Farewell to 2023

Sunrise at 7:38 am on Sunday, December 31, 2023.

Winter 2023

 

Winter solstice sunrise on December 21, 2023.
Unfortunately, the clouds blocked me from seeing exactly where the sun was and what time it came up,
but you can tell the general area by the brightness in the sky.

Fall 2023

 

Sunrise around 7:11 am on Saturday, September 23, 2023.

September 11, 2023 Gardening Journal

When summer got here this year it meant business.

The last week of June was brutal.  We were already behind on rainfall - not for the year, because we had heavy flooding rains in March, but behind by quite a bit for April and May.  And as June came to an end, the temperatures soared to near or just over 100° F for several days in a row.

The sun beat down on the poor plants day after day, intense and unmerciful. And with the lack or rain it didn't take long for them to start showing signs of stress.

I decided last summer that mulch and shade cloth are a gardener's best friends in the summer.  I bought two more shade cloths, but again, I found myself way short on mulch.  

Last year's straw was pretty much gone, decomposed, mostly into the pathways.  I tried to buy a couple of bales of straw at the feed store, but they were sold out and didn't expect more until the wheat harvest got underway.  

I had planted a row of Sorghum Sudan grass with the intention of cutting it several times through the summer, but with no rain, even that wasn't growing, so there wasn't anything to cut.  I finally resorted to cutting some Johnsongrass that was growing in The Mudhole area, just to have something to at least try to cover the bare soil.

It just wasn't enough.  

So the spring garden was pretty much a bust.  We did eventually end up with a few things: snow peas; strawberries; blackberries; cucumbers; green peas; tomatoes; yellow squash; potatoes; green beans; and some cabbage.  But when I say "a few" that really means "a few."  I think we harvested maybe eight yellow squash before the squash bugs killed the plants.  Between about eight cucumber plants, I think we got four cucumbers.  We got enough green beans for two meals.  You get the idea.  

The only exceptions to the "few" might be the San Marzano tomatoes and believe it or not, the Jimmy Nardelo peppers.  I actually ended up picking a good number of the tomatoes and have put up 10 pints of juice, with probably five more pints worth of tomatoes in the freezer.  

Five pints of tomato juice from the San Marzano tomatoes.

And the little peppers that I thought were either hit by frost or burned by the wind?  They're absolutely loaded down with peppers now.  They're ok, but I probably won't grow them again.  I'll go back to my old favorite, California Wonder.

And while July was a bit better than last year (a tiny bit cooler on average with two or three little rains of about .25"), any hopes I had of a fall garden were pretty much over when the weather turned brutally hot again in August, and the rain effectively stopped.  

One of many HOT, dry days in August.

By the end of August, we were under a burn ban again, and now that September is here, almost all of the grass is dead.  The trees are shedding their leaves, I guess in a last ditch effort to survive, and the ground is like a brick.  And the few things I've tried to grow in the garden are being decimated by grasshoppers.  Even covering the plants with a shade cloth or netting hasn't helped much - the grasshoppers are either finding a way under the cover, or possibly eating their way through it.  So not a single cauliflower transplant survived, and I'm not sure the broccoli is going to make it either.  Every single beet I've set out or been able to sprout has been eaten down to the ground and my little fennel transplants didn't even last two days...gone, eaten by the grasshoppers.

I don't think I've ever seen squash bugs as bad as they were this year either.  I don't know if I'll even be able to grow any squash, pumpkins, watermelons, cantaloupes or cucumbers next year because there are probably going to be so many of them hiding in the garden - in the straw, under the cardboard, in the raised bed around the cellar.  

Squash bugs of all ages congregated on a butternut squash.

It's very disheartening to have a beautiful squash plant loaded with little baby squash only to come out the next day to find it wilted beyond recovery.

Two hills of squash, killed by squash bugs just as they were old enough to start producing squash.  The one on the right was completely wilted by the next day.

Several times this summer I sat down to write a gardening journal entry, only to find myself staring at the computer and thinking, "What's the use?"  

There is really not much that's very "positive" to write about.  But as the 2023 gardening season is coming to a close, I thought it might be nice to look back on how some of my "projects" turned out, and to reflect on lessons learned and changes planned for next year.  

The bean tee-pees didn't work out too well.  Turns out the poles were two close together and not in the ground deep enough, so that tallest one ended up falling over anyway.  And because the beans were so thick, I couldn't see through the foliage very well so I don't know if I was not seeing the pods, or if they weren't making any because it was just too hot and dry.  Altogether, I think I picked enough that RAF and I each had about two tablespoons of beans for supper one night.  I might give the tee-pees another try next year, but I'll make sure the structure has a wider footprint, and I'll only plant one bean per pole.

The bean tee-pees.  The first one fell over not long after this picture was made.

Trying to grow things on both sides of the cattle panel trellis was a disaster.  The tomatoes planted on the south side of the panel where the green peas were planted were spindly and stunted until I finally cut the peas down.  The cucumbers on the north side of the panel opposite of the other tomatoes didn't grow well at all...they probably didn't get enough sunlight, and/or water.  So that's definitely something I won't be trying out again.

