mudpies's Blog

Canning pears
Sep 8, 2009 | 5:10 AM PST
Tags: apple , pears , holding bed , weeding , cucumbers

Well, folks, I didn't make all those horrible little apples into pies.  I did make one apple crisp and one apple pie for the couple who brought me the darned things.  The rest are feeding the deer at our farm.

On Saturday, I drove 60 miles to buy a bushel of cucumbers.  They're very scarce this year because of the wretched cucumber beetles spreading bacterial wilt.  I didn't call ahead because I know this farmer always has lots of cukes.  WRONG!!  He had lots, but sold every one at market.  He's promised me a bushel tomorrow, but I'll have to drive all that distance again.

On Sunday, I went to my favourite apple orchard which is, thankfully, only about 8 miles from here.  I wanted a half bushel of Courtlands, but they weren't ready yet, so I bought a six-quart basket of Lyman's Large Summer apples.  The owner of the orchard is a really nice gentleman, but he isn't a very good salesman.  He warned me I'd be disappointed in them.  I made up a pudding for last night's dinner and it was perfectly acceptable, but not as good as it would have been with Courtlands.  Ah well, I've plenty to keep me busy for the next couple of weeks till they are ready.

Yesterday I worked at cleaning up my holding bed.  It had gotten quite weedy.  I consider the first weeding in the spring and the last one in late summer / early autumn to be the most important of the year.  I try to get every last weed out then.  It makes life easier for the remainder of the year.  I didn't wear gloves so that I could pinch out tiny seedlings.  As a result, my hands and wrists are quite sore from exposure to stinging nettle.

After I left the farm, C discovered that the pears were ready to be picked.  He picked all he could reach from the ground - 2 five-gallon pails full.  So most of today will be devoted to canning pears.  It's a real pain now, but they'll be delicious come winter.

A day in the sun
Jun 3, 2009 | 5:56 PM PST
Tags: Doctor , holding bed , Calendula , sunflower , birds , blue jays , barn swallows , hummingbirds , wax beans , Royal Burgundy beans , frost

Well, I had a most satisfactory visit with my new physician yesterday.  Having a doctor who's younger than my eldest child is a bit disconcerting, but she seems more than competent and is definitely a sweet-natured little thing.  I probably could have bullied her out of ordering a mammogram, had I tried.  I haven't endured that particularly nasty form of torture for a very long time and I'm certainly not looking forward to the procedure, but I guess it's for my own good.  She also ordered some blood work which I don't mind, and prescribed a topical therapy for my poor old knees.  It was expensive, but seems to provide some relief.  Apparently, the effects get better with time.  I hope so.  I hobble around like a 90-year old.

I didn't get my planter potted up yesterday, so I did that this morning before I went to the farm.  This is the first time I've started flowers from seed.  Usually I buy strong, healthy annuals from local nurseries.  Mine look pretty spindly.  I'm sure they'll fill in quickly, but I'm an impatient old woman.

I tidied up my holding bed.  I don't know how I managed to double plant one row, but I corrected that by moving some clumps of irises to a different area.  Then I moved more volunteer sunflowers into a second row and planted more seeds.  It's strange how one's tastes change.  There was a time when I thought sunflowers were coarse, ugly plants.  Now my only problems with them are (a) that I need big heavy vases complete with rocks in the bottom to ensure they don't topple over;  and (b) that they drop pollen like crazy, leaving a yellow mess on my tables.  But I love their cheerful faces enough to bring them inside on a regular basis.  I plan to plant some more tomorrow.  They're great for attracting bees early on, and blue jays later.  I also planted a row of calendulas for cutting later on.  What curious seeds!

Speaking of birds, I must comment on their particular dislike of me.  Kindly old ME, who never does harm to any of them!  We have tons of resident barn swallows.  Now, I admire and value those voracious little supersonic flyers, ( Their aerial acrobatics are a sight to behold and each one eats about  850 mosquitoes per day.)  but do they return my affection?  NOT!!  They dive-bomb me on a regular basis, and I KNOW that this chubby old body doesn't resemble a mosquito in the least!  Barn swallows are not alone in their aversion for me.  My mom feeds hummingbirds all summer.  Whenever I visit, one of my chores is to refill and rehang the feeders.  You'd think those miniature helicopters would be grateful, but no.  They, too, reward my generosity by using my head for target practice, swooping up and away at the last possible moment.  The blue jays sit atop my sunflowers in the fall and scold me mercilessly while gorging on the seeds.  Surely, they ought to be grateful that I plant their feast.  Only our robins seem to have any regard for me at all, and then only when I've turned the soil and they've grabbed a hapless worm or two.

