Blooms & Bees and Spuds & Trees: The Farm Report 05-01-2019

Blooms & Bees and Spuds & Trees
The Farm Report 05-01-2019

It has been a busy time here at Oakdale Farm! The seasons are a changin' and everything is poppin'. The fruit trees are all trying to bloom - well, most of 'em. As regular readers will recall, we had -22F one night during the winter. So the experts say (and they are right) -15F is about as cold as peaches will tolerate. We have not had a single peach bloom on any tree. Plus, there were only a handfull of apricot blooms. So.... we're already saying the Gardener's Mantra: 'Next Year.'

For the last several years, due to circumstances..., I have been a 'Bee Haver' instead of being a 'Bee Keeper.' Keeping honey bees is hard to do nowadays; I lost almost all my bees due to neglect and hard livin. So, instead of being discouraged and giving up (Never Give Up!!!) I have added some new bees. This is how they come when you buy them as a 'package' at the bee store. 

I actually only bought one package. A package of bees is about 3 pounds of worker bees and a new queen. A package contains about 10,000 bees. An expensive box of bugs is what that is. The circle on top of the box is a can of sugar water they ship with to feed them. There are tiny little holes in the bottom they can suck the sugar water from. The queen is in her own 'carriage' inside the box. The workers feed her through screen wire, but they can't get at her in case they decide they want to kill her. When they start out their journey, she isn't 'their' queen yet. She will be by the time they get settled in their new home.

This is a 'hobo' bee. It is a drone. Drones are male bees. They usually don't get to make the trip. But sometimes they cling onto the outside of the box, like a hobo, and ride along for free. ALL the worker bees inside the box are 'imperfect' females. Only the queen is a perfect female, able to lay eggs and hatch more bees. I'll tell you more about the sex life of bees some other time. It is fascinating if you're into bug sex. If you're not, it isn't.

 New home for the first night. Of course, the Honey Bee Gods were not happy that night. It got cold and rained on them. They made the best of it and camped out warm and dry. The jar is sugar water feed for them. You have to feed bees to get them started.

On other fronts, I've been making potting soil for the greenhouse. I use an old fashioned cement mixer. It works a charm for the job.

I like soil blocks instead of plastic trays. I use both, but I prefer soil blocks. The little pan is full of seed starts I make in 1/2-inch cube blocks. Now, they are ready to drop into the square holes the little block maker tool leaves for them.

Plop! And the seedlings have a new home to grow out into. These little guys are for Deutscher Garten.

But wait! What could this be?

Yup! It is spring and time to bring in new recruits for reinforcement of the flock. Winter was hard on everything, including the flock. I'll spare you the details, but we're not giving up on this front, either! This year's 'F-Troop' will be all Barred Plymouth Rock pullets.

You've gotta keep 'em warm, and I use electricity. I have a roller cart that wheels into my shop while they are getting started. It is warm, safe and free from predators - except for 'Miss Kitty' my shop cat. She's not too interested in them though.

Butt Check! Little chicks have, well, poo problems. Their little hairy butts get plugged up with poo sticking in their nether down. And as everybody knows, when you've gotta go, you've gotta go! and when the go-hole is plugged it is trouble.

OWWW! Butt, problem solved. Usually this is a one-time deal. It's gotta sting a little, don't you think? Having enjoyed a colonoscopy recently, I can kinda relate, but Oh Man!

No wonder they're all huddled up after that adventure! But at only a few days old, you can begin to see their tiny little wing feathers.

Use your imagination a little and you can see their tiny little tail feathers starting, too.

Other distractions at the farm have included installing a new boiler for the house. The furnace guys told me the new boiler will be soooooo much more efficient than the old one. I'm sure they are right, but I also know I'm spending thousands to save hundreds. The old boiler was about 50 years old, and sometimes it would go 'WHUMP!' in the night. I think it was time to make a change. I will still use my wood burning boiler most of the time though, as long as I'm able. I love to cut and burn wood.

Some wonderful friends gifted us with a special tree for Joyce's orchard. This one is just perfect. I found it at a fruit tree nursery/co-op in Maine. The tires help keep the deer away. The sulfur in the rubber smells like their dead friends and keeps 'em away.

