Spring Projects

Yikes! Spring has sprung here and that means we now have a seemingly endless list of projects to keep us busy.

Here's a quick rundown of projects completed within the last six weeks or so...

The grey is the base aluminum of the roof, which is approximately 100 sq. ft. in size.

TMOTH spent many hours sanding off, and then repainting, the roof of the camper.

Hopefully this roof rehab fixed the leaks in the camper roof.

There was the original 1978 finish on the roof, plus at least one other paint layer - not to mention the gloppy piles of caulking in areas. The smell from the sanding was absolutely horrible (the roof dust, not so much TMOTH) but the finished product is quite nice.


I've started several rounds of seeds and currently have some lettuce, radishes, spinach, kale, and mesclun popping up in the garden. I'm waiting for the carrot and beets to sprout.


I'm working on a series of screens to lean over the herb garden to keep the chickens out. I'm using a very simple approach of PVC pipes and wildlife netting. The chickens think it is great to dust-bath next to the lavender and oregano. For some reason, I think differently.

Finally, TMOTH constructed a very nice cold frame. I'd been missing the greenhouse from the old house, and we have a perfect location for a cold frame on the south side of the current house.

The cold-frame site.

We bought a series of windows from a local resale shop for $6 and had enough scrap wood laying around for the job.

Mid-construction.

A few hinges and such from the hardware store and TMOTH built a fabulous cold-frame for under $30.

The finished product: chicken-approved.

We still have plenty of spring projects on our list. The asparagus and strawberries are on their way, so beds need to be prepared for them. Plus the chicken coop needs a new roof and there's more seeds to sprout and...

Well, there will be plenty of topics for future posts.

--Rational Mama

Garden Review

Well, it's not last year's Victory Garden, but our first garden at the new homestead is in the ground and thriving.

It's a new experience for me to have plenty of space for the vegetable garden; in the past I've had to creatively cram plants into tiny spaces with sometimes questionable amounts of sunlight.

But this year is different. The established garden area is roughly 20' x 12' in dimension, with room to grow. With all the craziness this spring with the move and we such we stuck to the established area this year and planted the following:

12 tomato plants (mix of paste, cherry and standards)
2 pepper plants
2 eggplants
2 zucchini (1 yellow, 1 green)
5 okra plants
4 cucumber mounds (2 picking, 2 regular)
1 cantaloupe
1 watermelon

I missed the window on cool-weather crops, so there's no lettuce, spinach, radishes or broccoli this summer. Hopefully I can have time to plant those for a fall harvest.

Additionally, I hijacked the flower bed in front of the house for herbs and planted the following:

4 basil
2 oregano
1 dill
1 cilantro
1 parsley
2 sage
2 mints (in pots)
6 lavender

Those of you who know me well will recognize what amazing self-restraint I'm showing by only planting four basil!

TMOTH planted a row of blackberry starts in early spring and we now have 10 that are thriving and will produce fruit this year. He's also planted roughly 60 sunflower seeds.

There are grand plans to convert the back half-acre to an organized, multi-plot garden area, but that is years in the future. In the meantime, I think we've have a nice start, especially when you add in the strawberries and mulberry tree!

--Rational Mama

Spider-man + Strawberry Shortcake = Nom Nom

(Apologies for the gap in posting...that's what happens when life gets too crazy and your camera memory is full and once you just suck it up and finally buy a new memory chip for the camera because you're not going to get around to printing all those old pics the camera battery completely dies and you have no idea which unpacked box holds the charger...)

So what do you get when you cross one of Marvel comics' leading men, an early 80's children's cartoon, and a symbol of the 1960's Pan-Indian movement? You get this:

One part Spider-man, one part dream catcher, three parts awesome.
(Thanks to the lovely L.P. for the photo!)

One of the really cool things we acquired with the new house is a strawberry patch located between the house and the chicken coop. It is approximately six feet by nine feet in dimension.

I've been interested in growing strawberries before, but we never had enough space to devote to this spreading perennial. So this spring was my first journey into strawberries wrangling, and I admit that my berry knowledge is pretty slim. I had read about problems with birds stealing ripe fruit, so I asked my country-wise coworker if netting was the solution. She replied that netting could be a nuisance because it must be removed and reinstalled every time you pick berries and the netting can become clogged with soggy leaves. She recommended a stick-and-string method that sounded like a cross between Spider-man and a dream-catcher gone wrong.

