Archives 2007

It has been a few days between posts because we have been really busy with spring wedding favors and the plants. Bed time is about 3:00 am and that cuts down on our sleep time. Which makes us groggy and bone tired. And pressed for time. I am still using the spell check with my email program for the blog. There is a spell check available but I have not had the time to sort it out. When I tried to install it the whole blog locks up and throws an error.

Stoopid computer anyway. The old reliable windows 98 machine started making some funny noises so we broke down and got a newer one. Dual cores running at almost 3 ghz and a gig of memory. You would think it would work OK. Wrong! This machine works about as well as the old one and we have to keep the 98 machine networked in because many of our older programs will not work on the XP Media Edition that came installed on the new one.

I am totally disgusted with the level of quality in goods and services these days and equally amazed at the low expectations the general public demonstrates when accepting the low quality, but that’s a topic for another post.

But we are catching up on orders and that’s good.
Everything is starting to fill out, plants are booming and looking nice. In the past we were shooting for just before memorial day figuring on that is when people around here begin to plant. But 2 things have happened.

Thing one is the big box stores start getting plants in at Easter. This way people may be inclined to buy if we get a unseasonably warm day or weekend. The pansies and violas are fine for the cool weather most all of the annuals are sensitive to cold and need to be protected.

The second thing to happen is the influx of people from other parts of the country. Many are from the south and they are not familiar with our fickle climate.

Our solution is to try and be a little earlier. When a customer want to buy early we can let them know that the cold weather will probably ruin the plants if they start early with no protection.
Anyway this is the reason we need more greenhouse space. If we are to have stock ready to sell early we must have room to store them rather than placing them out doors as we have done in the past.

More space will allow us to grow more as well. We are limited to the varieties we can accommodate with the one greenhouse. The only thing to consider is what size and type of structure to go with. But this is thinking ahead. It has been really dry and we have plants to water.

SO who thought it was a good idea to post in the morning? I was under the misconception that the morning hours have more time in them than the evening ones.

We spent a good portion of the day raking leaves at Santway park. Santway park is a tract of land that was left to the village by a Dr Santway years ago. He rightly thought that a park would be a tourist attraction.

So a group of residents, present company included, have taken it upon themselves to spruce the place up.
It was nice to see so many people come out with rakes and shovels and other implements of destruction to pitch in. The crew was as young as 7 and as old as, well some of those ladies are well advanced in years, well beyond 70.

After punishing the rake for the middle of the day we came back to walk the lawn mower around the homestead. We have a rider but there seems to be a miss adjustment in one of the linkages and I just can not bring my self to look at it.

When we bought it used for $50.00 we just needed something to do the lawn. There were no gardens, no greenhouse, and no flower beds. Even then it took about a hour to do the whole thing. Now with all the obstructions its more like a obstacle course.

The only thing we did today was to water some of the plants. The winter over perennials in the gallons are cleaned up and all put back in the beds. It will be interesting to see all of what comes back.
As it is the lupines, monardia, rudibeckia, fox glove and a lot of herbs are showing their heads. It’s been so dry that we will need to water everyone of them tomorrow. This sunlight is getting the plants looking nice but at the expense of time and water.

Even though the days are very nice, cool but bright, the evenings and night are cold. A customer from near by said the out door thermometer read 22 the other night and I believe her.
Anyway we are fairly fagged out with all the raking, mowing, going to the dump and general messing around we did today so this is it.

Hopefully we will get a chance to work on the herb garden fence tomorrow. We have a really cool design in mind, taken from a fence we saw in an old movie. If it turns out as nice as we envision we will be posting a how two and photos.

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After trying to posing the last thing at night I have decided to switch post time to the morning. The problem is time, and my level of consciousness late at night.

There are a number of activities that keep us busy during the day including making and shipping birdhouses, shipping wedding favors, working on the gardens and in the greenhouse and dealing with customers. Not to mention picking up materials and running errands.