The Charles Dowding/Ruth Stout bed did really well in the spring, and I thought I had found the answer to gardening in the Arkansas summers.  I was excited by the potato harvest and was really looking forward to more potatoes from some that were planted later.  But once the drought hit, that area didn't live up to the hype either.  Little rain showers of 0.10" or 0.05" or even 0.25" just weren't enough.  The water wasn't able to make it through the hay into the ground and once that ground dried out, any thoughts I had of growing anything else there were done.  The only things that have survived are a few cherry tomato plants (they've turned into sprawling monsters), one poblano pepper plant (which I expect to be dead any day now) and the sweet potato vine, which is probably only surviving because it's growing in the shade on the south end of the bed.   I won't abandon that bed either, but I will need to put some thought into what I can do to improve the dirt.  I still think the deep mulch idea is a good one, but that area definitely needs more work.

The "smother the Bermuda grass" plan has been a modest success.  Early on in the year, I was pulling multiple rhizomes every time I made the rounds through the garden.  But the number of rhizomes has slowly gotten to be less and less and in the Charles Dowding/Ruth Stout bed, there's hardly any Bermuda grass growing now...only at the west edge where the bed meets up with the fence.  Edges are always going to be a problem I'm afraid, but this winter I think I'll pull everything back from the fence, dig out any rhizomes that I find, put down more cardboard and then pull the hay back over the new cardboard.  The other problem area - the edge where I put down privet chips last winter, is perhaps a bit worse, with more of the grass finding its way up through the cardboard and wood chips.  But all in all, that's made a big difference in the amount of Bermuda grass that's making its way into the garden, and while I know it's a war I'll have to fight as long as there's Bermuda grass in the yard, at least I feel like I'm winning a few small battles.

The Hügelkulture bed was lot of work...and I've decided that all of that work was for pretty much nothing.  Contrary to everything I read and watched on YouTube, that bed did NOT perform any better in the drought than the rest of the garden did.  I actually had to start watering it sooner than other parts of the garden.  I won't abandon it, but it is in need of some serious redesign.  I worked on it this weekend, flattening it out on top then planting it with a cover crop of lentils, a bag I bought at the grocery store that I never cooked.  I hope they'll come up and will fix some nitrogen in that really poor dirt.  (And at this point, it really is just "dirt," not "soil!")

Three "disaster areas" in the garden (from left): my row of Sorghum Sudan grass; my Hügelkulture row; and the Charles Dowding/Ruth Stout bed.  All three were a bust once the hot, dry weather arrived.

Like the Hügelkulture bed, my raised rows were a lot of work...work that I'm now regretting, and slowly undoing.  I realized during the first year of trying to grow things in those rows that I had made them too narrow, and the sides too steep.  Because of that mistake, they're much like the Hügelkulture row - it's almost impossible to water anything growing in them!  The water doesn't have a chance to soak in...it just rolls down the sides into the walking row.  So while I am doing my best to be "no-till" this is an instance of where I don't feel I have any choice but to undertake some serious "soil disturbance" to fix the mistake I made with those rows.  Little by little I've been using the pitchfork to loosen up the mound of soil at the top of each row, then drag it out to the side, essentially making flattened rows that are roughly 24" to 30" wide.  

A "re-worked" raised bed on the east end of the garden.  It has been flattened out into a lower, wider bed and I am able to water it now.

They're still slightly raised, but if I can ever find a source of wood chips, my plan is to fill in the walking rows up to, or almost up to, the height of the growing beds.  Already I'm seeing a huge improvement in my watering.  I'm now able to take my little green watering can and give the crimson clover cover crop I planted in one of the flattened rows a good soak.  It makes a huge difference and I wish I had known to do that when I started.  Just goes to show that you can't go by everything you read on the internet, huh.  But I guess to garden is to learn, and so I can put this in my "something I've learned" drawer.

And where I had started building raised rows on the west end of the garden, I've changed gears there too, and have instead switched to making more of the 24" to 30" wide beds, slightly raised, with walking rows that are around 16" wide.  I started on the part of the garden that was "occulated/solarized" under the billboard tarp, just because I didn't want it to start growing weeds once I moved the tarp.  I planted those pieces of row with a cover crop mix of daikon radish, hairy vetch and winter rye, but it's been a struggle to keep the plants alive.  It seems a shame to be using city water for cover crops, but I just don't think I could carry that much water that far as often as I would need to.  So for now, I am just giving the plants a drink in the evenings right around sunset, with the hope that we'll start to get rain again by the middle of September.

The wider, flatter raised rows at the west end of the garden and the flattened out Hügelkulture row on the far left.