On a nice April afternoon Sissy and I headed out to the strawberry patch with 30 sticks (each approximately 10 inches long) and two spools of white utility string. We evenly space the sticks around the patch and then began wrapping the string around the sticks as we crisscrossed over the patch. According to my coworker, birds won't bother the strawberries because of the risk of getting their wings stuck in the strings. But, unlike netting, the strings don't have to be removed to pick the berries.

The above photo is of the patch approximately 1 1/2 weeks after we busted out our mad macrame skills.

The girls were concerned that the plants would grow up and over the string, thus voiding any protection from the Spidey-catcher-thingy. I was hopeful that since the plants were putting on fruit when we made the string structure that they would focus their energy on growing fruit, rather than growing taller plants.

Here's what the patch looks like today:

Can't you just feel the three parts awesome?

It's a bit more overgrown than I expected, but has it worked? The first ripened strawberries started glowing red a little over a week ago and I have not yet observed any birds in the strawberry patch, so that's very encouraging. Every few days we go out and pick the strawberries and up until a few days ago we'd only be getting a small handful each time.

But recently we started getting this:

My hands are really the size of Canadian loonies, so those are some giant strawberries. Or not.

That's on overflowing bowl of fresh, pesticide-free, locally-grown strawberries! We've been getting a heaping bowlful every few days this week. Of course, picking the strawberries in Spider-man's dream-catcher is a bit of a masochistic game of Twister, and I'm quite thankful that our nearest neighbors are far enough away so as to not enjoy a front row seat to that dance.

I've been trying to walk the line between having enough fresh strawberries to eat and packing some away in the freezer for a future batch of jam.

Oh, and a few of the strawberries have had small critter-bites out of them...most likely from our own Mickey Mouse that isn't thwarted by String City. Those strawberries, however, are given to the chickens so nothing is wasted.

In the meantime, I'm dreaming of which strawberry jam I'll make when we have enough strawberries. Last year's delicious strawberry-ginger jam? Or something else?

Do you have a favorite strawberry jam recipe?

--Rational Mama

There is a Mole (or a Few Dozen) Among Us...

Now that the snow has cleared (and will hopefully stay away), we've been walking the grounds at the new house dreaming and scheming lots of plans for the future. We'll put apple trees there to the west, blackberries on the far side of the garage, a three-part compost system behind the garage, the bonfire pit north of the chicken coop...

The established garden plot is roughly 25 feet by 12 feet, and our intentions are to expand this plot by a good section every year. This year, however, we will limit our garden production to the established plot since we have lots of things vying for our attention (like, say, all those boxes that have yet to unpack themselves - what's up with that?).

A quick view of the garden plot shows that it's in pretty good shape except for these:

Sticking your hand inside it is a rite of passage, just like in Flash Gordon.

This is an example of the few holes present in the garden (keys are included for scale). There's less than a handful of these in the actual garden space, but there's a couple dozen just like them scattered throughout the yard. In general, the hole is roughly two inches in diameter.

TMOTH initially suggested that they were caused by moles. Like anvils and dynamite, I learned all I know about moles from cartoons. This left me with an understanding that they're as big as our miniature schnauzer, have spiky noses and sometimes wear glasses. Because of that understanding, I figured that these holes were too small to be made by moles.

I forgot to mention the shovel and overalls...

A quicky Google search revealed the error of my knowledge - moles are small! Like, rat-size small! I had no idea. According to the University of Kansas Field Station website (from which the below photo originated), what we most likely have are eastern moles. They are mostly solitary (thank goodness, I had envisioned a city of moles under our property, vis a vis The Secret of NIMH) and primarily eat grubs and earthworms.

I don't understand...where are his glasses?

From speaking with local gardeners, they are also darn near impossible to get rid of. Sigh.

Up to now the only major threats I had to protect our garden from were squirrels (acquired a dog that scared off the squirrels) and the dog (acquired a garden fence that kept the dog out). I'm not battle ready when it comes to "varmints."

Apparently, there's a multitude of really nasty and questionably effective approaches to dealing with moles (pouring boiling water down the tunnels, claw traps at tunnel openings, poison), but I'm not willing to use such options due to their inhumane aspects and the fact that children and pets will be using the yard as well. This basically leaves two options...coating their tunnel openings with Castor oil (it gets on their fur, tastes bad and might give them an upset stomach which, supposedly, makes them move on) and/or getting rid of their food source.

