Christmas Break Projects - 2021

Christmas Eve...it sure doesn't feel like it.  Temperature outside is about 68 degrees right now, and it's sunny and windy.   But the warm weather has given me a chance to work on a few projects that I needed to get wrapped up.  

Project #1 - Fix the roof on Zelda Scissorhands' house. 

Zelda's "house" started out years ago as my recycling bin.  It was made out of treated plywood, with the intention that it would sit outside, giving me a place to put my recycling until I could haul it to the recycling center.  The initial build had a single lift-up top that I, in my brilliance, decided to cover with some asphalt shingles.  I happily shingled the entire thing.  But when I tried to lift the top to put in my first bag of tin and plastic, I shocked and dismayed when I discovered that I could NOT lift the roof!  (I should have know that, since I couldn't pick up a bundle of shingles either!)  So off the shingles came, and the roof was cut into two sections.  I put the shingles back on, and although it was tough, I was able to lift the half-roofs.

But I had not counted on mice.  In just a matter of days, they had discovered the bin, and yee-haw!!!  All kinds of plastic things to chew on!  What a disaster.  The bin was full of plastic shards, the bags had holes in them, and everything had mouse poop in  it.  Sadly, I concluded that my brilliant recycling bin idea was just not going to work.

So I decided I would turn it into a house for the outside cats.  I cut a hole in the front, and put some hay in it.  I tried to entice them into their new house by putting their food dish in there.  No good.  They simply refused to live in it.

Since the recycling/cat box with a roof wasn't going to hold my recycling, and since the cats wouldn't use it for their house, it was just in the way where I had put it.  RAF helped me move it out under the old pecan tree, and there it sat.

A year or so later, I decided to get some laying hens.  The cat hole was covered up, a new larger hole was cut on the other side, and the recycling/cat box was converted into a little hen house.  It actually worked pretty well for that.  I took the shingles off, screwed down one of the roof sections, but left the other half so that I could lift it during the summer to let the breeze blow through.  I fixed a wire screen to cover that half, and added a roost/nest box for them on that end.  My two little Bantam chickens (Russell Crow, the rooster, and Dorothy the hen) along with the two Rhode Island Red hens, Rhodie and Louise, all seemed quite happy.  It was so sweet to go out late in the evening to close their roof and see them all sleeping together on their roost.

Then came the terrible summer day when I got home from work and found Louise dead and Rhodie dying of heat stroke.  I didn't realize they couldn't get enough airflow through their outside pen and by the time I figured out what was wrong, it was too late to save them.  And it wasn't much longer until there was another terrible day, when the neighbor's dogs broke into the pen.  By following the trail of feathers, it looked like Russell Crow put up a valiant fight.  But little Dorothy was no where to be found.  I supposed the dogs had gotten her too.  A couple of days later when I started to clean the hay out of their nest, I found little Dorothy.  She had been fatally wounded, and had taken shelter under her roost, and that's where she died.  I guess that was a place where she felt safe.  

Once again the box was empty.  

Zelda Scissorhands had lived in our bathroom for about two years.  I had put her in there to recuperate from yet another sinus infection.  She never acted like she wanted out, always seeming content to curl up by the heater in the winter or just stretch out on the floor in the summer.  She had a litter box, food, and water, so what more could a cat ask for?  She's just weird.

But in fall 2019, for whatever reason, she decided she was done with being a house cat.  I had opened the bathroom window for her one day and she jumped out, and refused to come back in the house again.  As the weather got colder, I was worried about her, so decided to see if she would sleep in the old recycling/cat/chicken box.  I put fresh straw on the chicken roost, lifted the lid and set her gently down on the straw.  She made it back to the carport before I even got around the building.  Try again.  Same result.  But after a few cold nights, she did decide to sleep in there, and now it's her house.

So finally the point of the story.  The house needed a new roof to keep it from leaking water in at the middle.  I had just put a board over the center seam, and it kept most of the rain out, but the center part of the box still got wet if it rained very hard.  RAF helped me cut some old tin we had saved from his roll-off roof observatory, and I think it will work out quite well.  My confession...on the first attempt, I put the tin on horizontally.  Dumb mistake.  The horizontal tin acted just like a funnel to direct water right into her house, and her basket and pillow were complete soaked at the first rain.  So RAF helped me switch it around, and I think this time, it will keep her dry.

I couldn't find her today, but thought I'd put her dried out basket and pillow back in the house.  I lifted the lid and there she was, just as snug as she could be on the bed of hay.  I think it must have been 90 degrees in there, but she acted like she was really enjoying her warm bed.  

