Sleep is for the Weak.

Sorry I've not posted much in a while. I have been rather busy with work in the garden and at the Center. I will hopefully have some new pictures this week. Everything is green and wonderful. Just planted pumpkins yesterday.

The Frost

Well, you know me. I've already got everything planted and coming up nicely. Apearantly it was to frost last night, however I have yet to assess the damage. I will be going home this evening and will go out and post then. Perhaps I will even include some pictures of how things are looking. Good luck, God Bless, and Get Dirty.

What to do with the permanent installations. With Some Photos!!!!

It looks like we are going to have apples this year. Last year we did not have one apple on any of the trees. Due to the very cold winter and the number of blooms on the trees, I feel safe saying we will have tons of apples. The question will be the size of the apples, because in the past we have had mixed results. I plan on doing 2 major things with the apples this year. One is to make apple butter, the other is to attempt making vinegar. This will be a fun experiment. Next will be the mulberries. We typically have tons of these as well, but no one ever bothers harvesting them because I am gone when they come out. I want to make jelly (mulberry jelly is my absolute favorite) and maybe even try to make wine with them. Tom has a great number of blooms on his pear trees, and if he gets lots of pears I may have to get a few buckets full as they fall and can them. We have peach trees as well, but usually we only end up with tiny, sour peaches. Maybe if they are good I will do preserves.

Violets

Pumpkin Patch

Main Garden, about 30'x100'

Garlic patch

Secondary Garden (10'x30') planted with red onions, potatoes, and sweet peas

Sweet Peas sprouting

The Potting Shed

Apple Blossom

Strawberries

Aloe Sprouts

It is cold again

It was a nice 80 degrees outside a few days ago, now it is down in the 50's again. I took advantage of this warm time to plant some onions sets. In my second garden, I planted red onions and noticed my sweet peas are starting to break though the ground. I may get some peas before I till them to plant a row of corn. My garlic is about 8 inches high already and my chives are already blooming. I have several more onion sets to plant but need to wait until it dries out a bit and gets a bit warmer, maybe this weekend. I will over the bed in newspaper and cover that in mulch of some manner so I don't have to bother weeding my onions over the growing season. It will still be at least 6 weeks until I plant the bulk of the garden, but for now things are looking good. The dirt is turned and tilled, and will be re-tilled every week until planting to help fend off weeds. The apple trees are blooming. Last year they did not bloom, thus we had not one apple. I am hoping if we get alot of apples this year I will try to make vinegar. My neibors pear trees are in full bloom too and I can't wait to swipe some of those.

Shiitake Mushrooms

Ben and I went into the woods this evening to harvest a maple tree for purposes of sporing Shiitakes. We selected a maple tree about 20 feet tall and cut it up into 2-3 foot sections. Ben has started drilling his and inserting the plugs already. Here are some examples of what we are doing.



First, of course, I took the shiitake spore plugs I ordered a few months ago out of the fridge.



As you can see, even in the fridge the mold has started to grow out of the plugs. This is good, and illustrates how fertile these plugs are.



Ben drilled out the holes about 2-3 inches apart in the logs with an electric drill.



He then selected the spores one by one out of the bag. The mold had already grown so much that they plugs were grown together. It was really kinda neat.



He then tapped them in with a hammer so they were flush with the log. Later he is going to put a thin coat of bee's wax over the plug holes to help protect against foreign germs and fungi. Overall this process if fairly easy, but it could take up to two years to see if it works out or not. I am anxious to see what results come of the project. I will be seeding the plugs in the rest of the logs at my house near the end of this week.

Potatoes

Yes, yes, Sunday before the rain sat in I was able to get in my potatoes just in time. I did not plant very many, 3 rows, 15 feet long in my second garden at the far end of the yard. I planted fingerling potatoes. I had looked for weeks and was about to order 2 pounds of seed potatoes offline at a whopping total of 30 dollars after shipping. Before I made this mistake, I was in Krogers on Saturday and ran across the same potatoes for sale (accept as food) for 3 dollars a pound... I bought 2 pounds, cut, and planted those in hills. We will see how they turn out, but I have found seed from the grocery store grows just as well as any other seed. I have even planted pinto beans from the 1 pound bags they often sell at the grocery store and they grew just fine. Considering these were organic potatoes, I guess that makes them organic seed? Ha.



I have also had a few other curiosities happen around the garden the past week. For one, some of the onions I had stored in the cellar for the winter had gotten moist and began to sprout. So, I collected them and planted them in an old porcelain bedpan (don't worry, its not been used in at least 30 years and mom has had it as a planter for years.) They are looking mighty scrumptious to me.



My aloe plants indoors have been dividing and growing rapidly. I will have to give some away. I took the liberty of going out Monday and planting some peas, spinach, and carrots where my corn will go in 2 months. I am not so concerned with getting any peas off the plants, though it would be a nice bonus. I planted them to add some nitrogen to the soil. I have also got some leaves coming out on my Catawba Grape starter I cut in January.

