Here’s one of the beds with the floating row covers in place.  Floating row covers are pretty cool.  They’re so light that they just “float” on top of everything, and rise along with the growing plants.  Definitely $10 well spent.  I’m glad I left them full-sized and didn’t cut them down to fit the beds originally, because now the one on the west bed is just big enough to cover it well.  We’ll have to remove that one soon, because the peas are just starting to bloom, and if they’re covered the bees won’t be able to pollinate them.

These are all the radishes from the first square, except that one I pulled last time.  As you can see, they didn’t make much of a root.  The tops are huge, and they were starting to bolt and go to seed, so they weren’t going to get any better.  I think that means there’s too much nitrogen in the soil compared to the levels of potassium and/or potash.  We’ll see how the turnips, carrots, and later radishes do.  The chickens got to enjoy this batch.

The radishes are gone from this area, and everything else is getting bigger.  Their square will probably get a basil plant.  There’s a new paprika pepper transplanted into the front square where leaf lettuce didn’t come up.  The Swiss chard is big enough to pick a small batch soon.

This isn’t as much of a jungle as it looks like in the picture.  The garlic and onions are kind of sprawling, mostly because of that one time Pepper thought the floating row cover was a bed for her to sleep on.  But the peas are growing well and starting to bloom, and they don’t like too much sun anyway.  We’ll be trying the mesculine lettuce in a salad very soon.

This is the north side of that bed.  There are tomatoes in all the north squares except the one with the thyme plant.  They were growing pretty slowly in the cool weather, but they’re starting to take off now.

This section looks a lot better than last time.  All the shallots are alive and growing.  The head lettuce is bouncing back from being transplanted.  The peas still look very rough from bird damage, but they’re growing.  The other two paprika peppers are now in this area too.

The pole beans and replanted bush beans came up when we finally got some sun, and they’re growing fast now.  They may need a little thinning, and the pole beans will need a trellis in a few weeks.

I hadn’t been watering these plants very often, because where they were sitting near the edge of the porch, they were catching enough moisture to keep them going in cool weather.  But the first hot day really gave them a beating.  I watered them after I took this picture, and they looked fine an hour later.

I kind of hated to get rid of him, but it was time. Our neighbors have never complained about the crowing; but I never complain about all the barking dogs in the area, and that doesn’t mean they never annoy me. I’d keep the birds in the coop until 8 or so every morning to muffle his early morning crowing, but that cut down on the amount of time they got to be outside catching bugs and stuff. Also, it seemed like he was getting more aggressive with the hens when I’d first let them out. Either he didn’t have enough hens to satisfy his roosterly needs, or being cooped up too long in the morning was making him crazy. He also attacked me (my foot, actually) the last couple times he got out, which didn’t bother me, but I did worry that he might end up attacking a neighbor’s foot.

In any case, it seemed like the best thing was to give him to someone who needed him more than we did. We put an ad in the paper for a free rooster and got about 10 calls, but it wasn’t until the fifth one that we got someone who wanted him and then showed up to get him. The hens seemed like they were looking around for him this morning, but I might have just been imagining that.

In other backyard chicken news, they’re still doing great. They’ve been steady producers of 4-5 eggs per day since they picked back up in February, and they look healthy as can be. Since the yard is still recovering from last year, I’m trying something a little different that we read about in a magazine, called “composting chickens.” The idea is that you throw all the stuff you’d throw into a compost bin into your chicken pen, and let them stir through it and break it down.

So far, it seems to be working great. We’re throwing all our plant waste and some grass clippings in there, along with straw and anything else they might like, and they just keep eating what they want and digging around in it and stirring it up. It also keeps the soil moist underneath, so they can dig down through it and catch worms and grubs that come up to the surface. It’s like a compost pile that stirs itself and makes eggs on the side.

Our yard is low in that area anyway, so if they can add a couple inches of nice compost to it, that’s great. I’ll let them do that, then move them to a new spot and seed down the old spot with grass, and keep moving them to spots that could use more soil.

