inveniam viam

garden plan

2025-11-11T04:23:45Z

Next spring, we're going to put two garden beds in at Riverwood - a "lasagna" layer raised bed, and a hugelkulture bed. Each bed will be 8-10 feet long (3 meters or so) and we'll plant a couple of fruit trees nearby, too.

I want to see how the beds perform, and how we like them. We'll construct the beds next spring, and let them age a year before planting. We'll put them near the site where we're going to put up the pole barn, deep well, and the bath house. This is also the area that I call The Campground, and where I'd like to put in my Hobbit House. It's what Mike calls The Staging Ground.

Hügelkultur bed: Topped with low bush blueberries, and then later with with sweet potatoes, peppers, tomatoes, pickling cucumbers, onions, and squash. Because the blueberries need an acidic soil, and all of these veggies/roots are good with acidic soil, some more than others. We'll see how they do.

Lasagna layer bed: rhubarb on each end, and the middle interplanted with strawberry and asparagus.

We want the lasagna bed to have an Italian plum on each end, lending some dappled shade to the rhubarb. And we're going to put in two pawpaws west of the hugelkulture.

notes from the internet:

Plant tomatoes alongside basil and marigolds. Basil repels pests like whiteflies and hornworms, and marigolds attract beneficial insects like ladybugs that eat hornworms.

Plant cucumbers with radishes and beans to deter cucumber beetles. Nasturtiums can also be used as a trap crop to lure pests away from your cucumbers.

Plant onions with carrots, rosemary, and other beneficial plants, but keep them away from beans. Audrey had great results with the carrot cultivar New Kuroda.

To grow pawpaw, you need two different cultivars for cross pollination. I'm looking at:
( Read more... )

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interplanting sunflowers and bean vines

2025-11-01T20:49:22Z

I've been reading a ton of gardening articles today, and thought that this one was interesting.

From Steve Mann at SauveYards.com

"You can grow beans up sunflowers, it is a misconception that sunflowers are toxic to beans. The sunflower stems act as a natural trellis for the beans, providing support to them whilst they grow. Plant your beans around a fortnight after you sow your sunflowers and the two should grow well together."

He gives two methods, first, plant your sunflowers and, about three weeks later, plant your bean about a foot from the sunflower. If needed, you can bring trendles from the bean to help in climb up the sunflower.

Method two is the one I want to try:

"Now this isn’t my method, so I must give kudos to John Yeoman from the Kitchen Garden forum for this, but it seems logical and I am sure it would work just as well.

He suggests putting an empty cola in the soil beside your sunflower when you plant it.

Then when your sunflower reaches three feet tall or so simply pull out the can and replace it with a bean transplant. This avoids disturbing the sunflower roots.

As an alternative to this, he also suggests placing two cans in the soil next to the sunflower and adjacent to the bean.

One of the cans should be perforated at the sides and base and kept filled with water. This ensures both plant’s roots get the water they need.

This second method also seems like a good option to me and one I might just give a try next year."

Me too!

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growing cereal crops

2025-10-31T17:07:47Z

We're thinking of trying out a quarter acre each of several cereal crops:

- duram wheat
- khorasan wheat
- hard spring red wheat
- dent corn
- rye
- barley
- millet
- oats
- buckwheat

So that's two plus acres that'll need to be cleared. More like four acres, since we'll be companion planting our veggies in with the cereals.

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one more day

2018-05-24T15:42:24Z

I'll be leaving for Wiscon tomorrow morning. I've decided to go by train and bus. I'll leave East Lansing (home of MSU) tomorrow morning at 0830 and arriving in Madison by 1530 -- I hope! I have to be in the ConSuite at 1700 for my volunteer shift.

This morning, my son Sam and his wife Kayla helped me get the pear trees grafted, and then I planted them in big pots. We'll see how they do! It's my first try at grafting -- well, honestly, Sam did most of the work. What I'm worried about is that we put the wound goop on and then the wrap. I think we were supposed to do it the other way. Here's to hoping that the wound goop doesn't come between scion wood and the root stock.

So, I was out driving yesterday, on my way to drop something off for one of the residents where I work, and I'd been fretting over not getting the trees done. I needed to get the goop that keeps the insects out and wasn't finding it around town. I was taking the back road from Lansing to East Lansing and drove right by the tree research station -- Hey! I bet they know where I can get stuff for fruit tree grafting!