Since their food sources are grubs and worms, this means applying some nasty chemicals to the yard (which is definitely not our preference), or applying beneficial nematodes, which are small, specialized worms that eat the grubs. Apparently, the moles won't the nematodes, which is good because the beneficial nematodes aren't exactly cheap.

Either way we better get crakin' on this problem, since we still have to address the deer and rabbit interlopers as well.

Sigh.

--Rational Mama

Review: Of Veg and Cheese...and Java Dilemma

In the original "Of Veg and Cheese" post I outlined how, in accordance with life in the early 1940's, we would be limited to seasonably available produce during the rationing year, with the exception of canned and frozen produce which would be subject to ration points and market fluctuations.

So how did it go?

Well, last winter was tough - no bones about it. With just one pound of frozen vegetables setting us back one quarter of our weekly blue/green points, we were forced to work with seasonally available produce. This meant mostly carrots, potatoes and cabbage. And trust me, with all other green, leafy vegetables unavailable you start to appreciate cabbage on a whole new level.

Going without fresh salad for a few months definitely helped us understand how much we really love salad, even if it's as basic as a few green leaves and a simple dressing. Luckily, growing lettuce and mesclun indoors (or in a hoop frame or cold frame) is so easy we were able to get a jump start on our spring greens.

Once early summer came around we had locally grown produce available from our gardens, the farmer's market and our CSA bag. As you know, we had a hard time maintaining our Victory Gardens, and my new work schedule made visiting the farmer's market logistically tricky. And for a second year the CSA bags were a bit of a disappointment (some of the produce was actually of poor quality); I don't believe we'll do CSA bags in the future.

On the other hand, you just can't beat locally grown fruit. This past year we consumed our share of local strawberries, blackberries, apples and pears. Nothing can beat a fruit that was allowed to ripen fully before picking...and then immediately eating it. Really, I cannot downplay the physical and sensual joy of experiencing a local "u-pick" establishment.

As far as cheese goes...well, it's a staple we never want missing from the fridge. The versatility of hard cheese (snack, recipe ingredient, sandwich topper) make it a very useful, albeit rationed, resource. And thank goodness sour cream and cottage cheese weren't rationed - they have frequently been used to bulk up a sauce or soup (the former) or add protein to an otherwise light meal (the latter).

And finally, coffee. As outlined in the post "Java Dilemma," during rationing each adult received one pound of coffee every five weeks, assuming shortages didn't throw a kink into your coffee purchasing week. Both TMOTH and I increased our coffee consumption during the past year, in exchange for shrinking our soda intake. Even with that change, though, we were never in danger of running out of coffee supplies before the next ration amount could be purchased. We even had enough of a coffee surplus to, umm, be creative.

So, what of veg and cheese and coffee after rationing? We plan to continue focusing on seasonably available produce in an effort to reduce the carbon footprint of the fruits and vegetables we eat. And we'll continue to drink coffee at our current rates and avoid heavily-sugared sodas.

And cabbage...dear, sweet cabbage. You will always have a special place in our hearts...even if you're not as frequent a visitor at the table.

--Rational Mama

It's Happening...

The summer produce transition is happening.

This past Saturday we harvested the last three heads of broccoli (surprised they made it this far into summer), much basil, a cucumber, over a dozen paste tomatoes (our first tomatoes of the season) and around 25 heads of garlic.

The squash are full of flowers, the beans are climbing and the eggplants are oozing purple baby fruits.

Soon our plates will be both literally and figuratively full!

--Rational Living

You Say Potato...

I say, "Really? The year we don't plant potatoes because we failed miserably the last two years with the tire method, we get volunteer potato plants that actually make potatoes? Go figure."

We went ahead and harvested the volunteer potatoes a little early because I was concerned about them encroaching on some of the plants that we planted on purpose. It's not a huge harvest, but it will be tasty, boiled and buttered.
In other garden news, the peas are done and the broccoli is about three-quarters done. The basil harvest has begun and the garlic is starting to take on a slight yellowish tone which tells me this time next month we'll be harvesting garlic. This is good news, because I really love harvesting garlic. Really!

Several pepper plants have baby peppers on them and the first of the Malabar spinach sprouts are up - they take 21 days to germinate! I'll wait until they're a little bigger to sample a leaf.

