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.

 

 

November 2021 Gardening Journal

Wednesday, November 24, 2021

Today was yet another day of nice weather.  A cold front is supposed to move through tonight bringing rain and strong winds tomorrow.  All in all, it looks like Thanksgiving 2021 will be a very cold and blustery day.

So the plan for today was to continue work on the walking rows in the garden.  I had bought five more bags of mulch, and thought that would cover at least two rows.  I seriously overestimated how much it would cover.  I did the math and at $27.27 for five bags, it would end up costing me close to $300 to cover 10 walking rows!  I told RAF that I felt guilty for spending money to put down that mulch, but he made me feel somewhat better by reminding me that I really never spend money on myself.  I thought, "You know, he's right.  I don't go out and buy clothes or shoes or spend money on hair or makeup (maybe he wishes I would!  LOL)."   

With the five bags and the cardboard that I got from my mom and dad, I was able to almost completely cover another walking row.  I say "almost" because I ran out of cardboard and still had about three feet at the end to go.  I think there will be enough of the mulch to cover it all...I'll just need to rake it down the row to the end once I get more cardboard.  I did end up getting five more bags this afternoon.  I'm not sure yet if I will use those to finish the first two rows that I started, or if I'll try to outline the short row to the left.  Decisions, decisions, decisions!  

 

There was also time today to work more in the flower beds.  I dug up the Tall Goldenrod (Solidago altissima) and in its place, planted seeds of what is either Common Wrinkle-leaved Goldenrod (Solidago rugosa) or Elm-Leaved Goldenrod (Solidago ulmifolia). 

 

Common Wrinkle-leaved Goldenrod 

The tall goldenrod is very beautiful in the fall when it's in bloom, but it really was overpowering in that flowerbed.  The other kind is much shorter and should blend in well with the other flowers.

I also worked on moving some more flowers out of the bed under the Willow Oak.  Another butterfly milkweed and a green milkweed were relocated to the bed to hide the ugly stump (that flowerbed really needs a name).  Four clumps of Rudbeckia that had come up in the yard were also relocated to that bed, and the tall goldenrod that was under the oak tree was moved into that bed, but on the other side of the fence. And yes, I ended up making the bed just a bit bigger to accommodate the new additions.  I wonder how much bigger it's going to end up being when I'm finished with it!

Other than that, the rest of the outside work was pretty much just digging grass out of the flowerbeds.  I didn't do a very good job of keeping them cleaned out last summer, so I have lots of that kind of work left to do.  I'm not sure what work I'll be able to do the rest of the Thanksgiving break with the change in the weather.

 

Sunday, November 21, 2021

Yesterday was another nice November day so I thought I'd do a little more work on my raised rows.  I cut all of the jalapeno pepper plants and marigolds out of the end of the first row and finished that one out.  I also took down the panels for the green peas since the last one standing had been severed in two.  Put in another raised row there and added a short on just to the north.  I was pleased with how they turned out, but at the same time was so mad at myself and sad because in digging the dirt to move it from the walking rows, I killed two of my little toad friends who had hibernated in the dirt under the straw!  

😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭

I tried to make myself feel better by telling myself though that this is the last time I plan to ever do any digging like that.  From now on they can burrow under the mulch or under the walking rows wherever they want and they won't be hit by the tiller or the hoe or a shovel.  And to try to make up for killing those two I plan to go ahead with my idea of putting a little frog/toad pond in  in the west part of the yard so they'll have a place to spawn or just hang out.  

Four completed raised rows with one more partly finished.

The plan for the afternoon is to get more cardboard from my mom and dad...they have stacks of used cardboard feed boxes from when they raised broilers for Tyson.  I'm not sure exactly how that's going to work, because 1) the boxes are wider than my walking rows so will have to be cut or folded and 2) the boxes are DIRTY and stinky from having baby chicks pooping in them.  But I'll get a few and see how it goes.  

Before doing that though, I decided to get the little dogwood tree set out.  I had two dogwood trees in pots last year that I had started from seed, but they both got downy mildew and before I knew what had happened, they both died!  So this past spring, when I saw one about 3" tall that had come up volunteer under one of the red maple trees, I thought that was a sign...I was meant to have that one in my yard!  It couldn't stay where it was though, so I decided to try to carefully dig it up and move it.  But when I started digging, I hit maple roots and in trying to work around them, accidentally cut the taproot on the little dogwood.  It had about an inch and a half of taproot left, with one little side root.  That was it.  