I pulled in and Dr. Paul Bloese was there in the greenhouse. Not only did he give me the goop and the ties that I'd need, but he loaned me his second best grafting knife!

So the pear trees are done. We've also started putting the vegetable garden in-- still a few more seedlings to set. When Mike comes home we'll *finally* start the mead. Then I will pack.

My return trip isn't until Tuesday morning, so if anyone wants to do anything Monday evening, lets!

The pears: Keiffer, Summercrisp, Clara Frijs, Normannischen Ciderbirne, and Barland. (last link goes to google books)

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the Sunflowers gardens

2018-02-06T13:19:00Z

The soil is somewhat sandy, and I've been thinking of different gardening ideas. One that I'm kinda in love with is hugelkultur.

"Straw bale gardens require less soil, less water and hold heat. As the straw breaks down nutrients feed the plants. Combining a straw surround with a hugel interior, topped by lasagne layering is an excellent idea for an area with poor quality soil."

I'd make one of these, with interior dimensions about a meter wide and three meters long. The layering that they refer to is:

layer 1 -wood, trunks, branches
layer 2- grass clippings
layer 3 - manure
layer 4- 1/2" or more of newspaper/cardboard
layer 5 - 8-12" of hay
layer 6 - 4" composted manure
layer 7 - 5" well aged compost
layer 8 - 2" straw

"Sheet mulching (lasagne gardening) is like composting in place. ...Nitrogen-rich material such as fresh grass clippings or green leaves put right on the hugelkultur wood would help jump start the composting process. Could also include seaweed, straw, dead leaves, leaf mould, etc...

The first year of break down means the wood (and fungi) steal a lot of the nitrogen out of the surrounding environment, so adding nitrogen during the first year or planting crops that add nitrogen to the soil (like legumes) or planting species with minimal nitrogen requirements is necessary, unless there is plenty of organic material on top of the wood. After the wood absorbs nitrogen to its fill, the wood will start to break down and start to give nitrogen back in the process. In the end you will be left with a beautiful bed of nutrient rich soil."

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the plan - update

2017-07-10T13:28:28Z

I won't be able to buy property until I'm out of school, but I should graduate in December of this year. There's several pieces of property I'm looking at, and the one on the top of my list is hilly.

I like hilly for dealing with extreme rains. A flat field will be flooded; a terraced field will drain. If it's dry, you have to water both.

So this morning I was thinking about terracing. One that's appealing for both it's low cost and low tech is cribbing.

This is actually one of the best pics I could find:

Except I'd probably use untreated cedar logs. The "boxs" are filled with dirt until only the front is visible -- finished, it looks like this:

Edit: I've been looking for products that will last a long time buried. Cedar logs should last about 29-30 years. But. PVC will last 100 years. So, pvc pipe filled with sand and with holes drilled every so often for drainage. That should do.

Edit #2: Since Mike really doesn't like the idea of using wood and maybe redoing the terraces every 20 yrs, another option, perhaps a better option, would be poured concrete treated with a non-toxic concrete sealer like Green Building Supply, Penetrating Concrete Sealer. For this project, we'd probably go with a cement/sand/stone volume mix of 1:1½:3. As long as the cement "logs" aren't damaged, they should last a pre' long time. We'd use concrete forms that would look something like Lincoln Logs, and we'd need a small concrete mixer. I can see how we'd do it -- working on site, pour four forms on day one, next day, strip the forms, set the new "logs" on some 2X4s to cure, pour four more. Next day is a repeat of day two, but we'd also be painting the top of the first set will the sealer. Next day, same as previous day, but flip the first set over and paint the bottom of those with the sealer. So each "log" would take 4 days to complete. I figure we'd make them 10'X½'X½.

I just had a thought: would we work from the bottom of the hill up, or from the top, down? Huh.

Here's a map of the land I'm looking at. This is an 80 acre parcel. It consists of two hills with a saddle of swampy ground in between. The northwest corner is at about 46.565295, -87.8385602 and the southeast corner is at around 46.558049, -87.8349354

I'm thinking we'd grow on the south side of the north hill, and on the flat area on the south hilltop. Or something like that.

I have to have something to think about, to plan with, or I'll go a bit crazy. As soon as my tuition is paid (soon!) I'll start saving a hefty amount every month for the down payment. So we'll see if this one is still available in eight months...

