Richard Came

 I watched my wood working shows this morning except the second one.  I slept through it, but I did get to watch it in the afternoon.  They were all new.  I did some watering of our plants in house five.  I planted delicious tomato seeds earlier the week.  Twelve seeds have germinated.

I took this small potato cutting from one of the plants in house five.  It is in a glass of water in the kitchen window.  I am wondering if it will root the same as tomato plant.

There is a miniature iris plant growing between houses one and two.  I dug part of it up.  I broke off a small piece and planted it in the north garden.

I planted the larger piece a couple feet south of the other one.

The chicken was able to crawl under the poly and get into the garage greenhouse.   I put these cement blocks on the east side and three on the south end.  

I picked asparagus.  There are a couple of clumps growing large spears.

Richard called wondering how we are doing.  He has some mail here.  He decided to come.  He got here a little after seven.

Please LIKE, SHARE and LEAVE A COMMENT! We want to hear from you!

Asparagus

There was a Face Book posting mentioning the appearance of asparagus.  I walked out to our asparagus and found a couple were coming up.  I also found a lot of weeds and including foxtail, wild rye, and sand burrs.

I found the back pack sprayer in house three.  The weed killer was in the shed.  I filled up the tank and started spraying weeds in the asparagus patch.  While spraying there I found a few more asparagus stems.  They may be ready for harvesting Sunday after our inhouse church services.

I watered our plants in house five which were doing really well.  Also the carrots, radishes, and red beets.  I uncovered the burlap which covered the strawberries  I watered each plant several times with the watering can.  I put wire over the top of the strawberries do keep off the chickens.

I filled up the sprayer again and sprayed weeds north of our garden out by the road.  There was a show of the cable line in the ground.  I sprayed everything nort of the shadow.

I spent a couple of hours in the garage labeling the small plastic boxes which hold the grabber screws.

 Please LIKE, SHARE and LEAVE A COMMENT! We want to hear from you!

Under the Kitchen Sink

The first thing after breakfast and some of the news, I picked a nice bunch of asparagus, cleaned it up and put it in the fridge.

A couple of days ago I looked at the dahlias and some of them had new stem buds.  The above photo shows about six of them.

I dug holes and planted them.  I made some small sticks to show the locations of them.  I later watered them.

Carol had a small job for me.   She wanted me to clean under the sink.  The space under the sink was really bad.  Three or four years ago the water was leaking from the tap above.  I didn't know where it was leaking.  I fixed the leak and things dried up.  This morning remove all of the soaps, sponges, show polishing material.   I found some contact paper that I am sure that it was over thirty years old.  It had a marble pattern.  The photo shows the pattern.   I worked on it for over two hours.  I had enough time before lunch to spray on tank of weed killer.

While I was digging holes for the dahlias, I found asparagus plants in the same bed.  I dug them and transplanted with our other asparagus  plants.

Another photo.

The flowering pear is extremely beautiful today.  Flowers all over the place.

 I took the other cattle panel and put it next the other bows.  There will be four bows to gather for the growing of our pole beans.

The last thing was the same as the first thing of the day.  There was another nice bunch of asparagus cuttings.  We are have family with us on Easter Sunday.  It will be served for dinner.


Comments and questions are welcome.

More Spraying & More Planting

After breakfast and a little news I checked our asparagus plants.  some were ready to be harvested.

Much warmer weather now.  The asparagus hasn't grown much because how cold it has been.  I picked a nice handful this morning.

I planted bunching onions and Detroit Red beets in 105 trays.  I cleaned out this old wading pool that we had for the ducks.  I filled it with one inch of water.  I then put the trays in the water so they get irrigated from the bottom.  I then put them on the bench on the west of house two.

I used a 1206 tray for a planting of sweet corn called peaches and cream.  there are three seeds in each cell.  I bottom watered these also.

All of the six packs look like this one.

I have a tray of celery which should have been transplanted months ago.  they were so root bound that I could hardly pull them out of the six pack.  I cut with a pair of scissors or tore of the roots with my fingers.

I cut a cross in the bottom of some of them.

I planted the celery next to the bunch onions.

I put the parsley in the raised bed between the strawberries and sweet corn.

A closer look at the Curl Leaf parsley.

There are a lot of grassy weeds by the beets that I planted several weeks ago.  The beets are not very thick.  I covered what few there was with small cups and sprayed the weeds with weed killer.

I sprayed weeds on the west side of our yard and those south of house six with three tanks of weed killer.  I then went home teaching.  When I got back I sprayed out another tank.  I feel like I am getting a little control over the weeds.