After I played with my flower plants and seeds, I turned my attention to the veggie bed again and got a row of wax beans and a row of Royal Burgundy beans planted before heading home.  There's frost in the forecast tonight.  Can't the weatherman read the calendar?  It's June, for heaven's sake!  I'll have to be up before the crack of dawn tomorrow to spray down some of my tender plants.

Enough ranting and raving for one evening!  Happy gardening, everyone.

Second time around typing this entry
May 4, 2009 | 6:58 PM PST
Tags: onions , Asparagus , tiller , daffodil , day lilies , iris , hydrangea , holding bed , bluebells , dianthus , stonecrop , forsythia , sprirea , heritage roses , peonies , tomato cages , foundation plantings , Berm , lasagna garden , lady's
Well, my friends, the soil was dry enough to plant onions this afternoon.  Hubby raked, set out the lines, and made the furrows while I tucked the sets into the earth, covered them and tamped the soil down.  It’s amazing how much satisfaction can be gained by seeing one small area (four 15’ rows smack dab in the middle of our garden) all smoothed out like a bed spread.  We plant the garden in three sections with paths between so that the harvest is easily accessible.

We didn’t get to eat asparagus, though.  Being the greedy person I am, I decided to wait one more day so we could have more of the delicious stuff.

After we got the onions in, my husband (hereinafter referred to as ‘C’ since he wishes to remain anonymous following yesterday’s rant) tried long and hard to start his tiller.  Didn't happen.  God is good!  No plants were harmed through C’s over-enthusiastic use of said machine.

Meanwhile, I went back to cleaning up my holding bed.  Virtually every plant over-wintered successfully:  daffodils, day lilies, irises, perennial geraniums, hydrangeas, bluebells, dianthus, stonecrop, chives, forsythia, spirea, and even some heritage rose bushes.  I’ve never been successful with roses.  The person who gave them to me said she had actually tried unsuccessfully to kill them off.  There has to be a lesson in that.

I was especially excited to see two peonies popping through the ground, discards from another friend’s bed.  I adore the outrageously gaudy appearance of peonies, but there’s no room to accommodate them in my flower beds here at home.  I once planted a pair of them on either side of a ‘telephone tower’ (those ugly brown aluminum things that are scattered throughout urban areas) at the edge of my lawn, but someone cut a cable and the linemen trampled all over them when they came to make repairs.  (No, that time it wasn’t my dear husband.)  I’ll have to protect them from the wind (and the tiller) with tomato cages later.

When we build our new home at the farm, I’ll have plenty of plant material to start my foundation plantings and the berm I’ve been designing (and revising) in my head for the past couple of years.

My attempt at making a ‘lasagna bed’ has met with mixed results.  The only shady area on our farm is a curved row of spruce trees that border the lane between the barn and our vegetable garden.  Winter before last I came across an article about creating a new bed using the ‘lasagna method’.  “Aha!” thought I, “the perfect solution to making a shade bed at the farm!”  I spent all summer long digging out the most persistent weeds – burdocks and dandelions – then section by section between the trees, laying down several thicknesses of newspaper that had been soaked thoroughly to prevent it from flying away and to accelerate its eventual decomposition.  I covered the newspapers with a generous layer of compost, then a layer of spoiled straw, then a layer of pony and goat manure (It’s a good thing I value their droppings, because neither creature is good for much else.), and finally another layer of straw.  Then, like Rumplestiltskin,  I waited for Mother Nature to work her magic, turning straw not into gold, but into soil.  Dreams of my beautiful shade bed made our long, dreary winter more bearable.

Well, Ma N did a fine job at the top end of the bed.  But as she worked her way towards the bottom, she was prevented from accomplishing the desired result by an over-enthusiastic top layer of straw.  I managed to circumvent the decomposition process by piling it on too deep.  So I spent much of the afternoon turning the stuff over, bringing the wonderful rotten stuff to the top in preparation for another application of compost and pony poop.  Hopefully, it’ll be ready to plant by fall, but if not, I’ll have another winter to design that end of the bed in my head.  I must remember to take my camera with me so I can display my new, if far from complete) shade bed to all and sundry.