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Garden 2017

2017-03-20T18:52:03Z

This morning I woke from a violet dream where I ended up picking up my assailant by the face and killing him by beating the back of his head against the side jamb of the entrance door. So, one nightmare attacker down!

I think I need stress relief, and *yay*! My seeds came in today.

I'm trying a bunch of new plants. Here's a list:

First, spring greens: chervil, bronze goldring rommain lettuce, black seeded simpson lettuce, bekana greens, outstanding romaine, and emerald fan lettuce.

I also got a miniature (3'-4') sweet corn called Little Giant, 2 kinds of bean, grex, and pellegrini, a cabbage called primo and an early carrot called mini-sweet, two types of tomato, a grape and one called myona, and three kinds of melon -- crimson sweet watermelon, "ice cream," and eel river.

I also got sugar beets, to see what it's like to make sugar. It's a ton of work, but I want to see how much sugar we get per, say, ten beets. And a kind of rice called koshihikari, and a kind of sunflower that's good for oil.

And flowers! I got flowers for the bees and such -- I got all my seeds from Bountiful Gardens, but I linked to a couple of other good places.

We'll see how it all goes!

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garden 2016

2016-02-07T23:34:12Z

It's pre' crazy to think that I can do a garden this year. I'll be into the third semester of nursing school, and I'll (hopefully) be working as an LPN at Hospice of Lansing (well, they told me to call them, please, when I pass the LPNCLEX) -- so it's ridiculous to consider a garden.

Except that *not* having a garden will make me Very Sad. So.

I have three 20'X4' beds (about 7mX1m) and two vertical planters (about 4' high), and I've got some berries planted along the fence.

I'm going to move the raspberries that are currently in my very small side yard to the fence line in the Guerrilla Garden across the street , down from the blueberries and asparagus. That'll give the rhubarb room to breath.

I yearn to do a hanging squash garden.

Because this is amazing.

Not this year, but it will happen.

Here's the plan:

I will attempt sweetcorn and quinoa in the north bed again. This time with a fence. Last year, my neighbor thought the quinoa was over-grown weeds (they are lambsquarters, or rather, lambsquarters are wild northern quinoa) and mowed them down. And then my grandsons had great fun running through the tall stalks of corn. I got one very lovely ear of corn from the whole bed.

Last year, most of the mid-bed was taken up with collard greens, a couple cauliflower, and rutabaga. The rutabaga where terribly tough and wormy. I will try growing them again. Reading about soil remediation has made me more determined. The collards came up nice and we had several neighbors who loved them too. But I think this year, I'll plant at least half of the bed with broccoli.

And the final bed, which was broccoli and zucchini last year, will be tomatoes and peppers this year.

The planters will be strawberries on the top half, and squash and a couple of melons on the bottom. The planters had issues last year with being too dry. I'm not sure if they'll work, but I'm going to try mulching the heck out of the top, because I think I was losing a lot of moisture through the top, with the sun beating down there and all.

I'll also do the potato tires again; I have second generation seed potatoes and I'm curious on how they'll do.

A couple of zucchini will go in back, where the raspberries are now, because if you grown zucchini next to pumpkins, they'll cross pollinate and then the pumpkins have rinds of steel. And they taste a little different.

I've got some seed saved from the last harvest, but a lot of my seed got accidentally tossed, so I'll have to (sob!) look through the seed catalogs and order up some new (to me) varieties.

*happy sigh*

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this is pre' damn cool

2016-02-02T01:32:10Z

Gonna have to try to make this happen. Hmmm... start with a hoop house frame. This one is maybe, what? 12 feet high in the center? So I'd need 2 20' 3/4" pvc pipe, joined
Put the hoops about 2' apart. So if I want a 20' long tunnel, I'd need 11 hoops. But to hold the weight of those squash ... hm. Looks like they're using some kind of conduit. Or pipe.

But seriously. Tomatoes, melons, eggplant, squash, cucumber, zucchini, grapes, hops... So cool! Imagine a hammock, a book, and something cool to drink. *sigh*

edit: This site suggests using cattle panel fencing:

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garden report

2015-11-05T16:51:25Z

The garden was all about tomatoes this year. And broccoli; we had a ton of broccoli. But we also harvested pumpkin, acorn squash, zucchini, rutabaga, sweet corn, collard greens and kale. It's been in the mid-70s all week (22.5ºC - 24.5ºC), which is just weird but expected. I still have tomatoes that are ripening. I'm not sure when the first frost will hit us, but I'm not expecting it for a few weeks.

