March 10, 2024 My elevated beds have taken themselves down đŚ
I am a steadfast believer in re-using, restoring, re-purposing pretty much everything, just because that is the way I was brought up. Everything can be salvaged…to a point. After 10 years of loyal service to our homestead it is time for replacement elevated beds.
When the bottoms started to fall out, I removed the soil and put it into grow bags which enabled me to move them around if I chose to. This system worked well all last season with two out of the 5 beds that were falling. This past winter one more collapsed on me, and today after completing my cleanup I watched (in horror) as one bed totally took itself apart-luckily all the soil filled grow bags plopped down without spilling soil all over the gravel!
Lesson and cautionary tale: as I was filling bags, I noticed that over time the soil had gotten a bit dense, so as I set up for a new season, in new elevated beds I will restore the mixture to a lighter, nutrient enhanced mix. I will continue to use the grow bags because I like the flexibility they offer. Looking forward to a new season of growing!
January 19, 2024, Jackrabbit trail. So nice to be back in the Adirondacks! Returning here in Winter is just the absolute best experience. We came up in October, but that was a Kayaking trek, totally different feel as the summer months were past, and everything was changing color and cooling down. This time is what we love best! glistening trail, snowy mountains, fresh coating of snow and temperature close to zero!
Jackrabbit stretches 7.7 to McKenzie Pond with a 1,656 ft. height gain. The trail is shared by snowshoers and cross country Skiers and the trailhead we started from today was Saranac Ave, Lake Placid. In the past when we did this trail, we were staying in Keene Valley where we picked up the trailhead I believe off of Rt. 73, I will need to look back at into my posts to check the exact location, but it was a gradual height gain, as this was and the way we approached this was by setting our turn-around time. So for today we didâ3.23 Miles in 1hour54 minutes with a 720 ft Elevation gain!
January 20,2024:âJohn Brown Historic Trail / Potato Field and Maple Grove Trail loop. A perfect trail to do when the weather is -4 degrees!âBeautifully groomed, well maintained under the shelter of a serene pine forest. .90 mi distance with 132 footâelevation gainâwith the 1980 Olympic ski jump tower looming above.
There was a gentle snow falling and a general quiet throughout the hotel grounds. There are trails on the grounds, we may look into those tomorrow, but for tonight, we may toast up a few s’mores on the open fire pit and sit by the outdoor stove.
January 21, 2024: Mount Jo An amazing day and a really beautiful hike! Everything about this trail is great. First, it has options, either a short steeper hike, or a longer gradual height gain until a steeper incline a couple of hundred feet from summit.â
Once again today as we arrived at Adirondak Loj the temp was at 0 degrees. It never warmed up past 3 degrees, but all of the trail is well groomed and under the cover of an evergreen forest, and there was no wind. As you get closer to summit, there are stairs built into the trail. Three sets of snow packed steps are better than an icy scramble, but one must use extreme caution navigating up and especially down. The long trail clocked in on Strava as 3.68 miles with a 793 ft elevation gain. Mt. Jo is not one of the high peaks at 2,876 feet, but has a beautiful view at summit and totally worth the hike. We find that on sub-zero days it is best to keep things reasonably short and sweet, and this hike was spot-on.
This fall may have been the end of the outdoor growing season, but the start of the indoor and greenhouse garden!âMy long awaited greenhouse kit arrived and was erected in late September, so rather than growing from seed, I have opted to winter-over some kale, yucca, peppers and my Banana trees. I have started some seeds indoors, and have moved some potted up broccoli rabe and arugula out to the greenhouse to see how it does. The Temp in the greenhouse is a steady 56 degrees with the addition of a thermostatically controlled heater/fan .
On January 1, I planted some cayenne pepper and Italian flat onion seeds and they were germinating nicely…until last night. I usually clamp the humidity dome shut to prevent critters from snacking on sprouts, but having forgottn to do that I now have to replant and start again.
My Root cellar attempt was…just OK. The temp around the carrots and green squash was a steady 61 degrees, I believe that is far too warm. I had to cook and freeze so I didn’t loose my squash harvest. Back to the drawing board on that! In the meantime I did successfully preserve most of the Tomatoes, apples, peaches and grapes! Peppers are drying and hanging in my kitchen, Bill has created some amazing hot sauces with recipes for next season in the works. I plan on working on my preservation techniques for 2024 garden. Green beans, although very prolific have been a bit of a disappointment. Dragon beans (which I had last season) were great, however the heirloom green beans I planted this season were harvested and frozen with the “string” intact! I should have taken it out before freezing…now I know.
This trip was the first, and last paddle of the season. The reason it took a while was because we needed to do many summer chores like paint the patio/deck furniture, bring the roses back from the dead (almost) tend to the garden plan a party, but the biggest thing that was holding us back was the fact that we needed to install the Kayak racks onto the new car. Our old faithful jeep of 11+years bit the dust :(.
