A few weeks ago I used up all my compost. I had two full Earth Machines and one pile overflowing its chicken wire container. Not all of this compost was done yet, but after mixing it all up and adding straw, it was just the right mix of finished and unfinished for my purposes: mulching …
Category Archives: natural world
Your Average Sunday Afternoon
It’s coming down hard: thick globs of melting snow. The wood stove is giving off enough heat to dispel any gloom: it’s merely cozy, as long as I don’t need to go out there. Which I did have to, earlier on. One of the rain barrels was overflowing, and not through the overflow tube. In …
Hoop House Frame is Up, and Winter
Over the long weekend it took us – two adults versus one four-year-old – to set up the hoop house PVC frame. Initially we thought that the simple hoop house might not be high enough on the sides for the taller plants, like tomatoes, that we want to grow in it in summer. So we …
Independence Days, Week 7
Plant. Due to a miscalculation of the weather on my part – or the weatherman’s part? – I didn’t get to transplant the seedlings and sow more winter veggies today. Tomorrow, I hope. I did get to clean up the garden beds. Moved the pepper plants inside – but I will not call them houseplants, …
Independence Days, Week 6
The Indian summer came, went, and came again. Last Friday we hit 37 F – cutting it pretty close – but yesterday it was 70F. It’s going to get cold again soon, though. Plant. Moved (replanted) the 2 rhubarb plants, because in the end we chose their first bed as one of the beds to …
Look What’s On the Cover of Nature!
It’s one of my potatoes! From the summary: “hytophthora infestans is a fungus-like eukaryote and the most destructive pathogen of potato, with current annual worldwide potato crop losses due to late blight estimated at $6.7 billion.”
Peppers, Basil, Peas, Grasshoppers, Ladybugs
Canned Bell Peppers (from Farmers Market) Amie and I just ate our first three peas from the garden: delicious! She also ate seven green beans (from the garden) and four carrots (disks, that is, not the whole thing) (from the Farmers Market). She loves the beans especially. She also promised that when the time comes …
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The Other in My Back Yard
I am reading Jerry Mander’s In the Absence of the Sacred. The Failure of Technology and the Survival of the Indian Nations. Many points are too loosely argued for my taste – as in, I doubt it would convince my DH, who is a total techno-optimist. As a confirmation for what I believe, it reads …
Growing Children in the Garden
A couple of days ago Amie was helping me in the garden. She was raking away the weeds I had just hoed – though raking around is closer to the truth. There was a lot of chopping with her little rake, too close to my face. There was also yelling – “Go away, weeeeeds, go …
Stocking up on Wood
This is from the two oaks we had taken down a few weeks ago. The stacks in the back are three deep. And all this is in addition to the pile from last year. We were glad to have the oak to the East taken away, especially after this was revealed: Totally rotten and hollow …