Deer Defense

We've caught sight of our deer visitor a few times now. I first saw him when I went out to shut up the chicken coop, just before full-on dark. It's a lone 2-point buck, maybe a couple hundred pounds. He was in the garden, but hopped over the fence and headed towards the fruit trees when I came out the back door. I called to Aries, and we both watched as he went over our lot fence to the west, across the road, over our neighbors' fence, and then headed up the canyon. A couple of nights later, I caught him out there again, same time, same place. Aries has also seen him a couple more times just before sunrise.

We might as well just hang out a "good eats" sign - he's not going to be easily scared away. The scent of the dog didn't faze him, nor did the wire I laid down where the tracks showed he'd been hopping the fence. He just went around to another spot. The mirrors hanging in the corn patch, to keep the sparrows from perching on the top tassels and breaking them, might have kept him away from the unripe corn, but I don't think so - he munched the bean blossoms close by, and was probably just biding his time until the corn was ripe. When I put a wire cage over the chomped carrot and beet tops, he ate the onion tops. The choi and chard were pruned to just clumps of stems. He reached down inside the cages to eat the leaves off the pepper plants, and spit out the peppers. Only stumps were left of the lettuce I'd let bolt for next year's seed.

I researched deer deterrents. Irish Spring soap was listed, or predator urine products, or sprinkling blood meal around the plants. But it also said deer get used to scent-based deterrents, so you have to keep changing every few days. The only sure-fire preventative was a fence, a tall fence - mule deer can jump 10 feet.

So, we set to work increasing the height of our garden fence. We had a bunch of rebar out in the scrap pile. We slid pieces of that down inside the t-bar fencepost clips. Then added the old chicken wire, salvaged from the garden fence we replaced earlier this year. Then, to make the fence look even taller, I strung surveyors' tape around the tippy-tops of the rebar. Aries says, from the street, it looks like we put in a tennis court. But so far, so good. No tracks, no droppings, no more damage. If the first freeze holds off for another month or two, most of the plants might recover enough that we'll get a bit of a harvest after all.

With the garden out of reach, he's started eating the leaves on the grape vines and fruit trees. We had such a cold spring that there's no fruit this year, but that might be a blessing in disguise. The trees are big enough that I don't think he'll do much damage, and once the leaves fall, maybe he'll move on. I just hope he doesn't decide to bring the wife and kids.

Trouble in the Garden

They say a garden is always greenest in January - in your imagination, while paging through those beautiful garden catalogs. The reality though, in August, can often be quite different. And so it is here.

As always, I had such high hopes for this year's garden. The new fence was doing its job - no ground squirrels or bunnies had munched anything. Reconfiguring the chicken coop and pen worked too - no guineas flying from the top of the gate into the garden for snacks; no chickens flying in either, scratching up the dirt. Three of the newly aligned garden beds were in place; the rest to be done this fall.

Despite a long and cool start to summer this year, things were starting to look really good when I left for a week in Colorado. Aries stayed home, so I knew he'd keep up with the soaker hose schedule. But, upon my return, just walking up to the gate I could tell the garden didn't look even as lush as when I left.

I'd deadheaded the calendulas, but there were no new flowers to greet me. The bean trellis, almost completely covered with leaves, with flowers just about to open, was now just a few bare vines twisting upwards. The summer greens - chard, kale and choi - looked like they'd been severely clipped back. Aries doesn't eat salads. What was going on?

Bunnies, or birds, couldn't have done all this. Everything still looked green - I knew Aries hadn't skipped watering. What had happened to my garden? Wait! What was that dark pile over there, in the middle of a side path? Certainly too big and too many to be rabbit droppings.

There's another pile over there, and another. Oh look, are those tracks in the dust? Arrggh! These are deer tracks! Oh, no!

I did see deer up on the hillside above us, last winter. Even then, I remarked that it was rare for them to be down this low. In the summer heat, they stay up even higher. I've never had to deal with deer in the summer, in the garden! This is gonna get ugly.

Stalking the Wily Chicken

Junior chicken, so named because she looks just like her mother, Missy (so does Baldy, if it hadn't been for the unfortunate head pecking she got as a young pullet her first day in with the rest of the flock), disappeared a couple of weeks ago. Missy used to pull that trick every summer for years, reappearing three weeks later with a newly-hatched clutch, so we haven't been too worried about Junior yet.

Junior disappeared last year, too. I watched the calendar and eventually found her nest. But Junior's too fast, and flies too well, for our little Bantam rooster, Coach, to catch, I guess. After four weeks, and nothing hatching, we took the eggs away from her and got her back in with the rest of the flock.

