MamaStories

out of our living room window

Considering…

1. that the house does not benefit a whole lot from being shaded by the trees to the south in Summer,
2. that we could grow a more successful garden where it already is and expand it even more
3. that we would make room for fruit, nut and coppice trees,
4. that if we removed those trees we can put solar hot water and perhaps a small PV on our solar south facing and perfectly pitched roof,
5. and that we would get wood to fire up the stove for a decade,

… we are now leaning towards removing some big trees on our property. These are two beeches – one of them quite huge – two big red oaks and one big white oak, one double-trunked pine tree (might be on neighbor’s property), a couple of smaller oaks and pines, and possibly two more  large red oaks on the west side of the veg garden (not in photo). All the roots will also have to be removed if we want to plant new trees.

We’ve not decided yet because we need a couple of quotes, an equivalent amount of savings, and a lot more thought about the alternatives and, if we go ahead, the replacements. I’m just saying we’re leaning.

I was very adverse to such drastic measures. The wooded feel of this place  and neighborhood is what we fell in love with, and that strong, majestic beech in particular is such a joy. But we won’t be cutting them down for a lawn, and there are a great many more trees on the property. Still, it  is the thought of making solar hot water possible that brings me this far. What with the stove and solar hot water we would need to rely very little, if at all, on the oil burner.

Next year I want would like:

1. a second colony, in a homemade top bar hive.
2. chickens, 3 of them.
3. the beginning of a dwarf fruit tree orchard.
4. a guild around the cherry tree.
5. an earth oven in a straw bale shelter, a strawbale low wall with welcoming arch up front, and  some strawbale benches, shelters and altars all over the property.
6. a small pond system that takes rain water runoff and – if we can swing it – some gray water, with frogs and other wildlife.
7. a front garden for Bees and People. I will want to host a lot of events – community gardening, lectures, skillshares, poetry reading (and writing), concerts – in that front garden!
8. a pottery wheel.

Is that a lot to ask? And is that a silly question to ask because I ask it of myself?

~

Oh,  but life is good.

When told that a friend had gone into the hospital to give birth, Amie asked: “And was it a baby?”

And this is DH’s desk:

It may still, officially, be Summer, but the day I put on my woolen socks is, to me, the first day of Fall. That was yesterday.

Last night the temperature dropped to 47 F and my mind races to what we need to get done before the frosts come. Give our hoop house a “spine” (a cross beam) as well as doors. Turn the compost and a week later distribute the finished soil on the beds that will be in action over the Winter. Then transplant the Fall and Winter seedlings into those beds and cover with small hoops and, when the tomato and pepper plants are spent, move the hoop house over the 4 chosen winter beds.

Stock the bird feeders {DONE}. Buy new straw and burlap for wrapping up the bushes.

Fall also means, each year, a cold or flu. Amie was the first to get it and to recover (she literally burned it out with a 102 F fever). But she seems to have picked up something new. She is pretty sad about it, because today is the second day of Kindergarten and she so intensely enjoyed the first day.

Most aptly, my side of the big bed – Amie wants me near and anyway it’s Sunday – is covered with books on herbal medicine. I subscribed to HerbMentor.com and it has got me going. So far I’ve studied, on paper, Dandelion, Licorice, Elder. I’m making a first pass through these herbs that we might need most often in the next few months, the cold, flu and immunity herbs. Then I’ll purchase them from a herbal supply store, because I’m not growing them yet, and don’t yet have the local and herbal knowledge to wildcraft them.

The plants in their wisdom also know that Fall is coming. They are redirecting their energies and nutrients to their roots and seeds, the parts of them that have the most chance of surviving the Winter. I am waiting for a nice day to harvest the flower heads of what I do have growing – chamomile, feverfew, calendula. Then I’ll use my new Excalibur dehydrator, which arrived a week ago, to dry them. And at the Farmer’s Market this Wednesday I will buy lots of local apples, to dry as well. We still have apple sauce that I canned last year: it’s just not that popular in our house.

Tricolor pepper harvest

Fat buds and flowers on my two Sochi tea plants.

Mushrooms in my schroom bed, but are they the anticipated King Stropheria?

