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Now John Has Worms

January 24, 2012

Bishop Composting, Gardening, Hand watering , , 4 Comments

I have been back home for a couple of days and finally got my hands dirty in the garden. When I was installing my friend John’s new raised bed over the Christmas Holiday I discovered a healthy bunch of earthworms, fat, busy and working the soil in his old bed but, the new bed is pretty much devoid of any sort of critters. The soils in the new bed were store-bought and pretty much sterile. My raised beds are teaming with worms of all sorts so I decided to infect John’s new bed with some of my own. The big guys I dug up in my garden for placement in John’s new bed are of two probable types, Lumbricus rubellus (red earthworm) and Lumbricus terrestis ( common earthworm) –  besides being good for my garden they are  excellent catfish bait in our local lake and river. I also found a few red wrigglers that may have escaped from my worm composting bins and went native. They tend to stay near the surface feeding on organic material and don’t do the heavy lifting and turning of the soil like their  Lumbricina  cousins. The composters are, Eisenia fetida, commonly know as manure worms….their favorite food, yum! A little known fact amongst the non academic types is that most of the common earthworm in US garden soils are not native – they arrived from Europe many years ago. Do you now know more than you ever wanted to about worms?……. they really are a fascinating subject. One more tidbit…..earthworms are detritivores – seems obvious to me now but I never knew their eating habits had a label. Detritivores, also known as detritophages or detritus feeders or detritus eaters  obtain nutrients by consuming detritus.

After infecting John’s new bed with some of my finest specimens, I pulled a few weeds, thinned some of the plants that were crowding each other a bit and hand watered. I have always enjoyed hand watering, i.e., using a hose with a gentle sprinkling nozzle. Hand watering relaxes and soothes my mind. I have been tempted to lay drip lines and automate the process – and I still may eventually invest the time and effort to do it, but not any time soon. I really enjoy walking through my beds, seeing how well everything is doing (and sometimes not so well), noting what may be too wet or in need of a well-aimed spray from the nozzle. Automated watering seems to be a bit impersonal….missing that extra connection to the living and growing energy of the garden. I also like to see the daily changes, sometimes subtle but always there if you look. Like the tiny crack in the soil where a seedling is beginning to emerge or the daily elongation of the pea-pods emerging from the flower bud, or the bees busy visiting whatever happens to be flowering….and those cursed weeds!!!!….. God must have had a plan for them – maybe they are one of those life challenges thrown at us to see how we handle the irritation….My big heavy-duty propane torch sure makes quick work of those irritations around the far edges of the garden but is far too indiscriminate to be used near the planted beds. I remember going out to my friend Mike Rossi’s pasture many years ago and cranking up the heat with his truck mounted propane torch. We were trying to wipeout the invasive and pervasive Bermuda grass just  long enough for the more desirable grasses to emerge. It is a battle that can’t be won, but you can quickly shift the outcome a little more to your favor….for a little while.

More work done today on my new experimental growing system…….I will let the spud out of the bag soon…..and yes that was a hint!

TTFN

Bishop

A Worm Discovery

January 21, 2012

Bishop Gardening 5 Comments

See how the worms have been nibbling on the edge? click on the picture to see larger image.

I flew home today from Grand Junction, Colorado to a warm spring day……..but the calendar was way off….. January 20th is not a spring date! I thought I would dive into the garden and get my hands dirty but the day had other plans for me. Oh I did visit my garden as well as seeing how John’s was coming along. I am becoming a bit envious of the garden I have established in his back yard. The sun favors his beds significantly more so than the location I have been allowed to partition off from the main yard. Thank you dear! His young lettuces are well ahead of mine, the sugar snap peas are jumping out of the ground and the onion and garlic bulbs have found the beds to their liking. I planted some bunching onions from seed in his garden as well as mine…..one the same day. Well, in his plot the seeds are up and looking good and in my bed, well I am still waiting for their emergence.

