Bumper Crop

As per usual, the garden has been a mixed bag this summer. The cabbage and squash have not cooperated so well, the tomatoes, kale, and peppers have - especially the tomatoes. I got a really early start on them this past spring, and they've been going strong ever since. I began weighing what I picked every couple of days, and so far we're just shy of 150lbs (but I have to pick some today). The Silvery Fir Tree and Purple Russians were the first ones out of the gate, and the SFT's are almost played out by now. Lately I've been picking a lot of Amish Past, Moonglow, Sudduth Brandywine, Hillbilly Potato Leaf, and Black from Tula's. Some of them are HUGE. The Green Zebra's have less than prolific this year, and the Beam's Yellow Pear's are so so. A couple of the plants seem like they have begun to develop some sort of disease (powdery mildew?). I'm going to trim the bad parts back, and hopefully they'll keep going into the fall.

31 pounds of 'Burbstead fresh tomatoes, all picked on the same day

A Sudduth Brandywine that was almost 1.5lbs, the biggest one so far.

The best part about having all of these tomatoes, other than eating them fresh, is that I'm putting up more tomato sauce, salsa, and preserve than ever. Speaking of which, I have a bunch sitting on the kitchen counter that need to be cut up before band practice starts. 

Pending Abundance

Summer isn't technically here yet, but the garden is getting ready to explode. Two days ago, I was weeding around the tomato plants, and I saw this:

I was excited, because I've been looking forward to eating fresh tomatoes since I planted these seeds back in late January. Today, I got home from sumer school with one thought in mind - BLT's for lunch! I picked the 3 that were most ripe, and there were 4 more that will be good in a couple of days. A quick look around the tomato plants show that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

My blackberry plants that I put in 2 years ago are loaded with berries that are just now starting to ripen.

This is Das Cluckhaus 2. It is currently housing the 10 chicks that came from 2 different kindergarten classes this Spring. The 4 older ones are 7 weeks old, and the younger 6 are just over a month. I plan on butchering all of them (assuming the roosters don't get too noisy before that point). I've read that they should be good to go at 3-4 months of age, so that puts D-day sometime in early September. Good thing I don't have anything else going on that time of year...oh, wait.....

Garden Salad

The garden is growing like gangbusters. Here's a quick pic of the ingredients from last night's salad - all freshly picked.

Kale, Lettuce, Spinach, Radishes, and the first Sugar Snap Peas of the spring. The best part was that there was enough left over to take for lunch today.

Garden Pics

It's May, and the garden is alive and kicking. Here are some pictures from the 'Burbstead.

Sugar Snap Peas growing on a trellis that I made from reclaimed lumber, old porch swing parts, and a piece of an old soccer goal net. The Aster flowers are all volunteers, and they're ALL OVER my garden. I also have tons of volunteer Marigolds and little yellow flowers (Dwarf St.John's Wart?). This isn't a problem by any stretch. I try to sprinkle flower seeds around every year, and I let the volunteers grow wherever I'm not growing food. Not only do they attract pollinators, but they make the garden look nice.

 I've got 5 Blueberry bushes planted on the edge of the garden. Two of them have little berries on right now. I'm hoping to get enough to make a pie this year (assuming the damn birds don't eat them all). In a couple of years, they should be big enough that I can have enough to eat fresh and preserve some.

 Early Flat Dutch Cabbage. There are about 12 plants. I'm hoping that enough of them get big so that I can make a lot of Sauerkraut. Right now, something has been munching of the leaves, so I need to figure out what sort of pests are hanging out there.

 Fordhook Chard and Buttercrunch Lettuce that I planted in the hoop house last fall. It over-wintered, and took off once the weather started warming up. I'm not sure how long the lettuce will go before it bolts and turns bitter. In any case, it's awesome that I can get a really early Spring harvest thanks to the hoop house.

Curly Blue Scotch Kale. This year is the first time that I've grown Kale, and it's doing great. I put some in vegetable soup the other day, but other than that, I'm not sure what to do with it. Joe Rogan always talks about drinking Kale and fruit smoothies for breakfast. I'll have to try that sometime.

