Planted a row of sweet corn, a row of grain corn, 6 hills of pole beans, another short row of collards, onion seeds and onion plants in one of the raised beds — it will be interesting to compare the performance of the two and see if starting the plants indoors was worth the trouble.
The kale that lived through the winter is blooming.
Planted 12 tomato plants — 2 red cherry, 4 yellow brandywine, and 6 of the Early Blight-Resistant from Johnny’s. Planted four ground cherry plants
Last night we had a light frost. I covered the strawberries (which are in bloom), and the beet, kidney bean, and carrot seedlings. I haven’t been out there yet this morning to check on them, but they should be okay — it was only about 30F this morning. [Update — the kidney beans got a little frosted, but most should be okay, and everything else was fine.]
We’ve had a very warm, early spring, and it’s definitely time to plant a lot of other seeds, but it’s also been showery enough (and I’ve been busy enough) that it’s been hard to get out into the garden.
The tomato, ground cherry, pepper, and onion seedlings are all looking good. We’ll get those outside in another week or two. I’ve been moving them outside for half a day at a time when it’s sunny to get them used to full sun.
Planted in main garden today:
The world financial system looks like it’s on the verge of another crash, but it’s also impossible to predict. Powerful people and institutions are doing everything in their power to prevent it, and although it doesn’t appear that they’ll succeed, they may delay it for another few years.
Who knows what people should do to protect themselves from a world financial meltdown? I think reducing debt to the maximum extent possible is a good idea, and we’re doing well on that front; I suppose it makes some kind of sense (strictly on an intuitive level, I’m not smart or financially savvy enough to explain it otherwise) that if the world’s problem is too much debt compared to productive capacity, individuals should do what they can to reduce household debt.
Beyond that, we’re going with the usual TEOTWAWKI preps — striving for independence in food, water, and energy. I believe everyone will see a severe reduction in quality of life, and whatever we can do to increase independence will mitigate that reduction.
We’re considering a new, more-efficient propane furnace to replace our 14-year-old model and to take advantage of the tax credit that expires at the end of this year. Our current furnace works well, but higher efficiency is always good and if we’ll be replacing it in 5 years anyway….
Today I dug up the area where we’ll soon plant kale, collards, and Swiss chard. It was just dry enough to turn over after last week’s rain, but not dry enough to rake out and plant. Sounds like we’re in for some more t-storms late Monday into Tuesday, so planting may have to wait until next weekend. This is a really early spring so far; feels like it will continue into a hot summer.
While digging up the greens bed, removed more of the ever-present plastic sheeting of various kinds we used for mulch 5-10 years ago, in a futile attempt to thwart the quack grass without effort. We’ve learned since that quack grass will defeat any kind of plastic mulch, and in fact seems to like it. Also found and removed more pieces of what was apparently carpet used as mulch. Well, at least we’ve learned the lesson: never use synthetics for mulch — it just doesn’t work.
Have also been removing quite a bit more glass from various areas of the garden this spring. It’s normal for things buried in the soil to be revealed in spring, especially after the first spring rains, and I may be digging glass out of our garden for the rest of my life. Makes it tough on the boys, who want to be out there in bare feet, but in a month or so their feet will be toughened up and they’re also getting old enough to watch where they walk.
G and I also worked on making a permanent stone path in the garden out of flat pieces of urbanite and limestone. That helps to keep people from walking in places where plants grow and to divide up the space.
One onion up from the seeds I planted on 4/3.
Planted more onions today plus 4 pots each (two seeds in each pot) of Yellow Brandywine and Matt’s Red Cherry tomato.
The boys and I planted onions (Johnny’s Hybrid Onion, Yellow Storage, Gunnison F1), ground cherries (Jung’s Husk Tomato), tomatoes (Johnny’s Hybrid Tomato, Red Short Vine JTO-99197 F1), and peppers (Jung’s Margaret’s) in newspaper pots today.
Planted 18 pots onions, 7 or 8 of each of the others, two seeds in each pot. We’re going to be ruthless and if more than one comes up, we’re going to pull it up. We’re not going to do any of this bare-root transplanting of seedlings from pot to pot. Probably.
I put the flat down in the greenhouse and put the heating pad under them. We’re a month later this year than last year, and having a much warmer spring, so they should be fine down there and we don’t have to have the seed-starting table in the living room, which M didn’t want. I just have to be vigilant and make adjustments if the forecast overnight low is under 25°F.
Also spent a couple of hours digging more dandelions, catnip, and clover out of the garden. Had some help from the boys and M. We’ve really made good headway getting rid of these perennial weeds. Have also been leveling out the high and low spots in the garden. All in all, the main garden is looking good.
Saved some of the catnip plants to make a tincture. Chopped them (should have chopped them more finely), put them in a quart jaw (about 1/2 full). Added vodka to cover and put on top of the refrigerator where they’ll sit for the next 6 weeks, shaken daily. It’s supposed to be soothing and calming, a fever reducer, and a digestive aid. We’ll see how it goes.
We only got about half an inch of rain last night, so it dried out early. The rain barrel by the garage is only about 2/3 full. We still need more rain, but showers are forecast in the next couple of days so maybe we’ll luck out.
I was looking around the back yard today, and even though we have what most people would call a big garden, we still have way more grass than anything else. If worse came to worse, there’s a lot of grass we could dig up to grow food. Of course, as I’ve been reminded over the last couple of years, that is much easier said to done. It’s like a lot of self-sufficiency-related tasks: the ideas are easy to understand, but you can’t implement them overnight. And some of them that involve a lot of learning-by-doing take years.
Ending and Beginning 