This weekend, I finished those rows, using the shovel to relocate the dirt that I spent so much time building up into raised rows into the new flatter, wider beds.  Using the shovel reminded me of why I wanted to go "no-till."  I lost count of how many grubs I dug up as I was moving the dirt.  In the two that already had hairy vetch, rye and daikon radish I planted more of that same mix to finish them out.  But in the third one, I planted more Sorghum Sudan grass, then took what was left of the poor Sorghum Sudan grass I planted in the spring and laid it across the row to try to shade it just a bit.  I hope that it will come up and if I can keep it watered, maybe I'll have enough of it to use as straw to cover the strawberry bed for the winter (I never bought any straw at the feed store because it now costs almost $12/bale!)

And speaking of my strawberry bed, I'm pretty unhappy with it.  It hasn't ever really recovered after the rejuvenation process.  

The strawberries aren't looking so great.

It wasn't the rejuvenation process that was the problem.  I may have killed about half of the plants with the pine shavings I used for mulch.  What I discovered is that the pine shavings behave in much the same way that whole leaves do.  They mat together to make a barrier on top that the water can't get through.  So while I thought I was giving the plants plenty of water, in reality the water was probably just barely making it to the surface of the soil.  After I figured that out I spent about 30 minutes pulling the wood shavings off of the bed.  I need to find out when is the best time to lift the plants, and just redo the entire bed.  That makes me very sad.  

And while I'm worried about my strawberry bed, really, the entire raised bed around the cellar didn't look very good.  I might say it actually looked downright tacky.  

My raised bed, filled with, and surrounded by grass in the corner where the bumblebee nest was.

Recall that an American Bumblebee queen (Bombus pennsylvanicus) chose the raised bed for her nesting spot last spring, so to keep from disturbing the colony, I've pretty much steered clear of that area this summer.  I think the colony is winding down though, because I've seen three male bumblebees, found a few dead workers, and the activity going in and out of the nest area has slowed way down.  So I finally put on my gloves and pulled grass from in and around the raised bed.  It dawned on me while I was working on the cleanup that I shouldn't even try to find dirt to fill in the southeast corner of the bed...I will just use that as a place to put plants that I am taking out of the garden, sticks that fall in the yard, etc.  Eventually all of that material will rot down.  Yes, it will take a while, but in the meantime it will just be a work in progress - a "compost in place" operation.  And I am thinking I will build a cold frame somewhere on the south side of the raised bed.  Expect a post about that project if I decide to move forward with that!

All in all, I guess the fruit trees and berry bushes are doing Ok.  A few leaves on the apple trees have started turning yellow and dropping off, but I think that's just a normal response to the drought.  I've tried to keep them and the two little cherry trees watered as best I can.  I think they'll survive if I can just keep them alive until the rains return.  

Watering the little Enterprise apple tree.  I pulled the mulch back and slowly put three watering cans of water around the base of the tree.  The soil was then covered back over with grass clippings.

I'm not sure about the jostaberry plant.  It started to look quite pitiful once the weather turned so hot and dry, and it has finally lost every last leaf.  I think it's still alive, so maybe it has just shed its leaves in self-defense.  It might be one of those plants that really needs more shade.  I didn't bother to read that much about it before I planted it so might have made a mistake. I almost let one of the raspberry plants die from lack of water, but hopefully I realized it was in trouble in time!  The blackberry plants and the grape vine are, of course, suffering from the drought, but I hope they have root systems that are well-enough established that they're going to be Ok.

I am sad to admit that I was a bit too lax in maintaining the back part of the garden where the bean tee-pees were.  It got overgrown with cherry tomato plants (the one I pulled out today was sprawling about 8' along the ground), and because I didn't keep those plants under control, the grass came back and is trying to reclaim that area.  I used my string trimmer last month to clear out the purple hull pea cover crop in an area just the size of my billboard tarp, and have left that part tarped since then.  I'll need to do the same thing with the rest of it, but I don't know what will happen where all of the grass has gone to seed.  I guess I'll just be pulling grass every time I walk through there next year.  Sigh.  Farmer Jesse said to keep the soil covered because if you don't, it will cover itself.  Well, he is exactly right. 

Regarding my compost bays...I mentioned in a previous post about my mistake of letting things grow in and in front of them this year.  That was a big mistake, but I've also finally realized that one reason I've not had much success with my composting is that I haven't kept the materials wet enough.  I finally have a small, but nice little pile going in bay #1.  Little Joe made quick work of the corn stalks and that was a good addition to the pile.  It won't make nearly enough to cover beds in the garden, but I think it's going to make an excellent seed-starting medium to use in the spring.  If I can do that, and not have to buy a $20 bag of potting mix, that will be a win in my book.  And of course I plan to continue with my "manure and hay collection" this winter, Lord willing.

 

Tarps, shade and water

There are still some areas on the west end of the garden that are pretty unruly.  Really the best way I've found to fight the Bermuda grass and weeds is with black plastic and hot sunshine.

I had some black plastic drop cloth that I had bought at Meador's, and some heavier black plastic that was left over from when we built the shop many years ago (it was put down on the ground under the concrete slab to help keep the slab from sweating).

But the plastic I had wasn't able to stand up to the sun.  The heavier stuff from the shop actually broke down the worst, and when I tried picking it up to move it, it basically disintegrated in my hands. Not cool.  I ended up having to pick up lots of jibbles of plastic and although I tried my best, I know I still didn't get them all.