~

I did a quick inspection of the hive today and found an amply supply of honey, nectar, and brood in all stages of development. There were lots of newly hatched worker bees – pale, small, their wings still stuck together. A couple of hours  later I witnessed a flurry of orientation flights in front of the hive.

My only concern is that the broodnest is divided between the two boxes. Over Winter, bees eat their way up, (preferably) starting out in the bottom box and ending, by early Spring, in the top one.  I asked for advise on the forum of my beekeeper’s club and will do some research. I think the bees (should) know what they’re doing, and am averse to interfering.

While gathering kindling in the woods behind the house my mind turns to the future. There is enough wood that is down and dead to heat a household or two, perhaps, but not more. It could sustain many more households in kindling, but again we’re not talking of  the feudal forests that could trip up Hansel and Gretel, or the massive forests of a bygone America. This is a narrow woodlot – belonging to the State – in a suburb of Massachusetts.

Once in a while we meet neighbors jogging, or walking their dogs, and we make light of our “cargo”. They  move on – invariably they’re faster than we are – and I wonder if our exchange will stay as friendly, as lighthearted, as the times change. Will we encounter more people gathering “free” wood? Will there be axes? Or worse? Will we discuss our rights to gather? Or will we just take?

I want to gather kindling every day as the weather allows. It’s good physical exercise and it stimulates Amie’s imagination – not always verbalized for me to partake of. It kindles my thoughts as well, summoning a dark picture that is fuzzed, though, at the edges, by the knowledge of how easily these smooth, dead sticks will catch fire in our wood stove, come the cold days.

The cucumbers are finally coming in. Amie was happy to harvest some, though she won’t eat them. These, maybe… Still no zucchinis or squashes in sight, just like last year.

Of the dry beans, Jacob’s Cattle is the first one ready for picking. I love the sounds of the hard  beans rattling in their dry pods. They are works of art, each one. All of garbanzo beans were harvested by unknown critters. I was so looking forward to tasting one fresh from the pod.

I’ve harvested all my onions now: 40 medium to small sized ones. That’s much better than last year. Next year I can transplant them even closer together. One 4×8 bed could easily hold 250 of these.

Harvest of 31 July 2010

As you can see we’re eating mostly small tomatoes: Sungold and Be My Baby cherry tomatoes as well as husk cherries, and Ida Gold and Heinz. Mainly they’re the ones in the tops of the plants, where the squirrels and/or chipmunks can’t reach. I estimate that almost half of my tomato harvest has gone to them.

The big Brandywines are still ripening, and I hope I get the chance to harvest some. The eggplants are fattening up, but here again the critters are at work. It’s heartbreaking to go into the hoop house first thing in the morning and find yet another juvenile eggplant has disappeared.

In the big harvest picture you can see the three red peppers that came in so early on the overwintered pepper plants. What a treat! There are plenty of green peppers growing, some ready for harvesting, but I’m so fond of the red ones. The hot peppers are coming in too, one or two each week: that’s plenty for me. They’re hot!

We’re eating kale and chard whenever we want it, and I will start putting them up when they grow beyond the bounds of our appetites.  The lettuce  I sowed last month is hanging on in our hot, dry weather, but it’s not growing. We’re still picking leaves off the old lettuce plants, but they’re pretty bitter by now.

chamomile – it’s a start

I’m also taking and drying herbs, such as mints, comfrey, chamomile and feverfew. I’m on the lookout for a good course in herbal medicine. If anyone can recommend a good book…

You know, I wouldn’t mind sharing my harvests with the critters, if only they weren’t so wasteful. They take, munch a few bites, then discard.  My garden is littered with half-ripe, half-eaten vegetables. I tried this product called Repels All, and it worked the first time around, but now, not so much anymore. Next up to try is cayenne pepper!

The bees have still not drawn out the honey super. What with the dry weather not many flowers are growing, so  there’s a nectar dearth. Hopefully it will pick up soon and we’ll have one super of honey – I might take out two or three frames but leave the rest for the bees to overwinter on. I did get to taste some! I broke some comb when taking off the super to peer in the nest boxes and there it was oozing. I couldn’t resist. I took off my glove, scooped some up and licked my finger through my veil. So sweet!

