The Government Interrupted my Gardening!

Well, it has happened again!  My husband returned from 2 weeks in Arizona for his sister's wedding and was greeted with a message that he needed to be on the ship no later than midnight that same day!  Gotta love it when we are so harshly reminded that he belongs to the Navy and is just ours to borrow for a few months at a time.  He wasn't even here long enough to take a shower or see how hard the kids and I have been working on the ol' homestead!  Just enough time to pack his bag and get in the car so we could take him to the base.  So all the projects he intended to finish are in limbo for the next month or so.  I am left with half of a fence, trailer loads of compost that I have to get myself, and hoping the vines I have to cover the non-existent fence will survive in their pots until he gets back.

Those of you familiar with the deployment thing know that as soon as our beloved leaves, things break...BIG things!  Last deployment it was a water heater and a well pump, this time is no different.  We were preparing for a SCHEDULED deployment later this year by replacing our aging HVAC system, decrepit fencing that falls down every time the wind blows, and purchasing a generator for hurricane season, but NOOOOOO... last night I awoke to the sound of my well pump kicking on/off every 25 seconds.  At 3 a.m. I knew no one was up showering or anything, I checked for leaks inside and there was none, so I just laid there contemplating how bad this could really be.  As soon as it was light out, I stuck my head under the crawlspace (yuck!).  I heard it before I saw it...waterfall noise...seemed to be gushing out of a pipe and hundreds of gallons of H2O pooling up on the "vapor barrier"!  After taking a shower (what's another few gallons?) and crying, I finally shutoff the well pump and called in Joe the Plumber.  Thankfully for our finances, it was fixed in an hour with a new pipe, but Joe gives us the bad news that our pipes are really old and need to be upgraded (no surprise).  All this has transpired and been fixed and the sailor-pirate chaser-farmer doesn't even know about it yet!  Joe the Plumber was a real character, too...not much for words (or teeth for that matter) until he saw my garden and that my primary water source was a well in the suburbs...then he was all "don't get city water, the man will stick it to you" and "you should build a bunker to store your veggies".  Really?  A BUNKER???  LOL, this was kind of amusing seeing that he makes his money from those water pipes fed by "the Man".  I think he needs to move somewhere the moonshine flows and the militias are on the move!  Anyway, here is the offending pipe, all the damage came from the little pinhole on the upper right. I have no idea what the patch job is on that pic, that was before we got this place, lol.

So now that I am done venting about the above, we just started hardening off the seedlngs the other day, but have been plagued by severe weather the past couple of days, so haven't planted anything yet. 

 I finally got around to organizing my gardening papers & seeds, etc., something I have been planning to do for a couple of months.  Being so OCD, I am surprised I lasted this long with all my garden stuff strewn all over my desk!  I mulled over the idea of a bin, or file folder of sorts, but decided on a binder system.  The result rocks...I have laminated planting info, divider tabs for everything from seed types to monthly garden chores, and seed packets fit perfectly into photo sleeves.  It is the PINNACLE of my OCD/Type A Projects and here she is...

Next up... the the booby-trap for dogs...

No, it's not where all the good little stakes go when they die...!  It's to train the garden dogs to stay out of the beds!  It dawned on me the other day that my other raised bed garden is fenced in, which is why I have never had the dogs playing "agility competition" until now.  So before the plants go into these new beds, the kids gathered every unfriendly object we had laying around and stuck them in...working so far...we will see when the plants go in!

Aha!  I see I have just received an email...no doubt from the sailor-farmer who just found out about the water pipe carnage...better get that!

Dumpster Diving on Easter Sunday???

So you wanna know how we spend Easter Sunday when the husband is gone and no family live near???  Dumpster Diving of course!  More to come on that in a minute.  The kids started the day with the obligatory Egg Hunt...as you can see below as they jaunt through the garden baskets in hand in 38 degree weather.  I am pet-sitting at someone's house this weekend, so in order to get there in time for the morning routine I had to wake them up at 6:45.  I told them "on your feet!  be dressed, pottied, teeth brushed, at the back door with baskets in hand in 10 minutes!"  I have never seen them move so fast.  Hmmm, even Finnegan didn't even ask me to button pants, wipe his butt for him, find his shirt, etc, etc!  There was candy involved, so no intervention was needed from me - awesome start to the day!  And lucky for me, they did indeed return with baskets full of eggs with candy inside!  (lucky since the thought occurred to me while I was finding my way through the dark with a flashlight hiding eggs last night that there was probably several "wild things" watching me and waiting to come snatch them!)

