North Garden, Poly Tunnels and Phenological Events

Good morning Dear Reader. Got your boots on again? I was thinking I would take you on a tour of North Garden. But instead of doing it all in one day I would stretch it out all during the week.

North Garden is not the most northern spot on the Farm, north and south speaking it lies rather in the middle, and very much on the east line, save for the driveway. But it is the most northern of the permanent garden beds and so has been dubbed North Garden.


This is what the exposed garden soil looked like this morning. It has been clear and warm during the day and clear at night. Because of the clear nights the nightly lows have dipped down past thirty-two and so we have been waking to a good frost these last few mornings.


However, I have a low poly tunnel on one of the beds here in North Garden as a season extender.

In past posts I showed how I construct these: short rebar sunk in on the each edge of the raised beds about five feet apart or more; ten foot pvc pipe arched over the bed and slipped down on the exposed foot and half to two feet of rebar; six mil poly placed over the hoops; extra at the ends to cover and lap over; two x twos stapled to the bottom edges of the poly to hold it in place (this works way better than the clip system I use to use).

This is a shot of the soil under the poly tunnel, taken at the same time of day as the soil picture above. I didn't take the thermometer with me to get an actual reading but the soil is soft and not the least bit effected by the frost outside of the tunnel.

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If the temps got much lower or if I had frost tender things under here (right now I just have some spinach and beets started) I would put floating row cover directly on the bed to add five to ten more degrees to the soil temperature. In fact the floating row cover is under there it is just scootched over to one side. I wanted to see how the poly tunnel would do all by itself now that it is getting way more sun during the day with the trees gone.

The late winter and early spring beauties that normally take winter on the chin so well are really doing nicely with the sorta winter we are experiencing here in the PNW.

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The buds on the fruit trees are still very tight where they need a bit more time and protection which makes sense because even in a normal year the apple trees bud nearly two months after daffodil season with the cherries blooming just before the apples.

The only buds I see swelling are the ones that can take it in stride. I'm no expert and there is always room in my life for flukes (understatement of the year eh? beings that I'm nearly a fluke depend-er) but I really think that we have more chances of having a bad bud-damaging freeze on the fruit trees in a more "normal" winter than this one.

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Funny how we have a tendency to run around in late summer and look at the fuzz or the size of caterpillars or the coloring on the birds or when they leave and arrive as signs of how deep our winter will be. But when it comes to spring we listen to a ground hog on a particular day at a particular time and whether or not he sees his shadow. Then we wring our hands with worry, completely doubting the trustworthy phenological events, like the blooming of the Indian Plum or the emergence of naturalized daffodils.

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Lots of things come into play with the phenological events, length of daylight, consistent soil temperatures, chemical reactions (and biochemical reactions) because of those soil temperatures. It doesn't all hinge on ambient air temperatures. It has to all come together.

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I'm still a young pup, I don't have eighty years of experience watching the weather in the PNW, but from the view of the few years I do have, I'd say that the phenological signs are to be trusted. We are several weeks ahead of normal and we'll be okay, despite what the doom and gloom-ers on the weather segment late at night have to say.

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But then again farming and gardening is always gamble and not for the faint of heart.

Some People Skip Out

Just thought I toss this out there for you, Dear Reader this morning's coffee cup holder. Not that we are so hooked on our brand names here at Vicktory Farm & Gardens but I do like a good cuppa coffee and Dirt likes a nice ride.


Speaking of nice rides.... I ought to keep track of how many times the motersickle goes out and how many times Lanny happens to be on the back of it. I'm thinkin' I'm gettin' the short end of the ride history.

Today Dirt and his little buddy, Anna, are off to The 2010 Northwest Aviation Conference & Trade Show down at the Puyallup Fairgrounds.

Meanwhile Bet and I will be busy workin', well Bet is, while I take a few pictures and tell you what we're going to do today!


