Almost Halloween Garden

Sweet potatoes must be picked this weekend. Frost is coming. The leaves have already been nipped by cool weather. (Click on pictures to enlarge.)

I rescued our oranges this morning, hardy trifoliate. So tart, they flavor water nicely, might make marmalade.

Lettuces, spinach and beets are coming along.

This cosmos entertains an alianthus webworm moth.

The last 2 years I planted English peas in August and they failed to mature before winter. This year I got smarter and planted sugar snap peas, figuring we could eat them at any stage. That's the answer, from now on, sugar snap peas in fall. Also broccoli, beats and our late, late green beans. Wheat is waiting to sprout in between.

Here's another garden bed where the wheat has risen.

Hyacinth beans accompany orange trees (in the greenhouse).

"Didn't I smell tomato sauce yesterday?" asks Virginia.

Yes, for our pizza dinner last night with a couple of couples. Heritage tomatoes are almost perfect this time of year (also in the greenhouse).

Fool's Gold

Water froze in buckets in the greenhouse last night, so obviously the compost heap isn't heating things up very well. The lettuce sprouts don't seem to mind, so it's not a bother. I suppose the folks who asked me to keep their plants in the greenhouse over the winter might not be too happy, although they were warned.

Is a warning enough? Adam, our son, probably would have recommended a waiver because assumption of risk seems to have become a thing of the past since the suit against McDonald's over a coffee spill.

On the other hand, we probably wouldn't get very far if we sued our investment advisors for losing money over the past 10 years. By now, most of us feel lucky to see a 2% gain instead of a downtick. Maybe that's why we let the executives who presided over the subprime lending fiasco walk away scot-free. It's the Golden Rule and a giant waiver.

Someone's looking out for us. Judge Rakoff, a federal judge in New York, recently refused to approve a consent judgment filed in his court by the SEC and Citigroup. He thought the proposed $285 million settlement was not reasonable, fair, adequate, or in the public interest. The complaint filed by the SEC had alleged fraud -- that Citigroup Global Markets had realized in early 2007 that the market for mortgage-backed securities was beginning to collapse, so it created a billion-dollar fund that allowed it to dump lousy assets on misinformed investors. According to the SEC, Citigroup said the assets in the fund were attractive investments that had been carefully selected by an independent investment advisor, although in fact Citigroup had arranged to include in the portfolio a bad bundle and had then taken a short position in those very assets. Citigroup netted profits of around $160 million, while the investors lost more than $700 million. The proposed consent judgment wanted to treat it more like negligence than fraud, so the judge sent the parties back to the drawing board and scheduled their case for trial. The Rolling Stone offered this summary of the case: "Just imagine a mugger who steals $70 from some lady’s wallet being sentenced to walk free after paying back twelve bucks.”

"It's the golden rule," says Virginia.

Right, the folks with the gold make the rules.

November Gardening Month

November gardening month is almost here. Checking my calendar, I noticed last November was a very busy month in the garden, and it paid off come Spring. Ditto, I think, for this year.

As a prelude, yesterday I finally created a doorstep to the greenhouse, so air doesn't rush through the opening under the sliding doors.

See, under the doors?

And here, a doorstop.

"Oh, vapors," says Virginia, "you're making me dizzy."

Right. What color should I paint it? Porchy gray?

"I heard a racket out back." Virginia's talkative today.

Yes, I diced a hickory, I think, and an ironwood into chunks of future firewood. That's another project for November, should have been done in April or May.

Greenhouse Happenings

Last night, Susan asked what's happening in our greenhouse.

You may remember my tomato grower's post, filed after a friend from Mississippi visited while interning at Polyface Farms, home of Joel Salatin. I've been following his instructions.

"Those aren't tomatoes," Virginia croaks from her sickbed.

Did I say they were? He suggested applying the same rules to cucumbers, so I have. Check out these little guys. Maybe they'll flavor our salads in a couple weeks. Oh, I should mention, their vines have been growing about 2 inches each day.

Here's a tomato plant.

Yes, over to the left, that's basil.

