Sunday, October 31, 2021
Hard to believe it's already the end of October. We're supposed to have a big cool down this week, so it may actually start to feel like fall.
Update on the "no-float" mulch on the walking rows. It appears to have stayed put and so I'm definitely planning to add more over the winter.
RAF and I dug sweet potatoes today. We don't grow them very often, and I have never thought the ones we grew were very good. But that's probably because I never "cured" them before eating them or putting them in storage! Who knew you were supposed to do that!
I only set out five slips, so I consider this to be a pretty good harvest. There are lots of small ones, probably because I didn't water them enough during the dry weather.
The rest of the day was spent working in the flower beds and in "the mud-hole" which is what we call the area where the washing machine drains. It got the name "the mud-hole" because the drain pipe was buried out into the pasture, and the cows had actually tromped around in that area until they uncovered the pipe and created a big muddy mess. We've fenced it off now so they can't get to it anymore, and I use it now as a place to throw tree limbs that we pick up from the yard, grass clippings, and the old plants from the garden. It will eventually be filled back up!
But until it is, I've decided the soggy ground might be a good place to grow some of the wildflower seeds I've collected from The Barber Field, which is a marshy field full of beautiful wildflowers of all different kinds. Since it usually gets brush-hogged at the end of summer, I don't feel too guilty about trying to collect seeds there.
I had started a Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) from seed a couple of years ago. I didn't label the pot, and by the time the seeds came up, I had long forgotten what I had planted. I thought it was a Helianthus of some sort and set it out in the south flower bed, which was very hot and dry. It's really a miracle that it survived that first summer. Then last spring, I decided to move it from the south flowerbed to the "hide the ugly tree stump" flowerbed. After it put out a few leaves, the deer nipped the top out of it. But it put out again, and it finally dawned on me that the plant was NOT a Helianthus at all...it was a buttonbush! I dug it up again, and set it out in the mud-hole thinking it would do well in the soggy soil. But it got crowded out by smartweed and grass and I thought it had probably died. I was delighted to find it today! I've moved it again, this time into the part of the mud-hole that is still in the yard. I hope it will survive yet another move.
I also decided to make the "hide the ugly tree stump" flowerbed just a big bigger, planning to put cardboard and mulch between the plants and the bricks/rocks/logs around the edge of it so maybe they won't flop over into the yard. I added another yellow flower, this time an annual that should bloom next summer: Bidens aristosa. There were lots of those blooming in the ditches this fall and they were really pretty and the blooms lasted for a good while. I think they'll make a nice addition to that bed.
Saturday, October 23, 2021
Temperatures are still well above average for October, but it was cool enough to do a bit of work on the raised rows.
I don't have any wood chips for the walking rows, so I wasn't sure what I was going to use to cover them. After a bit of shopping around, I thought I'd try the Oldcastle NoFloat Cypress Blend mulch. As it turns out, the little feed store where I get most of my pet food and gardening "stuff" carries it. Their price is about $1/bag higher than Lowe's, but they're a local small business and I like shopping there (plus I don't have to drive 45 miles to get to the store!).
I started out with just four bags to see how far that would go and more importantly, to see how it was going to work. After moving the dirt from the walking rows up into my raised rows, I put down a layer of corrugated cardboard (boxes saved from online orders) then put down a layer of mulch, probably an inch to an inch and a half thick.
I had really hoped the mulch would cover more than it did, but all in all, I like how it turned out and plan to add more in the coming months. Having to buy the mulch makes the garden cost more than I would spend if I just bought the fresh produce, I know. But there's just something very orderly and satisfying about these raised rows, and I think I'm going to like them a lot.
Weather forecast is calling for strong to severe storms tomorrow, so I guess I'll get to find out just how "no-floaty" this stuff is. Hopefully it won't all get washed off down the hill!
I planted vetch and rye seeds on the new raised rows and worked the seeds in with the rake. Probably need to get all of the rye planted very soon...when I opened the bag, one of those "millers" as we called them (a type of moth that eats grains), flew out of the bag. Don't want them to eat up the seeds before I can get them planted!
I did have quite a bit of rye in my first raised row, but most of it is gone. I suspect that either the rabbits or the deer got it. I really think I'll end up spending even more money on fencing of some sort to try to keep them out. LOL
The second project for the day was getting some of the fall flowers planted. The spot where I had planned to work was in the full sun and it was just too hot to be out there working in that. So instead, I decided to expand my existing "hide the ugly tree stump" flowerbed, since it looks pretty ratty and it was in the shade!