She comes out in the mornings to be fed, and usually sleeps somewhere out in the sun during the day.  But she goes back to her house at night.  I think the old recycling/cat/chicken/cat box is being put to good use, and I'm glad.

Project #2 - Repair the bluebird box.

A few years ago, RAF and I replaced some old boards that made up the posts on our front porch.  I built bluebird boxes out of the old boards.  One was put out in the field on a fence post, and it was used every year until last year, when one of the boards had finally rotted enough that the house twisted and fell off the post.

I fetched the box back home one evening and discovered that it was really in decent shape other than that one side.  

I found some scrap wood in the shop and replaced the missing bottom and the rotted out side.  I then added a perch...I think it was a piece of hardware I had saved from the swing set the girls had when they were little!  A new board down the back, some wire and hay string to fasten it to the fence post, and there it is, ready for its new occupants. 

I hope they don't think it looks too "trashy" - it is rather rustic looking, isn't it.  

You can see where I split the left bottom part of the front when I was screwing down the new side, and I didn't get things lined up quite right so the bottom is a bit crooked.  But it sure beats the birdhouse that was on the post!  That one was just a hollowed out log with a top and bottom on it, and it had started to rot and come apart.  I don't think the bluebirds nested in it last year.  

A little gray tree frog had taken up residence there the last I knew.

Now that the bluebirds have a more proper house, the old log house has been moved down into one of the flowerbeds, near where I plan to put my frog pond.  There it can be a proper frog house.  

I kind of like it there, really, barbed wire, rotted roof, and all.  

Project #3 - Get the new blueberry bed ready

In the picture of Zelda's house above, notice the area at the base of the house where the grass has been cleaned out.  That's where I plan to put the three blueberry bushes I've ordered from Nourse Farms.  I'm not sure if the soil is acidic enough for the blueberry plants so I am taking advantage of the free soil testing offered by the Arkansas Cooperative Extension Service.

 

I got my sample dropped off at the extension office on Wednesday, and because they're closed for the holiday, won't get any results back until after the first of the year.  But the blueberries aren't expected to ship until late April, so that will give me time to do a bit more work on the bed before it's needed. 

Project #4 - Plant daffodil bulbs

Several years ago, I got the bright idea to plant some of the daffodil bulbs that I had separated in the flowerbed on the east side of the house.  They did great there, but the problem with daffodils in a flowerbed like that is that you can't plant annuals between them when you put them so close together, and you have to leave them alone until they die down in the summer, otherwise they will eventually stop blooming.  So that meant the flowerbed was just daffodil leaves for over half of the growing season, and I just didn't like it.

I dug up about half of the bulbs last summer and had never decided where to put them.  They should have been planted in the fall - some of them were already starting to put out leaves - but maybe it's not so late that they won't bloom this year.  I ended up planting them out by the mailbox in a spot where the lawnmower can't go.  That patch of ground was being overgrown with Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) so that had to be cleaned out as much as possible before the bulbs could be planted.  I got most of it, but just like the Bermuda grass, honeysuckle is something you have to just keep after if you ever want to control it.  I'm not real good at "keeping after stuff" like that, so it may very well turn out to be another gardening mistake to have put them there.

Oh...and of course I dug up another toad while cleaning out the honeysuckles.  Thankfully, this one didn't appear to have suffered any injury so I hope it's ok.  I dug a little hole and "planted" it back in the ground near the fence post.  

December 2021 Gardening Journal

Thursday, December 30, 2021

While doing a bit of reading about Mycorrhizae and raised beds on the Homestead and Chill website, DeannaCat mentioned the term "Hügelkultur" in one of her posts.  As I read about it, I was reminded of the "Keyhole Garden" concept that I read about, and actually tried, several years ago.  My keyhole garden was pretty much a disaster...it was built out of a section of the girls old swimming pool, so it didn't have a notch for me to access the center compost ring.  I also used bagged "topsoil" from the local feed store, and it was a hard-packed unproductive mess.  But I digress.  

I don't have enough soil to fill my new raised bed, so am thinking about creating a semi-Hugelkultur bed there instead.  I don't intend to mound it up high like the pictures on the web, but do plan to dig the soil out, fill the bottom of the bed with sticks, cover that with a good thick layer of the leaves RAF helped me rake up, then put the soil back.    

Bottom layer: Sticks.	Middle layer: Leaves!
Top layer:  Candy dirt.	I didn't have enough sticks for the entire bed, so I just put some of my old cornstalks (wrapped in bean vines) in the bottom of the bed.

The bed ended up with the dirt mounded up in the middle, but it will settle as the sticks and leaves rot.  The bed should stay pretty full though, as I'll keep adding compost and mulch to the top every year at planting time.

