard.

Tiny Alpine strawberries in the side yard.

The deer have pruned two of the trees that  did not have fences around them, time to get more fencing.  It (probably the doe we have seen a couple of times) ate four of the six medlars on the medlar tree, at least it had the courtesy to leave me a couple to try.

The wild raspberries are flowering, the mulberries should be ripe in about a week, one variety of blackberry (Apache) has developed a fair amount of berries that should be ripe in about a week and the other variety is just flowering. There are just a few blueberries this year, next year they should be mature enough to produce some more fruit.

My mother would be proud, I have been practicing my pie crust and have had two decent ones in a row.  I will have plenty of things to bake in pastry soon!

In another battle with wildlife, the crows have been stealing the chicken's eggs and eating them.  Luckily, the girls have finally started laying under a dome that has been out there for a while and the crows can't see into it.  We placed a plastic egg underneath to help encourage them to lay there.  It usually works.  We were able to retrieve three eggs yesterday, for the first time a in a couple of weeks.

So much to do still!

Garden Tour

A couple of folks have commented that I have not been blogging quite as often this spring, well, they're right.  I have been weeding this spring.  Three plus acres of lawn, fruit trees, vegetable gardens and flower gardens can be a bit of a time suck., then there are the chickens, cats, dog, parrot, family...oh yeah, my commitment to getting fit and...

Enough excuses, today I will give a tour of what I am up to.  I am sending my assistant for a nap, so that I can walk around to take pictures.

Aggie, my editorial assistant, critic, and lap warmer.

Out the front door and a bit to the left are the irises, divisions from the irises in my mom's yard in MA.  They really like the horse poop, I'm going to have to divide them this fall.

A little farther back in the bed are the peonies that are just now opening, they came with the house, a nice little surprise!

Heading south into the front yard veggie garden are the sunflowers that survived the chickens scratching.  They have really come along in the past two weeks.

The okra has just come up, near them and then there are the tomatoes...

They aren't very impressive, yet.  A little warm weather and there will be a jungle.  I'm using my mom's idea for using electrical conduit for tomato trellising, she has had hers for nearly thirty years, so I'd say the idea has been tested.

The stuff under the floating row cover is thriving.

Russian red kale, broccoli, head cabbage, flowering mustard spinach and bitty eggplants.

Swiss chard and Lacinato kale

Head cabbage that gets progressively smaller down the line.

The Asian cabbages loved the heavy rains that we have had, they doubled in size overnight and then went to seed immediately.  So, I've been pulling the plants and cooking them.  Blanching is necessary, they are bitter and do not pass the "kid" test.  I've start putting eggplant, basil and beans in their places.

Watermelon

The Sugar baby watermelon have just surfaced, August will come and they will be yummy. I planted just a couple last year and kicked myself for not planting more--they were fabulous.

Heading toward the back yard, I pass one of the Chicago Figs.  They do not seem pleased with the severity of the winter, the tops seem to have died back and it is coming back from the roots.

 

Chicago Fig

 

Near the back door I have the babies that  I just took out of the cold frame.  The tomatoes are waiting for me to drive a half hour to a store for the one piece of conduit connector that I haven't been able to get yet.

According to the book I just finished reading Eating on the Wild Side by Jo Robinson
the tomatoes I have there, currant tomatoes, are the richest source for antioxidants of all of the tomatoes analyzed by research, so far.    It's an interesting book, it goes through most of the varieties of apples on supermarket shelves and evaluates them nutritionally.  If you are a golden delicious apple eater, she has bad news for you.

Crossing the back yard, I pass the medlar tree that was planted last summer. It has several blossoms, I can't wait to try the fruit, so I hope a couple make it through.  It is supposed to taste like spiced applesauce.

The back veggie garden is doing well, despite the low light issues.

radishes

beets

leeks

potato

unripe strawberries

There are a few issues back there though.

 

 

 

The vole invasion

The voles are helping themselves to the parsley again this year, I bought a new plant at the farmer's market last night.  I'm going to sink a pot into the ground and hope the voles can't figure it out.

The fruit trees and plants are doing well.  When the new plants came in earlier in the spring, I looked at the bundle of tree seedlings and thought: We spent all our X-mas gift card on a small bundle of sticks, but those sticks are now putting out leaves and growing.  A few were slow starting and we feared the worst, but they were just waiting for a little warmth, like the figs.

Sea Berry

AU Roadside Cherry Plum

The cherry plum arrived this week and at first I was not pleased, it was substituted for a Meteor pie cherry, since the nursery had a complete failure of that variety.  Once we did some research, we found that much of its parentage is pie cherry and that it is resistant to all sorts of nasty diseases that are common in humid places, like this one.  In the end, it is probably better.

The fruit trees that were on the property when we bought it are coming along, we'll see what kind of harvest we have this year.

Pear, unknown variety

Plum, unknown variety, plagued by nasty diseases

Finally, a little success story, this rhododendron was completely covered with honeysuckle when we moved in, we didn't know it was hiding under the mass.  After three springs worth of yanking, this is how it is thanking us.

Time to get going, I have a friend coming over to make kimchi and brined grape leaves with me and I have just discovered that the garlic all has a funky blue mold growing on it. 

Writing is good, it raises little dust and doesn't involve cleaning solutions or rubber gloves.

A rainy day is  perfect for writing, it makes me put off the million things to do outside and face the million things inside that I need to do and wish to avoid. Writing is good, it raises little dust and doesn't involve cleaning solutions or rubber gloves.