This morning, while I was out hanging some laundry on the line, Junior came up squawking for food. I kept an eye on her while she gobbled up the feed I put down for her, and then as she got a drink of water. Then she went over to where I'd been watering a plum tree, and proceeded to dust-bathe. Finished with the laundry, I sat down on a log a little ways away from her to watch and wait, to see if I could find where she's been hiding.

She knew I was watching though. She pretty much finished with her bath, but then just stayed in her little hole, murmuring and clucking to herself, picking a bit a the dirt around her. I sat, she sat. I tried facing off towards the distance, keeping her in sight from the merest corner of one eye. No dice. She was in a nice damp hole in the shade, I was in the sun and the humidity from last night's brief thunderstorm made it even hotter.

Ok, something's got to give - guess it'll have to be me. I got up to move the water on a couple of the trees. When I was clear down at the bottom of the lot, she jumped up and ran up towards the house. I ran too, just barely keeping her in sight - she was heading towards the shed. By the time I got up there, she was nowhere in sight. Under the fence? Under the shed? Wait! There, in the middle of a clump of Oregon Grape next to the patio, a leaf wobbled back and forth in the still, heavy air. Gotcha!

Chinese Veggie Time

The Sugar Snap pea plants have shriveled in the heat, without ever allowing any of the few picked to make it into the house. I can't seem to catch the English peas at the right time. They seem to go from no pea in the pod to starchy overnight. But the Chinese pea pods, both the Mammoth Melting and the Oregon 2, are still hanging in there. I've been trying to get them picked daily to keep them coming.

Joi Choi is the only bok choi I've found that holds without bolting once our summer heat sets in, and it hasn't disappointed me this year either. Crispy, crunchy stems and thick, dark-green leaves - thinned earlier by harvesting entire plants, and now I just snap off a few of the outer leaves whenever I need some.

Chinese veggies are especially suited for stir-frys. The short cooking time is perfect for this time of year, keeping the house cooler in the late afternoon. I use a Mix & Match Stir-fry method that lets me vary the menu depending on what I have on hand. I try to get a jar of mung bean sprouts going about once a week, and then just do a wander through the garden before dinnertime to see what's ready. I've written out my stir-fry basic recipe on my post over on the Simple Green Frugal Co-op blog this week. What's in your garden?

This Year's Corn Patch

I really need to get better organized with my garden seed storage - not the actual storing of the seeds, but seed expiration dates. I know some of my seeds are too old. I find it hard to just throw them out, though. I also have seeds that I grew once or twice, and then they never seem to make the cut again when it comes to plotting out my growing space.

Time to sit down and clear things out. Sowing seeds that no longer germinate just wastes time, and my growing season is short enough as it is. Hanging on to seeds I'll probably never plant is silly too. Time to whittle my seed storage box down to what I know I like, will grow here, and then keep up with it.

What brought on this rant is the sorry state of this year's corn patch. Wanting to spread the harvest out over many weeks, I have packets of seeds with varying maturity dates - plant once and harvest in succession. But this also means only planting a few of each type each year, so some of those packets are getting up in years. Some, this year, didn't germinate at all; others were down to less than 30%. Luckily, I track what is where (or should be, anyway), so I do know which packets to toss out for the birds.

I think I was able to salvage my corn harvest for this year, though. I've been trying to move more and more to saving my own seeds, so have been giving various non-hybrid varieties a trial or two in my garden. Hometown Seeds has a prepared package of emergency "survival seeds" - a packet designed to store in your freezer, with enough seeds for 3-4 seasons worth, or enough to get an entire block of neighbors growing their own fresh food (a good idea, in my mind - if things really did deteriorate to a genuine emergency state, I don't think I'd want to have the only food source in sight). I've seen other survival seed packages listed online, but I live in a rather rigorous growing environment. Just because something grows well in the Great Plains or Florida doesn't mean I'll get a crop from it. But Hometown Seeds is in Utah - the same Great Basin, high-desert, environment as my home. If things do well for them, they should be good here too.

So, one of my corn rows was their Golden Bantam 8 variety. Those seeds are great! Every one of them popped right up (however, growing well is only half the trial - they have to pass the taste test too). And since I'm used to the lower germination rates of other seed sources, I'd planted too many of them. Corn, being a grass-type plant, can take transplanting though, so that's what I did. I dug out every other GB8 plant and moved it over to fill in the gaps in three other rows.

Not quite enough, though. I still had two almost empty rows. But while grocery shopping the other evening, I checked out the little seed stand there. I found a packet of Trinity Hybrid - at 64 days, the shortest days-to-harvest I could find. I got them in the ground night before last (with lots of protection from hungry birds until they get up and growing). I'm hoping, with the hot days now, that they'll be up in no time . Our first frosts can come anytime after mid-September, but will sometimes hold off until early October. So maybe, just maybe, they'll have just enough time to set a crop.