Two other families we know are raising their first chickens this year, so interest is growing. There’s some work and a learning curve involved; but they’re fun, and they pay for themselves pretty well too.

Things have really been growing under the row cover.  The radishes are starting to fill out and will probably be ready in a week or so.  When I planted those, 16 radishes in a square didn’t seem like many, but now they’re packed.

I forgot to caption the square right above the marigolds, which is celeriac, also known as celery root.  Celeriac is a variety of celery that’s grown for the root instead of the stalk.  It’s popular in Europe but pretty rare here.  Since roots keep longer than plants, I thought it’d be interesting to try.  I started those inside and transplanted them, but they’re still so small I forget they’re there.  There’s one leaf lettuce square that didn’t come up at all, so I need to replace that and fill in the empty spaces in the carrot squares.

The peas are still recovering from bird damage, but they’re starting to put on some healthy-looking leaves.  The mesculine mix lettuce looks great; we could probably start using a few leaves of that anytime.  I guess mesculine (or mesclun; there seem to be a few spellings) is a mix of sharper lettuces like arugula and mustard greens.  Probably something we should add to milder lettuces in a salad, rather than use by itself.

The sage and oregano already need to be cut way back, and most of the growth so far harvested and dried.  Wish we had about a dozen more herbs that looked like that.

This is just a shot of that bed from the other direction, so you can see the thyme and head lettuce hiding behind the taller stuff.  I’ve never grown head lettuce successfully; it always gets too hot and bolts early, or too wet and rots.  But I figure in raised beds, there’s hope.

This bed was pretty much bare when I took the last pictures.  Now the radishes are growing strong (and need thinning), and one yellow squash came up next to them.  Fortunately, one squash is all a square will hold (if that).  The Geisha Girl flowers are a freebie that came with our seed order, so I don’t know what to expect from them.  The peas in the back row were planted later than the other ones, and they’ve been pecked by birds too—despite the roll of chicken wire I set on top of them.  The birds actually walk into the wire roll to find their way to the peas.  So a floating row cover is going on that bed tonight too.  Next year I’ll have to be sure to plant all the peas in the same bed, so at least one doesn’t have to be defended from aerial assault.

My family has grown Blue Lake as our staple green bean for years.  We’d always try out a couple other varieties, and grow some purple and yellow ones too, but the Blue Lakes were always the ones we grew the most of because they were such reliable performers.  But I think I’m about to switch brands.

Last year we grew Contender for the first time, right next to Blue Lake, and it was outstanding.  The two varieties weren’t clearly separated, so I couldn’t say exactly how much better the Contenders did, but a few plants that I knew were Contender bore an amazing number of perfect, straight beans.  Now this year you can see how much better the Contender came up compared to the Blue Lake.  To be fair, the Blue Lake seed was a year old, so I picked up some new Blue Lake seed today and planted it in the missing spots.  We’ll see how it does, and this year we’ll be able to tell exactly which is which.  I also planted Blue Lake pole beans in the four farthest squares this morning.

These are the plants we started inside, minus the celeriac which was already transplanted into the garden, plus a couple other tomato varieties that we traded some of our extra Amish Paste for.  These were all started in small peat pots, and then transplanted into these plastic cups when they were an inch or two tall.  They’ve grown a lot in the past two weeks, especially the tomatoes.  All these should be transplanted into the garden this week.

And here’s the sweet potato patch.  As you can see, it’s just getting started.  The eyes that are underwater are starting to send out roots, which will eventually become the “slips” that you plant in the ground.  Those will be going up to the community garden, since they don’t require any day-to-day maintenance.

And here’s why Pepper won’t go anywhere near the cows when we take her to the farm:

image from icanhascheezburger.com

Cows are mean critters where dogs are concerned.

Another option, which eliminates the sitting position entirely, is a standing desk.  This is where your desk is high enough that you stand at it and don’t use a chair at all.  You can use a stool now and then to give your feet a break, but you spend most of the time standing.  As I understand it, your feet are really better designed for holding your weight than your backside, so it makes sense.

