New home

I may post a few more garden pics here, but I've moved on to my own house, not a rental. I will miss some things at the old schoolhouse (views) and I am happy to leave others (mouse and insect-infested walls). Here are some new views of plants at the new place. Everything is on the very long deck right now- it will take some time to make a real garden plot here.

My sunflowers finally bloomed. These are some cherry-colored ones, only a few feet tall.

The 5-color pepper finally decided to move on from mono-purple coloration. These are great plants- pretty tough, and very colorful. They say the peppers are quite HOT- I may dry some and try them in stir-fry.

Basil mania- I have regular basil and fancy purple ruffle basil, grown from seed. Some of the purple basil is sort of green and flecked with purple, and not that ruffly at all. But it all seems to taste the same.

Tomato, tomato!

I have too many tomatoes to keep count. I expected this year to be like last year- there were many storms last year in July and August, and most of my tomatoes and plants were destroyed by hail and wind. So, expecting this to happen again this year, I planted more tomato plants. But the storms and hail haven't shown up. So instead, I've ended up with this:

And this:

And today, THIS:

Yes, something like 20 pounds of tomatoes ripening in 4 days. I already made like 12 cups of tomato sauce and dried hundreds of cherry tomatoes; I'm going to have to find more tomato products to create.

Zucchini experiment

I tried dehydrating zucchini slices using various flavorings: salt and vinegar, miso dressing, and soy sauce.

They still taste like zucchini. However, I think dehydration is a good method of storage, and it would be easy to throw some of these into soup or a stir fry.

Red tomatoes!

Two of the cherry tomato plants now have ripening tomatoes:


Amazingly enough, I actually have a few little pickling cucumbers growing from the vines that were almost completely eaten to the ground when I got back from Ireland:

Visions of green...

..tomatoes. I planted four varieties this year, and all have tomatoes growing on them now. They are:
Brandywine:


Sweet 100's cherry tomatoes:


Classic romas:


And the potentially bizarre-looking Black Sea Man, which is supposed to end up black on the outside and vibrant pink and green on the inside. Right now, just a normal green color:

Scary, awesome things

First, a cool picture of a nuclear-explosion-looking thunderhead forming on the other side of the Valley:

So, not to alarm anyone, but I found this in the "back plot" - my equivalent of a garden junkyard:

Yes, that is a ZUCCHINI. Already. Still small, only 3 inches long, but come back tomorrow and see how big it's grown....
I actually have 5 zucchini plants in the back plot. I don't even remember leaving that many behind when I left in May. They are thriving on total neglect- I left them, unwatered and unweeded, for a month, and they are going crazy. This just supports my hypothesis that in the event of an apocalypse we (at least in Virginia) could survive on zucchini alone. Of course, we may not want to- I only enjoy eating zucchini if it is disguised in other food (bread, deep fried, even cookies?).

Rollin Hay

Hay is being rolled up in fields everywhere around here- it was already cut and drying when I get back. This week the guys rolled it and immediately moved it. This was taken the one day they left it sitting in the field. No messing around this year.

It seemed like the hay is ready earlier this year. I went back and checked the blog for 08- my hay-making post was at the beginning of July. So, indeed, the grass is growing a little faster this year, probably because of all the rain.

Back from Ireland

So, I am finally back from my travels to Ireland and elsewhere. I have been gone for almost a month, and was pretty convinced that my groundhog and bunny neighbors would have eaten the entire garden by now. But, actually, most things were relatively fine (except for the lettuce, which looks like everyone insect and mammal had their fill- which is ok, because it must be bitter by now anyway).

The plants on the porch made it through just fine, even without an irrigation system. It apparently rained almost every day for several weeks. But, unlike last year, it was warm enough to keep the tomatoes from getting seriously messed up from blight and mildew.



The bean and pea side of the garden looks like a field of grass. There are actually beans in there. The peas never made it very far, because it got too warm and also because they are tasty to animals.


The tomatoes and onions are doing pretty well.


I have been slowly pulling the weeds and grass out of the garden. The "back plot" tomatoes and zukes also made it through the absence. Other, less durable plants back there (cukes, eggplant, extra peppers) did not.

Waterlogged

It's been raining. A lot. I put the seedlings out over the weekend, thinking they would be better off outside, where it might rain and keep the peat pots from drying out. They sure didn't dry out:

This is supposed to be a tray of basil plants. The tray was completely full of water when I got home. This is after the next shower, later in the afternoon. Then more rain came along and filled up the trays again, so I had to drain them out a second time.
The grass and weeds are going insane. Can't cut them until it dries up and warms up!
The good news is that three broccoli plants survived, and actually seem to enjoy the soggy conditions.

Veggies are growing

I actually started growing cabbage, broccoli (another disastrous attempt- all eaten), garlic, lettuce, radishes, and spinach outside before the garden was even completely put together.

Garlic from Ron got planted in the new bed next to the cinderblock shed:


Some cabbage, spinach, the three remaining broccoli plants, and tiny, tiny radishes on the back porch:


Other things are doing well inside. I have a good number of tomatoes and peppers going right now. My experience last year was that many of these aren't going to make it because of disease, insects, and hail, so I'm trying to grow at least as twice as many as I think I actually want.

Garden Progress

So, the garden is finally "constructed"- or at least the main section of the garden is now mulched, irrigated, and fenced.

I merged two of the six planting squares in the hopes that it will be easier to grow peas and beans:


Newspaper goes under the cinderblock walls to keep some of the grass from encroaching into the garden:


The garden today, with the fence almost done. I put deer netting up again, but only at half height. Seems like the rabbits are much more of a problem than deer!


Here's what it looked like in February:

Changing seasons

It's been a while since I posted anything here, so I figure I'll just do a compare and contrast between winter and spring. Actually, there always seems to be very little middle ground here- we swing back and forth between hot and cold in the spring.

For example, here's the thermometer today, just before noon:


And here's the thermometer about a month ago (note that I did not care to go outside to take the picture!):


Here's a view from March:


And from February:


And here's what the view looked like in early April:


Of course, we are still getting occasional frosts at night. Here are some super-cool ice crystals which appeared overnight on the trunk of my car last week:

Maple Festival in March

Every March, Highland County, VA, has a maple festival.
http://www.highlandcounty.org/maple.htm
Who knew you could make maple syrup this far south? Apparently, Highland County is at a high enough elevation that sugar maples do just fine there.

At one place we visited, syrup is made the old-fashioned way by boiling in pans. The steam from the boiling process exits through vents in the roof:



Other places use more modern methods (reverse osmosis).

Here's the old-fashioned way of collecting sap from the sugar maples:

And the modern way (looks much less appealing to me):


A view of a grove of the maple trees. The big box at the bottom of the hill is where they collect the sap using the modern method of tubes- the whole systems is gravity-fed.