Work log: Every Friday

May as well start a routine.  This will be every Friday.  Soon I'll be able to drive on the driveable path (once the soil dries up some more), so I can start covering the chopped branches.

Mustang poop pickup and unloading.

Bring in and move around wood.

Work log: Compost pits

Finally!!  My neighbors wanna give me their yard waste, so that lit a fire under my ass.

I built these yesterday (April 12th, 2020).  I had to level the ground with a pick-ax.  That's my new favorite tool!!  You can do anything with it!  Forget grub hoes.

I used all the terracing block we had left from.the previous owner in odd spots.  Thank goodness we had it.

A couple months ago, I treated all of the pallets with raw linseed oil.  They look like they'll last a while.

I anticipate runoff through the holes in the blocks so I put a verticle layer of rotted wood chips between the blocks and the soil.  That has worked well in the wood terraces.  Once roots colonize the wood chips, that should stop most runoff.

Smashed my finger, though.  It's purple and puffy now.

In carving out some soil, I got some good pics of the clay and silt layers under the 4" of soil.

I also found 2 sprouted walnut seedlings and moved them near to the other walnut sapling next to the A/C unit.  Thank you, squirrels!!

Wow!  What a great start!  The neighbors dropped this off.

Seed Comparison: Peppers and Eggplant

Hmm.  Sown on 3/6 (the 6-cell closest to the orange tags), 3/12, and today (3/20).

The Renee's Garden seed is the best, and it's a year old.  The Burbee is doing the poorest.  Nothing from the Burpee hot pepper mix.  

Caveat, I don't know which end gets the most heat/sun in the bathroom skylight.  Should've made note of that.  The biggest sprout is corkscrewed so I've probably rotated the tray.

Sown: My First Flat

On 3/6/2020, I filled a flat of many many small cells, mostly with super small seeds.  I've never done this before, and boy, did I make a mistake.  I must've put too many seeds in.  

What do I do?  I need to look up when it's safe to "prick them out" and repot them.  The row of peas has one shoot coming out, and a ton of spilled seeds.  :)  

I think I'll fill the other tiny-cell tray with the composted horse manure and try this again with the same seeds.  I've kept them sorted into the sets that I've planted, including the peas and beans I sowed outside.

Sown: Peppers and Eggplant

In the top-floor bathroom skylight, the temperature gets pretty high.  If the sun is out, it can get above 90 degrees F.

On 3/8/2020, I sowed seeds in one 6-block for each of the seeds, and then again today in the second 6-block (3/12/2020).  

On 3/10, I pulled them down to check on the moisture, and my hand slipped.  This is after half of the mess was cleaned up.  :(

I really need to make my pulley system.

I'm worried about the compost I'm using from Bailey's (less than 2 miles away).  They double-ferment and double-screen it.  It should be top-quality stuff.  But there are so few worms.  And look at the tar-like substance that's left on your fingers after messing with it.  What is that?!?

Here's how they look on 3/20.  Not so good.  

Gonna get some more Renee's pepper seed if I can.

Sown: Beets, Brassicas, Micro-Tomatoes

March 12th:  Well, I missed the full moon by 3 days.  We'll see how these do.

I put them above the sink.  

These are sown in composted mustang manure from Catherine's.  I sprinkled mychorrhizals in with the seeds.

So, I know planting by moon phases is one theory.  There's also how close the moon is to our position on the earth.  Gotta look that up.

March 20th:  Wow!!  The biggest sprout is a... mushroom!!  But seriously, the sprouts are pretty uniform.  The water in the collection tray reeks!!  I rinsed it out, watered the cells, and left the dome on for another day.

Work log: Terraces and first annual bed

Too worn out to type much.  Our lawn guy helped me with the beds and terraces.  He's got the endurance of Superman.  Looking good!  Gonna sow something soon.

Update: April 2nd.

Finally all the wood is placed!!  Does it not look wayyy better?!  

Next, I need to lay the cardboard and fill in the next row of planting beds.  

Also, I want to come up with a solution to the slug-attracting problem of exposed wood.  Spraying nematodes might work, but I think I want to cover them with burlap or a thick layer of coir so I can sow ground cover into it.

Seeding Trees with Usnea

Usnea (Old Man's Beard) lichen is so medicinal.  Last fall, I happened upon tons of little clumps on some wood chips at a park.

I stored them in an open Ziploc bag with some moisture for a couple days.  Then I took each clump, found the little piece of bark that had been its attachment point, and tucked it under cracks in the bark of 3 crabapple trees that had no usnea but which had a moss and another 2 lichen species.  Now, this spring, I've seen usnea in little clumps all through those trees, even in spots where I hadn't tucked it in!!  It's as if one or two of the 3 parts that makes a lichen was already in the tree, and the usnea brought in the missing part(s)!

I'm going to do it again, because I pruned those trees and now I think they'll let too much light in.  Plus a lot of Usnea came out on the prunings.  :(

Troubleshooting: Rotting tree collards

It is so important to me that I can get perennial kale or spinach or tree collards growing.  Perennially growing food of any kind contributes to a community's sense of food security.