Next year, I'm hoping to be in my third semester of nursing school, so I'm not sure how much we'll do. But I love it, it makes me serene and happy, so I think it would be wise to find the time.

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garden report

2015-09-05T13:52:34Z

The tomatoes are coming in! And they are lovely, if not exactly the type I was hoping for. Something is going on with my romas -- lots of green ones and very few reds, so I expect that folks around the neighborhood are picking them. Which, okay. That's why I put that garden over there and I told folks that they could come and pick. In the mean time, the tomatoes I got from the Garden Project, the ones that we didn't know what type they are, are huge beefsteaks. They are so lovely and tasty and I have *tons* of them. So tomorrow is Neighborhood Tomato Day! Every household will get some tomatoes. And I will have several jars of tomato puree.

My corn did not fair too well this year due to Grandchildren. I guess the stalks are just too tempting, so towering and leafy. Of the twelve plants that I put in, only about half made it through the pollination cycle and only half of those have made it to fruiting. Jerome and I shared one last week and it was delicious. Next year, I need to put them a little closer together and I'm putting up a small fence around the whole garden.

I have a ton of broccoli plants, but they haven't produced much florets. I'm not sure why this is, but I suspect that I planted them too late and it's been too warm. I have huge plants with great stalks and leaves and I'm thinking of blanching and freezing both the collard greens and broccoli greens to add to soups and stews over winter. And I'm going to try pickling the broccoli stalks.

I have quite a bit of zucchini that I'm going to be shredding and freezing for sweet bread and cake, and at least six sugar bush pumpkins. There's also half a dozen rutabaga and an unknown quantity of potatoes. The potato plants are still green, so I'm letting them go a bit longer. I actually don't have much expectation for the potatoes because I didn't tend them like I should have, but we'll see!

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plants for the shade garden

2015-05-26T11:36:39Z

so I can find them again --

Lungwort

Japanese painted fern

Brunnera, "Jack Frost"

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pushing myself forward

2015-05-25T19:46:02Z

I've got a meeting with Jerome's lawyer on Wednesday. I'm not sure how it's going to go -- he mentioned the mental health court and that would be great if Jerome would be compliant but I really don't see that happening.

Yesterday was Sunday, and I spent most of the day in the garden. I got the third bed weeded out and planted with quinoa, sweet corn, and beets.

I've got my first vertical farm tower up and have begun to plant it. I paid one of the guys next door to help me with the digging and filling, and the neighborhood kids helped me plant pumpkin, cucumbers and unfortunately, some zucchini -- unfortunately because I had a brain fart about the zucchini and forgot how they shouldn't be planted near pumpkins. Oh well! Oh, and we also put some peas in the vertical planter. I'm going to also plant strawberries, tomatoes and lettuces in there. I can't wait to see how it does.

Filling it up, the whole thing took on a bit of a tilt. Not much, a few degrees, but I'm keeping my eye on it.

It makes me think of Mike. He's gone this weekend on a trip with Sylvia. I need to write about us some more, but I -- it just seems like I say the same things over and over.

Anyway, now I've got the first vertical planter up, I need to get the second one up, and the rain-catch roof that'll unite them. On the back end on the house, I've got the greenhouse all ready for when the weather gets cool, and the same guy who helped with the vertical farm is helping to dig the tomato beds in the back yard. I should have the tomatoes in by the end of the week.

Also, I'm going to ask the art studio at the corner if some kids would like to come down and design and make a mosaic for between the planters, under the rain-catch. I need to get out there with my camera!

No word yet on nursing school...

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Sunday!

2015-05-18T14:12:15Z

I posted this over on LJ yesterday, and forgot to put it on DW.

All the seedlings are planted, and I got three tires of potatoes done. I got most of the first swale done, too. I purchased the PVC that I needed to replace the one the city took for the 2nd vertical planter. Tomorrow I'll call the garden project dude for my compost for the towers and rocks for the swales.