Our friends at the Artists' Garden let us pick another generous batch of blackberries, so I'll make some more jam this weekend.

We've been able to comfortably catch up on some gardening work due to a lovely cold front that moved through the other night. Nightly lows in the mid-60s! Can't beat that!

And how is your garden, dear reader?

--Rational Mama

Garden Plans, Part II (Extremely Overdue Post)

Whew! The planning and planting of the Victory Gardens took way more energy and time (due to a very wet spring). Finally, here's the overview of what we have planted in all the various gardening spaces!

Home Base (the garden in the Rational Living Backyard)
4 tomato plants
2 eggplants
3 hills cucumbers (regular and pickling)
peas
2 pepper plants
8 basil
1 dill
2 hills (volunteer) potatoes
7 broccoli
1 cilantro
2 mint
1 parsley
Malibar spinach
lettuce/mesclun/lettuce (already harvested)
radishes (already harvested)

Artists' Garden (space space by a lovely family of local artists)
10 tomatoes
1 parsley
3 basil
2 eggplant
5 broccoli
1 summer squash
*they have also offered to share some of their cucumbers, tomatoes and blackberries

L's Garden (space donated by two sweet and fun gals)
8 tomatoes
1 dill
1 cilantro
4 broccoli
peas
2 basil
1 pepper
1 hill cucumbers
1 zucchini
1 cantaloupe
1 ice-box melon

A's Garden (another patch of donated space by a lovely family which I don't have a photograph of yet)
Enough pole beans to fill a 8' x 6' patch of brown earth

Rational In-Laws Garden (a great place for a few odds and ends)
2 tomatoes
1 pepper
1 cantaloupe

Each of the families involved has been very generous with their space. Our goal is to stay up on the needed maintenance of each garden and share a generous portion of the produce with the families in gratitude. This should prove interesting as the summer progresses.

And what have you planted, dear reader?

--Rational Mama

Volunteers for Victory Gardens Found!

Every year we have volunteers in our garden. Granted, these aren't the kind of volunteers you're probably thinking of - these are plant volunteers. Vegetables that grow either from seed dropped from the plant during the previous summer or from plants that somehow overwintered into the spring.

We always have lots of tomato volunteers - particularly cherry tomatoes. Near the end of the growing season we git a bit lazy about picking tomatoes every day and some eventually fall to the ground (or get relocated by a squirrel). Thus, the next year I pull out a dozen baby tomato plants because they never seem to volunteer where we need them.

We've also had dill grow from seed deposited during the previous year and the same is true of impatiens.

The year before last we had a wonderful pumpkin volunteer growing out of the compost bin. It must have been from one of the girls' novelty pumpkins (or been a hybrid and not bred true) - it made sweet little (five inch in diameter) pumpkins just in time for the fall holidays.

The volunteer of the year this year is a bittersweet addition.

That's a potato plant. A very healthy and happy potato plant (there's another one in a nearby corner of the garden). The last two years we tried (quite unsuccessfully) to grow potatoes. Both years we used versions of the tire-stack method and failed miserably. Initially the plants thrived but by the time we got to the third tire the plants became waterlogged and soggy, despite our attempts to increase drainage to the stack. So each year we abandoned the potatoes and removed the tires to spread out the soil.

To our great surprise, this year there are two volunteer potato plants, each in a location where a tire stack was located last year. Are they plants from the original seed potatoes planted in March 2009? Are they plants growing from maybe one or two baby potatoes that managed to grow before we removed the tires? I have no idea.

What I do know is that apparently we can't grow potatoes unless we aren't trying.

We'll mound the soil up on each plant and see how far the experiment goes this year. A few extra potatoes would be nice, especially after I just read a dozen articles from spring/summer 1943 about an impending potato shortage.

Hopefully, between our volunteers, the farmers market and such there will be no tater shortage for us!

--Rational Mama

Black and White and Green(house)

It's finally that time of year when I feel I can safely take the tender baby plantings from the protection of the greenhouse and plant them in their summer homes. The broccoli, lettuce, mesclun and radishes have been in the ground for a month or so, but the ever present threat of a late April/early May frost in Kansas, combined with the nasty hail-loving weather we've had the last week, has prevented me from planting the tomatoes, basil, peppers and other goodies that I've grown from seed in the greenhouse.

But today will be planting day!