This leaves the evening for making wedding favors and working on the web sites. Since we normally, ( or usually as nothing is normal around here ), work on wedding favors until about Midnight, work on the websites and most correspondence falls to the time after that which can easily be 3 or 4 in the morning. By that time of night the most important thing is getting some sleep. Writing is difficult and easy to push aside.

This will not do since the goal with the blog is to make a daily post.
So we will try mornings for a while and see what works best although I have a hunch that mornings will be a better time. Maybe notes would help remember what happened last night. One benefit to morning posting is that dreams are still fresh in the memory.

For example, last night I had a dream that a couple we know from where we used to live, Black River, had bought our old house. In the dream the wife was mowing the lawn with a ride on lawn mower but in reality this is ridiculous as the lawn was about 30 feet square. A goat would have had no trouble doing it in a half an hour.

Anyway she was going around the lawn when she became stuck. The more she tried to escape the deeper the mower went. After a while she had a hole about 8 feet wide and 12 feet deep with the lawn tractor at the bottom. Sand was cascading into the pit and on to her head. I remember thinking why doesn’t she turn the mower off.

Anyway the husband reached into the pit with one arm, grabbed her by the back of the shirt and pulled her out in a single motion. Again this is contrary to real life as she is bigger than he. There was a lot more to the dream but this is not a dream blog, however a dream blog would not be a bad idea.

Since a very young age I have remembered my dreams in detail. In facts there have been times in my life when I would prepare for dreaming before falling asleep so that I could use lucid dream time to solve problems or work on making decisions and of course flying !

So yesterday we potted up about 20 baskets with things like red ivy geraniums and German ivy, scented geraniums, pansy and violas and mixed baskets using sun coleus, black eyed Susan vine, bush morning glory and alyssum. To day the plan is to make up some herb baskets and some more petunias.

Yesterday we had the first customers of the year. I found a five dollar bill in the box and Phyllis sold 4 big Martha Washington geraniums. We have a slow start up here and while the big places have been selling had over fist for the past month, we are just getting going.

We are still bringing some things in and covering others at night because the temperature is dipping into the mid and lower 30’s. We had a few plants brunt and ruined the other day because we misjudged the weather and that was a bitter lesson. These were plants we nurtured for months and they were damage by one night of cold. That will never happen again.

Plans for today include finish cleaning up last years perennial stock, pouring bird feeders, making some more baskets and working on the herb garden fence. There may even be time for a walk.

We have a 20′ by 20′ herb garden which has been more or less an on going project for the past 2 years.
The basic layout is a 20′ square, with four 8′ square gardens, one in each corner and a walk way path, 4′ wide and in the shape of a cross or I guess its more a plus sign. Thus goes getting the herb garden into shape.

This setup gives us 4 separate gardens in one and we are developing each one in an individual theme. The theme we are working on now is the terra cotta container garden.

We started by removing any sod and raked the bed level. Then we put landscape fabric down and covered the whole deal in pine bark nuggets. The pine bark nuggets differ from pine bark mulch in that there is pine bark in the pine bark nuggets. I have never ever found so much as one piece of pine bark in pine bark mulch. For all I can see its ground wood with some color added. That’s not to say it’s not handy.
But we wanted the look of the bark and it worked fine. It took us five of the 2 cubic foot bags to cover the area in a layer about 3 inches thick.

The this particular garden in made up of potted herbs. We try to use a variety of pots and herbs. We clear a spot in the mulch the size of the pot so the pot is sitting on the landscape fabric then we just fill in around it with the bark. This part of the garden is working out fine. We will be posting photos of the completed garden when it is finished.

The snakes really like the sun shine and I caught 3 of them fooling around on top of a water barrel. The barrel is in the sun and makes a nice flat area for them. I’m not sure but they could have been making whoopee as this is the time of year they mate. There were 3 small ones and one larger. I believe the larger one is the female and the others are males.

When I startled them the female dropped to the floor but the other 2 hung around. I put them over by the full water barrel and they both took long drinks. One of them had his head completely submerged. He could have been looking to see if there was anything to eat in there. They really like leaches, I am told. We fed one a worm the other day as that is also a favorite food for small garter snakes.

