The Old Farmer's Almanac said that Fava beans should be planted anywhere from January 6 to January 20 in our area. I didn't get them planted until January 24th, but I actually think that's probably a good thing. It turned off quite cold at the start of February, so I don't think I could have planted them outside anyway if I had started them as early as the almanac said.
I had decided to give the toilet paper tubes another try. While the tubes were such a disaster in the past, they worked really well this time. So well, in fact, that once the beans sprouted, they grew like crazy, and really just about got away from me. (I'm actually using the tubes for my green peas this year too. The snow peas that I planted last week are coming up, and last night I planted my Early Frosty shelling peas in tubes.)
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| The beautiful Fava beans, that needed to be set out probably a week ago. |
While the tops looked really healthy, I was really worried when I tipped the plastic box up and looked at the bottom. The roots were thick across the bottom of the box, and I am afraid that may mean the poor little plants are going to suffer from some serious transplant shock.
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| The roots were almost covering the bottom of the plastic box, looking for somewhere to grow. |
So even though we had a pretty hard frost last night, I decided they just had to be put outside, or they were not going to survive the transplanting. I decided to put them in the spot where the stick pile used to be, but that meant I had to dig out some of the Bermuda grass that had tried to creep in under the sticks.
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| Bermuda grass rhizomes that had to be dug out of the garden. |
I did my best to dig it out, but I'll have to keep a close eye on it this year to make sure it doesn't come back and try to take over. That stuff is devil grass, for sure.
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| A nasty garden pest - a cutworm - that I dug up while clearing Bermuda grass rhizomes. This guy got tossed way out into the grass away from the garden. I hope the bluebirds see it and eat it. |
With all of the visible rhizomes removed, I put the plants in a double row, at a spacing of about 8" to 12". I hope the roots didn't get ripped up too badly when I separated the cardboard tubes.
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| Transplanting the Fava beans. |
It sure was nice to just dig a hole and put the plants in...no-till is great! The soil in that spot really looked pretty good, probably because of the sticks that had rotted down there.
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| Fava beans, ready to stretch their roots! |
Once the beans were planted, I decided to try to finish off the "walking row" between the beans and the grass in the yard. My hope is that by putting cardboard down around the perimeter of the garden, covering it with a thick layer of wood chips and keeping the grass hoed just outside the cardboard, I can keep the Bermuda grass from invading the garden. But we'll see. If I've buried rhizomes under the cardboard, they'll find their way in, that I'm sure of.
I had a few privet limbs that were already cut, so I got my little cart out, hauled those back up to the house, and Little Joe and I got to work shredding them.
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| Little Joe, ready to get to work. |
There are only 10 days left in February, and that means I'm quickly running out of time to cut and treat the privet this winter. So after lunch, I headed back down the hill to work on another section below the barn.
Because I was getting deeper down into the woods, it was a long drag to get the limbs back up to my brush pile. I decided that on this section, I'd just pile the cut limbs and trees into the hole left by the roots of one of the trees that had blown over.
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| Making progress down the hillside. |
I did a no-no with the chainsaw today though. I always try to move any rocks away from a tree that I'm getting ready to cut, but today I missed one that was just within reach of the tip of the bar and ended up hitting that rock with the chain. Boo! I'm hoping it didn't hurt the chain too much -- I hope I caught it pretty quickly and stopped the saw before it did too much damage.
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| Big privet stump |
Most of the privet down in this area were fairly small so I was able to cut them with the loppers or with my hand saw. But there were a few bigger ones that required the chainsaw, and boy am I happy that I got that little saw! It needs a name, doesn't it! I mean if the shredder is named Little Joe, then I guess I'll name the chainsaw Walter?
Walter did seem a bit "tired" today, and I decided that the battery probably needed to be charged. But he was still able to cut several of the bigger trees. Goodness, those things are HEAVY!!!! I ended up using the loppers to cut the tops out of some of them so I could throw them on the pile, but by the time I cut this big one, I was getting very sore and very tired, so ended up just kind of dragging and heaving it over to the side sort of in a pile of its own.
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| Large privet tree that was just about too heavy for me to move without cutting it into sections. I think the stupid thing was close to 15' tall. |
It was very satisfying to look back up the hill when I quit for the day and see a clear area all the way up to the top.
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| Most of this section has been cleared with the exception of the tree in the upper left and the one in the upper right. I'll get those next time. |
To finish up today, I planted a few more walnuts down there and pulled a few privet seedlings. I figure in the upcoming months I'll need to make a point to go through that area several times to pull up any new seedlings that might pop up. I am so hopeful that the black walnuts will come up, and that they might help control this stuff! I just really don't see any way that it will ever be eradicated, especially since it's still being sold and planted on purpose.
I was dragging the limbs I had set aside for the shredder up the hill when I thought I heard a vehicle. I looked up and could just see the top of IXR (that's pronounced Ick'-ser, after the license plate that was on the truck at one time), my red truck, coming through the field. Bless his heart! RAF had come to get me! I must say it was a welcome sight because that meant we could load the limbs in the bed of the truck instead of on my little cart. I wouldn't have minded bringing the limbs back to the house on the cart, but since I was feeling quite near "finished" for the day, it was a much appreciated lift.
I shredded a few more limbs late this afternoon and was able to cover about a 3' section of cardboard by the Fava beans with chips about 4" deep. I will need about twice that many to finish up that walking row, but I know where I can get plenty more privet limbs to shred....