Last year in the mud and 7 months pregnant, with a garden not tilled, a husband gone for 14 days, and a borrowed broken mantis tiller, the girls and I planted 10 day old stored bare root strawberries in the garden while it rained. . It was horrible, but strawberries are not supposed to be stored that long before going in the ground and they had to go in. I was relying on the 8 year old to dig holes in the hard ground although eventually I did get the tiller going. Not bad for this mechanically challenged gal who has NO Idea how to run anything normally. We planted them and they did grow - one row out of 3 (or about 25 out of 75 plants). By fall they were rapidly spreading and knee high with grass. I transplanted a boatload (about 75 more) and thought it is fall (wrong time for us) and there is no hope they will live. Why am I wasting my time as it is almost November, but I covered them with straw and let the weeds go. This spring I uncovered the straw and there were the gorgeous plants in all their glory. I think every single one I had moved last fall lived, as did every single blade of grass. Earlier in spring I thought to let them all just go and buy more (I did buy 100 more plants and plant in other places), but then I felt guilty - I paid $38 for those strawberries and they SHOULD produce this year, so to let them go at this point . . . AHGH. So I took our a potato fork and gently lifted roots to get out dandelion roots and grass roots - huge craters of dirt gone and more grass than berry. They were blooming beautifully though, so I had hopes if I could JUST get on top of the grass they would survive. I managed only about 5 feet in an hour for being careful to not destroy the berries which managed to live despite having their roots horribly disturbed. I would get discouraged by the sheer quantity of grass, but for some reason I could not let that patch go. Maybe sheer stubbornness because of that silly $38, or guilt for not keeping on top of it when I DO have time. But is it time well spent when I have 3 other gardens, children, animals, house to keep tidy, food to make etc? I noticed that nobody bothered me when I was in the strawberry patch (except for mosquitoes and THAT is another story!). DH left me be and I"d hear them come outside to look for me and say "Oh, she's in the strawberries." Maybe they considered them a lost cause and did not want to have to help or maybe I was absorbed in dreaming while I did it and couldn't be disturbed. :) Regardless, I could actually spend 15-45 minutes uninterrupted by anything including DH who normally sees me weed and comes over immediately and joins me (or does it on his own in the mornings - what a dear!). I began to think of the strawberry patch as my prayer closet. I pray a lot while I go about my work - I hum and pray as I see an object somebody gave me and I pray for them, as I read discouraging posts on facebook and pray for the Lord to be praised and work in the situation and prove that we can overcome, but when I'm in the house every 2 seconds somebody needs me or needs help or wants to talk and I easily forget what I was praying about. When I'm in the strawberry patch nobody does that and I purpose to NOT let my mind wander, to not get distracted, to not think about gardening, animals, notes, what I SHOULD be doing, it would be my "I should have gotten up at 6AM before the kids and prayed uninterrupted" time. So I told the Lord all this and said I needed help to remember not to let my mind wander and to help me stick to it. Whenever I think "I don't have time to weed the strawberries", I think to myself have I spent time memorizing and praying that day? And I look at my strawberry patch with grass going to SEED! and think uh oh, is that also a sign of my heart and my walk with the Lord? If I let the grass go even a week, the roots become tangled in the strawberries and when you gently follow them backwards they lead everywhere - the same way sin and poor habits do. They encroach so quickly and into more areas of your life than you even thought possible. So the whole time I am weeding my little 5 foot section I remember how sin affects our lives and I pray for all the burdens of my heart to be let over to the Lord and for joy, a purpose and excitement for the future for my children - a hard thing sometimes after a short delve into the world! I admit, since I decided to make it my prayer time, I am convinced I may never get all the way down the 60 x4 foot row before the beginning is absolutely full of weeds again and wonder if the weeds would grow half as fast if I hadn't decided to make it my prayer patch ;) You know, kind of like "don't pray for patience unless you want a lot of trials to help develop patience". Don't pray for a strawberry patch of weeds to help remind you to pray unless you are willing to deal with just how well weeds grow . . . I imagine my family thinks I am crazy, but at this point every time I think of not bothering, I remember that the strawberries and their silly weeds remind me to pray and memorize. And I look back and think of the hard work involved in weeding that patch and how after a bit I'm having to gently pry grass roots from in between strawberry roots and that a weed free bed doesn't happen without work. Don't get me wrong, I have a boatload of weedy garden areas - the comfrey is hiding underneath 3 feet of grass right now and doesn't even give me a twinge of guilt *G*. But 3x a day when I walk by those berries I am reminded to pray and reminded that if I haven't been out there, I need to go do it even for just 5 minutes because it is for my soul and not for the strawberries. Although just to make a liar out of my "everybody leaves me