The finished bed.

Mo was so good and patient with me while I worked on the bed, that I had to reward him with a walk around the field. On the way back, we saw a sundog in the southwest. Rain is on the way for New Year's Eve, with severe storms possible.  The cold front will bring in by much colder weather for the first day of 2022.

Sundog

 

Tuesday, December 28, 2021

Today was a cloudy, rainy day, so not much opportunity to work outside.  But being inside just gave me more time to think about the garden, and I ended up ordering some Plant Success Organics Granular, which contains Mycorrhizae, bacteria, Tricoderma and an all-purpose fertilizer.  

I first learned about Mycorrhizae in "The Benefits of Using Mycorrhizae in the Garden" post on the Homestead and Chill website.  When I placed my order, I used code DEANNACAT as mentioned in the post and got my 15% discount.  Discounts are always nice!

 

Monday, December 27, 2021

As if I don't already have enough unfinished projects - I decided to start another one.

The garden was already pretty close to the concrete block well house, but it seemed like last year it got really close...apparently when I was tilling, I kept scooting over until there was only about 12" of "yard" left.  What does that mean?  That's just 12" of grass that has to be cut with the string trimmer, and it was just a source of more Bermuda grass to creep, creep, creep into the garden.

So I got the brilliant idea to just get rid of that strip of grass, and cover it with wood chips like my walking rows.  Problem was when I chopped the grass out, it made me take another look at the grass on the east side of the well house, and I decided that spot was just trouble to mow too, and it would make a nice spot for some raised beds.

If that area was going to be of any use, the Bermuda grass and the Dallas grass would have to go. So I started digging.

 

Shovels full of sod broken apart, ready to be sifted through.

It's always interesting to dig in the yard because the house has been there since 1880, and the yard has lots of "old junk" that has been discarded or lost over the years.  I like to watch "The Curse of Oak Island" on History Channel, so RAF got me a metal detector for Christmas a few years ago.  Of course if I was going to dig, I needed to be sure to scan the dirt for any old coins.  And I did find three pennies.  Two were the more modern design, but one was a 1940 wheat penny.  I thought it was pretty cool!

 

1940 Lincoln Penny, stamped at the San Francisco mint.

Reverse side of the 1940 penny.

I also dug up three big rocks; assorted bits of plastic; discovered the severed end of a plastic conduit that probably used to carry an electric wire to the old cellar; lots of millipedes; some ground beetles; and even a small black widow spider. I am happy to report that I didn't dig up a single toad.  Yay! 

I stopped digging when I got about half way, because with a chance of rain in the forecast, I needed to be sure to sift though all of the clumps of grass before they got wet.  I spent this afternoon doing that, picking up each clump, shaking the dirt out.  It's really such beautiful dirt!  My mom calls it "candy dirt," because it's so dark and rich looking.

Last step will be to screw together some old boards I had saved to make the sides for the raised bed.  I got the boards cut today, and started screwing them together, but there's a bit of damage on the ends of the long boards, so I'll have to screw some blocks in the corners to hold things together.  But I think it's going to look Ok, and I'm excited to give it a try this spring for lettuce and radishes. 

 

Partially assembled raised bed.

 

Sunday, December 26, 2021

The warm weather has me thinking about spring.  I wondered if any of the seeds I planted last fall had sprouted, so decided today to inspect the flowerbed-to-hide-the-ugly-stump.  Here's some of what's growing there now.

Cup Plant (Silphium perfoliatum)	Goldenrod (Solidago sp.)
Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)	Shasta Daisy (Leucanthemum ×superbum)
Dill (Anethum graveolens) seedling	Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta) seedlings
Unknown	Unknown
Burweed (Soliva sp.)	Possibly Red Dead-nettle (Lamium purpureum)
Possibly meadow buttercup (Ranunculus acris)

I'll have to keep an eye on the "unknowns" to see what they turn out to be. The one with the elongated leaves reminds me of butterfly milkweed, but I wouldn't expect those seeds to have sprouted already. They're in the spot where the Mexican Hat seeds were planted, but I don't think that's what it is. No telling!

Saturday, December 18, 2021

Planted three of the redring milkweed seeds outside last week, along with some of the common dittany seeds.  We've finally had some good soaking rain this week, and weather is forecast to turn much colder by tomorrow so I hope they get at least some "cold moist stratification" if that's what they have to have in order to sprout.  I also planted a few of the precious milkweed seeds in peat pots, and set them outside up against the corner of the front porch...just in case the ones planted directly in the ground get washed away.

