Springing

 You may think it's Christmas, but for me the most wonderful time of the year is definitely spring.  I love the crisp mornings and warm afternoons, and unlike autumn it's the sense of everything waking up rather than dying down.  

I've been able to get some of the young seedlings outside during the day for more natural light and air, and to also expose them to to temperature fluctuations. This process is called hardening off.  It's still much too cold to leave these tender plants out overnight - just this morning the pasture was coated with a heavy frost.  I'm going to get the polytunnel cover up today and hopefully I should be able to leave them out overnight in that fairly soon.

The grey container on the bottom step is yet another attempt to grow bulbs in pots, which I am pretty much giving up on.  The bulbs started out great guns but petered out quickly; I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong or if it's just that our climate isn't hospitable to early pots, but I'm done.  From now on, it's bulbs in the ground, and pots are reserved for colorful annuals.

Speaking of bulbs, in the new hot borders flanking the path to the barn door, my Crown Imperial Fritillaria have survived!

It doesn't look like much now, but eventually it will form a long stem with drooping red bell-like flowers at the top.  The bulbs have a slight depression in the center and need to be planted on an angle so that ground water doesn't sit in the depression and rot the bulb.  Looks like I planted it just right.  The only odd thing about these plants is they really stink, literally.  They have a musky, skunky odor slightly reminiscent of marijuana. 

For the rampant crab grass situation I've purchased a new standing weeder tool.

This is a Fiskars 4 claw model, and it's freaking amazing.  You position the claws over the center of a weed, step down on the extended foot piece to drive the blades down into the ground, then step off and simply lever the weed out of the ground, and the claws close on the roots as you pry the weed out.  A quick release slide opens the claws and you're done.  I've found this to be fantastic if you're pulling weeds with tap roots, and it will pull large clumps of crab grass, but smaller clumps aren't as easily gripped.  At any rate, being able to stand and weed is much easier than being on my hands and knees.

After the last storm brought down so many trees and branches, I decided to really pursue my dead hedge project.  Lord knows there's enough material...or is there?  My first section went up yesterday, and what you see is a pickup truck load of brush.

  This is a mix of freshly fallen limbs and branches and various long dead pieces I pulled out of the forest garden area.  Traditional dead hedges are made using uprights that are also fashioned from limbs, but I am using grade stakes because I'm too lazy to carve points onto limbs.  It was difficult enough to drive the pointed stakes into the ground as there is so much ledge and stone, and I ended up using baling twine to keep the posts from leaning outward.  If I can pound them deeper into the ground, I may not have to do that for every section.  The plan is to make the next section cross the stone wall, then follow the ridge behind the honeysuckle bushes all the way to my hillside garden fence, then pick up the process on the other end of the garden fence and follow the stone wall to the end of the property at the road.      

 The nice thing about this fencing is that I'll always have material to add to it, and it's providing cover and lodging for insects and small creatures.  Also, it will help keep my mother's dog out of my garden...bonus.  If I like it enough, I may extend it to other areas around the property, like along the back pasture.  At least with this if a tree falls on it, there isn't hundreds of dollars worth of damage!  Some people may think it looks messy, but I like that it's a natural looking fence, I'm using found materials, and it's costing me hundreds of dollars less than metal, wire, or picket fencing.  Win/win.

Now...off to plant my peas!

April Snowstorm Blues

 We survived the nor'easter of '24.

Snowfall reports vary, but my snow stake showed 19" of heavy, wet snow at the end of the storm.  Winds from 30-40 and sometimes 50 mph wreaked havoc on snow laden limbs and weaker trees, bringing down so many that at one point the citizens without power numbered over one hundred thousand in New Hampshire alone.  At one point the road closures due to trees and wires down exceeded 200.  Thanks to hundreds of tree service companies and utility workers from New Hampshire, as well as crews from neighboring states that flooded the area in the aftermath, we were only without power for 3 days.  

The storm started for me on Thursday morning; I woke up at 3:00 am and was too keyed up to get back to sleep.  I got up, checked the snowfall, made my coffee, and sat down to do some internet surfing.  At 3:53 am there was a huge flash of lightning followed by two thunderclaps that were so intense, they shook the house.  Thundersnow!  Jim Cantore, eat your heart out.  

