Archive for April 12th, 2009

More firewood

12 April 2009

Cut up more elm today with the chainsaw, split it, and stacked it in the greenhouse. It should dry pretty good between now and late next winter in the hot greenhouse (assuming we don’t get flooded again). That will be on the bottom of the woodpile, so we’ll burn a lot of oak before we get to that.

There are people who will tell you that you can’t split elm. A friend of mine, when I told him I split up some elm, told me that if I split it, it couldn’t be elm. But I’ve found that if you cut it into 12″ to 15″ pieces, you can split it with a splitting maul. Not as easily as you can split oak, but it can be done.

Cutting it into short pieces of course means that you’re putting more time, personal energy, and fossil fuel into poor-quality firewood, but what am I going to do, just leave it on the ground and let it rot? That doesn’t seem right either. I do plan to cut the smaller-diameter pieces by hand as much as possible, which removes the additional fossil fuel from the equation.

I haven’t decided if we’re going to buy more firewood this summer or not. We have at least 1½ cords left over from last summer’s purchase, so we could probably get through next winter with what we’ve got. On the other hand, given the situation in the world, I hate to not have some extra stashed away.

I really need to keep my eye on Craig’s List for free or cheap firewood.

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Gardening

12 April 2009

Added 5 gallons of compost to 50 square foot bed outside back door and turned it over with a shovel. Also turned over another row of sod on west side of that bed:

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Added 5 gallons of compost to the raised 4′ x 8′ bed in the garden (below), then filled it up the rest of the way with dirt from other places in the garden.

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I got the compost from the black plastic compost bin. It’s one of those bins where you add the vegetable matter to the top and take it out from a door on the side near the bottom (and it’s a pain to get out). The compost is not completely finished, but I think it will finish in the soil in the weeks we have before planting. I plan on using the rest of it in the vicinity of plantings as we get the garden in.

We could be, and should be, making much more compost than we’re making. Adding large quantities of widely varied organic materials to your soil is the best way to improve it. Why aren’t we? I think mostly not having a lot of energy left after our jobs and parental duties, but also some laziness and lack of determination to make it happen. We certainly could make it happen if we both decided it was essential.

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Greenhouse Tomatoes

12 April 2009

It got down into the 20s last night, and the thermometer in the greenhouse said 34°F this morning. It’s on the back wall of the greenhouse that’s common with the basement, so it may have been colder near the front glass wall where the tomatoes are. I opened the door to the basement when I went down this morning to warm it up — should have had it open all last night. I’m waiting to see if there’s any damage to the tomatoes.

Yup, three of the tomatoes are wilted, bent way over. I still have some hope that they’ll recover, because the leaves  look good. The rest seem okay.

I’m pretty mad at myself for letting that happen. It’s not safe outside for frost-intolerant plants yet, and I need to pay attention to the weather more than I have been. That greenhouse affords only slight protection from frost.

And now, an hour later, the three wilted tomatoes are standing up straight again! Whew! Got some of them outside for some unfiltered sunshine later in the day:

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