To The Surbiton Manor Born

Another long-weekend, another raised bed constructed. I won't lie, building the beds on the steepest part of the Steepmeadow Hill is not easy. Getting all of the boards level with each other is not terribly difficult. But what is difficult is trenching them back into the hillside. This was compounded in difficulty this weekend by the changeable weather, which forced me to quickly stash the power-tools in the shed out of the rain when I was very, very nearly done. And yet, I was able to wrap up the project as the shadows (see above) grew longer. Another chore that I was able to complete was replacing the small ramp into the shed. While it's difficult to tell from the photo, the slimy, rotting boards that were there when we moved in also had a tendency to pop up and expose rusty nails. No longer.  We're very nearly there with the construction, depending on whether we want to complete a new row of three beds above the current two on the south side of the shed, or whether we wa

From all appearances, we're predicting a pretty small crop of beans from our mid-August planting. That said, I have every confidence that if we walk around with them in our pocket, and see some random punk leading a cow, we can make a trade. We'll just tell him that they're "magic" beans, and he'll go for it.   

We had another massive haul of tomatoes today. We may get to try that canning thing after all. The weather is spectacular and sunny again. It has to be the last days, but we'll take it. Over the past few years, I've signed myself up for quite a few newsletters and emails on prepping, homesteading, survival, etc. A lot of them have a pretty questionable political bent. One of my favorites is the "Homestead Survival" site. Today's article was "How to Escape Society and Become 100% Independent." The idea appeals to me. I will not lie. In a section of the article under the heading "Gut Check" it asks what your motivation might be: Is your decision to escape motivated by a general discontent or contempt for society? Are you tired of the press of people, of traffic, of working for someone else, and being a wage slave? Do you feel a lack of connection with what you were doing?  If dealing with the noise, aggravation and interaction inherent to being a

We didn't get where we are today without planning ahead.  When we started planning for self-sufficiency last spring, we reasoned that it would be important to preserve our crop. Canning would be important. We also read headlines that record numbers of people were planting gardens. We started collecting jars, a package or two with every order we placed to online stores back in May, reasoning that these things might be in short supply when we needed them. Imagine our complete lack of surprise when we read of the inevitable and predictable canning supply shortage in the Washington Post. Apparently, "Plenty of products, including those made by Ball, the country’s largest consumer manufacturer of canning jars and lids, are on back-order. In some cases...they have what would ordinarily be a 10-year supply on order." Given the many disasters that befell our first attempt at the garden, until these past few days we've wondered whether we'll actually need them this yea

  Over the last two days, the tomato plants have gone bananas. (See above. This heap does not include the bunch that we gave to our neighbors.) It must be that they feel the doom in the air and want to crank out as much fruit as possible before the frost. The cool is upon us. The trees betray us with yellows, oranges and reds. It is necessary to wear a jacket on the morning run. In any case, we are having a late-season explosion in tomato productivity. It looks like we'll be eating them for a while. We may even have to bust out a few of the cans we over-bought in the spring and give canning a try after all. It's not looking good for the late planted lettuce. The mid-August planted kale is doing badly as well. One of the three plants was eaten by something.  The late-planted peas are in a race against the frost. They are beginning to flower. A few of them just might make it. We shall see. A late season visitor.

 "Self sufficiency, my dear. Self sufficiency." So said Tom Good to Barbara in the T.V. show that gave us a bit of inspiration for this venture.  As I took a look at the hell-rectangle that I keep in my pocket this morning and saw headlines of wildfires burning the west, hurricanes ravaging the south, and worldwide pandemic, it reinforced to me what we're doing here It's much less about "rugged individualism" than it is about trying to wrest some tiny bit of control back from the Machine. And it a practical hedge against the calamities outside. Who knows what disasters are next? Is the food supply in danger? Will there be a new Cold War with China. Will the streets of major cities be flooded with goons in battle gear wielding batons and tear gas against peaceful protesters?  Steepmeadow is an attempt to build an island in this madness, and to expand the circle of things we can control ourselves.  In Star Wars: A New Hope , when C-3PO asks Luke Skywalker whic

  This is one way to look at it. Yeah. Building our soil for next year. That's it! It seems that the last viable melon ended up being about 90% rind. Into the compost bin. We grew a LOT of compost this year. Mutant corn, rotted squash, chewed beets. This will make for better soil next year.  Last week was cold. While we still have many green tomatoes, they may not have time to ripen. The beans we planted for a late crop are questionable, as are the peas. The late crop of lettuce seems to have stalled out as well. I was expecting more from the late planted kale, as it really is a cold weather crop - something that, theoretically, we could be harvesting well into October. They too are Lilliputian.  On the raised bed construction project, progress is steady. This new one in the upper garden was an experiment. Instead of 2x6 boards, I substituted in 1x6 boards, with the traditional 24" tall (18" above the wood) 4x4 corners. This seems solid enough, and will save quite a bit o

  And that's about it. A few more than two, but that's the whole mighty potato crop for 2020. Right there. In that little sack. We had quite a number of these containers. Many of them were advertised as being perfect for potatoes. Perhaps you have seen them, with their little doors so you can harvest the potatoes right out of them?  So what went wrong? It turns out - and this was one of the very first things that came up when we consulted the Interweb - that if you plant potatoes in containers, they dwarf. Also, potatoes prefer cool ground. These containers were placed in full sun. The soil was warm. Another lesson learned. As Kurt Vonnegut put it, "So it goes." 

We really didn't mean to grow any seeing as we'd hidden them so well among the towering sunflowers and the pollinator flowers. So it was somewhat of a perk to see them there once we got brave and weeded out the weeds and spent flowers. To call them diminutive was putting it mildly. They were barely more than sprouts by the time we located them in the later half of July. I figured it was just too late to imagine there would be an chance for produce. Was I ever wrong! We not only got TWO cucumbers but they are Celebrity Cucumbers...please put your hands together for Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy! That's another fine mess they've gotten themselves into.

The end of summer is nigh. There isn't another 80 or 90 degree (Fahrenheit) temperature in the forecast as far as ten days out. The days of stepping out into a glorious humid furnace on breaks from work and eating delicious tomato sandwiches on Kiki-baked bread are coming to a close. The calendar has turned. The light is shorter and changed. As Galadriel said in the (abominable) movie adaptation of Lord of the Rings, "I feel a change in the earth and the air and the water." The Darkness is upon us. Soon, it will be like Ungolient's  nets. Other people look forward to "crisp sweater weather" and pumpkin spice, and all of the other horrors of fall which they don't see as horrors for some inexplicable reason. I see it more like Black Sabbath's  Mob Rules  (a particularly apt song for the times), "Death and Darkness are rushing forward." On the positive side, working from home will eliminate driving to the Park & Ride in the pitch bla