Walden Effect: Homesteading and Simple Living Blog

Time 2021-01-14 03:03:34

Web Name: Walden Effect: Homesteading and Simple Living Blog

WebSite: http://www.waldeneffect.org

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July and August are always the months when I look at our garden anddespair. Not for the usual reason --- weeds. But because perfection wasnot achieved.This year, we're trying out dripirrigation, set on a timer to water for three hours twice a week.When I got the first monthly water bill, it had skyrocketed up $55.Yikes! Was the haul worth the sticker shock?On the one hand...very much! All of that water has our asparagussending up enough spears that we're harvesting a meal weekly, figuringwe might as well pick the spears since the canopy is already completelyfull of happy, older fronds. At organic, summer prices, that pays forabout half of our water bill right there.And the cucumbers! I always succession plant in case bugs and diseaseget the early crops, which means we've been rolling in cukes. We eatabout six a day and I've still been having to gift grocery bagsful tothe neighbors.Oh, and did I mention lettuce? Mark's gotten into the habit of makingus salad for lunch every day, which can be tough in the summer. Butdrip is keeping leaf lettuce soft and delicious as long as I plant anew bed each month.So what's the problem?The walnut trees. We have a couple of largish black walnuts aboutfifteen feet from one corner of the garden and they never causedproblems in the past. But I suspect irrigating strips of garden bedstempted walnut roots to concentrate their attention on my growing area.As you likely know, walnut roots produce toxic juglone. When manygarden plants come in contact, they go kaput.To cut a long story short, the first to wilt were the tomatoes. Thenthe summer squash --- we only got one zucchini! The pepper plants lookokay, but they're barely producing. Even the green beans appear to havebeen hit.And the walnuts are sandwiched right between the garden fence, theelectric pole, and the road. I suspect we're going to have to hire apro to cut them down. Expensive!The photo above shows my carrot bed. Notice how the only sizeableplants are right along the drip line? I started some more carrotsinside (the tiny plants closer to the bucket) to fill in the gaps.Lesson learned --- drip irrigation isn't sufficient to get fall cropsup and running during our parched summers up on the ridge.Okay, enough about drip. How about Mark's caterpillartunnels?On the one hand, they are awesome! Look at those brussels sprouts ---thriving under their covers!On the other hand...wedding tulle is so very, very tender. I swear, ourcaterpillar tunnels sprout holes even when they haven't been touched. I've been mending these gaps at least once a month, but even thatwasn't enough to keep caterpillar worms out of one tunnel. On the otherhand, thereal fabric intended for this use is $300 and up per roll, so maybeI'll learn to enjoy mending.In other news, while I've had lots of unexpected garden failures thisyear, I've also had one unexpected success. I've never managed to ripenmelons previously, which was mostly due to viral diseases caused bybugs. But research turned up the tidbit that melons are very sensitiveto cool soil, so I held my horses and planted a disease-resistantcantaloupe (Divergent) outside on June 4 (after starting the seedsinside a month before).How's it doing? The vines are taking over the garden! There are lots ofbig fruit hiding under those leaves, the skin crackling and starting toyellow!Which brings me to the garden lesson I never seem to learn --- forevery unexpected loss, there's an unexpected win. Now if I can justfigure out when cantaloupes are ripe...I'm happiest when I have something complex and natural to keep my brainoccupied. This year I found the perfect hobby --- fireflies! A citizenscience project asks you to spend thirty seconds once a weekcounting the firefly flashes in your backyard. I gave it a try...andwas instantly hooked.Did you know that there are hundreds of species in the U.S., possiblydozens within a single backyard? One species, though, is pretty simpleto figure out. The male Big Dipper (Photinuspyralis) usually comes out right at sunset and flies for half anhour or so. He's got long, yellow flashes that are either J-shaped or(as in my yard) simply rise upward. Count about 5 seconds of darknessin between at 76 F and you've got one firefly species to check off yourlife list!(Why do I say "he"? Because the female is hidden in the grass,surveying the field and choosing a mate. Yes, firefly flashes are allabout sex.)Then, of course, identification gets more complicated. The other commontype of fireflies --- Photurisspecies --- is often predatory, preferring to hunt flashing firefliesof other species rather than seeking mates of their own kind. So Photuris will mimic the flashpatterns of other fireflies as well as (sometimes) making specificflash patterns of their own.There are also a lot of Photuris speciesout there. I've plotted out a 550 square foot section of our septicfield for summer studies and I usually manage to watch about the firsthalf hour of the Photurisshow twice a week. Over the course of the last month, I've found atleast five different Photurisflash patterns before my eyelids get heavy. Are they all differentspecies? Who knows!The flash photo above, by the way, shows a typical Photuris habit --- when caught (ina petri dish in this case), they scurry around flashing as fast as theycan. Did you notice the flashes here are green rather than yellow, likethe Big Dipper's? That's a diagnostic difference between the twogenera, along with the long legs of the Photuris and the stripes you oftensee on their wing covers.If you want to delve deeper into fireflies, I can recommend some booksand gear. Fireflies, Glow-worms, andLightning Bugsis a beautifully illustrated and easy to read field guide...to a few ofthe most common species.Definitely start there, then once you outgrow easy you might want todownload the free, intense, and highly technical Anaturalist’s long walk among shadows: of North American Photuris –patterns, outlines, silhouettes… This