 French Breakfast Radishes and Olympia Spinach in the front, and Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce in the back. You can also see some Kentucky Wonder Pole beans poking up on the left side. I've planted them around the base of the hoop house so that they'll (hopefully) climb all over the frame.

Yes, that is a tomato. It's a Silvery Fir Tree. You might be saying to yourself, "But it's only May 2nd. Isn't that crazy early for outdoor tomatoes to be starting to put on fruit?" Yes, yes it is. The crazier part is that since I transplanted these in mid-March, I only had to cover them with a sheet ONCE! If I had known that this Spring was going be so warm, I would have transplanted all of my tomatoes back in March. It's funny to look back a couple of years at how excited I was to find a little tomato in early June. At this rate, I'll be eating fresh tomatoes before June. This must be what it's like to garden in southern California. Yeesh...

A hot Spring: Going topless in the Garden

It's April 2nd, and the high today is going to be 90 degrees. Something is not right here. The warm weather has afforded me the chance to work outside with my garden girl, aka Tater Tot. She is always happy to work in the dirt with me. Here she is helping to transplant Kale seedlings a week or so ago.

Anyway, after much wrangling and patching and taping, the plastic finally had to come off of the hoop house. I was hoping to use it as a staging ground for all of the various and sundry seedlings that are currently taking up space on the kitchen counter. Oh well. Everything that is in the garden seems to be doing well so far. I need to fill in some blank spots along the snap pea trellis. THings planted so far include: Silvery Fir Tree and Purple Russian tomatoes, Curly Blue Scotch Kale, Early Flat Dutch Cabbage, Amish Snap Peas, French Breakfast Radishes, and Olympia Spinach. Notice that with the exception of the tomatoes, all of those are cool season crops. We'll see how they handle this unusual weather. I put the tomatoes out in the middle of March, and I haven't had to cover them once. Gak! I suppose the silver lining here is my other tomato and pepper seedlings shouldn't have a hard time getting a good start.

Eat with the old, grow with the new

The weather is certainly starting to warm up (thank you Global Weirding). It's been all upper 70's and lower 80's this week. The early seedlings have graduated to bigger pots, the Kale and Cabbage are hardening off in a lidless cold frame out in the garden, and we've put Snap Peas in the ground. March 21st is still a week off, but Spring is in full effect around the 'Burbstead.

We're pulling the last of the Winter crops out of the hoop house. The lettuce, spinach, and radishes that I planted in there a few weeks ago are up, and Alex is getting set to plant some carrots in his little section. I patched the big hole in the plastic, but some heavy wind and rain opened part of it back up. Considering how warm it's been, the holes are actually providing some much needed ventilation. I'm hoping to have the whole thing replanted in the next week or so.

Erik with some freshly picked Turnips and Carrots

The first round of Tomatoes that I planted consisted of Purple Russian and Silvery Fir Tree varieties. They're off to a great start, and I want to get them transplanted under some row cover this coming week. The second batch of tomatoes have mostly all sprouted. The list includes: Beam's Yellow Pear, Hillbilly Potato Leaf, Large Red Cherry, Pineapple, Speckled Roman, Black from Tula, Green Zebra, Amish Paste, Moonglow, Cream Sausage, and some Ground Cherries (not tomatoes, I know). Altogether it amounts to about 95 tomato seedlings. That's way more than I can grow, but I enjoy giving the extra plants to friends and family members. Next up, Peppers... bring on the warm weather!

6 good looking Purple Russian Tomato seedlings

Hoop House Fail

To say that the weather this "Winter" has been odd would be a gross understatement. Yesterday it was almost 70 degrees, then a front moved in and it dropped down into the 30's. It was also freaky windy. Given how degraded the plastic on my hoop house is becoming, I was a little worried about how it would handle the abuse. This morning when I was feeding the chickens, I walked over to inspect it and this is what I found:

I've had to patch up the hoop house numerous times, but they have all been tears that were 18" or smaller. I'm not quite sure what the best way to fix this gaping hole is going to be. I suppose that will be a job for tomorrow morning. I need to patch it quickly because I have a bunch of seedlings on my kitchen counter that are going to make their way out there before too long. Once Spring is in full effect, the plastic is going to come off, and eventually the frame will serve as a giant green bean trellis. For now, though, I need to seal it up.