So Bishop tells us about the worm discovery…..OK I will. I was tidying up the kitchen today and discovered some old and wilted lettuce that was begging to be fed to the worms. Let me set the stage for the discovery. A week ago my son Joe brought home from school an uneaten PB&J sandwhich….peanut butter & jelly just in case PB&J is a foreign term. My wife suggested that I share it with the worms. I thought about it for a couple of days – really I forgot about the suggestion until reminded by my wife. I wasn’t sure if it was proper fare for the worms but decided to see what would happen. Before I left on my recent  trip I noticed what seemed to be a cluster of worms congregating near the PB&J. When I looked today I noticed a similar cluster and what appears to be evidence of”worm bites” along the edge of the sandwich.  (see photo above)

So, how can I makes use of this discovery? Whenever I add a new bin filled with bedding and kitchen scraps trying to entice worms from the nearly finished bin up into the new one, it seems to take forever for them to migrate up into the new bin. I think I have discovered a way to accelerate the process. At the next bin swap I will make up a couple of PB&J’s and place them in the new bin. I could do some experimenting with either smooth or chunky peanut butter and try a different jam….this sandwich was smooth peanut butter and blackberry jam – seems to be working pretty well. Could be a long experiment… there are so many combinations to try….it could be years to discover the perfect combination………but maybe it is like horseshoes and hand grenades – getting close may be good enough!

Off tomorrow to see my son Ben swim against Texas A&M over in Baton Rouge. It should be a lot of fun and I always love to see him swim. It will be a quick trip and I promise to get my hands dirty upon my return Sunday.

TTFN

Bishop

Longing For Dirty Hands

January 19, 2012

Bishop Gardening , , 2 Comments

I am away from the garden since Tuesday morning… My only interaction has been to follow the weather reports to see how the plants and beds have been treated in my absence. Well, the reports indicate that we continue to have a spring like winter in Houston so all is well. I am fortunate to have a wife and partner in life that understands my love of the garden. She will peek over the gate and will sprinkle some water if things look too dry and I thank her for that. She will also snack on the berries when they are producing……her snacking sometimes diminishes the harvest available for my jam and jelly endeavors. It really is a small price to pay for her continued support.

When l get on the plane tomorrow at 6:00 AM in Grand Junction, Colorado, I will be on my way to getting my hands dirty again…..Yes I can wait but it sure is tough!

Note to wife, Grand Junction is becoming well known as a wine growing region as well as for their wonderful peaches….Lots of beautiful mountains nearby, rivers, lakes and forest…I could probably grow a nice garden/orchard here and we could have 4 seasons not the 1.5 seasons that we have in Houston….Just a thought Hun!
TTFN
Bishop

Ok – I Will Try The Turnips!

January 17, 2012

Bishop Gardening, Recipe 2 Comments

Three nice turnips on an 8 inch plate - ready to peel, boil and mash!

I have been looking to find some decent recipes for my turnips. They seem to grow like crazy here in Houston! Most of the recipes I find include turnips as a companion for the main portion of the recipe, i.e., stews…… I dove into allrecipes.com and found “Patty’s Mashed Turnips”….. I have been trying to curb my appetite for starches and refined carbs over the past few months. This recipe may help satisfy my craving for mashed potatoes. My daughter’s 27th birthday was a week ago and she asked for “meat and potatoes”, specifically mashed potatoes. I indulged in a spoonful at her birthday dinner and avoided loading my plate up! Lord knows I would have and could have put away a mountain of mashed potatoes – with garlic and real butter! I needed a mashed potato fix!

I picked three nice sized turnips from the garden…. I am plucking them at this size rather than letting them become large and pithy. I have also staggered my plantings so I have a good variety in size and age in the beds. I cut the recipe down to a more manageable size. What I like about the allrecipes site is the feedback section…. I usually read and make modifications based on what the practicing audience advises. In this case, most recommended cutting way back on the added milk when mashing……the recipe tends to be very wet naturally due to the high water content of the turnips. That is the approach I took. Boiled until tender, about 35 minutes, rinsed and then mashed. My only add to the recipe was a large clove of garlic boiled along with the turnips and mashed together with everything else. I used skim milk….not much but enough to provide the “right” consistency. I used a few tablespoons and that was too much….. also a teaspoon of butter, a little sea salt and ground black pepper to taste. Surprisingly good! So, I tried them and they were good enough to become a keeper recipe….. They are filling and low in calories! Nothing was wasted…the peelings, tap root and cap all went to the worms….they have to eat the remnants raw, but hey, they don’t seem to be fussy eaters.

I will still experiment a little. I read that some folks tried cauliflower along with the turnips. That seems to be a reasonable alternative…. and then maybe a 50/50 mix by weight of potato and turnip. This recipe can help my efforts to be/become healthier in 2012. I started my quest last July at 19.8% body fat, just under the recommended upper end for men. Last week I tested out at 12.1 % body fat and I feel like a younger man (is that right hun?)…..The lower end of recommended % body fat  for men is 10%…. That has now become my target. Portion control…and more activity!