alone" observation, this morning my 3 year old joined me and said "I will help you weed the strawberries." I told her these weeds are like sin and why does she think that? And she said "Because I is trying to dig them out and frow them and they don't frow without your help!" (we are throwing the tall grass on top of some cedar mulch in the pathway and the wind was strong :) ) It is so wonderful to have children who have different unsoiled perspectives on everything and gave me alot to reflect on before her 3 second attention span caused her to dance away and pretend she was killing a grasshopper on Papa to scare him. . :) So maybe I need reminders to not get so attached to my berry time that I grouchily won't respond to the kids (that happens rather easily when you have a lot of needy people around you :) ), but I am thankful for those berries and the fruit I am seeing all over even with weeds still everywhere. Started out the weekend with a Dexter/Katie calving a lovely polled A2A2 heifer. Then Ben left after I put Tildy in the hoophouse and she had a calf early that morning - and has been a royal pill ever since. Doesn't want to come in to be milked so I have to thump her and talk very very growly to get her to cooperate, and her calf is now locked up and she nurses him 2x a day because she would not come in if she had him. It was a 'I'm living in the pasture and dare you to catch me" time. She has not done that since her heifer year and I've NOT missed it. She is giving us 1.25 gallons from 2 quarters 2x a day - I let little Mark (as Emily called him) nurse 2 quarters dry morning and night, and tonight little Ruthie Anne decided to help herself also (Katie's calf so named by Elise - Elise's middle name is Ruth ;) ). Katie is giving me about 1 gallon once a day and is with her calf for at least 12 hours. She is such a good mama and a good cow - goes in where she is supposed to, lets me milk her out, comes when I call her (while Tildy pretends not to hear), and just in general a sweetie.
Tonight Sonia decided to come instead of Tildy, so I put her in and gave her a treat. She should be due very soon although I'm not seeing that much change. She let me rub all over her and then didn't want to leave - hopefully she takes on more of her Dad's personality when it comes time to milk! I grazed the south west pastures and now moved them by the driveway until the trailer comes - the fellow says it's ready to go but the trailer mover is not returning calls. . . His wife answers the phone so obviously they are not ignoring us. :) The entryway is already here and ready to go into place when we get the front cleared and something to put it into place - telehandler or something similar. We agonized over where to put the trailer for days actually, and can't believe how many things like septic, electric, garden, etc are in the way now. . . The woodshed was in the way, so we industriously emptied it into the horse trailer and then lifted the shed up with the tractor and I backed the tractor out while Emily lifted one side of the back and Ben lifted the other. I hope no wind comes up as it is NOT tied down and I have to figure out where to put it now! Strawberries are forming so cutely and I weeded about 1/4 of them - the grass is so thick I'm pulling strawberry plants out, but they are blooming profusely and hopefully we get many good snacks out of them. Mosquitoes were horrific while weeding as there was NO wind, but it was still wonderful. I also planted another row of onions by the east west strawberry row (i think they are the honeyeye that I transplanted this spring from last year), and got the zinnias in - oh shoot, I didn't plant the black snaps and just put the plugs in the flower bed where I want them. Guess we know what I'll be doing first thing in the morning. I have another couple hundred onions I am going to plant - seems a shame to let them go to waste! Ben moved half the gravel into place - it would have been easier had we actually gotten warning it was coming, but we woke up to an early phone call from the gravel dude saying he would be there in 10 minutes. Flew out and the area it was going wasn't ready (the wood shed was still there!), so we had to have them dump it in a different location. Always makes for more work. I'd better go shower as I intended to get to bed before midnight and here it is 11:59. . . ;) I need to plant another row of beans tomorrow after I go to the dentist - lost a filling and it hurts like the dickens. Praying he will not insist on multiple x rays, root canals, fillings or otherwise and be a pleasant person to work with for a change! So, thunderstorms last night threatened the new entryway we hauled home that is exposed on one long 20 foot side, but we managed to get a tarp over it before much rain. No hail thankfully, but lots and lots of rain all night and today. The greenhouse was a lovely atmosphere to work in and DH and I got all the strings up and tomatoes clipped as the tomatoes that touched the black plastic mulch were dying in place. I lost 5 green peppers to the plastic mulch, and some of the tomatoes are so small that I don't know if I should yank them out or what. I had purchased organic potting soil with slow release fertilizer and out of the 8 bags I got only 4 had the fertilizer in them, so my sad little plants were lacking food. . . the bag I looked at had said not to feed for 4-6 months and I was diligently listening. :( The other ones that I planted into the organic fertilized stuff are lovely. ANd the greenhouse peppers I planted have grown about 4 inches over night and look gorgeous. I definitely need to plan to make stakes (or tell hubby to do them ;), as the peppers will need to be staked.