Mirrors and Tombstones

Imagine looking in the mirror every morning (for a week or two) and seeing this:

You might hear, "Dahling, quit dilly-dallying."

Or this might be cool, sort of Fonzarellian (think Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli, "the Fonz" on Happy Days):

Here are some pretty bugs -- pretty darn nasty.  Our chickens have been getting most of them this year.  If you don't have chickens, I understand spraying them with a mixture of warm water, vinegar and some dishwashing liquid will send them to la-la land.  They suck, trying to destroy all the brassicas before moving on to other crops.  These two Harlequins are enjoying Brussels sprouts.  Aren't they beautiful? 

Here are some German Cushaw squash I trained to hang on the fence.

"Are you sure?" says Virginia.

Well, the seeds came from a Southern Exposure Seed Exchange packet labeled "green-striped cushaw."  A Google search of cushaw brings up several pictures of what I thought were Georgia candy roasters, which happen to be growing to the left of these guys.  Here's one:

Whatever, these are giant winter squash.  Cut one open and it feeds two people for two weeks.

If you read my blog entry from yesterday, about cleaning up the greenhouse, here you can see what I've been doing -- pulling weeds, then covering with a layer of black plastic under a layer of black mesh cloth, and in the aisles, a rubber mat.  The wooden 2 x 6's will form the back sides of two more beds -- I'll be cutting and removing the plastic to the rubber runner -- in which I'll plant, who knows, maybe lettuce, broccoli, artichokes?  In each corner, I covered the black mesh with mulch and then four 2 x 6s that hold a broken marble tombstone that's intended to keep the greenhouse from blowing away in a storm.  No grave robbing;  a friend of ours who digs graves brought us four rejected broken tombstones.

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Greenhouse Reconstruction

A rush job almost always has to be redone, doesn't it? 

On our 22nd anniversary last October, having received an email that a local business was shifting gears and selling their greenhouse, we checked it out and bit.  Two weeks later its pieces were in a pile near our older and littler greenhouse.  Then in a few more weeks it was up and ready to go, except I hadn't given much thought or attention to the floor.  That was fine until this summer, when the place entered the first stages of becoming a forest. 

This week, after meeting pressing deadlines, I attacked the weed patch, put down black plastic covered by black mesh cloth and, in the two aisles, laid long rubber mats, all despite 110+ degrees even with big fans blowing.  I was not about to plant fall garden things and winter greens while having to push aside wiregrass growing like cobwebs.  I also began to close gaps in an attempt to get the place ready for cold weather.  I'm not finished yet, but it's looking civilized again.

"Fans blowing?" says Virginia.  "In your greenhouse?"

Umm, haven't I mentioned that for our birthdays this year, we had electricity installed in the barn and the greenhouse?  Now my plants can listen to classical music.

Greenhouse Ghosting

When I was closing up the greenhouse last night, I came upon this image on the back wall.  Oo, oo, oo.

"Oh, my heart!" said Virginia.  "What can it be?"

She can be as silly as an 85-year old on a skate board.  It's the back-side of the shadow of a potted pomegranate tree.

Today is for Real

A few chicks chirp in the basement.  Darla, a convalescing kid, baahs from the den.  Four flats of tomato and green pepper seedlings snuggle in the dining room, protected from the last frost predicted for the next 10 days.  The usual Boxers Lex and Rosie, and Yogi, our African Gray, doze elsewhere on the first floor.  That's pretty much it for springtime in the farmhouse, not counting 2 humans and a temporarily still collection of stink, elder and lady bugs. 

After planning for several weeks off, this smug gardener spent most of this week inside, having last Friday downloaded an unexpected 330 pages of regulatory gobbledygook from the Federal Reserve. Smug, because his spring garden is almost complete and nicely thriving.  Every morning my cup and I wander around to spot what's new.  All of this would be almost impossible if I had to rush to an 8-6 job.  I'm thankful for the flexibility and glad to be done with the gobbledygook.

Of course, work waits to be done.  I sweated 4 hours last weekend to coat a corner of the field garden with cardboard, newspapers and a few inches of top soil, quite pleased with myself until I looked out my second story office window.  Through binoculars, all that effort looks like a postage stamp.