We also purchased a second car. We've been limping along with one car for over a year now -- when Sam and Kayla lived with us it was pretty easy because Sam and Mike work at the same place (Meijer warehouse) -- but it's getting difficult now, and if I have to go to classes in September, it'll be very difficult. So, we are the proud owners of a '97 Aspire. Nice little runner, rusty but trusty and 40 mpg.

Also, Silvia gave Mike her lawn mower since she hires someone to do her lawn and she never uses it. It was very generous of her and I'm really happy to not have to always borrow one.

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el nino 2015-2016

2015-05-17T14:17:31Z

From Dr. Jeff Masters wonderful weather blog:

What can we expect this summer?
Because it's quite rare to have intensifying El Niño conditions at this time of year, it's difficult to glean a confident signal from past events on how El Niño might affect U.S. summer weather. The global effects of El Niño arise from a shifting of showers and thunderstorms into the central and eastern tropical Pacific, which causes a reverberating sequence of atmospheric waves that tend to enhance precipitation in some areas and reduce it in others. In midlatitudes, these relationships, called teleconnections, are usually strongest in the winter hemisphere; for example, Australia often falls into drought when El Niño is developing in Jun-Jul-Aug (see Figure 6). If a strong El Niño does develop and persists into northern winter, the likely U.S. impacts would be more clear-cut, including wetter-than-average conditions across the southern half of the country, from California through Texas to Florida. This month could be seen as a sneak preview of sorts, with soggy conditions prevalent across the central and southern Plains and two unusually-wet-for-May systems reaching southern California, one last weekend and another now on its way. There is some hope for drought relief in the Golden State, given that the odds of an wetter-than-normal California rise sharply for the strongest El Niño events, but by no means would a wet winter be guaranteed. The strong El Niño of 1987-88 (which happened to be the second year of a two-year event) produced a drier-than-average winter from California to Washington.

Given that El Niño tends to suppress hurricane formation in the North Atlantic, the odds of a quiet season in that basin are growing by the month. However, a season with few storms doesn't necessarily translate into a low-impact year: the anemic 1992 season included the catastrophic Hurricane Andrew. And it's possible (though unlikely) to have a busy Atlantic hurricane season even during El Niño. Right in the middle of the weak-to-moderate two-year El Niño event of 1968-70, the Atlantic produced its most active season in 36 years, with a total of 18 named storms, 12 hurricanes, and 5 major hurricanes--including the horrific Hurricane Camille.

So, the feeling I get is "expect the unexpected." For me in Michigan, I'm seeing very mild, warm spring weather. The garden is doing great.

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Doneity done!

2015-05-15T22:06:31Z

I got a 3.66 for the semester; 4.0s in algebra and anatomy and a 3.0 in physiology. The physiology grade has me annoyed because I would have got` a 3.5 in I hadn't totally tanked in the final.

All the nursing application stuff is done except the basic life saving for health professionals (that's a CPR/First aid card - a one day seminar) -- I'll take that in June or July, and it's ok if it's late. But I really don't know if I'll get in this semester, and it's driving me a little crazy. I'll know by the end of June.

The day after finals, I came down with a cold. Not just a cold, but one of those sudden bone weary, congested, hacking cough things that stopped me in my tracks. Bleh. So now it's Friday and I work tomorrow -- and then next week I have three days off. I will spend them gardening as much as I can and thinking of Wiscon as little as possible. Really, though, have a great time, folks, and tell me all about it.

I'm off to sign Luke up for the summer children's theater. He did their spring show, working on prop construction, and he really liked it, so he's doing that again. I need to get some butcher paper or something because we're doing one of those history timelines that shows what was happening on all the continents.

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into the breach

2015-05-11T12:00:05Z

Ok, this is it. I'm on my way to my algebra final. My paper is done; I just need to print it out. I have to finish a short assignment for the same class (physiology). I've got an anatomy final at noon, a physiology final at 3pm, and the other half of my anatomy final at 6pm.

Tomorrow I'm going to do a little housework and spend most of the day in the garden. My peas are up, and they need their trellis. And the flower garden needs weeding before the weeds become too entrenched. And stuff. I'll take pictures.

Here I go.

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home stretch

2015-05-06T01:25:43Z

I'm very pleased to announce that I got a 90% on my last algebra test, which means I'm getting an 4.0 in the level of math that I took in my junior year of high school. Yay me! Really, I'm both extremely pleased and eye-rolly at the same time. But the really pleased part is definitely winning. And the 4.0 will be very good for my nursing school entrance points. It looks like I'll get a 4.0 in anatomy too, but only a 3.5 in physiology. Still, exceeded my expectations for the semester and my hopes are high for getting in this autumn.