I really didn't think it would survive, but decided to go ahead and put it in some water to see what would happen.  After about a week, it was still green, so I put it in some good potting soil and set the pot in some water.  Low and behold, in about a month, it actually put out a new leaf, and before long, another.  It spent about two months in the little pot, then I moved it into one of the plastic pots that had come from a local nursery several years ago (no idea what I bought but apparently I got something at some time!  LOL)

Over the summer, it continued to grow, and is now about a foot tall.  It looks like the leaves have a touch of the downy mildew on them, but it has good strong-looking buds, so I hope it will put out next spring.  I was afraid its roots might freeze in the pot, so this afternoon I set it out in the front yard, mulched it well with leaves and compost, then put up a T-post and cage to protect it from the rabbits and deer.  What a shame that the little trees have to have cages around them, but I've learned the hard way that rabbits and deer will just eat the new growth right out of top of a little tree, and darn it all, this one has already had a rough enough start as it is!  I have read that a mixture of milk and water will kill downy mildew and I've also read that Neem oil can be used to kill it, so I'm going to keep a close eye on it next spring and try to spray at the first hint of trouble.  So excited that maybe...just maybe...I will finally have a dogwood tree in the yard!

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

The wind blew the black plastic off the west side of the storm cellar so I spent about an hour working on the new strawberry bed.  What a mess.  With every chop of the hoe I was cursing myself for putting that Bermuda grass there.  Why, oh why did I do that!  I had a clean slate to work with and I ruined it!  :(   

But looking on the bright side, I think I've discovered a "brick mine" in the field west of the garden.  I had found a few bricks there in the past, but it wasn't until RAF decided to mow around the fence on the pasture side that I really noticed a good sized "hump" in the field.  It looks like at some point in the 141 year history of this old house that someone probably tore down one of the three chimneys (maybe two of them) and just piled the bricks out west of the house, leaving them to get covered with leaves and dirt and overgrown with grass.  So far, I've dug up about a dozen full-sized bricks, and about that many more half-bricks.  I hope I will eventually find enough to go all the way around the strawberry bed. 

 

Old bricks from the "brick mine."

 Sunday, November 7, 2021

We finally had our first frost of the season this past week.  The growing days for 2021 are coming to an end, but that just means it's time to start planning for spring 2022. 

With that in mind, I worked a bit more on the "hide the ugly tree stump" flowerbed and finally got the bricks/rocks/old fence posts put around it.  The Butterfly Milkweed plant (Asclepias tuberosa) in the south flowerbed put on some late blooms, and the seed pods finally opened.  I went ahead and collected all of the seeds and planted a few more in the expanded flowerbed.  I also relocated a butterfly milkweed plant from a flowerbed under the willow oak in the front yard to the expanded stump flowerbed - I hope it survives the move.  That bed under the oak tree is just too dry in the summer (the tree sucks all of the moisture out of the ground) so I've decided to move everything out of that bed and just turn it back into yard. I have a number of purple coneflower plants that still need to be moved, as well as a Green Milkweed (Asclepias viridis) that I relocated from the cow pasture a couple of years ago.  That poor plant...if it can "think" I'm sure it will be wishing I would just make up my mind where to put it already!   

 

 

October 2021 gardening journal

Sunday, October 31, 2021

Hard to believe it's already the end of October.  We're supposed to have a big cool down this week, so it may actually start to feel like fall.

Update on the "no-float" mulch on the walking rows.  It appears to have stayed put and so I'm definitely planning to add more over the winter. 

  

RAF and I dug sweet potatoes today. We don't grow them very often, and I have never thought the ones we grew were very good.  But that's probably because I never "cured" them before eating them or putting them in storage!  Who knew you were supposed to do that!  

I only set out five slips, so I consider this to be a pretty good harvest.  There are lots of small ones, probably because I didn't water them enough during the dry weather.  

 

The rest of the day was spent working in the flower beds and in "the mud-hole" which is what we call the area where the washing machine drains.  It got the name "the mud-hole" because the drain pipe was buried out into the pasture, and the cows had actually tromped around in that area until they uncovered the pipe and created a big muddy mess.  We've fenced it off now so they can't get to it anymore, and I use it now as a place to throw tree limbs that we pick up from the yard, grass clippings, and the old plants from the garden.  It will eventually be filled back up! 

