This Girl’s House

Today, I picked up 2 yards of garden soil from the local gravel pit at a cost of $66.  Hard to believe that dirt costs that much.  I must admit I prefer getting in dribs and drabs as opposed to having a truck dump a load and that’s because I can unload it and distribute it in piles to places that it needs to go as I have time instead of having this big pile of dirt that I need to get rid of.  Of course, it helps to have a boyfriend that has his own excavator.  Still Stevie can’t deliver dirt to my garden using that excavator.  That would be overkill.  So I move dirt into there using the wheelbarrel, the garden cart, and a 5 gallon bucket. 

I dumped a bunch of dirt over my potatoes.  Key to growing more of them is heaping more dirt onto potato plants.  I just love my potato plants, particularly those purple potatoes.  I’m also putting more potato plants in tires that line the pathways.

We will putting more plants into the ground this summer.  Have started with pole beans.  The tomatoes have exploded.  I have to be prepared to can and freeze by September.  Seems like everyone has a garden.  I spent yesterday’s appt at the dentist discussing gardening secrets with my dental hygienist.  She had a lot of good tips and she loves purple potatoes too.

So the garden has been bountiful.  We have rarely had to buy lettuce since April, maybe 2 heads.  We eat lettuce, spinach, cauliflower, chives and collard greens and now I’m starting to harvest the zuchini.

My pumpkins are the size of bowling balls.

I’m looking at my zuchini recipes.  zuchini chips, zuchiniu bread, zuchini and spinach with basil.

This weekend, I spent the time pulling Arrowhead weed around the dock and front of the lawn, at least 20 feet into the lake. 

 

It was back breaking work, and to tell the truth I would not have been doing it except my neighbor expressed concern about it, and I try to be a good neighbor.  Steve was laughing about it, thought I was crazy because it’s just going to come back, but you do what think you have to do.  Arrowhead weed grows about 5 to 6 feet tall and it has these tall sharp blades with little flowers at the end. 

 

The real issue is the root system.  It has these bulbous tubers that grow in a root system that resembles more of a carpet than anything I’ve ever seen. 

 

We tried pulling them out with a potato rake for about half hour.  I found that to be a little frustration.  Luckily, I had bought my large pick axe with me in the wheel barrel so I told Darlene to hand me that and began methodically chopping away at the undergrowth.  You basically had to whack whack away at the weed, and then reach down under the water with your hand and feel around until you got underneath the root system and then start slowly pulling until you got a good grip under it, and then start rocking back and forth using your weight as leverage until you’ve yanked a hunk out. 

 

Imagine I’m out in the lake 20 foot out, bending down with my face just above the surface of the water, standing there in a dripping t-shirt and shorts wearing my rubber boots that have half a foot of water in the soles.  Once you got the hunk torn out, I had to drag it to the bank and heave it up as far as I could.  Laden with water, the root hunks weigh between 30 and 50 pounds.  Once on the bank, the roots will dry out and hopefully I can add them to the compost pile.  I read last night that the Indians used to eat the roots and that they contain a lot of carbohydrates, which is just great.  Another food source.  Anyway, I’m pooped.

You know it’s one thing to say, I’m going to do a garden to feed my family, and it’s another issue to get real live results from that commitment.  We have 6 garden beds, one large half wine barrel, several long green planters, and 16 tires that I’m using to grow stuff in.  You’d be amazed at how much space plants take, and at this time, I’m not getting enough out of the garden to feed me and Stevie let alone a family. 

No doubt, it’a learning experience and I’ll get better at the task the more years I put into it.  For example, let me tell you all about my broccoli. 