And it was another day gathering rocks for the well. There is a waterline going in from the Alex Bay to Redwood and they are unearthing lots of stone which we glean from the piles in the right of way. We would not go onto private property to get them but we figure anything on the right of way is fair game. By the way the right of way is 66 feet wide or 33 feet from the center of the road.

This reminds me of a story about a book, a school house, a key and a Thousand dollars but that’s a story for another time.

The sun came out this after noon and put us in the mood to tidy up the grounds. Every spring it the same routine. Do what we did last fall only backwards. Cleaning up the yard junk is a necessary task every spring.

Since we do not have an equipment building yet we are forced to wrap everything in site with plastic tarps. Of course we can not just tuck the tarps in around the corners like a fitted sheet. We must tie the tarps up with stout cord lest they run off with the implements.

There were a number of odds and ends laying around and big bags of greenhouse plastic to be taken care of. It looks better now and before long we will have people walking back and forth and we want it to look nice.

We also made a display for the bird houses and feeders. One day last week we were walking on the island in Black River, and we found the top 10 feet of a large pine tree. It has been down for many years and the bark is missing but the random branches make perfect hangers for feeders and houses. We even put a few chimes out. The pictures will be up soon.

Well the birds are starting to sing so its time to hit the hay.

Today was 60 or so and mostly cloudy which makes it a good day for potting up and setting plants out for the first time.

While the plants are safely in the greenhouse they are not subjected to the wind and sun although we do have fans for air circulation, these fans do not have the same effect on the plants as the natural variation of a breeze.

We find it best to start plants out side for a few hours a day or in this case, today and tomorrow will be mostly cloudy so we just leave them out. The next two days will be partly cloudy so that should give them time to break in. The proper term is harden off meaning to make the plant used to being out side and in its intended environment.

Its important to make sure the plants are not subjected to full sun for an extended time burring the hardening off period. Just as important, to be sure they are not allowed to dry out or left out in strong winds. This is an important and critical time for the new plants and it deserves and demands our complete attention.

We put up a bunch of really nice fancy leaf geraniums today. Some cox geraniums, which have very colorful red, yellow, green and gold in the leaves and some green gold ones as well. Also we potted lemon scented Martha Washington type as well as silver and burgundy Martha’s. These plants were big enough to put them in 1/2 gallon pots. We put them up with a some time release fertilizer so they will not go hungry.
Then Phyllis moved a lot of German ivy and lots of alysim too. We grew 3 types of alysim this year.

Carpet of snow, which as the name suggest is white, royal carpet which is burgundy and rose and that one is a bit of a cross between the two other ones with some pink thrown in.
All this activity is making more room on the sunny benches for plants which prefer to be quite warm, like the tomatoes, peppers, zinnias, and some of the smaller geraniums.

Tomorrow we will put some stuff up front and try to sell it ! We are about 2 weeks behind the big box stores but that is normal. They give no thought what so ever about what they are offering. The other day we were going into the food store when we saw some sorry looking pansies. Now pansies are not as delicate as the name would sound, under the correct conditions.

These plants were obviously moved out of a greenhouse and into a truck then put in the direct sun and wind and left bone dry. They were pathetic.
And then again today we were at Lowes looking for some bark mulch. Not to confuse bark mulch with what the garden centers call bark mulch. What is often refereed to bark mulch is ground wood, colored and sold in bags or by the truck. And I defy anyone to produce so much as one piece of bark from a truck load. When we get this stuff we always get it in the truck because it is way cheaper that way but it is just colored ground wood, to be sure.

What we were looking for was the bark nuggets mame, just the bark and nothing but the bark. We need it for a section of the herb garden where we use all containers but we want something neutral and natural for the area. We don’t need a lot so we can get by with a few bags and it was free.
No kidding, we won a $10.00 gift card and the bark was about $3.25 per 2 cf bag so we ended up with 6 cf of pine bark nuggets free. What a world.