The stuff from Meador's has done better.  It rips when I try to move it if I'm not real careful, but at least doesn't fall apart.

So finally to the point.  Since my plastic was falling apart, I thought I might look into buying a used silage tarp.  But instead, I found a website that sells used billboard vinyl, billboardtarps.com.

A 10' x 16' size wasn't too terribly expensive and I figured that was probably as big of a tarp as I could handle on my own.  And although the shipping actually cost me as much (or maybe slightly more) than the tarp itself, I decided to go ahead and get one.

I told RAF that I hoped the tarp didn't have something offensive on it.  LOL

And it didn't.  It turned out to be a holiday tarp for some kind of wine.

My billboard tarp.

So although I hated to cover up some of the volunteer zinnias that were growing in the garden just east of the Sorghum Sudan grass row, I just tried not to think too much about it as I unfolded the tarp and pulled it up over the garden. 

My first impressions are very good.  It's very heavy, so I don't think it will hang on anything and rip.  Plus, it's reinforced around the edges, which makes it easy to drag and not worry about ripping the edge. 

The vinyl is UV protected, so it should last a long time.

The only real objection I have was the smell.  When I unfolded it and dragged it out into the garden, there was a very strong smell of vinyl that I could smell all the way at the other end of the garden.  I think any time you smell plastic, that's probably not a good thing, but the smell was pretty much gone after a couple of days.

The tarp on the garden.

The tarp is heavy enough that unlike the plastic, I don't know that it would even blow around if I didn't weigh it down, but just to be sure, I put some t-posts down around the edges in a few places.

And looking at the weather forecast, I'd say I got the tarp put out just in time.  It's certainly going to have plenty of sunshine that will absolutely bake anything that's under it.

Unfortunately, that also means that the plants in the yard and garden are going to be baking in the sun too.

I had already started working on protecting things through the intense heat of summer, starting with the strawberry bed.  Since the insect netting was no longer needed on the brassica bed (the cabbages have been harvested and the broccoli was a bust) I was able to move those over to the strawberry bed to hold up the shade cloth I bought last summer.

Shade cloth protecting the strawberry bed.

These plastic hoops made from PEX pipe work so much better than the pieces of welded fence wire I tried to use last summer!  No matter how careful I tried to be, the shade cloth would always hang on the cut edges of the wire, and I was so afraid I was going to rip it!  But these hoops are smooth and all I had to do to fasten the shade cloth to them was use some bread ties to secure the cloth onto the hoops.

My main problem though, isn't the hoops.  My main problem is that I only have the one piece of shade cloth.

So again this year I'm using some old bed sheets to try to protect the plants from the intense sun.

I had a little cantaloupe plant that came up volunteer in last year's compost that already has two little melons on it - I definitely didn't want it to die in the heat!  So I took the last two PEX hoops and rigged up a little frame to hold a sheet over that.

 

Shading the cantaloupe.

I thought I could use some of the electrical conduit I had bought to use in the shop to rig up a frame to hold some sheets over the tomatoes, but that idea absolutely did not work.  The end of the conduit with the bell on it was just too stiff to bend at a good angle.

So instead, I'm hoping that the application of Kaolin clay that I've put on the tomatoes and the cucumbers in an attempt to protect them from stink bugs and cucumber beetles will help.

Kaolin clay sprayed on the cucumbers and tomatoes.

According to the information online about kaolin clay, it can cool plants by 10° to 15° F. I've not checked on the plants this afternoon to see how they look.

I also am trying to protect the green beans, because they still have a few small beans on them.

Sheet covering the green beans.

(I need to do a bit of work on this..the hoops are too far apart to really hold the sheet up, and with only two of them I can't cover all of the plants.)

It's a bit sad really that the heat has made it here just as the corn is starting to tassel.  I don't know if it will make anything or not, and I really don't have a good way to protect it from the sun.

But based on what I learned last year, shade is the key to getting the plants through this hot part of summer.  Even when I was watering things every day, the water wasn't enough to offset the baking sun for hour after hour after hour.  And since the temperature isn't going to get down low enough at night to cool things back off, the effect is cumulative.  The plants just eventually give up.

Long term I'd like to put up a frame of some sort that can hold a big shade cloth, but as RAF pointed out, we have other much more important things we need to spend money on before I do that.  So for now, I'll just have to work with the sheets to see if they can make a difference.

Maybe we'll get lucky and the heat and dry weather won't last as long this summer.  But it's going to be brutal while it's here. 

The four 55 gallon rain barrels are full (220 gallons), one IBC tote is full (250 gallons) and the second IBC tote is half full (125 gallons).  

IBC tank about half full.

That's not nearly enough water to last through July, but it's a start.  Since I'm paid well ahead on my water bill, I've already been watering stuff with the garden hose.

I hope this heat doesn't last too long.  I think we might get a break by 4th of July, but with any cooler weather comes that risk of severe storms.  We just have to take what comes I guess.