Five minutes later we lost power.

Through the first part of the storm, snowblowing was fairly easygoing.  After feeding the mules I cleaned up in front of the garage, did my path to the barn, and cleared at mom's house.  I managed to get my generator started and was very pleased with how well it did over the three day period.  Running my mini split heating unit, the water pump, my refrigerator, and a few outlets between my kitchen and the connecting porch I was able to get eight hours of running time for every 5 gallons of gas.  

The most significant thing that happened to me specifically is a cautionary tale to anyone who has become far too comfortable with winter cleanup.  As the storm was winding down I decided to do some preemptive cleanup around the mule barn.  There was about 16-18" of snow built up on the roof, and it's metal, so I knew it would come flying off at some point.  It generally will come down in a sheet, and it slams to the ground forming a cement-like berm of snow in front of the hay room doors.  My plow guy had punched open the main part of the driveway, but hadn't plowed along the barn side, and I like to keep the hay room doors accessible for unloading shavings, hay, or moving carts of manure out of the barn.  And I wanted to dump some manure that morning.  I also knew if I could get the current snow cleaned up, that would be all the less I'd need to deal with once the snow came off the roof.

So it was that I began a slow trudge along the barn, through snow over my knees, trying to clear a path with my trusty snowblower.  I managed to break open one path almost to the doors, when in a flash there was a complete whiteout, and a second later I was standing - quite shocked - looking at my snowblower buried under a pile of snow.  Part of the snow load from the roof had let go.

I began frantically trying to dig out the machine with my hands, which was still running, and attempted to rock it out of its position, to no avail.  I went into the barn and grabbed a shovel, and began digging it out with that.  And that's when it all went to hell in a hand basket.  

 The next thing I knew, the other half of the snow load let go and I saw it hit the machine, realized what was happening, and a split second later was thrown sideways into the snow and completely buried.  My panicked brain's first thought was "AIR!", and I began trying to claw the snow away from my head.  I was pinned under about two feet or more of heavy, wet snow, lying sideways on my right side.  My right arm was pinned underneath me, bent so my hand was near my head.  My legs were buried the worst, and I couldn't move them at all.  I was able to free my left arm and began digging and pushing the snow away from my head and torso as best I could.  I was keenly aware that there could be more snow on the roof ready to come barrelling down on me at any second, so of course I began to panic.  I started thrashing my torso around, trying to free my right arm enough to bend it behind me to my right back pants pocket, where my phone was.  (Note to self - keep the phone in a front jacket pocket from now on!)  When I realized I was not going to be able to reach my phone, absolute panic set in.  I began screaming at the top of my lungs for help, because my mother had been snowblowing up near her barn when this happened.  Unfortunately, she couldn't see me, and couldn't hear me over the noise of her own snowblower, and my snowblower was still running right beside me.  I was fairly certain I was going to die in that snow coffin, and wouldn't be missed or found until my plow guy pushed my frozen corpse up the following day.  After about fifteen minutes of thrashing, clawing, and screaming I was able to get my right arm freed, then twisted myself up on my hands and knees.  I called my mother on my cell phone, crying hysterically.  By the time she made it down to the barn, I had managed to pull a foot out of my boot and get myself kicked free, and was standing upright. So I didn't die.  Obviously.

I managed to get the machine shut down and my mother took a picture of the snowblower, buried.

Later that night, after I'd stewed on my idiocy for some time, I decided to rescue the machine.  I forced the hay room doors open and dug a path to the snowblower, and managed to rock it out of the snow and pull it into the barn.  Once in, I was able to wheel it down the alley and out the front door.  My back was decidedly not happy.

My would-be snow coffin.

Chalk that up to a hard lesson learned.

Other casualties were part of my newly started mule track; I may be able to salvage the no-climb horse fence, but I'll need to replace some pressure treated posts, and it looks like I may have lost three or four corral panels and a gate or two.  I had leaned extra sections against the started fence to use later...wouldn't you know that's where the tree would fall?  This was a tall pine that came up by the roots.

Other random shots of destruction around the area, mostly after the dangerous stuff was cleaned up:

Our town road agent, hard at work cleaning up the roadsides.

But it was beautiful, too.

Gotta love a New England spring.