I planted all the lemon basil, lime basil, thyme, greek oregano, lavender, hyssop, fenugreek (or something similar), and I'm wondering where the lemon balm is that I planted. I can't believe the lavender grew and it is so cute and darling. Flowers absolutely must go in the ground in the next 2 days - they are starting to look very sad but we need to fill the front bed with compost and potting soil in order to plant them and the larger herbs. Still need to plant the sage and other herbs that were started, as well as more onions and the King Richard leeks and chives. Horses and heifers need a bale and the bull was in with the heifers yesterday - the gate between them naturally swings shut and I forget to latch it now and then - it appears the now and then is only when somebody is coming into heat and the bull has figured out how to push to get it to swing back to them. Thankfully he was quiet and just moved out while the heifers were industriously all over him . . . ANIMALS! The rhode island red on the guinea eggs is taking her job uber seriously, as is the silky hen who I have blocked the entrance with a lamp so she can't jump from nest to nest. THe other silkie is doing well with her 17 adolescent darlings from the mistake at the post office, the 25 black sex link are friendly sweeties, the ones in the house are learning to jump out (9 mixed breeds) and the silkie in the old coop is a mean mother ready to take on the world if she needs to! Fairly certain only 2 pigs are bred and the 2 younger ones are open and the boar is a dud. They are getting 1/3rd of a 5 gallon pail of crushed barley in the morning along with a flake or two of hay, and hay at night, plus cooked potatoes we need to get rid of (sprouting like mad) All of the cows are due now so hopefully they wait til the rain is done. I fear if they calve in the big hoophouse with steers around, the steers will kill them by bouncing because they are so stupidly playful. . . I think maybe I should go outside and separate steers right now while I'm thinking about it. The first year I had my cows here, I had a steer kill the first calf that way - my first and hopefully last dead calf forever. Got 8 rows of potatoes planted, all the melons on Sunday, cukes on Saturday, the peas are doing well as are the lettuces and 45 feet of greens and radishes. The first row of beans is not so hot - I think they got washed away with that horrible downpour a few weeks ago, but the other 2 rows of beans we planted last week are up - whoo hoo. The 3 root grex beets are up and the onions look lovely all over. I see the corn is not up, but I hope this rain and then sun helps them come. Some of the turnips and radishes are up also and the cauliflower and cabbage I bought from the greenhouse is looking good. Mine was not so good nor big (no food in the soil they were in!), so I bought 3 packs. Strawberries just covered in blooms, and the asparagus is doing well. Unfortunately the raspberries not so much. I see only 5 plants growing. We had the frost a week after I planted them and they were looking good then, but the frost might have killed them all :( Potatoes not up (obviously) but I bought a little furrower attachment for the tiller so I can use that to hill them with the first time and then I'm still going to try mulching them. Otherwise I can look forward to spending the summer picking off potato bugs that I can't keep ahead of! Got the pool up on Saturday also - looks nice and just need to finish the shed. Supposedly the trailer will be here end of next week. SO we need to move the wood shed and all the stuff there as well as dig the new trench for propane. The propane dude suggests moving the tank to the east of the new trailer, piping in the old copper to the new trailer where the regulator can be put, and then running low pressure line (which is cheaper and can go under things) to the old house for the furnace and such. Sounds like a better plan than running 70-100 feet of $2.56 per foot high pressure line ;). Phew, time to clean up and make some strawberry icecream :) A high of 70 today and almost no wind. I realized very quickly that I posted a May post to June 1st - don't suppose I can go back and change that one . .:)
It froze Friday and Saturday - we lost the Tiger Eye sunflowers but the Autumn Beauty and other sunflowers appear okay. The flowers Eliana got froze as the blanket blew off - nothing like freezing AND bad wind - you would think one wouldn't come with the other. Strawberries were blooming like crazy so we covered those and the beans and zucchini with row cover. I left the tomatoes and peppers in the greenhouse and they are fine except for where the openings in the black plastic covered them and fried them. . . It appears I lost a few big dipper, 3 pepperonicci (SOB as there was NOT good germination), and some flavorburst. I have some extra sweet sunset hybrids (banana peppers for pickling) so I'll pop those in there. A couple of tomatoes are having problems (blackening on the main tip of the stems as though they froze or burned or something) and I believe it is due to low calcium already. So I'll look for a water based product to put in my fertilizer or on top. I have organic fertilizer if need be that I sprinkle on top, but I think if I just put an inch of compost on there should be enough food in there. The celery and squash look okay, I seeded all the winter squash on Friday but have not actually figured out where