Free Online Garden Planner

There are tons of resources on the internet to help people plan their garden. Mother Earth News has a pretty cool program on their website...but it costs money. I was poking around (ie. wasting time) on the internet tubes yesterday when I stumbled across a somewhat simplified version of that software on the Gardener's Supply Company website. It doesn't have all of the bells and whistles of the Mother Earth program, but for the low, low cost of nothing, I thought it was pretty cool. You can save individual beds and whole garden layouts. The plant list is a bit simplistic, but there is space for making notes about what varieties you're growing. My first inclination was to use it as a way to work out crop rotation, or play around with different garden arrangements. At any rate, it's a fun way to satisfy the gardening itch that seems to crop up this time of year.

Free Online Garden Planner

Starting Seeds (and ordering more)

It's February, and I'm chomping at the bit to start planting things. Assuming that the plastic on the hoop house manages to make it through the spring, I plan on utilizing that space to start seedlings and harden off plants without over-crowding the kitchen counter. At this point I have 2 1/2 trays of seeds planted. They include: Early Flat Dutch Cabbage, Green Sprouting Broccoli, Silvery Fir Tree and Purple Russian Tomatoes, Curly Blue Scotch Kale, and .... I forget, there are 2 more. I'm also going to try to build a frame out of 1/2 inch conduit to hold the grow lights over the seed trays. I've had schrechlich gluck with starting broccoli in the past, so hopefully having a little more control over the lighting will help ward off tall, spindly seedlings.

I'm also getting set to oder some more seeds from Baker Creek (what can I say, I'm a junkie). Right now I'm planning on getting Golden Giant Amaranth, Extra Dwarf Pak Choy, Nero di Toscana cabbage, and Fordhook Giant chard. I also want to increase the quantity and variety of flowers around the 'Burbstead in order to attract more pollinators. I'm not sure what I'm get for that. Most of what I plant right now are Asters and Marigolds.

Squash and Garden Porn

We went down to my parent's house this past weekend for a Christmas party. When we left, my mom let me take along a couple of very cool winter squashes that were left over from fall decorations. I've wanted to get seeds for these varieties for a couple of years, and now I don't have to buy them. Woot!

Musquee de Provence: 120 days (C. moschata) These gorgeous, big flat pumpkins are shaped like a big wheel of cheese, and are heavily lobed and ribbed. The skin is a beautiful, rich brown color when ripe. The flesh is deep orange, thick and very fine flavored, fruit grow to 20 lbs. each. This is a traditional variety from southern France and makes a great variety for fall markets.

Rouge Vif D'Etampes: (C. maxima) Most beautiful flattened and ribbed large fruit are a gorgeous deep red-orange. A very old French Heirloom, this was the most common pumpkin in the Central Market in Paris back in the 1880’s. The flesh is tasty in pies or baked. This one can also be picked small, like summer squash, and fried. It is a good yielder too.

The descriptions for those squash come from Baker Creek Seed Co. I mention them because they are related to the second part of this post's title. Last week I got the 2012 Baker Creek Seed catalog. The fact that they send this out for free boggles my mind. It's chock full of amazing photographs of all sorts of cool heirloom and open-pollinated fruits, vegetables, and flowers. 61 of the catalog's 192 pages are full page photos! Jere Gettle (who frequently dresses like Gene Autry on acid) runs a great company, and year after year they put out a catalog that is good enough to be a coffee table book. If you've never bought anything from them, give 'em a try this year.

Hoop House Progress

The framed out hoop house.

Football has finally wound down, and I'm trying to get some work done before Winter rolls around. I got the last of the frame work done on the hoop house last Saturday. The door and ventilation window have yet to be constructed. I'm hoping to get plastic put on in the next couple of days (once it stops raining). The various things that I planted in there some weeks ago are up and growing. I'm harvesting lettuce and radishes now, and the chard, peas, carrots, beets, and turnips are coming in nicely. I recently planted some spinach, but I'm not sure if it will germinate as the temperatures drop. Once the plastic is on, I also plan on transplanting the Tobago and Black Hungarian Wax pepper plants into large pots to over winter in the hoop house. I'll be interested to see how they do next spring.

