What's New: Greenhouse

 

Last October, my son-in-law began building the greenhouse of my dreams on top of the cistern. He used new lumber and  discarded windows  .

Kevin, who is married to my daughter Lissa,  is a skilled carpenter who used to work on bridge construction over the Missouri River and busy highways in all weather. Now he works for himself and is much in demand. Lissa does the plumbing. 

Here it is in February, seen from the back deck. Kevin found these old sheet metal pieces for the roof out behind the chicken coop with other things the former owners left behind. 

My contribution was to replace the clear glass in this stained glass frame that had been in my workshop, looking promising, since I moved here.  This is the north side of the greenhouse. Kevin found this old siding down in one of the outbuildings. It gives the place the look of an adorable tiny house, 9 x 9 feet. 

The greenhouse was finished in the spring. I got busy with the garden and flowers. Now that it's nearly fall again, I will do some more work in readiness for next spring. Then, I used water-filled kitty litter jugs to support the proper black bench tops. I know, it was tacky.

These polycarbonate panels on the right were from a greenhouse kit that I ordered in 2009. I thought because I had been a sheet metal mechanic for a major airline in 1976, it would be within my scope to assemble the extruded aluminum frame. I was wrong. 

The big window on the left was one Kevin  took out for a remodeling job because it had fogged. For a greenhouse, foggy is fine. 

At present, some houseplants that like the heat of the tropics are living in the greenhouse. 

We shall see if greenhouse benches are something I can manage. If not, there are lots of kitty litter jugs around.

    

                                                         The Latest Dirt

    Looking at that blog where I left off  two years ago, I saw that I  was struggling to plant in July, for Pete's sake! What a ninny. 

    Since then I have come to understand the Dog Days better. Covering the period from July 3 to August 11, they are the hottest and driest time of the year. The road dust from my gravel road is at its peak then, with the farmers repeatedly whizzing by towing five big bales of hay at a time behind their trucks. Gardening in a dust storm gave me fits of sneezing. 

    The Dog Days would actually be a good time for me to head down to the river and read a good book. However, we have already established that I do not have good sense. 

     Sadly, this was the first Dog Days without Beau. He has gone to Dog Heaven, which is filled with comfy sofas. He was pretty old for a hound; his big heart finally gave out.  I miss him.

    Last year about this time I got an email from Terroir Seeds. I emailed Stephen there about the sad death of my soil, even with mulch. Surprisingly, he responded and said it's not dead but needed a cover crop, seed which he happened to supply.  I was wont to till  in dried pinto beans at summer's end, for a cover crop. He assured me I needed more than one kind of seed. I sent off at once for the Soil Builder Mix. I also ordered a copy of Grow Your Soil, which has set me on the path to living soil. Author Diane Miessler 's first Commandment was "Step Away From the Rototiller," which I did. 

    I found that even rock hard soil responded to scattering seed and covering it with grass mulch. Pretty soon, up came the cover crop of mixed goodies. I also used some hairy vetch seeds Lissa had around for years. 

    This summer, Lissa and I found yet another  cover crop mix at Planters in Kansas City. It has tillage radishes in the mix. I guess these are Daikon radishes, the kind with long roots. However, I'll soon be ordering more of the Soil Builder Mix ,too,  along with some garlic to plant this fall. 

        

    This little kitten on the cistern simply showed up shortly after I lost Beau. It took a while to tame her down.  This was as close as I could get to her for a while, but a bowl of food convinced her I meant no harm. Now she's very cuddly. I named her Sparkle. 

    To conclude about the soil (I do digress) I now am pretty good at establishing cover crops. It hasn't fixed my problems with hard soil in the blazing heat, that's the Dog Days effect. Once again, the garden wasn't a complete success. The tomatoes didn't repay all my hard work with red tomatoes. Ingrates!

    I have news about what has sprung up above the cistern.  More on that later.

A Restoration Project

The soil in the tiers where I generally run the Mantis and plant seeds was a lot like cement. I considered using explosives to dig a hole for the basil plant.

