Category: The land

Spring so far


Lettuce, started from a plant bought at the local mill

Though the early spring is exciting, there is a big risk that a cold snap will cause a lot of damage. The apple trees have held back, almost as though there is something wise about them. The peach trees, on the other hand, as well as the plum and pears, have rushed into bloom.

We know a lot of gardeners, including some of the best gardeners in the county, the people who teach master gardener classes, and we’re pretty sure that Ken has one of the earliest, if not the earliest, garden in the county. The garden probably will be fine, though. The early crops can handle light frost. Only a seriously hard freeze would be a problem. Ken does all the garden work, by the way, not me. In only a few weeks, if all goes well, there will be some serious feasting here and much less spent on produce at Whole Foods.


Spring greens, started from seed


Lettuce, started from seed


Onion, started from pearl sets. The abbey’s garden soil makes incredible onions.


Peach blossoms, fully committed and much too early


Forsythia. Note that Ken’s bedroom window, the bay window downstairs, is open. It’s 71 degrees out.

Princess Sophia

At the abbey, the cat and the chickens are royalty, and we are their servants. We had some worries about the elegant new chicken ladder in the new chicken house, because it’s a new object in the environment that none of our chickens had ever encountered before. They’ve always jumped or flown when changes of altitude were needed for ingress or egress. The new chicken palace is just too high and too grand for that.

But moments after I opened the door after the first night of occupancy, Sophia descended the ladder like a princess descending a staircase. Ken sleeps somewhat later than the chickens, so I took him a picture.

Please, sir, may I have s’more?

I’ve been unable to get a good photo of this little guy because he waggles away as soon as I turn on the porch light (which is too dim for easy photography). He visits each evening soon after dusk. I usually know he’s there because Lily sits by the deck door and watches him. He comes to raid the compost buckets. He often makes a bit of a mess. But we don’t mind, because possums are good neighbors.

We are thinking about revising how we sort the kitchen waste, though — this for the chickens, that for the possums, and the rest for the compost. This possum has a nice coat and looks very healthy.

Gardening begins

Some people plant by the signs. Here at the abbey, we’re a little more mundane. We plant with the weather.

The 14-day forecast shows way above-average temperatures with above-average rainfall. That gets us into early March. With gardening, there always are risks. But today seemed like the time to get started with the early-spring, frost-tolerant crops.

As for the summer crops such as tomatoes, we’ve taken our seeds to our local horticulturist, and he’s starting our plants for us in his greenhouse.

The weather has been aggravating and fickle these past few years. But with any luck, we’ll soon have fresh salads from the garden.

The default soil here is red clay. So the garden soil has not always looked this delicious. It has taken eight years and tons of organic soil amendments to get it to this state. Our work on improving the soil continues each year.

Sophia enjoying the weather.

It’s too early for daffodils, but there they are.

Seeds!

Plans are in for a big garden for 2017. Last fall, Ken fed the garden with generous quantities of organic soil amendments, then planted cover crops. The abbey’s garden soil has been pure organic dynamite for years, but this year it should be better than ever.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds has been our source for garden seeds for years. Unfortunately, we haven’t done a good job of saving seeds from year to year, so that’s something we need to work on.

Each year we learn. For example, as much as everyone loves broccoli and cauliflower, the climate here is such that cool-weather crops like broccoli bolt too soon, without ever forming heads. We end up wasting a lot of garden space and effort on broccoli and cauliflower. Cabbage, however, does fine. This year we’ll do more herbs — basil as always, but also parsley and cilantro.

Here’s hoping that 2017’s weather will make it a good gardening year. Last year was terrible. There were long spells of hot, dry weather that were devastating to gardens. We can deal with the heat, but not with drought.

Orchard orthopedics

It’s discouraging how many years of work and patience and grief are required to start an orchard. In addition to the child mortality, the trees refuse to grow straight. I’m not sure why that is. It’s probably because young apple trees start as apple stock grafted onto root stock. So there is no natural symmetry when the trees are infants. The young trees are just ugly little sticks. In any case, orthopedics is required when the trees are adolescents.

If you want a nice orchard when you’re old, start when you’re about 26.

Making things while the sun shines

It’s January, right? The high temperature today was about 67 F. So far this month, almost 5.5 inches of rain have fallen. Some nearby folks report that the snakes have been up — in January! It has been a beautiful month. I’m all for it as long as we don’t have an early spring that subsequently gets frozen back.

Ken is building a second chicken house. This is not so much to expand the flock (eight chickens probably is all we need or would care to accommodate). Rather, it’s about giving us more options in where we pasture the chickens. The chickens have three areas, separately fenced — the garden, the orchard, and the woods. As for the garden, they can go there only at certain times of year. As for the orchard, if the chickens spend too much time in the orchard, they damage the turf. The woods are the best place for the chickens in the summer, because it’s cool there with plenty of leaf cover to scratch under. So the new chicken house, which is in the woods, will be largely a summer dwelling for the chickens. Nothing is too good for the abbey chickens. Ken spoils chickens the way other people spoil dogs and cats. They’re partly girlfriends and partly pets, he says.

The new chicken house is not yet complete, so I’ll have more photos soon. We’ll be getting baby chickens as soon as the local mill gets them in stock — probably about six weeks from now.


Cover crop in the garden, doing well


Daffodils coming up, too soon

Another snowfall photo

Every snowfall is an excuse to shoot photos of the house. This photo is from the 10 or more inches of snow that fell on January 7.

The landscaping of the abbey is still a work in progress. There are 13 of the arbor vitae trees, most of which are about a third to half grown. The arbor vitae trees were a great choice, because they provide a lot of shelter for the birds. We finally found an old-fashioned mimosa tree. We’re thinking of starting some holly hedges. Ken is planning to start some walnut trees the old-fashioned way — by planting walnuts. We’re also thinking about a pecan tree.

Last year was a terrible growing year. Rainfall was a bit below normal — 40.5 inches for the year. The rain we had fell at the wrong times to optimize growth, and young trees were water-stressed for much of the year. Here’s hoping that the 2017 growing year is an improvement.

Luckily there are no power lines on abbey property. Power lines would subject our trees to the brutal trimming that rural electric companies do. The feed line to the house is buried. If you’re ever buying property, that’s something to keep in mind. You don’t want utility rights-of-way across your property.