The door frame at the end of the hoop.

I salvaged this giant piece of 6mil plastic from my school when there was roof work being done this summer.

The 3 beds about 1 month ago as I was starting to plant them.

The hoop house bed this past weekend.

Swimming against the current

Last year, I made exactly 0 posts during the month of September, and barely managed to get one in during October. Let me be clear about something: I HATE coaching football. The few enjoyable aspects about it are vastly outweighed by the massive time commitment that it involves. Yes, there are worse ways for a person to make some money, but I really wish that I didn't have to do it. But enough bitching...

I suppose the fact that is the second entry during September means that I am doing marginally better than last year, sort of. The garden is almost completely done with for the season. I tore out all of the tomatoes because they were in the way of the hoop house. Most everything else has been sorely neglected because I've spent most all my spare time working on the hoop house. The corn is brown, and I need to see if I will actually be able to get any seed from it. The okra is almost done. The potato harvest was abysmal. I need to dig up my sweet potatoes to see if there are any tubers under all those vines. The only plants that are still plugging away are the peppers. They have apparently forgiven me for this past Spring's massacre, and I've had better pepper production this year that I have for a long time. Here is a plate with a little bit of everything that I've grown. The one exception would be my Tobago Seasoning peppers. They are supposed to have the smokey quality of a habenero without the blinding heat. St.Louis is a bit farther north than Caribbean Island that they are native to, and I'm hoping that they will have enough time to mature before it gets too cold.

I'm about half way finished planting the beds in the hoop house. Ideally, this would have been done 2-3 weeks ago. I would have finished yesterday, but I had to go shoot scout video of a football game for the varsity team. Grrr... Today it has been raining almost non-stop, so I really can't do much in that regard. Thus far I have lettuce, radishes, carrots, corn salad, green onions, and beets. I still want to plant chard, some chinese cabbage, spinach, and peas. Hopefully it will be dry enough to do that in a day or so. I may have to resort to planting at night, after the kids are in bed (I've done this before). Oh well. Whatever happens, happens. In any case, the hoop house will be read to go come late Winter/early Spring to kick start next season. Woo hoo!

Summer Color

Summer break may be about over, but Nature right in the thick of things. Pretty much all of the tomato plants are producing (the Silvery Fir Tree plants are actually about all petered out). In terms of color, shape, and flavor, it's hard to beat tomatoes for adding variety to your garden. I try to grow 5-6 different types every year, and it's pretty neat to see them all together. Above is a bowl of everything I had in this year. My only real disappointment has been the Speckled Romans, which all developed blossom end rot. Here are some links to Seed Saver's because it's the only place I can find the Silvery Fir Tee seeds, but you can find most of everything else at lots of different seed sites.

Silvery Fir Tree

Beam's Yellow Pear

Amish Paste

Black from Tula

Green Zebra

July 2011 Update

July is nearly over, I need to finish my art supply orders, and next week I have faculty meetings…school is right around the corner. Gak! Where did summer go? I’m about a month past due for a mid-year check up on my goals for the ‘Burbstead, so let’s see how things are progressing.

1. Egg Patch: The turnips failed to germinate. The carrots, while producing lovely tops, have only managed to make roots the size of my pinky finger (and they’re supposed to be 6-8” long). They taste good, but they aren’t going to feed many chickens. The okra is up and doing nicely, so I should wind up with a good bit if seed. I planted Bloody Butcher and Hopi Blue field corn. The Blue is for seed, since I only had a small handful to begin with. Any of the Bloody Butcher that produces ears will go to the chooks. This fall, I’m going to have another go at turnips and beets. I’m also going to try growing the Dinosaur kale that Autonomy Acres recommended. I may have had some bad luck early in the Spring, but I need to do better. Grade: C-

