What have you done today in the Garden?

I transplanted strawberries this morning and harvested some cauliflower and strawberries

 

ha! I actually was thinking about that in another spot back there. there is a sink hole on the other side of the lawn that needs something done to it. I had heard kevins dad buried a truck somewhere here... not sure where but it is a wet mucky spot that several people have gotten the mower stuck in before. grrrr! I have a plastic pond liner but that spot is just a little too far from my house to want to do anything momentous there.

Cayuga... no, I did not that an antibody test. but I am certain its what I had. I was sick for 6 months. even the doctor (and his wife whom I was around the entire time but had no idea that was what I had since it started in DECEMBER) are sure its what I had. the worst sinus infection I ever had, I coughed and coughed. had pink eye, lungs that sounded like deflating bellows all night every night, phlegm as clear as glass, a burst eardrum 4 times..I didn't go to the doctor for the first three months. it was viral... what was he going to do. I didn't have a fever, I didn't have green snot anymore, I didn't have anything that actually hurt...what was he going to do for me? nothing when its clearly viral. I went when my eardrum burst. eventually I had antibiotics 2x, prednisone 2x an inhaler and finally an xray that showed no pneumonia... We think our son just had it too. not sick enough to go to the doctor though. he had the weird hives rash but no fever. the cough the runny nose... not certain though, but the rash was covid like. no one else got sick though either.

 

its a big one. I stepped up to it and if you can see the stick I inserted at my head level you can see how tall it it. I am 5'6"....

 

Sjoerd: WOW !
Bride: WOW !

“That’s a big one!”, we said in unison.
If you look at the surrounding trees you wonder to ourself, “Why this one”?

So glad you guys were not under the tree when it fell, why you might’ve gotten scratched-up a bit.

P.s. that stick to show tour height was a good idea.

 

this is 3/4 of the yards I cleaned up of leaves yesterday. thankfully there aren't too many leaves left on the trees to come down.

if you put these photos side by side it would be the back yard.

 

Jeepers-creepers, C— that is some yard! Not many folks over here have such expansive yards. Back- breaking work to deal with all those leaves. Maybe shoulder-breaking too.
Chapeau.

 

That IS a big lawn Carolyn! And a huge root system on that tree!

I met today with a fellow at Sunny Meadow Farm, the Community Garden in a nearby town. He showed me their three irrigation systems, explained how they each worked and advised me on ours. It was very helpful. He also had ideas about how we could fund it, was able to give me estimates for the cost of things, etc. I am sure i will be calling him with further questions.

I plan to be in touch with a fellow in another community garden who designed their water system and got a grant to fund it. Hopefully that should prove very helpful too.

I have also been tasked with researching raptor perches. Anybody hear of this? The idea is to encourage birds of prey to the garden to deal with our vole problem. I mentioned it to the guy at Sunny Meadow Farm, and he pointed to his sheltie dog & said she was their vole catcher!

 

An irrigation system—what a great idea. I would like to hear more specifics on this. Is that irrigation with “natural” or city water? Regardless, it sounds really helpful and may work a treat for you. Oh meid, I am really interested to learn more. You are laying good groundwork and doing some helpful preliminary work.
Good luck with this.

As for the raptor perches—-we do not have them; however, a guy put up a nest box or two for hawks and owls. I have not seen the owl box, but I have seen the nest box for the hawk. You can only see it when the leaves are off the trees, so I have never seen if the hawks have used it...but I have seen the huge adults flying about.

We also have some sparrow hawks that pick off song birds eating t the feeders. Hopefully they remove some voles as well.

I am excited for you and your group. Giving your plants there on the garden water may turn out to be very important with this annoying weather change that we sre all experiencing at the moment.

Please keep us informed on this.

 

Yes M and S.. they yard is really quite large but next to worthless. mow grass and pick up the leaves. too much shade to grow anything and the whole yard is sloped quite steeply. there are also extremely wet areas as there must be surface level springs and my FIL thought black walnuts were too valuable to not plant. so there are an abundance of large black walnuts which I will make lumber out of someday! grrr!!!!!!! you all know how easy it is to grow anything around those. My mower slides and does wheelies if its too wet. We got a much larger mower two summers ago (a bargain from the local farm equipment dealer as someone knew we were looking for one ) I "gave in" and said FINE! get what you want dear! I didn't think we needed a "new one" ours was just getting broke in... or always broke. it was 25 years old but sheesh! the cost of mowers is like buying a car nowadays! Most of that lawn was the neighbors back yard... (which someday will be ours so I maintain it as well as ours. anyone coming my direction should let me know. I might have a bed and breakfast available for you to stay at). this here is more of my back yard... once again quite mostly worthless as its too steep to plant anything on. and I did want a little shade for the house eventually. this was about the first year we had shade.

I am getting tired though. all day I worked on cleaning up more of the garden. Got all the plastic rolled in to little rolls to put in the dumpster and all the ground cover from the melons and zucchinis folded and put behind the shed until next year. I used the leaf blower to blow as many weed seeds off the garden as I could to hopefully eliminate a few more weeds next year. took a mid day break and ran the weed eater to the repair shop a bout 15 miles from me. it just stopped dead the other day when I was using it.

 

A B&B Carolyn? Sounds great. I am picturing it with great home grown breakfast foods! If we weren't in the middle of a pandemic, I'd say sign me up!

 

yep, a B&B. I have no interest in a rental unit or babysitting people and worry over getting paid by the month. so, a B&B seems to be a better fit for my situation. I will cook you a breakfast casserole maybe.... and leave you alone. we went to a B&B not long ago and they left us a breakfast taco thing in a plastic wrapper. all you had to do was heat it up. blech! it was awful.

 

The B&B. Idea getting closer to realty? That’s great. We have stayed a a couple and while expensive, they gave a comfortable homey feeling. I think you have a good idea. I like the potential of offering fresh veg from your growing operation. Cor, who wouldn’t like that!

 

yep, as long as things go as planned.prob not for a year or two... depends on the neighbors.

 

Carolyn, you'll have a great B&B that will be booked solid! You are also smart to start planning now, with plenty of time to come up with a business plan and get any necessary permits. With the Covid shut-down, you have at least 18 months, perhaps longer to get your plans made.
I agree, breakfast burritos and tacos are to be avoided at all costs. Had one once, and never again!

 

Sounds great Carolyn. You'll have to post photos here as your plan comes to fruition. Well be rooting you on!

Today i made one last trip to the community garden to put compost on the asparagus and set traps for the voles. Oh gee, i just realized of course I'll have to go back multiple times to check on those vole traps. Aiicchht. Oh well.

Anyway, i also dug a vole trench around my plot
then took the rest of the community garden tools home for winter storage. They are now cluttering up our garage. We'll see how my husband reacts to that.