Green Report 051515

A long stretch of days of cloud cover and rain. The growth  spurt for the few hours the sun light was visible was  phenomonal . Myceleum is abundant and fruiting bodies on  cultured forest beds is a good sign. Many more flowering  plants have shown themselves but so has the grass. The good  sign is it's the clump grass and not that damned sod/bermuda  left over still from the 50's. I am finding less and less of  that.
The immediately important preparations will be for the pears  and the dewberries. The winemaker is interested in  experimenting with both. Harvest will be soon for the raw  fruits and processed food like jams and pies.

 Top field: Buckeye flowers turning. Nuts soon.
Layer Thing: All but the old sweet corn has taken well.  Replaced old sweet corn with p/c corn transplants for now.  Will have to chop/drop and re-mulch between veg/flowers. 
Willy Nilly Sand Bed: one corn sprout, soybean spread well,  two pumpkin, echinacea finally showing. Snake activity. 
Shack deluxe: Strung one bean plant and one pumpkin plant.  cleared excess radish. All experiencing wonderful growth  spurt. Honey locust has spread it's limbs and the shack has  great natural cover already. Note to craft more solar  lights.
Tipi/Dead Dog Stump: Tatume doing well. Morning Glory spaced  well so far. Beans are at about 30%. Lichen increase on  stones. 
Lower Field: No new projects yet. Path visible. Honey  locusts and Dewberries spreading into niches. Churning good.
Drive bed 01:
Hectic: Corn, beans, and pumpkin showing well. Sumac going  crazy. Pruned all stumps. Mowed out topper and dog bush.  Will observe for regrowth.
Pods: Lettuce still stumped. Sunflowers showing. Radishes  waning.
Tree Tiki: Pruned lower limbs. Pulled clump grass and put in  bamboo guides around Morning Glories. Canine maintains  interest in northern part of stump. No visible but olfactory  sense of myceleum is strong. 
Lonely Bean: Still lonely and growing slow.
Drivebeds 2/3: Slow dewberries. Sunflowers taking time. Need to prune trees.
Back: Passing glances. Wysteria is gone complete. No in depth exploration yet other than chasing canine. Canine has made friends with small neighborhood canines.

Canceled Identity: You are now absorbed.

It's amazing how moving leaves around, worms, discarded human pulp products, vegetable remains, poop, peed on it, spilled beer, a couple of roaches, pocketfuls of seeds, some wood chunks with white stuff on them, electric company clearing crew remains, and a dog that keeps wanting to dig it all up too. He's helping until he gets thunderfaced.

This too shall pass.

It's surreal looking back at the past few months since this injury. Life just sort of up-ended all at once. The thumb is better and life goes on but I have heaps of catch-up work to be done.

Naturally

After a debacle with my truck I've managed to sit through half of a permaculture pdc course. Originally I was to go the full two weeks and receive the certificate but the clutch on the Ranger went kaput on the way. It took almost a week for the parts to arrive to fix it.  The teacher was nice enough to let me just hang out for the 2nd half and I'll be going the full course in the spring. That's life. Now it's wintering over in Texas until the course then it's off to Vermont to partner with a good friend and mentor. We're going to build a bad ass small demonstration farm/learning center along with helping a kind hearted woman fix up her inn. For the time being I think I'll build the best dog in the universe a super deluxe papercrete house here. Unfortunately he has to stay in Texas but I'll visit him from time to time on return winter trips.

Scratch beard, scratch head, spout wisdom

Someone asked me recently for some wisdom on gardening. Ok:

1)Humor and irony are two underlying supports of our existance in the universe. If taken way too seriously your life as a gardener will be hell. Remember you're only one part of the ecosystem and not the master. When hail comes, the bugs eat up all the leaves, the perfect set-up just up and dies, and etc. just smile. You're getting somewhere and it isn't permanent. It's exciting to learn more :D

2). Everything dies. The onset of winter can be a bummer. Growth brings joy to the gardener. When the old cold winds start blowing in prepare yourself to feel a bit sad. This is also a great time to have a solid look at what the terrain looks like, plan something new, and find odd little plants that dgaf about winter.

3) Patience. You need it. Soils have to build and plants have to grow.  In the short term it's just waiting on that runner bean to make a runner or that passion flower to bloom. In the long term it's watching your garden space mature over several seasons. The world we live within is very old. You will not learn everything you want to in the short time you are here. Take care of the moment. You're getting there. 

4) Yes, nature is aware of your presence. Those birds really are watching you. Those plants really are reacting to your daily fiddling. The entire living organism you are a part of knows you are there. As a gardener you are a living and breathing piece of the puzzle. Even if you're not quite sure how you fit, rest assured, the other parts do know. Pay attention.

5) Not everyone cares about gardening. Those absolutely magical things you've been seeing might not make good party conversation (unless it's a gardeners party because we know how to party). Right now you'd love it if everyone could just teleport to the garden, chill, and see what you see. Sprouts! Worms! Dirt! Blooms! ... crickets? You're in a special club and you know something special that can only be gained by being a gardener. Smile and refer to 1,2,3, and especially 4. Your presence is important and needed. Somewhere someone much like you feels much like you do in that moment.

6) When you meet know it alls remember they don't know it all. They just might know more than you though and perhaps a nugget of knowledge can be gained. The other living and breathing pieces of the puzzle actually do question their know it all state when no one is looking. They've learned something and so can you. As the picture gets bigger we sure are learning, aren't we?   

disclaimer: I have mostly been a roaming fool and have no certifiable authority on the subject yet. One day I will obtain some letters and stuff.

This piece has already been plagiarized once by someone on another platform. They inserted their name as (x) Advice on gardening and in the disclaimer instead of 'I' inserted their name again. Well I suppose it is the internet and if you feel you must outright steal words then you aren't very creative nor wise. Your garden is going to eat you alive.

 

Lemon Balm

 Relaxing on a Saturday evening. Breaking up the Lemon Balm is a rather chill activity. Seeds to be sown later, stems in the sun tea, leaves in the tea and in the pipe. Very nice.

 fresh from the garden.

Seeds to be sown back and stems for the sun tea.

Bathtub

The brief rain has been good.

Foggy morning.

Although many of the brainstormed ideas did not come to fruition these flowers have been great.

The small things mean everything. Following the storms out here in East Texas the garden(s) came back to life. One of the highlights, of course, was these nectarines. Nectarines and peaches are very similar except that nectarines lack as much fuzz and have a slight sweeter flavor. I'm going to attempt a decent nectarine and plum pie. Cobbler had been the idea but I'm planning on taking it with to share on a weekend campout. Cobbler is best, imo, with ice cream and still a bit hot from the oven. The cobbler I've made in the past which I did keep for a day or so in a simple cooler, I regretted. Perhaps pie will turn out a little better. I'm still waiting on enough strawberries for a strawberry/rhubarb pie which is a pie I love.

Garden Thing

It's been a fine morning wandering about.
*photos taken in my yard and garden