Garden on Corliss Homestead Journal

It is the holiday season! My family got together this Christmas eve to celebrate with my nieces to eat and share gifts. My wife spoiled me with this gift this year.



She is a keeper for sure! I can't wait to start embarking on learning the material after I wrap up a handful of books I still am working on.

Well, I feel like a terrible chicken keeper.

I have recently switched from pelleted feed to a crumble style feed. When I did the switch, I strangely started having issues with the chicken feeder dispensing feed. I didn't understand what was going on and topped it off for two weeks and just shook the darn thing daily to make sure the girls had something to eat. This weekend I finally emptied the thing and found some clumps of feed to my horror. Somehow some moisture got in and it was blocking up the feed dispersal holes.

It is now cleaned up and working properly, but I need to pay better attention to the feeder. Oops!

Frustration has been a familiar feeling these past few days.

My vehicle is not doing too well. Power steering has been leaking, coolant has been seeping, and I have a soft tire I need to inflate every few days. I was going to go to work yesterday and something was off. My car started, but it wasn't 'right'. I let it run for a little bit before I noticed the battery light was on, so I turned off the car with intent on turning it back on. Nothing. It was dead.

I hooked the battery to my old trickle but that seemed to have given up the ghost. Went into town with the wife and got a new trickle charger for peace of mind.



I hooked the car up last night and this morning, it has shown the battery to be charged. Unfortunately, the car still refuses to do anything when I turn the key. No clicks, no revs, no nothing. I replaced the starter a couple years ago, so my frustration levels are raised. I have also replaced the alternator a few years before that for good measaure.

I'll figure it out eventually. I just need to clear me head.

I have decided that I don't believe that the winter into spring season is predictable anymore so I am willing to hedge my bets.

I am starting some seeds now, ones that usually take a longer time to get to transplant size, with the anticipation that I might be able to plant prior to the traditional last frost date for my area. If I am wrong, I will have some rootbound transplants. If I'm correct, I will hopefully have a nice bumper crop of foodstuffs this year. The cost to make this bet is minimal as I have tons of leftover seed and seed starting mix from prior years I'm still working through so my guy math sees it as a deal.



I have decided to start a variety of brassicas, peppers, and onions. I also have a separate tray that is starting two varieties of rhubarb from seed but that is more of an experiment.



Now begins the slow process of plant starts overtaking any flat surface of my house. I love it!

I thought about starting some seeds today - I've got some that need a bit of cold for germination, so they could do with planting really. Too many other things took up the day: making marmalade and starting to coppice the year's trees. The weather was too good for indoor jobs and I need to cut the trees before they start growing again.
Look at your seedlings go!

Today is my thirty second birthday.

My heart is full from the love that I have been shown by friends and family. I truly am blessed to be surrounded by these folks. I reflect on the past year and look forward to the next.

Highlight from the past year is definitely getting married to my best friend.

My hopes for the following year include creating at least another hundred square feet of growing space on my property.

How the time starts flying.

Lets talk Mushrooms.

I have created several new deep mulch beds out of wood chips that previously was lawn space this past fall along with topping off some existing beds/pathways to mellow out over the winter season. I have intentionally added mushroom spawn to my existing beds and have found a great ally in Winecaps. Instead of buying more bags of spawn, I have started 'transplanting' mature Winecap mushrooms to new woodchip beds with the intent that the spores from the cap will spread and establish in the chips. As far as I can tell, it has worked well! Hypothetically I could create a slurry to work it into the chips more but so far I have had no need.

What I have not introduced but have come to become fond of are Stinkhorn mushrooms. They just 'appeared' one day and established a small patch in my existing chip pathways. For some reason, it seems to like the leaf/hardwood/softwood mixture and has slowly grown over the past season. I have seen Winecaps and Stinkhorns situated near each other which makes me question how competitive they are but this might be mitigated by the large amounts of organic material I provide them. Perhaps if resources were more scarce, there would be more obvious delineation between species?

My use of mushrooms is primarily to get a better quality soil than consuming the fruiting body so even inedible species are of interest to me if they help freak down lignin. There are sources that I have read that state you can eat stinkhorns that are in the egg stage but I am not that adventurous.

Another type of mushroom I'm planning on introducing (through sawdust spawn) are blewit mushrooms. The blewit is usually found in hardwood leaf litter which makes it attractive for processing down leaf litter that I collect in the fall. It is an edible mushroom that needs to be carefully identified if meant for consumption as it has look-alikes in the cortinarius genus.

I'm hoping diversity of wood/duff eating mushrooms increases the breakdown of material through different seasons/conditions and increase my organic matter where I need it most. Where my plants grow.