There was some standing water there in the springtime deluges. I guessed that all life was extinct. The Perma Bed at that point was being covered with three bags of topsoil Lissa brought me, then more mulch.

However, I wanted so desperately to have green beans that I loosened the sad soil on the right  with a turning fork. I didn't turn it over, just poked the tines in the hard dirt, every few miserable inches. That necessitated hopping on the fork and wiggling it, then struggling to get the fork back out.

Next, I ran Tillie, which bucked like a bronco. As a last resort, I attacked the big clods with a small mattock . I felt not unlike a member of a chain gang sentenced to hard labor.

After more rains, the soil returned to the same rock-like consistency, only with big chunks of dirt as an unwelcome extra.

In desperation, and giving up for the season entirely, I decided to feed the dirt for next year. My idea was to send an invitation to all microbes and earthworms to come to a feast.

First, I made a tub of chicken manure tea. Even with sugar, it was unpalatable. I sloshed it over the bed by the bucketful. Then I made a tub of fish fertilizer tea from a bottle that had been around for years. Ditto with slinging it over the lumpy soil.

Last of all, I covered the whole bed with mower-bagged grass, weeds and clover, both red and white. Thereupon I collapsed into a lawn chair and vowed to take up another hobby.

Two weeks later, I peeked under the mulch and discovered moist FRIABLE soil. Acting quickly, before the dream vanished, I used a dibble and planted green bean seeds every few inches, not disturbing the soil or mulch any more than absolutely necessary.

As I did so, I recalled that was exactly the method that Ruth Stout had advocated, about fifty years ago, just pulling the mulch back and planting without tilling. Of course when I read her books, I was not an elderly woman myself and strongly believed in the Troy Bilt ads showing Joy and Torture.

My big red tiller has been down in one of the outbuildings for years. It worked fine when I had someone to disc our  90 x 90  loamy garden and spread barn bedding with a huge manure spreader in the fall. Now I have a hillside tier of short beds that the tiller is too big for.

Ruth's book, How to Have a Green Thumb Without An Aching Back is long out of print but is certainly worth finding. It really works!

Mulching has always been part of my gardening, but it was as a cover to stop weeds and conserve moisture. The thing I don't like about the Perma Bed is it's not any good for starting seeds, with the bottom layer being rotting cardboard. I must have my dirt.

The Perma Bed has been great for the tomato and pepper plants, now bearing bountiful crops. Some cantaloupe Lis started early are looking promising, too.

As a reward for getting right on the bean planting, a big thunderstorm rolled in during the night.

Now the beans have sprouted, along with a patty pan squash. From now on, I vow to treat my soil like dirt and give it more dead fish emulsion and chicken poop tea. I'll cover it with a blanket of mulch to keep the hot summer sun from baking it. I swear to remember a lesson I should have learned fifty years ago: more mulch!

July Flowerworks

Time for the peaceful fireworks display by the daylilies.

As always, I staged these  flower pics so as to avoid lots of weeds muscling in on the shot like they do in the border. I believe the chain link fence keeps them out. I did plant the Clasping Coneflowers, a gift packet from Jung's Seeds. The clover was not invited to this party.

The large leaves on the left are the milkweeds that I left so I could enjoy their brief fragrant blooms. They have popped up all over but as yet have attracted no Monarch butterflies.

This year, the clover was the rampant hostile takeover in the beds. I have been yanking the stuff out by the fistful, with very little success. It breaks off readily but the roots are firmly immovable, ready to generate more clover.

Looking on the bright side, the clover has no doubt helped loosen the soil that lost all life from two springs of flooded beds followed by hot dry days.

However, the daylilies were protected from the clover invasion by a timely application by my head gardener, me, of a thick leaf mulch. I got the mulch from an early mowing this spring of the fall fall of mixed leaves. Seen here are Wayside Painted Ladies and in the back are Fairy Tale Pink.