"Bit by bit," says Virginia.  "That's how anything worth doing gets done."

She's right.  I'll stick with it.  Two months from now, with skill and bit of luck, that postage stamp will have turned into 10,000 square feet ready for planting corn, pumpkins, squash and grains for the animals and hopefully not the deer and groundhogs that tend to chew masterpieces into disappointment. 

The almost empty greenhouse waits for ideas, a syllabus for a fall class deserves attention, and....

"Tomorrow," says Virginia.  "Some things can wait for tomorrow." 

Yeh, I think I'll go see if any more chicks are hatching.

Sign Language

Around here, St. Patrick's Day, March 17, is the day to plant potatoes.  That was not to be this year because we had so much rain.  So, two days late,  I planted Kennebecs, Pontiacs, Yukon Golds, Blues, Russets and Cobblers.  Sounds traditional, I know.  I failed to order fingerlings and can't find them locally, which is just as well because my spring garden is pretty packed.

Two days in the 70s took my greenhouse up to 110.  Fortunately, I remembered to open the "windows," so temps promptly fell into the 80s.  I felt for the brassicas.  They couldn't have delighted in the high degrees, so today I freed all but 14 of them.  Finding space for them -- broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage -- was a challenge, since I must save room for the early summer things in May, such as green beans, cucumbers and tomatoes.  For fun, I stuck a few cauliflowers in the bare spots of a winter wheat garden.  I wonder what cauliflower bread tastes like.  If anyone nearby wants any of the suffering 14, come and get 'em.

Neighbors Kenny and Karen stopped by and accepted a tour of the greenhouse and gardens.  Kenny said his father always called Mrs. Watkins down in the valley to find out when to plant because she knew the signs -- the moon, the stars.  She's still there.  I should call her.  That reminds me of a doctor we met who said folks out our way do "crazy" things, such as plant by the signs.  She also said ambulances don't go to our part of the county, although it seems as though we hear sirens every other day as lights flash past our farm.

"Who should we believe?" asks Virginia.

Who indeed?  Most of the peas are up, onions have started poking through, spinach and lettuce are progressing nicely, and today the fava beans popped up.  I'm still waiting for the parsnips and beets.  Reminders of last year are thriving, including garlic, onions, parsnips, kale, arugula, fruit tree blossoms, and of course, strawberries.  Any day now, we might find one of the earliest of delicacies on our table -- asparagus.

Fence Gates and Spring Gardens

Seventeen hand-dug post holes per day for three days were included in my weekly report a couple weeks ago.  Here's a gate Karen made for the fence that's now nearly finished.

"What's this about a weekly report?" asks Virginia.

Just kidding, but remembering my time at Citicorp, when by noon each Friday I had to submit a report to my boss on the amazing things my staff and I had accomplished during the prior week.  My boss had to do the same to his boss, up the ladder to John Reed, the company's chairman.  Follow the weekly report trail and you could determine "how many down" you were from Reed -- "two-down," "three-down," etc.  The lower the number, the more important, right?  Eventually, age or experience persuades most of us how unimportant each of us really is -- to the world or universe as a whole -- and how important we are to ourselves (get sick and observe your default mode).

The spinach I planted February 16 looks like this.

Compare that to the spinach planted last Fall, which is ready to join a salad or stir fry.

Speaking of the past, check out this parsnip planted last year.

Here's some oak leaf lettuce planted February 19,

 and some of its brothers and sisters in the greenhouse.

Stretching things a little further, take a look at future super sugar snap peas of Elk Cliff, planted March 5, 2011.

"How thrilling," Virginia mutters.

No, I didn't soak them overnight or "inoculate" them, which seems like too much trouble.  They'll get soaked by the rain we're expecting.

Spring Garden Shots

In case yesterday's written description of our spring things left something to be desired, consider a few pictures that might be worth a hundred words.

First, the four-fifths finished fence of Elk Cliff Farm.  The plastic-covered pile contains the poplar rails we hope will disguise the 4x4 goat wire.