We chose to paddle two days rather than hike the second day. The weather was absolutely perfect September: cool in the morning, warmer in the afternoon and cool at night. We went to Lower Saranac Lake in the Adirondacks which, in our experience of paddling is by far the most beautiful we have been to yet.
We paddled about 1.5 hours each day circling the large rockface island on the second day. It was a great upper body workout and just long enough to get our “sea legs” back.
Next stop: Winter hiking and snowshoeing. Looking forward to it!
August is the gardeners doldrum month. Not only do the vegetables ripen and thrive, the weeds and landscape have their heyday as well. This morning I had the pleasure of dealing with two Nursery “darlings” that are, in my opinion the stuff that fairy tales are derived…and not the happily ever after type.
I have learned a really helpful strategy from #awaytogarden a few years ago, and it has helped me get through seasons of fairy-tale weeds. Margaret Roach suggests that rather than looking at ALL your thriving weeds, focus on pulling one species and only that. It does help minimizing feeling overwhelmed, and it makes the task manageable, one focal point at a time.
The Two nightmares I dealt with this morning each have their own battle plan to take over the gardens scape once left alone. First there is the deceiving Multiflora Rose. Sold in every nursery as the hardy flowering shrub that blooms all through the summer..It becomes the wicked clothing grabbing, skin snagging, thorny armed creature that surrounded Sleeping Beauty’s castle and entangled Snow White’s aprons as she ran spooked into the dark forest chased by the wicked Queens’ axeman!
Next was the ground cover favorite-pachysandra. You can toss it into the woods, and in a season you will have a lush, green ground cover …well this may be a bit of an exaggeration, but this plant has running roots that pop up yards away from where planted. Not even a barrier will hold it off for long. I must admit that the advantages of having this ground cover win out over having crabgrass, poison ivy or stilt grass! This plant silently huddles in between shrubs, and chokes out anything else that may want to see the light of day, it works slowly, and takes over one foot at a time, lurking beneath the surface like Flotsam and Jetsam. The one advantage this plant gives is that it keeps the soil friable, so in combination with mulch, you have a healthy soil as opposed to hard-packed dry and lifeless.
What I have been battling with ALL season is the infamous/ famous Mugwort. Yes, I am aware that there is a medicinal quality…however, I am not growing that kind of crop, I leave the herbalist to do that because they know what they are doing. It grows via tap root and travel throughout the garden as efficiently as pachysandra. The issue I have with some native wildflowers and shrubs is that they may be great for soil and pollinators, but honestly, I don’t want my garden looking like the side of an interstate road filled with vines that blanket across every living shrub and tree standing. The wood asters, goldenrods and mugworts do just that, they quickly turn a garden to a wilderness woodland scene, but in my opinion in a negative way.
My answer to this issue is to cultivate a few of the views that are important to me, making it look like a Piet Oudolf (..in my dreams lol) landscape, but cut the undesired plants down, scratch desired seeds into the surface and let nature take its coarse. The native plants take care of the soil, the surface gets a chance to germinate seeds, and let the whole process march at its own pace. And we all live happily ever after.
It has been a few weeks since my last post, typical of a busy summer schedule when gardening! We have arrived at the summer doldrum stage: totally too hot to put in more that 2 hours of work (even before the sun is over the trees!) Mugworts, Plantains, Fleabane…totally out of control as Margaret Roach says it is enough to “throw in the trowel” However, we have used this time to do a bit of science and discover the fungi, insect pests and diseases lurking in the undersides of leaves and rocks, and to practice some techniques that were not so successful last year.
We have always stood by a rule when on a hiking vacation: Do something easy, do something challenging, and learn something new. This has served us well over the past 10 years, and so applying the same concept to each year’s garden has been my plan. The difference however is that the results are not instant, they take a season of growing to rate the success, or failure of the attempt.
#1 Companion planting: This is familiar to me, I have done it in the past and it has always been…just OK. I had done the “three sisters” in 2018 Corn, beans and Squash and if I remember correctly the squash was a bust, the beans were great and the corn was OK, not sure that we have long and hot days to support the corns cycle…but it worked. This year I attempted companion planting in a couple of locations with tomatoes, squash, onions in one bed, carrots, basil, parsley, spinach in the elevated kitchen garden beds, and finally in some grow bags that were filled with peppers and onions (that one seems like a natural ! lol) This year’s attempt…meh. Yellow spaghetti squash that ran on the ground fell victim to the squash borer. I think I only have one that may have escaped, but the season is half over, we shall see how that plays out. The green acorn squash in my huglekultur is doing fantastic! as always it never disappoints,
#2 Autopot Self Watering system: This system is something new to us, but was a precursor to setting up our new Palram 6′ x 8′ polycarbonate greenhouse kit. I set up the system in the middle of the field so it has a full day of sun. The self-watering system was filled with water from my rain barrel and the entire system was covered with one of the garden tents that cover my raised beds. I planted Eggplant and Broccoli Rabe in the pots, and the system worked really well! I am awaiting my greenhouse to be built in that location by the end of August…so exciting!