Thus it was that (notice how elegant that sounds in contrast to the now-popular habit of starting every single sentence with  So) the fabulous daylilies have managed to thrive despite a pretty dry summer thus far.

These beauties are Dominic, now a lush plant with huge blooms. All my daylilies  from Roots and Rhizomes have grown much bigger than their recommended spacing. Shown in the first photo is a start from this plant that I moved to the end of the garden last year.

This is the front border that I showed in early springtime after removing excess larkspur.

At last, the effortless look of the cottage garden, achieved by much hard work.

These two, planted on the new hillside garden, will no doubt need to be moved farther apart in springtime.  White clover have been temporarily hoed out but are just waiting for my back to be turned. I believe they creep in at night.

Purple Coneflowers, being a native to Missouri, are so hardy they can be dug up when growing and plopped down in any sunny spot and will thrive and have babies. The same is true for the butterfly weed, now established in several beds and determined to rule.

These Shasta Daisies have been blooming in this spot at the end of the daylily bed for years. The daylilies bloom at different times, extending the show. Along the fence are wild Black-Eyed Susans.

Every day brings new blooms and plenty of dead-heading chores. Contrary to the song, it's the most wonderful time of the year.

Memorial Day

I am old enough (77) to remember when this was Memorial Day.

Here is my offering to the families and friends of those who have passed in this terrible pandemic.

I wish I could bring them to people but this is the best I can offer.

A friend once looked at a big bouquet on my kitchen table.
She asked, "Who sent the flowers?"
I replied, "God."
She said, "God never sends me flowers."
I said, "Well, you have to do the work."

Flowers make us feel better.

That is especially true when they have that extra something that makes us laugh.

Here are some bouquets I picked while praying for those lost souls, who are never lost to God.

Sharing My Floral Bounty

When the family was here, of course nothing was in bloom. I believe flowers are shy about coming out when people are here, like cats. They come out when only I can see them, hence the photos.

The most impressive of the spring flowers thus far are these silver white ruffly Iris. The pictures don't do them justice. I hang around them and drink in their fabulousness.

To get this kind of performance, I had to dig them up and replant them and then wait a year. It's something I may do only the once. They must be dead-headed daily to maintain all that beauty.

I've been eating so much wild asparagus that it's a wonder my skin hasn't turned green. I understand it is not easy being green.

The best asparagus turned out to be not the existing patch in the garden, but bunches here and there planted by birds that have snacked on the red seeds. So much for the gardening advice to dig a big trench, add manure and then fill it in as the little ferns grow.  I did that once at the farm. I tilled so deep that the Troy Bilt tiller was nearly lost.

I long for the wonderful soil I had there at the farm, lovely LOAM. I'm sure no one wants to hear me whine about the gooey soil I am coping with after all these rains. Sob.

I finally just "mudded" the plants in the garden, giving each tomato, pepper and lettuce a bit of my precious compost from last year's pile. Under the crusted soil is goo.

I miss friable soil but at least have the Perma bed on the mostly clay part of the garden.

The perennials are saving the day by coming up rain or shine. I have made a discovery that the difference between having more children than can be properly cared for and having too many flowers is the older children can help out with the youngest ones. Flowers have absolutely no desire to pitch in and lend a hand, because they don't have any. Thus I am over-extended.

The Wegelia has been reliably showy, but then wants to get a drastic trim so it will bloom again next spring. That is a big chore, but worth it. Now I can sit with morning coffee and watch the humming birds visit the blooms. Rich, beyond my wildest dreams.

Each day brings more blooms. The peonies are next, so I have the camera at the ready.

Confined to Ten Acres

At last, winter is over and I can get back to gardening. I'm dreadfully sorry for everyone's situation at present, but thought I might just check in, in case anyone was wondering what became of me.
After commuting two hours daily for years, I am content to stay home for long stretches, so it isn't a great hardship on me. Of course, I am worried about relatives who work in a grocery store and my son works at a warehouse deemed essential.