Make a Jeans Skirt

My Soroptimists Club is working a booth at a local Chili Cookoff this weekend, and since it's the Fourth of July we're going with a red, white, and blue theme. It's gonna be too hot for blue jeans, so I made myself a blue jeans skirt this afternoon.

Since it's also my turn to post on the Simple Green Frugal Co-op blog, I took pictures of my little project and wrote a tutorial. I've been refashioning jeans into skirts for decades. It's easy enough for even a beginning sewer, and a great use if you have a pair of favorite pants where the inseam is starting to wear. Check it out here.

More Stay-cation Week

Working for the Census for the past couple of months has given me a bit extra discretionary income. I decided to use some of it to catch up on a few health-related matters, so scheduled a few preventative medical exams. While I was doing fun things like getting poked with a needle for a blood chemistry workup, getting poked elsewhere for a Pap exam, and having a couple of suspicious-looking moles checked out, sweet husband took off for a day's outing with some of his biking friends (thank you to Ninja Bandit for this great photo of him and his bike).

My contact lenses have been really bothering me lately, so I also scheduled an eye exam. I wear rigid, gas-permeable, mono-vision lenses - the prescription for my left eye is for distance, my right eye set for closeup. My left eye has changed enough that I've been unconsciously squinting to see, consequently irritating the inside of that eyelid. My new lenses are now on order; my glasses, worn less often, are still fine. Now, only a mammogram left on the schedule (and I suppose I ought to dig out my records to see when I'm due for a colonoscopy - this getting older isn't for sissies, that's for sure).

Busy, Busy Week

Aries took the past week off as a vacation week, and having him around full-time always messes up my schedule somewhat. Plus, he had projects in mind, and they usually end up involving me too.

First item he had on his agenda was paint the living room ceiling. Living in a home heated with a wood stove means it can get a bit dingy looking over time. So I looked through my home decor files to see what color we'd used before, finding out the last time we'd painted had been 1997. Not too bad. Off he went to the store to buy paint, while I started getting everything movable from the room - clearing tables, moving out lamps and dining room chairs, taking down artwork - and then finding drop cloths and plastic sheets to cover the carpet and things too big to move.

I let him deal with dusting back corners, taping off the wood trim, and the actual painting though. I had things to do out in the garden. Our Spring(?!) weather had been too cold and windy to set out my tender crops any earlier. When I could, I'd set them out on the deck during the day, bringing them in each night. But now, I'd finished up with the latest stage of the garden remodel, and was ready to get my kitchen counter back.

While I'd planted the earlier crops in the upper part of the garden, using two of the old "S" shaped beds, I had been digging and re-shaping the lower part from two S's into three 50' long straight beds. Instead of planting each long bed with the same type of plants, I divided each bed into thirds, making three "blocks" of three 1/3 rows. When I redo the upper part in the fall or next spring, I'll have six long rows, making six blocks, in the same area that previously held only four. I'll finish working out a new crop rotation schedule then.

For the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants, holes were dug, eggshell, Epsom salt, and a bit of bloodmeal, bonemeal, and greensand added. The plants set out, cages added, Wall-o-Waters placed and then filled. Last year, I was about this late setting out my plants, and I didn't use the W-o-W's, figuring everything would be ok since nights will now be above freezing until mid-September. Our night temperatures are in the high 30's to mid-40's this time of year. But I found out that just because the plants aren't in danger of frost damage, it's still worth the time and effort to use the W-o-W's. Last year, my plants grew so slowly, and set fruit so late, that I didn't get much of a harvest. The W-o-W's, left on the plants until after the Fourth of July, give the plants such a nice little warm transition spot that when the heat of summer finally sets in they can really take off.

His painting finished, Aries then decided that as long as almost everything was out of the living room he'd shampoo the carpet too. Fine with me, I still had more work to do out in the garden. In the middle block I seeded corn and beans - the corn in trenches so I can hill up the roots later to keep them from blowing over in the wind, and then squashes, zukes, and cukes in the remaining third. I put wire down over everything to give the seeds a headstart from the birds, put new washers in the hose connections, and got all my soaker hoses and valves arranged. And then got to go inside to put my living room back together. To be continued . . .

It's Always Something

I spoke too soon, bragging about being able to grow such beautiful tulips earlier this Spring. About a week ago, I noticed some dirt thrown up on the edging of the herb & flower garden. I thought maybe the cat or one of the chickens had been in there scratching about, and just swept the dirt back. Not long ago, one of the fence-flying chickens had started laying eggs just inside the little picket fence. I'd put a golf ball in her nest so she'd keep using it, so I could gather those eggs without having to look for them.