I had to look long and hard to find this tree. It is a Golden Russet. It was one of Joyce's favorite apples. Rumor has it that this variety was one of the parents of the famous Yellow Delicious apple. I live in a very high wind area, so I picked the Antonovka rootstock. It grows deep strong anchor roots so the tree won't blow out of the ground out here. You'll never see this apple in stores. Americans, as my German daughter, Carola, tells me, buy apples with their eyes. The russet part of the name means the skin is like a russet potato; it is rough and gnarly. But the flavor! It is aromatic, sweet and juicy. Perfect for baking, cider making and eating - if you don't look at it. We had one of these in our Wisconsin orchard collection.

Henry Ford is being called back into service for Spud Duty. Tater work is sort of his last garden chore in the fall, and the kick off chore in the spring.

Cutting up seed potatoes for planting is a sure sign of spring. This year, we have several varieties for, well, variety! Yukon Golds, Red Pontiacs, Norkota Russets, Dakota Pearls, and my all time favorite, Kennebec. Fresh potatoes from the garden are like anything else - superior! Grocery store tomato, garden tomato - get it?

I let Henry make long rows the full length of my garden. I will let him help me cultivate and dig them later in the fall, too. 

 Nothing more fun to do on a warm spring sunny day than walk along the row, listening to the birds, and plunking in spud sets.

I grow lots of potatoes because I can, and because people enjoy them and use them. I give away a lot, and that's the idea. I grow for fun, and other people get to share in the benefits of the food with me. It makes me happy to do that. 

Old stuff has been my life. Old stuff and primative machines are the frosting on my cake. This is a restored Planet Jr. wheel hoe cultivator, made by the S.L. Allen Company in 1929. It is a double wheel hoe with split plow shares behind it. With the plow shares turned around 'backwards,' it makes the most perfect little hilling and potato covering tool you could imagine.  I just walk down the planted rows and this thing covers up the spuds for me.

I bought the rusty old irons from some guy in New York state through eBay. I made new oak handles and added some polish and paint. It is one of my favorite walking 'hand' tools in the garden. When you were a kid, did you ever have a 'Flexible Flyer' sled? S.L. Allen company made that sled; the same company as made this wheel hoe. The company made sleds to keep the workers busy in the 'off' season when they weren't making ag tools. 

I like to keep my stuff labeled. You think you can remember what's what and where's where, but you don't. 'The weakest ink is stronger than the best memory,' is my favorite saying to remember this.  

Weak ink is an operative  term here. I discovered long ago that black 'Magic Marker' or Sharpie ink will disappear if it is out in the sunshine long enough. I prefer these paint markers from Wally's. It does not fade out.

The little square in front of the greenhouse is Deutscher Garten! It won't be long now before I begin setting things out in it.  We had 31F night before last. It just isn't time yet! Patience, Tim, patience.... May 10 is our guaranteed last frost date here.

AWWWW Ain't that sweet? O.J. is being all cuddly and friendly. Well, wrong! O.J. is a farm tomcat. He is a neutered tomcat, so he only does consulting work now. Still and all though, he is a deeply rooted territorial tomcat. What looks to you like a friendly love pat is actually his pointy knife-sharp claws latched into my leg to make sure I don't move out on him without his permission! He had me locked in - and then pretended not to know and dozed off. We're still friends, but he did get to enjoy a free ride he wasn't expecting.  Cheers until next time. All is well at Oakdale Farm. 

Deutscher Garten! The Farm Report 04-04-2019

Deutscher Garten!
The Farm Report 04-04-2019

 Ach du liebe Zeit, was ist denn das?!

Deutscher Garten!

So here we go on an international gardening adventure for this year! Joyce and I hosted several AFS foreign exchange students while we lived in Wisconsin. They are all special to us, but one in particular, Carola, from Hamburg, Germany, is a life-long member of our family. Her family and ours have close ties. She has lived in our home(s) in Wisconsin and Iowa. Our family - including my parents (who became another set of grandparents to Carola, I think) have visited them in their home in Hamburg. So we have a special bond. This winter, Carola and I have been planning and planning for the new garden season. It was my idea, but she and her family bought into the idea with joy, and now we are beginning the actual garden. We've had much email discussion of the proper context and grammer for this expression. I like this one, and I think I won't embarrass Carola too much with it. She told me her Grandma Liselotte used this expression a lot. I liked Grandma Lisalotte when we met her, so I'm using her words here!

