2018: An Interesting Year

This post rambles through topics that don't warrant dedicated blog entries. Many subjects like sprouting seed, growing them to transplant size in the greenhouse, then planting in outdoor gardens have been covered earlier and methods haven't evolved much. Tomatoes this year were outstanding, though the rows proved too close together (36 inches) and hard to get through later in the season. Next year we'll try four foot spacing between rows.

Clacker Toys for Toddlers

The Showcase Entry Clacker Toy

I often spend time in winter working on wood projects to get ready for the spring Northeast Woodworkers Showcase where our organization displays articles made during the year. I entered one of four "clacker" toys that make a lot of noise when rolled across the floor. It only won second place in the toy category because someone created a perfect scale model of a bulldozer in which everything worked! Each of the hundreds of treads actually move when pushed along, an incredible amount of beautiful craftsmanship. 

Bulldozer that Won a Blue Ribbon

 Every winter two nieces and their parents visit us on their way back from a week skiing. They usually want to work on a project and this time chose to help make two animal figures: a cheetah and a French Bulldog. These are mounted on pedestals with springs hidden inside so strings attached enable each to wag a tail, bow, lie down or assume other motions. I sent them home unpainted, hoping their owners would make them look like the animals they chose.

Cheetah and French Bulldog Toy Action Figures

 Every spring we shave most of the hair off our dog to make her more comfortable (she withers in heat). She loves looking like a lion, or at least, being much cooler (and rolling in cool grass).

Belle in Her Lion Cut

Fully Developed Monarch Caterpillar

Newly Emerged Monarch Butterfly

 We love butterflies and I've been collecting and identifying them my whole life. Monarchs are our favorites because they are large, beautiful and migrate such long distances. Last year I saw only three. This year was different: we saw many all summer, including their caterpillars on milkweed. After monitoring many caterpillars that did not survive to make chrysalises, we collected new ones and placed them in a large jar with sprigs of milkweed. We successfully raised nine through their becoming butterflies! And we let them go: hopefully to fly to Mexico where they overwinter. 

Some of Many Millions of Monarch Butterflies Overwintering in Mexico, 2018-19

Our daughter, Zoe, is in Mexico as I write this, and just sent me the photo above. She went there specifically to see these butterflies and was encouraged that guides at the site noted that there are more this year than many prior years. Ever more folk are conserving patches of milkweed that promote these butterflies in their migration north.

Zoe with Her Catfish

We have a farm pond that we stocked with fish many years ago. The species that flourish are crappie, bass and channel catfish, though sunfish and bullheads also thrive. Our daughter, Zoe, wanted to catch one of the large catfish for a long time and finally she caught one, and we ate it. The downside was that this lady was full of roe, even though it was September. We had no idea fish could be laden with eggs at this time of year. As with all of the animal parts we don't serve as dinner, we pressure cook them and grind them into paste for our animals so none goes to waste.

 Our Guinea fowl have always been problematic: they like to lay their eggs in hidden thickets around the property instead of in the egg boxes we carefully prepare for chickens. This year we had three females establish nests in remote hedges and luckily we found each one. Two of the three fowl did not survive incubating their nest overnight, one disappeared leaving only feathers and the other we found lifeless but in perfect condition a few hundred feet from her nest but her eggs had been eaten. The male and those females that were not laying eggs roosted in their protected enclosure indoors every night that had safe nesting boxes but these ladies refused to use them. We did routinely snitch eggs from their nests, hoping that they would not start incubating their eggs until they had around 30 (a persistent rumor). Eventually each started sitting overnight even though they had fewer than 20 eggs. We placed some of their eggs under two broody hens (chickens) and five hatched, with four now almost grown up (thinking they are chickens).

One of the Guinea Fowl Nests

A Second Guinea Fowl Nest

Shiitake Mushroom Harvest

Some of the Chestnuts We harvested

One Batch of Onions Packed for the Shelter We Supply

One Picking of Ripening Peppers

Except for our Brussel sprouts, our gardens produces plenty of food for us, friends and the shelter we supply. We planted many types of squash and they did very well, hundreds of pounds more than in other years.

Some of the Winter Squash Maturing 

Another View of Winter Squash Drying on Tables So that Rodents Don't Nibble Them Before They Get Distributed

Summer Starting Well

One spring planting goal is to get major crops in the ground by the first day of summer. We have three staggered plantings of sweet corn, more than 100 each of tomatoes and peppers, Swiss chard, onions, basil, cucumbers, beans, winter and summer squash, kale sugar snap peas, cabbage, broccoli, eggplant, okra and salad items. So far only one tragedy: over 100 basil plants were eaten by some critter the day after they were transplanted! Luckily we have two additional beds with better fences that are growing well. Deer browse our tomatoes and peas, but we have more than enough for sharing.

Asparagus Sprouting

Asparagus are our first vegetable harvest in spring and lasts through early June. Our next harvest is rhubarb that we make into pies. At this time our Guinea fowl also start to lay eggs so we have lots to for custard to incorporate the rhubarb chunks. 