Then, a couple of days later, when I looked for eggs, the golf ball was gone. Upon closer examination, I found that it had fallen down into a hole dug out where a tulip bulb used to be. Uh-oh, not a good sign. Checking around beneath the flourishing oregano, wildflowers, and hollyhocks, I found only more potholes, wilting strips of tulip foliage, and gnawed pieces of the very bottom bits of bulbs. The daffodils, I think, are still there, but some squirrel found the tulips and appeared to be starting on the grape hyacinths next. Damn!

So I set the box trap in that garden, and have caught two fat squirrels over the past few days. I took them for a little ride to the south, over to a willow and cottonwood thicket across the creek, far from any other houses but with plenty of grasses and shrubs. There's cover from coyotes, and I hope the running water will prevent them from trying to head back over here.

Yesterday evening, when I was down by the chicken coop to let them out for a little walkabout before dark, I noticed one of the Rhode Island Reds huddled down next to the shade shed. When I went over to see if she was ok, I noticed she had a quarter-sized gouge ripped out of her back, just above her tail, and when she got up she balanced on only on one leg. I don't know what attacked her - the gouge looks more like something took a bite out of her than being pecked by the guinea or trod by the rooster. There was a hawk circling over the pen yesterday morning, and there are owls nesting in the trees across the street. It doesn't look like anything has dug under the coop, and everyone else seems to be ok.

I made sure she got some food and water, and by nightfall she was inside the coop, inside one of the nest boxes. We left her there for the night. Earlier today, she was outside with the rest of flock, so she is still managing to get around. Worried that the other birds might pick on that open sore, or bully her away from the food and water, we moved her up to the dog run this evening. She ate, and then settled down for the night inside the little brood shed. She's still gimpy, but maybe a couple of days on her own will allow her to recover.

Garden Remodel - Phase Two

Once we got the chicken coop moved, the next step was to move the garden fence farther out both to the north and south. Moving it south meant taking out a big rabbitbrush outside the fence by the truck gate, and taking down the little fence around the old, failing, asparagus patch outside that end of the garden. There were only about four plants left in there, and if they survive I might move them to a new patch inside. Then again, I might just start all over with new all-male plants next spring instead.

The old chicken wire fencing and wooden fence posts were taken out all the way around, replaced with the heavier wire fencing and t-posts reclaimed when our neighbor put up a board fence along half our shared lotline. We decided to run one long piece of fencing along the lower, eastern garden edge, and get rid of the wire gate down there.

On the north side, moving the fence out meant it no longer would connect to the old arbor there. I want the new garden beds to stretch almost to the new fence and if outside the fence it would block the way to the chicken coop. So the arbor had to go. But I like that old arbor. I didn't want to lose it completely. So I got Aries to move it to the western side of the garden, the side closest to the house. The photo above shows how much extra space we gained by moving the coop, that arbor, and then the fence - the raspberries in the foreground and the walking onions beyond were just inside the old fence, the arbor in between.

We did still want a gate in that section though, so Aries built a new one using an old wooden picket fence section someone gave us a couple of years ago. A bit of scrounging through the scrap pile produced a couple of gate posts; the hardware bin provided a couple of hinges, and a couple of pipe clamps to hold a sliding rod for a latch. Lined inside with chicken wire, a board sweep blocking the very bottom, and a buried wooden threshold, gave us a lovely critter-proof gate.

Ground squirrels, jack rabbits, and cottontail bunnies abound here (only the occasional skunk, vole, or raccoon). All would probably love to feast in my garden. So we dug a trench all the way around the outside of the new fence, and then buried 1" chicken wire fencing 6 inches down with another 8-10" bent out into an "L" at the bottom of the trench. Animals trying to dig under a fence will dig down right next to it, but they almost never start their digging a foot away from the fence. This left about 18" of chicken wire above ground around the bottom of the fence - enough to keep everybody that doesn't fly out of the garden (and so far, none of the chickens have gone over the new fence either).

Moving the arbor up to the west side closed up the last gap in the new fence. About 15 years ago, I drug that arbor home when an old house to the south of us was torn down (I asked for the arbor - that lot is still empty but for a few piles of metal and wood rubbish, a couple of ratty old elm trees, and a beautiful stone retaining wall). That arbor was ancient then. But I liked the way it looked (the lattice on the sides and top isn't the stapled together, pre-built stuff - this thing was completely made from scratch). I got Aries to patch it up and put it up in my garden. This time, the bottoms of the support posts had rotted a bit over the years, so Aries cut them off level and then put the arbor up on cement blocks to make it tall enough to still walk under. Some leveling, and brackets on the bottom to hold onto metal posts driven into the ground to make sure the whole thing won't blow over, and the same treatment to critter-proof the gate. And the Aries spent an entire day scraping and then repainting the whole thing. He's such a sweetheart!

