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.