Last day of classes is Monday, May 11.

Last week I told my client's mom that I was only going to work four days a week this summer, and that July 31 would be my last day. We have a fair relationship; she does crap that irritates me like whoa, and I'm odd to her. But we both try to get along. So she won't exactly miss me, but she knows that my leaving will be hard on her son, who's become very fond of me (and visa versa.) And I know that she'll miss my steadiness and work ethic. I'll try very hard not to dance out the door.

Last week, the city came and "cleaned up" my guerrilla garden so now it's not so guerrilla. They took about $50 worth of fencing, landscaping cloth, and lumber as well as all of my bags of leaves that were going into the vertical garden towers, and they cut down the PVC tower that I had up but not yet put together with the fencing. But today I licensed the garden with the Ingham County Land Bank Garden Project and I'm kinda kicking myself for not doing it sooner because it will be a wonderful resource of not only information (like, there's a guy who's gonna show me how to start up bees) but also they'll give out all kinds of free stuff, like *3 yards* of free compost, very cheap organic seedlings ($3 a flat) -- Also, he said that there were folks he knew who where experimenting with aquaponics, so there's another resource. And! Garden Dude said that when I'm ready and if the neighbors are cool with it, he'll help me with setting up for chickens. It was so fun to talk to someone about my garden, to watch the small smile of appreciation when I described my rain-catch and swale system. And the garden shed is ok to put up. So -- vertical garden towers, bees, chickens, 4 20' long double dug beds, greenhouse and aquaponics pond, and the stackwood garden shed. It's all gonna come together this summer.

Everyone should come on over sometime in late August. We'll barbecue and I'll hand out zucchini.

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it's Sunday!

2015-04-26T13:11:15Z

I've got a physiology quiz tomorrow and a lab paper due, but I'm covered. I've also got an anatomy assignment due, and I've got to work on that tonight.

But it's Sunday, so all is good. After work last night, I called Luke down and he helped me with getting the roof together for the greenhouse. I'm *one* 2x4 short, so I'll get that today, make some cuts and then put the roof on. We might do some painting today, too -- the boys insist that the greenhouse must be green (duh!). I'm also going to be spending a coupla' hours digging out the garden swales and filling up my garden towers.

Squirrels have been digging up my peas, but don't seem to have actually eaten any of the seed peas. I dunno -- maybe they were digging just to dig, they do that. Anyway, some of the peas are starting to germinate and I've got to water them today. I hate having to water. I've got to find some mulch to put over the peas so that I don't have to water 'em tomorrow. Free mulch. Hmm, shredded leaves, I think.

(as an aside, I just had a short conversation about self-control with Zary and Trentyn. "Why do you need to control yourself?" "Controlling yourself means thinking about something before you do it -- if you do the very first thing that comes into your head, you make mistakes. You have to use your big-boy brain." -- if someone has suggestions on other ways to talk to the boys about self control, feel free to chime in.)

Ok, off to the builders' store to get the 2x4 -- might have to wait 'till tomorrow to get the paint.

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apples -- narrowing it down

2015-04-13T04:55:06Z

Guys, there are a bazillion kinds of apples and they are all amazing. I'm going start with two trees (for cross pollination) (also? apple pollination is kinda tricky) and then two more but I don't know where the heck I'm going to plant them. I'll figure it out, hey?

So, here's a list:

Calville Blanc d Hiver
Origin: France or Germany 1598 Ripens: Oct/Nov Zone: 3 - 6
Uniquely shaped medium to large size fruit, skin yellow with light red flush. Fine textured. Flesh is tender, yellowish-white; flavor sweet, subacid, aromatic. Higher in Vitamin C than an orange. This is the gourmet culinary apple of France, excellent for tarts. Flowering group 4.

Centennial
Origin: Minnesota 1957 Ripens: late August Zone: 3-6
The fruit runs approximately two inches in length and about half as wide, sometimes with tapered ridges at the base. It is fully striped, bright and dark red, ripens late August at Mount Vernon. The flesh is yellow, tender, crisp, and juicy with a most luscious taste. (from Southmeadow Fruit Gardens)

Connell Red
Origin: Dunn County, Wisconsin and introduced in 1957 Ripens: Oct Zone: 3 - 6
It is red sport of Fireside which itself is a cross of McIntosh and Longfield. It is a large round apple with a solid red color and a sweet perfumed fragrance reminiscent of its parent McIntosh. An excellent fresh eating and cooking apple and a superb keeper, holding well into April.