Stretching the Corn Harvest

The calendar says it's planting time. The day-length does too (we went up to Tahoe for dinner with some friends a week ago, and even though we left after 8 pm we still had enough lingering daylight for the half-hour drive home - albeit through a snowstorm). I've just been waiting for the thermometer to say so too.

Finally, the last couple of days have warmed up enough to start thinking about getting the rest of the garden in. Corn is one of those things that have to wait to be planted until the soil has warmed up enough that the seeds can germinate instead of rot. Since today was my turn to post on the Simple Green Frugal Co-op blog, I wrote here about how I manage to stretch my fresh corn eating time from the end of July until mid-September, with only a short bit of work for me, a short planting time window, in our short high-desert gardening season (speaking of shorts, today was the first day warm enough to wear mine, and the first afternoon I've left the house without carrying a sweater).

Let's Move the Coop

I've had my vegetable garden laid out in four freeform "S"-shaped beds for years. The long horizontal sections work as a terrace system on ground that slopes away to the east. But the curves are getting harder to reform each Spring, and are difficult to cover to stretch my season. I have one more bed in a separate area below the main four beds, but it's down by the fruit trees and the plants never do as well.

We've done ok with those five beds, but six would work better for crop rotation. So I've been mulling over a garden remodel for a couple of seasons now. If the main garden was just a little bit wider . . . and I got rid of those nasty, thorny blackberries there . . . I'd have room for six long beds, stretching all the way across the slope, plus have the perennial stuff (asparagus, horseradish, sunchokes, and berries) all inside one big sunny space. Get rid of the lower shaded bed, and with straight planting beds, maybe even devise a grow tunnel or two for more fall and winter eating . . . .

So . . . more measuring, plotting, and planning. It would mean moving the fences out, including that old arbor, but everything would pretty much fit just right. Except there in the lower, north-eastern corner - if only the chicken coop were a bit more to the east . . . .

Time to go get sweet husband, draw lines in the dirt, step off some measurements, and explain what I have in mind. And then wait another week for him to take it all in - share in my vision, so to speak. Once he can see it too, he's a git-er-done kind of guy.

Our chicken coop has a slatted floor, with the droppings pit underneath. So first item of business is to pull the bottom skirting off the outside and clean out the pit. A full wagonload, plus more, goes up to the compost bins, covered for use later in the season (kept dry, it doesn't smell at all).

A couple of car jacks from the garage were enough to get one side, then the other, up enough to make a board "highway" atop cinder blocks.

With pieces of metal conduit for rollers.

And so, with a bit (ok, lots) of muscle power, the coop moves east. Time for a design conference: how about, if we also spin it around 90 degrees, so that the east side faces north? Then we redo the pen on this side, and put the gate over here? If we drop it down the hill a bit, the water faucet should be fine, and we'll have the pen door, the coop door, and access to the nest boxes all lined up together, here on the west.

Ok, that's the plan, but it's getting dark. Time to let the flock get back inside for the night, and he'll do the rest tomorrow.

Next morning, let the girls out, rearrange the board "highway", pull down the fence (keeping the ratty, tacked-together, quilt of wire pieces in one long piece to reuse), move everything else out of the way, do a bit of leveling here and there, and the coop spins to the north. Let's get rid of that old pen door, and use this salvaged dog run gate instead. We've got room to give them a bit of pen area east of the coop too, to give them a bit more summer afternoon shade. If we attached both ends of the fencing, and then stretch it out into shape, and then put in the fence posts, we know we'll have an exact fit without having to reconstruct any of the fence pieces.

Dig trenches to bury the bottom of the fence for predator-proofing, and attach new skirting to the bottom of the coop. Get the food, water, and shade sheds into the new pen; get all the re-construction debris cleaned up; the tools cleaned up and put away.

Moving some dirt around with the rake lets the gate swing freely. Meanwhile, the girls are hopping in and out of the coop, inspecting the new pen area, and settling right in. At nightfall, one of the guinea hens walks right past the open door to the east side, then stands there looking quizzically for a door that's no longer there. I have to walk her back around to the north, but then hearing the others inside already, she hops in too. Everyone else, no problem at all. And there are eggs from everyone, even the guineas, in the nest boxes the next day.

Don't Panic!

You do have your towel with you, don't you?