Last but not least, a fantastic Freeycyle haul! We were so lucky to catch these items, which the owner so generously putt out on her driveway. A chipper/mulcher which will need some work and an already much-used hammock with stand.

No, really. I already harvested carrots. Well, Amie harvested them:

No doubt you’ve noticed that these are baby carrots. Baby carrots.  I had let that bed go to weeds, and when pulling said weeds today found that  carrots have much less purchase on the soil than weeds do, and they too came up. So after weeding I called Amie over and she had a ball pulling the carrots (3 ounces of them, without greens), and then eating them. Crunch crunch. Delicious! The greens went into the vegetable soup.

I also harvested my garlic. I know this sounds too early too, but they were ready, many of them already browned and fallen over. Considering how well they were doing a month ago I had expected a larger harvest.

As you can see, the bulbs on the side of the tray- a softneck kind – are smaller and/or they mostly lacked the outer skin that protects the bulbs. Maybe I harvested these too late? They’re still good, and I’ll use them in cooking over the next few days. The bigger ones – all hardnecks, the  scapes of which were delicious – are just fine, and I’m curing those in my warm, drafty, dark attic.

They make for 8 x 10 cloves – give or take a couple. That’s enough for planting next September.

Background

Inspired by Eliot Coleman’s Winter Harvest, we built our first hoop house in December 2009.  We got it in place right in time for the first winter storm. It was made of pvc pipes and 6 mil landscape plastic. The only “specialized” thing about it was the clamps we used to clip the plastic to the pipes. It cost $250, tops.

It gave us a pretty good Winter and early Fall harvest, but it was not hassle free. It simply wasn’t strong enough. Snow load was a problem, which we addressed with a small modification (version 2.0), and lots of timely shoveling. Then the winds came, and we had a couple of close calls for a more drastic redesign. A couple of days before we planned to dismantle the by now tattered thing, it actually did blow away!

Seeing the possibilities of a hoop house in Summer (warming and protecting hot-weather crops such as tomatoes, eggplants and peppers) and in Winter (very early harvests of mache, spinach, brassicas, among others, and overwintering biennials for seed saving), we decided to put some more time and money into it. We reused almost all of the pvc pipe “ribs” and their connectors, and are reusing the plastic until a new one comes. All the new costs went into wood and metal hardware (connectors, screws, etc.).

The main improvements are in the wooden baseboard and the wooden end walls. These will prevent any snow from accumulating along the bottom and stressing the pvc pipes (breaking the connectors on top, as happened before). And obviously they will prevent the whole thing from flying off again.

Our new design was inspired by this one. Our improvement upon that model is that ours is movable, in that the modules of the structure are all detachable and that the plastic is clipped (not stapled) to the structure and can be easily unclasped.

~

Construction Steps

We started by making a box out of four 2x10x12 and two 2x10x8 spruce boards. It encompasses 4 beds in each of the three positions it will take in our garden (it’s still a movable hoop house, for crop rotation). This makes it 20′ x 12′.

Since there was no way we could transport two 20′ boards, we attached a 12 footer to an 8 footer with ties and stud shoes, like so:

At the corners we used these Simpson rigid corner ties. All these connectors are readily available in the big box stores.

We screwed these corner connectors  to the end wall baseboard (the 12 footer) only. The idea is to be able to take the whole thing apart easily, so we want to parts not to be attached. If attachment is necessary, we used bolts, for having to  unscrew screws each time we move it would ruin the threads in no time and force us to replace boards too often.

Then we pounded 2′ rebars into the ground at those places where we want the ribs to be positioned (9 ribs so 18 rebars):

That part in place, we moved on to the end walls. First we made two of these frames out of 2x4s (we used a pneumatic nail gun):

The base of this is, obviously, 12′ wide. The height, 7′,  was determined by the height of the rib arches. Onto these frames  we screwed the plywood sheets. Then we sandwiched the two end walls together:

We used a rib to mark out the rounding edge:

Then we cut along the marking with a jigsaw – both walls at the same time:

Voila:

We painted the walls with exterior house paint (two layers):

Once the paint was dry, we moved the end walls to the garden. They were heavy, but with the help of Amie’s Radio Flyer we got them into place against the inside of the baseboard box. There we braced them to the baseboard with the help of hex bolts (5″, which were a little too big). Amie had fun watching the T-nut go in as she tightened the bolt.