It is a beautiful day for a ride down to the big valley. It would be perfect if it wasn't quite so cold. The clear air brings lots of cold with it and that can make for an uncomfortable morning ride.
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But Anna doesn't look like she cares. It could be the fourteen layers of clothes that her dad made her put on. Think Ralphie's little brother in A Christmas Story.




I thought I'd give you a straight shot of where my Hothouse and Market Shed are going to go. And tell you a bit about my plans. Basically Fluffy's standing in the middle of the glazing. Well his snout is pressed up against it anyway.


We are hoping that we can run the Hothouse primarily passively and so we are doing a "solar" type greenhouse, think "leanto" green house. The glazing (clear material) will face south-southeast to catch the early morning sun so that the interior can begin to recapture the days heat early on.


The backside, north side or what it will "lean" on will be the Market Shed. In the Market Shed there will be a wood stove and maybe even our old electric furnace for back up and vents and fans that connect the two air spaces when necessary. All in effort to bring certain things into propagation earlier and with less energy expenditure.


Plant life that likes to get a head start "inside" but doesn't need temps in the seventies and low eighties will be propagated in the Coldhouses. Unheated hoop houses, and cold frames. Much like my onions are doing right now and my lettuces and cabbage family will be doing soon also.


They, the lettuce and cabbage family, didn't really need to wait, except that I ran out of space and time and the onions are a bit more crucial as they need to make a certain size before the day length changes and they begin to swell making their bulb out of number of "rings" that they were able to put on.


Lettuce and mostly the cabbage family do just fine in this colder weather but they don't do a heck of a lot of growing, mostly settling in so that when growing time does hit they are rip roarin' ready to go.

Wait, I got off track of what this post was about. Well besides the fact that Bet and I are the resident slaves today and others are off goofin'. I was wanting to just tell you about the greenhouse plans.

This would be looking lengthwise down the front of the Hothouse. Once all the stumps are removed and as they clear the spot for the building I am hoping that they will begin a nice long berm here between the driveway and the Hothouse.

The design calls for a three foot knee wall that we won't be glazing because I will be using benches for my starts not the ground (a bit of a look to the future when things might not bend so well, like my body for instance).

It would be nice to have the berm for extra insulation and I also plan on having it be a new asparagus bed. I used to have asparagus. It has been a long long time since my asparagus bed became a back lawn.

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Anyway, that is what I've got goin' in my brain for Dirt to build for me next month, all while lambing too. Not sure if he plans on just getting a dozer in here and do the work himself or have a operator do it faster and more efficiently. Sometimes it pays to have things done. Likewise with framing out and building my building, but then there is the flip side of the dwindling stack of money we didn't have to start with.

Well it is warm outside now and duty calls. Out to move some roses that are in the way of some future-future building plans and plant some of my things that have been in holding for a while. Ohhh that means I have to decide where things will permanently live....

Toodle lou Dear Reader. I'll be back in when I am exhausted but hopefully not to exhausted to catch up on my reading about all of your adventures. The last couple of days I keep getting thrown off track. What else is new eh?

Sometimes it isn't me personally that gets thrown off the work wagon but other family members, like Anna and Bet with a couple of non-resident bummer lambs to try and revive to no avail yesterday. But someone gets thrown and everyone seems to get thrown.

But no worries, what gets done gets done and the rest, well heck Dear Reader, that's what God made tomorrows for.

A Darn Fine Day

The girls and I saw this as we traveled to my non-appointment today. Heads up. March 18 is also on a Thursday. Look closely at month names and dates this month that is all I have to say.

It was an amazingly beautiful day today. The Olympics (the mountain range out on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington not the games) were absolutely beautiful and in full clear view totally worth a drive into town (easier to see them from there).

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We only had space on the camera and enough battery life for these pictures, otherwise we would have inundated you with pictures of our beautiful Pacific Northwest! We saw picture after picture. They are embedded in my brain. It was a good day with my girls. A very good day.

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Okay, I'm goin' all weepy now so I'm goin' to say adieu and get back to you tomorrow and see what your days were like and how your weekend is linin' up. I have a workin' weekend lined up, widow style 'cause Dirt has a conferency, job fairie thing goin' this weekend. Work, work and more work, and hopefully lambs!!!!!