It still sounds weird, though, so before I buy or build one, I thought I should try it somehow.  So here’s my test model:

Standing Desk Test Run

I put a chunk of plywood on top of a couple file boxes on top of my normal desk, and it’s about the right height.  The monitor is lower than I’m used to compared to my eye level, but it tilts back, so that’s okay.  If I stay with this for good, though, I’ll probably raise the monitor some to make sure I don’t hunch forward.  The typing surface seems to be about the right height, so I’m going to use it for a week or so and see how it goes.  If I like it, I’ll probably build a simple top that will sit on top of my old desk (so I still have all my same drawers and stuff) but be more permanent and look a lot nicer than this.

So far, it’s kind of weird, but I think I could like it.  My back doesn’t hurt, so as long as my feet or hips don’t start, that’s a plus.  I like it better when I’m typing than when I’m just reading for a while; I guess when I’m reading I usually lean back and relax, and that’s not an option now.  If it makes me spend less time reading and more time creating stuff, that wouldn’t be a bad thing!

One more plus: Pepper can camp out in her favorite cave without me kicking her when I move my feet.

Pepper's Cave

First I put 4-inch dolly wheels on one end and a handle on the other end, figuring I could roll it on those.  They’re small enough that they get stuck in ruts, though, and it’s still awfully heavy to lift most of the weight that way.  So I thought of getting some old bicycle wheels and mounting them on a rod that goes through the house, so they could take more of the weight.

I picked up one old kid-sized bike, and then discovered that the two axles weren’t the same size.  So I found another old bike the same size, so I’d have two wheels that would fit on the same size rod.  Then I picked up a threaded rod long enough to reach through the building and nuts and washers for both ends.  I drilled holes at the right height to hold the building a few inches off the ground, and attached 2x4s across those holes on the inside with glue and screws for extra strength, then drilled the holes on through the 2x4s.  I hammered a couple bushings bigger than the rod into the holes, put the rod through, and fastened the wheels on either side with nuts and lock washers.

Once I got the tires aired up (I was amazed they held air, as old as they are), it worked great.  The other end weighs about 40 pounds, so it’s pretty easy to lift and push around.   Now I’ll be able to move it every day, and get it into parts of the yard the chickens haven’t been able to work on yet.

One Wheel

I still have to cut off the extra length on the threaded rod.

The Other Wheel

The Handle

This is the handle I use to move it.  In the lower left you can see one of the first wheels I tried, that were just too small.

Mobile House and Pen

And here they are on fresh green grass, after I moved their pen this morning!

We got two mild softneck varieties from Hood River Garlic, a small family-run organic garlic seller in Oregon.  They sell a bunch of different varieties, and they’ve got a nice web site with lots of information about garlic: how to grow it, recipes for using it, and other stuff.  We didn’t get it planted until after Thanksgiving, which was probably late for this area.  But every clove came up looking great and growing fast in the spring.

Our Garlic in Mid-May

In June, they started sending up “scapes,” which are a hard shoot that comes out of the center and later forms a bulb on the end.  This is a seed, so if you don’t cut it off, the plant will take energy out of the root bulb and put it into this seed.  So you have to cut off the scapes, and they can be used like garlic-flavored green onions.  By the middle of July, some of the leaves were starting to turn brown, which is the signal that it’s ready to harvest.  Here’s a picture from when they were just starting to turn.

Garlic Nearly Ready for Harvest

A couple weeks after that, we harvested them, which meant loosening the soil a little with a shovel and pulling up the whole plant.  We knocked off some excess dirt, tied them in bunches with twine, and hung them from the porch to dry.  This drying process is also called “curing.”  After a couple weeks, they looked like this.

Garlic Curing

When we were sure the stems and roots were completely dry, we got them ready for storage.  Each stem is cut off about an inch from the bulb, and the roots are cut off 1/4-inch long and any clumps off dirt gently knocked loose.  A little dirt doesn’t hurt anything while they’re in storage; the most important thing is not to damage the skin, so they’ll stay good.  With that done, they look like this, and are ready to be put in a paper sack or something that can breathe, and stored in a cool, dark place.