2. Season Extension: The peas, lettuce, and radishes that were planted under cover came in really well and way ahead of last year. I transplanted a bunch of Silvery Fir Tree and Amish paste tomatoes under a tunnel in April. The SFT’s are going strong, and they’re a couple weeks ahead of last year as well. As for the hoop house, I knocked together the base back in the Spring, and I found another trampoline frame. I have the hardware sitting in my car, and I dug up some lumber that will work for runners. I need to assemble the frame here in the next couple of weeks before school and football really get into full swing. Grade: A-

3. Growing more herbs: I wound up deciding against putting an herb spiral into the garden, but I used some pots that were laying around to make an impromptu herb garden on a patio table. I planted Sage, Thyme, Basil, Cilantro, and Mint. It was looking pretty good…until we went to Branson for 5 days. The temperatures were in the mid – upper 90’s the whole time we were gone with no rain. When we got back, most of the plants were fried to a crisp. I should have gotten some of those little water globe things they advertise on tv. The Sage is still good, some of the Thyme is straggling by, and one of the Basil plants is still green-ish. Hopefully they will bounce back with plenty of H2O. I also have dill and cilantro sprinkled throughout the garden. That’s doing good. Grade: B

Herbs before

Herbs after

4. Documenting my harvest: In the past I’ve done a fair job keeping track of planting and harvest times and other garden notes. I wanted to do that, plus keep more specific track of how much food I was actually growing. Then, sometime in early May, I lost my garden notebook. Rather than making a new one, I just stopped doing it all together. Shame on me for being a lazy bastard. Grade: F

5. Front yard gardening: My efforts in the front yard this year have been largely experimental, but I think they’ll set the stage for more robust planting in the future. I planted a couple of rows of kidney beans along the front of our side yard fence. Next to the driveway, I planted corn, amaranth, lettuce, herbs, and flowers. It’s interesting to see how slight variations in the amount of daylight can affect the growth of the plants. Also, the wabbits have pretty much left the plants alone. Next year, I want to have a more substantial front yard garden, but so far, I’m happy with what I’ve gotten. Grade: A-

Front yard beans

Front yard corn and amaranth

6. Rain Catchment: Oh right, that…errr… Grade: F-

7. Clean the chimney: So I borrowed my Uncle Randy’s chimney sweeping tools, and spent a Saturday afternoon on the roof and in the fireplace cleaning a few years worth of squirrel nest out of the chimney. I got it to the point where I could see clear out the top. I lit a fire, and there was still a lot of smoke coming into the living. This fall I may have to call on the services of someone who is better trained than I am. Grade: B

8. Ramp up / organize food storage: I’ve just started my food preservation efforts for the year, and I’ve already put away a bit more pickles than I did last year (including my first go at Bread and Butter pickles). I have enough tomatoes now that I can start making some sauces and salsas and preserves. I need to hit up the farmer’s market for some more food, because I have yet to press my dehydrator into service. This year, I would like to try drying some strawberries and peppers, making peach jam, and freezing more squash and okra. I need to make sure I don’t get lazy on this. Grade: B+

Pickles July 2011

9. Solar drying / cooking: Ok, I haven’t done any solar drying or cooking this year, even though this summer has been pretty much perfect for it (perhaps a bit humid, but still hotter than blazes). However, I have managed to take advantage of the sun’s energy in a different way. When June got here, I finally broke down and turned on the AC. In an effort to offset the increased electric bill a little bit, I strung some clothesline up on the kids’ jungle gym in the back yard. It won’t completely negate the cost off running the AC, but the dryer is the next biggest electricity hog, so minimizing its usage can’t hurt. Grade: B

Swing set-clothesline

10. Meat chickens: Well, we didn’t get a bunch of meat chickens, but we did manage to increase the size of our layer flock. At one point, we had 13 chickens. The white hen Cookie succumbed to the heat (I think), and I took 5 of the new chickens to my parents’ when it became obvious that they were roosters. That puts us at 7 chickens. However, upon further review, one of the remaining pullets turned out to be a roo. At this point, he’s not very good at crowing, so I think I’m going keep him a little while longer until he’s big enough to butcher here. That will mean that I raised a meat chicken on the ‘Burbstead. Here’s to meeting the most unlikely of goals, even if it is by a technicality. Grade: A

My final "GPA" winds up being a 2.65 (C+). The two F's really hurt, but there's room improvement pretty much everywhere. By the end of the year, I'd like to be up to a B or better.