Okay, so I'm done with the whole "you're doing an egg hunt for them, aren't you?!"  Check that off my list of things that proper moms do for their kids.  What to do next?  I don't really want to do the park thing since I really have a lot of work to do in my garden and don't want to deal with crowds of people at the playground.  Let's go for a DRIVE...so I took the kids to a very new and affluent neighborhood (read no trees, foreclosed homes, sale signs everywhere) and ... what do we have here?  On the curb of a house with a foreclosed sign on it sat 2 very large crate-type wooden boxes.  They scream "take me, don't let us go to the landfill!"  So I parked the Outback, slid the front seat back until Finn's legs were jammed up in his chin, and proceeded to lift one into the front seat, one in the way back.  These babies weighed about 80 lbs apiece, and Lochlann just kept repeating "maybe you should wait for daddy..."  

So when we got home, I rolled them into the back yard and gave the kids paint and brushes and told them to have at 'em.  They had a blast and this is what I got - these may be perfect for my new colonnade apple trees!

I also forgot to mention Charlie's project completed right before he left for AZ.  We had a ton of old fence boards from the old fence that I really wanted recycled into SOMETHING.  He drilled holes in them and slipped them all onto rebar pounded into the ground.  Presto, I have a 2 bay compost bin that is aerated and looks a heck of a lot better than my 2 plastic black ones (which I will still use, but hide behind the shed!).  

The final project only took a half hour and is pretty cute.  We dug out an old wheelbarrow that was destined for the dump due to the huge gashes in the bottom of it - we then spraypainted it (all we had of course was aircraft gray, courtesy of my Navy jet-mech husband) and filled it with compost, a plant, some old pots we intend to put herbs in, and a $1 sign from Target I had laying around.  Charlie is going to laugh when he gets home and sees this one because I kept rescuing that wheelbarrow from his "to the dump" pile.  Every time he would say "what are you going to do with THAT?".  (The plant we put in looks pretty bad, it was planted in the shade the other day and it obviously needs to be in the sun - I hope it recovers).  I must admit after all this activity I was eyeing our canoe and thinking it might look good with a couple of rows of corn in it...no, I better draw the line on this one before I turn into "the crazy lady"...

I won't win any mother of the year awards for their diets today (see menu below!), and I conned them big time by giving them paint that kept them busy ALL DAY :), but I think they had fun and I got alot of work done!  

Here's the crap that was consumed today at my house:

Breakfast:  Candy

Snack :  English Muffin & Scrambled Egg (ok, that wasn't bad)

Lunch:  Plain Cheeseburger from McD's (ugh!)

Snack:  More Candy

Dinner:  Quesadilla and pretzels...more candy

Before you think I am horrible, I will say that is a definite deviation from what is normally served around here, and those who know me won't believe it, but my floors are even dirty today...REALLY DIRTY!  I don't even care...I can go back to being OCD mom tomorrow...

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

It worked!

The gnats are gone!  The IndoorPharm spray worked wonderfully, and the best part is that it didn't hurt even my tiniest seedlings!  I am still going to repot into new peat pots today because they need more room, but overall, this product saved the day - and the tomato season! 

I have attempted to post pictures of our homestead and plants on here, I hope they work.  It is my first time using photobucket so there may be a few kinks I will need to work on.  

Today is "Bird Day" around here.  The kids and I are going to be mounting/hanging our bird houses & feeders along the fence in hopes of relocating our feathered friends a little further away from the raised beds and new berry patch.  Time to get to work!

Seedling Emergency!