#3 Learning something new: Science! reading the leaves of plants and following up on the clues was my assignment to myself. I was always against the idea of “fertilizer” as I grew up with chemical enhancers in the garden, but I have come to accept the fact, that once a plant is in a pot…its as if you adopted a pet, or took on a sourdough starter. Yellow leaves, red leaves, brownish spots, mold, fungus among us… everyday is another sign that the plants need something. Organic fertilizer is a happy option, that takes care of the NPK issues, and researching images and extension websites has been an adventure in learning! Fruit trees and shrubs like our orchard and grape vine have benefited from this research. Maintaining a schedule of spraying very specific, very targeted areas have helped the plants. I was always against sprays in general, but there are so many organic options, as well as natural solutions that can be used that I don’t feel so torn. I have seen ladybugs, bees, asassin bugs, beetles, weevils, snakes, frogs and wasps in the garden so this year there is a nice balance of nature. One thing I saw less of (thankfully) are the preying mantis’s. Last year, there were so many in my garden, there was hardly anything else! Introducing Preying Mantis into a garden is like using a nuclear weapon! they do NOT care what they eat, if it moves they will eat it. I was terrified to go onto my garden paths I knew they were watching and waiting to pounce.
So we have August and September ahead. I have been planting new seeds for next round of fall plantings, and we are looking forward to new adventures in the Greenhouse.
Planted out most of our propagated veggies, and I am starting another batch for succession plantings. This year, now that I am retired I have more time to watch the plants closely and nip things before they go too far. So far the critters above have been spotted, Grape leaf skeletonizer (the caterpillar on the left and the thrips-like microscopic squishy deep inside a tiny peach-baby. We have sprayed our apple trees, and the stone fruits (we have a peach and a nectarine) however I think our scheduling is a couple of weeks behind: noted for next year, live and learn!
Last fall, we had to mow our meadow down, too many shrubs were going woody and blocking out the light for all the wild flowers that were in the understory. So far this year we have been keeping the mugworts at bay and the Lupines, yarrow, and goldenrod have been growing. We did keep some Mulberry and Crab apples, and I would like to keep them shrubby, not letting them get too tall. A peach tree propagated on it own (perhaps with the help of squirrels or a tossed pit ?) we were happy to see that come about!
Gardens are always a work in progress. Learning never ends.
The weather this weekend has been incredible. Sunny and in the 60’s make it a perfect day to start cleanup and startup of Garden 2023. Pulled out a couple of good reference books (Toulouse took a bite out of my Square foot Gardening book when he was a puppy)
So I have implemented a few tried and true concepts so far in 2023 garden plan. I would like to get more out of each garden bed so I am going to square-foot with companion planting and see how this works in addition to succession
Still have the rest of the seedlings to put in, and technically Mothers day is the frost free date, I am taking my chances putting these in as it is, so that’s as far as I will go today.
After 3 years of letting our property rejuvenate with three wildflower meadows it’s time to start rebuilding. Perennial gardens must be reworked every few years in order to cutback old woody growth and allow new understory shrubs and ground cover to grow.
Our fruit trees had a rough summer last year. With the temperature at 110 degrees all set fruit had aborted. We also did a major pruning on our peach tree to keep it from getting too tall. All three trees are dwarf stock so we intend to keep them dwarfed! Hopefully this year we can see some fruit.
During the past season we also added Heritage Raspberries and Blackberries. The Raspberries were very productive for having it be their first year in the ground, I am assuming the canes were already two ~ three years old.
Cooking up some Tomatoes, potatoes and herbs (still on the heat mats) in the indoor grow room, I already have Green Acorn Squash, Spaghetti squash, and many peppers of various levels of Scoville heat are already outside under hoops. Rhubarb was planted yesterday and it has been raining ever since! The garden plan is a pretty enthusiastic, but being retired now I should have more time to “tweak and putter”
February 20, 2022: With the cornflower blue cloudless sky and light dusting from yesterday evenings snow squall we couldn’t resist the temptation of a short local hike. All Trails app is amazing in that it can list all trails in your zip code. We never knew this place existed and we live here 30 years!
We put Toulouse’s coat on and he stood by the door with anticipation… we wanted him to go into the back garden, but he waited by the garage door waiting to go into the car, he was up for a walk, which was surprising, but he was really into it..happily
Grafedie in the Library 