International edible gardening

You must have some of the happiest and contented wildlife in your area Colne. They cannot believe your generosity and benevolence,
Jenny
And I complain about my Ground Elder....

 

So no argument spawned of life and existence; 'being' and ontological paths through 'Nothingness' and so talk of viruses - (what with a virus not being life). No worrying of the when-ness of being from 'essence' and thus the issues of 1.5 millions abortions in USA and Britain per annum - which got me banned from the great anarchist site 'Urban75'. No dragging out 'Ontological Arguments' and 'Phenomenological Ontologies' . Just 'spray or not spray' 'organic or not organic' and leave origins and ultimate alone. Good move.

And acting on that 'doing thus existence' I have put a 2"X6" border around the banana/ginger garden I have planted in front of my cottage. I had two free dump trucks of dirt put there (the city digging out drains - they gave me 4 free loads in all)



The land there was 4 foot above mean tide running up to my cottage fill area and now is raised a foot to a foot and a half at the highest). We salvaged 2x6 from where a bar was replacing its outside beer porch - spread the dirt into a rough circle with 15 foot diameter - dug in 15 bananas and 15 gingers we salvages from a garden which wanted some of its poolside cleared (the bananas and ginger creep along over time crowding out pool decks), a couple paper bush, and I will be adding the biggest loquat I just bought for $1.

This digging and then planting we did a couple weeks ago - then sprayed with herbicide three times to slow the masses of invasive weeds and grasses the roadside soil brought. So now it is timber edged - I still have to screw the wood to the stakes, then it is to get an 8 inch deep layer of leaves picked up from the road side - and there it will be, a banana grove!

 

I do not know Jenny, some of the wildlife would disagree. Here are the local wildlife people picking up a small gator at my house - that was resident in my pond for months - he would sink down when you went in the water and remain hidden. Although totally harmless, in the back of my mind, was this tiny bother that he would grab my toe when it swished past his snout - thinking it was a fish. So I grabbed him and called them to pick him up and take off elsewhere. (alligators being protected one is not allowed to transport or relocate them yourself - a serious law.)



Now full volume, 'Now everyone balmed his old man

for making him mean as a snake

When Amos Moses was a boy

his daddy would use him as alligator bait

 

Nice one Colne,
Jenny

 

Just back from the garden and some purple potatoes and yellow carrots:

 

Dull video

The dogs were mouse hunting in the tall grass and leaping like gazelles, beautiful to watch. So I turned on the camera and they stopped immediately in the usual dog way. When we worked remote in the far north the dogs would hunt rodents in the rotten snow just incredibly well - and so I always like watching a good mouse hunt. (They were half starved all the time so loved to eat some nice warm furry rodents, and just loved the sport too.)

 

I went to a job interview yesterday, now I am physically worn out I need a light kind of work because construction is too hard - like a lot of 60 year old tradesmen my tendons and cartilage are just used up. 12 qualified applicants, 1 opening. And it was an invitation only interview or there would have been rooms full. Oh, well, not too likely. But it was good, $13.50 an hour, 40 hours a month, leeway in ones scheduling, a nice side earner.

That is good money here, 9 pounds an hour, easy work, good employer, job should last for years too. Living is pretty cheap here. Back in London prices except for housing are good. Transport, food.....Yet the money just flies off you. I guess the difference is there is little to do here.

So I will post a picture of a hippy with a tail from a National Gathering back in the National Forest. Not for any reason except I feel terribly restless. Going for that job (most of my life has been self employed - the only becoming an employee jobs I took were temporary) was yet another strong statement that I am settled here for good. I just wore out so I cannot really strike off and carve some other life out elsewhere. Age, it sneaks up on you, and then there one is.
This was a long time ago.......................

 

The dogs ( and possibly your other half) will miss you being around Colne. And the garden will too,
Jenny

 

Jenny, Sheal too - does anyone know someone who would like to sell my VW camper, 1976 in England? Hopefully someone who knows this kind of thing.



This one is my Father's (not this one in the picture, that is from the web - but one exactly like it). He left it here a few years ago and it is worth much more in England than here, twice as much. It is in immaculate condition. Does anyone know a classic car seller? I could even have a new Mexican 2 l engine put it, although the one in it works fine. (it is 2 l fuel injected, left hand drive, 1976 Westafalia)

Just asking - I need to do something with it, been stored for years. They always kept VW campers and would travel Europe, North Africa, East Europe, USA and his last one stayed here and they never made it back to the USA.

 

Disregard the VW thing, but I would think it worthwhile shipping over.

but today I am back from being out shopping at our local DIY superstore to get a cucumber after mine were mowed down by what I am thinking is a Magnesium deficiency - any thoughts on that, and same with the squash plants, and the dreaded 'cut worms' got the rest.