They also sell mulch and here is a comparison and why we buy it by the truck. A 3 cf bag of pine bark mulch, ( ground colored wood ) is sold for about $4.50. Now follow this .. One cubic yard has 27 cf meaning it take 9 bags of mulch to equal 1 cubic yard. Do the math .. 9 times $4.50 is $40.50. The last time we bought mulch we paid about $25.00 for what was suppose to be a yard but it was much more. Our full size pickup holds about 3 yards to the top. One scoop for $25.00 just about fills the back of the truck. Its way cheaper.

Even if one could not use that much mulch it would pay to go in with the neighbors, unless of course one neighbor wanted dark brown and the other wanted neon red or what ever that color is.
Anyway we were looking at the plant tags and it is nothing short of amazing the number of perennial plants, shrubs and trees which are not hearty in this zone. Some of these were not even close. When I asked about it the clerk told me that the plants were guaranteed and to keep the tag and if they died bring the tag back and get a refund.

I don’t consider musical plants to be a good use of my time so I don’t buy plants out of zone.

It seems like this will get done at the end of the day, and quite often that is beyond the end of the day, so to speak.

On uh count of everything piles up and gets pushed back until the next thing you know ole Jeds’ a Millionaire.. or its 2 or 3 tomorrow morning.

It looks like the weather is going to be 60 or so during the day and 40 or so at night. We shall put the herbs out. In addition we will put some of the hearty annuals and most of the perennials out as well.
Some stuff will stay in the greenhouse. This would include marigolds, zinnias, tomato and pepper plants. Any of the tender starts will stay in for now as well.

Its important to keep an eye out for fungus in the cooler weather. We hit most every things every 7 to 10 days with serenade fungicide. Like everything else we use it is organic certified and can be applied up to the date of harvest, although the only thing we have ever used it on would be paste tomatoes.

SO we watch to see what might need a shot. Last year the spring was a bit cool and wet so to keep the marigolds in good shape we applied the fungicide every 7 days or so. The marigold blooms tend to hold water and they can stay wet all day, allowing fungi to grow. If it gets a foot hold it will go into bottom of the the bloom or bud and the flowers will fall apart.

Some folks might think we are a bit anal when it comes to what we use on the garden and plants but we eat the fruit from the same plants we grow to sell and we do not wish to bombard our systems with any more toxins than we have to. Plus we have to work with this stuff. We want it to be safe.

Today was a low water day being cool and a bit cloudy and tomorrow ( or today to be correct ) looks to shape up the same way. We will be moving stuff around and probably potting up some geraniums.
We have a really great batch this year, good selection and they look nice. Zonal, ivy, Martha Washington, fancy leaf and some others. The regime of fungicide really helped to keep everything in good shape. Some of the lemon scented with the Martha Washington type leaves were a bit yellow but they really turn around when they get out doors.

Same goes for the golden sage and the pineapple sage. They seem like the most fussy herbs we have and it’s odd that the tri colored sage and the broad leaf sage do really well while the others are more trouble.

We took some cuttings from each and the tri colored sage started when all the others seems to crap out. So we tried leaving them in some water for a few days and that seemed to do the trick. We want to use the fancy herbs in the baskets this year for some variations while we will probably do some with the tried and true varieties.

SO that’s it for now. Time to hit the hay because even thought when we wake up in the morning and it seems like Saturday it will really be Friday and we have other chores to do as well as the garden.

Today was the day for snakes. We met this lady on our walk today. She was very curious and wanted to get right up to the camera. There were about a million peepers in the area and she looked like she was ready for supper but still took the time to check us out.

It’s always a bit of a shock to see snakes in the woods or on the trail but they are quite harmless.

They blend in to the litter on the forest floor and quietly slide along tasting the air with their tongues.

This is a common garter snake, plentiful and found anywhere in Northern NY.

The combination of cool temperature and strong sun made this a perfect day in the greenhouse, and the warm days make for lots of snakes.

