I hadn’t seen them do it, but based on the evidence, I figured they must be able to climb at least a little.
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This has been a real groundhog education for me.
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I had a groundhog dig under wire fencing that I had dug in to be 1’ deep. Fortunately, I also had a pile of field stones we found when we turned this plot, so I stuffed 'em in the hole, one or two a day until the little a-hole gave up. It didn’t try digging in anywhere else along the garden fence. Victory?
I ran over a groundhog once, with both the front and back tires, and it got up and ran in circles. I must’ve run over its head. Then the car behind me ran it over. The next day, there was no trace of a corpse. Little fuckers have tough skulls.
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Wow this sounds so lovely: [quote=“wrecksdart, post:218, topic:51767”]
poppies, lemon balm, bee balm, borage
[/quote]
and so kind to take care of elderly neighbor! Good on ya!
As long as your soil moisture is fairly high…
… these ought to do ok. I can’t remember–you’re on the west coast, yes? I suppose you’ve seen this page, but fwiw:
http://richsoil.com/hugelkultur/
I can’t make this magic happen in Central Texas because it’s just too dang dry here. Major hugel failures multiple years in a row. I give up.
Watering the sheet composting is the way to kickstart it. Under the right conditions—maybe not too terribly hot or cold for the tender days of germination and just after it—sheet composting is itself a bit like a Genesis Device.
The hardest thing for me to deal with is compaction post-breakdown when I want to weed or harvest… I use old boards (fence pickets, scrap of plywood, etc.) that I pick up, take with me, and move around, like a gangway, to keep from stepping too hard on the very spread out compost pile/mulch square.
For your booboos (I don’t know if you are growing comfrey on your property, but it’s worth having around because it’s such a rapid skin healer)…
Comfrey oil recipe, from Wildly Natural Skin Care
Ingredients:
8 oz comfrey leaf (70%)
4 oz comfrey root (30%)
Extra virgin olive oil, to cover, approximately 16 ounces
The roots should already be broken down by chopping. Break up the leaves by hand. To make this using the cold infusion method, put all the herbs in a 16-ounce glass jar, cover with olive oil and cap, and shake. This can steep for 28 days. To strain, use a clean old shirt lined in a strainer, pour the mix through into a bowl, and squeeze the shirt with herbs in it. The strained liquid is your comfrey oil.
Notes:
If possible, use freshly dried herbs for this purpose.
To get freshly dry comfrey root: dig the root when it is dry weather. Clean by hand or use some water and a vegetable brush. Brush the root gently. Chop finely; lay out on a paper bag overnight.
To get freshly dry leaves: harvest, wipe the dirt off with a towel, and allow to dry whole overnight.
NB: Only put this on wounds that are 100% not infected because it closes human skin (heals it) extremely quickly. If put on any slightly septic wound, you’ll get suppuration under new skin and you’ll have to lance it to clean it out! I usually just clean and rinse the wound(s) with water for a long time, douse my skin with clove oil, which’ll kill everything, then hit it with comfrey.
I’ve put this on:
http://gingerwebb.com/shop/comfrey-salve/
overnight, slept with cotton gloves on, and in the morning most of my wounds are sealed… it can take two days+nights for big booboos. Vitamin E caps, squeezed on hand wounds, can work in a pinch but is slower to heal.
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HA! I found that site after reading your initial permaculture post regarding sheet composting–good stuff! And I’m on the East Coast where the dryness has been a slight factor so far, but I fully expect that to be partially mitigated by the amount of clay in my soil, as well as the freakin acres of mulch I’ve been using. I’m also helped out that my garden is fairly compact and almost all of my pathways are covered by weed barrier and mulch. I live on a hill and get some slightly higher winds on average, so I’ve tried to set the garden up to best conserve whatever water falls there. TBH, hugelkultures are an experiment for me as well. We’ll see how they do over the next year or two.
As for the sheet composting, I won’t be planting anything in there for another week and a half to two weeks so it’s got time to break down further, although I’ve been watering all three of those areas fairly heavily in the meantime and watching the once-high mounds slowly compact and break down.
In fact, while I did plenty of work in the garden this weekend, I also spent a fair bit of time sitting and listening to the birds and watching the plants soak up the sun. It was delightful!