I’ve been splitting the perennials in my shade bed at home and moving them down to the farm.  After years of struggling to grow in sticky clay, they’re luxuriating (along with a bumper crop of earthworms) in the new soil Ma N created at the top of my new bed.  Thus far, I’ve planted five hostas, some wild violets, a couple of astilbes, several small bleeding hearts, a couple of clumps of lady’s mantle, and four clumps of silver mound that miraculously made it through the winter virtually bare-rooted in a pot above the ground.  The silver mound nagged at my guilty conscience all winter long.  A friend gave it to me late in the fall and I just never got around to planting it.  How ungrateful!  Early this spring, I moved the broken old plastic pot to my garage door intending to throw it on the compost heap at the farm.  When I was about to put it into the back of my van, I noticed some new growth at the base.  Lo and behold, I split it up into four sections and planted it in my new bed where it has thrived ever since.

Well, my friends, I hope I haven’t bored you with this long entry.  Having typed it out twice, I’m definitely bored.  Happy gardening to all, and to all a good night.

OMG - How embarrassing!
May 3, 2009 | 8:15 PM PST
Tags: rain , tractor , cultivator , stinging nettle , holding bed , visitors , onions , Asparagus

Took a couple of days off from gardening due to the weather.  We are getting an inordinate amount of rain this spring.

Got up this morning, raring to go!  Just a smidgen of rain yesterday; and today promised to be sunny and warm.  I wanted to get my onions planted at the farm.  My husband was eager to get started at it, too, so I gathered my sets up and headed out.  I hadn't showered this morning and I had dressed in my ratty old gardening clothes.  No one would see me down there.

When we arrived at the farm, I was dubious about planting.  The soil appeared too wet.  It was really windy and my hubby thought that if he tilled, it might dry sufficiently to get the onions in.  He got our little tiller going, but it was difficult to operate in the damp soil, so he decided to borrow a friend's tractor (The friend had already put his cultivator on.) and do the entire garden quickly.

While he went off to get the tractor (I knew it would take a long time because friend and hubby love to discuss the weather, the state of the economy, the price of wheat, beans and hay, any new equipment a neighbour may have acquired, the prospects for a prosperous harvest, the declining behaviour of teens these days, etc., etc., etc.  You get my drift.), I cleaned up my holding bed.  There was a lot of stinging nettle, so I used latex surgical gloves.  That was a successful experiment.  I'm not good with most gloves, but these worked well.  Most of my plants over-wintered well.  I worked away digging out old sunflower roots and lugging them to the compost pile, getting dirtier by the minute.

Back came hubby with the big tractor and cultivator.  First he ripped up an old strawberry bed from which I had intended transplanting some of the healthy runners.  Oh, well!  Next, he came booting over near my holding bed (which isn't a bed unto itself, but rather the upper corner of our vegetable garden).  Before I could place myself strategically  to protect my perennials, he had managed to rip two of them out.  That man is a disaster with any piece of machinery powered by gasoline!

Eventually, hubby finished cultivating with no further mishaps.  I continued weeding and getting rid of the sunflower roots.  I had taken my gloves off to open a soft drink and forgot to put them back on.  Ouch!  I hate stinging nettle with a passion.  Brushed hair off my face with my filthy hands and managed to get soil well distributed throughout.  Soil is definitely not an appropriate hair care ingredient!

 I was just thinking longingly about a nice hot shower when I heard a vehicle come up our laneway.  Customers often stop by to purchase hay, so I simply went about my business behind a large shed, assuming hubby would attend to the matter, an no one would see this unkempt, filthy old lady.  Wrong!!  My cousin and her husband were passing and decided to stop by when they saw our truck.  Not only did I look awful, I'm sure I didn't smell very nice, either, not having showered then slugging away for most of the day.  I'm sure our visitors left wondering if I was short of soap and water.

I didn't get any onions planted so will have to try to get them in tomorrow.  (The forecast is for rain Wednesday through Saturday.)

The bright spot in my day was finding asparagus almost ready for harvest.  Can hardly wait to enjoy it tomorrow with Hollandaise sauce.  Mmmm!  Mmmm!