Spring / Summer Garden

Clearly Murphy was a gardener and his Law is absolute in the country.  Cold winter, wet spring, broken equipment, rain when you don't want it or need it and no rain when when you do, hard scrabble clay soil and bug plagues.  We have already had them all and we are just getting started!

But the garden is IN!  Late - but in!

It has already been a huge learning experience to try to grow a large garden here in Piedmont Virginia.  The very late spring and wet weather delayed planting for everyone.  Trying to establish a new garden with all the plowing, harrowing, soil amending, and tilling put us further behind.  Last and not least, our new tiller failed just when we needed it most, but in the end resulted in the manufacturer stepping up and providing a brand new unit.  That whole saga is an epic story in itself for another posting.

Watermelons and Cantaloupes on the left with hay mulch - then winter and summer squash, peppers, then tomatoes, eggplant under row cover, green beans, cauliflower, broccoli and cabbage toward the back and last are  the onions.  On the right, down in back, are the potatoes, sweet potatoes, basil and sage

 Despite the cold wet spring the warm weather arrived at it's usual time.  The cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower - didn't make it.  The seedlings we started indoors began beautifully, but finally became too root bound in their pots waiting for the wet weather to end so the garden could be prepared for planting.  They just didn't thrive in the garden once planted and clearly were not going to mature before the hot weather did them in.  Fortunately here in this part of the upper South you can plant those crops again in the late summer and grow them out into the cool fall, which they like.

broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower - all pulled and relegated to the compost piles

 The tomatoes suffered the same drama of beautiful seedlings becoming very root bound and nutrient deficient before finally getting into the ground.  We lost several plants immediately from transplant shock and all of them looked poor for a while but have come around and are now doing pretty well.  There arev6 varieties of tomatoes in 4 rows.  We transplanted 76 seedlings - 64 have survived.  New replacement seedlings have been started. 

The tomatoes are supported using the 'Florida Weave' method with a T-post every 3rd plant and plastic twine tightly strung on each side of the post.  Additional strings are added as the plants grow taller

 Our first planting of green beans - two types of bush snap beans and a pole snap bean germinated very well with the seed sown directly in the garden but were immediately annihilated by Bean Leaf Beetles in two days.  We had a plague of them because the garden plot was a soy bean field prior to us coming along.  We have starting replanting the bush beans and the pole beans.  The pole beans are planted all at once because they produce for a long time if you keep picking the beans.  We plant short rows of snap beans every week, alternating the variety to keep a steady supply of beans reasdy to pick.

Bean Laf Beetle buffet

French fillet green beans, Maxibel variety, under row cover to keep off the pests.  A short row of regular snap green beans, Provider variety, was sown one week after the 'Haricot Verte' beans.  Hoops at the ready when they germinate in a few days. 

Shortly after planting the potatoes - very late delivery of the seed potatoes due to freezing weather - we had a 3.6 inch monsoon rainfall which drowned some of the seed potatoes and they rotted in the ground.  I've heard from others that they lost their entire potato crop to rot so I don't feel too bad that we lost about 25% of our planting.

4 varieties of Irish type potatoes - Red Norland, White Superior, Irish Cobbler and Yukon Gold.  It's time to hoe the weeds and almost time hill them up.

The herb garden has been an almost complete failure from that huge rainfall.  First off I bought most of my herb seeds from D. Landreth Seed Company in Philadelphia, PA.  They are a very old seed company that goes way back.  I was totally disappointed in the quality of the seeds.  They seemed old with many broken and empty hulls in many of the seed packets.  With that and the seeds getting literally washed out of the ground by sheet flooding during the rainstorm- it was a complete bust.  Only the Lettuce Leaf Basil and Sage seedlings transplanted are doing well.  Again - because of the long growing season here there is still plenty of time to start seedlings or direct sow in the garden again.

The onions are doing well.  Having never grown opnions before, we have read up a lot on doing it properly.  So far so good.  We bought onion plants from Dixondale Farms in Texas for delivery in mid March, the proper planting time for this area.  Shipment was delayed almost two weeks by cold winter weather so the plants would not freeze during shipment.  Because the tiller was broken we had to had dig compost into the rows and make raised beds.  We planted every seedling we received - even the wimpy runts you get in the generous count in a 'bundle'.  Some are big, some are runty.  They are starting to bulb now and we expect a decent crop for our first try.

Onions - double rows of 4 varieties - Red Candy, Yellow Candy, White Superstar and Italian Cippolini

 

We tilled and mulched a bed at the top of the garden for watermelons, cantaloupes, sugar pie pumpkins and Seminole winter storage pumpkins.  All the hills we prepared have germinated and are starting to put out true leaves.

We have a row of acorn and butternut winter squash, a row of 4 varieties of cucumbers - 2 slicing and 2 pickling, a row of zucchini and a row of yellow crookneck and patty pan yellow summer squash.

Right up against the melon patch mulch is a row of winter squashes.  Next are the cukes where the T-posts are - you can see the first trellis I tied up for the cukes, 3 more to weave.  Then comes the zucchini and summer squashes.  In the foreground are New Mexico Hatch Chilis and tomatillos.  There are 5 other varieties of peppers, bith hot and sweet on the other side of the 4 rows of tomatoes.

I think the first thing picked from the garden will be Basil.  We are both starting to think about making a couple of panini with roasted red peppers, mozzarella and fresh Basil from the garden.  I don't think we are going to be able to hold out much longer............

Good Guys - Bad Guys

 This toad was hanging out in a moist spot next to the barn near the corner of the garden.  As an eater of 'Bad Guys' he is definitely one of the 'Good Guys'

Colorado Potato Beetle - Absolutely a 'Bad Guy'.  He was strolling down a garden path looking for a place to dine when intercepted.  A muncher of many garden things, not just potatoes.  Many are predicting a very buggy season and some say the opposite.  Some say it will rain a lot while others are predicting drought.  It will be hot, or hotter, or hottest, or it won't.  With gardening predictions someone always gets to say "I told ya so..."