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Having some hills or sloping land is can be advantageous… you’ve probably seen all these, but for the amusement and edification of all here reading this:
I have been shoveling mulch for a few weeks, sporadically. I am about to buy my own 10-tine fork because I am starting to feel guilty constantly borrowing my neighbor’s.
It’s kinda pricey at the tractor supply down the road here. I need one with a really long handle though, because it’s slow going when I use the D-handle short version moving mulch off the back of the pickup.
I’m guessing you already know this, but fwiw, I learned a few years ago that the highest germination rates for… most seeds… tends to happen in mulch made from non-aromatic woods. So evergreens (cedar, juniper, pines) and obvious allelopathic plants like walnut and pecan are antagonistic toward seeds and often specific kinds of plants. That’s one heads-up.
Here’s the other: not all composted manures are created equal. Watch out for certain herbicide carryovers. A good nursery or soil yard will already be tracking the aminopyralid and clopyralid problem and work hard to avoid getting it into their manures and composts. But. Fwiw:
http://smallfarms.oregonstate.edu/sfn/wtr11Aminopyralid
Here’s a home test for those bad actors:
I have had talks with other “microfarmers” who have had to remove (and send to the landfill) all soils contaminated with the stuff before being able to grow anything except grass. Last year, I had to explain to the nice horse owners down the road that their horse manure was suddenly not working out well in my garden, and I had to stop taking their free manure. They had changed alfalfa suppliers and it turns out that one was definitely spraying his fields with bad goo. So now I have some really dark thick grass growing in a spot that will likely need (according to one nurseryman I spoke with) another 3 years of breakdown time before it’ll support any forb I want to grow.
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We have an anemic old bush that has those roses (our neighbor has one as well). We had a bush out front that would churn out about two flowers every year that smelled even better - the flowers were a bright yellow and red combo.
Photo looks more pink than purple.
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Can always tell when somebody at work is working on their compost/garden – a bucket appears in the break room with a sign asking to please deposit the used coffee grounds.
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I’ve considered speaking to some of my neighbors to ask them if they’d keep a small bucket for their compostable scraps that can be recycled in my compost pile, but haven’t done so yet for a few reasons. It’d be neat if ‘green’ buckets for compostable items were as common as the blue/yellow buckets for recyclables.
Driving through the city now, I can’t help but look at all the places selling prepared food and wonder where all those scraps have gone (even though I’m pretty sure they’re headed for the landfill). What a shame all that good stuff is going to waste.
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Reason number 23 why I love my ancient copy of “How to Grow More Vegetables”: Because who can look at this dude doing a double dig without seeing the old, hand drawn, “The Art of Love”*:
*Or was it “The Art of Loving”?
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Wasn’t it The Joy of Sex?
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Poppies!
Garlic!
Unpictured: Hayseed sprouting in my sheet-composted areas, recently planted poblano, bell, banana, and jalapeno peppers, as well as five heirloom tomato varieties (can’t recall them right now). I’m anxiously awaiting the moment where I get to plant one of my most cherished seeds: moon & stars watermelon. Last year’s M&S watermelons were planted too late and in soil that wasn’t up to the task–maybe this year will be different!
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What topic is suited I don’t know. ‘Fuck Today’ , mwah… It’s not only today.
No joke, it’s snowing. With nearly appropriate temperatures, for snow, not for end April.
Plants are withering. Plants are really longing to be planted outside. They just don’t know…
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Ah, memories…
Still recall measuring a foot of snow in the shaded areas during the first half of May back in 1986 (had an ecology class where we kept a journal about a plot of land).
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Cabbage weather! I assume your kale and cabbage and other Brassica veggies are doing ok perhaps?
Oh dear… well, at least your local fruit trees are getting their chill hours.
This past winter, our orchard did not receive enough chill hours and our yields are going to be low.
http://www.raintreenursery.com/Chill_Hours.html
A warm winter for us here means the some of pests that die from cold exposure (locusts, grasshoppers, cabbage worms, ticks, chiggers, fleas, mosquitos etc.) didn’t get zapped by a real winter with real cold either. We could use a reduction in the competition, every bit helps.
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I would agree completely, but the fruit trees are blossoming. Although, the pruim tried but stopped two weeks ago. The poire is blooming, fingers crossed. The apples are smart trees, still waiting.
No cale or family outside now/jet, but indeed to long in the greenhouse. Peppers and tomatoes are waiting in house. Like the other plants, annuals, biannuals and some other longer time seedlings. Especially the last ones need to be outside in the greenhouse (cold). But to cold now.
