Weather! The Farm Report: 10-12-2018

Weather - It Keeps the Riffraff Out.
The Farm Report: 10-12-2018

"Other than the streets are quiet, there's really nothing good you can say about a flood." That's according to Mark Twain. Flooded fields are everywhere right now. When you work on a one-time-a-year paycheck plan, it is a big deal. We have had so much rain I wouldn't be surprised to see Noah show up.

Click here to see the pics in Google Photos

Twain is also credited with saying, "Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it."  Although, this one might be like the quote from Yogi Berra, who also said, "I never said a lot of the stuff I said." Others are also credited with the complaining weather gem, including Will Rogers. I was complaining about the weather to a woodworking colleague the other day. I laughed out loud when he said in an email, "It keeps the riffraff out." Why did I laugh? Because those are the exact words my Dad used to say. And they are right.

One week ago today, the high was 92 and I was running the air conditioner. It had been down to 51 the night before. Then, the next day it got down to 41 and I was running the furnace. That is a 51 degree change in one day! Plus, that was right after a 41 degree change the day before! Tomorrow night, we're predicted to have rain and SNOW! So far, I think we've had nearly 6-inches of rain this week. So yes, this weather here does indeed, "Keep the riffraff out." And there was snow in the air when Zoey went out for 'last call.'

I apologize for these obscure pics, but if you look at the top of the pole, you'll see a soaking wet red tailed hawk. He watched me shave the other morning. Seemed mildly interested and never moved for 20 minutes. 

So when it is too miserable to be outside, I go inside to the greenhouse. The Thanksgiving lettuce project is coming along nicely.

The little plants grow roots first, then put on tops. Check back a week ago in the blog and see for yourself how much the roots have grown.  

I'm working on Thanksgiving (or Superbowl) musk melons for my sister. Melons do not like to be transplanted. They want their little roots left alone! So I started the seeds in foam coffee cups. Then, I cut out the bottom. 

With the bottom off, I can just see the roots, so they have not been disturbed yet.

Next, I make a slice down both sides of the cups.

I'm planting these melons in 'Dutch Buckets' so I can move them inside if the weather gets too cold for my heater. So I put the plant, cup and all, in a nice hole in the potting soil. The bottom is gone. Once the cup is in and the soil compacted around it, then I just slip out the sides of the cup. 

Pop! One side is out. 

Bang! The other side is out, and the little plant never knows what happened. Totally undisturbed and in the same soil, it thinks life just got better. 

I 'invented' Dutch Buckets one time. Then, after my brilliance was basking in the sun, I discovered about a million Youtube videos showing the exact same thing. Hmmmfff. But they work. What is a Dutch Bucket? It is simply a bucket with a false bottom. If you look into the hole, at the top you can see the edge of the false bottom. (It is the lid of the bucket cut to fit, and it is sitting on a little flower pot 'stool' inside that is filled with soil and acting as a wick. There is a hole in the middle of the false bottom piece so the soil up top can suck up water from the bucket.) You fill the bottom of the bucket with water and fertilizer. That wicks up to the plants keeping them constantly moist and fed. It works a charm!

Here we go! I have them sitting on bales of hay to keep them up off the cold ground. Melons like heat. Get that, Sis? They like heat. Cold weather melons might be a bridge too far. But 'no risk, no reward' as they say.  And as Fearless Leader DJT says, 'We'll see.' But, no promises.... 

Meanwhile outside, with all the wet weather Zoey and the Two Henriettas are trying to stay dry under the veranda in front of my shop. It was almost like one Henrietta was saying to the other, "You're making tracks all over the place." 

Then, like the gal in the 'bad breath' commercial, it was like the black Henrietta checked and discovered, "Oh no! That's me making all that mess in front of Tim's office door." Zoey already knew it. Other than being wet and miserable, all is well at Oakdale Farm this week. 

October Harvest: The Farm Report 10-5-2018

October Harvest

The Farm Report: 10-05-2018

 
October! One of my favorite months. I am resolved to show a picture from my shop window the first of each month for a year. I know, it looks a lot like September. But the view changes daily, and this will be fun for me - hopefully without being too boring for you. Even the morning and evening light changes the view. We always felt we knew the prairie artist Grant Wood better for having seen this change in the countryside take place.