Soakin' and Stripin'

Soaks

Okay, so I totally forgot to put my pea seeds, sweet and garden, to soak last night. They will soak overnight tonight here on the breakfast bar then tomorrow I will put inoculant on them. The garden (eating) peas will go straight in the ground and the sweet (flower) peas will go in peat pots and sprout in a separate place to foil the underground vermin.

According to the moon and stars the best day for peas was the fourteenth through the sixteenth, so even if I had soaked them last night technically I would have been late a day unless I consult Blum Almanac.

According to Blums I could have planted them today. That was what I was banking on when yesterday got sucked up by the drive to get the incubator. I was banking on that I could fudge another day.

So now this planting, which will happen tomorrow during a barren sign, can be my control and I will plant another batch on the twenty-fourth and the twenty-fifth. Actually those days are supposed to be better than this week's days for above ground seed in a pod or fruit. Earlier this week was really best for lettuces, and broccoli and the like.

It will take me a while to get the hang of this and the nuances from one phase of the moon to the next and the twist the different star signs put into it. But I promise to not go all whack a do on you Dear Reader, but it is good for the Lanniator Procrastinator to be on a schedule and this one is just interesting and purposeful enough that I might actually hang with it.

Stripes

I am by no means done, (I could have called this post "Almost Almost Done") only one stripe finished really, and I am not going to count how many more I have to do. But I thought I'd give you a glance at how they, it, looks so far.

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I will be working on all of the stripes starting at the top and going down just far enough to get the shelf up and then I can go to "a stripe a day" like Dirt proclaimed yesterday when he got home and watched me hand stripe this. This is where the warning about painting panelling does come in. I don't want to use tape like he suggests because the paint doesn't "grab" panelling like it does other surfaces.

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The doors and the door jambs will not be staying wood finished. I'm thinking a distressed white with a green glaze, I picked up two cans of green glazes off of a mis mix pile a while back that I have been wanting to crack open and use. I might try even a layered distressed look, like yellow on the white. 'Cause my friend Kim suggested the yellow and I like the idea of a bit of yellow on the doors.

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Did a lot of shoveling today, building up beds and constructing paths, so... I'm done Dear Reader. I hear the Olympics playing in the other room but I hear my bed calling louder.

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I made an appointment with my neurologist and got in for tomorrow, so the extreme pain episode has of course subsided, which I really don't mind, I know she knows I really have an issue and I would rather have a decent nights sleep for once.

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When I get too cranky I reflect on Paul and his "affliction" that was never removed, and I pray that God show me what it is I am to glean from this. But hearing that might actually take me shutting up with the whining already and just listen. A good start to Lent I'd say.

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'Night Dear Reader, rest well.

Yahooo, We Snagged a Biggen Off the List

Not sure where that list is now, but I had a list of things Vicktory Farm and Gardens needed, oh wait, I think it was in a post, not my side bar, any who, we can cross a big need off that list.

We went up to Bellevue in Dirt's big fat truck (that is important information because Bellevue is about as skinny as it's snotty women and Dirt's truck is big and fat and loud like a good hearted country wife) and picked up a cabinet style incubator.

We have been searching Craig's List for a while now for an incubator that held more than a couple of dozen eggs at a time. Weeks before Christmas there was a fellow in Ellensburg who was selling five. I called, I emailed, I got no response. The ad disappeared from Craig's List.

I kept threatening to jump in the truck and drive to Worley, Idaho to get another incubator that showed up on Craig's List, or down to Eugene to get yet another one that showed up but was way more money.

On Saturday, on the phone I was talking a friend down from a crisis, while I had guests in the living room and sure enough a 509 number showed up on caller id, I didn't think I could handle one more thing, and I sure as heck wasn't thinking "incubator man from Eburg", so I let the call go on to voice mail.

Sure nuff, it was the fellow who had them on Craig's List just before Christmas. His message: he had a few phone calls to return and I was one of them. He still had the incubators did I want one.