Just a Little Bit Crazy

Sometimes, doing crazy things makes me feel most alive. I went to two outdoor parties this weekend, and snowflakes were swirling on both. Now, it's supposed to be somewhat nice around here by the end of May, so the people that scheduled these parties weren't the crazy ones. It's all of us that showed up anyway :-)

Friday was the end of our local Bike to Work Week, with a big after-work party planned out on the open patio of a local establishment. I didn't ride my bicycle (my involvement with Muscle Powered leans more towards walking/hiking and advocacy), but I did bundle up to be there, and ended up manning the keg. The live entertainer played his instrument wearing fingerless biking gloves, and the attendees took turns around the outdoor firepit. We all laughed when Christy, wearing socks plus wool tights under her blue jeans, took off the socks to offer them to Terri, silly girl, who'd come from work wearing flip-flops. Terri immediately took her up on the offer, and donned said socks. Sometimes, a touch of insanity can really make the party. A good time was had by all.

And then, another party Saturday evening, also outdoors, also cold, windy, and snowing. This one was a neighborhood party, held at a sculpture shop down the street. The owner, and most of the guests, were Burning Man regulars, so I knew ahead of time that this party wouldn't be quite the usual fare. I've never been to Burning Man - my sister and I always plan our annual get-together at a Lake Tahoe beachfront campsite that week. Camping in a sandstorm in the desert with thousands, versus camping in the pines with family? No contest - I'll take the Lake. But the Burners are special and fun people, and so once again I bundled up and off we went. And again, another good time was had by all.

Frost Protection Tips

I'm not the only one dealing with an unseasonably cold Spring. Annette, in Virginia, wrote to me asking for frost-protection suggestions for her garden. I've prettied up the links, and am posting my reply to her to help anyone else looking for ideas:

Hi Annette,
I use Wall-o-waters on my tender plants. Home Depot had some this year, and sometimes Wal-Mart does too in early spring, or they can be ordered online. Okra was the only thing that froze one year (29 degrees June 7th) inside the W-0-W's; tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants survived. I wrote about them here.

I haven't used any kind of tunnels (she asked about them specifically), because with my S-shaped beds it would be difficult to make them. I am, however, thinking about redoing the garden into long straight beds just so I can make tunnels to stretch my season, after reading this Eliot Coleman article in Mother Earth News.

I don't think sheets (that's what she's using) provide enough protection when I have to cover things overnight. I watch for single-layer (not quilted - takes too long to dry if wet) bedspreads and draperies in thrift stores or garage sales. I once found a hideous red velvet bedspread that worked great for years. I like draperies because the pleated top section is heavy enough to stay put on the windward side and then the fabric spreads out nicely, with a heavier hem on the other end. I remove any vinyl liners and just use the fabric part (the liners end up covering the compost). I drape them over plant cages, and wrap them around tall staked tomato plants, sometimes using clothespins to clip ends together or to attach to the cages inside, and bricks to hold down the ends. Photo here.

I have some wire fencing bent into bracket-shapes [ , wide enough to cover my wide beds about 5" high. I put a sheet over one of those to shade carrot seeds for better germination (blue sheet here). They can also support the heavier coverings if necessary in early spring when plants are still quite small. They work great if I have to cover cucumbers and squash that have just started to run.
That ought to give you some ideas to work with. Good luck!
~Sadge

The Spring that Never Came

I have a feeling this is going to be one of those years where we go straight from wintry snows to summer heat. Is anyone else still getting snowed on in the middle of May?

Of course, any gardener that's been here a while knows we can't set out our tomatoes until after Memorial Day. And even then, some sort of night time protection is usually necessary until practically the Fourth of July. But while cold may be normal, the wet this year is a bit more than usual. This year's combination of cold and wet has made it difficult to even get out in the garden, much less get things planted in a timely manner. And whether I'll be harvesting anything at all from my fruit trees remains to be seen. Just about everything is now, or just finished, blooming. Only the grapes and berries are still waiting.

Knowing today's storm was on the way, and expected to be a wet one, yesterday I braved the cold wind to get out in the garden and finish getting my Early bed planted. I scooted around beneath the netting to plant seeds of English, Chinese, and Snap peas, some pak choi, and a variety of lettuces. I set out some little seedlings of Swiss chard and calendula. The onions were set out last week, and the garlic, shallots, and spinach from last fall are looking good. The last bit of that bed I filled up with leeks dug from my leek nursery bed. Now, everything is getting a good soaking, and should pop right up when the sun comes back in a few more days (well, that's the plan, anyway).

Next project, when the weather allows, is to get the Roots and Brassicas bed ready to plant. Too much cold can stress some cole crops, especially the cauliflower, stunting their growth instead of producing nice big edible heads. But I should be able to get them into the ground in another week or two. Today's snow just provided a bit of natural irrigation, melting quickly when I brought them back into the house for the night. It's time, too, to get my seed potatoes out of the cellar and into the light. Maybe we won't see a Spring this year, but I know Summer will be here before we know it.