It was a blustery day – hence Amie’s cap – but once attached these walls weren’t going anywhere!

Next we fitted this foam which is used for insulating water pipes over the rough edges of the plywood, so that, when we slide the plastic over it, it won’t tear. Amie had fun prying the foam tubes open.

Then we placed the pvc pipes over the rebars: they’re the bendable  grey pvc, 10′ long, 1″ in diameter.

We fastened these to the baseboard with galvanized pipe clips.

We used the same clips to fasten a long pvc pipe (two 10′ pipes fit together) along the outside upper edge of the baseboard:

In similar fashion we bent and then attached a pvc pipe along the edge of each end wall. These pipes are to snap the plastic to, with these snap clamps which we reused from our previous hoophouse.

~

Still To Do

We are reusing our old plastic, which doesn’t quite fit this version and is torn and dirty, but it will do until the greenhouse plastic arrives. Apparently, that material got cleaned out in the rebuilding of Haiti after the earthquake, so we’ll have to wait till new materials come in. The sheet will be 11 mils clear, 24ft x 24ft = 576sqft (@ $0.32 per sqft that’s $184.32), purchased at Northern Greenhouse Sales. It comes as one sheet, which will make attaching it easier and will make the whole thing look much neater.

Also missing are the doors. At the other two positions in the garden the ground is not so level, so we’re worried about how well the frame of the doorway will keep its shape. Putting in two swinging doors that fit into those frames is not a good option, so we’ll probably go with doors that slide along rails at the top and the bottom. These will be made of a wooden frame with plastic stretched over them. We’ll need doors only by the time the weather turns cold again, so we have some time to figure that one out.

Another thing missing is ventilation. Even without doors, it gets pretty warm in there already. In summer we might need extra ventilation, probably with two fans, one in each end wall. We’ll cut out the holes for these once we know their size.

Finally, we haven’t yet cross-connected the ribs on top. That structural element will become necessary in winter, when it snows. Until then we want to keep our options open. Maybe we’ll reuse the pvc pipes but run a tension line through from one end wall to another to give it extra stability.

~

Initial Assessment

The only drawback I see, so far, is the wood. There’s a lot of wood now, and right on top of soil too. The beds, made of the same boards, have weathered their first year in the soil well. They’re darker, but I see no rot or termite damage, even not on the ones used for the potato towers. So I’m thinking they and the hoop house boards will last at least a couple of years. Five, let’s aim for five. Knock on wood!

~

Materials List and Cost

Wood

• $54.88: four 12′ spruce boards (10″ high)
• $28.74: two 8′ spruce boards (10″ high)
• $42.72: sixteen 2x4x8′ studs
• $9.68: two 2x4x12′ studs
• $73.76: four 4′x8′ plywood sheating (15/32 RTD)

Hardware

• $21.76: four  stud shoes
• $3.93: four 3″x7″ ties
• $20: four Simpson rigid corner ties
• $22.08: sixteen 5″ hex bolts with T-nuts
• $2.52: sixteen lockwashers
• $10.88: forty galvanized pipe clips
• $24.84: eighteen 2′  1/2″ rebars
• $28.24: 5 lbs of exterior 3″ screws

PVC

• $28.80: eighteen 10′ long and 1″ diameter grey (flexible) pvc pipes
• $19.17: nine pvc cross connectors (at the top)
• $24: 40 pvc snap clamps from Creative Shelters

Other

• $5.82: six foam pipe insulation tubes
• $57.48: one 20′x100′ 6 mil landscape plastic, to be replaced soon by $184.32: 11 mils Clear, 24ft x 24ft = 576sqft plastic (@ $0.32 per sqft) purchased at Northern Greenhouse Sales.