I called back. I got his terrible message thing. I left a message.

I got no immediate response.

I thought it was a cruel joke.

I called one more time.

He called last night. I made Anna interrupt her phone call and answer it.

He had two left. I wanted one.

He was bringing two to Bellevue in the morning, could I drive up there?

Better than driven to Eburg across the pass!

So there you have it, the not verbose story of how I came to spend my day in Dirt's truck instead of planting peas and how we now have four-hundred less dollars in the Vicktory Farm and Garden's start up account, but how we now, finally, have an incubator that holds something like six hundred eggs. Really? Let me check.

The GQF 1502 will hold:

1488 quail eggs
354pheasant eggs .
270 bantam to chicken sized eggs
180 extra large eggs (Turkey, Duck, etc.)

Not sure where I got that whole six hundred thing goin' in my head, just a lot of numbers that's for sure and fourteen hundred quail eggs sure as shoot is a lot.

But any way even a hundred eighty turkey poults or ducklings at one time is a lot, a heck of a lot more than the couple dozen that fit in our old incubator.

So consider Bet's turkey and meat bird operation good to go. (She'll do some layers in there too but we don't want to mention it out loud).

We will even quite possibly have some chickies or something for our opening day April 22.

Talk about some exciting stuff!

Have a good night or a good morning or a fantastic afternoon, whatever it is that lay ahead of you right now Dear Reader, I know it is going to continue to be a humdinger for all of us here at Vicktory Farm & Gardens. Who knew this year could hold so much stuff. Daily. Since, oh, say, August! God has not only knocked our socks off He has knit us several pair in a rainbow of colors so that we can have a new pair knocked of each day!

Tomorrow, peas, both garden and my favorite of all time thing to grow, sweet peas! I'll be late a day by the signs but a girls gotta go for the incubator when the incubator calls.

Almost Done

Well here is the hall in stage two, if stage one was paint over the yellow with white and prep the walls as best can.

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Color is always an interesting thing to me and the funny rules people have for it. Like, pink and red clash. Who says? Certainly not in the flower bed where a particular flower has pink and red in it and everyone oohs and ahhs over it.

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And how come my mom would put me in a print that would have pink and red in it but if I put a pink top over my red cords she always had a fashion cow.

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These are the things that confuse your Lanny Dear Reader. And now she just laughs and goes about her merry way. Well until Dirt says something rather rough then I go all south and wish I would just stick with white.

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But when I walk into the hardware store and there are piles of mis mixes and they look so intriguing and so lonely and tossed aside all at the same time? I can't help myself and so I find a way not only to use all the colors I brought home but make up a zillion more mixing them yet again!

Dirt must not mind it too much, all my whacky creative things I do, because he works hard to help me out and do the parts I have no desire to learn how to do. And he does have a hard time visualizing what I explain is running around in my head. Most people do, it isn't just him. But most of my friends are learning it is just easier to nod their head and say, "oh that will be so interesting when it is done."

At first Dirt didn't think he would like the stripes, then he decided that they didn't look half bad. (Oh ignore the red, that is actually the outside of the door, the door just happened to be open.) Then he was not liking the idea of yellow trim, but after he was half way through putting up the trim he liked it, now he loves it.

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There will be tiny yellow stripes between each "green" stripe, the groove in the panelling actually (I've decided like the British spelling, besides the two els look like the panelling itself.). Dirt really didn't think that was going to look good at all. I did one last night before I quit for the day. He loves it. But I need better little brushes so when I go into town next I will pick some better brushes up and then I will slowly work on getting the grooves filled. I'll work from the top down doing all the tops first so that Dirt can put up the shelves that will rim the top of the hallway and hold all my children's books that I can't bear to give away.

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But I was thinking I might not do it after all, sometimes I like how a project is looking before the planned finish is done and so I don't really "finish". But the little yellow stripes are a must because the green stripes were done with the yellow stripe in mind to cover the uneven edges. Besides I think they look "groovy".