My vegetable garden….a stress reliever, a place to experiment, the satisfaction of seeing the results of my efforts & sometimes my failures, a place to share with friends and neighbors….including the “cyber” neighbors looking over the “blog fence” into the garden as well as providing for the table. Pretty good stuff, eh! ……( I have been practicing my Canadian as I will be paired up with a lad from Alberta this week in my consulting work)

P.S. – I started another experiment in the garden today……..details later! Oh yes, today in my posts, I ate the turnip from top to bottom, well almost bottom…. I did cut the tap root off!

TTFN

Bishop

How Fresh Is That?????

January 16, 2012

Bishop Uncategorized Leave a comment

Kale, turnip greens in olive oil - before adding the eggs

I was inspired over the weekend in a number of ways. My wife’s cousin and daughter spent the weekend with us. They were in town to compete in the Houston Marathon, sponsored by my former employer, Chevron. The inspiration was due in part to this very fit 65-year-old man running 26.2 miles at an 8:00 +/- pace, but also due to his healthy diet on exhibit. The Friday night before the Sunday race he swirled into he kitchen, found that we had a decent supply of ingredients and whipped up a fabulous meal. I had picked up some skinless chicken breasts intending to grill them, a bunch of asparagus, fresh spinach and some  cauliflower – he wouldn’t touch the cauliflower. So in he dove, he coached Kathy on how to cook the penne pasta to his liking, al dente he says….Kathy knew what he meant. Why didn’t he use a term this country boy would better understand like, firm – not soft. He allowed me to grill the chicken without interference, a country boy can grill just about anything as long as it won’t crawl off the grill. He put his recipe together that included the grilled chicken, asparagus, olive oil, butter, fresh ground black pepper and the rosemary picked from my garden moments before adding to the skillet – he really wanted fresh basil but the freeze hammered the basil! My wife encouraged the addition of some yellow bell peppers – that added some nice color and flavor.

I liked how he prepped the asparagus, he placed it into the broiler until just beginning to carmelize – I have done the same on the grill and it is really nice. He chopped the asparagus into mouth sized chunks and added everything together in a large skillet. Once mixed and heated he placed the entire skillet into the oven under the broiler element until the penne pasta was just showing signs of golden brown edges. It was excellent!

The cooking inspiration he provided the next morning included the spinach. He sautéed it in olive oil…..he is a big fan of good olive oil…..I had to run off and buy a bottle of first press oil …. it is worth it. Once the spinach was wilted he added some eggs and yum…..a nice healthy breakfast. That Saturday morning’s inspiration also included the Houston Chronicle and an early morning call from my friend John.

The Saturday Chronicle had an article on winter garden vegetables and on the side a recipe very similar to the spinach and eggs I saw prepped that morning. First John sent me a text message while I was just finishing my early morning workout at the gym. I called him back…..texting is ok but with my fat fingers and wanting to better connect to the real meaning of his message, I chose to “talk” to him. I had not yet read the paper so he filled me in. He said it looked like an article that I could have written – on top of that, the mix of winter garden plantings was almost a perfect match for the seeds that went into his garden bed on Christmas Eve! Santa really does know Best! Too funny. I came home and smiled while reading the article, yes I could have written it. The recipe also caught my eye. It was similar to the breakfast cooked by cousin Billy, albeit with a few more added for flavors, and it included alternative greens that I could easily supply fresh from behind my garden fence. Kale was the first choice but they suggested trying turnip greens among several other greens choices… I had both kale and turnip greens. Now if I could just figure out how to better use those beautiful turnip globes attached to the greens?????

I just finished my breakfast of eggs cooked with chopped and wilted kale and turnip greens (I used both), some soy sauce, sea salt, garlic and fresh ground pepper. The kale was less than 5 minutes out of the ground and the turnip greens had been picked and washed the evening before, you can’t get much fresher than that  – that is the blog title hook …..  who knows how old the store-bought eggs were but – the results were –  sehr gut, muy bueno, molto benne and in Texan – damn good!

