Sunday, May 4, 2014

Sunday Reading - Back to Work





We finally were able to get back to work with some reasonable temperatures (for May) and sunshine once again this weekend.

Yesterday started off early as one of the small local cities was having it's annual Master Gardeners sale and the Mrs. loves to go to them. Anymore I am pretty bored with the things and I am not much of a crowd person anyway and these things are definitely crowded. It takes an hour just to get through the tomato line and they don't have anything I want anymore anyway.

I find these days I am only interested in very select items like native food plants or a rare heirloom tomato variety I don't have and they haven't added in a new tomato variety in years.

Oh ya BTW Matt I got the seeds and put a couple in some pots not sure if they will have enough time to catch up this year though but who knows.

Anyway what I do these days is get a cart and find a spot out of the way and stay there and just let the wife weave in and out and grab what she wants coming back to the staging area and dropping off her loot when she gets full. I did take a quick trip to the native fruit and tree table though. Usually it is off in a corner all by itself and not very well visited and has some blackberries, maybe some strawberries or something. This year however I saw something that immediately caught my eye.




A little potted Paw-Paw Tree. The lady next to the table assured me it had been dug up locally (she wouldn't tell me where) and had been growing in their greenhouse all Winter so they knew it was viable.

It sucks that I had to resort to buying this tree, even if it only cost me a dollar. I been searching the woods for one to transplant for three years now with no luck. Supposedly you need to have at least one non-related cross pollinator and two would be better so I still need to find some more. I am also not sure yet exactly how or where I am going to plant this little guy. I am not sure he is ready for full sun yet. I thought about putting him in a huge pot for a year or so but we lost a couple of potted plants this Winter when it got so cold. 

Decisions, decisions.

After getting back to the Small-Hold it was such a perfect day and the garden was dry enough to be worked (barely) I decided that I didn't care if the grass needing cutting I wasn't going to waste the day doing it after four day's of cold and cloudy rain. So I burned off one of my brush piles, hauled another small load of manure up for the wife and ambushed her for the tractor time picture.




The wife didn't notice me stalking her with the camera but the supervisor did. Like a good supervisor she allows a bit of practical joking and closed her eyes and pretended she didn't see me. She did let me know the picture taking counted as my break however before she snuck off into the shed to nap.

I got the Cantaloupe and three varieties of cucumbers planted along with another trellis of pole beans, then tilled the squash and zucchini section up and moved another six Sunflower volunteers to end row positions.

The long range forecast has us warm and dry now until possibly Thursday so I am off to mow the other two yards today and then ours here tomorrow followed by more planting. I hope to have the garden fully in by Wednesday.  With a bit of luck the last ewe scheduled to pop will get on with it and I can move the 30 some odd assorted sheep out of my barn and start hauling out old hay and bedding for garden mulch next week.

The new lambs are positively getting restless and need some space to run. They grow so fast that it is starting to become hazardous to go into the main area with them running, kicking and chasing each other all about. About a week or so after the last ewe delivers we will move the flock down to the other farm mostly because my mother wants the babies at her place. I think the plan now is to move the invalid/useless/retired flock back up here and into the pasture I am building for them. I am stringing up and fencing off about an acre and a half or so of lawn for them to graze on because I am sick of mowing it. There are a couple of really large Cedars they can use for cover and shade and mostly Fescue grass for them to graze on. They should love it and it will save me at least an hour or more of mowing time each week. Not to mention some gas.

Keep Prepping Everyone!!!






12 comments:

  1. We were out where they were selling plants yesterday but I didn't even look at them as I have lots of tomato plants started from my own seed and hybrid plants just won't do me any good for the expense. I will save some tomato seeds for you this year if you want to try some new ones. I like to let volunteers who survived as seed out in the winter garden and came up by themselves, you know you have a tough plant then and if the fruit is good then it is a happy day.

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    1. Sf - That would be great. I also collect up volunteers each Spring when I start planting. One cherry type pear tomato (yellow) called Carolina Gold has been sending me volunteers each year for like four years now.

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  2. Still too cool here yet to do much planting, 35 this am. Plan on some yard work today, I hope. BBQ later maybe chicken. Stay safe.

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    1. Rob - Well this week promises to be warm so I think we are at planting time finally.

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  3. sounds like you've been keeping busy, buddy, and it sounds like this upcoming week you'll be doing lots of mowing! anyway - i could just go look it up but i am off to the hottub - what's a paw-paw tree?

    your friend,
    kymber

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    1. Kymber - I will do a post on Paw-Paw trees. I been searching for one for years.

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  4. Replies
    1. Eat em!!! You can cook a few things with em but Paw Paw fruit goes bad like really quickly so you are limited and that's why it isn't sold at stores for the most part.

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  5. Oh, I wish we had paw-paw trees here. Wanna' be a good neighbor and sendme a few seeds once you get your stand going? I'll send you a few cats in return.

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    1. Carolyn - You should have Paw-Paw there. Pretty much the entire US from Kansas and East Texas to the coast and up into Canada says it is it's range. Of course I am in it's range and I ain't never found one :)

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  6. PP,

    Paw Paw is a new tree to me. I recently found out about them and here the fruit this tree provides is really good.

    I wish I could borrow your lambs to eat my grass, this way we don't have to cut it any more. Weather is changing here at mid part of the week.

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    1. Sandy - Like I said I been looking but no dice on finding one in the wild.

      Ya I need to get those sheep out in that grass soon. I am already sick of mowing grass.

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