book will help you realizethat scientists don't know enough yet to ID a lot of the Photurises. Still, it's fun to try!Trying involves catching and photographing fireflies after you'vegotten a handle on their flash patterns. (Here'sa free download to some of the most common patterns.) For catching,I found this net to be cheap andeffective (especially when combined with masked, socially distancingneighbor kids). Glass petri dishesmade it much easier to photograph fast-moving Photurises, and it's now a breezeto measure insects in those photos since I drew a 1 cm grid on thebottom of the petri dish with a sharpie.Other than that, the only hard part is staying up late (can't help youthere --- I'm terrible at it). Oh, and accepting that firefly season isfleeting with species winking out with each week of summer. What betterway to squeeze every bit of joy out of the year, though, than to watchfireflies during these short, hot nights?I have a new book out...and it's a total pandemic experiment. Gap Yearis available in print only and is on the pricey side for 32 pages(full-color will do that), but it should also be very easy to requestat your local library through their regular channels.The book is a travelogue, mostly in pictures, from the time I spentbackpacking and drawing plants right after college. I figure there's a50% chance no one except my mother will be interested, so feel free toskip this one if it's not your cup of tea. On the other hand, if youlike it, writing a review and spreading the word will ensure there's asequel.Speaking of reviews, here's one to give you an idea of what you'll findinside:“This will be one of the easiest 5-star ratings I’ve ever given. Thejournal style of the book presents the reader with a unique glimpseinto the author’s year-long journey around Europe. Beautiful drawingsand snippets from her letters home draw the reader into her adventure.I’m definitely looking forward to the next volume. This book would makea beautiful gift to anyone who loves travel or nature.” — Turtle DoveAvailable on Amazon and Barnes Noble. Thanks in advance for giving it a try!Summer is here, and with it comes the learning portion of the gardeningyear. On the positive side, Mark's caterpillartunnels are game changers. Seen above are little brussels sproutplants, thriving without the cabbageworm pressure I usually strugglewith.Also under caterpillar tunnels, our broccoli has treated us to weeks ofdaily meals. For the first time in my gardening life, I'm preparing topull the plants out, not because they're so bug-bitten there's no pointin keeping them, but because the side shoots are getting small andtough and the soil is ready for some compost and rest. (Plus, ourpalates are ready for summer crops.)With all of that success, I went a little crazy and put a caterpillartunnel over some cucurbits, in hopes of keeping various bug issues atbay. Of course, unlike crucifers, the covered squash and cucumbersrequire pollination. So once the plants were big enough, I startedhand-pollinating.The hand-pollinating got old after a week, at which point I took thecaterpillar tunnels off. But, in the meantime, I learned why my recentsummer-squash harvests have been so-so. Without chickens to eat excessfruits, I'd cut back to one crookneck squash and one zucchini duringeach succession-plantingperiod...but that's not enough for proper pollination since the twospecies don't cross!On many of my hand-pollinating days, there were no male flowers openwhen a female squash flower was due to be pollinated. Sometimes, I wasable to tear open yesterday's spent male flower and get a bit ofpollen. Sometimes that didn't work. Now I know --- better to plant eachsummer squash species at least in pairs!Now for the failure. Berries, berries, beautiful berries! We built anetted enclosure after the chipmunks ate all of our strawberries lastyear, and for a couple of weeks it seemed to be working. Then thechipmunks found a way in and demolished the rest of the patch in amatter of days. We'll be working on that problem before next year. Inthe meantime, at least the evil rodents can't reach our raspberries andthe netting keeps the birds out.On a happier note, we spent some of our stimulus money on dripirrigation this spring and it's working like a charm! If you'repinching pennies, you can put together a cheaper option piecemeal, butwe opted for akit from Johnny's (who gives us no kickback for mentioning them,darn it! But their products are so good I do it anyway). Mark put thepieces together without needing to read the instructions, and now thetimer automatically soaks the soil for three hours twice a week.The question will be --- how much does our water bill rise as a resultof giving the garden what it needs? Since we're steering clear of thefarmer's market this year due to crowded coronavirus concerns,high-quality produce is likely to be worth whatever the water costs.And that's all for now, although I have something different and funcoming your way later this week. Stay tuned (or follow me on Amazon if you thinkyou'll forget).I have something new and different coming down the pike in the bookdepartment this month (or possibly next month....). While you wait, Icouldn't resist sharing this deep price-drop sale on The Weekend Homesteader.Now is the perfect time to start with small projects that build yourself-sufficiency. I hope you enjoy the journey!Want more in-depth information? Browse through our books.Or explore more posts by date or by subject.About us:Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.Last edited Wed Sep 24 21:07:30 2008Powered by Branchable Wiki Hosting.As an Amazon Associate, I earn a few pennies every time you buysomething using one of my affiliate links. Don't worry, though --- Ionly recommend products I thoroughly stand behind!Also, this site has Google ads on it. Third party vendors, includingGoogle, use cookies to serve ads based on a user's prior visits to awebsite. Google's use of advertising cookies enables it and itspartners to serve ads to users based on their visit to various sites.You can opt out of personalized advertising by visiting this site.

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