Cousin Bill – Thanks for the inspirations……the healthy food choices, the after dinner discussions on personal choices for living healthy, the inspirational personal best you ran on Sunday as well as the friendship……. While visiting with your son-in-law’s father Don, I also realized that you have touched him too – he spoke of your influence on him and his health choices. I too may have also inspired Don after his visit to my little garden…..he is ready to go back to Arlington, TX and add some raised beds in his yard. Changing the world a few words and examples at a time! eh? (that’s a Canadian term found at the end of any sentence – not able to be directly translated)

Bless all y’all!

TTFN

Bishop

Remembering A Garden of Days Gone By

January 10, 2012

Bishop Memories, Snow 4 Comments

Peeking over the fence at a very special Peach tree.

This week I traveled to Midland Texas to earn a little money. Apparently I have some strong powers that affect the weather in Midland. I last traveled to Midland in early December and brought about 4-5 inches of snow into town. On this trip the snow held off until the first full day in town and by noon the town was covered with a blanket of very wet snow. The town can’t handle much snow so we cancelled the training class and sent people home before it became dark. We also took Tuesday off as we did not want folks trying to travel during the potentially icy mornings.  It continued snowing until nearly 10 PM last night (Monday the 9th of January). The weather is now cooperating and we will have full sessions for the Wednesday/Thursday training classes.

There is something magical about the snow for those of us who rarely experience it. My work partner on this trip is from Canada (Calgary, Alberta to be more precise) and he doesn’t quite see it the same way I do. I love the crunching sound underfoot as you walk across the fresh snow. I love the crisp air as you inhale through your nose and the frost on your breath as you exhale. I love the quietness that descends upon you during a snowfall – it is as if the falling snow flakes absorbs and muffles any ambient sound. I love how the landscape changes, how the trees capture a mottled blanket of snow in their boughs and how the morning sunlight sparkles across the ground smothered by that frozen” comforter” spread out before your eyes. And then it melts into slushy nastiness and turns brown or black and your shoes get all messed up……did I just destroy the images????? I just had the throw in the perspective of those living in snow country!!!!

This morning I took a trip down memory lane and drove through the old neighborhood where we lived from January of 1997 through July of 2004. I have always planted a vegetable garden in the yard wherever my former employer, Chevron, dropped us off. Midland was no exception. I will have to admit, Midland was the most difficult location that I have ever been challenged with. The soil, if you can call it that, was thin, rocky and primarily decomposed limestone. It requires lots of help to become a fertile soil. Add to that the incessant wind, scorching like a blast furnace in the summer and in the winter it will chill your bones! I was pretty successful with squash and indigenous weeds and not much else. Unfortunately squash becomes less a gift and more of a curse as you quickly run out of different ideas on how to use it and the weeds……I didn’t find too many recipes for the weeds.

In November of 2001 my father passed away after a valiant fight against bladder cancer. He also loved to see things grow in the garden. He seemed to always have a peach tree or two in his yard. In the spring of 2002 I planted a peach tree  at the western edge of my garden in his memory. I wasn’t overly optimistic at the time but as I can see now, eight years later, the peach tree has more than survived, it has thrived. Our friends and neighbors a couple houses down the street have told us how well the tree has done but this was the first time that I have actually stopped to peek over the fence. I have driven down the alley in past years and noticed how large the tree has grown but never stopped to look. I guess Midland has sufficient chill hours and the soil provides what this peach tree needs.

It was a nice feeling to recapture a bit of the joy I felt when I first planted the tree in Dad’s memory and even more satisfying to see the tree thriving. I will need to peek over the fence again this spring, if my work assignments cooperate, and see the tree in blossom! I know the people living in our old house….maybe if I am back to Midland when the peaches are ripe I can add the taste of a peach from “this tree” to my memories.

Good things are happening for the gardens in Kingwood, both my garden and John’s have been blessed with a lot of rain yesterday. The stressed trees in our forested neighborhood are also drinking deeply….we don’t need another summer of drought like we had in 2011.

TTFN

Bishop

Harvesting The Worm P_ _p

January 6, 2012

Bishop Composting, Gardening , , 4 Comments

The bounty after screening

The “nicer” word for the harvest product is “castings” but I like to be as realistically accurate as possible.