Potting Up the Tomatoes

I managed to squeeze in a bit of time this afternoon to pot up my little tomato plants - transferring them to deeper containers. Tomatoes will grow roots on any part of the stem when buried in the soil, and more roots on tomato plants means less stress once our hot, dry summer gets here. And happy plants mean a bigger, better harvest. To learn more, see my post on the Simple Green Frugal Co-op blog.

Nights are still hovering around the freezing mark, so the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants will stay inside, under the lights, for a few more weeks. The cabbages and kales, on the other hand, are now pretty much hardened off. I've been moving them out to the table on the deck every morning, and then back in to the kitchen counter when it gets dark.

I'm thinking maybe Sunday (if the predicted rain holds off) I can get their planting bed ready and get them into the ground. Nobody is going to want to talk to a Census taker on Mother's Day, are they?

A Slow Start to the Early Bed

I really should have gotten my peas and lettuces seeded by now, but this Census job has turned into a full-time gig the past few weeks. The weather has been iffy to work around too. It seems whenever I've had some time to work outside, it's either been raining, snow on the ground, or horrible winds. So I'm trying to get things done in bits and pieces when I get the chance.

Half of the 50' long Early bed was composted last fall. About half of that was planted then too, with garlic, shallots, and seeds of spinach and arugula. They were all up and growing by the end of February, and in fine shape now. In fact, the arugula was starting to bolt, so I pulled most of what was left and gave it to the chickens. One thing that slows me down is having to protect whatever I've been working on from the birds, both domestic and wild, at the end of each day. Then, before starting again later, all the wire has to come off again so I can get at the planting bed.

To date, I've managed to get the rest of that bed composted, turned and raked smooth for planting; the soaker hoses laid out, with all connections fixed up with new rubber washers; pea posts pounded in (and topped with cans to support the netting), fencing trellises attached with twist-ties. Tuesday afternoon, I was out there on my hands and knees setting in tiny little Copra onion plants (a last-minute order from Dixondale Farms - my onions, seeded inside a couple of months ago, didn't germinate reliably enough). I put the dried-out little plants to soak for a couple of hours in a weak fish emulsion tea while I got everything ready. Using a dandelion digger as a dibble, I'd make a loose little planting hole, use my finger to poke an onion down into the dirt, and then give it a little pull upwards, getting the roots started in the right direction as I firmed the dirt around each little plant. I know they're probably hard to even see, set out in a 6" spacing grid, but I know the Copra onions are really good keepers. The sets (little bulbs) you buy in the big-box store are fine for summertime fresh eating, but I want onions that will last in storage until at least March, or even better, May. Onions are tough - these guys are starting to perk up and green up already. The last few I planted into clumps to pull for fresh eating later in the summer, but most of these won't be harvested until mid-September.

We've had quite a bit of wind the last few days, but Tuesday, when Aries was home to lend a hand, I managed to get the netting suspended over that bed then. Every year, I seed my little greens and peas, watch eagerly for them to start poking up out of the dirt, and then, one fine morning, go out to find everything chomped right down to the dirt. The sparrows and quail devour everything - they can jump right down under the wire I use to protect everything from errant chickens. Then, a few years ago, the guinea fowl developed an addiction to pea blossoms. They'd be out there calmly plucking every one on a daily basis. I was going to all this work and getting nothing!!

So last year, after losing everything once again, I tried draping a big piece of netting over the entire bed - held up by the t-posts holding bits of fencing for the peas to cling to, held down by bricks around the outside edges. And got my first beautiful salad harvest in years (the netting applied too late to get much from the peas). So now, as I get the time, I'll duck under the netting to plant my peas (English, snap, and Chinese) on either side of the center bits of fencing, and greens along the edges. The greens shade the pea roots, the peas climbing their fences shade the greens, and I should still manage to get some decent harvests of both before the summer heat fries everything. That's the plan, anyway.

Enumerator 101

I keep thinking I really should post something. I've been really busy the last couple of weeks, and will be for at least another week or two. I got hired for a temp position, working the US Census. At first, I was hired as an Enumerator - the person that goes around knocking on doors. Before any public contact, we had to go through four 8-hour days of training. But the week before my training session was to start, they called me in for an additional day of training, to do all my initial administrative paperwork, and then taught me how to take ink fingerprints.

So, on the first day of training, while everyone else was doing their initial paperwork, I called each one up in turn to do a fingerprint card. That was an interesting experience. Taking each hand in turn, then each finger and tucking the rest out of the way, rolling each across the ink pad, "nail to nail" and then across the fingerprint card, making sure each print was completely within its designated square, with just the right amount of pressure to clearly show each line and ridge. To get a person's wrist to roll from one side to the other correctly, it's best to have them right up against you, but not look at what you're doing. Too often, they tried to "help" and ended up either pressing too hard or smearing the print by not letting me lift each finger straight up. Others had stiff wrists, making it difficult to get their fingers to roll across correctly. At least I was provided with some little stick-on squares to reprint and cover smeared prints, so one messed up print wouldn't disqualify the entire card.