to put them. . . everything needs something else to be done - fencing to keep the critters out of the orchard so I could seed them in the fine fine soil between trees (they are so immature they would not shade anything), or fencing to put them in north of the garden (where we need to til and plant grass over the septic etc). We got the pool up on Saturday. We made the hoop house 19 feet wide instead of 20 which means we should have had 4 feet left. Then the pool was 16 and we have just enough to put a skinny child on either side. Now I have to figure out how to hook up the sand filter and the saltwater generator and then put under cover to make work appropriately so it can be filled a bit more. But the wind is blowing 30mph and that just isn't nice to work in. . of course it is also supposed to rain the rest of the week so I should figure it out today along with everything else. It looks like the peas (which need a trellis . . ) and 45 feet of assorted radish, roots, lettuce, mustards and greens are okay even with the 6 inches of rain in one day and snow on top. The soil was shifted around so the rows are growing in odd places, but they ARE growing. I seeded the melons and cucumbers in black plastic in front last week and while the soil by the peas (where it is nasty and the worst soil in the garden), is hard as a rock, the soil under the plastic 3 feet away is dark and black and warm and lovely. So we put holes in the plastic and planted 4 hills of 3-6 seeds each all the way across. And a few vining flowers we started from seed are in between. Thumbelina, morning glory etc. I checked yesterday and the soil had dried out horribly, so watered for a few hours, did the strawberries and watered the rest thoroughly (til the raised portion was soaked and path was full of water - oops). Right now I am rewatering peppers and need to take scissors out to cut the proper sized holes. I have about 90 lettuce, flowers, and herbs that need to be planted still so I really should head out to do that in the greenhouse and elsewhere. Beans came up nicely and I see a few carrots - the first ones we planted before the snowstorm so I am surprised they did not rot. The girls planted the corn the weekend of the 16 - the first 2 varieties and then weekend of the 23rd they planted the last 2 varieties which are OP corn. I might regret that one, but one always hopes you can actually save seed from something some day. Of course, I have field corn surrounding me on every side this year and I wonder if it will cross pollinate with my supers in such a way that it will taste nasty. I can't remember which corn does that so should put that on my list of "things to research to depress ones self." HAd a long long conversation with a friend and lost 3 hours but what a nice surprise :)
It reached a high of 67 on Sunday and our snow is gone. The drainage ditch under the driveway opened and emptied the pool of water in the front yard in a matter of hours. We have been tromping around the yard making our own little drainage ditches and stomping around puddles in horridly uncomfortable but necessary mud boots.
Here and there we are finding bits of green grass, but it is more in our heads than in front of our eyes. Thinking of gardening . Last year I tried planting seeds out of the recommended moon phase (because I am a skeptic) vs with the moon. I remember my grandpa talking about planting with the moon as though it was common sense, I have never done so. I planted tomatoes 2 weeks before it was recommended they be planted. I waited and waited for those suckers to come up. Then at the optimal time to plant I planted a complete copy of the others. They sprouted within 3 days and then I noticed the early tomatoes had come up. So while I planted adifference of 2 weeks (with a house the same temp), the proper timing ones grew better. I experimented with transplanting and even planting in the garden and the difference was kind of shocking. SO, I am industriously looking online for a calendar to make my life easy because there are SO many things to try to keep on top of that something to simplify life is appreciated. But then you find they plant with zodiac signs, with lunar signs, with wind, earth, fire and water and then I go "what the ? ? " So who knows what I will do :) I got my mulch ordered, my greenhouse supplies ordered, my soil ordered, my seed starting, my seeds and then remembered i forgot to order my stirrup hoe. . . and then I found a few things I didn't know I had and ordered again. And I was going to cancel an order today and ended up forgetting and I might try to cancel tomorrow. Honestly! I got the bulls ordered for cows and spent an enjoyable 1/2 hour chatting with the LIC rep who was not in the least upset that I own few cows and rotationally graze on only 15 acres. He made recommendations that surprised me and I might look outside the norm and go with them ;). Still waiting to hear if the neighbor will let us rent his back pasture. He said he was interested but would have to talk to his wife. It feels like forever, but has actually been only a week or so. And when we called the gentleman who sold us this land, he said he might be interested in selling more seeing as it did not all go back into CRP the way he had hoped to. Either way it will be an answer to prayer in re. to staying here or moving. Getting late and baby was fussy 1/2 hour ago! |
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