I thought I'd give you a little black-and-white tour of the greenhouse before it's emptied of its occupants.

There's oak-leaf lettuce, ready for the picking. It was planted back in late January and harbored in the house until the temperatures of the unheated greenhouse would suffice.
There's Buddha - happy that last year's potted mint has survived the winter.
There's nearly 30 tomatoes, a dozen basil, and numerous peppers, lemon balm, coleus and such. Most are big enough to be planted straight into the ground.
Some, like the tomatoes, are more than ready - reaching up towards the sun.
There's a geranium, given to me by my supervisor on Administrative Professionals' Day (two weeks before I gave my two week notice).
And there's one tired gardener who takes care of them all.

--Rational Mama

Lettuce Rejoice and Eat Radishes!

Remember that little lettuce bed the runs along the length of the greenhouse? In late April, after we planted a few lettuce starts and seeds for more lettuce, spinach, mesclun and radishes, it looked like this:
Today, it looks like this:
Isn't nature amazing? That's some mesclun closest to the camera, then oak leaf lettuce, spinach and radishes in the back. We've been eating our own home-grown lettuce and spinach for weeks and today I harvested our first radishes.



I think radishes are like the crocuses of the vegetable world: not amazing enough to really want all year round, but as a symbol of wonderful things to come they can't be beat. They're both harbingers, of a sort.



In the meantime, though, I can't get too distracted. The heart of the summer planting season is just around the corner (if we can get a break from this nasty, windy, hail-ridden weather - another round is expected tonight and tomorrow night). A few weeks ago we had several days of near 80 degree temperatures and some of the spinach started to bolt! So as I happy as I am with the lettuce and radish bed I have to start thinking of transitioning it to its next stage. During the heart of the summer it will be home to Malabar spinach. This is the first year I've grown Malabar spinach, so we'll see how that goes.

In the meantime I'll enjoy a few more weeks of fresh lettuce, spinach and radishes and start dreaming of fresh, ripe tomatoes and cucumbers.

--Rational Mama

Batten Down the Hatches!

So what do you do when you've started your Victory Garden and you live in Tornado Alley and have two hours to prepare for a storm heading your way that has a history of producing tornadoes, 60 mph winds and tennis-ball sized hail?

You cover the peas.
You cover the older broccoli and lettuce.
You cover the baby broccoli (and hope the garlic roots can recover from any beating).
You decide to call the other lettuce and radishes a potential loss.

And you cross your fingers that everyone and everything makes it through just fine.

Ah, life in the central plains! We'll keep you posted.

--Rational Mama

Mother's Day at the (Plant) Farm

Since the girls were little we've had a Mother's Day tradition of heading out to Henry's Plant Farm for an afternoon of flowers, vegetables and fresh country air. This year was no exception, even if the weather was overcast and cool and the trip took some of our surplus gasoline. It's always worth it.

There's so much to do and see at Henry's. When you first arrive you will most likely be greeted by one of the free-roaming peacocks, who will eye you suspiciously and decide if your vehicle would make a good perch. Then, it's off to the trails and gardens.
Henry's has wonderful garden paths to explore. The peacock might even follow you if he thinks you're up to no good.
And don't forget to stop at the pretty rock pond filled with Koi fish.

After the trails it's time to get your wagon! Of course, wagons are good for pulling sisters AND plants.










Then you can start visiting the hoop-houses, one by one. There's a hoop-house for sun-loving annuals.



And, of course, there's a kitty in there that you must pet.











And then look at more annuals.

Don't worry, kitty is still following you.

There's a corn crib and cornstalk pony for the kids. But sometimes the corn attacks!





Which means Mommy must come to the rescue!
Then it's on to the vegetable and herb hoop house.
With such a large variety (including heirlooms) your empty wagon starts to look like this:




And there's still the shade-loving annuals to get to! You might even find something for the mister.






And once you've filled two wagons...
...you can go pet the goat and donkeys!



And if the donkey starts eating your shirt, the girls will come to your rescue.

Or not.


After you've paid (a very reasonable sum) and loaded up your purchases, don't forget to check out one more area...

The Whomping Willow and the pond beyond.
















Which leads to the obligatory stick-throwing and pestering of the geese.





But then it's finally time to go home and leave the kitty and the flowers and the donkeys and the willow and the pond behind.

But you still get to take your memories.
--Rational Mama