M

Colossal Pepper Fail

This past Friday I transplanted a bunch of pepper seedlings into the raised beds that wrap around the side of our house. All told it was about 35 plants, mostly red and orange bell peppers with some sweet Italian, paprika and hungarian wax varieties as well. They were mulched pretty well with straw. We're well past the average last frost date for St.Louis, so I didn't think much of it. Then a cold front came along bringing rain and dropping temperatures about 15-20 degrees below normal. The night time low was supposed to get into the low 40's for about 3 nights - no danger of a frost, but I was concerned that it might be a bit too cool for the newly transplanted peppers. What did I do? I used some wire brackets to float a sheet of clear plastic over them. Things were cold, wet, and miserable on Sunday; and the pepper plants looked fine. This would have been no big deal if I had pulled the plastic off of them on Monday morning before I went to work. Alas, this is the last week of the school year - ie, things are a zoo, and my mind was elsewhere. The weather cleared up, and it got into the 60's with a fair amount of sun. Tuesday was the same, and it wasn't until Tuesday evening as I was mowing grass that I realized the plastic was still over the raised beds. I pulled it off and almost fell over.

They were all dead...completely fried.

I was so pissed off at myself. The only possible survivor was one Hungarian Wax on the end of the bed that had a couple wilted leaves left on it. Everything else was a shriveled brown mess. The seedlings had come up so strong this year, that I was really looking forward to salsas, relishes, and all sorts of other stuff this summer. Oh well...I broke down and bought a couple of bell pepper plants at the grocery store today, and I'll probably hit up the nursery for some more this weekend, but it won't amount to anything close to what I had in the ground.

Two things occurred to me as I was putting the store plants in this evening:

1. Growing your own food comes with a definite learning curve. I've been gardening seriously for 5 years now, and I still feel like I don't know what the hell I'm doing most of the time. Anyone who thinks that they can go from 100% dependence on the grocery store to living off the land overnight is in for a rude awakening.

2. It reinforced how lucky we are to have the resources available to us that we do. Make no mistake, the modern industrial agriculture/food system is unsustainable. I fully expect to see it fall apart in some way during my lifetime. Even if it doesn't, I'd want to get out as much as possible anyway. That said, it's nice to know that my family won't go without peppers this year simply because I'm a friggin' idiot.

Sweet Potatoes

It has been a few years since I grew sweet potatoes in the garden, and since all 3 of the kids love them, I decided to give it a go again. You can purchase slips at the nursery, but I thought it would be a fun project to do with the kids to sprout them ourselves. I bought 8 at the grocery store a month or so ago. The kids poked toothpicks into them and we set them into jars of water. The jars have been sitting in the seedling window in our kitchen. After a couple of weeks, some of them started to send down roots in the water. A few days later, some of the sweet potatoes started to sprout buds on their top sides. We now have a germination rate of 80%-ish. Not too bad considering that tubers sold in the grocery store are usually treated with a substance that is designed to prevent them from sprouting. Given our success, I might buy some more this weekend since they are on sale for $.49 a pound.

Sweet Potatoes are originally a tropical plant, so they like plenty of warmth. I'm going to put down black weed barrier to help warm the soil. I also recall seeing a video on youtube once where a guy was growing them under a plastic tunnel to boost temperatures. I think St.Louis gets hot enough on its own during the middle of summer, but I might try it out early on.

Darius over at "Gardening Along the Creek" recently posted about trying to start sweet potato slips in potting soil instead of water. She's putting them on top of a heat pad to boost temperatures and promote sprouting. That's an idea I might try in the future. It would be interesting to see how the germination rates/speed varied with and without additional heat. Even if I don't try that, I'm curious to see how many pounds of tubers I get back from a $4.50 investment.

