Another Gardening Season in the Books

This was not a good gardening year for me. I planted a lot, and harvested very little.  We had quite a pest problem, mostly of the deer kind, but also some woodchucks.  It seemed like every time things would sprout and start growing well, they'd get eaten down to the ground.  Then the plants would try again, sending out new shoots, just to get raided in the night and eaten down again.

Truthfully, other than a few select areas of the garden, I just kind of gave up after we got back from our Myrtle Beach trip in July.  In fact, some parts of the garden got plowed under at the beginning of August because it was clear, at that point, that the plants were not going to have time to mature and produce anything even if the varmint pressure had been greatly alleviated by then. 

For future years, we are going to have to take a hard stance on keeping the deer OUT of our garden.  A mesh fence seems a simple solution, until you take into account the size of the garden (roughly 125' x 75'), the fact that deer can jump a six foot tall fence from a standstill (I've seen them do it at other farms), and the need to get a tractor and implements into and out of the garden in more than one spot (so, large gates that are also super tall and have mesh to keep deer and other things from crawling under or through the bars on the gate).  Because there's no point in buying materials and putting in the labor to build a fence if it won't be impenetrable to the wildlife that we are trying to keep out.  

Anyhoo, this is what we did manage to get at least a small harvest of:

Asparagus.  The deer don't typically eat this, so we got to eat as much as I could remember to check on during the short and quick growing season.

Garlic.  It was a really good year for garlic.  Toad helped me cut the bulbs from the stalks once they were all dried down, and he was amazed at how big some of the garlic was.  We chose the biggest heads of each variety and I planted those for my 2027 crop.

Onions.  While they weren't huge, I did harvest almost every onion I planted.  Especially the Red Rivers.

Cucumbers.  For the first year in about four years, I had a good cucumber crop.  Not huge, but enough that I canned enough pickles to get us through until next year.

Grapes.  It was a big grape crop, although earlier than expected.  DS2 picked about half to make wine with, and I missed the rest because I was too busy to get out there and pick them before the critters did.

Tomatoes.  I got a very few tomatoes.  Mostly the cherry/snack sized varieties, and really only about a dozen of those.  My tomato plants got repeatedly eaten early in the season, even with tomato cages around them, and not very many of the plants recovered enough to even put out blossoms.

Green peppers.  Same stoy as the tomatoes, only with less of a harvest.  Four?  Three? Peppers total.

Turnips.  Far from a banner crop, my turnips actually did better than in previous years when I planted them.  Most were not huge though; in mid-October when we decided to put the garden to bed for the winter I pulled what was left and came up with a couple almost-baseball sized turnips and the rest being a little bit bigger than a golf ball.

Potatoes.  I feel like I really did my potatoes an injustice this year.  I didn't get them hilled when they were supposed to be, and as a result they didn't produce much.  Each plant gave me at least one potato, and some gave me four to six, but for the most part it was a puny crop.  As always, the red skinned potatoes were the most abundant.

Live and learn.  The season is over, all the stakes and tomato cages pulled and put away, and the garden turned under until next spring.  As they say in sports "There's always next season."

This Week At This Little Place Here

 It's been a busy week.  A good week, but a busy one.  With the exception of Cowgirl, who is but isn't one of my grandkids (it's complicated), in the past week I have seen all of my grandkids at least once.  

On Saturday, DS1 and Octavia stopped by to pick up a backpack with diapers, wipes and extra clothes that had been accidentally left here the week before.  They also brought me tomatoes from their garden, amost a half-bushel worth.

DS2 and Lucky came out on Sunday afternoon and harvested grapes, then pressed them and took the resulting mash home to make into wine.  I forgot to take pictures.

Monday was a work day, which basically means my focus is on training horses in addition to daily barn chores.  But I also cut up and packaged for the freezer a whole lot of rhubarb that DS1 had brought me the week before.  Typically rhubarb is a much earlier in the summer thing around here, but his was still doing great and hadn't gotten woody, so he brought me literally an 18 gallon tote full of rhubarb.  If I remember right, I have enough in the freezer now for four pies, three or four crisps, and several batches of muffins or rhubarb bread.  Plus I made a rhubarb crisp for dessert that night.

