In this video, E.G. shows us the anatomy of a hugel, thanks to a bunny who likes to dig.
This is one of the hugel mounds as it looked in April. I didn’t dig or till, but instead placed a cottonwood log, then sticks and branches, then upside down sod I had removed from another part of the yard, then it snowed, then mushroom compost and spent brewery grains topped it off.
Here it is today:
And here is a wildflower, Hibiscus trionum, I let grow in the garden because I just like it.
It’s not as hot and dry as Phoenix, Arizona, but almost. It probably is as dry actually. Some evenings we get an exciting T-storm but it’s just dry lightning, no rain. Still, I love our summers. I savor every moment outside in the aging radiation. But I also wear a mask when outside my house or backyard, which is an effective sunblock and I kind of wish I’d been wearing one for the past 30 years.
I also learned a lot from this midwestern gardening expert who discussed mistakes many growers (including me) have made during hot weather. To summarize:
Here’s a lovely thunderhead that appeared toward the end of a picnic dinner the other night, which didn’t leave a drop of moisture.
And here’s my first video from the newly created Deathplow YouTube channel, filmed by 11-year-old EG, where I explain the disorderly nature of my garden and what weeds I like.
Next up, EG tells us about their first hugel. Cheers!
We got about a foot of snow twice this week. I’m not sure it’s necessary to cover lettuce, radishes, beets, carrots and cilantro before a snow, but I did because it was going to be in the teens at night (Fahrenheit) so I let the snow be an insulator. Today I removed those covers, it got warm, and an avalanche from the roof slammed down on these beds, so there was no point. But I did get a cute pic.
Here they are the day before this snow.
“Rice Against”, like Wicked Garden , is a nod to one of those rock, punk or pop bands I like to reference. I guess that started since the name Deathplow was inspired by a fictional metal band a coworker made up for fun.
I don’t actually know if rice is one of the grains in the steaming mix of beer by-product I got from a local brewery today. I don’t know a lot about making beer, but brewers like Liquid Mechanics in my area are happy to donate the spent grains to farmers and gardeners. What I scooped into buckets and an old cooler was fluffy, still warm and smelled kind of nice. I’ve never used this as a soil amendment before but I did some research and it seems safe.
For starters, I dumped a load of the grains on my new experimental hugelkultur mound. Beneath that, besides snow, is a layer of cottonwood logs, sticks and bark, then upside-down turf I removed from nearby, then grass clippings and other biodegradable material including dirt from the yard. This does *not* include last year’s nightshades or squashes, as they may (and probably will) have and transmit blights or undesirable fungi. Stalky, seedy greens like orach I did include, and when they sprout in there, it’s a bonus.
I don’t want to dig and till; I’m trying to stick to the philosophy of building up, not digging down. On top of that, a bag of store bought cottonwood compost.
It doesn’t look impressive so far. But I have a pretty good feeling about this becoming a hill of beans, then a hill of greens, then a site for more complicated plants like peppers. Because last year was pretty good for my peppers, I’ve gotten more into them, with a second generation of fish peppers, anchos, and some exotic spicy ones. I joined the hot peppers subreddit.
Periodically I come across heart-shaped instances in nature, like this bit of snow that dropped from an overhead branch.
Before the snow, it was hot and sunny and I was able to dry a load of laundry including our homemade pandemic masks. One of the old shirts drying has a message for our neighbor’s kitty, Boo, who is adorable but seems to be stalking our birdy friends:
Here is our actual fish, Twerp.
He has plants in his underwater garden, too.
I didn’t put this on the spreadsheet as an expense, but I ordered a case of canned sparkling mineral water, and most of it went to the seedlings.
It wasn’t a great season to begin with, except for peppers, which is a first for me.
The seeds saved from Ancho and Fish Peppers are sprouting now. I started planting seeds January 12. This will cause a problem later if the plants grow successfully because I won’t have room for them inside under lights until late May. I’ll cross that bridge if and when I have to.
Number of what is planted, with amount germinated and growing in parentheses:
-Tomatoes 74 (19):
-Peppers 49 (22):
-Other 82(8):
I’ve spent $84 on materials and seeds this year (spreadsheet needs updating), so if those listed above were all I grew, and all thrived, that would be a cost of $0.41 per plant. I don’t know why I bothered calculating that because there will be more plants and more materials such as growing medium. I will end up paying for mushroom compost from Hazel Dell Mushroom Farm because I avoid growing in animal parts such as feathers and fish corpses. It’s hard, really hard. I’m trying not to pay a lot for dirt or anything else, but our soil is hard-packed and devoid of nutrients and the weather is often extreme. I’m trying to build up soil with somewhat intensive gardening methods rather than raised beds with ideal soil that are effectively huge container gardens. There’s nothing wrong with that and gardeners get beautiful and delicious results that way. But I’m too cheap and I guess I like a challenge.
This summer we were on Long Island, New York, visiting family. To prepare for an afternoon boating we shopped at this absurdly bountiful, colorful farm stand in Amagansett. My cousin dared me to get out of there without spending at least $100 on picnic foods. I spent $90, just because I was challenged. And, frankly, that’s an extremely cheap lunch for the Hamptons. I think we spent that much just going out for ice cream.