Freyberg or Rubinette
Origin: New Zealand 1934 Ripens: Sept Zone
A small, golden, reinette-type apple, Freyberg is a cross between Cox's Orange Pippin and Golden Delicious. Georges Delbard, of the famous French nursery, has described Freyberg as "a veritable cocktail of flavors with the merest touch of anise and producing a juice that combines the taste of apple, pear and banana." The flesh is creamy white, lightly acidulous and sugary. Ripens shortly after Cox's Orange in September.

Rubinette is without doubt one one of best-flavored apple varieties, with an unsurpassed balance of sweetness and rich sharpness.Although it is a cross between Cox's Orange Pippin and Golden Delicious, Rubinette's flavor comes almost entirely from Cox's Orange Pippin - it has all the same aromatic qualities. Flowering group 3.

Hooples Antique Gold
Origin: Ohio recent (Sport of Golden Delicious) Ripens: Oct Zone: 3 - 6
The antique in this case refers to antique gold coloration with russeting, not the age of the variety. Found on the Hoople Fruit Farm. Some stripes against a yellow background, sometimes russeted, medium to large size. Rich, lightly aromatic flavor, juicy sweet flesh with excellent flavor. Flowering group 3.

Margil
Origin: France 1750 Ripens: Sept Zone: 3 - 6
Medium to small, slightly conical fruit. Orangish red skin with dark red stripes over gold russet patches. Always russeted on one side. Firm, sugary, yellow flesh. Intensely flavored, rich, aromatic, deep cream flesh. One of the best flavored. Low in vitamin C. Moderately vigorous. Flowering group 2.

Quebec Belle
Origin: Ripens: Sept/Oct Zone: 3 - 6
Open-pollinated seedling of Northern Spy. Red fruit. Resembles Delicious in appearance and Northern Spy in quality. Keeps well. Hardy to -50 degrees. Flowering group 5.

Regent
Origin: Minnesota 1963 Ripens: Oct Zone: 3 - 6
Medium size fruit. Bright red over yellow. Very pleasing flavor and texture. Honeyed, plenty of acidity, crisp, crackling, juicy flesh. Cooked keeps shape, light flavour, sweet, fruity. Delicately favored, all purpose apple. High dessert quality does not diminish in storage. Fruits store into the winter. Tree is vigorous, bears young, sets good crops. Resistant to cedar apple rust. Susceptible to fire blight and scab. Fruit hangs well, rarely dropping before harvest.

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building things

2015-04-12T11:47:28Z

Last week, Mike built most of my greenhouse. It looks wonderful and he's really pissed because he didn't want to have to build the greenhouse. But he thought I was doing it wrong and it drove him crazy, so he built it, except for the roof which is all laid out to go.

Today I'm going to put on the roof, and then I'm going to go across the street to the guerrilla garden and work on my planter-thing. I've been thinking about this planter-thing for over a year and thanks to a dear friend who threw me some cash, I'm gonna start building it today.

I'm also gonna get what I need for my aquaponics tank, but I'm not going to start on that until I get the planter-thing done. I've got to get the aquaponic beds made, and that's gonna be a ton of work too. Cheap though -- I just need 1x6s, plastic and pea gravel. I'll probably do that next week.

The planter-thing will be -- hm, how to describe? Ok, imagine a simple structure, about 4' by 20', long and thin. There are no walls, just a roof held up by 4x4s. Now, replace the 4x4s at the corners of the roof with one large pylon. Now, make that pylon out of earth, with things growing out of it. Make the roof of this structure out of some of that clear corrugated roofing stuff. More plants will be hanging from the rafters of the roof, grapes eventually, and flowers. Put a lounger under there, maybe a hammock, and a little table.

I'm still thinking about what to plant in the columns -- strawberries, lettuces, tomatoes (I have a cool idea for the tomatoes -- weave them through the supporting wire so that they root in several places along the stem)

I'm going to make scissor trusses for the roof (it'll look like this) -- I need to do the math to find the lengths I'll need.