Total

That makes for:

• $479.30 for the hoophouse with the old 6 mil landscape plastic, or
• $605.14 for the hoophouse with the new one-sheet 11 mil greenhouse plastic

Wew, it’s May 2 already, over two months since I reported on our Riot.I’ll average March and April (Mapril). Last year’s averages (calculated here) are mentioned as a baseline. I use this calculator.

Gasoline.

12.66 gallons per person (pp) in cars + 10 miles pp on public transport

= 31 % of the US National Average

(Last year’s yearly average: 24.8%)

Electricity. Our electricity bills are high for these months because of the growing lights and heat mat. I’ll be happy to turn them off as soon as the new hoop house is up and running hot.

631 KWH (all wind) =  17 % of the US National Average

(Last year’s early average: 18.2% – we only switched to wind in the middle of the year)

Heating Oil and Warm Water. Finally going down. (Also our warm water is heated with this oil.)

23.8 gallons =  39 % of the US National Average

(Last year’s yearly average: 77%)

Trash. The usual.

3 lbs pp = 2 % of the US National Average

(Last year’s yearly average: 7.3%)

Water. We’re way above our usual average, which is around 14-16%), because seeds and seedlings and newly planted bushes and trees need a lot of water, and we are (still!) trying to establish a small lawn in the back (it’s been a dry couple of months). I had only one rain barrel set up for a while and several beds already in operation, it emptied too quickly and a dry spell kept it empty for too long, to my liking. We have added a second one in the meantime and hope to fit our waterworks into our busy schedule so we can hook up the other two.

628.3 gallons of water pp = 21 % of the US National Average

(Last year’s yearly average: 16.5%)

Consumer Goods. All of our purchases were towards the garden this month, so I won’t count them (good, because we spent quite a bit, what with timber and new plastic for the new hoop house, compost, etc).

$0 = 0% of the US National Average

(Last year’s yearly average: 27.2%)

The four vigorous kale plants that survived the winter in the hoop house are bolting. I am daily harvesting three of them, letting the biggest one going to seed for saving. Since all four plants are of the same kind, and there are no other brassicas going to seed within a mile, there is no need to be concerned about cross-pollination and seed that is not true. I wish Risa had a good search option on her blog, Stony Run Farm, because I remember (correctly?) an entry on how many seeds one kale plant can yield.

Kale is really one of our favorites, especially when overwintered, because then it is sweeter, subtler in taste.  I chop up the stems and saute them first, then add the leaves and saute till they turn that very bright green. Salt and pepper and you have a tasty, healthy side dish.

I am already harvesting seed from the Claytonia (Claytonia perfoliata, Miner’s lettuce, Winter Purslane, Spring Beauty, or Indian lettuce), which is  of the Portulacaceae family. The picture was taken on a cloudy moment: click to see the long, thin seeds at the end of the stems.

The Claytonia bloomed at the same time as the Mache (Valerianella  locusta, Corn Salad, Lamb’s Lettuce or Lamb’s Tongue) and the Minutina (Plantago coronopus,  Buckshorn Plaintain, or Erba Stella). This is hopefully not of concern because they all belong to different families (Mache to the Valerian family and Minutina to the Plantain family) so they (probably) don’t cross-pollinate.

On the other side, I’ve sowed, outside, three kinds of carrots, lots of marigolds, borage and calendula all over, and more summer lettuce mix. That’s a lot of beds to keep moist now that my rain barrel is empty. Running to the kitchen to fill my small watering can with filtered tap water is a nuisance, but good exercise.

Amie has been busy in the garden too. I don’t mention her help and advice as often as I should. It is so much fun to observe her in the garden, singing to herself as her little hands plants seeds, stumbling as she lugs the heavy watering can, but mostly just skipping and dancing. It is at such moments that I think: what an enchanted life we have!

Here she is with the 20 sunflowers she just sowed, and then again with all of “her” flowers (all flowers) in the hoop house:

The Morning Glory, Pink Rose Mallow, Sweet Pea and Zinnias all germinated.

(Yes, that’s pajamas. In the afternoon. Hey, it’s the holiday week, and the pajamas were destined for the laundry anyway.)