Every couple of weeks, my grown kids are bringing me groceries even as we keep our distance from one another. The farmers passing by give me big waves, even when I'm in the living room. My place is close to the road, but I somehow thought everyone went by so fast they didn't see me. Apparently not.

The hens have started laying, more eggs than I can eat. They are in clover.

While waiting for the ground to ever dry out, I have been knitting for a school whose students really need warm winter duds. In fact, knitting was the only thing I could do for a couple of weeks into the pandemic. I made these two smaller sizes of socks with leftover yarn ball ends. I never throw out yarn. I learned the double cuff hat technique from verypink.com. I will ship the collection in late October. I just keep knitting because it is calming and there is a use for my embarrassingly large stash.

April has been full of wild weather, including snow after one day of eighty-five degrees.

For privacy from the road, I have this lovely field and pond. It's rather a large secluded spot, one of many places I can knit and listen to the frogs and birds. I mowed it with the self-propelled push mower with the bagger to get the wonderful leaf-grass mix.  Then I hauled two big cart loads on the lawn tractor up to the garden for mulch. This is one of the only level spots on the place and would be great for a garden if it weren't so shady in summer.

What I've been doing is what I always do at this time of year, weeding and mowing and enjoying the beautiful spring green color everywhere.

The winged seeds on the two big maples are gearing up for a bumper crop. I believe they are genetically programmed to all wind up in my gutters.

After the snow, I rescued some daylilies and irises out front from rampant larkspur, already growing like the weed they have become. It all started when I tossed out some bouquets of larkspur.

I left a few at the back to grow tall and start the takeover again next year. The white blooms are Star of Bethlehem, which grow from bulbs. They are a native wildflower that  create a great wad of bulbs, apparently overnight.

The fences are to keep the hens from scratching up the mulch under the daylilies. This is the first year I didn't order more daylilies because I finally have ENOUGH. I do love them, though.

It rains seemingly every other day, making it impossible to till the early garden. I did get the broccoli and cabbage plants tucked in a section of the garden that I started as a Perma bed last fall. Bagged leaves did a good job of breaking down over the winter and are now full of earthworms, bless their little hearts, if any.

Morels are luring me into the deep woods.Another rain should encourage some more to pop up.

Yesterday, I was able to run Tille on the hillside garden. I planted three Regale Lilies and some gladioli. It's all very exciting.

Winter Solstice Explained

There is a common misconception about the Winter Solstice that I shall attempt to clarify here.

Even the calendars have it wrong. December 22 or even December 21 in some years, are not the start of winter. Those dates are the start of the gardening year. Anyone who is a gardener understands that intuitively.

It isn't even the measly extra minute or two we get daily from the low-hanging Sun that makes the shift a reality. My theory is we get the news from the ground itself, which starts calling us to put down our knitting and pick up those seed catalogs that have been piling up since before Thanksgiving.

Sure, here in Missouri, we've already had three proper snowfalls of at least five inches The ponds are freezing in an unstable way. The edges of the Grand River down from my place have had frozen shallow water at the edges.

More snow, some freezing rain and periodic thaws are definitely ahead until at least late February. That's not the point.

The point is something has happened inwardly. It's the same force that turned us away from gardening in September. Oh, sure, we made yet another feeble attempt at a fall garden. Once again, it was not a fabulous success.

Now, it's back to Life and Living in the gardening world. Every day that the ground isn't frozen hard is a cause for rejoicing and even a little gardening.

Today, it was gray and threatening to rain. Recovering from slipping on my tush in the mud above the river, I could not sit comfortably. It didn't mean I was unable to work in the vegetable garden. Here is the new tier Lissa is building for me.

What better time, with the temperature in the forties, to lay out cardboard for another Perma Bed?

Yesterday, I got out the fence tool and freed the big compost cage I kept filling all last summer. Myriad other gardening fun things await. Only snow can stop these activities from going forward.