This morning as I was turning on the lights for my seedlings, I was assaulted by GNATS!  I saw one the other night, but attributed it to the seedlings being outside for a couple of hours that day hardening off, but this morning...ugh!  I know what gnats look like, but didn't know if they could cause any real damage...so I research it to death like I always do and find out that indeed adult flying gnats cause no real damage, but the LARVAE from the eggs they deposit in the soil actually damage the plant by eating parts of the roots.  I then came across only a couple of things that can help, both being chemical/non-organic in nature.  No matter, I decide...they have to go and I am willing to do anything to save my heirlooms!  Off to the garden center I go, complaining kids in tow, and find none of the products recommended but instead stumble upon a line of products made by Pharmsolutions of WA.  Of course they have beautiful packaging to lead your eye away from the price and seem to have a product for every need, one bottle is called "Indoor Pharm" and is intended just for indoor seedlings, plants, and hydroponics.  Perfect!  Bonus...specifically intended for fungus gnats!  I took the bait and bought a bottle and also picked up a bottle of "Veggie Pharm" to have on hand once my outdoor garden is in full swing.  They state they are safe for beneficials too, which is important since we do everything we can to attract and keep beneficials, including importing them!  

The product label says to test on a plant first, so I "sacrificed" some seedlings (the ones on the right in photo) for a full-on assault with this stuff to see if the plants survive.  My sacrificial plants are tomato seedlings with only 1 set of leaves past the cotyledons, and I soaked the soil and the foliage to get a good idea of how early I could get away with using this stuff and how forcefully.  A "worst case scenario" if you will!  I will let you know how they look tomorrow and if the gnats are gone...keep your fingers crossed that I will have a positive product review on this...since I already bought it, lol!  (BTW, price was 14.99 for 35 fl oz., not really too bad since the bottle is large enough to last a good while.)

You know you're "farming" when...

The past week has been filled with work and more work!  It's like one of those yard makeover in a day shows around here!  We have been needing to replace our weather and wind beaten fence for years now, and we decided to do half of that this past week as well as create a border and space for more raised veggie beds along the fenceline.  We managed to do it all without any digging (except for a trench barrier along the bed).  My husband was thrilled to have a legitimate use for his new propane weed torch aka "The Flame Thrower".  He torched all the grass/weeds for the new bed and we then laid down cardboard (courtesy of my neighbors' latest move, thanks guys!), then spread out a bunch of compost we had and mulched the area in.  

After that came the fence.  I believe you can judge how close you are getting to a homestead/farmette farming by they severity of the mishaps involved...!  As my husband was kicking down the old fence, I had my son stand safely away from the area (so I thought) when a huge gust of wind came and blew down the gate on the other end of the fence right on top of him.  It was one of those horrible moments when you can tell what is about to happen right before it does.  I looked up, started running but was too late.  The massive drive-thru gate smacked him down to the ground.  It took both Charlie and I to pick the gate up, and surprisingly, not a scratch on him!  He was terrified for sure, but he fell flat down on his front and took the gate on his back, which was the best outcome for that situation.  We have had that problem with the gale force winds and the solid fence blowing down for years, so I think we have solved it now by installing wire fencing and reusing the wooden posts to channel the wind through instead of smacking into the fence.  The downside to this plan is the loss of privacy and our little microclimate!  I am going to grow Hyacinth Bean vines for the summer, but now need to plan for permanent coverage.  I am debating whether to do something easy like an evergreen honeysuckle or something that will take a little longer, such as Rosa Rugosa or Russian Olive.  Either way, we will need to have some privacy back before integrating "Urban Stealth Chickens" into our family!  If anyone has any experience covering a fence cheaply and quickly for the long term I would love to hear it!  Here are a couple of photos of the new fence (on the left) and the new border and raised beds along the fence.  I hope to have some better pics soon.

The containers hold my new colonnade apple trees!  I am still a little unsure of where I will want them since the border is a blank slate right now, so I figured I would park them in pots in the meantime.

My youngest son Finnegan gave us a scare the other night by having what sounded like an asthma attack.  I took him to the ER where I was relieved to hear that it was not asthma but instead croup.  He had a couple of hours of nebulizer treatment and a steroid to help open his airway and then we were able to get back home (by 3 am!) and rest.  I thought only babies had croup but apparently it is not uncommon at all for a child his age.  I am just very thankful that it is not a chronic condition like asthma.  Here he is breathing his "magic dust"...

He was feeling well enough the next afternoon to plant his apple tree...