Spring is officially here!

Just got back in from checking on my garden. I have garlic and chives coming up through the ground. It is very nice and I instantly feel wonderful. Just thought I would share.

Spring is Coming!

Today was a nice day outside. It was still a little chilly here in Fraziers Bottom, WV, but a good day to get outside after the snow just a few weeks ago. I surveyed my garden plots today and everything looks good. I spread around some alpaca poo as well to get the soil enrichment process started. My garlic is already starting to bud up from the dirt. I still have some turnips and radishes in the garden from last seasons fall garden, but they are no good to eat. I have spent the last 3 weeks collecting seeds from several stores. For my summer garden I will be planting Brandywine tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, Bell Peppers, Gypsy peppers (I had so many of them last year I had to throw away about 40 lbs of them), several types of hot peppers, Ruby Queen sweet corn, Silver Queen corn, Yellow sweet corn, red onions, white onions, yellow onions, pickling cucumbers, tobacco, Tenderloin bush beans, Blue Lake bush means, Contender bush beans and hopefully some fingerling potatoes. My fall garden will include a vast assortment of things, from lettuce and carrots, to sweet peas and beets. I now have to wait until it dries out a bit more so I can begin to work the earth and get some more organic matter added to the soil before April. That will give it time to break down before major planting near the end of May.

Mushrooms

Cultivating mushrooms at home or in the garden can be very inexpensive and easy. Though be it long waits for crop yields, growing mushrooms such as shiitakes and portabellas can be a huge cost saver, or even profitable.

The first thing a grower is going to need is some wood. Not just any wood, it must be a fresh cut hardwood. Oak and Ironwood are the best, but Maple has even been said to work rather well. Softwoods such as poplars, locus, and pines will not yield any mushrooms, because the trees themselves have a natural fungicide, which will stop the spore plugs from growing. These pieces of wood can be any size. The smaller the better to simplify manipulation of the log. Many sources suggest 3 foot sections about 8 inches in diameter. The wood should also be cut while the tree is dormant. The wood should also include mature, healthy bark to help protect the wood from bacteria and other fungi that may want to grow on the wood and compete with the spores.
Next you take the wood pieces and drill holes all around the log 3-6 inches apart. Cover the log in holes like this but be sure not to damage the bark any more than necessary. Be sure your wood is fresh cut and still wet, or the spores will not grow properly and your yield will be reduced or void. Simply force spore plugs of desired mushroom into holes in each log. Use cheese wax or light sealing wax to coat the top of each hole after the spore plugs are inserted. This should be a light coating, brushed on with a paintbrush. It is also important the wax not be too hot. About 145 degrees is recommended. The spore plugs can be purchased at www.fungi.com at a respectable price.It is important to keep the wood moist from this point on. Soak the logs as needed, ensuring the bark is allowed to dry between each soaking. Depending on your mushroom breed, first harvest may not be for 12-18 months. Typically harvest will be in the Spring and Fall, due to the natural change in temperature. There is a method used by industrial growers to force harvests anytime, but this could shorten the life of your mushroom log. To force a harvest in Summer, you simply wait for the log to get dry and in need of a soaking. Soak the log in water that is slightly colder than the ambient temperate (cold tap water should work). The mushrooms read this change in temperature as the onset of cold weather, and thus attempts to reproduce. Mushrooms will appear in 1-3 days. This method does not work on all types of mushrooms. One log should last 2-3 years until it needs to be replaced. This, too, depends on the species of mushroom.

It is also possible to cultivate some mushrooms in mushrooms beds. These beds are prepared out of chipped hardwoods, about 6 inc

hes thick. The bed is then sprayed with water, and then spores are spread onto bed. Another layer of much 3-4 inches thick is then laid on top of the spores, and watered again. Bed should be kept shady and moist. Some mushrooms will grow with this method the best, but most cultivatable mushrooms prefer log method. This information can be found on fungi.com.

Bush Beans

Bush beans are a type of bean which grows in bushes, rather than in vines. This article is going to talk about green beans, which are my favorite type to grow in the garden. Green beans prefer a soil pH of 6.5-7.5, but will grow in a variety of soil types and qualities. Sow seeds directly into ground after fear of frost has passed. If you want fresh beans all season long, it is best to sow small patches in 2 week intervals. I like to have one or two large harvests each year, so I only plant the beans once. I do, however, have one massive harvest. Considering I can and dry most of them, this is preferable for me. When you plant green beans it is nice to add some dark compost to the rows before covering seeds with dirt. Sow them at a depth of 1’’, and water after planting. They like full sun, and will sprout within 7 days. Thin out plants after they sprout to 1 plant every inch or so.
There are many different types of green beans to plant. I usually use Blue Lakes, but there are many different kinds. There are even kinds that are yellow, red, and even purple. These look great dried, but once cooked they all usually turn green. All of them grow about the same, so pH and soil quality differences are not relevant between one green bean species or another.