I'll never grow potatoes any other way

This spring I decided to try a section of garden inspired by Charles Dowding's "No Dig" method and Ruth Stout's deep mulch method (March 14, 2023 Gardening Journal).

I had some potatoes from the grocery store that were starting to sprout so those seemed like good potatoes to use for this little experiment.  My sister later gave me some of her left over seed potatoes so I have ended up with probably a dozen plants altogether.

As the potatoes grew I hilled them up with hay/cow manure I had collected from the field.

Today, I decided to go ahead and pull a couple of those first ones (the ones from the grocery store potatoes).  The plants had pretty much died back and weren't going to grow anymore anyway.

The plants were very easy to pull out and as I started to rummage through the hay, I was delighted when I started finding potatoes! 

While some were quite small - perfect for boiling in their jackets - there were a few nice sized ones as well.

There were a couple of little snakes living down in the hay, and a huge fat earthworm.  The hay was pretty dry, but I think there was still moisture in the ground under it.  I didn't dig down into the dirt to find out for sure though.

And because the potatoes were all up on top of the ground or in the hay, they were very clean...no dirt to wash off.  Plus, not a single potato was damaged by a shovel or fork in the process of "digging" them.

I think had we gotten more rain this spring the potatoes would have been much larger, but even so, I'm 100% sold on this method of growing potatoes.  I will never plant potatoes in the ground again!  Growing them using this method is so much easier!!!

3.428 lbs of potatoes from the garden (I forgot to weigh them before we ate some last night).

Training the apple trees

The apple trees are now in their second year - they were planted sometime in March 2022.

In January, I pruned the Enterprise apple to a modified central leader, and tried to prune the Gala apple to an open center.  

From what I understand, apple trees produce flower buds on more horizontal limbs.  When the limbs go "up" the trees don't make flower buds...they just make leaves.

Since almost all of the limbs on the Enterprise apple, and some on the Gala were angled in a more "up" direction, I decided to try training them out horizontally using some pieces of privet branches that I wedged between those limbs and the main trunk. 

Using some pieces of privet limbs as branch spreaders.

Sadly, when I was trying spread the branches on the Gala apple, I accidentally broke one off, so I ended up pruning it to a modified central leader as well.  After the second pruning, I thought it looked Ok, although it had a big open wound on the main trunk where I ripped that branch off.

Ouch!!!!

Over the next few weeks, the branches adjusted to their new position.  The privet sticks ended up falling out, but the branches stayed where I had put them so that training seems to have worked. 

The trees have grown like crazy since they were pruned...some of the limbs have about 24" of new growth on them! But just like last year, the growth went "up" instead of out.  

So this afternoon when I got off work I spent a bit of time working on the Enterprise apple.

The poor little tree kind of makes me think of the pictures of Gulliver tied to the ground in the island country of Lilliput!

But I'm happy that the branches all seem to be in a better position now.  It will stay like this for the rest of the summer.  I hope that there aren't any bad winds that might break the limbs, since they can't really move much.  

The Gala apple was much better behaved with fewer upward growing branches.  I'll work on getting those limbs tied down this weekend.

I told RAF he'll just have to make a wide path around the trees when he mows.  Hopefully by the time fall gets here the strings can all come off and the limbs will stay where I want them. 

And even more hopefully, maybe there will be some fruiting buds on them by next spring!  I may end up doing some "tip" pruning to encourage them to develop fruiting buds, but I'll have to wait and see if I feel brave enough to do that.

Summer 2023

 

Sunrise at 6:08 am on Wednesday, June 21, 2023.

I kind of messed up...

I had big plans for my compost bins this summer.  

I had planned to keep adding weeds and plant debris from the garden to try to make a good amount of compost to supplement the cow manure and hay that I had hauled out of the pasture last winter.  What was left of all of that had been consolidated into bay #3 to finish.  

Bay #1 was to be my working compost, where I would add the new materials.  Bay #2 was to be my "turning" bay, where I would transfer the contents of bay #1 as it started to fill up.

I had two Mortgage Lifter tomato plants that didn't have a home...I wanted them separated from the other tomatoes in the garden because I hope I can save some seeds from them this year and I don't want to take a chance that they might cross pollinate with some of the other tomatoes.  

So since compost bay #4 was empty and I didn't have any immediate plans for it, I decided to just plant them there and let them take advantage of the nice rich dirt in the bottom of the bin.

And while things were starting to grow in the garden, I didn't have much to add to the other compost bays, so when a few volunteer plants sprouted up in bays #2 and #4, I just thought I would leave them and let them grow for a while.

Boy did they grow.

 

The compost jungle.

So now there are some big pumpkin vines sprawling out of bay #2, sprouted from the Sugar Baby pumpkins I grew last year but never did anything with.  I had just dumped them in the compost when they started to go bad.  So that bay isn't open anymore and the vine is now blocking access to bay #3!

And while I intentionally planted the two tomato plants in bay #4, some watermelons came up in there and now they're filling in the rest of the open area of that bay.  

Tomatoes and watermelons are taking up bay #4.