Snake in the grass

This guy lives somewhere on the property, but I don't know where and probably will never find out.  It's a black snake, very common, very docile and very helpful at keeping the field mouse population in check. 

 

About 4 feet long, I see him every few days moving gracefully between the oak trees in front and on either side of the house.  I've never seen him in the back in the open areas.  If you walk up close to him he'll stop moving and if you then stand very still, he will eventually start moving again, usually a little closer to you to check you out and then move on going where snakes go to do what snakes do.

Springtime Buttercups

First it was the daffodils, then the Dogwoods bloomed.  Next came the violets, followed by the giant bed of Iris in the yard.  Now it's the Buttercups turn. The side yard and part of the pasture next door to the west are a carpet of the stunning bright flowers.  There are enough buttercups to hold under the chins of every man, woman and child in the county, at least.  Yes, they do prove that you like butter.

Grilled Wild Spring Onions

Wild onions grow everywhere here, and I mean everywhere.  In the pastures, in the lawn, along the roads, in fallow plowed ground especially.  They are a real treat to pull, clean and grill as an accompaniment to any meat cooked on the grill.  These onions are very mild and delicious.  Very young ones can be minced well up their thin green stalks and used raw like chives or scallions in salads, soups, baked potatoes and so forth.  As they grow larger the stalks grow tougher, but the small bulb and white part of the stem can still be tender.

Wild onions just pulled and washed with a strong blast from the hose to remove all the mud

Roots and upper stalks trimmed off and washed well at the kitchen sink.

 A couple of the tougher layers have been pulled off the stem and bulb so the onion is more tender.

Coat the onions lightly with olive oil and season with just salt and pepper.

Place them directly on the hot grill and use the stalks as handles to turn them frequently.

Ready to enjoy!  Just eat the bulb.  Mild and delicious.  If you didn't pull off enough tough outer layers, be a little more aggressive with your trimming next time and/or use younger smaller onions.  In the meantime, if the onions are a bit tough on the outer layer, strip the tender inner bulb out of the stalk by running it through your teeth or popping it out of the stalk with your thumb and index finger.

Remembering Paul

My dad, Paul Emile, passed away in 2006 at the age of 89.  Today would have been his 97th birthday - not an impossible milestone in his family.  His mother lived to be 106, his oldest sister, Juliet is still with us at 103 and his youngest sister, Germaine, is now, umm..... 94, I think.

I learned my love of nature, the outdoors and conservation from my dad.  He always dreamed of having a place in the countryside, a family retreat, where all could come for fun, relaxation, and as a permanent touchstone where family could gather, where we could be together.  He called it - the family compound.  I think he may have been dreaming of something more Hyannis and Kennedy-esque, but he did talk a lot about Alaska and researched log cabins and such.  He never did get to travel the length of the Alaska Highway.

I have never forgotten those philosophies of my dad.  They are part of me too.  This place - Reedy Branch Road - is in part, a fulfillment of my father's dream with some slant toward my vision of a country place.  But the essence is the same - a place to gather, to relax, to revel in the peace and companionship and embrace of friends and family.

Happy birthday, dad.

So that's an invitation.  Come.  The door is always open.

1985 - Meme's 100th birthday!  All the cousins of the next generation called the aunts & uncles "The Magnificent 7".  Pictured with Meme are her 6 surviving children at the time.  Front left - Roger.  Front right - Raymond.  Back row, left to right - Lillian, Juliet, Germaine, and my dad Paul.  Clare had passed away many years before.

Rocking Chairs

A month or so ago I needed to get a bent flange from my rototiller straightened at a machine shop.  A neighbor volunteered to take me to a fellow he knew who did such things in his machine shop on his farm.  Being much easier to show someone where something is located out in the country, rather than try to describe which country lane your supposed to turn down after crossing the "crick" past where the tobacco barn burned down back in '68 - we drove on over to James Prichette's place.  It turns out that Mr. James, who is in his 70's doesn't just dabble in his farm machine shop, he runs his shop as a business with a helper, Leroy,also in his 70's, doing quite an array of repair and modification on farm implements and fabrication of all sorts of widgets for all manner of things.  After straightening the flange in his arbor press while I waited and charging the absurdly trivial amount of $5.00 to do so, I mentioned that I grew up in and eventually worked in machine shops and loved the smell of machine oil and metal.  He asked if I like the smell of sawdust too and showed me his woodworking shop located in the other half of the machine shop building.  It reminded me of my Aunt Claire's cabinet making shop, full of large professional size woodworking equipment.  Mr Prichette had it all.

He showed me an unfinished rocking chair he had just completed but not stained or varnished yet and invited me to sit in it while he explained how most rocking chairs were not balanced properly.  They tipped too far forward and not backward far enough and you had to stop your forward motion with your feet and push off too much to rock backward.  This rocking chair was amazing!  At first it seemed like you might want to tip over backwards as the chair easily rocked back, but was actually no where near it's tipping point with plenty of rocker left to go before touching down on the floor.  The chair smoothly rocked forward naturally and all you had to do was barely exert a little push and back you rocked once again.  The curved seat bottom and the rounded arms were so comfortable.  SOLD!!
Mr. Prichette made me two matching rocking chairs and a matching porch swing from quarter sawn oak for our front porch.  These chairs are fabulous beyond words and we finish our day, every day, rocking on the front porch as the sun begins to set.  I don't know how the end of a day working on our little bit of paradise could be any better.  Oh yeah - a cold beer or glass of cold sweet tea does nicely.