But they were clearing out stuff so I went nuts and bought: 2 bags dahlia roots, bag calladiun roots, 25 gladiolus bulbs, 2 - 4 inch pots cucumbers, a 4 pack of hot banana peppers, 4 pack sweet banana peppers (mixed a tiny bit) a past it grape and same for a raspberry - and 160 pounds of 10-10-10 fertilizer. (I do not think it is labeled this way in England but forget - means each 100 bounds contains 10 pounds each of N,P,K. I use about 80 pounds a year because I do a few of my nicer trees - native ones, oaks and such with a good dose twice a year. And the 160 pounds was torn 40 pound bags normally $18 each reduced to $1 each! And a vague kind of pot plant. The whole lot was $40.

 

Rain

Most of yesterday and this morning. Thunder all night, the weasel (brow and white small dog, afraid of thunder) crawled under the covers. So all is wet and I bet the plants have shot up.

So do today: Make pogy bread (take 2 lbs of them from the freezer)

This is 6 pounds of them, sardine like, the chickens, and dogs love them.

Then plant things, lots of stuff, dahlias, raspberries, mints, tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, caladium, a crab apple, a grape, 10 peppers, more even as the seeds of habinairo have sprouted, tones of stuff - which means making boxes and filling them. I think I should take out the soil which is killing my cucumbers and replace it - but then that may be too much work for now. It would be easy if I had my endless compost but it will not be ready for several months - may make more boxes instead.

The purple potatoes are the deepest purple imaginable and need harvesting and sweet potatoes putting in.

 

Your purple potatoes are in fact gorgeous, IMO. Lots of rain here too, which is OK by me, and 20mph winds along with it, which do my head in.

No wonder your chooks look so healthy, with such fine feed.

 

MsK, The potatoes are striking - last evening I made my daily bowl of soup - mostly garden stuff, vegetarian half the time and used: 1/2 a poblano pepper, 1/2 a yellow bell, 1/2 a jalapeno, some garden dried carrots garden dried onion - and a sliced potato, a small one, and the soup turned the most lovely blue.

Today the chicks will be free in the flock. I have been letting them out a bit and now they will be free - which is a big problem because they prefer to eat the hens feed instead of their high protein crumbles. And a low protein diet will mean they are small, scrawny, tough, and slow to grow. I think the answer is everyone gets pogies by the ton. That will bring on more hen eggs - which is the last thing I want, but what else? I cannot bother to keep two chicken houses.

Also I am netting tiny pogies - who have arrived back into the bayou - so small they mostly pass through the net so getting a few takes several casts - and giving them to the warmouth brim. They go wild for them! The video from last October showed them smaller, even though I did not feed them, and now with a good heavy pogy diet they should explode in size. I will video them when the water clears again, this torrential rain has made the water cloudy again.

 

The chicks might not compete successfully for the pogy bread. Maybe segregate them for feeding until big enough to stand a chance against the fullgrown hens. Not that I have any chicken lore of my own. But you're wanting them for meat, yes?

 

Hi MrsK, I have just popped in for some Iced tea - it is steamy out with the three inches of rain last night. Only about 78F, but humid. I took a bit of film of the now free range chicks just now walking from my house to the hen house - it is supposedly loading to youtube but that is a process. I will chat here aimlessly wile it loads............

So I dug out a trench where my cucumber plants died of some lack of nutrients - very similar to magnesium deficit, but I have an excess of PO4 (huge amounts of compost dug into the soil) apparently and that messes with some things. So I filled the trench with rotted leaves and some wood chippings and old manure I have kept in a barrel of water for a year (no weed seeds) and added a bit of lime (although I believe the ph is 6.5) and will add a couple tablespoons Epsom salts for Mg. Then I broke apart a peat pot of 5 bush kind cucumbers into 2, 2, and 1 plants and planted them into that mess. I am working on the 'just make it up as you go along' theory of cucumber growing.

And I went out and cut 8, 15 foot bamboos for tomato, grape, dahlia, and pepper stakes. Now if you go into the woods behind my chicken house for a bit you will come on this:



oops copied twice - but there is a long interesting story behind it, it is a Aid tent from China for hurricane Katrina disaster relief. My carpenter lived in it 3 1/2 years with power and water running through the woods - 400 foot, and under the road. So it had power, water, and high speed internet - and the fence is also electrified - see the switch at the gate hinge?

And there is weasel and Flora and to the left of the tent is a massive bunch of clumping bamboo, an amazing mass which curls over the tent shading it from the baking sun. That is where I collect all my bamboo - and there is so much there you cannot even dent it. This is the guy we spent years living with in bush camps in the far north - and then we built houses together and lived together on and off for thirty years so far - he is a very unconventional person. Highly educated but like me dropped out and went off to live in the woods - he stayed on when I gave the living in the forest up for another 7 years - living in remote cabins and odd campers - even in the high Rocky Mountains in a straw bale house which he blew up wile inside in 20 below freezing weather with a gas leak - anyway this tent is still there, and still has electricity, but leaks and is full of rats.

And success, the film is ready - not very good - but shows the burgeoning greenery that explodes in spring here.