Milkweed seeds: direct sowing.	Common Dittany seeds: direct sowing.	Milkweed seeds: sown in peat pots.

RAF also helped me rake leaves last week...THANK YOU RAF...you saved lots of aches in my back!  LOL  There are quite a few leaves left under the big red oak in the yard and we'll probably work on cleaning those up next week.  But we've gotten most of them. 

 

Three loads of leaves just hanging out in the east garden waiting for spring.

For now, they're just piled in the gardens with a fence panel laid over them to keep them from blowing away.  We filled the bed of the pickup with one load, but then decided it was just easier to rake them up onto a big piece of plastic and drag them over to the garden.  I'd estimate that altogether, we've raked up about five pickup loads, so I feel like I'm keeping my promise to take advantage of these free mulch/compost materials. 

I had previously raked up the leaves under the pecan tree and used those to cover some of the "walking rows" at the west end of the garden.  I didn't want to use them as mulch because I had read that pecan leaves, like black walnut leaves, contain juglone, which can be harmful to other plants.  However, after doing some more research, most websites indicate that pecan leaves aren't likely to hurt anything, so I guess they would have been fine as mulch.  We'll see.

 

Pecan leaves on the outside walking row in the big garden.

The green stuff growing in the row there is my hairy vetch cover crop, with some red deadnettle mixed in.  It looks like it's survived the deer and should take off growing in the spring when the weather warms.  

 

 

Saturday, December 11, 2021

It's a very sad morning for lots of people.  Warm ( and lately, really hot) days in December are often followed by bad storms, and yesterday there was a doozy.  A tornado touched down in Arkansas and apparently stayed on the ground for about 250 miles, traveling through four states.  They don't know how many people were killed, but estimates are bad...70 to 100 in Kentucky alone.  

I don't really remember ever hearing of "Dixie Alley" growing up, but we always knew that if it was unseasonably warm in the winter, we might end up having to run to the storm cellar during the night.  I don't remember that happening very often.  But the thing I find really sad is that this kind of severe weather outbreak is becoming the norm rather than the exception.  As our global temperatures warm, the weather patterns won't be those that we grew up with.

A 2018 study found in the U.S. an overall eastward shift of tornado frequency and impacts – toward Dixie Alley. The study found relatively-lower tornado frequency and impacts in parts of the traditional Tornado Alley, especially areas from north-central Texas toward the Houston, Texas area, and relatively-higher tornado frequency and impacts in parts of the Mid-South, especially eastern Arkansas, the greater Memphis, Tennessee area and northern Mississippi... (source: Dixie Alley, Wikipedia; accessed 12/11/2021) 

And it's not just tornados that are going to be a threat.  There will be storms with intense rain and flooding, or areas where there is no rain at all for long stretches of time.  We're sort of in that category at the moment.  While a little squall line did blow through here last night, we hardly got enough rain to drip off the house.  We've had very little rain this fall, even though the summer projections were for wetter than average conditions.  If we don't get some catch-up rain in January/February, we may be in a world of hurt come summer 2022.

So on that depressing note, on to today's gardening update.  

For whatever reason, there were lots of plants that I knew of in the wild that just didn't make any seeds this past summer.  I have had my heart set on growing a Redring Milkweed (Asclepias variegata) ever since I first happened across one blooming in the Barber field a few years ago.  I have collected seeds in the past, but have never had any luck getting a single one to sprout.  This year, I didn't find even one seed pod on any of the six or so plants.  (Another thing I worry about...climate change/habitat loss = fewer insects = doom for milkweed with its specialized pollination mechanism.)

I wondered if there were seeds available online and after several searches, found some seeds for sale on Etsy, from McDermottSeeds. I cringed at the thought of paying $18.00 for 15 seeds, but that's just how badly I want one in my yard!  So I bought them.  I must say McDermottSeeds was great to deal with.  The seeds shipped quickly, and there were actually 18 in the envelope instead of just 15.  

The seeds seemed smaller than I remembered my locally harvested seeds  being.  If I do manage to get some to sprout, it will be interesting to see if these plants with a Bryan, Texas phenotype will survive here.  We're quite a bit farther north, so the winters will be colder and the summers probably not quite so hot.  I just hope introducing these plants into my area doesn't cause any problems with our local population.  

But I'm really getting ahead of myself.  I have to get one to grow before I can worry about disrupting the local population!

I wrapped six seeds in a paper towel, put them in a zipper sandwich bag with some damp potting soil, then added them to my bag of seeds that I'm cold-moist stratifying in the refrigerator.  Those will be put outside in peat pots next spring when the weather starts to warm.  I'm also going to try direct sowing a few seeds in the spot where I intend to start my shade garden, and try starting a few others in pots outside.  Fingers crossed!