Tuesday was a work day, but it was also decent weather and a home football game for Toad, so I brought horses in for the night a little early and DH and I went to watch his game.  He's played rec league for the last two years, but as a 7th grader this is his first year playing middle school football.  He's the shorter player in the middle of the photo.  I'm not great at recognizing all the positions, especially for 8-man like his school plays, but I think the coach had him playing safety that night. K3, Rascal, Tractor and Octavia were there watching their brother play.

Faline is on the elementary school cheer team, and they cheered for the game that night.  Here's a picture of her.  She's a first grader this year, so also one of the smaller kids on the team.  Buck and Sixlet were also there, mimicking the cheerleaders for the most part.

Wednesday I had to adjust my schedule a little bit, and ended up not getting any horses ridden that day.  Instead, I got a call about 8:30 a.m. asking if I could go pick Rascal up from school as he was running a fever of 101+.  

So, while he slept on my couch, I made and canned tomato sauce with the roma tomatoes DS1 had given me.

I also did a little extra sewing time, and after DS1 got off work (he works first shift) and picked up Rascal, I went and did my barn chores.  Meanwhile, DD1 called and asked if I could pick up Sixlet from daycare, as she had an afterschool meeting that afternoon plus had to take Faline to dance class as soon as her meeting ended (Faline and Buck were going to afterschool care during this meeting).  Honorary Son had come home from work early and was throwing up, so he wasn't going to be able to go pick up Sixlet as he normally does after work.

Well, I couldn't do it, due to my schedule all ready having been shifted around for tending Rascal--I wouldn't be able to get stalls cleaned before feeding time, but DH's afternoon was free of meetings during that needed timeframe, so he went and got Sixlet and brought him to this little place here until dinner time, then he took him home.  So we got to have Sixlet hang out with us for a bit, and he helped me look for cucumbers in the garden.

On Thursday, I pickled the cucumbers after working horses.  I think this is the latest in the year I've ever made pickles; for whatever reason my cucumber vines have stayed very healthy this year and are still producing albeit much slower than they were in early August.

Friday (today), I am not working horses.  DD2 is coming to farm sit, and DH and I are heading off to Drummond Island, where we will be attending the wedding of a friend of DS2who has become, through the years, almost like a daughter to us.  We are hoping to do a little sight-seeing and hiking while we are there.

Friday Randomness

 It's been a long (but short; fast, busy) week.  

We've had some hot humid weather, several rainstorms, and a 15-ish hour power outage.  

We had Faline, Buck and Sixlet for about 7 straight hours on Saturday while DD1, Honorary Son and his parents went to a Detroit Tigers game.

Visiting Jedi, Crockett and Tubbs

Buck and Sixlet in the sprinkler

Faline and Sixlet lying out to dry in the sun

 We went out to eat several times, which is unlike us, but happened to work out that way.  Once was meeting Honorary Son and DD1 to hand off their kids after the baseball game. The other due to being too dang hot to cook on the stove or the oven and the one meat store that I can actually eat their lunchmeat (without my body protesting) being all out of said meat when I went to buy it in order to make (the planned) sub sandwiches for that night's dinner.

I rode bareback (the first time in over a decade for me on any horse) on the Little Black Mare when one of her scheduled training days ended up being a light but steady rain and I didn't want to get my saddle soaking wet.  I'm fairly certain she's never been ridden bareback before, but she adapted to it well.  It felt weird for me too, and the first five minutes I was trying to get my own bearings, but after that I'd say we both enjoyed it (minus the uptick in rain in our faces that made me cut the session short after a bit).

I rode a lot (2-3 horses) on days that the weather was cooperative and only one horse or even zero horses on days that it wasn't.  Like the day that was 70-something degrees and 90+ percent humidity at sunrise and I was heat sick practically from the moment I got out of bed.  No riding that day; I didn't want to pass out and fall off a horse.  Instead, that day, I did only necessary horse chores (feeding, turnout, cleaning stalls bringing in, feeding) and slowly with frequent breaks.  Well, plus cooking and laundry, and housekeeping (but you know, depending on who you talk to, those don't count as work 😠).  