My son-in-law Kevin works to build bridges in dreadfully cold weather. Next to him, I look like a retired grandmother, which of course I am.

Planning is what the season calls for.  My son gave me Christmas cash, which makes ordering gardening equipment from the seed catalogs much more of a possibility. Shall I order the pole bean tower or make my own from old garden cart wheels? In addition, I have my sights on a lovely trellis for something to climb up.

Will the Salvia farinaca survive the winter to bloom another season? Will the Nicotiana syvestris reseed? Here are the remnants of last year's beauties, still gorgeous in my mind's eye.

Can I squeeze in another two, possibly six, daylilies? Why did I get a place with so much woods and so little garden space? These questions fill my thoughts.

Here is the patch of fall-planted spinach that so far has overwintered. See? The ground is getting ready to burst forth with life. But first, a brief  message from Winter.

River Access Closed

This is the sight of a disappointed dog. Despite a new bed that I made for him, he is not happy. Beau misses his walks down to the river. I do, too!

Poison ivy choked out the sun and eventually brought down a big willow. It fell across the path that I usually keep open by mowing and pruning encroaching vines. There is no other way down to the water, because an army of big Toxicodendron radicans are stationed everywhere, blocking my way.

Those meanie vines creep and climb over everything. In open ground they are like Cobras, rearing their scary heads to warn me off. I am five feet tall and so are they.

Perhaps I've mentioned, but when I raised dairy goats on my farm, the goats ate the poison ivy. I drank their milk and was totally immune from the remaining ivy. I'd love to have goaties again, but have no proper shelter for them. They are browsers, preferring to eat leaves and brushy stuff. At the farm, I took them on daily walks. They followed me everywhere on my unfenced land  and grazed on red clover, also a favorite, that we planted in the big field.

People who think goats will be a lawn mower substitute are sadly misinformed; grass is their least favorite food. In fact, goats are persnickety eaters, refusing to eat anything soiled. Hence a small exercise pasture is never going to be cropped by them. They love bags of dried leaves in winter.

Without goats, the path remains closed until frost stops the nasty ivy from having leaves. The vines and roots are still plenty toxic to touch, but maybe I'll think of a way to move the tree.

Another land-grabber is the wild honeysuckle. They also offer fruits to the birds, which spread them far and wide. If it has to be a war, I'm on the side of the honeysuckles, because they at least can be dealt with with big pruners. If left too long, a chain saw can bring them down. Some honeysuckles are creepers;these are upright bushes. My back hillside is covered with both invaders.

The wild roses are hard to deal with, on account of their many thorns and habit of keeping their thorny branches discreetly covering their ankles. Pruning them only encourages more growth the following year. That's also true of the honeysuckle. Sigh.

At this time of year, I try and stay away from pin oaks, on account of the oak mites. They are microscopic and float on the wind. Their bites are painful and super itchy. I've already had a few and the only thing that seems to give some relief is heat from a hair dryer.

It's great to have land in the country by a river, if only all the wild warring undergrowth would let me pass. One would suspect that they are joining forces to prohibit the spread of Mankind. I feel like an endangered species.

Not From Around Here

The car with out of state plates was driving by slowly. That caught my attention, because all the regular farm traffic is just shy of the speed of light.

I was in the yard, so walked over to see if they were lost. Two young women said they were looking for an address on my road. I explained to them that my mailbox numbers were out of sequence, a common problem in these parts. The next address was on up the hill a mile or two.

Just then, the gold hen walked out from around my parked car.

"Oh, look, a chicken!" exclaimed the driver. I guess it was quite unusual for her to see a chicken not in a fenced enclosure, or maybe just a chicken with feathers, not dressed for market.

All that left me with the feeling that she probably equated me and my bare feet and the loose poultry with hillbillies from the Ozarks. I live in northern Missouri, miles and decades from those legendary folks.

It might have been even more fun if they'd seen me sitting on the porch steps, feeding the girls their afternoon bread.

Better yet would have been if I'd called them and they came running.