Emerson Lyman wanted me to prune his fruit trees.  When I got to his house, he was home.  I walked through his orchard of about eight trees.   They are in bad need of pruning.  I think I will do some thin pruning and then have him get an expert pruner next spring.

I got this picture just as the full moon was creeping up over the hill side east of our yard.


Comments and questions are welcome.

Hailstorm, Snow, & Tomato Transplants

Cold this morning.  I checked house six to see if the furnace turned on.  It did.

The first thing this morning was to plant bunch onions.  I prepared the tray yesterday, but run out of time.  I put some seeds in my left hand and used a half teaspoon scoop some seeds from my open hand.  There were five to nine seeds in each of the 105 cells.

I put it on the grow bench.  Some should be germinating by next Thursday.

I dug all the holes and placed a plant above each hole.

I transplanted quite a few tomato plants to house six.  I stretched some twine to make sure that the rows are relative straight.   I put a piece of plywood in front of the holes there I could kneel.  Some areas are wet.

We, Alisha and I, planted all of the sees that she bought.  I bought them and she paid me.  She planted watermelon seeds.  We filled the seventeen inch tray.  Alisha planted three seeds in each cell until she run out of seeds.  There were about fifteen cells.  I planted four Crimson Sweet watermelon seeds in the rest of the cells.  My seeds are pretty old.

Alisha looking over the two trays where we planted her seeds.

A couple of weeks ago I bought five clear covers for 1020 trays.  I put one on the bottom of each tray and poured water into the trays.  The seeds then are watered from the bottom.  I then took them to the heating bench for germination.

We had a heavy hailstorm late this afternoon.  The hailstones pounded hard on the top of the greenhouses.

I transplanted a whole bunch of tomato plants in house six.  This is a view from the west end.  The row on the left was planted a couple of weeks ago.  The tomato row on the left, I planted today.  Some of the plants one the center row was also planted today.  I transplanted the following:  38 gladiator plants; 27 lemon boy; and 4 Beefsteaks.

This photo is from the east end looking west.

I picked some asparagus sometime after sunset.  There was not as much because it has been so cold.

I fed and locked up the chickens.  Before came into the house, I walked out to the greenhouses.  As I walked into house five there were two deer.  When they saw me they started to panic.  Instead of going out through the east door they jumped through the bows into house four.  The exited house four through the west doors.  There I saw the third deer.

Comments and questions are welcome.

Grape Vines & Felling Trees

Monday morning, sheets, and making beds.

A couple of pictures are from Saturday and Sunday.  Most are in chronological order.

There are several amaryllis plants in greenhouse two.  This has been in the house for a couple of days and has three beautiful flowers that don't have stems.  There is a stem going up that will have one more flower.  And it looks like there may be another one coming out of blub.

The Bray house as of yesterday, Sunday.  They are putting on the shingles.  

 Yesterday, Sunday,  I cut some asparagus.  There was not much, but I had it for Sunday dinner.  Salt, pepper and butter turned it into a small delicious treat.

The rest of the photos were taken today.

The apricot tree is really blooming.  Last year the blossoms froze and produced only three ripe apricots.  

Holden clean-up is this week.  I worked on pruning and stacking tree branches for nearly an hour this morning.

There branches from Austrian pine at the end of our driveway hanging down and sometimes we rub against the branches when backing out of our driveway.  I cut off two of them and drug them across the street to be picked up some time this week.

I hoed out some weeds that were growing next to an asparagus plant,

There are two large pots of grape plants in house two.   They should have been planted a month ago or more.  I wanted to be ready for the water when I finished planting them.  Before I brought out the plants I made an irrigation ditch and dug the hole.

Above is the hole.

I used my carpenter saw to cut the plants apart.  The photo shows the saw, the plants, and the empty nursery can.

Here I cut out the piece from the root ball.

Another photo of apricot blossoms.

 Here is the first pot.  There were only five plants.

The water is running down the row.

I trimmed off the branches so that there was two or three nodes on the stem and a few leaves.

Three plants in this root ball.  There was room for eight plants.  Three plants in one pot and five in the other pot completed the row.

I cut down trees in the south east  corner of our property.  Many died for the lack of water.  The water is in a pipe.   I don't know how many, but was able to fell them in a safe direction.  One fell to the  east and was safe, but made a lot of noise which scared their horses.  

The was a bag of lime in house five all winter.  It was rained on and snowed on and the bag sort of melted away.    

I shoveled it in the wheelbarrow, and pushed it out to the road west of our driveway.

I dumped it and spread it around.  It may kill some of the weeds, but I really don't think so.

I picked more asparagus this evening.  There is about three times more that I picked yesterday morning.

I cut away all of the old asparagus plants and then dug up some of the weeds.   More weed removal in a couple more days.


Comments and questions are welcome.