And finally, the three puny little sunflowers that sprouted up in front of bay #1 aren't puny and little anymore.  They're about 8' or 9' tall, with stems about 2" in diameter at the base.  And they're very much in the way of the opening to bay #1, making it really hard to get in there to add new materials or turn what's already there!

But on the bright side, the pumpkin vine actually looks really good and I think it has set at least two little pumpkins so maybe my mistake in leaving them there won't be a total bust.

Rejuvenating the strawberries

This is the second year for the Galletta strawberries from Nourse Farms.

We got a nice little harvest off of them this year, but after the last berries are picked, you're supposed to "rejuvenate" the bed.

Now I'm not sure really what that means, or why you have to do that with June-bearing varieties but not with ever-bearing.  But since the growing instructions on the Nourse Farms website said to do it, I did it.

The bed was pretty crowded, really.  I started out with only 25 plants, but the space really wasn't quite big enough for that many plants.  So by the time the new runners took root last summer, the plants in the bed were pretty thick.

The strawberry bed on May 21 prior to rejuvenation.

First step:  Cut back all of the plants to about 2", being careful not to damage the crowns.

Second step:  Add a layer of composted cow manure to the bed, being careful not to cover the crowns.

Third step:  Add a layer of mulch, again, taking care the the crowns aren't buried under.

I decided to mulch with some pine shavings (animal bedding) that I got from Atwoods since I didn't have any more straw (and the feed store where I buy the bales won't have any until the wheat harvest this summer) and because the pine shavings should be very slightly acidic, which I think the strawberries should appreciate.

And that was it.  Give everything a good watering, and hope I didn't just kill all of my strawberry plants!!!

I shouldn't have worried though.  Within days the plants were already putting out new leaves, and by June 11, the bed was filling back in very nicely.

The strawberry bed on June 11, after the rejuvenation process.

I've since done a bit more reading about rejuvenation and I think I should have removed some of the smaller plants in the middle of the bed to make room for the new runners.  

But since I didn't do that, I think I'll just try to root the runners in pots, so they don't make the bed even more crowded.  I'll set those new plants out in the south part of the bed once I get it filled with dirt.  That should give us about double the number of plants we have now.

Baby Chinquapins (updated 5/27)

Back at the end of March, I received a packet of Ozark Chinquapin nuts in the mail from the Ozark Chinquapin Foundation.  This post tells about the process of planting those little sprouted nuts.

On April 6, I made this note:

Something tore into both of my cages in the Barber field and ate the chinquapin nuts.  :(  I could still see the shoot on one of them, but without the nut, I don't know if it will survive.  No sign of any of the remaining four but at least it doesn't look like anything has been digging in those cages.

Then on April 10, this exciting note:

The "south" chinquapin in my yard has come up!  I drove a t-post in the ground beside it and put up a tall cage to protect it from deer browsing.

Baby Ozark Chinquapin on April 10, 2023.

And surprise of all surprises, a few days later when I walked down to the Barber field to check on the chinquapins there, I discovered that one of them had come up, even after having had its little nut stolen.  Later though, when I walked down to check on it again, it was gone, but the other one had since come up!

There's no sign of any of the other three.

.

Baby Ozark Chinquapin on May 6, 2023.

Before the little plant in the Barber field gets much bigger, it needs a cage to protect it from the deer.  I have bought some hardware cloth and plan to build a cage out of that.

Lessons learned for next time (and I hope there is a next time, since I have already paid my 2023 membership dues for OCF):  

• In areas like the Barber field where there is high potential for the nut to be stolen, be sure to put a very secure cage around the nut at the time it is planted.  The cage probably needs to be buried a few inches into the ground around the nut to try to deter anything from digging under.
  
  
• In areas where the ground is extremely rocky like the area behind the barn, try to break up the rocks in the planting hole so the nut's taproot has an easier path down deeper into the soil.
  
  
• If the nuts come pre-sprouted, handle them very, very carefully!  The taproot on the last nut was broken about an inch from the end.  I'm not sure if it was broken in the mail, or if I broke it when I was getting another nut out of the package. 

I still hope that the nuts behind the barn will sprout eventually, since I seem to remember that in a video of a tour of one of the test plots Steve Bost mentioned that the nuts there had sprouted over an extended period of time, not all in the same general timeframe.

As of now, I have had a 50% success rate in nuts coming up.  I hope that I can do better if I get another chance.

Update:  On or around Wednesday, May 17, I was shocked and delighted to discover that the second chinquapin planted in my yard had come up -- it was the one with the broken taproot!  It may not survive, but at least it's trying! 

The second baby Ozark Chinquapin planted in my yard has come up!

Update:  This afternoon (May 24) RAF, Mo and I walked down to the Barber woods to water the Ozark Chinquapin there.  It has died.  

Update: This morning (May 27) I carried some water to the little tree with the broken taproot.  It looks like something dug it up and ate the nut.  It is dead.

May 8, 2023 Gardening Journal

I woke up Saturday morning to the sound of rain dripping on the window air conditioner.  I don't think it rained very much, but it was misty, damp and chilly still when I got up.