Grow my pretties, grow!

 The yarrow seedlings have graduated to plants; they're looking quite adult at this point.

The Blue Fescue grass is amazing...even my mother is drawn to it, just to brush it lightly with her hand.  I don't know that it would be so alluring at ground level, but at eye level it just begs to be admired and touched.

The Baptisia are still going strong.

The petunias, impatiens, and pansies I started a month ago now are doing well enough.  I've only lost one petunia and one of the impatiens.  

There wasn't even a whisper of snow left on my side of the property at the beginning of the week, and only a small mound on Mom's side, where the plow pushed it up into a huge snow bank.  Although the end of February and beginning of March were blissfully mild, this week has dropped back to average temperatures, near or below 32F.  Winds have been kicking up, making it feel even colder.  Yesterday was the first day of spring, but it feels like winter is lingering.  We're expecting a storm this weekend with snow, sleet, and rain, which isn't unusual for March.  Heck, that's not unusual for April around here.

I'm beginning to toy with ideas for the sloped area off the leach field.  Last year I had hoped to get it cleared of weeds and grass, top it off with 50/50 soil, and plant corn and various squash into it.  I have a good amount of corn seeds, so I may try it this year.  I'm debating covering it with weed blocking fabric and cutting holes for plants throughout, much like folks do in row gardens.  I'm not a huge fan of the fabric and may just invest in heavy doses of bark mulch over cardboard, instead.  At any rate, it's going to be tough to get rid of all that natural grass.

I also need to consider my wildflower meadow and path that is on top of the leach field.  The very nature of the beast means quite a bit of thawing and refreezing, and this has played havoc on my landscape pins, not to mention any late planted perennials.  They tend to heave out of the ground.

I'm debating pulling the pins and plastic edging and trying to acquire some bricks as cheaply as possible and using that as edging.  Alternatively, I could just cover the pea gravel with bark mulch and let the edges blur into the meadow area.  Whatever I choose, I'll probably do the same through the lower half of the garden, around the lower patio, pond, and gardens.  Of course, this is all just a pipe dream at the moment...because here comes Mother Nature to remind us that March is full of surprises, and giving us a preview of what's still to come.

Of blogs, I've had a few.

 I started out blogging on Yahoo way back in the old days of dial up, and eventually moved to the Blogger platform in my later years.  My previous blog was much more fantastical than this incarnation; I've tried to mature in tone and subject as I mature in real time.  I've been perusing some of my older posts and I think from time to time I may repost them here for my own amusement.  The following post was from a time long gone, when my then husband and I were raising all kinds of livestock and living simply.

Aesop, 2006

Some years ago, my enterprising brother-in-law noticed our empty paddock and decided it looked like a cozy spot for his cows. We became custodians of a beautiful little heifer named Princess, and a damned fine Hereford bull named John. I was tickled pink by our new bovine wards despite the fact that they were not acclimated to human contact and avoided us like the plague. John, however, was a little braver than his counterpart, and would allow a scratch session now and then through the fence. Going into their area was a whole different ballgame.

One day, my then husband and I decided that these two needed to become used to two-legged pasture mates, so we ventured forth into the forbidden zone. Now, the best way to put an animal at ease is to 1.) ignore them completely and go about your business; curiosity kills more than just cats, and 2.) do not make eye contact. Direct eye contact is considered a threat by many animals. So, this was what we did. For a time, the two wily creatures just watched us, not really interested in approaching any closer than necessary, but not turning tail to run, either. All seemed well until I noticed a few shards of broken glass glimmering upon the ground. Not wanting one of our wards to injure themselves upon said glass, I bent over to pick it up. Well, apparently the sight of my double wide gluteus maximus was more than John could bear, and it incited him to launch into a full-blown charge in my direction, complete with bellowing snorts and violent head tossing. Concentrating on my task at hand, I had no idea that eight hundred pounds or so of enraged beef was pounding down upon me until my husband's frantic hollering brought me to attention. 

I turned and stared death in the eyes. 

Panicked, I began running for the barn, ignoring my husband’s sage advice to get behind a tree. As John came bearing down upon me, I realized I was not going to make it into the barn and over the stall wall in time and desperately looked for something to put between myself and this bloodthirsty creature. I headed for the nearest tree and positioned myself behind a sapling about two inches in diameter. 