But until it is, I've decided the soggy ground might be a good place to grow some of the wildflower seeds I've collected from The Barber Field, which is a marshy field full of beautiful wildflowers of all different kinds.  Since it usually gets brush-hogged at the end of summer, I don't feel too guilty about trying to collect seeds there. 

I had started a Buttonbush (Cephalanthus occidentalis) from seed a couple of years ago.  I didn't label the pot, and by the time the seeds came up, I had long forgotten what I had planted.  I thought it was a Helianthus of some sort and set it out in the south flower bed, which was very hot and dry.  It's really a miracle that it survived that first summer. Then last spring, I decided to move it from the south flowerbed to the "hide the ugly tree stump" flowerbed.  After it put out a few leaves, the deer nipped the top out of it.  But it put out again, and it finally dawned on me that the plant was NOT a Helianthus at all...it was a buttonbush!  I dug it up again, and set it out in the mud-hole  thinking it would do well in the soggy soil.  But it got crowded out by smartweed and grass and I thought it had probably died.  I was delighted to find it today!  I've moved it again, this time into the part of the mud-hole that is still in the yard.  I hope it will survive yet another move.

I also decided to make the "hide the ugly tree stump" flowerbed just a big bigger, planning to put cardboard and mulch between the plants and the bricks/rocks/logs around the edge of it so maybe they won't flop over into the yard.  I added another yellow flower, this time an annual that should bloom next summer:  Bidens aristosa.  There were lots of those blooming in the ditches this fall and they were really pretty and the blooms lasted for a good while.  I think they'll make a nice addition to that bed. 

 

Saturday, October 23, 2021

Temperatures are still well above average for October, but it was cool enough to do a bit of work on the raised rows.

I don't have any wood chips for the walking rows, so I wasn't sure what I was going to use to cover them.  After a bit of shopping around, I thought I'd try the Oldcastle NoFloat Cypress Blend mulch.  As it turns out, the little feed store where I get most of my pet food and gardening "stuff" carries it.  Their price is about $1/bag higher than Lowe's, but they're a local small business and I like shopping there (plus I don't have to drive 45 miles to get to the store!).

I started out with just four bags to see how far that would go and more importantly, to see how it was going to work.  After moving the dirt from the walking rows up into my raised rows, I put down a layer of corrugated cardboard (boxes saved from online orders) then put down a layer of mulch, probably an inch to an inch and a half thick.

I had really hoped the mulch would cover more than it did, but all in all, I like how it turned out and plan to add more in the coming months.  Having to buy the mulch makes the garden cost more than I would spend if I just bought the fresh produce, I know.   But there's just something very orderly and satisfying about these raised rows, and I think I'm going to like them a lot.

Weather forecast is calling for strong to severe storms tomorrow, so I guess I'll get to find out just how "no-floaty" this stuff is.  Hopefully it won't all get washed off down the hill!

I planted vetch and rye seeds on the new raised rows and worked the seeds in with the rake.  Probably need to get all of the rye planted very soon...when I opened the bag, one of those "millers" as we called them (a type of moth that eats grains), flew out of the bag.  Don't want them to eat up the seeds before I can get them planted! 

I did have quite a bit of rye in my first raised row, but most of it is gone.  I suspect that either the rabbits or the deer got it.  I really think I'll end up spending even more money on fencing of some sort to try to keep them out.  LOL 

The second project for the day was getting some of the fall flowers planted.  The spot where I had planned to work was in the full sun and it was just too hot to be out there working in that.  So instead, I decided to expand my existing "hide the ugly tree stump" flowerbed, since it looks pretty ratty and it was in the shade!

I took the hoe to it, and chopped out grass and weeds, then repositioned rocks and bricks around the bed so it was better defined.  Then I planted:  Orange Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa); Mexican Hat (Ratibida columnifera pulcherrima), Shasta Daisy (Leucanthemum x superbum); Common Dill (Anethum graveolens); Ironweed (Vernonia sp.); a white Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea); Native Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta); Dwarf Red Coneflower(Ratibida columnifera); and Gloriosa Daisy (Rudbeckia hirta).  The bed already had two Cup Plants (Silphium perfoliatum) that I started from seed last fall.  

If the seeds come up, most of them probably won't bloom until summer 2023.  But I'm hoping for blooms from the cup plants, since they'll be in their second year, and from the Shasta Daisy, since they were plants my mama gave me last weekend.  When they do bloom though, the bed ought to be a flower painting of reds, orange, yellows and whites, and I think it will be beautiful to see!  At least that's how I'm picture it in my mind!  The ironweed doesn't really fit, because it's a purple, but my plan is to clean out the north side of the bed later this fall and plant my "purple" flowers on that side, so the ironweed won't be the only purple flower in the bed. 