K3 came over on a not-rainy morning (original day had been rescheduled due to weather) to ride Jedi with my helpful instruction. (aka had a riding lesson).  They are starting to mesh a bit more as she learns the similarities and differences between him and the LBM (who she rode off and on the past two summers) and he tests her a bit to determine if she's the boss or if he is (and, with my guidance, she wins those challenges). 

pre-ride, heading in for grooming and saddling

post-ride, rolling his sweaty itches away

I assembled the new 'bistro set' I had purchased on sale on-line at Mother's Day (which had been super delayed in shipping) and installed it in its intended spot on the deck.  Even gave DH a haircut out there while he sat on one of the chairs ("It's very skinny.  And upright.")  Given that all of our other outdoor seating is extra wide and tends to make you sit slightly reclined (which I find uncomfortable), yes, yes it is skinny and upright.  It's just what I wanted for that space.  That space happens to be the 8-10 feet between the sliding door in the dining room and the sliding door in the living room and needs something that doesn't sprawl too far onto the deck or too close to either door.  Skinny.  And upright.

DH got my little tiller running--it had needed a tune-up--and between the two of us we got all the tilling done between rows of vegetables in the six planted sections of the garden.  I hand weeded around the tomato plants in four of the seven rows of tomatoes (and then a storm hit).

Two of the weeded rows,

unfortunately the dang deer have bitten off about half of those plants.

I found a nice rock in the garden, which I had to take a picture of so I could text the pun to DD2, whom I knew would get it.  Geology and puns, two of my favorite things.  Which are also two of her favorite things.

A gneiss rock.

(Nice, ha ha, get it?)

DH (finally) added fill dirt, brought to level, and put the pavers back into the section of the front walkway that we'd had to trench under (and thus removed the pavers from) back in 2022 when running the new underground electric line from the main box on the front of the garage to the barn (and then to his shop).  Those pavers have been piled in the middle of that spot ever since, with weeds growing up around them and making it difficult to keep the walkway weed-free or snow-free for almost four years now.  So I was really happy that he took it upon himself to complete this task that I'd tried to tactfully remind him of once or twice a year.

 

Re-installed pavers! 

7 pavers long and 5 pavers wide.

Also thrilling (and lavish praise rendered), was that DH decided to use the weed whip to get the rest of the walkway totally weed-free and mostly edged.  Hooray!  It's been several years since the whole thing was cleaned up at once.

The peonies have been in bloom, and with the heat are wrapping up very quickly.  It's been nice to enjoy their cheerful pop of color and wonderful smell this week.

a bouquet of peonies and mock orange

Also blooming are the spiderwort

and my Louisiana Black Gamecock iris (which seems to bloom every other year for me).

On the stormy night that took out our power, DH and I sat out on the front porch after the wind had died down and the rain had left, and watched the sunset while we talked.  The Yarn Thief joined us for part of that time.

Later, after it was dark and we had gone to bed--with the front door open as well as all the windows to try to get a breeze through the stuffy, very warm (80-ish degree) house--we were woke up by what sounded like something hitting the screen door at the bottom of the stairs (bedrooms are upstairs, the flight of stairs lines up with the front door, great for getting airflow into the bedroom area on a summer night).  

DH grabbed a flashlight and looked down the stairs, to see a raccoon on the porch right at the door. 

Well, that wouldn't do, we'd been trying to catch a lingering pesky raccoon in our traps with no luck lately.  So I hopped out of bed too, to be the flashlight bearer while DH grabbed the .22 and we went out coon hunting!  

The coon had fled up a cottonwood tree between the house and a corner of the garden when it heard us coming down the stairs and out the front door.  With me standing near the trunk shining the flashlight up into the tree, and DH a few feet out from me, we were able to spot that raccoon and get a successful shot that brought it crashing down (sounded like, in the dark, as it bounced off tree branches, it was going to land on my head!) to the ground.  Luckily it was not on my head, but about 6 feet from me.  So that was an exciting evening and night!

I hope this coming week is a little milder with both more catching up on tasks and a bit more time for sitting and relaxing.  And uninterrupted sleep!

