chicken cam soon?

I'm researching a web cam for my chicken coop. That will be fun! I will post it here. Then we will ALL be able to see what they are doing instead of laying eggs!

Yes, still no eggs from any of the four hens. Its been since September, 2 months now without any eggs. Ii does look like my 1 year old hens molted, but that's done now. And the new pullets are definitely old enough to lay by now. I have a light that comes on at 4 am in the coop so they get 14 hours of light a day. And they are all getting along well now. I don't know about those hens. But I'm looking forward to watching them by chicken cam.

update - where have I been .....

I am so far behind on my blog, partly because I am doing so much gardening now!! Gardening at this time of year! Brr. (Also, my Dad's a bit under the weather and I have been with him a bit :-( But I have a few hours today and will do what I can to catch up here.

potatoes in storage are sprouting

I've been storing my potatoes in the kitchen since I have no basement or garage (yet). Its usually 65-70*F in here, and warmer sometimes. Potatoes are ideally stored at 35-40*F for long term storage. So I plugged in a small refrigerator, sorted my potatoes by variety (I have All Blue, Burbank russet, and Yukon Gold), found three old mesh vegetable bags I saved, bagged them up and popped them in the fridge. This reminds, me - I should go check on them now.... they're good.

I ended up with SO MANY blues potatoes. I like the russets and Yukon's better, so I'm ending up with many blues left. They are a bit mealier than the others, but they do mash and roast well. I planted about equal amounts of each variety, but the blues produced maybe twice as many potatoes.

I am thinking about potatoes for next year. I'd like to grow German Butterball again. I ordered too late this year and they were sold out at Fedco. Fedco is not accepting orders yet, but I'll keep an eye on the site and order when they open up. I think I'll get 3 varieties again this year: German Butterball, Dark Red Norland and Burbank Russet.

Suzie and Skippy!

first snow on my garden

Just a light coating of snow. Its our first freeze of the year.

today's harvest

today's garden work

Today I spent about 3 hours at my community plot and was happy to get to ALL SET (! YEAH!!) for the impending season - not to be named...

Accomplished:

- Planted 76 cloves of garlic, then mulched it with old salt marsh hay that was on my garden paths for the summer
- Cut down asparagus ferns and laid them on the patch for mulch, weeded the patch and added salt hay mulch
- Piled trash (3 old chairs, rotted edging wood from my 6 yr old raised beds that have reached their age limit) to the corner of the garden for disposal next spring
- Cut down 4 enormous (!) dead tomato vines, raspberry vines, and giant sunflowers and raked
- Stomped down my compost bin and then piled up a BIG pile of garden debris that didn't fit in the bin (The more compost material the better! I compost everything the plot produces. I am happy to have SO much this year. I think more than usual.)
- Raked flat 7 garden beds, scattered winter rye seed, and hand raked it in

Late: Yes, I am very late this year in planting garlic and winter rye seed. This is my rational: I planted as soon as I could. There are lots of other things I did on time this fall,... these I did not. Garlic, I have planted at all different timings though the past 8 or so years and find most of the results depend on the quality of the bulbs going in and the soil and garden conditions. I do not think the late garlic planting will affect my garlic quality next year.

The winter rye, I have less experience with. But, here's my thought. I planted on Nov 10, the start of the Persephone Period in the Boston area. Light is less than 10 hours per day now and nothing grows now. We don't have enough light for plants to grow anymore. OK. But roots grow now. The garlic will be rooting. I have found that rye will sprout and begin to root during warm periods in the winter and then will take off in the spring. Even a little growth can help hold the soil structure in heavy spring rains. Depending on the weather we get, my 30 minutes of work and $3 of seed may be helpful. Or, maybe not.

gnome with marigolds and coriander

decontaminating late blight infected plant material

I was asked how I was decontaminating my late blight infected tomato plants this year.

In past years, I have only had to deal with one or two infected tomato plants. I bagged them in black plastic, left them in the sun a few days so the heat killed the plants and pathogens, then I threw the bags out with my trash.

This year, however, I had 24 tomato plants and they all were completely infected with late blight. And they were enormous plants. It would have been too much work (and too many bags) to bag all the plant material. I checked a late blight information sheet published by Cornell University.

Immediately remove affected plant tissue. It is best to do this in the middle of a sunny day after the leaves have dried when there will be fewer spores and those dislodged in the process will likely be exposed to UV radiation. But don’t wait days for these conditions. Put affected tissue in garbage bags, dig a hole and bury it, or put it in a pile and cover with a tarp. Heat that develops from sunlight hitting the tarp will quicken death of plant tissue and the pathogen. For the same reason, leave garbage bags in sun for a few days before throwing out.
- copied from Managing Late Blight in Tomato and Potato – An Essential Part of Gardening, by Margaret Tuttle McGrath, Department of Plant Pathology and Plant-Microbe Biology, Cornell University

So, I put my tomato plants in a pile and cover them with a tarp in a sunny place. I should have done this a long time ago, but I figure better late then never. Next time, I will know what to do and will tarp infected plant material right away when I take it down.

This procedure should guarantee that the late blight pathogen is killed. The article doesn't say how long to tarp-treat teh plant material so I will leave it covered until spring and then compost it.

today's harvest

today's garden work

Not only are the days short now, but dusk seems to last for hours. The sun hovers, lingering at the horizon, then slowly sinks for the night. Today in the long twilight I got some garden work done.