Next up, allergy season!  My husband and one of my boys have allergies pretty bad, and I find that every year I live in VA mine get a little worse, so maybe this year I need to get some meds.  I am sure we will all be sneezing today as we get outside to work some more.  I have a huge list of "Charlie Chores" for my husband to finish today since he gets to go on vacation in AZ for a week for his sister's wedding, while I get a "Staycation" at home with 2 kids, 2 dogs and a lawn to mow!  (Note to self:  keep removing parts of the lawn-grass is evil!)

Seed Swapping Fun!

The past weekend was alot of fun in spite of the cold weather!  I hosted a Seed Swap & Cocktail Party on Saturday night for my gardening group "Grownups Playing in the Dirt".  It was an evening of meeting lots of new faces and getting a ton of new seeds to try.  I was impressed by the amount of guests I had (24!) and the amount of seeds and good food everyone brought.  I ended up with all flower seeds since growing flowers from seed is something new for me.  For others, veggies were the attraction.  It's a great way to meet people and try something new for free!  My home is tiny, but the husbands were able to start a campfire out back (with a propane weed torch, I might add, lol!) and we were able to spill outside around the fire for some extra room.  It was chilly, but no wind at least.  Soon enough we will be complaining about the heat and mosquitoes!  There were alot of kids so they kept busy running around the yard, as all kids should be doing...and I am sure they all went home exhausted!  Outdoors and tired...nature's ADHD remedy!  I intended to snap some photos of the event, but forgot all about it once the party started.  My seedlings under lights are still too immature to send out into the world, so now I have an excuse to have another party in May!  Speaking of the seedlings, here they are as of this morning:

The rest of the weekend was spent cross-legged on my graveled perennial beds with my kids and dogs weeding.  Not exactly exciting, but very relaxing nonetheless.  The kids were so helpful in fact, hauling my debris in their little red wagon to the compost pile, that I offered to take them out to dinner and let them pick.  They chose, of course, McDonald's...yuck, what is it about that place and kids?!!  Anyway, they got their wish and all I got was my body desperately wanting its gallbladder back!  I am noticing that my kids now know what is a weed and what is a plant, important since alot of my perennials are self-sowing babies all around them!  

Yesterday, my best friend calls and is thinking about apple trees for her yard instead of trees that "don't do anything" and it got me thinking!  She has room for some nice trees and for them to provide food is awesome, but I am afraid if I add any more trees to my backyard it will shade my veggies.  After some researching, I decided to order some Colonnade Apple Trees.  If you haven't seen them, they seem to be the perfect solution to add fruit for the family without shading the yard, or would be great for tiny gardens as you can even pot them on a deck.  I ordered 3 of different varieties, and will try and update on the status of them to see if they live up to expectations!  Click for a picture and article about Colonnade Apple Trees, and a video from P. Allen Smith.  Now I can't wait for them to get here...funny thing is, the day after I ordered mine, a post appeared about them on one of my favorite blogs "The Crunchy Chicken".  So at least I'm not alone in trying this strange variety!

I am hoping to get the rest of my garden weeded and start on our fence building this week, but it is still cold and supposed to rain tomorrow...ugh!

Rain, Rain, Go Away...

I just realized I haven't posted in many days.  It's the weather's fault!  It has been raining and cold nonstop for 5 days and I didn't even venture outside until today.  I snapped a couple of photos and retreated back into the warm house!  I have a couple of bulbs drowning in the mud and count it...ONE pea sprouting!

     

So this weekend was a bust, and to top it off, both the kids and I were sick with a cold!  At least we picked a good time to be sick, and lounging in front of the TV and reading didn't leave me feeling like I was being lazy since it was pouring outside!  The good news is that all my seedlings are cooking right along under their lights, about 2 sets of leaves on them now. Of all the tomatoes, the Heirloom Black Krim is by far looking to be the fullest, fastest growing variety, so I highly recommend that one if you are looking to start from seed.  They were slow to germinate but made up for that very quickly, surpassing all the others.  The Black Krim seeds came from Baker Heirloom Seed Co. this year.  I highly recommend getting a copy of their catalog, it is eye candy for a gardener during the cold winter/spring months! 

I forgot an update about the pasture raised bacon we ate the other night from Full Quiver Farm....DELICIOUS!  Hands down the best we have ever had, and worth every penny!  That's all I've got for now...so I will leave you with some photos of the "Garden Dogs".  These are my gorgeous Aussie girls...

Sprocket (as in Spacely), 11 months                

   

Marley, age 6