This is the guy who really started it all. His name is Monty Don. He is the gardening host for a BBC program called Gardener's World. He's really good, he's also really British. (His whole name, I discovered is Monatague Denis Wyatt 'Monty' Don). He presents his program from his own garden at his estate in Longmeadow in Herefordshire. If you haven't seen the program, I highly recommend it. I watch it on Youtube. So what's the connection? He has his gardens divided into themes. He has a Jewel Garden, which is all about color. He has the Writing Garden, which is themed with quiet and peaceful settings. And so on. Well, one winter night as I was watching, the thought came to me, "Why not have an AFS Garden?" It could have plants from all over the world. Well, that seemed a little ambitious the next morning, so I decided to just impose on my German daughter, Carola - and call it the German Garden. Or as Carola is teaching me, 'Deutscher Garten!'

We selected seeds that would be common and typical in a German veggie (and flower?) garden. One day a few weeks ago, lo and behold! a package arrived from Carola, complete with seeds, packing newspapers and a spreadsheet with notes. I'm kinda like a kid sometimes. I thought the newspapers used for packing were very interesting, so I've saved them out to look at and study, too.

I have a little rubber stamp maker, so I've printed off a bunch of Deutscher Garten labels. I like to have each thing marked! With Carola's spreadsheet, I should have no trouble getting the seeds started in order. 

It starts with seeds and dirt. So here we go! 

I like to use a little tool called a 'Soil Blocker' to start my seeds. These tools let me make what they politely call 'Soil Blocks.' They are really just fancy mud balls, but as the Bard said, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet," or something like that. These little blocks are about 1/2-inch cubes. I suppose that would be about 1-cm in the Deutsher Garten.  

You put one seed per block, keep it moist and wait. See the number 12C on the back of the pan? Carola has each seed pack labeled and numbered like this on her spreadsheet for me. I had one semester of middle school German when I was a kid. My German is weak! Maybe I'll tell you more as the summer goes on, but Carola has been schooling me in German while I've been adding tips for her on gardening. She has more chance of being a good gardener than I do of being a good German speaker though. 

After the seeds get a good foothold and prove they are alive, I will transfer their little blocks to bigger blocks. These are Paul Robeson tomatoes. Do you know who Paul Robeson was? Carola's description of the Paul Robeson Tomato says it is dark and sweet. Perfect! If you don't know, he was the man who sang 'Old Man River' in Showboat. He is the definitive voice. Dark and sweet!

Soil blocks date back centuries. They work! They eliminate the need for plastic pots, and the plants do not suffer shock when they are moved into the garden. See how the little root is just wrapping itself down over the edge of the block? Amazing. 

Not sure what these are, but we'll find out together.  

I almost had fried German tomatoes! These little blocks are small - about the size of the tip of your finger. I have them on a heat mat to power-start the seeds. Well, I forgot to check them and water them one day. When I did remember, it was 'Panic City!' They were almost ready to cook. No harm; saved by the bell as they say! It always looks so easy in the magazines....

Here are some marigolds I've already moved up. These blocks are about 1 1/2-inches cubed. I don't know what that is in metric, but these aren't German, so we'll move on. 

The blocking tool has a little nipple in it that makes the hole automatically. It is very efficient. It is also a British tool. The Brits are really serious gardeners.  

The little marigolds popped right into the holes, roots and all, and acted like they'd lived there all their lives. These went from pot to cube - no mini blocks for these girls. 

Gardeners like competition. Here are some Salvia in soil blocks. 

Here are the same plants in regular plastic starter trays. Same plants, same seed, same soil, same ever'thing. We'll see if there is a difference in a few weeks when it is time to put them out. 

These are extra fancy hybrid geraniums.  

This is a whole flat of different things waiting to be potted on into soil blocks. Each cup is something different. 

Monty Don loves to grow Dahlias, and he regularly shows how to make cuttings from leaf slips and propagate them. They are expensive things, so knowing how to propagate from slips has been wonderful. These are dahlias I started from seed. Will they be the same? Will they be different? We'll see. 

Here is the beginnings of the celery crop for this year. Celery is hard to sprout, and the sprouts are tiny. After a few more days, these will go into soil blocks, too. 

The onions are coming along nicely. 

Outdoors, the cereal rye grass cover crop has wintered over well and is turning green - soaking up that nitrogen for us and holding it until the 'real' crops need it later on. 

Inside the greenhouse, we're just getting tables and trays ready to accept the onslaught that will be coming. Soon, it will be so crowded in here there will be Standing Room Only. 

The April Calendar Picture. From now until June or even July, there should almost be a weekly calendar picture. Things will start greening up and changing day by day. It will be an explosion of growth and change. I'm looking forward to it! 

There is life in them thar strawberries!!!! They have already begun sending out new leaves. I need to fertilize, take care of the weeds and mulch. Strawberry shortcake anyone?