I may have messed up planting stuff today, because with the storms coming, the hard rain on the bare dirt might be a disaster.  I hope the tiny seeds don't end up washed down the hill with the no-float mulch! 

 

The red/orange/yellow/white flower bed and my little helper Mo. You can see how enthusiastic  he was about helping with this project.

Sunday, October 10, 2021

After a few weeks of procrastinating, I finally got around to installing my rain barrel spigot.  Biggest problem was that the barrel still had about 35 gallons of water in it, and I didn't think it would be a good idea to use the hole saw on an electric drill with the water level above where the hole was going to be.  So I decided to puncture the barrel with a screw so the water would drain out - plus, the screw hole would act as a pilot hole for the drill bit.  

I thought I would get the spigot installed yesterday afternoon, and while the screw hole worked, the water came out in such a tiny stream that it took about five hours for it to drain!  But what's one more day when you've put it off for over a month already, right?

It took about five hours to drain 30 gallons of water out of the barrel through a screw hole!

The installed spigot...

The spigot at work. Very, very nice! So much easier than trying to pump the water out!

And, yes, the garden hose does thread onto the spigot! 

Next spring, I plan to buy fittings and hoses to connect the barrels.  No point in doing that now because with winter coming up, the hoses might freeze.  When all is said and done, this will end up costing quite a bit, but eventually it should pay for itself in what I save on water, AND what I save on my poor ol' back.

 

 

Saturday, October 9, 2021

I thought today would be a good day to clear out the grass from the spot west of the house where I want to put in a native wildflower bed.  Wrong!  I waited until the dew dried off the grass and by then it was TOO HOT to be working out in the sun (too hot for my out-of-shape self anyway!).  Is it supposed to be 90 degrees in October???? 

I did manage to get most of the hackberry sucker shoots cut back, so that's a start.  I will try again late this evening when that spot is back in the shade.

Just to be clear, when I say "native wildflower" bed, not all of the seeds will come from plants that were grown here in Arkansas.  I've started buying seeds from Everwilde Farms (so far I've been really happy with every purchase), and while they're way out on the west coast, all of the seeds I've ordered are indicated on the their website to be native in Arkansas so I'm going to go with the term "native."  I do have a few seeds I've saved that will go in the bed, including Ironweed (Vernonia sp.); Common Dill (Anethum graveolens); Butterfly Milkweed (Asclepias tuberosa); Green Milkweed (Asclepias viridis); Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea); and Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta).  I've not had very good luck in the past trying to start seeds that I've saved, so this fall, I'm just going to plant them directly in the new bed - what comes up, comes up, and what doesn't, doesn't!

Update on the cover crops in the raised rows:  The row where I had the tomatoes planted looks pretty good.  The vetch and rye have both come up nicely.  The row at the far west end of the garden actually has quite a bit of vetch at the south end.  Seems as though all those seeds I planted that "didn't come up" just needed some rain. The more northern parts of that row don't have much on them, so I'll need to replant there.  I do need to figure out what to do with my "walking rows."  I don't have any thing on them right now and I see lots of little weeds sprouting. I'm thinking about buying a wood chipper so I can kill two birds with one stone:  create wood chips for my walking rows and have something to do with all the sticks that end up in the yard.  But I haven't gotten up the nerve to make that purchase just yet because it's a pretty substantial investment.

Update on the Early Frosty peas:  The seeds I planted to fill in the gaps where the first planting didn't come up didn't come up either so I bought a new packet from the feed store this week and am trying again.  Third time's a charm, right? 

September 2021 gardening journal

Monday, September 27, 2021

I worked on building up "raised rows" in the garden this weekend.   I have two rows about 2/3rds of the way finished, but will have to wait until I dig the sweet potatoes in one and cut down the jalapeno pepper and marigolds in the other before I can finish them.

And now I'm paying for all that digging (which turned out to be really hard work!).  I think every muscle and joint in my body aches!   

RAF looked at the raised rows and pointed out that he won't be able to knock down the grass and weeds with the lawnmower now.  He has a very good point.  I hope I'm not going to end up "undigging" the raised rows because I can't (don't) keep them cleaned out.  