Click here to see the pictures in Google Albums

Gone are the days of a team of horses and a wagon for picking the corn. These giant green machines are everywhere, and they make quick work of the harvest. At their cost, they must! of course.

The buckwheat cover crop is now only a few weeks old and my how it grows! 

It will soon be time to till it into the soil and replace it with yet another planting to add even more goodness for next year's gardens. Gardening, like farming, never 'stops' for the year. It just changes focus with the seasons and keeps going. I like that. There is a certain peace one gets from being actively engaged in the cycles of life.

Buckwheat has a special feature - besides growing so fast! - that makes it an excellent cover crop. The stems are hollow. When they are cut and tilled into the soil, the little tubes allow more oxygen to be incorporated into the composting vegetation. The good soil bacteria depend on this. 

Oxygen starved soil allows 'anaerobic' bacteria to grow - and that is bad. The stink from the bottom of the mud pit comes from those little bad boys. We don't like it, and neither do the plants.

What it looks like when you run over the garden hose with the lawn mower.... I'll say no more. 

Didja see'em? 

Look again. On the ground in the gap between the two bushes sits a small covey of quail! Look Close! (Click here to see the pictures better in Google Albums.) As luck would have it, just as I was looking out the window the other day, I actually saw a covey fly from the newly harvested cornfield and glide right up to my backdoor bushes. There were about a dozen of them. It had just started raining, and they were headed for cover. We were gifted a Maynard Reese print of quail in a grassy corn field recently. I remarked then that I actually see scenes just like the one in the painting. Well, I do! But usually not right at my back door. Look again and you'll see my grill sitting there just waiting for 'em to fly on a little farther. Mmmmmmm. Me and O.J. both enjoy our wildlife in multiple ways. :) Have a good week. All is well here at Oakdale Farm. 

Nuts! The Farm Report 9-25-2018

Nuts!

The Farm Report: 9-25-2018

Rather, Carpathian Nuts! or Persian Nuts! or California Walnuts! By whatever name you call 'em, they are delicious and they are dropping right now. They have a milder flavor than pecans - and make Better-Than-Pecan Pie as far as I'm concerned.Click Here to see the pics in Google Photos.

Unlike our typical midwestern Black Walnuts, Juglans nigra, which drops the nut gooey husk and all, the husks on these Carpathian Walnuts, Juglans regia, crack open into quarters like a flower opening when they are ripe and ready to fall.  

This nut is ready to drop. All I have to do now is get to it on the ground before the squirrels do! 

BINGO! 

Well, as you might remember, I turned in my Official Organic Gardener's card for this year due to short help and bad weather - and maybe a little bad attitude, too. Here is one happy result. I sowed the ground around my melon patch with oats and rye grasses. Then, after they were up and the weeds were suppressed - without any tilling on my part! - I killed the grasses around the melons  with (No! Don't say it!) Yes. I used a selective grass-killing herbicide.  Result: Grown in place straw-like mulch and a nice clean melon patch.

After the sweet corn patch was put to bed, I immediately tilled it up and seeded it with a cocktail of buckwheat, oats, soybeans and rye. The buckwheat sprang up within about 3 days. 

Here is the same spot 1 week later. Amazing! 

The patch after about 5 days. 

Same patch about a week later. Cover crops were 'invented' by the Romans, and good farmers have been using them ever since. We do it on a commercial scale in our fields now. Except, I plant by hand and the field guys use an airplane. They plant the seed right over the standing corn before it is harvested. The idea being that the seed has a chance to fall to the ground and get a foothold. Later, when the corn has been harvested and the light let back in, the seed is ready to go - and grow for the winter. Next spring, it is part of the soil, including all the nutrients it has gathered and held over the winter. It works. My bank agrees.... and so does the garden.

The Thanksgiving lettuces are in the greenhouse. Zoey somehow feels the need to stand guard. Maybe she's afraid the chickens will get the lettuce. 

So where are they? In these Walmart sweater pans. I'm growing the lettuces using a passive hydroponic system. No pumps, no water falls, no nuttin' except plant, water and fertilizer. The system was origianlly designed by Dr. Bernard Kratky at the University of Hawaii. The roots grow through the 'net' pots into the water. As the water level drops, the 'air' roots develop. Lettuce loves this system. Not all plants do. 