I had ignored my silent workers long enough. It was time to see what was left behind in the bottom bin of my vermicomposting equipment. I use two big 18 gallon Rubbermaid  storage tubs. If you want to make your own, I would suggest using a more shallow bin. Live and learn is my motto….but it seems like I am relearning many of the same lessons. Hmmmmm. maybe I should mention that to the doctor on my next visit, the problem is I will probably forget to mention it!  Here is a link to a “How To Article” for building your own bins. I use a stacking process to get my little guys to migrate up into a newly prepared bin. http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/cowell124.html

If you want to try raising worms go to my first choice – Uncle Jim’s Worm Farm online at; http://www.unclejimswormfarm.com/ He has everything you need as well as commercially made equipment, advice and bags of worms….. They only ship in the US so if you are outside the US you will need to find or search for suppliers.

As my little buddies consume all of my kitchen scraps they leave behind wonderfully rich castings. Once the bin has 8 to 10 inches of the good stuff in the bottom I prep the second bin with shredded wet newspaper and some and some good tasty treats to entice the little guys to migrate up through the 1/4 inch holes in the bottom of the bin. After two months or so the only things left in the bottom bin are the rich castings and a few stubborn workers that have not quite licked their platters clean….I guess if I were a worm I would be one of the stubborn ones in the bottom bin. My mother would never let me have the good stuff….dessert, until my plate was COMPLETELY clean! Isn’t that right Mom? She reads my blogs so I know that I will hear from her not long after this is posted. Something else Mom, the worms in the bottom seem to be a little chubbier…. could be one of life’s little lessons…Maybe I should have left a little more on my plate and passed up a few more desserts….. I still love you Mom!

The how-to article link above also shares a description for a worm casting tea. I have some friends here in Kingwood that brew this up this and use it as a foliar feeding fertilizer. I have yet to brew my own but have all the equipment. I have several aerators that I use to keep my bait alive while fishing…….they are battery operated so it may be beneficial to buy a small plug-in electric model.

I get odd stares from folks when I talk about my vermiculture and composting efforts. They consider me to be a bit odd. I guess maybe I am a little odd but I seem to enjoy my oddness. My daughter Ashleigh has helped a few times with the harvest and better understands my oddness. She was also amazed at how clean and odor free the process was. Virtually no detectable odor. I have my castings out and exposed to the sun’s heat to dry them out before storing. See photo above. I will make some tea this weekend but will pass on including scones and/or biscuits with the endeavor!

My other gardening activities include;

I added a single strawberry tower to John’s backyard. It will be a nice surprise for him when he returns from his Aruba vacation. I told his wife, Beverly, to not let him take her snorkeling on any secluded beaches!!!!….just a bit of dark and tongue in cheek humor!

While working in John’s yard I added a couple of rows of bunching green onions from seed and put in a single row of sugar snap peas. Both of these additions were in his original 4X4 bed. I also  thinned the radishes and turnips in the new bed. I must have been a little too liberal in my original seeding efforts. The onion and garlic bulbs, even though planted late, are emerging nicely. They seem to be benefitting from this mild winter – I am reluctant to call it winter – it just seems like a prolonged Fall or an early Spring.

I topped off one of my compost bins with shredded leaves this week and added an activator, prepackaged micro-organisms, to speed things along. I will add a weak water and molasses mix today as some additional food to get the pile heated up. It is amazing to feel how hot the process becomes …… literally cooking up some great garden food for the garden.

I added some spinach and Swiss Chard transplants that I had started from seed a month ago. The next 10 days looks like very mild weather so they should take off pretty quickly. I have some really nice looking turnips to harvest this weekend. I don’t find too many recipes that “feature” turnips, they seem to occupy the niches for added body in most recipes. I found one in AllRecipes that caught my eye, “Beef Stew with Ale”. A cup of diced turnips finds their way into the recipe and what really caught my eye was the word “Ale”. Must be a typo in the recipe though….the ingredient list calls for two bottles of a brown lager….hmmmm a big difference between the two…. If you try this recipe just use a good Ale, preferably a Brown Ale!!!! http://allrecipes.com/recipe/beef-stew-with-ale/detail.aspx

Enough for now – I changed up my post background, it seems to be a little easier for my old eyes to read…. I hope you like it.