I planted the brocolli in March and it’s the end of May and I had nothing more than a couple of week sticks of broccoli.  Certainly not the volume that I was looking for.  First off, I only planted two rows.  That’s nothing enough to feed two people the amount of broccoli we like to eat.  I did read that we could use the leaves, but I’m looking for real broccoli heads.  Second, I waited too long to harvest what little broccoli I grew.  When the floret begin to sprout little yellow flowers, it was a bad sign.  I was like, well, what do I do now.  Do I just off the leaves and hope that it will regrow again, or do I start all over.  Well, I found my answer in this book called Rodale’s Vegetable Garden Problem Solver that I checked out of the library.  First, brocolli is harvested in one shot.  Whatever you’re going to get, you’ll get within 60 days of planting unless you expect a cool summer (less than 80 degrees).  Some people suggest that you pull the plant out when you’re ready to harvest, but I found a great video on YouTube that tells you how to extend your harvest to get the side shoots.  When you eventually pull the plant, it is ready for the compost pile.  And I’m definitely going to need more than 2 rows of brocolli.  I’m going to have to stagger the plantings.

I read the most interesting blog post tonight about this subject at Casaubon’s Book blog. The gal makes some interesting points. I too have come to the conclusion that I have more land than I need, and for many of the reasons she mentions, I note. I bought the land for the same reasons she and her family bought theirs. My garden is 20 feet from my front door and I have the well pump right by the garden fence. The only thing I really lack is actual gardening experience, which I am in the process of gaining. I too have a lot of potatoes, but I think I need more.

My garden is getting bigger every day. I’m thinking I might have to transplant some of budding produce, like my potatoes and my greens.

My neighbor has a greenhouse that her husband bought for her on her birthday.  I’ve been jealous of that greenhouse from day 1, and have one day dreamed of me having a greenhouse of my own.  I’ve been putting some thought into where I would put the dreamhouse, and what type of dreamhouse I would buy.  Here is an excellent article about greenhouses, including the challenges of putting one together, from Alexandra Marks, Christian Science Monitor.  This website from the University of Georgia contains information about greenhouses including greenhouse detailed architecture plans for those who might want to build their own.  Here’s another great document about Greenhouse Vegetable Production.  While the greenhouse it’s referring to is on a large scale, most of the growing methods discussed can be assumed by an individual with a small greenhouse.  The University of West Virginia also has a great document on greenhouses.

Well I do.  I’ve been composting regularly for about a year now, and it’s gotten to be such a habbit that I cringe inside when something goes into the trash that should go into the compost pile.  Shoot, it’s such a regular habit that even Stevie is composting too.  It wasn’t always like this. 

I’ve been composting regularly now for almost a year, and my first efforts where pretty weird.  For one thing, I was just throwing the compost in a pile, and not doing really nothing with it.  I didn’t put the right articles in my compost.  I started composting in a shady area.  I wasn’t using the right mix, I mean brocolli stalks take a really long time to break down if you don’t chop them up and don’t mix them with the right ingredients. 

Then I started to compost in my raised beds, and the stars aligned themselves in the heavens.  For one thing, I begin to mix the compost with some soil and other types of brown material.  Second, my raised beds are in an area that gets regular sun and near enough to hose to keep it from drying out.  Finally, I mix my compose with a pitch fork.  No, I’m not lifting the stuff, but I am in there moving that pitchfork back and forth. 

OK, so I don’t really know what I’m doing.  But 2 months ago, my friend asked me if I had some worms in my compost and I said no.  So she brings over a jar of nice red worms and we go out there to put them in my compost pile, and don’t you know it, I lift my compost and there were hundreds of worms everywhere.  My compost was wiggling all over the place.  I added her worms into the pile, and now I rotate the compost into the beds, moving my worms around.  I’ve basically run out of space in my raised beds, and now I’m going to try a different approach. 

One day, we were driving down the road and I saw these 2 feet by 2 feet square structures, four green fence posts surrounded by wire about 3 to 4 feet tall just sticking out in the middle of someone’s lawn.  It took me a moment to realize what I was looking at.  Homemade compost bins.  Just think about it.  You compost in those bins and as you keep adding in stuff, it starts settling down.  When it’s full, you just start a new one.  When it’s done, you just unhook the wire fence and start shoveling out.