- I hosed clean my sweet potatoes then transferred them to a smaller storage bucket.

- I looked up how to decontaminate my late blight infested tomato vine debris. Then I tarped it over for the winter.

- I brought 6 or 7 giant hosta clumps that a friend gave me down to my vegetable garden and tucked them into a bed for the winter.

- I cleared out summer squash and cucumber vines, zinnias, beans and sunflower debris and piled them in a compost bin. I then climbed into the bin and stomped the contents down.

- I stuck my head in my winter tunnel and noticed there are a few more varieties in there than I listed yesterday. I will add these soon. I also noticed it's beautiful in there. The light has a transfused opalescent thickness from the plastic walls, the air is moist and the plants glow green.

- I planted winter rye seed in two beds. There are still a few rows of fall greens growing here and there (to be harvested this month) so I spread seed close in under these plants. After scattering seed, I got into the dirt and used my fingers to "rake" the seed in. It was a chance to feel and smell the garden close up. The strongest smell was the spicy nasturtiums vines in the neighboring bed (early summer, they were grew quietly under the tomatoes but then over-grew the whole bed after late blight killed the tomatoes). I damaged a marigold plant and smelled its pungent odor. The dirt has its own smell, I think richer in fall with newly killed plant material mixing in.

After this, I remembered I needed to go vote. I'm sure I was the dirtiest person at the polls. But I enjoyed every minute in the garden today.

varieties I wish I had in my winter bed

- More spinach! Next year I'd like to use this spinach variety chart from High Mowing Seeds to pick a variety for my winter tunnel.
- Some nice curly kale, like Winterbor and Redbor. I don't like the wild kale I have this year, which is like Red Russian without the red.
- Bok choi, at least a couple varieties.
- Bunching onions to mix in with all those greens.
If this year's bed works out, I'll add a second bed next year to hold some of these extra varieties.

varieties in my winter greens bed

I'll see if I can remember all the varieties of greens I planted in my winter bed.
(This is a panorama photograph shot with my I-phone.)

From left to right:
Lettuce, Looseleaf Green, Green Oak leaf
Lettuce, Butterhead Green, Victoria
Spinach, Spargo
Lettuce, Looseleaf Red, Prizehead
Lettuce, Romaine Green, Winter Density
Broccoli, Diplomat
Kale, Wild
Kale, Tuscan
Asian Green, Mizuna
Lettuce, Looseleaf Red, Skyphos
Endive, Olesh Tres Fine
Escarole, Broadleaf Batavian
Escarole, Natacha

snow on Suzie

The first snow is a big event. Not necessarily a happy one though... Suzie's fur collected the flakes though it melted everywhere else it fell.

I was asked about Suzie and Skippy. They are Portuguese water dogs. Both bred locally by C-Lion PWDs. Skippy is 9 and Suzie is 1 year old. They are fantastic dogs, very active and smart. They both love the water and boats. They are a people oriented breed and stay very attentive to me. They thrive on challenges and learning new things. We did some agility training this summer and I'm starting a new obedience class next week with Suzie. Skippy has done agility and therapy work. They don't have a lot of gardening skills, but have learned quickly to stay off the garden beds ("paws off!"). We walk before I garden and then they lie down and absorb the sun while I work in the dirt.

cold!!

37* F outside this morning. A light snow is falling but not accumulating. I wish I had covered my winter bed last night, but did not. So this morning I went down to the garden and pulled the plastic cover over the hoops. I also covered my fall lettuce bed with Agribon light weight row cover. It was a painful task. I was reminded the hard way that I need to wear mittens at that temperature. (Especially if I am taking pictures.) My hands were so cold. They stung for 5 minutes after I went back into the house. Ouch!!

But now the covers are on. We're going to have chilly temperatures for the next couple of days and then it will warm back up. Its been such a balmy fall so fall that it is an abrupt cool down for us. The winter garb isn't a habit yet. By next month, today's temperatures will seem warm as our average December low is 28*.

I am covering my beds when it falls below about 40*F. I have found that the greens I am growing are fine with about 25* to 30*F, so I'm not too concerned with keeping the covers on yet.

My neighbors have been keeping all of their beds covered for a couple weeks now. They have watermelons and peppers growing still. Maybe I'll try that next year.

I've been asking gardeners about their experience with hoops and different coverings. My neighbors found that the PVC hoops are not strong enough and collapse under the snow load we get here. I have also heard that PVC has a chemical that degrades greenhouse plastic covers. My neighbors switched this year to galvanized metal that they bent into shape. These are more expensive than PVC. I'll see how my PVC works. I'm glad I only tried one bed for my first (experimental) year with winter hoops. The row cover I am using is actually a very light weight insect barrier (Agribon AG-15). Not really going to provide much warmth, but I figure better than nothing. Its 10 feet wide, so it easily covers my bed while lying flat. I could buy some winter weight row cover (10x50ft AG-19), but I plan to harvest all the lettuce outside of my plastic tunnel soon.

I noticed that the standard 10 ft wide Agribon product wouldn't be wide enough cover 10 ft long PVC hoops. It looks like the 100x13ft extra heavy weight AG-70 would be a good choice if I wanted to use cloth instead of plastic. At $124 for 100ft, the Agribon product is a bit less expensive than the greenhouse plastic film I have, which is $152 per 100 ft.

I'd love to hear comments on products that other gardeners are using!