The best cultivar of perennial kale/collards/spinach would be Taunton Deane perennial kale, because it's frost hardy, and it survives the winter beautifully.  In fact, it tastes sweeter after a frost.  However, Taunton Deane appears to be prohibited here in our very capitalist, disposable-oriented, cycling-GNP country. :(  So I was stuck with what I could get, which were 2 green and 2 purple cuttings from the Tree Collard Project.  (An excellent organization, worthy of donations, btw.)

Well, I potted my 4 healthy cuttings on Dec 14th.  But last week (9 weeks after potting), I noticed the purple ones wilting and curling.  I tugged on them.  They came out easily--there were no roots!  The ends were rotting, and one was even hollow and squishy at the rotting end.  

Instead of throwing them out, I thought I'd try and save them.  I cut off the rot.  The new ends don't look great, but we'll see.  The one on the left was hard to cut through, and the end looks like I should perhaps cut it shorter to get beyond the rotting... cambium(?).  I wish I knew if you're supposed to do a nodal cutting, internodal cutting, or cut through a node.  

I stuck them in water even though I'm pretty sure they rotted because of soggy, oxygen-deprived contitions in the soil.  Hope they root.  I read that it's possible for them to root in water.  They're too short to do well in soil, so it's a fair gamble.

I tugged on the green ones in their pots but they seem to resist, as if there are some roots already, so they might be doing well.

One of the green ons shared a pot with a purple one so... maybe the problem was that the purple ones didn't like the soil?  Or they're more finicky than the green?  Conundrummed!!

I finally watched this video, and now I think the problem was a combination of too soggy, too little oxygen in the soil, and too cold.

She keeps saying how easy they are to propagate, which is like a knife in my heart each time.  >>>:(

Hmm.  I wonder if the local food bank has a location to grow these.  I'm gonna find out.

Update: March 2nd--the purple cuttings off of which I cut the rotting ends did not survive.  :(  the green ones are still doing well.

Solution! Seed starting location

I've been feeling the pressure to start seeds in flats.  I had set up a rolling rack on the covered porch, but it's freaking cold out there.  Plus the cats get through my clear plastic sides.  I had considered setting it up in my basement office, but I'd still need warming pads, and I'd have to clean up and rearrange everything.  I thought of putting them outside under row covers, and, well, maybe.  Still might be too cold, but it would solve the light problem (if you grow your seedlings indoors in a window, they lean towards the light and are spindly from too few hours of light).  If I grow them in my office I need more lights.
So with all this in mind (need more light, top-down light, warmth, cat-proof, I looked at our skylights today and realized they were prime real estate!!
Voila!  Using the 3M Command Velcro Picture Hangers (18 pound capacity), I scavenged around the garage and found angle brackets, T brackets, and wood, and set up shelf space enough for 4 flats.  I have a third skylight in the same location, and 2 each in 2 other locations (though one location might be wayyy too hot).  Total number of possible flats: 14!!  I'll just start with the 4 to see if it works.  Next year, I might try a design with a pulley system.  :D

Update: April 16th, 2020.  There's moisture showing up in one of the three skylights.  We think it's because there are 2 trays, so a LOT of water to evaporate.  I'll have to fix that.

Work log: Terrace and piles of branches

Today, our lawn guy came by to help.  He was amazing!!  He took my chainsaw and his machete and demolished ALL of the piles of branches so that they're in smaller pieces and flattened.  They're ready to spread a little and then start dumping on the raw horse manure (to make them break down faster by balancing the carbon to nitrogen ratio).
While he did that, I worked on the last terrace row (marking it with wood), tidied up, laid out cardboard, and started dumping barrows of compost on the top-most terrace.  I need it to be ready SOON!!  It's gonna be my first annual veg bed.  At the ends, I have 2 thornless blackberry, and will have a bunch of sunchokes (both perennials).  I wanna do that to cap the ends.  Once I get some perennial kales, I'll put them there too.  I also need a nursery bed for all of my cuttings, but that can be any material (even raw manure), but deep enough for the pots.
I recently discovered that I could drive to the local compost maker (1 mile away), have them fill my trailer for $20, and bring it home to dump it at the top of the slope.  It's laborious to unload it, and even more so to haul barrows to the beds, but MAN!  It certainly is less labor-intensive than manually loading the trailer at the horse property (where I can't even park the trailer next to the compost bins--I have to toss shovel-fulls over a fence).
Here's a pic of the results of today.  It looks SO TIDY and like it's coming together!!!

This is the 4th redesign of the terraces, and you know what?  It was worth it.  They're starting to look amazing.
I hope our lawn guy can come back and help soon.  And maybe help with getting all of the horse poop.  I want to rent a dump trailer and try to get all of the horse poop in one day, and perhaps even a couple loads of compost from the local maker.  The compost makers double-cook their compost (hot then warm) and double-sieve.  It's at least a year old by the time they sell it.  They're awesome.  So if I could get a dump trailer for a day, I could get one or two loads of compost without using any physical labor to get it to the top of the hill.  The only labor would be in loading it at the horse property.  I'm trying to convince the owner to dismantle a section of the fence so that we can get the trailer close.  I don't think she can picture what I'm saying, so I'll see her on the weekend to explain it better.