What’s going in my compost pile?  Egg shells, coffee grinds (although not so much anymore), tea bags, all sorts of green materials (we live so far away from the store that sometimes when tend to overbuy produce and let’s face it, most of that cauliflower is not something we would eat), stale bread, plant clippings, dog hair, dust bunnies.  I keep a 3 pound empty coffee can on the counter and dump my items to compost in there.  When that gets full, I move it out the door to the back porch where I put it in an empty 28 pound cat litter bucket.  When that gets full, I pour the contents into my latest compost pile and mix it up with some clay or old dirt that I usually have lying next to it.  We’re filling that cat litter bucket up about every 10 days or so, and to busy honest, there is a lot more room in the garbage can which just goes to show you how much compostable materials are ending up in landfills.  What a waste.

Good Links on Composting

• Compost Happens
• How Compost Happens
• How To Compost

I have to work this weekend, but I have managed to escape to the garden for a few hours. I love the garden.  I can get completely lost in time, working the soil, moving rocks, planting seeds and little budding vegetable plants.  I’m really not any good making starter plants in the house, although I might try to do this next year. 

I took a short break and ran down to the local garden center.  I bought Bumper fertilizer at 3 bags for $25, 3 bags of potato seeds, and a host of greens and 1 large bundle of strawberry plants. 

 

I also spent a couple of hours whacking at blackberry bushes.  I have a whole lot of blackberry bushes on the property and it’s hard to keep them back.  I could work all day, just doing that.

Stevie is the proud owner of lawn mower.  He bought it off Craig’s list for $150.   There was a problem with the ignition switch which was an easy fix for him.

Steve also spent some time digging the ditch for the electricity to the garage.  All 207 feet.  That man really knows how to dig a trench.  It was the straightest thing I’ve ever seen and I’ve seen and dug many trenches.  Steve has really gotten his money worth out of that excavator.  I think he’s spent about $3K on it.  I guess you can tell why I love a man with his own excavator. 

I have my wire fence up around my raised garden beds, and now I’m cultivating the soil.  I put a lot of compost, and other nutrients into the beds over the winter, but the constant rain has a tendency to compact the soil and leach out many nutrients.  So I decided to test the soil and I purchased a kit called Rapitest.  I read the reviews and was really careful and the test went well.  My soil is a little acidic, so I have some lyme that I’m using sparingly.  I have 6 beds total, but only 2 beds ready to go.  Since it snowed again this week, I’m in no real hurry.  Perhaps I can get some greens and lettuces going.

I just watched this great video on how to deadhead flowers.  Maybe everyone knows how to do this but me.  You can find it at http://video.about.com/gardening/deadheading-flowers.htm. 

I’ve been thinking about taking up gardening (growing vegetables) for a while now, but it’s only lately that I thought I might have time to do the job.  I gardened  once, about 10 years ago, and was only partially successful.  This time, I’m going to do more reading and preparing up front.  Think about where I’m going to put the garden, make sure it’s fenced in, think about what I’m going to grow, and what I’m going to do with the produce.  Stevie suggested that I start small, and work my way into it, and that’s a good suggestion.  I’d also like to can.  I saw a real interesting set of videos on YouTube of Home Canning Basics, delivered by Granny Miller.  The videos give you an idea of the basics, the equipment you’ll need, and techniques.  A great series of videos.  Ball Canning should be supporting her video habit, at the very least.

Yesterday afternoon, someone dumped a couple of  yards, maybe more, of some sort of concrete, sand and dirt mixture right underneath the wetlands sign.  Dukie, our lab, is standing in front of the pile to give you some idea of the scale.

It was still wet when I saw the pile, but the wetlands it was dumped in are just gone.  Well, they were Category III wetlands anyway.  I’m so careful not to break a stick in the buffer area, and here goes someone up and does that.  I ran up and down the street looking for some evidence of the concrete truck that dumped the load.  They could have asked me.  We could have used fill somewhere or in the driveway, depending on what was in the mixture or we could use some fill when we do the backfill of the garage.   