I'm trying to decide what kind of mix to fill the pylons -- a peat moss, vermiculite, garden loam mix. I don't want it to be too heavy, but I want it to retain enough water that I don't have to water it every day. The column will be about four feet wide and five feet tall, so about 60-65 cubic feet. Half peat? Hmm. Suggestions welcome.

First, I gotta take a pill for this migraine that wants to happen. Then get the boys dressed and off we go. John, wish you could be here! You could help me wrangle the preschoolers.

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aquaponics plans

2015-02-23T03:54:23Z

I make plans for things all the time. Sometimes I'm able to pull it off and sometimes not; I think I'm running about 50/50 right now. I'm excited about this new tank idea because it's very doable. Here are the steps and estimated time frame for getting it done.

1) reorganize the basement -- the area that I'm putting the tank in is full of stuff that needs to be hauled to the opposite side of the basement. This will take several hours and I'll have to strong-arm Luke into helping.

2) purchase supplies -- I'm getting 100 ft. of galvanized wire fencing, extra because I want some for a project over in the garden area, fan-fold ridged insulation, and 4 mil plastic sheeting. Total cost of about $200. I should have the money for this in about four weeks.

3) construction -- it's pretty straight forward; cut out a circle for the bottom of the tank, cut the fencing and wire it together, cut the insulation, and lay in the plastic.

4) plumbing -- the tank will need a sump pump and timer, and water lines to feed up to the growing beds. I'll have about 50 sq.ft. of growing bed, but haven't planned out exactly what I'll be growing there. I'll need another $200 for the pump and water lines.

5) garden beds -- I'm going to make raised beds right on the ground. I'll need 1x6 boards for the sides and more of the heavy-duty plastic to line it. Hopefully, I can find scrap wood for this. Then the beds will need to be filled with pea gravel I think (that's what I'm going with for now) -- so for 50 sq ft of surface area that's 1 foot deep, I'll need 50 cubic feet of pea gravel, or 1.8 cubic yards.

Actually, sitting here thinking about it, I just figured out how I'm going to design the beds. I'll have one long bed running east-west along the back of the house and another C-shaped, raised bed in the greenhouse. I'll have a used leaf-gutter hanging above the raised bed for lettuce or spinach. Or maybe strawberries, I dunno.

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EBT CSA

2013-06-18T13:27:29Z

I was reading about Seattle's plan to make a food forest and it gave me an idea for an inner city non-profit CSA that takes food stamps.

There are some 10-15 of community gardens in Lansing, and I think that there might be folks who garden there that might contribute, too.

I'm pre'damn sure we could get workers from community corrections, too.

Hmm.

What would be the first steps for this project?

1) write it up -- the dreaded business plan

2) talk to the city about getting a space

3) talk to the community gardening groups to see if there's interest there

4) talk to neighborhood centers to see if there's interest there

5) talk to city planners and see what land might be available - there's a lot of vacant, city owned land right now in the Lansing area, but a lot of it is ex-manufacturing space with poor or contaminated soil.

Some folks outside of Seattle have done this: Crystine Goldberg and Brian Campbell at Uprising Farm are featured in this Local Harvest newsletter.

Suggestions anyone?

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sprouted onions

2013-03-10T19:02:05Z

I have a bunch of onions that have sprouted. If they were little spouts, I'd still use the onion, but these are great, big sprouts. So I was thinking of planting them over by the golem marsh. I kindof like the idea of coming back and seeing if any of the seeds sprouted.

But the internet says that onions grow best in loose, loamy well drained soil. Hmm. Why did I think that onions liked river banks and such? Well, I'll figure something out.

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bioponics

2012-09-01T15:11:41Z

I've been reading about this lately. As with the bees, I think it's something I won't be able to get really going on until we either get a piece of property or if the guy across the street buys the property that the golem is sitting on, and lets me do it there.

So, this will be a new tag. I have a picture in my mind of what I want to do -- start small and all that. It's a biological system, some have called it a "living machine" -- I don't like the "machine" part.

It works like this: we would grow duckweed and algae to feed the fish. We can eat the duckweed and algae, too; it's very nutrient rich. The fish pee and poop goes to the plants -- there is a fungus that's introduced to the plant growing medium which breaks down the fish waste into usable plant food. The water, now cleaned of waste, is returned to the fish.

( overview of my idea )

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