I had a long list of things I wanted to get done this weekend, and with the temperatures expected to be near 90° F, I got busy early to try to take advantage of the cooler temperatures while they lasted.

At the top of my list was to find homes for all of the seedlings that were left over sitting in pots on the back step.  They all look pitiful because they were so pot bound and I just couldn't keep them watered.  I doubt they'll ever amount to anything because they are in such bad shape, but I figured I'd just pop them into the Hügelkulture row and let them do what they're going to do.

So after finishing my morning Bermuda grass patrol, I planted the last of the Rutgers tomatoes, the Cherokee Purple tomatoes and the San Marzano tomatoes on the sides of the Hügelkultre mound.

Tomatoes planted along the side of the Hügelkulture row.

I decided to try the cherry tomatoes in the Ruth Stout/Charles Dowding bed.  To plant them, I just pulled the hay back to expose the cardboard underneath, laid the plants on their side, covered the roots and the stems with some of rotted cow manure, then piled hay back on top.  

Cherry tomatoes planted in the Ruth Stout/Charles Dowding bed.

I also decided to put all of my remaining seedlings in that bed.  I had one Poblano pepper, two little pots with squash plants (white patty pan?), and one little pot with Blue Hubbard squash.  They were all planted in the same way as the cherry tomatoes...no dig!

Funny thing about planting in that bed...the other day when I was searching for all of the potatoes that haven't yet come up, I uncovered a little snake.  "Oh!" I exclaimed, "I'm so sorry!"  I quickly dropped the hay back down over him and left him alone.  But when I was planting the cherry tomatoes today and was reaching out for some extra hay to put over them, I uncovered him again!  He was still in that same spot, so that must be his little "home."  Not sure what kind of snake, but I welcome him to the garden so long as he leaves my toads alone!

Once the pots were all cleared off of the back steps, I decided to go ahead and plant one of the Narrowleaf False Dragonhead (Physostegia angustifolia) plants.  This is another beauty that I found in the Barber field several years ago, and I've wanted one ever since.

Narrowleaf False Dragonhead (Physostegia angustifolia) observed on June 19, 2019 in the Barber Field.

I have two of them - one is a rooted cutting, but the other was a bit of rhizome that I stole from the field.  I wasn't sure the cutting was quite ready to go outside, so I just moved it into a larger pot.  But the one started from the rhizome?  My goodness did it have some nice looking roots!  I planted it in "the mud hole" with my other wildflowers that like to have their feet wet.  Unfortunately, there's been a rabbit or deer or groundhog out there and some of the plants growing out there have been nibbled back.  So to try to make sure this little plant gets a fair shot, I put cardboard around it to try to suppress the Bermuda grass a bit, and I put a cage around and over it to try to keep it from being eaten.   I think at some point it will be big enough that I can safely remove the cage, but until then, it's kind of like I've put it in a plant "zoo."

Narrowleaf False Dragonhead, caged up to try to protect it from critters.

Next on my list was to get some more beans planted.  It was about that time that the sun finally broke through the clouds.  It was only 74° F, but the humidity and dewpoint was crazy!  In no time at all I was dripping sweat.

But I went ahead and planted some lima beans and some improved pinto (horticulture beans).  I used my grass shears to cut down the little winter annuals that were finishing up (the henbit, the red deadnettle, etc.) and just put it along the sides of the rows as mulch.  Then I used my hand scratcher to scratch a trench about 1/2" deep down the middle of the row, put in the beans, cover them back up, and water them in...done.

Thorogreen Lima beans.

I have to be careful cutting down the winter annuals though.  Twice now I've discovered little caterpillars feeding on them!  So I'm trying to be really careful not to cut down anything that has caterpillars on it.

Caterpillar of the Variegated Fritillary (Euptoieta claudia), feeding on American Field Pansy (Viola rafinesquei).

I moved some of the Amaranth from the main garden out into the east bed, and set out the Rosemary cuttings that I had rooted from some herbs I bought in the produce section at the grocery store.  I also set out the last Green Tomatillo plant and the little parsley seedlings in that bed.

I've not had much luck with my Nasturtiums or my marigolds again, so I planted a few more seeds here and there just to see if they'll do anything.  I hope they do.   

I also threw the last of my Maryland Senna (Senna Marilandica) seeds on the ground in a couple of places and kind of scratched them into the dirt in the hope that they'll go ahead and sprout.  I tried starting them indoors and tried some in a milk jug outside, but had zero luck with either method.  

Maryland Senna (Senna marilandica) observed August 2, 2015.

I had started some Hollyhocks in pots, and decided to just set them out today too.  So they've gone in the back yard by the new fence.  They won't bloom this year, but if they can survive the winter, they should be really pretty there next summer.

In the last part of the afternoon, I spent some time pulling grass out of the irises in the back yard, and cutting some of the tall grass around the hazelnuts.  The grass makes a good mulch to go around the young trees in that part of the yard, so that should help keep them from drying out so bad this summer.