 Saturday, September 25, 2021

It's hard to believe the month is almost over.  The green peas didn't come up very well at all...I think I ended up with about 10 plants out of the entire pack.  I had some more seeds of the same type (again very old) and have tried filling in the gaps with those.  It's been about a week since I planted those, and so far, no sign of any of them.  Something broke off or chewed off one of the plants I did get to come up.  Seems like the forces are against me and my green peas.

 After our nice rain on September 4/5, it stayed hot, and it didn't take long for that little bit of rain to dry up.  Everything was getting pretty dry again, but thankfully a cold front came through last week bringing us a little more rain and cooler temperatures for a couple of days.  It's hot again now, and we still need more rain, but every little bit helps.

Because everything looks so pitiful, and there aren't any prospects for any more things like tomatoes, I plan to spend part of today cutting back the old plants to get them out of the way.  When that's done, I will dig some of the dirt out of the "between the rows" area and cover the straw mulch to start my raised row garden.  The first raised row will be planted with vetch and rye, and this time, I'll keep it watered to make sure it gets off to a good start.

Also spent some time pulling dayflower (Commelina sp.) out of one of the flower beds.  It had absolutely taken over that bed.  That flower bed has Narrowleaf Mountain mint (Pycnanthemum tenuifolium); Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis); Common Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum); and Blue Mistflower (Conoclinium coelestinum).  I'm not really happy with how the bed looks, so will probably end up moving most of the plant somewhere else this winter.  I don't know how they'll like that -- they may not survive the move.  But we'll see.

Monday, September 6, 2021

I didn't have any luck with my green peas  (Pisum sativum) this past spring.  Either the seeds were so old that they didn't sprout; they rotted from all the rain; or something at them before I ever saw any of them.  I'm going to try a fall crop, so today I planted "Early Frosty" beside the cucumber trellis.  This is my first no-till crop.  I had planted marigolds with the cucumbers as a companion plant, but instead of pulling them up, I just cut them down leaving the roots in the ground.  Then I pulled the mulch back, dug a little trench beside the trellis, put the seeds in the trench about 3" apart, covered them up, and watered.  

I got the seeds (Livingston Seed) at the local feed store this summer when they marked them down to .25 cents per packet. If they grow, what a bargain!  This is an heirloom variety so I plan to try to save some seeds if I can.

Sunday, September 5, 2021

We FINALLY got some rain last night.  My sister said she had 1 1/2" in her rain gauge.  It was very much needed, and very, very welcome!

Cover crops

Well, I did it.  I actually paid money for some weed seeds, then planted them in my garden...on purpose.

I have to admit, this makes me nervous.  

But "the experts" say cover crops can be a great way to help improve your soil.  Some of them are nitrogen fixers, helping replace nitrogen that's been depleted by heavy feeders like corn.  Some have roots that help break up compacted soil, and the tops of all of them add organic matter as they decompose.

So this year I'm going to try two cover crops: Hairy Vetch (Vicia villosa) and Winter Rye (Secale cereale).  Problem is, I'm not really sure how to get started.  

For the first planting, using a hoe, I just loosened up the dirt a bit in the rows where the potatoes and late corn were planted, then scattered some vetch seeds on top.  I didn't even try covering them up or anything.  I did put the water hose on them that evening and later that night we got a good rain.  Hopefully the seeds didn't wash away.  I should know in a few days.

But in the really bad part of the garden, I had put down cardboard and straw in a strip about four feet wide.  I guess I'll need to move that out of the way first because there really aren't any "rows" there.  Maybe all of that can be relocated to the rows where the purple hull peas were planted this year.  Grow and learn, right?

I still have some Bermuda grass at the south end of that part of the garden too, so I'll need to take the hoe to that before I plant.  After that, I guess I'll just scatter a mix of the two kinds of seeds of that entire area, and use the rake to "settle it in."

I told RAF he isn't going to like cover crops one bit.  He's almost obsessive compulsive about keeping the yard neat, and it always bothers him in the spring when the red deadnettle (Lamium purpureum) and henbit (Lamium amplexicaule) start popping up making the yard look uneven and raggedy.  I always beg, "Please leave them just a bit longer...they're an important nectar source for insects early in the year and they're not hurting anything...."  He growls at me, but he leaves them.  He's now been warned that the garden may start to look pretty rough next spring, but he will just have to not look at it until time to kill the cover crops!   

I think so long as we cut these down before they set seed, we'll be Ok.  But here's hoping I don't regret this decision next summer!