TTFN

Bishop

New Year’s Garden – Much Better Than a Hangover

January 3, 2012

Bishop Composting, Gardening, mulching , , , 1 Comment

My New Year’s Eve celebration was limited to a couple of Samuel Adams Winter Lagers, I just love the shape of the glass – the beer is pretty good too- while waiting in the airport in sunny Florida. I was lucky enough to be with my best friend, my wife Kathy and our “favorite” youngest child Joe.  I dozed off on the flight back to Houston dreaming of getting my hands back into the dirt in my little backyard garden. I was planning the work needed to prepare for spring……and the crazy thing is, our spring weather may start at any time during January! This morning though, it was a bit brisk  35 F, about 2 C for you folks on the other scale….so I wore a sweater with my short pants and to the horror of my children – socks with my sandals!

Yesterday was the 2nd day of the new year and a warmer than this morning. I knocked a few things off of my to-do-list. I have been anxiously waiting for the asparagus ferns to die…..they didn’t cooperate so I wacked them off – to my Australian friends, Geoff, Charles and Alan…do not manipulate the word wack….I know what is running through your brains, so, stop it right now! – back to the asparagus…I then top dressed with some good aged compost from my bins….2011 vintage, and then added a 3-4 inch layer of leaves to help smother the weeds- those nasty little buggers that can take over the bed if not managed.

I finally got around to removing the green bean vines and poles. It took just a few minutes and I don’t know why I waited so long….maybe it has to do with my usual tendency for procrastination ….as I wrote those few previous words I felt a little guilty because – here  I am, sitting on a half-finished project for a “paying” client and I am filling my free time with random & rambling thoughts. The paycheck for the real work is 60 days or more out into the future and the “fun” I have writing is my  immediate gratifcation…….I think I am contradicting some of the advice I have given my children…I have told them to work hard and not focus on the “instant gratification” sought out by so many!!!!! Sorry kids, you need to get a little instant gratification every now and then…it helps you smile! Dad also says…….don’t over do it!

Oh yes, the beans….. That bed, a 4X25 foott bed, is now sitting mostly idle as it is shaded most of the day. I had overseeded it with buckwheat in the early fall as a green manure. This bed is loaded with earthworms……to the delight of my 16 year son, who is a fishing fool! Fortunately he doesn’t fish day and night which could wreak havoc on the worm population! The winter solstice has come and gone allowing the shade to begin  creeping southward to start warming up the entire garden area. I also managed a quick courtesy call to John’s garden beds, I  watered, weeded and added some compost to the original bed. John, FYI – turnips and radishes are already up!

The photo below right  shows a good portion of my main garden beds. Unseen in this photo are two , 4X8 foot beds behind me, one of which has the asparagus and just beyond the fence along the back fence is a bed with 75+ strawberry plants….all ground level so the slugs and rollie-pollies can have a tasty snack in the spring. It really is a competition between me and the bugs to save the berries….chemicals would kill the critters but they would also find their way into my strawberry jam…I can’t have that, so, I am willing to share a little. You can just make out the edge of my compost bins to the left, also on the left are the strawberry towers, some blackberry vines, a potting table at the far end, a bit of storage to the right and lots of bare spots waiting for more seeds and warmth. The left photo shows a bit of what lies outside the gate to my dirt paradise. On the right side is one end of the ground level strawberries against my back fence. For some reason Sam Adams wanted a little more exposure so it is at the bottom of the post…..(I couldn’t figure out how to remove it without buggering up the post)  TTFN – Bishop

John Doubles Down

December 26, 2011

Bishop Fall, Gardening, Vegetables , , Leave a comment

The New and the Old......side by side.

Christmas Eve santa wandered into John’s backyard and doubled his garden space…..Cold and rainy evening but Santa wandered off to his appointed rounds a little damper but also feeling pretty smug about the clandestine delivery. The seeds and bulbs would have to wait….too many stockings to fill, cookies to eat and glasses of milk to drink!

On Christmas Day Santa showed back up at John’s house in his everyday Bishop Decker, friend and neighbor, disguise to plant a few seeds and tuck away some left over onion and garlic bulbs….. not too sure about the timing for the bulbs but it is better than letting them wither away. I suspect that the mild “winter” we are in the midst of may work in our favor. I planted some lettuce and carrots in a surprise pattern. So what is a surprise pattern????? I mix about 4 – 5 varieties in my little seed spreader, shake them up and scatter across the designated area. I recently used the technique in my beds and I see lots of seedlings popping up…..too early to see which varieties. I plan to thin them after they are well established and should have a smorgasbord of lettuce and carrots to pick. I added some radish seeds, beets & turnips to his winter bed. It should be fun to see what he does with the harvest!