Random Stuff

 Is this a happy things on Friday post?  Is it a May recap post?  Who knows?  I'm not sure.  Let's find out together!

My irises are beginning to bloom.  I added quite a few new-to-me varieties last year, through trading rhizomes with a friend and through buying some from local and online nurseries.

Many Mahalos

variety unknown, probably very old

ditto

Easter Candy

Locally, schools are wrapping up for the summer.  The district that all my school-aged grandkids attend, and where DD1 teaches at, finished this week. Faline graduated from Kindergarten, and insisted on choosing her own outfit to wear to the celebration in the elementary school gym.  

I've been working a lot on getting the garden planted, including transplanting the plants I started in the house.  While the basil I sewed from (old) seeds didn't grow well, apparently their cup made a handy spot for a grey treefrog to take up residence while the rest of the plants were hardening off pre-transplanting.

strangest looking basil plant I've ever seen

using my 2+ decades old Farm Bureau yardstick to space the tomato plants

DH and I found two spots around the property where there are golden oyster mushrooms growing on old stumps.  They are quite yummy and I've been incorporating them into our dinner menu.

lovely clump of mushrooms

underside

All spring, DH and I have been wanting to have a fire in order to burn some brush and accumulated paper garbage (in the winter we put the 'burn garbage' into the wood boiler, but that has been shut down for a few weeks now that warm weather is here.)  Either it's been too rainy, or too windy, or we've been too busy on the good weather evenings to light the brush pile.  Finally, on Sunday after dinner the wind was calm enough to safely get things lit and burned off.  I took advantage of the 'down time' while watching the fire to do a little knitting on the second sock of the pair I am making for my Dad.

Tis the season for raccoons to become a pest issue.  One morning this week I went out to feed horses and found that my feed room had been pillaged.  Luckily they hadn't gotten into the containers I keep the grain in (due to the nature and placement of the containers), but they did manage to get into one of Crockett and Tubbs' supplement buckets and spill some onto the floor as well as make a mess in their endeavors to get to the food stuffs.  So, out came the live trap.  I baited it with dry cat food (a favorite 'treat' of raccoons) in the hopes of catching the perpetrator that night.

Imagine my surprise the next morning to find I'd gotten a two-fer!  This sometimes happens with a mama coon followed by her young into the trap, but it's the first time we've ever had two full grown raccoons squeeze into the trap close enough together that the door snapped closed on both of them.

Partners in crime?

The trap has been rebaited and set every night, and we have caught five adult coons near the barn, plus one more in the (smaller) live trap I set near the front porch after finding coon manure right in front of my front door.  Rude little buggers!

On the way to Faline's graduation the other afternoon, I had to drive a different way than I usually take due to a road construction detour.  I spied this happy stump on the edge of a field and just had to pull over for a quick photo.

Hoses, The Bane of My (Farming) Existence

 Hoses.  Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.

At least, on the farm, you can't do without them.  As frustrating--and sometimes back-breaking--as they can be, hoses are a necessary evil if you have animals and plants to water on a frequent basis.  

There's the hose needed for inside the barn that can reach from the spigot to each and every stall, for the daily filling of the water buckets.  Depending on the length of your barn, and therefore the length of your hose--that one can be pretty easy to deal with.  It still needs to be coiled up neatly and stashed out of the way between uses, but it's usually a short enough hose that it's not terribly heavy to move around.

But then there's the hose(s) needed for outside, the long hose combination necessary to get to the water troughs.  Because, in the summer especially, who wants to hand carry 10 gallons of water per horse per day to each trough?  A hose does the job much more easily, and, since it's doing the carrying its much easier to fill a 100 gallon trough once a week or so than hand carry that 10 gallons per horse daily.  Once you get to know your particular set up combination of hose diameter and length, distance to trough, and water pressure provided by your well pump, you can figure out how many minutes it takes to fill each water trough.  Armed with that knowledge, you can make efficient use of your time by geting the hose stretched out and into a particular trough, turn on the water, then go do something else (like clean a stall) while the well pump and the hose do the work of refilling the trough.  You don't need to stand there while the water flows. Just come back and remove the hose (and typically start the process over at the next tank) after that specific number of minutes has passed.