The prime purpose of the fence is to separate the garden beds from these guys.  By the way, we're expecting a few dozen more in a month or so.

Before we go behind the new fence, here's a shot of what we call the "field garden," which is found in our field across the James River Road.  I mowed it today and covered the southwest corner with black groundcloths and a green tarp to kill the Johnsongrass.  I plan to rotate the cover across the garden, where I want to plant sweet corn, sorghum, and grain for the animals.

 

Now, through the new fence into the middle of the greenhouse, 6 varieties of lettuce in this bed are close to table-ready.

"Where is this bed?" asks Virginia, as if she doesn't know.  She's always thinking of others.  As I said, in the middle of the greenhouse.  My tomato flats with no sprouts yet sit on the lowest shelf, while broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage seedlings stand above at attention, anxiously awaiting their march to the outdoor garden.  The lettuces grow underneath these shelves.

  

Here's one of our winter wheat gardens, next year's flour.

More rows, garlic this time.

"Won't you please pick me this year?"  A few of last year's onions inquire.

 

Lettuce grows in a cold frame.

Shall we say goodbye to this year's maple syrup season?  For how we prepared our 3 gallons of syrup, please visit Karen's blog, "Maple Syrup Take Two," at http://holesinmyjeans-kpannabecker.blogspot.com/2011/02/maple-syrup-take-two.html.  

Manure-Heated Greenhouse

Our outside thermometer read 22 degrees early this morning, while the greenhouse temperature was 30 degrees.  The big compost bin may be working!  It steams slightly, more when I turn it with a shovel.  Now, at 10:30, under cloudy skies, the gray sky has warmed the outside temp to 28 and the greenhouse to 45.

"So what's next?" says Virginia.

Several things come to mind:

1.  I may insert black plastic drainpipes with the hope that they'll bring more of the heat directly into the air.  As it stands now, the outer layers might be serving as insulation, keeping the heat in.  Any chemists out there with suggestions?

2.  I'll place some wooden slats across the top of the compost bin, and on top of them put seed-starting flats.  I resisted the urge to order a few heating pads to place under seed flats, because I want to keep this project free of traditional energy usage. The compost bin may serve the same function as the heaters.

3.  I should completely fill the bin.  I suspect the more mass, the more effective it will be.

4.  I may add another bin or bins to the greenhouse.

5.  Several commenters on other blogs expressed concern about the compost burning the place down.  A couple years ago wood chip mulch started a fire in nearby Lexington.  I doubt this will be an issue with the moist manure mix I'm using, so long as I keep the straw and other carbon elements well distributed, but I'm keeping an eye on the possibility.  Perhaps I should find a thermometer with a probe that measures the highest heat in the pile.

"What's that white stuff?" says Virginia.  "Looks like tinder to me."

She's right.  I emptied our paper shredder this morning and failed to turn it in well.

6.  For next winter, I want to consider a solar heater of some sort, with solar panels.

7.  It's about time to get seeds started -- for broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, and other early spring feeders.

8.  Eight varieties of lettuce, two types of broccoli, and some cabbage have sprouted in the two raised beds.  They're growing very slowly in the cool temps.  I wish I'd planted them earlier, but there was no greenhouse earlier.

You may need to click on the photo to see a couple rows of tiny lettuces.

Above you'll see some broccoli.

If anyone has experience with manure-heating, please don't hesitate to comment.  If you have trouble getting Blogspot to accept the comment, try the anonymous option.

Nosey Neighbors

"Your greenhouse sure is empty," says Virginia.  "Why don't you fill it with pots and get started?  Stick a heater in if a night's going to be too cold?"

I don't want to use a heater, which might not only be expensive but might burn the place down.

"What's the point, then, for having it?" she says.  "You could set up a hydroponic garden and grow tilapia or perch in the water."

Patience, patience.  Some day that may happen.  Remember, the greenhouse arrived at the end of Fall.  I didn't have a chance to get things going this season.