Little EG relaxing after swimming and picnicking:
Still to plant: Beans, squash, cucumber, greens, maybe carrots, maybe a new apple tree. This should increase the return, but also the work, quite a bit.
Those unrelated situations were the biggest news of the weekend. It was a great match. I almost didn’t care who won, but was leaning slightly to the underdogs of Croatia. They were so cohesive and tough.
I know kids are all gonna want Mbappe jerseys now, but Giroud’s hair did its part too.
In other news, there was a 30-degree F temperature drop to 70-something. Some rain finally soaked my area, although based on the smoke that remained visible after it cleared up I guess it didn’t fall on the parts of the Southwest that are on fire.
I had to pull up a tomato plant that looked like it was going to succumb to a blight. A strong plant could have overcome that I guess but this one was small and already compromised by her hail injuries. I feel bad for the plant and, while I’m at it, the fungus or whatever was killing it. I had to remove it to save the others. Pulling it up seemed like a violent act. I didn’t even let my 9-year-old son see me do it, because he’s sensitive like me.
There’s no way for me to know if or how plants feel. It’s not a stretch to relate to another mammal of a different species or a bird, but it’s a little more of a challenge to try to get inside the head of a fish or reptile. Understanding beings from the plant kingdom – the other kingdom – requires some real outside-the-box thinking. I know they don’t have a nervous system like mammals do, but they are living. I love them, raise them and eat them, which is a relationship many people have with some mammals and birds. I only eat plants, because I have to eat something. I feel like I owe them respect and stewardship, and I’m not sure how benevolent it really is for me to raise them up to die in the winter. Well, some don’t die, and virtually all of them live on via their seeds.
Having written all that, I still find this article about plant abuse hilarious.
My to do list for the day before the first snow of the year:
I didn’t get to do any chalk art on the sidewalk but the kids did. I love sidewalk chalk art and cave paintings, because I’m primitive.
This time of year, my in-laws in Iowa are harvesting corn with giant, sophisticated combines (or whatever they are). The grain goes into silos several stories tall (I think) or maybe it’s made into fuel or corn syrup. The big green tractors are amazing. They are all green because these are John Deere people.
At my house it’s not exactly like that. My garden is slightly smaller than a combine. I gathered five kids, who are also sophisticated, but kind of small. Then I gave them boxes, locked them in the garden and told them not to come out until all the tomatoes and beans were picked. I ended up staying in there with them to make sure it got done. Actually I picked the ones they missed. They found this fun, like an Easter egg hunt. They whined a little (“Mom? Can we have root beer?” “Auntie, I think we’re dehydrated” – not actual quotes) but we came out with 70+ pounds of usable produce. Then I gave them lunch, cake and root beer, so don’t alert CPS.
It was 77 degrees and sunny, but snow was coming in that night, so everything had to be brought inside. The weather pattern here is like this: it’s warm and sunny, then breezes bring in an agricultural smell associated with the cow towns to our north, then it snows. And that’s what happened Sunday. Now it’s warm again and the cycle may not repeat for another week. Fall in Colorado is less dramatic than spring.
That’s it for the season, except for greens which grow almost all year long. The mustard and cilantro has re-seeded itself and sprouted. Most tomatoes are green and will ripen indoors. The experience of eating them raw isn’t the same as it was in August or September but it’s still good. I cook and can a lot of them as they ripen. I blended a mix of all the varieties and cooked them down to about 2/3 their original volume and added only salt before canning. Some I canned whole to see what they’d be like, but I think cooking and reducing them is a more efficient use of space. Some are just sliced and frozen. The total weight of tomatoes harvested for the season is 179 pounds.
The beans pictured were blanched and pickled. So now what do I do? Wash, dry and save seeds to plant in a few months. I actually do other things too. In fact, the other things are the vast majority of the things I do, they just aren’t nearly as exciting as vegetables, or if they are as exciting I’m not publishing anything about them.
This really makes me sad. I got this little Bartlett pear tree about 10 years ago and it’s produced a lot of fruit. Last year it got fire blight and I excised a lot of the tree hoping to keep it from spreading. But suddenly this week, when it’s been raining almost as much as it’s been not raining, the blight returned with a vengeance.
This is bad. I might call a tree surgeon. I have medicine for this type of infection, but by the time I bought it the tree had set fruit. Label says not to use it once there’s fruit. I really let this tree down by procrastinating the treatment.
There’s a noticeable reduction of wildlife in my yard. At dawn and dusk we’re used to seeing something we call the Bird Show, where a community including (but not limited to) Robins, sparrows, finches, juncos and chickadees would be active in the yard and garden. I can still hear the chickadees and I know Robins and the others are around, but I’m pretty sure the action has died down this year. It’s not for lack of bugs or seeds, I think. And I’ve only seen one snake this year, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t around. They hide. Hawks and corvids (jays and crows) will eat them – you don’t want to be a snake in your next life. It’s tough.
