Recess is Over: The Farm Report 06-20-2025

 Recess is Over
The Farm Report
06-20-2025

We've been on recess.  Okay. I'm Sorry to have left you in the lurch without warning. I get it. Recess is over now. 'Annie, we need to get back to work!' You can tell by her ears she's ready to go.

"Tim! It's been a long damned time since we told everybody what's going on out here on the farm. They're getting worried about us." 

True true true. Well, 'What's been happening? Are you Okay? We haven't heard from you.' 

Life intervened, is all I can say. I'm just fine. I've had a couple of 'life events' that took time and energy away from the Oakdale Farm focus. My Mom passed on; she was going on 98 and it wasn't a surprise. She was sharp as a razor until the last days. She was quizzing me about politics and current events on Friday, then she was gone on the next Wednesday. She just wore out. It takes a ton of time to deal with the final affairs.

I just got home from Wisconsin. My grand daughter, Evie, is now ready to head off to college in a couple of months. I wanted to spend some time with her before she takes flight and moves on into the next chapter of her life.

And other stuff....

But I'm fine.

So, back to the Farm Report. I put out some new fruit trees last fall. When I saw this 'Blenheim' apricot, I just couldn't resist. Blenheim is the name of Winston Churchill's boyhood home. It belongs to the Duke of Marlborough, of course.  I plant Blenheim musk melons in my greenhouse and who could resist some Blenheim apricots? Not me.

We had a ton of winter damage. Our weather here is, ahem...., RADICAL! My greenhouse thermometer is telling us that when I took this pic, it was 48F in there. It had been up to 86F during the day. That night it dropped to -11F. That's 'real temperature' not 'feels like.'

Usually, leeks are considered pretty darned winter hardy. Not this year! I've been growing them in 'grow bags' and wintering them over inside the greenhouse. Next year....

You probably think Annie Oakley is digging something up from under those firewood logs. Well, you'd be wrong. She is burying her latest dead rabbit find. She doesn't kill 'em. But when somebody else does and she discovers it, she calls 'Finders Keepers!' and stuffs 'em where they can't be lost.

Officer in Charge of Kleen and Polished, Deb, keeps my dining room table properly decorated. This was St. Patrick's day. 

With my little diesel truck heater going in the greenhouse, I start my hydroponic strawberry patch early. They just love it in there! That's a Napa cabbage growing in the wicking bucket.

Do the strawberries actually produce?
 
Yes.

They produce and produce and produce. I don't know why anybody even bothers to put strawberries in the ground anymore. This is so much easier, and the berries are wonderfully sweet and plump.

AND, there are no birds in the greenhouse to spoil my harvest. Isn't that a 'doozy' as Hazel the maid used to say on TV. 

I picked so many I was/am sick of 'em! I ate too many; I made strawberry jam; I made strawberry pie filling. I let some spoil because I just couldn't look 'em in the face anymore.

My anemic wintered over roses when they came out of cold storage.

A few days later in protected sunshine and they're ready to get back to work.

I'm using the Larry Hall Rain Gutter Growing system idea for my grow bag roses. These are the plastic barrel tops and bottoms I cut off to make water pans. There's a hole drilled in the side of the pan about 3 inches up from the bottom. They will hold a little water reserve for the rose, but they won't overfill and drown them. The roses love this system.

I don't think I've ever actually made cement in my HF cement mixer. I use it for potting soil mixing.

I 'borrow' from everybody. I also like the Ruth Stout hay mulch ideas. This is real alfalfa hay. I put one generous hay 'flake' into the bottom of each bag. It provides wicking, aeration, slow nitrogen release as it decays ... and Ruth Stout said to do it, more or less. 

One by one, I've been potting up and getting the roses out into the Rose Corral. I would call it my Rose Garden, but somebody might come along and want to pour concrete over it and put up a flagpole.

Sorry. I couldn't help myself on that one.

There you go! This one is an 'old timer' from years ago. I got it out of cold storage in March and gave it a head start in the greenhouse. I need a flower boost along about then, and this is my way to get it.

'But roses are so hard to work with,' they say. Yes, they are a pain in the butt sometimes. They really are a pain in the fingers! How can you not enjoy a rose on the table? I wish there was a way to bring you in on the fragrance. When I pick my rose bushes at the store, the first thing I look for is 'Very Fragrant.' on the labels.

Then we moved on. I think this might have been Easter. I've been so busy it all runs together sometimes.

Little plants waiting for the season to be right. I use soil blocks a lot. The more I use them, the more I like them. I've figured out ways to transplant into them and ways to make watering them easier. Maybe I'll do a whole report on that for you sometime.

This is my real life. I'm not working for a magazine or doing photo shoots for post cards. This is what it really is when you garden alone and have all kinds of other stuff to manage. No 'staff' here to make it always neat and pretty.

Just so you'll know.

One of the reasons I took off some time was because I felt the Farm Report was becoming circular and repetitive. You've seen my hydroponic lettuce pans before. They love it! I love eating them. This one is Rex. It was developed especially for hydroponic growing.

This one is Little Caesar, a Romain type. Well, after a while thinking, I thought, 'Circular and repetitive is what gardening - and life - is really all about. So, I've decided to recommit and be more regular in my writing again. I don't make a cent off this - and that's by my own choice. I will never make this a for-profit deal. No commercials, no advertising.

I bought a bunch of chicken wire cloches from some China store this winter. Last year, the deer and rabbits ate every single one of my brassica plants. Not this time! I also added a new tiller toy.

Remember my rose pans? Well, between the top pan and the bottom pan is a cylinder! Inside those plastic cylinders live my new musk melons!!! They act like little shelters for the heat loving melons, but they also help keep the field herbicide drift away.

Gypsy Broccoli. The little Mantis tiller made the row, then my 1927 Planet Jr. wheel hoe neatly covered in the little plants. Easy Peasy.

Till in the row; set out the plants in soil blocks;

Walk down the row with the Planet Jr. and Bob's your uncle.

In the 'Animal Kingdom' out here at the farm, Ermine is still with us. He's a feral tomcat. He's been around for a couple of years now, so he's a proven survivor. He works both farms on either side of me. That means he has at least a half mile commute each way. It's four miles on to the the next 'real' neighbor. It isn't unusual to see him walking to the next farm RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ROAD! He's all white, except the black tip of his tail. I've been working on 'taming' him. As shown, he will now occasionally come into the main shop room at night when it is Free Lunch time. He's just tolerating me until he gets his free lunch. He seems nice enough and Annie and Miss Kitty don't mind him. I like having cats around to help keep the mice and rabbits under control. As long as Ermine doesn't make a bum out of himself, he's welcomed to stay.

'Tim. Put away the camera and nobody gets hurt.' Miss Kitty is now 14 years old. She's still my 'new kitty' as far as I'm concerned. She was found on the side of the road when she was a kitten. Once she established new quarters here at Oakdale Farm, she NEVER leaves the shop building. Why would she? It's warm, it's safe, she gets free food whenever she wants it, and it's all hers. 

I feel a lot the same. Why would I ever want to leave Oakdale Farm? 

I'll be back soon, I promise. 

Cheers to all of you from me and the rest of the cast of characters out here.

Peace.