Garlic Ready for Storage

We learned a couple things this first year.  For one, we probably should have started them sooner, so they’d have a chance to get a bigger root system established before shutting down for winter.  It got pretty cold soon after we planted them, so I put some plastic over them to hold in some heat, but I think an extra month’s growth would have helped them out.  I also think our soil was probably too rich.  Our beds are at least half compost, and garlic (and onions) like a sandier, bleaker soil.  Rich soil is good for the green parts of plants, but not so good for the roots, it seems.  This fall, we should probably mix some sand or vermiculite into the soil where we plant the garlic.  (And do the same for carrots next year.)

I think those two things were the reason our bulbs are quite a bit smaller than the ones they sent us to plant.  We probably still wound up with 4-5 times the amount of garlic we planted, though, so that’s not bad for a first try.  It’s good stuff, too; even after being cured it has a lot more moisture than the garlic you normally get from the store, so it minces well and has a lot of aroma.  It’s pretty mild, but that’s what we ordered, because we didn’t know where the store-bought garlic fell on the mild-strong scale.  Next time we might experiment with some stronger varieties.

I don’t worry about my vegetable intake, since most of my ancestors went months without seeing a vegetable, and when they did run across one it was a small fibrous thing compared to what we grow today.  But I do like a lot of vegetables, and they help add variety when you’re no longer choosing between mashing, frying, baking, scalloping, or Frenching your potatoes at every meal.  As much as  I like meat and eggs, they do get boring after a while by themselves.  Here’s a picture of my lunch yesterday:

Meatballs and Green Beans

That’s a half-pound (before cooking) of green beans, amounting to at least three servings, and it’s only 8.5 carbs!  I had that for lunch and at least one serving of summer squash at supper, so I had over four servings of vegetables and still came in at 25 carbs for the day.  Some other vegetables are even lower in carbs than green beans, so they’re basically unlimited: broccoli, radishes, lettuce.  Low-carbers can eat lots of vegetables if they want to.

We also harvested our carrots yesterday, and I’m so proud—they’re the best carrots I’ve ever grown!  I think the key was thinning:  most years I’ve been too tender-hearted to thin them as much as they need, so they’re crowded and don’t develop well.  This year I mercilessly thinned them down to one every few inches like the packet said.  They were still crowded somewhat by the cabbages next to them, but some did well anyway.  Here’s a bad picture of them right after digging them and cutting the tops off.

Dirty Carrots

And here are a few after scrubbing.

Scrubbed Carrots

We grew two varieties, so that’s why some are short and fat (Short and Sweet variety) and others are longer and thinner (Danvers).  Carrots are a bit too high in carbs to eat many as a side dish, so these will be going into chicken stock.  For now they’re all in a bag in the freezer, ready to be added to the next batch of stock we make.

Garden Annex - South View

Finally got some pictures from our garden annex, down behind the Friary.  In this one, you can see the green and red cabbages at the lower left, green beans on the right, and sweet potatoes between them.  We had just planted the sweet potatoes when we took this picture.  Beyond the sweet potatoes is one tomato plant, and beyond that tomato and the green beans are white and yellow scalloped summer squash.  Beyond all that are the other tomatoes.  One tomato plant is Beefsteak, and the others are all Roma, a pear-shaped tomato that’s good for sauce.  Here’s a picture from the other direction that shows the tomatoes and squash better.

Tomatoes and Squash

Some of the tomatoes have small green fruit already, and I think the squash will be blooming within a week.  We have to get tomato cages down there very soon, before the tomatoes get so big and sprawling that they’re impossible to get in the cages.  Other than that, everything looks great.

Mighty Hunter

Here’s Pepper looking all innocent and playful.  But what she’s really doing here is watching the photographer, waiting for us to go back to work so she can get back to that nest of baby rabbits to her right.  Mmm, tasty rabbit.