Spring Beginnings

The best part about Spring is that you get to see all of the new things sprouting, budding, and taking shape after the frozen lull of Winter. Here are a few things coming up around the 'burbstead.

1. The peppers are up. Pepper plants can be incredibly pokey when it comes to sprouting, but they're finally here. Once they get big enough, I'm going to put them in a raised bed along the south-facing wall of our house with a tunnel over them. I'm hoping that the southern exposure and coverage (along with some solar gain from the brick wall) will let me get them in the ground by the beginning of May. The varieties of sweet pepper that I'm growing this year include: King of the North and Wisconsin Lakes (red bell peppers), Orange bell pepper, Veri's Sweet Italian, and Tolle's Sweet Italian. The hot peppers (my favorites) are: Orange Habanero, Tobago Seasoning pepper, Ancho, Black Hungarian, Jalapeno, and Paprika.

2. The first official harvest out of the garden. Tater was excited this past Sunday to discover some Cherry Belle radishes that were big enough to pick. They were some of the ones that we had planted under a low tunnel this past February. That's over 3 weeks sooner than last year! I didn't realize how much earlier that was then last year until I checked my 2010 garden journal. The lettuce and peas that were under cover are also way ahead of last year's crops. A handful of radishes is not something to get too excited about, but it's pretty cool to see what just a little bit of season extension can do. That brings us to...

3. I've finally gotten started on my trampoline frame hoop house. The final dimensions are going to be 14'x15', which is about 5' shorter than originally planned, but it will fit into the garden better this way. It will be about 7' tall in the center, and will have a 3' bed on each side and a 4' bed running down the center. I need to get the conduit or lumber (whichever I can scrounge up) for the runners and ridge pole. I won't put plastic over it until fall, but I'm going to get some stuff in the ground here soon, and I might try putting the low tunnel inside it to get a jump start on some of the Silver Fir Tree tomatoes. Long range, I'd like to be able to overwinter the chickens in there, along with growing food. In any case, it's nice to be making headway on on of my goals from New Years.

Back at it

As bloggers go, I'm pretty streaky. The frequency of my posting tends to wax and wane based on how much other crap I have going on in my life at the time. I imagine that it's the same way with most people who do this sort of thing. The past month or so has been crazy busy, almost as bad as September/October. Fortunately my readership is as limited as it is, otherwise there would be a lot of angry people right now. Anyway...

In typical St.Louis fashion, the weather these past 5 weeks has been erratic to say the least.

Thus far we've had 11 days of 60 degrees or better. We've also had 3 bouts of measurable snowfall, and there's an outside chance for a little more tomorrow. This has made it difficult to work outside on a consistent basis. I fell for the bait and switch last week and took down my low hoop so that I could put up a bit of pea trellis. Silly me. Now I've got my lettuce, radishes, and peas under some loose row cover. Hopefully they haven't been squashed too much under the weight of 4.5 inches of wet snow.

I attempted my seedling starting in our basement under grow lights this February so as to keep my kitchen counter free from dirt and pots and such. I think it was too cold down there because the plants were very sluggish. I moved everything back up to the traditional spot in the kitchen, and now we're off and running.

My peppers aren't up yet. I think that they're the one crop for which I might consider spending money on a heat pad. The tomatoes are all up and looking good. This year we're growing the following varieties: Silvery Fir Tree, Amish Paste, and Beam's Yellow Pear (favorites that I grow every year), Italian Heirloom and Black from Tula (types that I've tried before and want to grow again), Speckled Roman, Green Zebra, and Cream Sausage (new varieties that I got for Christmas).

The kids and I also set some sweet potatoes in water in hopes of them sprouting. I know this can be hit or miss with tubers from the grocery store, but I figured that we'd give them a try. Worst case scenario, they don't do anything, and we feed them to the chickens.

Things continue to be busy. There are projects to work on (worm bin and bootleg incubator). There is the possibility of getting more chickens from the kindergarten teacher at the boys' school, and I'm still considering rabbits. I'll try to keep the updates more regular. Perhaps I should do it on a specific day of the week. Who knows. In any event, I suppose things on the 'burbstead will keep growing.