"Oh, come on," she says. "You've managed to finish a bunch of book updates, run hundreds of miles, practice piano for a couple concerts, and write a few poems.  Certainly you could have devoted some time to the greenhouse."

Yeah, well, get off my back.  You're probably feeling neglected yourself, like the woman who says our donkey's too thin.  Go ahead, sick the greenhouse protection society on me.

(Some people need to listen instead of talk so much.)

Lettuce Sprouts and Greenhouse Heat

"You should have posted photos yesterday," says Virginia.

 There's still time.  Here's some baby lettuce.

Here's where the lettuce is planted:

I set up two of these beds side-by-side in the center of the greenhouse.

I'm blaming a cough and a cold for the fact that the compost bin isn't full yet.  When it's full, it may be steaming....

I haven't put all my eggs in one basket.  I'm also using some water storage, hoping it helps regulate temperatures.  Here are two walls of water, donated by Susan, one wrapped in black.

Tomorrow

Little rows of tiny green plants reach toward the plastic roof of my greenhouse, jeering at my absence of faith.  It's too early to discount the possibility of miscarriages, but we just might be picking lettuce near the end of January.

"How's the compost bin?" says Virginia.

I still have high hopes for the warming effect of the compost and manure cage, but I'd better not forget to soak it now and then, as I did until a week ago.  All it was doing was drying out, snow everywhere and none inside the box, the christening of an indoor gardener.  I'm sure Will Allen, the man who said he uses manure in each corner of his 100-foot "Growing Power" greenhouses in Milwaukee, figured others would be smart enough to remember it rarely rains inside most greenhouses.  For more on manure-heated greenhouses, check out http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/strucs/msg1015481727287.html.

Note the naysayer who says "if manure worked, commercial greenhouses would use it," implying it doesn't work.  Nonsense.  White roofs help keep cities cooler, but painting roofs white has only recently begun to catch on.  Others say that before modern heaters, commercial greenhouses used "HM" (horse manure).  How did they do it?  We'll find out, and we'll do it better.  We're going to rediscover all sorts of things in the next 10 years -- despite the efforts of firms over-invested in products they want us to wastefully consume, such as oil heaters for greenhouses and black shingles.  More and more people are going to raise their own chickens and goats, gather eggs and make their own cheese.  Bet on it!

Day of Hellgate

Weather predictions anticipate a pretty day tomorrow, real feel at midnight of 25 degrees, gradually rising to 46, with a high chance of rain late in the day after Hellgate is over.  According to David Horton, the race director, the southern section of the Blue Ridge Parkway is likely to remain closed because of 2 inches of packed snow at the high elevations (aid stations 2, 3 and 4).  Maybe the conditions will be almost perfect, except for the risks presented by snow and ice.   Perhaps the melt queen will slip in and clear all that away, please do, dear.

Karen provided an awesome dinner last night, with salad and calzones, preceded by 3 cheeses courtesy of our goats and her hand-made rosemary crackers, all shared by a few friends who kindly asked a few questions about running 66 miles.  As it turned out, at least two of our guests hold record "firsts."  When I asked if they were in the Guinness Book of World Records, they suggested that firsts don't get into that book -- what get in are the successes in beating the firsts.  Bob and a colleague were the first to spend 24 hours underwater below 7 feet of Arctic ice.  Bob and Gerri and a friend were the first to spend 7 days at full nitrogen saturation 50 feet underwater.  Dennis took multi-month bicycle rides by himself, traveling up to 120 miles per day. No one accused anyone of being crazy. 

All boded well for a rich sleep, which ended at 9 this morning and may complicate my hopes for a couple good naps before midnight.  I hunted down an old blue Citicorp gym bag and filled it with things this runner might want after the sun rises -- shoes, clothes and a pair of new contacts.  Called a "drop bag," the Hellgate volunteers will make it available at aid stations 4 (Mile 22: Headforemost Mountain) and 7 (Mile 43: Bearwallow Gap).  I'll rely on the 9 aid stations for food and water refills.  According to the race director, the first aid station open to "crews" (i.e., friends of runners who want to offer support) will be aid station 5 (Mile 28: Jennings Creek) -- unless the Forest Service reopens that portion of the Parkway.  A forest ranger said the Parkway may be opened south of Bearwallow Gap (Mile 43: aid station 7).  So, crews might as well sleep in and forget about driving around in the dark.