Early Morning Garden

Back to the backyard.  This is a really nice picture Angel took of the garden in the early morning sunlight.  The tall stuff on the left is the oregano and sage, which have completely bolted to seed, but they’re kind of pretty.  The green beans are hanging over the sides of the bed, so it’s looking kind of wild these days.  The garlic leaves are starting to dry up, so we may be able to harvest that soon.

Green Bean Jungle

At this angle, you can see the green beans hanging all over the place.  That’s partly from being walked on by dogs and chickens, and partly from the hard rain we had Friday.  The steel posts are to prevent more dog napping on the cool soil.  The beans look like they’re still healthy, and they’re putting on tons of blooms, so they should still produce plenty.

A Weed in the Peas

That’s some kind of weed coming up in the edible-podded peas.  The big ribbed leaves in the background are Swiss chard.  The peas have been disappointing this year.  We didn’t plant enough of them, and then the birds nearly killed them pecking at them earlier.  We got enough for one meal, and I think we’ll get one more small bowl from them, but that’ll probably be it.  We’re definitely going to have to plant some fall peas, and next year start with more.

Swiss Chard

Here’s a better shot of the Swiss chard.  It certainly hasn’t been a disappointment; it’s healthy and huge.  We haven’t eaten much yet, but it’ll come in handy during the hotter months when most other things quit.  I’ll try to get some recipes up for it, since most people haven’t had it.  I’m sure we’d be willing to part with some, if anyone wants to try it.

Bolting Lettuce

It may not be obvious in this picture, but the lettuce is all bolting (shooting up a tall stalk to make seed).  We got a couple salads out of it, which is pretty typical for me.  I don’t really know why I keep growing it, except that fresh lettuce sounds really good in February when you’re ordering seeds.

The carrots are on the right, and they might wind up being worth something after all.  I pulled one Friday and found a smallish carrot.  Nothing to write home about, but at least there’s a root there, unlike the turnips.  We may just dispense with carrots and lettuce next year, to make more room for peas.

First Green Beans

We just picked these green beans last night.  I knew some were ready, so I wanted to get them picked, but I wasn’t expecting much more than a meal’s worth.  They nearly filled this gallon bucket!  Most of them come from the Contender variety; the Blue Lake look like they’re just a little slower.  This should make a few meals, so the next big batch will probably go in the freezer.

The turnips were a total flop.  I still think there must be some imbalance in our soil that encourages extra top growth at the expense of the roots, because they made enormous tops, but started to go to seed without ever making much of a root.  Here’s one I pulled yesterday:

Sad Turnip

Fortunately, the chickens like the leaves, so they aren’t a total loss.

Turnip Greens for Lunch

The green beans have really grown in the last week or so.  They may start putting on blooms before long, if we get some more warm sunny weather.

Green Beans Overflowing

Once I feed the last couple turnips to the chickens, I’m hoping to fill in between the green beans and herbs with a few cabbage plants, but the beans may fill in the space before I get a chance.  The sage keeps going to seed; we tried cutting it back, but it insists on blooming.  It’s kinda pretty, at least.  I guess I should check and see if the blooms are good for anything.

Herbs - (left to right) Oregano, Rosemary, Sage, Thyme

On to the sad-looking peas.  I took the wire away from on top of them, and tried putting some moving bird things there instead.  I think the birds were sitting on the wire and pecking at the peas through it, so it wasn’t helping much.  The peas actually look better now.  They’ve got a lot of blooms, and they’re just starting to make pods.  This first picture is the Little Marvels, with a couple plants of Grand Rapids lettuce next to them, and then a full row of Biff lettuce.

Peas and Lettuce

Here are the carrots, which I thinned mercilessly the other day, the cabbages that I haven’t transplanted or given away yet, and the Swiss chard.  We’re going to have to start eating chard more often before it gets out of hand.

Carrots, Cabbage, and Swiss Chard

And here’s the other end of the plot, the Swiss Chard again, then the edible-podded peas.  There are some pods on those already, but not enough for a meal; so I’m trying to leave them until there are more and hoping they don’t get stringy.

Swiss Chard and Peas

Next time I’ll have pictures from the garden plot by the friary, and hopefully some of a bowl of fresh peas!