View from below. The little 'net' pots hold the plants until their roots develop. 

So there were a few tomatoes this year. Waste not, want not, they say. So I picked a basked full and headed for the shop kitchen. 

At least we can make some decent chili this winter! Canning tomatoes has always been one of our most fun times with the garden. We like to play with our food. (I put a few cayenne pepper into the brew, too. But I won't tell if you don't.) I have another cayenne pepper story that involves Zoey, but I can't tell you here.

Nuts!
In Memoriam

When General Anthony McAuliffe was asked to surrender during a battle in WW II, his response was 'Nuts!' So it is with me. I am not going to surrender. Even though we have been surrounded and attacked - again.  Coyotes broke into the High Security Maximum Detention Area during the last 2 nights. They dug under and pushed open the chain link gate, after pushing through the electric fence wire strands! The Two Henriettas survived, but only 'Big Daddy' and his little pullet 'Sweetheart' made it through from the Replacement Platoon. Churchill said, "Never give in, Never ever ever give in!" And I ain't, but it is a disappointment. Here's to better news next time.

September Song: The Farm Report 9-14-2018

September Song: 

The Farm Report 9-14-2018

Click here to see the pics in Google Albums 

"You were my September song, you lasted way too long." So the chorus of the old song goes. The view from my shop window shows the season's change. September is a ripening month and the month when we move away from the heat of summer into the glorious colors of autumn and the harvest.

Hurricane? Schmuricane! Hurricane Florence is upon us, but phttt. It's nutin'. Downgraded to just a Category 2 as I write. Let me tell you what a REAL hurricane was. It is spooky, but EXACTLY 15 years ago, Joyce and I were in Williamsburg, VA doing some research at historic Colonial Williamsburg. I had been commissioned to build an authentic reproduction of a chest and we were there (ostensibly) to make measured drawings and photos. As our plane lifted off from the runway in Omaha, Hurricane Isabel spotted us and pointed its evil eye right at our destination in Williamsburg! It was a category 5 hurricane. To put it short and sweet, there ain't enough tea in China to get me to EVER again be in, around, or near a hurricane. Our room was on a second floor and the building manager said we would be fine (while he caulked the thresholds of the first floor rooms against flooding) - "unless the roof blows off." We could not escape; we weathered the storm in place. Never again - ever. 165 mph wind means SUSTAINED wind, not gusts. Here's what it is like: Tie down an airplane on the runway and run up the prop to top speed. Get a fire hose and have somebody hold it in front of the prop opened up spraying water full blast. Then, go stand behind the prop and see how you like it. Oh, and the heat is in the 90's and the air pressure is so low your body swells up. And you don't know whether you'll live or die. I found the experience less than fun. And my back went out, too. I'll say no more....

"Oh how I hate to get up in the morning! Oh how I'd rather stay in bed." Irving Berlin's WW I song seemed to be playing in O.J.'s mind the other morning. He's a hard sleeper sometimes. Maybe he stayed out partying too late the night before?

The garden was a bust this year, mostly. The tomatoes didn't like the high high temps, and they suffered from herbicide drift. These ones are the first and only from the season. Many of the plants just died. 

Usually, one tomato makes a huge handful. This year, these three scrawny fruits are the best examples I have to show.

The late broccoli is sweet.

The cayenne peppers are good. 

The plants in the cups are the Thanksgiving lettuces started just 2 weeks ago. I'm looking forward to cool mornings in the greenhouse.

We did get enough tomatoes for one batch of homemade tomato/cayenne juice. Zoey loves tomato scraps. Between fresh tomato scraps and fresh raw sweetcorn, these are the only times I ever see her snap or get grouchy at anything. She's guarding her 'mater stash! 

Zoey is usually so calm. But not when somebody is tryin' to get her leavin's!!! Henrietta tried sneaking away a taste. Nope! The Replacement Platoon had already been scolded and sent away packing. 

 After a half-hearted "Get Away!" snarl, Henrietta got the drift and decided to leave, too.

But when it was all over and done with, O.J. decided to just lay back down and dream sweet dreams about ground squirrel stew or mousie pies. Oh how he hates to get up in the morning, and Oh how he'd rather just stay in bed. Some days are like that. Otherwise, all is well at Oakdale Farm.