Most of my final order of plants came in on Friday.  The dwarf pie cherries and horseradish will be arriving in next week, but the rest came.  The postal delivery person decided that this particular package needed to be stuffed between the black metal mailboxes, out of sight from the house on a warm sunny day.  Usually, she will open the car window and drop the boxes on the walk (if you are sending me something delicate, make sure to use Fedex or UPS, because the last few feet of their journey to my house can be pretty rough on a package).  A neighbor spotted the package jammed between the searing hot mailboxes and was going to leave it until he saw that it was labelled "PLANTS". He kindly brought it to our door.  We'll see how everything fared in the heat in the next few weeks.

I planted the sand cherries right away on Friday, their bed was set up and ready.  Then we planted 75 everbearing strawberries on Saturday, it was a little late for them to go in, but I think they will be okay.
The potatoes and the roses will wait until after the rain.

The pepper plants are one by one popping from their seeds many, many weeks after I planted them.  I have enough hot pepper plants for the year and may have to buy only one or two sweet pepper plants.  One eggplant seed made it.  Now I just have to baby the seedlings.  I bought some Zambia hot peppers too, just to experiment, they came up the best of all.

Babies!

Pesto-to-be

I am especially glad that a couple of the Aji Limon and Aji Cito seeds have sprouted.  I love the internet, I can find things that I would have never been able to find twenty years ago. I had been given some peppers that I adored from the ethnobotany garden plot at the University of Florida, they had a lemony flavor layer and these two Aji's are my best guesses as to what those peppers were.  I found them on a website called Hell Hot Peppers .
I put the tray of the remaining un-sprouted seeds in the cold frame outside, maybe a couple more will germinate. 

The really good news is a friend looked at the crab apple tree and said that it looked like sap suckers not woodpeckers doing the damage and again, I verified that on-line and it looks like we are going to be able to keep the beautiful tree!!  No bonfire necessary! Yeah!  We bought a very small crab apple tree, it is sitting in a pot waiting for its location, hmmmmmmmmmm.  This crab apple is supposed to be good for cider making, oh the projects that await us in the next few years!


The book Nature Wars: The Incredible Story of How Wildlife Comebacks Turned Backyards into Battlegrounds was recommended to me after a few of my posts about critters in the yard, luckily the library had it.  I just finished reading it.  The first part of the book was a synthesis of a few books that I read a few years back when I worked at the EcoTarium in Worcester, MA (Many of them are good reads, I'll put a list at the bottom of this post.), discussing suburban expansion, habitat change, habitat fragmentation and habitat succession--basically what happens to all of the critters that were here in pre-Columbian times when the European settlers chopped every thing down and hunted any food or fur bearing critter out of existence.   Then continues about how the abandonment of the farms of the East due to the opening up of better farmland farther west and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution allowed the trees to grow back creating a giant human populated forest.

My favorite quote from that part of the book is from John C. Gordon the former dean of the Yale School of Forestry, " If you looked down on Connecticut from on high in the summer, what you'd see was mostly unbroken forest.  If you did the same thing in late fall after the leaves have fallen from those trees, what you'd see was stockbrokers." Yup.

The next step is the reintroduction and legislation that protects all of these critters that are now over-populating many areas.  There are no predators to control these animals so there are no checks on the population. Leading to widespread Lyme disease, habitat destruction by over-grazing, beavers flooding streets, bears in the dumpsters, etc.

For example, I know that there is a forest corridor that goes directly behind my house through a ravine leading to a stream, I know that deer and other critters follow that corridor.  One more thing I know is that many of these animals do not make it across the street I live on, which has a high speed limit and heavy traffic flow.  All too often the scent of dead deer blows into the yard and gawky vultures circle above (Which was disconcerting when I started jogging two years ago after several years of inactivity-I did laps around the yard with the vultures circling above.  They seemed to be checking me out a bit too much).  When I am leaving the house from dusk to dawn, I am especially vigilant watching the forest edges for movement and the reflective eyes of deer.  I know they are there. I see the foot prints in my lawn. I see their eyes in the backyard. I hear them amble through the ravine as I garden (three in the last week).  I also know that the three lonely apples on the tree in the backyard were not eaten by any member of my family.

There are also fox, hawks, opossums, squirrels, crows, voles, moles and plenty more that I can't see at night.  The voles ate my parsley plant, again.  The park nearby has a huge (50+) black and turkey vulture population, they hang out by the dumpsters and sun themselves on the lawn.  It's kind of gross.


The book proposes some solutions, most of them are controversial in one way or another, depending upon your vantage point.  It was an interesting read.
______________
These are for the vicarious chicken keepers:

Athena is getting an attitude, she doesn't like the fence, so she flaps her way over it.

Ursula has become protective of her eggs, in the coop, outside the fence..

Paisley is the only chick who can't escape the fence, she just can't get the altitude.

Book List:

Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England by William Cronon and John Demos (Sep 1, 2003)

Making Haste from Babylon: The Mayflower Pilgrims and Their World: A New History by Bunker, Nick (Apr 13, 2010)

THOREAU'S COUNTRY by Foster, David R. and Thoreau, Henry David (Jun 30, 2009) 

Forests in Time: The Environmental Consequences of 1,000 Years of Change in New England by Mr. David R. Foster and Mr. John D. Aber (Apr 27, 2006) 

The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-made Landscape by Kunstler, James Howard (Sep 13, 2013) (very readable, time for me to re-read this one--sounds much drier than it is.)