Oh...and speaking of things drying out.  RAF helped me unload my IBC tote Friday evening and I got it set up beside the first one.  I thought I might be able to connect it to my rain barrels and fill it like I did the first one, but there just wasn't enough water pressure to push the water all the way up over the top of the tote.  I've ordered the fitting I need but it won't be here until Friday, May 12.

On Sunday, I had two projects I wanted to get done.  The first one was pretty easy...drive a couple of T-posts and tie up another cattle panel so that the cantaloupes will have something to climb on.  

Cattle panel trellis, ready for the cantaloupes.

I grew some on a cattle panel many, many years ago, and it worked.  I'm thinking it's a good way to save horizontal space, but also to keep the cantaloupes up off the ground and away from critters.

After the panel was up, I brought some of the rotted cow manure and used it in the planting holes for the cantaloups.  I also top-dressed the cucumbers.  I'm not sure if they really needed that or not, but it seemed like a good thing to do.

Straight 8 cucumbers.  The first three hills were seeds I had bought.  I had put three or four seeds in the individual cells of a six-pack, but only one germinated in each cell.  The last bunch, on the other hand, were some seeds I had saved, and I think every one of them came up.

The second project was much more involved and took me a good while.  I had promised my youngest daughter that we would build a nice little concrete slab to hold the headstone she bought for her precious kitty, Soldier.   I started out by building a form out of 2"x6" scraps, with one 2"x4" scrap for the front.  My plan was to have the stone slope down slightly.

The form, set down in the dirt and all level, ready for concrete.

Once I had the form set, I started mixing some concrete, a little bit at a time.  After the bottom of the form was filled, I put in some old fence wire scraps, just because I thought the wire might help keep the slab from cracking.  I'm not sure it would anyway because it's so small, but I figured the wire wouldn't hurt anything.

A bit of wire to reinforce the slab.

When I got the form filled to the top, I tamped the concrete down, and tried to smooth it off as best I could.  I then carefully placed the little headstone in the center.  This was the tricky part, because I had gotten the concrete a bit too wet there at the end, and it was trying to sag down the form. 

The finished slab.

I wasn't unhappy with how it turned out.

Since there was still plenty of daylight left, I decided to work on another project...the raised bed around the cellar.  I've gotten part of it finished and even have some things growing in it.

Strawberries and snow peas from the raised bed around the cellar.

But the back part is still a big gaping hole.  I need to get it finished so I can start filling it and have it ready for new strawberry plants that I plan to relocate from the runners that put out in the current bed.

So I hammered in another support stake (very crooked, it was too!), and using the "Bessie" clamps, pulled the warped board up to the stake and screwed it in place.  But after I got that board fastened, I decided that I really needed something on the end where the rock steps are.  I found some 2"x6" scraps and was able to start boxing in the end with one of those.  Next, I measured for the top board, cut the 2"x8" to length, clamped it with the Bessie clamps and screwed it in place.  Last step was to put the last end piece on.

Making progress!

There are still some gaps that need to be filled on that end but other than that, I think that end is done, and just ready to be filled.  This end is where the bumblebee was...however, I've not seen any sign of her since the day I put up the cardboard.  I hope I didn't scare her away.

This afternoon, RAF helped me remove the forms from Soldier's headstone, and then I brought in some good dirt from the garden and planted flowers.

Flowers for Soldier:  Dwarf bachelor buttons; Forget-me-not; Sweet alyssum; and Alaska nasturtium.

I think it turned out very nice - I told my daughter that I wanted it to be something she would be proud of, and I think she will be.

The finished headstone.

I am going to build a bench of some sort under the green ash tree.  I told my daughter that it really is just a peaceful place there in that little grove of trees - the green ash; a catalpa; a pecan; a hackberry; and two of my little pawpaw trees.   I guess this is turning into our official pet cemetery, because Toby is buried just to the south of Soldier, and Zelda is to the west.

Once that project was finished, I decided to go ahead and set a post for the new weather station I ordered.  I am always having to ask someone how much rain we got, or what the low or high temperature was, and I just finally said, "Enough!" and bought my own.  I'm not sure when it will be here, but the post is ready for it when it does get here.

A treated 4"x4" post set into the ground behind the cellar will hold the new weather station.

I didn't have quite enough concrete mix to fill the hole, so I just packed the red clay that came out of the hole back in around the post once I ran out of the concrete.  I'm sure it will be fine.  That clay is very dense and packed in the hole almost like a brick!

Another view of the post.

I've started gathering up some flat rocks from the field, with the plan to make a "patio" kind of spot at the back of the cellar...so the rock steps will lead up to a rock patio, giving me a way to more easily get up to the top to work in the raised beds.  4' wide beds are nice, except when you can only stand on one side of them, you really can't reach all the way across! 

As I was putting all of the tools away, I happened to notice that the Kentucky Wonder beans are starting to come up inside the wigwams.  

Kentucky Wonder beans coming up.

So there's my next project...cut some pieces of chicken wire to fasten around the outside of the wigwams so the rabbits won't eat my beans!