More about cover crops, and specifically vetch and rye:

• Winter Cover Cropping: A Fine Time to Build Soil
  
  
• What Is Winter Rye Grass: Growing Winter Rye As A Cover Crop
  
  
• Winter Rye: A Reliable Cover Crop
  
  
• Hairy Vetch as a Cover Crop
  
  
• Managing Cover Crops Profitably, 3rd Edition - Hairy Vetch
  
  
• Vetch

9/25/2021 Update:  While a few of the seeds came up, I guess it was still too dry.  So I'll be starting over.  This time, though, I'm going to plant the seeds in raised rows. following the method described in this article, How to Create a Simple, Weed-Free, Low-Maintenance Vegetable Garden.

Fall garden visitors

In the early spring, we had quite a time with some regular visitor to our garden. Every night, the rabbits came out and helped themselves to anything they wanted. The nerve of those wascally wabbits!

I never did get any early beans to grow. Most of them sprouted, but by the time they put out their second set of leaves, "something" (probably the rabbits) ate them down to just a stem.

But eventually, the rabbits stopped coming into the garden, and we got a few things to grow. Even when the weather turned hot and dry, I was able to keep a few things watered, including the okra, lima beans and sweet potatoes. The Cherokee Purple tomatoes were still trying to make, and the purple hull peas put on a second crop even without much water.  We managed to beat the raccoons to the corn this year too. 

Then the fall visitors came.

I had noticed that something was eating down the big patch of Morning Glory vines that were growing out by the brush pile. I figured it was deer but thought it was odd that I never saw any deer poo anywhere.

It turned out to be a groundhog (Marmota monax)! The little guy (or gal) had moved in under the brush pile and apparently came out when no one was around and helped himself to as many of the tender green leaves as he wanted!

I didn't mind him eating the Morning Glory leaves. They had entirely taken over that area, and were choking out the Spider Flowers (Cleomes spp.). But then he ate most of my Lizard's Tail (Saururus cernuus) and Ditch Stonecrop (Penthorum sedoides). That wasn't very nice of him. And when he had nibbled those plants down to the stems, he went looking for more and found something wonderful...our garden!

He's not one bit shy anymore. He has started coming out in the middle of the day and helping himself, starting first with the overripe tomatoes, then stealing all of the green tomatoes, now pulling down the still green lima beans. I've never had any dealings with a groundhog before, but I'm quite certain from watching him out the window that they can be quite destructive to a garden. If he doesn't move on by next spring, he will be something we have to figure out how to deal with.  Mo would really, really, really like to help us out with that problem!

Our little groundhog friend, eating the green lima bean pods like no one is anywhere around.

As the heat and drought of summer really took hold, the deer came. And who could blame them? When all the plants around you are dry and crunchy, I guess it would be quite the treat to find some leaves that are still a little bit green!

Last year was the first year we ever had a problem with deer in our garden. We learned from experience last year that they can decimate the garden in one night, browsing their way through row after row, leaving nothing but stems. To try to save some of the garden, I bought one set of Wireless Deer Fence posts (one set contains three posts). I can personally testify that the posts can give quite a zap, since I have accidentally touched the electrodes two different times!

I set up the game camera hoping to get some video of the posts in action. Unfortunately, so far it looks like the deer have ignored the posts. Maybe I need to replace the attractant again? Anyway, they have now eaten almost all the leaves off the three "good" crops left at the west end of the garden, and so far, they haven't shown any interest in the deer posts (you can see one of them about two feet to the left of the deer eating my sweet potatoes).

I guess the okra will be done now that the deer have eaten what few big leaves were still on the plants. The plants look kind of pitiful...just bit stems standing in a row with a few yellow blooms here and there. The deer have not yet eaten all of the sweet potato leaves, and I hope that even if they do the plants are far enough along that we'll get a few potatoes from them. I think they've started nibbling on the late green beans though, so we may not get any green beans.

It's past time to set out the broccoli and brussels sprouts, but something ate them almost down to the stems already, so I'm not sure it's even worth the trouble. But I guess I'll give them a try anyway.  I'll put them somewhere closer to the house, and use cages around them so maybe the groundhog and the deer won't get them. Same with the late green peas...I hope that some wire will protect them from my visitors.

I'm sure our visitors all enjoy the garden as much as we do, but at this point, I'm going to have to say they've worn out their welcome.