Outside it was about 60 f while inside the hoop house it was about 75 f with the fans running all day. The smaller house stayed about 70 f with just the door open but the best part was the strong sun which is giving the geraniums a big boost.This morning it seemed like all the snakes in the world were in the greenhouse. It has been said that a snake in the greenhouse is good luck so judging by attendance today we are in for a string of it! We counted 3 at once.

They were every where on the floor and the benches. Since no one here has issues with snakes they are welcome house guests. I should say they are the common garter snakes, Thamnophis sirtalis, and they eat earthworms, small rodents, frogs and so on. We are at war with the voles so any help is appreciated although the ones we are seeing do not seem large enough to tackle a vole.

Yesterday we saw 3 out side basking on the stones. The need to regulate their body temperature by laying in the sun to warm up. At night they pick a spot to rest and it is not uncommon for 2 or more to sleep together to stay warm.

I am not sure why we are seeing so many but it is the romantic time of the year for garter snakes so maybe they were just having a little fun.
Yesterday we borrowed my fathers mantis tiller because we had some small areas around the herb garden that needed a little work, and since we had never used one before we wanted to see what they are all about.

Our usually go to machine is the troy bilt horse tiller which weighs more than 150 pounds. The mantis on the other hand weighs in at 20 lbs. The troy bilt is a rear tine design and it leaves a smooth, ready to plant path behind it. The mantis has no wheels or depth gauge, just a set of revolving tines which madly claw at the earth while you hold onto the the handles for dear life, pushing or pulling, depending on if you are cultivating or tilling.

Its a good thing its light, other wise it could be a problem to handle but with the small engine and tines its manageable even for my 84 year old dad.
I tackled the small annual beds next to the herb garden without too much trouble. The biggest problem is the lack of a depth gauge which makes it difficult to do an even job. Next I hit the cool garden as we want to get the lettuce and peas in right away. This garden is about 6 ft wide and 32 ft long. It took about 10 minutes to mix the compost and mulch into the top layer but again with out the depth gauge it made for an uneven surface. We will definitely need to rake.

The troy built would have done the same job in a similar amount of time but without all the hauling and pushing. I guess one would stay in better shape with the mantis. I can see it would be handy for some cultivating between rows but the place where it was really handy was the edger.

One nice feature is the slide off tines which are held on each side of the tiller with a friction pin. Not only does this make it a snap to change from tiller to cultivator to edger but it makes it really easy to remove the twisted vegetable matter and mud from the axles. ( or is it madder. When ever I am trying to clean the bolo tines on the horse I get madder ) The edger is like a single disc tine on one side and a 4 or 5 inch wheel on the other. To edge we just ran the wheel on the side walk and followed the edge with the rotating disk and it worked like a charm. We just ran a 6 inch ice spud along the top edge of the walk and the overlapping sod easily came lose. It was harder to wheel the barrow load to the back lot than to do the edging.

We used this edging/cutting feature when we hit the area around the herb garden. By measuring out from the garden and staking the distance we were able to get a straight job and the nice thing is the edger will run right up to the making stakes so we could leave them in place until we were finished.

Besides being a nice edger it started really easy compared to our horse tiller. 2 shots of the primer bulb, a little choke and 2 pulls. Its a 2 cycle and it really turns up. Probably the worst part of the whole experiment is when the gas can tipped over in the back of the station wagon and leaked gas. And even thought the lingering gas smell is bad the thought of $3.00 a gallon gas being wasted is far worse.
So the verdict is as long as I can borrow one for the 30 minutes work I need to do I would not consider buying. But if I won the lottery, well that another story.

We made these drop down greenhouse benches so the snow blower would not send all the stone into the yard and in the summer they do double duty as plant stands.

We used larch, which is a very durable wood. We prefer larch to pressure treated lumber as there are no chemicals used. It’s naturally suited for use outdoors.
Here’s how the benches work.


Laid down they make a path for the snow blower.
Up they make benches for plants and space underneath for tidy storage.

We use a framework on the ground to contain the granite gravel. The gravel is laid on top of landscape fabric so weeds and plants do not come up through.

Cinder blocks hold the benches up in the summer.