I took the hoe to it, and chopped out grass and weeds, then repositioned rocks and bricks around the bed so it was better defined. Then I planted: Orange Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa); Mexican Hat (Ratibida columnifera pulcherrima), Shasta Daisy (Leucanthemum x superbum); Common Dill (Anethum graveolens); Ironweed (Vernonia sp.); a white Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea); Native Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta); Dwarf Red Coneflower(Ratibida columnifera); and Gloriosa Daisy (Rudbeckia hirta). The bed already had two Cup Plants (Silphium perfoliatum) that I started from seed last fall.
If the seeds come up, most of them probably won't bloom until summer 2023. But I'm hoping for blooms from the cup plants, since they'll be in their second year, and from the Shasta Daisy, since they were plants my mama gave me last weekend. When they do bloom though, the bed ought to be a flower painting of reds, orange, yellows and whites, and I think it will be beautiful to see! At least that's how I'm picture it in my mind! The ironweed doesn't really fit, because it's a purple, but my plan is to clean out the north side of the bed later this fall and plant my "purple" flowers on that side, so the ironweed won't be the only purple flower in the bed.
I may have messed up planting stuff today, because with the storms coming, the hard rain on the bare dirt might be a disaster. I hope the tiny seeds don't end up washed down the hill with the no-float mulch!
The red/orange/yellow/white flower bed and my little helper Mo. You can see how enthusiastic he was about helping with this project.
Sunday, October 10, 2021
After a few weeks of procrastinating, I finally got around to installing my rain barrel spigot. Biggest problem was that the barrel still had about 35 gallons of water in it, and I didn't think it would be a good idea to use the hole saw on an electric drill with the water level above where the hole was going to be. So I decided to puncture the barrel with a screw so the water would drain out - plus, the screw hole would act as a pilot hole for the drill bit.
I thought I would get the spigot installed yesterday afternoon, and while the screw hole worked, the water came out in such a tiny stream that it took about five hours for it to drain! But what's one more day when you've put it off for over a month already, right?
 It took about five hours to drain 30 gallons of water out of the barrel through a screw hole! |
 The installed spigot... |
 The spigot at work. Very, very nice! So much easier than trying to pump the water out! |
And, yes, the garden hose does thread onto the spigot!
Next spring, I plan to buy fittings and hoses to connect the barrels. No point in doing that now because with winter coming up, the hoses might freeze. When all is said and done, this will end up costing quite a bit, but eventually it should pay for itself in what I save on water, AND what I save on my poor ol' back.
Saturday, October 9, 2021
I thought today would be a good day to clear out the grass from the spot west of the house where I want to put in a native wildflower bed. Wrong! I waited until the dew dried off the grass and by then it was TOO HOT to be working out in the sun (too hot for my out-of-shape self anyway!). Is it supposed to be 90 degrees in October????
I did manage to get most of the hackberry sucker shoots cut back, so that's a start. I will try again late this evening when that spot is back in the shade.
Just to be clear, when I say "native wildflower" bed, not all of the seeds will come from plants that were grown here in Arkansas. I've started buying seeds from Everwilde Farms (so far I've been really happy with every purchase), and while they're way out on the west coast, all of the seeds I've ordered are indicated on the their website to be native in Arkansas so I'm going to go with the term "native." I do have a few seeds I've saved that will go in the bed, including Ironweed (Vernonia sp.); Common Dill (Anethum graveolens); Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa); Green Milkweed (Asclepias viridis); Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea); and Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta). I've not had very good luck in the past trying to start seeds that I've saved, so this fall, I'm just going to plant them directly in the new bed - what comes up, comes up, and what doesn't, doesn't!
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Update on the cover crops in the raised rows: The row where I had the tomatoes planted looks pretty good. The vetch and rye have both come up nicely. The row at the far west end of the garden actually has quite a bit of vetch at the south end. Seems as though all those seeds I planted that "didn't come up" just needed some rain. The more northern parts of that row don't have much on them, so I'll need to replant there. I do need to figure out what to do with my "walking rows." I don't have any thing on them right now and I see lots of little weeds sprouting. I'm thinking about buying a wood chipper so I can kill two birds with one stone: create wood chips for my walking rows and have something to do with all the sticks that end up in the yard. But I haven't gotten up the nerve to make that purchase just yet because it's a pretty substantial investment.
Update on the Early Frosty peas: The seeds I planted to fill in the gaps where the first planting didn't come up didn't come up either so I bought a new packet from the feed store this week and am trying again. Third time's a charm, right?