To till, or not to till...I think I'll try not to

One of the problems we've run into almost every spring is how to get the garden tilled for planting.  Late winter and spring seem to be when we get a most of our annual rainfall and sometimes it can delay getting seeds or plants in the ground by literally weeks.

This year when I was piddling around on the internet, I started seeing articles about "no-till" gardening.  I wondered if that might be something that would work in my garden, especially in the spring when it was too wet to till.

What is "no-till?" According to Wikipedia...

No-till farming (also known as zero tillage or direct drilling) is an agricultural technique for growing crops or pasture without disturbing the soil through tillage. No-till farming decreases the amount of soil erosion tillage causes in certain soils, especially in sandy and dry soils on sloping terrain. Other possible benefits include an increase in the amount of water that infiltrates into the soil, soil retention of organic matter, and nutrient cycling. These methods may increase the amount and variety of life in and on the soil. While conventional no-tillage systems use herbicides to control weeds, organic systems use a combination of strategies, such as planting cover crops as mulch to suppress weeds.^[1]

I'm actually blessed with a really nice garden spot at this old house.  The problem is that the original "good" spot isn't really that big, and the dirt in the farther-out parts of the garden can get really hard and compacted during the summer.  It sounds like a no-till garden might be the answer to getting better production from those not-so-great parts of the garden.  So I've started making plans to switch to no-till this fall.  I have two big problems right off the bat.

First problem:  Bermuda grass.

Bermuda grass creeping into the garden.

Aggressive and tough, people don't call this "devil grass" just to be mean.  Once it's established, you can't pull it by hand, and if you miss a "node" when you dig it out, that node will likely take off growing again.  I've even read that roots can extend 3' to 4' down into the soil.  Yikes!

Most of the yard around the garden is Bermuda grass, and every year, it creeps into the garden around the edges.  Controlling it is going to be a real challenge.

Last year we had an in-ground storm cellar installed at the north edge of the garden.  We made the mistake of digging up blocks of Bermuda grass that had grown into the garden while we waited for the cellar to be installed, and used those to cover the red clay that was left piled around the cellar.  And when I say mistake, I mean BIG MISTAKE.  The garden surrounds the cellar on three sides, and the Bermuda grass has not only covered the clay, it's now spreading out into the garden itself.  So I'll need to get rid of that before I can convert that area to no-till.  

We made a BIG mistake by putting Bermuda grass around the new storm cellar last year. I've put down black plastic to try to kill it so I can create a strawberry bed there instead.

Second problem:  In a no-till garden, you're supposed to top off your garden every year with about 4" of compost and  organic mulch.  I don't have much of either.

I do have a small compost pile, but it doesn't make nearly enough compost to cover my garden rows with that much compost every year.  There might be enough aged compost now to cover one short row. I've bought bales of straw the past couple of years, but that gets pretty expensive at $7/bale, and again, a single bale doesn't cover much ground.

So if I'm going to make the switch, I'm going to have to get creative and re-think how I do things.

In the past, after I've harvested my corn, I would throw the green stalks over the fence for the cows.  This year, though, I had put straw around the second corn crop, and after harvest, I just chopped the stalks off and have left them on top of the straw.

This year, I'm leaving the corn stalks and leaves on the garden as organic mulch.

(This may be another mistake, because I'm pretty sure the second corn crop was infected with Southern Rust (Puccinia polysora), a fungus.  However, I've read that for the most part, the fungus doesn't overwinter in the United States, so hopefully I've not created a fungal party pad where my corn patch was!)

From here on out, all the plants that are "finished" for the year and that don't have some obvious sign of disease will be used as organic matter on the garden or will be incorporated into the compost pile.   

I also pledge to start raking up the leaves in my yard every fall and putting them on the garden.  I've meant to do that for a while now, but never seem to manage to do it. 

I pledge to use fall cover crops that will enrich and loosen the soil, and to "chop and drop" them next spring so they'll add even more organic matter back to the garden.

There are lots of old habits I'll have to break and I'm not sure I'll manage to be 100% no-till.  But I really want to see just how close I can get.  

It's interesting that the pull cord on the tiller broke off just the other day.  

Maybe it's a sign.   

Some good articles on no-till gardening:

• What is No-Till Gardening or Farming (aka No-Dig): Benefits Explained
  
  
• No-Till Gardening: An Easier Way to Grow
  
  
• Transitioning to a No-Till Garden
  
  
• Creating a No Till Raised Row Garden - The Easiest Way to Garden Ever!