To The Surbiton Manor Born

Spring has turned to summer here at Steepmeadow. Everything is blazing green and plants are lunging from the soil. Case in point; these peas. I just wrapped some string around the supports yesterday, and today when I checked on them they've already entwined their little tendrils around them.  We're going to harvest our first arugula in a few minutes to be part of dinner. In order to start the progression planting, I sowed some red romaine lettuce in the salad bed between the two rows of arugula, here: The clover has come in nicely. The weather changed from cool and spring-like to actually hot and humid yesterday - low '80's with heavy humidity. This is our favorite kind of weather, and apparently that of plants and lawns. The extra squash that I sowed last week has popped up, as have the beans. The carrots in the mitgarten red tomato bed continue to be reluctant. I did some ruthless thinning of beets and carrots in the upper beds. Having experienced the screaming mandra

  The greenhouse is virtually empty. The tomatoes are in the ground. The strawberries are in the ground. The lettuce, arugula, spinach, kale? They're in the ground. Two different varieties of zucchini, Hubbard squash, spaghetti squash, beets, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower, banana peppers, ruby red peppers, garlic, cucumbers, beans & peas? Can you guess where they are? They're in the ground. And they've been watered in and mulched with leaves and grass/clover clippings from the lawnmower, depending on the bed.   We also got three sets of bare root pollinator attractors for the no-mow areas under the trees. Those had to be planted out yesterday.  A couple of things learned for this year:  1) There's really no reason to start seedlings before about 3/15. They only get leggy & too big for the greenhouse. Unless they are peppers. Peppers we could probably start in October... 2) Keeping last year's leaves for mulch seems like a good idea so far. I'm hoping th

As the hardening off process reaches its peak, painstakingly hauling seedlings out into the sun, then painstakingly hauling the somewhat dried out little buggers back in, Kiki has had a bit of foot surgery. It'll be Tom doing most of the planting out this year. If the nights would get just a few degrees warmer, this chore could be over. Another week, it's predicted.

  Usually, I try to keep things upbeat and positive on this blog. Sometimes, however, a crime against nature is so egregious, that it simply needs to be called out for the abomination that it is.  This evil crap is still for sale. Of course, the Monsanto name became synonymous with "evil corporate land-rapists," so Bayer purchased the company, settled billions of dollars in lawsuits , and, in spite of every scientific fact proving that this garbage kills and harms everything it touches, continues to sell Roundup.  Very briefly - and the evidence is out there for all to see if you take just a second to look. The main ingredient, glyphosate, is identified as a carcinogen by the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer. It causes non-Hodgkins lymphoma It eradicates the wildflower that endangered monarch butterflies need for reproduction Runoff damages livestock and fish It is toxic to bacteria in the soil The EPA lies about its safety, relying

  We got an update on the plans for our solar panel system. It turns out that it will be a little smaller and a little cheaper than initially estimated. The Foul Energy Overlords (Xcel), would only allow a 6,000 kilowatt system - 17 panels. Still - it should meet all of our electrical needs, and it won't be any more expensive than our electric bill has been. Still - the part that amazes me is captured in the graphic above. That's a whole lot of carbon pollution we won't be responsible for producing. 

  We got some raspberry canes from some friends of ours, and in they went! Bam. Raspberries.  We weren't planning on those until next year, so it did entail a little bit of redesign. I cut out 8 square ft. of carrots, and put the beans into the long experimental vegetable bed - Mitgarten 2.  And planted those beans. The day's gone quickly. It's been a sort of desultory slog from one job to the next. Not exactly unpleasant, but I'm worn out from the 18 mile run yesterday, and the day is not nearly as warm or sunny as yesterday. Everything feels a little muted. And it whooshed by amazingly quickly.  I was forced to plant one of the Wisconsin Chief tomatoes out in the Upper Garden because it got big enough to dump itself over in the greenhouse. Hopefully the uber-cloche will keep it safe. I was forced to plant another Purple Cherokee tomato there as well because it just wasn't looking healthy at all, and I figured what the heck, worst thing that happens is that it dies

Because we're having a good time, having a good time.    This is the only time of year the crab apple tree outside of our bedroom window blossoms here at Steepmeadow. We have tulips. We have some peas coming in. We have rocket, spinach, & kale (though it is amazing how stunted they are for having gone in the ground the first week of April. Best of all, it was 85 degrees today. It won't last. The week ahead looks like low 60's for highs, upper 30's. low 40's for lows.  As an experiment, I planted a cherry tomato and one of the purple tomatoes out. I know it is early, but I have taken the precaution of re-locating the uber-cloche over them. The reason I did it is that they were outgrowing the greenhouse. I think they'll do better out there. I hope I haven't killed them. They've only had 4 days of hardening off. Though they are being coddled. The cloche will keep the harshest sunshine muted, and should give them a little blanket at night. I think they&#