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Have a great day Dear Reader, I have grandsons visiting, peas to plant and an incubator to go pick up possibly, busy busy days.

Another Vicktory Farm & Gardens Weekend

It's February, believe it or not, and there are lots of birthdays in February it turns out. My oldest daughter is a February baby, so is my second son, a good friend of mine has a February birthday as does one of her sons and the oldest son of some other good friends of ours, those northern folks I'm always mentioning.

Hopefully I haven't missed someone.

So in honor of the gaggle of birthdays we had a bit of a party, in the rain.



My February baby is in the hooded coat with the little fella in the brown coat hanging on to her. The other birthday gal, seen here on the right of the little fellow in the brown coat, had a little something for Anna to do on Saturday before the party really got off to a shootin' match, no really, they did eventually go out to the pasture for a little bit of shootin'. What else is there to do outside in February when it won't snow or freeze?


But first Anna was demonstrating her

skinning skills on a rabbit from Kimberly. It has been a long fought battle hear tell and the battle ended Thursday with one of her sons taking out the cabbage stealer.

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Everybody who's anybody has heard of the Vick Chicks' love for skinnin' things and many have asked to be privy to the art. So Anna decided to do a little showin' of her skills right after lunch.

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I'll avoid a close up for those of my queasier friends.

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I dunno how the shootin' went really, I wasn't out there, I was in the kitchen making lasagna, and other delights and staying dry and warm and not stuck in the mud. Not 'cause I'm a sissy or anything, but there were lots already that wanted to be shootin' and there was after all a dinner to make. But I'm sorta sorry I missed the full pop cans bein' shot, now there's sumpin' fun to watch I'm sure!

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Dirt, Rebecca and Mike chatten after dinner. Tellin' jokes most likely, like, what do you get when you put a hundred sows and a hundred bucks together? Why, two sows and bucks of course. But none of these are birthday people this month.

Three of my four daughters, but none of them are a birthday girl.

Op, here's a birthday person, right here in the middle with a birthday smile and a piece of birthday cake.

These aren't birthday people either, it's Mark and Becky, mom and dad of the birthday fella in the previous picture. Doesn't Mark look menacing? Wonder what he was thinkin'.

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He musta not shared it with Becky, 'cause she looks as pleasant as ever. She is always pleasant, I am blessed with lots of pleasant friends. I'm hopin' it'll rub off on me soon. I'm just the town bully for now I guess.

And here is a birthday lady and rabbit murderer (well she hired the hit on the bunny anyway), oh and I do believe that is her hit man she is sitting next to.

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Her birthday boy and my birthday girl were not caught on camera very well Saturday. I always just get into enjoying my company and forget to take their pictures. I missed takin' a picture of Pop and Patty who left before I remembered the camera. But then you can do this whole meeting the framily a little slower then, always a silver lining to my mistakes eh?

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And no, I won't ask someone else to take the pictures, I might get in one.

Aww here is a fellow photo phobe. My second son and another February birthday person. He and my oldest daughter (not his wife, he is married to my second daughter) not only share a birthday month they share the same year also.

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Well that's just a lot of Vick family and friends trivia for you and a lot to take in so I'll leave it there before we gotta get out a road map.

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That was Saturday at the Farm, Sunday, Valentines Day some of us went down to Puyallup to the Daffodil Bowl and held Bowlerama February. And we were joined by the Fryers, well a few of them any way. I took my camera... I just didn't use it.

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It was mighty fun. Next month I think I'll rent two more lanes, let me know if you'd like to join us and I'll make sure to get you a spot.
Well all good things must come to an end. Next time I'll get the camera out more. Next time? When will the next time be? Well.... who's got birthday's in March? Oh wait, we have a holiday in March! One of my favorites! We'll have a Saint Patrick's Day event I am just sure of it!

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My Poppa drilled my wee bit of Irish heritage into me head and my love for the underdog into me heart, so you know I love all that is Irish. So we will be lookin' forward to next month's Bowlerama for the Saint and we'll see you there?!