Redring milkweed plants growing in the Carey woods.  Photo was taken on May 29, 2016.  I've not been able to find these again.  I'm afraid they have been smothered out by trees downed during the severe storm that blew through here on April 30, 2019.

Another wild plant I absolutely love is Common Dittany (Cunila origanoides).  There are several of these dainty little plants growing on the side of the road running through the Barber woods, and earlier in the fall, I tied one of my organza seed-saving bags around a branch that looked like it was past peak bloom - the flowers were faded, so I hoped they would already be pollinated anyway!   

Common Dittany in bloom.  Photo taken September 21, 2014.

 

I'm not sure what the seeds look like...are they they little spiky things that break off the plant, or are they inside the little spiky thing?   

 

 

 

It's hard to know how to start these and I haven't had much luck finding information on that topic. I did find this on the Plants for a Future website:

Seed - sow spring in a cold frame. When they are large enough to handle, prick the seedlings out into individual pots and grow them on in the greenhouse for at least their first winter. Plant them out into their permanent positions in late spring or early summer, after the last expected frosts. (Source: Cunila organoides, Plants for a Future; accessed 12/11/2021) 

I think I'll try the spring sowing at they suggest, with some cold-moist stratified, some cold stratified, and some with no stratification and see what, if anything, works.  I may also try just direct-sowing some outside right now because in nature, they don't live in a greenhouse through their first winter!  I'll post an update on both of these seed-starting projects next spring, if I'm still around!  One never knows, right?.

 

Sunday, December 5, 2021

It's unseasonably warm for December...when I was walking yesterday with my younger sister, she said the National Weather Service reported a high of 80 degrees in Harrison, Arkansas the day before.  The warm weather is messing with the plants.  There were actually blooms on some of the wild blueberries.  And last weekend when I walked down to the creek, I noticed that the Northern Spicebush had flower buds too.  I suspect if I had gone back this week, it might have been blooming too.  It's a very sad thing to see.

But apparently the warm weather hasn't interrupted the toad hibernation.  I decided to move a few more Purple Coneflower plants yesterday, and hit another toad with the shovel!  I don't think I killed this one, but it was pushed down hard enough by the shovel that its tongue was sticking out.  I didn't realize there were so many toads around...I mean surely I'm not just so "lucky" that I picked the exact spot where our only three toads decided to hibernate!  I suppose I'll just need to wait until spring to do any more digging...give the toads a chance to wake up and come back up out of the ground.  I can hardly bear the thought that I've killed some of them.

Anglepod Milkvine (left) and Maypop (right)

On my walk last weekend, I collected a few more seeds.  First was a seed pod from Anglepod Milkviine (Matelea gonocarpos or Gonolobus suberosus, depending on which classification you choose to follow).  That vine seems to be doing really well.  I lost count of how many open or empty seedpods I passed by on my walk.  

I also collected some dried maypops, fruits from the Purple Passion Flower (Passiflora incarnata).  I think the anglepod will fit in nicely at the flowerbed-to-hide-the-ugly-stump, and the Passion Flower will work well in the "purple" themed bed.  I must say that when I cracked open the maypops, I loved the smell of the fruit.  It reminded me very much of the smell of green seedless grapes, only better! (The picture shows a green maypop, but the ones the seeds came from were dry and brown.)

I'm not sure how much success I'll have starting the maypop seeds because according to The Ladybird Johnson Wildflower Center

Propagate by seed or cuttings. When sown immediately or stored, seed germination is low. Direct sowing outdoors is recommended. 6-8 in. stem cuttings should be taken early in the season. Once passion flower is established, numerous suckers will appear

I put some seeds from each in a bag with moist potting soil in the refrigerator. The rest I'll just plant directly in the flower bed.  But if the maypops don't sprout, I will probably just take some cuttings from the ones that grow in the lower part of the field.  It's interesting that while most of the vines have purple flowers, there are quite a few in the fields around the house that are white.  

I also collected more berries from a Flowering Dogwood (Cornus florida) and berries from a Possumhaw (Ilex decidua) - both are growing right on the bank of the creek and I worry that it's only a matter of time before floodwaters wash them away.  I squished open all of the berries and fermented them in water for about a week, then cleaned the husks and pulp away and put the seeds in moist potting soil in the refrigerator.  The plan is to plant them in peat pots in April and just see what happens.  

This beautiful flowering dogwood tree grows right on the bank of the creek, leaning sharply downstream because of the force of past floods.  Interestingly, it is the only dogwood tree I've seen this year that produced any fruits.