Karen called me out to the greenhouse, thinking I might like a diversion from whatever I'm thinking about.  "Hmmm, what could that be?" asks Virginia.  She's adding fuel to my hoped-for greenhouse heater, the compost/manure bin, which so far I don't think has raised the temperature very much.  I should get a thermometer with a probe and figure out what's happening under that pile of crap.

See, her ploy worked.  Now I get to label this blog posting "Gardening" and "Greenhouse" as well as "Running" and "Hellgate."

What the Law and Gardening Have in Common

The last couple days have done a number on the arugula.  I should have covered it with a little hoop house.  Mark it up as another gardening lesson.  I can read all sorts of stuff about gardening, but it doesn't sink in until a live, visual, and tactile memory accompanies my recollection of the written word.  Here's a secret:  don't tell the wilted arugula, but if it had been a thriving colony of buttercrunch lettuce, it would have been hooped or cold-framed.

Every day I wander out to the greenhouse for two reasons.  One, to see what the thermometer says early in the morning.  This morning I tapped it in disbelief.  Sixty degrees (F)?  Two, to see what's happened in the raised bed I planted late last week.  I keep imagining a few little green leaves.  Oh, a third reason lately has been to retrieve the stapler to refasten the yellow plastic fence that keeps getting dislodged by our ambitious winds.  Karen informed me this morning that one whole side had blown off the winter wheat garden around the older greenhouse, the one the chickens love to visit.  A hundred feet away, sheltered by hundred-plus-year-old American boxwoods, my more expansive wheat planting is proving much more successful, knock on wood.

Other than trips to the woodshed and mailbox, that's been about it for outdoor recreation this week.  Resting before a "race" is like trying to resist a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies. To keep my mind cluttered with other things, I'm wending my way through court decisions and helping Virginia grow up.

Today I came across a robo-signer opinion by Judge Arthur Shack of New York, sort of a hero of mine.  If you've been following the foreclosure crisis, you've probably heard of robo-signers, a vocabulary word invented this year to refer to the people hired by mortgage servicers to sign 750 or more loans' worth of mortgage-related documents per day, certifying their accuracy in 30 seconds (about enough time for me to grab a stack and sign one "J").  Speed-reading is not an employment requirement.  In this case, the judge was very frustrated with Ms. Johnson-Seck, her employer (OneWest), and the handful, maybe more, of firms that supposedly had endowed her with the authority to sign their names.  Embarrassed by nationwide publicity, OneWest asked the court to allow the withdrawal of its request for an order of reference (to allow foreclosure).  Judge Shack granted the request, but went a bit further than OneWest wanted -- dismissing the entire case while allowing renewal of the request for an order of reference within 90 days ONLY IF: (1) Ms. Johnson-Seck explained how she happened to be a "vice president" of 4 or 5 different firms; (2) OneWest provided proof of authority from the original lender to MERS (Mortgage Electronic Registration System, Inc.) to IndyMac to OneWest; and (3) OneWest's attorney provided an affirmation that he had personally reviewed the documents and records and confirmed their factual accuracy and the notarizations on the documents.  I imagine that's a tougher row to hoe than a few miles of winter wheat.

Greenhouse Compost

My cross-training for Hellgate continued today with a short (6-mile) run followed by composting.  I finished building the compost box for the greenhouse yesterday, after Karen helped the day before.  Here it sits like an altar at the far end of the greenhouse.

If you were sitting in the compost, here's what you might see.

Or lying down, looking up.

Today I covered the walls with plastic and made our first deposits.

"I'd say that's enough about goat poop," says Virginia. "What ever happened to that wheat you planted?"

I thought she'd never ask about our November babies, the green tinge in this photo.

Here's a close-up.  Aren't they just the sweetest ever?

Finally, here's a photo for my mother and anyone else who's been wondering exactly where we put the new greenhouse.