Then, the training: first, being sworn in with the official oath required of all in government - to defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, etc. etc. I've taken the same oath as a volunteer appointee to our City Shade Tree Council, and again when I became a Notary Public. Then, lectures about the confidentiality of the data we'd be collecting, anything we might see while out doing our jobs. The government takes the handling of PII - Personally Identifiable Information - very seriously. Since we were all sworn in as Census employees, we could talk about what was necessary to each other, but our assigned paperwork couldn't even be left out where our family members could see it.

We heard that around 80% of the Census forms mailed out had been returned by the deadline. Our job would be to go out and get the data for the the residences that hadn't. The taking of a national census every ten years is in the Constitution, right there in Article I. The first one was done in 1790, and then every decade since. Only statistical data may be distributed, and confidentiality of all answers is maintained for 72 years afterwards. Only then are specific results available to the public (they didn't say it in class, but I know from talking to a friend doing genealogy research on her family that data from the 1890 Census was all lost in a fire).

Then we learned how to fill out the forms - with tiny little boxes to be marked with an "x" (but don't go outside the lines!), printing neatly within the lines of boxes, one letter per box. No crinkling up those unwieldy forms either - only the original creases allowed (while standing outside - no going inside a house - in the wind, writing on a clipboard). This section to be filled in vertically, then these across, and read every question exactly as written. Extra forms for this and for that instance, when and how to use them, how to read the maps of the area we'd each be assigned to work; how to fill out our payroll forms each day, task codes, codes for areas worked, crew codes. Plus, all the government acronyms and more numbers - forms aren't referred to by their names, but by a letter-dash-numbers. We had to learn an entire new language to do this job: Bureaucrat-ese.

The last day of class, our Crew Leader asked me to be a Crew Leader Assistant instead of an Enumerator. Instead of knocking on doors myself, I've ended up supervising six Enumerators - going out with each to observe and evaluate their procedures and knowledge of the field work, collecting completed forms, helping resolve problems. With paperwork to be collected daily, from employees working independently, setting their own hours - it's like herding cats.

I finally have my team reasonably organized, so will probably start working an assignment area myself. Please, if we knock on your door, be nice - it will only take a few minutes time, and we have to get this information, one way or another. Your cooperation is much appreciated.

Spring Bulb Bed

It's been a pretty busy week - things to do and weather-wise. Around here, especially this time of year, they say that if you don't like the weather just wait five minutes and it'll change. Since my last post about the fog, we've had sunshine up in the 70's, rain, horrific winds, and even another snowstorm.

I love this photo, taken through my living room window. The rain and reflections on the deck look like an Impressionist painting, and the late Spring bulbs now blooming in the herb bed are so pretty. Tulips are really hard to grow around here. Not because of the weather, but because of the ground squirrels. They'll dig up and eat every tulip, and I've lost hyacinths to them too. But this bed (knock on wood) has done great for years - long enough that the original single bulbs have all multiplied into beautiful clumps.

I'm not sure why these have survived. The ground squirrels (not pretty, fluffy-tailed tree squirrels - these are burrowing, scruffy-tailed rat-like squirrels) are still out there, scouting around under the bird feeders, dashing for their holes under the wood pile when I let the dog out. I know the squirrels won't touch daffodils, and when I planted these bulbs I mixed all different kinds together, tossed them out onto the ground, and then planted each one where it landed. Maybe having the daffodils scattered throughout, besides giving me an extended and ever-changing show each Spring, also deters the squirrels from the tastier tulip bulbs.

Or maybe it's the perennial herbs that are just now coming up. Oregano and marjoram are a dense green carpet now, thyme, rosemary, and chives in small clumps, and a big clump of tarragon. As summer gets closer, they'll take over, hiding the withering leaves of the bulbs. Right outside my kitchen door, this little garden is a joy throughout the year. A wandering line of round stepping stones, a few rocks, a cement sculpted turtle, and some hollyhocks for vertical interest makes a wonderful view, sitting out on the deck in the morning sun.

Or some days it's better from inside looking out, and a warm fire going in the wood stove. Day before yesterday, the cherry blossoms were capped with snow. Right now, I'm not sure whether I'll be getting any fruit this year, or not. The night temperatures have only dropped right around freezing, not much below, and the snow might even have provided an insulating layer. We're a bit above the valley floor, so the coldest temps slide on down the hill, past us. So, even with these snowy photos, there's still a chance the blooms will set some fruit. One can always hope.