The pees, marrow pees and others are turning slightly purple outside, not a good sign, but most of the time they can handle some cold. Won’t grow, but don’t die either and go on growing when warmer again.
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I live in the Rogue River Valley of Oregon, on the side of a Mountain with ruthlessly heavy clay soil. This summer, since I will be traveling to my 20 year High School Reunion, and am spoiled by easy access to my in-law’s veggie garden, I am not putting in one of my own. I have been working in the perennial beds around my place and have bleeding heart, lilacs, pink lily of the valley, orchid primrose, pansies, saxifraga urbium and wiegela blooming. Soon to be followed by lavender, peony and roses. It was so warm here this last week even my heron’s pirouette begonia is peeking up! (my taste in flowers tends to the pink and frilly)
I usually don’t cut blooms, but these calla lilies got knocked over by the rain:
The apple and pear trees are done blooming now but they really went for it this year. As ancient as they are, it is quite miraculous that they reliably fruit.
Case in point, this red fleshed apple:
El Niño sure gave an exciting kick off to spring here!
Will be looking forward to see how everyone’s gardens grow!
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Depending on whether you like its fragrance, Lily of the Valley is a nice choice for shady spots. It’s poisonous, so I don’t think the deer will eat it much, though if you have children or livestock or dogs with a penchant for eating weird stuff, this may be not be an ideal candidate.
Sometimes a tree can be limbed up a bit to get more sunlight to the “floor” of your micro-forest. Another thing that usually does ok in shade is strawberries, which are very much an understory plant. If your ground is soggy, you can keep the berries dry during their growth phase by mulching with straw (not hay!). Many lettuces like shade as well. Growing them in pots can be kinda ornamental:
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Nice tree! What a tough one. Amazing that is still producing. I am intrigued about its red fleshed apples.
I hope you’ve managed to get a clone of it started for when it decided to finally give up completely.
Malus spp (apples and pears) can live for many years. I have heard of pears that make it to 80 years old and apple to one hundred years old.
I have had some luck getting fruit trees that weren’t producing back into production. The steps I follow include a heavy pruning (focusing of dead, diseased and crossing limbs first) and some supplemental feedings. It’s very similar to this, and I thought maybe you’d be interested in seeing what a nutrition program for an older fruit tree is like:
http://www.fedcoseeds.com/trees/renovating.htm
Good luck! The ephemeral blessings of a good homegrown apple are many and precious. For the windfalls with too many bruises or worms, a bit of knifework and some time in a pot or crockpot makes funky apples into applesauce for later. We use that sometimes in place of sugar or honey when baking, but mostly we eat it straight from the jar!
ETA: corrected pre-coffee typos… I am drinking Earl Grey tea and clearly it’s just not doing the job.
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I have had really good results “extending the season” (indeed, beginning the season early) with these:
I don’t know if they are available in your area. They really do work, and I have started “warm weather crops” like basil and tomatoes and zucchini in crazy circumstances, including times with snow and ice. It works by… ah… physics… something about how water creates heat as it freezes, water is light transmissive but still has thermal mass, etc. (Don’t ask me for details because I didn’t do too well in physics at school. 
)
Where I gardened before, about 1000 miles north of where I now am in Texas, I had little veggie seedlings in a hotbed in my Missouri backyard, south side of my house:
If you are in the northern hemisphere, it’s important to aim at south, so it catches as much sunlight as possible. If you see the heat building up too much in the hotbed, just lift the lid (an old glass door) an inch or two to let the heat out.
I used strawbales for the walls instead of dry-stack brick, stone, or wooden boards because I wanted a lot of insulation. Once the weather was warm enough, I just pulled off the glass door, pulled away the bales, and let the vegetables grow up. It takes up a lot more space than the very elegant Wall-O-Water plastic things, and the bales rot fast. By summertime I had to use the straw for mulch, and then compost. Buying straw bales every year for hotbeds or coldframes can be too much work, but if you are already using straw in the garden anyway, it’s not that big a deal to make them do some extra work in winter, before they are turned into… this…
or this…
(these are not my gardens, because it’s very hard for me to find cheap straw bales in central Texas! I just cut my grass long, and use that)
Good luck @Stynx!
I know it’s hard to tell the plant babies to wait for the soil temperatures to warm up.
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