Anyway, I reported the problem to the wetlands folks at the county right away.  I measured the amount of the damage.  Because the dump occurred on a slope it goes back quite a ways, at least 50 feet.  It will take moving equipment to clean that up.  Maybe, I need to send a sample to the lab and find out what’s in it, and then see about planting some stuff around it to obscure the view of it.  Quite an eyesore. 

Later found out today that the Peninsula Light operations crew or someone working for them,  dropped the load.  I took a few pictures of it.  They said that they’ll send someone to clean it up.  We will see.

Footnote:  At least 3 guys have stopped by in the last 2 days to say that they were going to take care of the problem.  They’ll need to bring in excavators and heavy machinery but they’re supposed to fix the problem next week.

I’ve been saving my coffee grounds for months now.  I keep a bucket next to the kitchen door and toss my compost items into it.  This includes the coffee grinds.  Old coffee I toss onto my garden.  Coffee loving plants  include tomatoes, fuschia, azaleas, peas, asparagus, lettuce, blueberries, etc.  Worms also go nuts over coffee grinds.

Good Articles About Using Coffee in Your Garden:

• Coffee Anyone
• Weekend Gardener
• Thrifty Ideas for Gardening

Like everyone else in the neighborhood, I’m looking at beefing up my planting beds, replacing dead plants, adding more bulbs, and working on slowly building up my driveway entrance.  They never tell you that when a new house gets built, it takes years and years before mature landscaping helps complete the picture.  At least not without spending lots of money that I don’t have.  Ever since I planted bulbs out by the entrance, they’ve been coming in great spots of glorious color.  I have the best planting beds in the neighborhood, and my friend tells me it’s because I get great sun out in this spot.  Maybe.  So, this past week I had more soil added to the area.  I’m slowly expanding the bed to go along the driveway.  It’s been raining like cats and dogs, but I figure that I can still add more soil to the area and get it looking great.  Anyway, someone mentions that I should add TAGRO to the spot.  I remember hearing about this product.  It’s supposed to be a potting soil mulch mix created from among other things, human waste.  TAGRO stands for Tacoma Grow and it’s sold for $10 per yard.  Apparently, Tacoma is the only municipality in the country to make potting soil out of its biosolids but apparently, it’s got award winning properties for gardens and landscapes.  To read more about TAGRO and it’s uses, go to http://www.tagro.com. 

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, but I’m getting in the groove again, and today is as good a day as any.  Today, we cut down the tree.  Now this wasn’t just any tree.  And it wasn’t the closest tree to the house.  But it was a tall fir tree, about 120 feet, and it was dead, and it was standing 20 feet from my house.  After last year’s storm, I had dreams of that tree falling onto my house and breaking the back of my roof.  So we cut it down.  Today.  I had gotten an estimate from a tree service, and they told me $700 to cut it down and buck it.  After hearing that estimate, my honey and his friend cut it down in 10 minutes.  We still have some splitting to do, but we’ve got all winter to do that.  This is an example of dyi — do it yourself. 

I think I caught a bug either in or just after getting back from Mexico, so I’ve been kind of weak.  It’s been real hard for me to get out there and do some work on the house.  Still, no matter how weak I feel, I do something.  Even if it’s only spending 15 minutes raking rocks, or maybe I’m only on my hands and knees for a half hour mixing soil amendments in the dirt.  Maybe it’s not even everyday, maybe it’s only 3 or 4 days a week.  Eventually, you start seeing progress.  Eventually, your efforts start paying off. 

We picked up another yard of rock this weekend, along with some large boulders to use in the landscaping.  It was raining rather wickedly so we waited till today to rake out the rock from the truck.  By now, Steve and I have a system in place when it comes to raking out the rock in the truck.  We can get the job done in 15 minutes.  We figure that we’ve got another 20 loads of rock to pick up before we can call the job done for another year.