Rhubarb Pie

One trick I use to prompt judicious planting is to soak seeds for 24 hours and then moisten them a few times a day until they sprout. This gives them leg up since they don't have to absorb moisture from the soil. It also insures that only viable seeds get planted. And planted in the order they sprout! Keeping the array of cups with a moistened seeds by the coffee machine, prompts me to check them at least three times a day when I brew cups. Most of our favorite Zucchino Rampicante seeds we saved from last summer's crop didn't sprout. Luckily we still had a few mature fruit in the cellar so we processed the largest one and its seeds grew! We also had to make lots of pies and squash meals.

Cups of Seeds Waiting to Sprout

The Seed Cavity of the Above Squash

One Zucchini Pie

Another sign of spring: when it gets hot, our dog melts and hides deep in the garage, lying on the cool concrete floor. We then know it's time to shave her. Though she reluctantly puts up with the noise of the clipper, she's overjoyed when it's over and she zips around, rolling over and over in the cool grass. She now follows me around but takes advantage of shade when I work in sunny gardens.

Belle, Half-shaved

Our Dog, Belle, Happily Sporting Her "Lion" Cut

Some of Belle's Hair to be Made into Yarn One Day

Shiitake mushrooms are another sign of spring: after a heavy rain, they bolt out of the oak logs we inoculated the year before.

Shiitake Mushrooms Growing out of Oak Logs

Many Pounds of Harvested Shiitake Mushrooms

A few weeks later, oyster mushrooms begin sprouting out of their ash-leaved maple logs.

Oyster Mushrooms 1

Oyster Mushrooms 2

As soon as summer begins, garlic scapes pop out the top of each plant. We incorporate them into many meals, chop them for freezing but donate most to a homeless shelter. We have so many garlic bulbs on the way that store well without taking room in the freezer so we don't need to preserve many scapes.

Broccoli and Garlic Scapes for Dinner!

Broccoli and Scape Curry With Rice

First Garlic Scape Harvest: 15 Pounds, 10 to a Homeless Shelter

Planting Mushrooms

Inoculating logs with mushroom spawn is similar to starting seeds indoors for planting outdoors when danger of frost is over. Both require procuring growing media, tending nursery beds of growing organisms until they are ready to take off on their own, and lots of watering. This year we are trying a more challenging variety than oyster mushrooms that we've grown successfully for a few years. Oyster mushrooms grow in a much wider variety of soft hardwoods, including trees that commonly grow around here: popular, ash, willow and many "weed" varieties. This fungus aggressively colonizes these woods and out competes fungi that are commonly found in these logs. This year we will use a large ash-leaved maple for producing golden oysters. For growing the more difficult to grow shiitake mushrooms, a friend brought us a pickup truck full of red oak logs, the best medium for growing this hardwood loving variety.

Although we placed our popular logs on corrugated cardboard to prevent soil organisms from competing with the oyster mushroom spawn we used, two years later there are shelf fungi emerging from many of the logs. To prevent this from happening this year, we are placing our logs on old two inch thick solar panels that have an aluminum skin to keep them elevated above the ground. We have kept the bark very clean, minimizing any contact with soil. Within a few days of harvest, the cut ends of the logs and limb nubs have been coated with latex paint both to conserve moisture and to prevent airborne fungi spores from colonizing these wounds.

Red Oak and Ash-leaved Maple Logs Ready for Inoculation

Shelf Fungi Competing with Oyster Mushrooms in Two Year Old Popular Logs

We cut our mushroom logs to lengths that are readily handled. Since we did not have the luxury of ordering uniform logs that optimize the amount of sapwood available, three to eight inches, for mushroom mycelium to colonize, our diameters from only three trees vary from four inches to well over a foot. We ordered 5.5 pounds of each variety of mushroom spawn growing in sawdust that will colonize about 30 logs each. The process starts with drilling 7/16" diameter holes evenly spaced about 6" apart along and around each log. The tool I use pulls itself into the log and automatically stops at an inch deep. A fixture with four wheels makes it easy to rotate a log so that it takes only a minute or two to make the 25 to 40 holes required. These holes are then filled with the sawdust impregnated with mycelium using an injection tool that compresses the mixture so the top is just below the surface of the log bark. This depression is then sealed with hot cheese wax that we've saved from two years of fancy cheeses. The completed logs then look like they have a bad case of chicken pox!

Drilling Holes in a Log on a Fixture That Facilitates Rotating the Log 

Sealing Injected Mushroom Spawn with Molten Cheese Wax

Wax Both Seals in Moisture and Prevents Competing Organisms From Entering the Wound

Completed Red Oak Logs with Shiitake Spawn Sealed In

Closeup of Logs with a Bad Case of Cheese Pox

Once the logs have been inoculated and sealed, they are stacked close together on the north side of a building so they are  always in shade to prevent them from drying out. They are also under the eaves so that they are directly watered every time it rains. When it doesn't rain for a few days, I'll spray them with water. I'll place boards on the east and west sides of the piles to keep early morning sun from shining on them and minimize wind from drying them.

If we're lucky, we'll be getting the first blush of mushrooms from these logs this fall, but real production won't occur until next year. Then, with any luck, we'll get up to seven more years of mushrooms in diminishing harvests.