Riona Abhainn

Tom the Little Brown Bird:
Well it turns out that Tom, who hangs out in my yard and peeps at me, is in reality Tomasina.  Evidenced by the nest she's built with three eggs behind and slightly under my liatris pot, which is unfortunately right where the hose faucet is.  So she flaps and flutters out whenever I turn the hose on or off and its really scary.  The way my schizoaffective disorder works that kind of thing makes me paranoid and scares me, animals getting too close to me, so I've been having my husband turn it on and off for me when I need to water.  I wish she would have moved everything once she realized we have to get in there but apparently its not often enough for her to be logical and move her nest.  The internet says we can move it for her, about four ft. away, so maybe behind another pot, but she'll still scare me when I'm watering, though maybe slightly less.

Meanwhile we've been enjoying more spinich, some red clover and I harvested my carrots which we enjoyed in soup with some of their tops, then we had pesto pasta made from their other tops.  Sunflowers, pumpkins and cucumbers are still a bit slow going, though better than they were, I don't know if they'll make it to fruition, I know certain years certain things are just happier.  

Snacking on sorrel, which I always called "sour clover" until last year when I learnt what it was properly called, little patches in different spots.
I've noticed that while others have harvested all their potatoes in my area mine are still growing.  I don't want to harvest them until they're truly done getting bigger so I keep waiting.  One of them is likely going to be ready in the next week or so.
The current type of microgreens I'm growing is alphalpha, the thing I like about them is that they're the fastest I've grown so far!
I harvested my fave type of plum, ornamental plums, as I do each year from the tree across the street from my dad's house, I have standing consent to harvest which is pleasant, I got plenty this year even without the step ladder.  They're small and round and sweet-and-sour and I love them, I've been enjoying them since I was a kid and I have 2 year 2 babies from the pits growing here which will hopefully someday make me plums.  Then there's my year 5 Italian plum tree who is stubborn and won't bear plums even though its flowered twice and I got it some mason bees, little bastard.

For more locally specific topics and life stuff from me I have a thread in the Cascadia section.

Hoping you can find a right person for either trade or sale soon.

My observation about grass hoppers is that they taste good in tacos as the meat!  Nice and spicey.  There's a restaurant about 40 min. away from me that has them.

That's funny, I can't always get them to grow either, I think maybe the whispy bits which appear are fragile and need protection from bigger plants sometimes until they can get bigger and featherier?  I've been more fortunate with carrots, but yeah they can be hit and miss.  Hopefully next year you can neglect them again and duplicate this success.

So cool and logical and lovely that the city actually listened.

This is our first year growing daylilies, I got them from another lady at my church who had too many.  We've been enjoying the flowers in stir fries and sauteys, and I intend to try out the tubers, now that they're happily established in a huge pot, we planted them last Aug. when they weren't much of anything.  I didn't try the tubers last year since they were new and getting situated, but we will try them this time, I hear the best time for the tubers is Oct.?

Additionally we will be making use of the new growth shutes now that I know how prolific they are and that they'll keep growing if I harvest some.  Once they're bigger I think they're too tough, nibbled on some too late in spring haha.

So my MIL did this in her garden this year, wrapped copper wire around small dowels and stuck them in the ground all over her garden.  And it appears to lead to bigger plants with higher yield.  In the past she hasn't done this and had nice plants, but this year the plants were indeed bigger and bushier.  I'm thinking about trying it at some point.  Only question would be whether it will lead to my yard being more likely to get struck by lightning?  Maybe that's a dumb question but I don't want to do it if it elivates risk.  I'm guessing it won't as long as the sticks/poles/dowels I wrap the copper wire around are short.

I can definitely see the grandkids lure, I hope you find a right new person to farm this land soon.

We had a very mild winter this last time and my calendulas just kept growing and blooming.  They self-seed readily so they might as well be perenial, they do well in containers, even small containers which aren't very deep.

How many days did it take you to grow them?  I grow microgreens with the jar-in-the-window method, which works well for me with most types of seeds.  I couldn't get peas to last past a certain point without getting that raunchy pea smell, I had to harvest them at about day 10 or 11 even though online it says they take 10 to 14 days.  I don't think I could get them to make it 14 days without stink-murdering me haha.