But that's when it works.  When it doesn't, you have to hunt down and remedy kinks in the hose.  Which, it seems with any hose manufactured in the last 10 years or so, happens every single time you try to coil up your hose or roll it onto a hose reel.  ARGH!  I haven't figured out yet what the flippin' deal is with these modern hoses, but kinking wasn't such an every time all the time thing in my previous decades of horse farm work. Not to say it didn't happen, because it did, but not every single time the hose was used (or multiple times in one use).

And when the hoses are actually behaving, once the kink has been tamed, the next frustration is the snake-like twisting that hoses want to do.  Can they just roll up nicely in a continuous cranking of the handle on the hose reel?  NO!  They must twist themselves around every which way, so that periodically you must stop turning the handle and straighten the hose back out into a twist-free unknotted line, then resume cranking again.

No picture to go with this next woe, but periodically you also have to deal with a hose that has sprung a leak.  Now your water pressure is being lost due to a pin sized hole in the hose that sprays water out before the end where the water is supposed to exit.  A pinhole that, when you keep using the hose-- because, let's face it, neither duct tape nor baling twine is gonna fix it, and you so much dread going hose shopping and trying to pick out a better, more durable, less kink-prone hose in an afforbable price range (truly,  there's no 'affordable' 100 foot long hose out there)--suddenly gets to the point that there's a geyser shooting out of your leaky hose and the water trough is not the recipient of the majority of the water.  This not only makes it take forever to fill a trough, but it leaves a huge muddy mess somewhere along the hundreds of feet where the hose lies on the ground in order to reach said trough.  Worse yet, a holey hose that sprays water inside your barn where puddles are definitely not okay.

When that happens, you must go hose shopping.  Not only must you go hose shopping, you must remove all 200 feet of hose from your hose reel--because it, of course, is the hose that is hooked to the water supply connector on the hose reel and not the hose closest to the 'top' of the hose reel that sprung the leak--unscrew the leaky hose from both the hose reel water supply piece and the other 100' hose attached to said leaky hose, then uncoil the new hose and attach it to the other hose plus the hose reel, and wind all that back up again onto the reel.

Without tangling any of the now 300' of hose (old plus new) spread out in the vicinity of the hose reel.

And, if you are dealing with 100' or more of hose that needs to be used/moved frequently, you are going to want a hose reel.  One hundred feet of hose (especially decent quality hose), while possible to coil into big loops and throw over your shoulder, is kind of heavy.  Add a second hose and now you're stooped under the weight of it.  And let me tell you that no, it wouldn't just be easier to drag it.  It's still heavy and now you've added the resistance of the friction with the ground.

So, hose reels.  Also not cheap.  It's best to just resolve yourself to the truth that you are going to have to hand over your hard earned cash for a hose reel in the three-figure price range.  Don't think you can get by with one in the upper two-figures.  Learn from my mistake (that was, luckily, fully refundable) with those lower end reels; they aren't made well and won't hold up.  In my case, my cheapy hose reel didn't even make it through ten days of nightly filling two water buckets in the barn before it started spraying through the reel itself where the water supply connector had cracked.  That one went back where it came from immediately the next morning.  In it's place I (wincingly) bought a heavier duty model for twice the price and have been loving my hefty hose reel for almost two and a half years so far.  

That's just the barn area hose-related part of life.  There's also the (large) garden hose issues.  A garden of size needs more 100' hoses.  Those hoses also will kink and twist and at times run over and break off your tender veggie plants even when you're trying to be careful where you are dragging the hose through.  They too will eventually spring leaks.  And so will the splitter attachment for the hydrant at the garden so you can attach two hoses to one hydrant and water two spots simultaneously with sprinklers. Typically a new gasket in the splitter will fix that.  Those are cheap and easy to replace.

Sprinklers.  Don't get me started on the headaches with sprinklers. Attaching them to the hose(s). Leveling so they don't spray long in one spot and short in another on their rotation.  Durability (or lack of).  And, again, gaskets.

Farm life is never boring, even when you're talking about working with inanimate objects.