Nice choice. 

But it worked; John stopped dead in his tracks and just stared at me with murderous intent, not sure how to get around this most unformidable obstacle. Eventually he became bored and plodded off to explore another area of the pen, and I was able to exit his domain unscathed.

The moral of this story? 

If you're not prepared to deal with the bull, don't present yourself as an ass.

 

indoor gardening update

 I don't know what it is I've done differently, but my seed sowing endeavors have been fantastically successful this year versus last.  My yarrow are happily growing on in their red party cup plant pots.

The baptisia are beginning to look like something other than bizarre bean sprouts.

I've transplanted the Blue Fescue grass, which was a nightmare.

Normally I start seeds in the little expandable pellets you can buy, but for the fescue I though I'd try a small square tray setup that I had on hand.  I used seed starting coir and everything went fine, until I tried to transplant.  I'm not sure if I should have let the grass grow on a little more to build up a better root system, but the roots were out the bottoms of the tray so I went for it.  It was nearly impossible to dig those little suckers out!  Coir went everywhere but the grass was stuck tight...I tried using a scoop, a little shovel, and my dibber, but all of them just made more of a mess than necessary.  Pushing up through the holes in the bottom of each square did nothing, even though I'd watered the tray well yesterday in hopes the coir would stick together and just slide right out.  

Never again!

Hopefully I haven't damaged the little grasses to the point they don't survive the transplant.

The verbena bonariensis are starting to take off a little.  They're getting a little taller, and I probably should have put less in each pot.  We'll see how they fare - I really don't have enough room to repot them and spread them out.

I picked up that little clip fan at a Goodwill a few weeks ago.  It's battery operated and not too powerful, so it's perfect for giving the seedlings a little movement.  That helps them develop stronger stems and better prepares them for life outside, in the elements.  I'm using rechargeable batteries to save on cost, and clip it to a different rack each day.  I also have a small fan that recharges via USB ports, and will use that on occasion as well.

It's been bitter cold, but the sun is strong and there's lots of melting and settling.  The snow pack now sits at 6.5" deep in the pasture, which isn't much.  We missed a whopper of a storm that ended up staying south of us, but winter isn't over yet.

 The melting snow has revealed some opportunistic mustard greens that have managed to survive the cold and snow.

I'm thinking of cleaning up the area in front of that planter and just sowing as much mustard green seed as possible, and letting it go wild.  Why not?  It's a tricky place to mow and the less weed whacking I need to do, the better.  Toward the back of the planter is the domed tray I was trying to germinate allium seed in.  Since nothing happened in over a month under the grow lights, I decided to put it outside to see if it responded better to winter sowing.  I don't think it will - the seed are probably toast at this point - but how will I know if I don't try? 

I'm looking forward to getting into the hillside garden and checking my garlic and my leeks to see how they've fared over winter, but it looks like it's going to be a little while yet before that happens.  Patience! 

 

a lesson in baptisia seed sowing

 A friend gave me some dried baptisia seed pods last fall, and about a month or so ago I liberated the seeds and refrigerated them.  I planted some on Monday afternoon, and by Wednesday morning they had already sprouted.  This was good and bad - I sowed the seeds in the little coir pellets I use for everything else, and didn't realize how large these seedlings would be.  I didn't push them in deep enough, and out of the 25 or so that germinated, about eight or nine were not even worth saving.  They emerged top heavy with stout stems, but they tapered to nothing and flopped over immediately.  The seedlings that appeared robust enough, I quickly transplanted into taller pots and buried them as deep as I dared. 

Only after they germinated did I research the conditions these seedlings prefer - they do not like to be transplanted often - they develop long roots - so I should have started them in tall pots to begin with.  I don't know if these will survive or not, but I have a bounty of extra seeds still in the fridge should I want to try again.  Lesson learned - KNOW YOUR SEEDLING!

transplant fever

 Here it is, the beginning of February, and I'm already doing a second transplant for the yarrow seedlings.  