My last-minute gardening efforts before heading off to Orlando for my son Joe’s soccer tournament included adding a spring to my gate to aid in “self” closing and a support cable to the gate doesn’t sag so much. Looks good and closes so smooooothly! While out in the garden this morning I was able to snack on the so very sweet sugar snap peas…..yum! My asparagus ferns are nearly ready to cut back so they will be very high on my to-do list when I/we return from Orlando. I will need to spend an hour or so with garden gnome tasks over at John’s yard…pulling weeds and laying down a layer of leaf mulch to suppress or at least slow the growth of the weeds. I gave him a book titled, “The Organic Kitchen Garden” book to stimulate his creative side…he really is an excellent cook –   the grin on his face as he was flipping through the pages warmed” ole” Santa’s heart!

The newly planted strawberries are “leafing” out – yee-haw!!!!!

Now off to pack my bags….

TTFN

Bishop

Santa’s Christmas Eve in the Garden – Or How I Procrastinate

December 25, 2011

Bishop Uncategorized 4 Comments

It was a cold and rainy evening…..yes it truly was. The early afternoon wasn’t too bad so I thought that Santa, that’s me, could do all of his appointed rounds in time. You see, santa needed to finish the strawberry towers because the plants had arrived on the 23rd and needed to be planted. I had purchased the PVC pipe on the 22nd intending to have them cut, formed and filled with planting media – just waiting to have the plants tucked away. I did not work out that way…I had coffee to drink, more leaves to gather, a few last-minute gifts to buy, some time down at the gym…..in general – anything to keep Santa away from his appointed rounds.

Yesterday afternoon……yes this is Christmas morning!, I began to finish in an afternoon what could have, should have, been spread out over a day or two. Oh, I forgot to mention – in an earlier post I told you that I had the materials to install my friend John’s new 4X4 bed. Well, on the afternoon of Christmas Eve I still had the materials and added that to Santa’s to do list. Are you seeing the big picture now? I do my best work under tight, tight time deadlines!

The weather cooperated for the initial phase of the tower construction. The PVC pipe is made in 10′ lengths, so each tower is 5 feet in length but when placed in the garden only about 4 feet are usable….. photo later ( actually taken Christmas morning so I had some light to see). eight foot lengths or 16 foot lengths would be awsome. I will whine more later.

I snapped a line down the center of each pipe. Then 18 inches from the bottom – bottom 12 inches will be buried – I make my first cut across the pipe – I then measure up 6″ and then off to the right approximately 135 degrees, based on my simple math skills that is about 2.3571 inches off to the right of center. (note for my brother Todd, I rounded off heavily and simplified the number crunching). I measured up 6 inches on the center line and then 135 degrees to the left for the next cut, up 6 inches and back to center. I chose the not make a Fibonacci sequence spiral as some of the cuts would wind up on the north side of the pipe…. again – simplified for me. Center line will face south upon installation and the left and right cuts would be west and east facing – approximately – …… Photos below show the cuts and then the planting pockets after they were formed by heating with a “blow dryer” – yes Lisa I wore my gloves….she is always reminding me.

Just as I was beginning to finish forming the pockets on the third tower,….I made 5 and installed 4, the rain began. i installed them adjacent to my original experiment. I took my post hole digger and carved out a 12 inch deep pocket for each new tower. I filled the base of each up to just above ground level to ensure dry “feet” for the towers and berries. The 4″ towers are much easier to fill planting medium as compared to the 3″ towers and a lot easier when it comes to planting the new bare root plants. The pockets will not shred the skin of my fingers while planting but I still chose to wear my gloves – thanks again to my daughter Lisa and her gentle reminder. The rain was beginning to come down and it was beginning to get a little darker. I waited until this morning to photograph the results. See the slideshow below.

Santa wasn’t yet done for the evening – He loaded up his sleigh an – F-150, not red but basic polar white and drove over to John’s house. Now the rain was heavier and colder. I cleaned up the dead tomato plants, pulled the cages, reorganized – just a little his wood storage stack and installed the new bed. Looks good but he will have to wait a bit for the winter plantings…..and of course I will  weed the old bed…the Rosemary and strawberry plants in the old bed are looking good though… maybe some photos later today when we swing by for the annual dinner and dessert orgy…. I was soaked, chilled and ready for my hot shower. Oh it felt so good.

Santa could now ready himself for Christmas Eve and family time….. Santa can plant John’s bed another day.

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