Anyway, here’s a bean called Fort Portal Jade, which look like little beads of sea glass when mature and dried:
I don’t think my crappy iPhone 6 camera captured their bluish-green tones. They grow and mature fast, having put these out in July. I imagine they’d be great for zones with short growing seasons. I did eat the green beans fresh for awhile in June, and they were good, but it’s worth letting them mature for these pretty seeds. I haven’t had enough dried beans to cook yet so I don’t know how they’ll taste. The only downside to growing these is that they’re a bush type, so it limits how much you can grow in a small space. Not that they aren’t productive, they are, but you really multiply your harvest with pole beans that have a small footprint and >6 feet of vertical growth. Some of mine are climbing the corn, others trellises, poles and the garden fence:
…but three days in a row is a lot. I’ve been sulking in my room for days in my plaid flannel jammies, listening to Alice in Chains. Just kidding, the only way I’d stay holed up inside for a weekend is if EG had a sleepover at a friend’s and Metal Pig and I could stay in our room and pretend we were still in our twenties. Sorry if that was TMI.
The sun is out for now though. It was actually kind of pleasant to be out in the garden in soft rain, not driving rain, and playing tag with EG. He likes the rain. Tag is a great workout too. I worry about blights and stuff when it rains this much. I recently cut out all the suspicious parts of the two plants I saw it on and wasn’t optimistic, but the remaining growth looks good:
This creature is waiting for a tomato to get ripe, but he’ll have to wait quite a while.
Grasshoppers don’t seem interested in tomatoes before they’re ripe. I manage my relationship with them by picking tomatoes when they’re like 85% ripe and let them finish ripening in a paper bag. He missed this one, though, picked ripe today. It’s a Great White, which is really lemon yellow:
You can see the cracking from too much water. And speaking of yellow, I think there was a mixup in one of the seed packets I ordered. It was supposed to be a Solar Flare but looks like another Brad Gates variety with the disturbing name Pork Chop :
But whatever, it tasted good and it’s pretty. The only issue is I’ll have to label the seeds when I save them as a “mystery yellow tomato.” I have gotten a few ripe ones here and there but most of them are still getting bigger before getting riper. It’s usually September, even October when I get the most ripe tomatoes. I don’t know why. I start early.
It is the time of year we hit the fresh snap bean jackpot. Here are examples of a Chinese long bean, Purple Podded Pole, Cherokee Trail of Tears (shiny black bean when mature and dried) and McCaslin 42 (shiny white when mature and dried, yang to balance the black bean’s yin). They’re all brilliant but I especially rave about the purple ones. This is the third generation I’ve grown them – bought the seeds three years ago and have saved them from the mature pods since then. They’re beautiful, plentiful and delicious fresh or dried. Very cheap nutrition too, with vines that climb as high as you let them.
If EG and his buddy Mad Max (not his real name) get our lemonade and produce stand out while it’s still summer, the purple and yellow produce might attract attention. Not as much as the homemade toffee the boys down the street made, but I can’t compete with that. And this is a blog about gardens and money. Mostly. What would be fun is if we accept cryptocurrency at our stand, which is possible (we invested in litecoin) and would make a less boring blog post.
It is uncharacteristically cool and cloudy today. Summer in Colorado is dry and about 30 degrees F hotter, usually. The weather makes me gloomy (I am too old to be emo). I almost said I was depressed, but checked myself. I rethink using that word now since depression is a topic little EG has had questions about lately.
He was really affected by the deaths of singers Chris Cornell and Chester Bennington. We’ve been fans of Cornell for years and EG liked Linkin Park. He was sad the day he heard on the radio of Bennington’s suicide and wanted to talk about it. I wish I could have protected him from that news. He couldn’t wrap his brain around someone feeling that way and I can’t either, because it’s not the state of my head. I wanted him to understand depression is an illness, not a contagious one, and if you see someone with signs of it to help them…it ended up being a good talk and he was usual cheerful self again. He processed it over a few days and discussions. But as a parent I don’t know if I did a great job addressing it. Such a heavy subject for a little kid.
That didn’t have anything to do with my garden. Let me tell you about the trouble, which is relatively minor and possibly managed.
2. Is this some kind of blight? Most plants look healthy but this concerns me. I see some spotting on the Solar Flair with the weird heart-shaped tomato and a little on its neighbor, the Brandywine. My Brandywines have always gotten some kind of issue toward the end of the season, but are usually so big by then it doesn’t seem to spread far. But it gives me a creepy feeling. Still, I can’t seem to cull a plant unless it’s a case of sacrificing the needs of the few for the needs of the many. I don’t even kill ants.
On a happier note, the shotis puri Metal Pig made last night is good. It looks like the real deal to me, but it doesn’t remind him of the breads he ate in Georgia. He needs to lower his standards. Traditionally, as he described to us, it’s made in a kiln-like oven called a tone, which we will not be building or buying. The dough is slapped to the sides of the oven and scraped off when ready. This was made on a pizza stone in a typical residential range.
Deathplow 