 I had noticed the last time I watered that there were roots emerging from the bottoms of the pots.  These  are 2" square pots, and I only transplanted into them 3 weeks ago, so I hope that speaks to how robust these little plants are so far.  They certainly had nice root systems - notice I didn't wait until they were pot-bound, with roots creating a thick mass.  I think this will make them more inclined to grow down into the new soil, or at least that's my hope.  

The seedlings also have their true leaves, the leaves that they develop as they mature.  They're definitely starting to look like little yarrow plants!

I had wanted to pot up to a taller 3 or 4 inch pot, which I could have purchased on Amazon.com; a pack of 30 was around $20.  But a trip to a local off-price store led me to find a package of 50 plastic red party cups for less than $3, which I drilled drainage holes into and should work just as well as the nursery pots for my  little operation.

I expect these plants to be on the taller side by the time I'm able to transplant them outside, and without a heated greenhouse to grow them in now, it's a little tricky.  If you're only using the power of the sun coming through a window, these types of seedlings might get leggy and weak, desperately looking for light.  This is where my growing setup is going to either sink or swim.  I've set it up so that the racks are still removable, even with the grow lights zip-tied to them.  This will allow me to raise the height of the lights to accommodate the taller seedlings without compromising their health...hopefully. 

You can see where I removed one tier with lights to give these seedlings more room to grow.  If I had put them on the second rack, they would have been almost touching the lights, which I don't want.  I should be able to see if the lights are too high by monitoring their reaction to the transplant and new light situation over the next week.  All of my grow lights are on timers that snap on at 5:00 am and shut off around 8:00 pm.  Ignore the cat who has decided she'll only drink the water from the celery stub I'm rooting in a glass cup...cats.  Sheesh.  Though you can't see the stalk in water, in front of that is one that I started in the fall and eventually planted into a pot.  It's doing very well and my mother has cut a few stalks for flavoring soups already.  It's not going gangbusters by any stretch, but it'll be more than ready when it comes time to plant these out in the garden this spring.

On my other rack are some successes and failures.

I've transplanted the verbena bonariensis to 2" pots and they're responding nicely.  

This is another plant that wants to get tall, much taller than the yarrow.  If they outgrow the one tier removed situation on the rack, I can always put them on the floor and remove 2 racks, to give them more room to stretch.  

Also on that rack are some Blue Fescue ornamental grass seeds I've started.  They've just begun to come to, and if they thrive it looks like I may have around 30 nice little clumps to plant out this year.

Under the domed lid are some allium seed that I collected from my plants last summer.  I left them outside to dry, then brought them in for a week to dry even more.  After I was sure they had no moisture (potential for mold), I put them in a paper envelope and stored them in the refrigerator for a few months.  When I wanted to plant them, about three weeks before that I put them on a damp paper towel and returned them to the fridge, monitoring the moisture and checking for mold.  After 3 weeks I put them in the domed container in seed starting mix, and have waited.  It's been two and a half weeks and nothing so far, so I'm not sure if they'll germinate.  I can give it another week to see what happens, or I may move them to the basement where it's a little cooler for a short time, then move them outside to winter sow, if they survive.  It may even be that the seeds aren't viable to begin with, who knows?

We finally had a nice snowfall without rain ruining it last week.  We ended up with about 6" of fresh snow, bringing the snowpack back up to about 14". 

It's been sunny and cold since, but the strength of the sun still manages to melt a little more each day.  The driveway is a frozen tundra in the morning, and a muddy mess by evening.  Already the snowpack has settled to about 9".  As the saying goes, it's just making room for more - winter in New England is never brief!  Some of our whopper snows have come in February, and you can't discount the lambing storms in March.  (Sheep will wait for the worst possible conditions to begin lambing, I swear.  There's a two day blizzard threatening to dump three feet of snow?  All right ladies, commence contractions!)

The sunny days have brought a large flock of wild turkeys to the pasture in the last week.  About a dozen or so hens were followed by about a half dozen toms.

My crow friends have increased by one.  It's interesting, because there were 3 last winter until nearer spring, when the fourth joined them.  I don't know if that's a new member or one of the babies from last year.  As I snapped this photo a surprise fifth crow soared by the window.  There's always one lookout in the trees, especially with the hawks around.

I know the little song birds appreciate the crows and jays setting off their alarms when he's nearby.

Next up - sowing annual flowers for pots, then prepping for vegetable sowing in March.