Fred's photos from Wheaton Labs

Maddie was recently at Wheaton Labs and tooks a bunch of great pictures. You can see them all here. But here are a few good ones of fred!.

Who says a 12 ft tall hugelkultur bed is too tall to harvest? Not Fred, that's for sure.

Julia, i hope you were talking about the broccoli. I'm sure Jocelyn will make something yummy out of it.

Cassie, thanks for cross posting those photos. Thanks to Madison for taking them!

Evan thanks for catching me on top of the berm!

Today i have two photos of a mystery weed. It grows pretty low along the ground on the sides of some of the roads at basecamp. Its fuzziness is great for catching seeds from prickly lettuce, salsify, stork's bill, fireweed, spreading dog's bane, and whatever else might blow in. It has squarish stems, so maybe something in the mint family?

The third photo is wild mint (Mentha arvensis). Fresh or dried it makes a nice tea. Fresh they can be added to salads or drinks.

Yes, please don't eat stoats.

Or owls.

We had an amazing dinner at Paul and Jocelyn's the other night. I got a couple pictures of the guys helping to cook.

Chris is cutting apples and pears for the fruit crisp. It was grain free and amazingly delicious.

Kai is toasting up the squash seeds from all the stuffed squash that was being made.

The third photo is a massive radish that i found growing on a berm at basecamp. I'm pretty sure i didn't plant any radishes where it was, so i think it's a volunteer.

The first photo is a bunch of ferments that just finished. The two jars on the left are pickled daikon radish i harvested from the berms at basecamp. I still hope to make some veggie sushi out of these. The middle jar is pickled red radishes. I love the color these turned the brine. The two jars on the right are pickled broccoli stalks (one with a little brine from pickled beets). This was the first time i've tried any of these pickles. While they all came out good, the broccoli stalks were amazing! Pretty sure this is the best use of those stems. I made all of these using only a simple brine (like this).

The back gate on the big dump trailer here was torn off recently while someone was moving dirt for some berms. I used a plasma cutter to cut some new (stonger) parts and welded them on the the back of the trailer. I forgot to take pictures during the repair, but here is the finished pivot point before the gate was re-installed.

The third photo is of a sunflower i planted at basecamp with some long droopy petals.

I remember looking at the broken trailer gate and thinking "this is going to take some work." I then spelled out how I think the repair should be done.

When I saw the final repair, I have to confess that the final design is about ten times better than my design! Way to go Fred! Two apples for you!

Thanks for the apples Paul!

The first photo is of a couple of antlion sand traps. These were under a tree at the edge of a basecamp berm. The larvae wait at the bottom of their excavations in dry sand. When an ant or other small arthropod falls into the trap, the antlion pelts it with sand to make sure it can't climb out. Once their prey is at the bottom of the trap, they grab it with their relatively large jaws and pull it under. Sometimes the larvae are called doodlebugs because of the tracks they leave as they search for a good trap location. That would explain the picture labeled IMG_1548.JPG in this earlier post.

Kai and i planted a lot of peas recently (especially Kai). They are coming up all over and the second photo is one growing on a berm at basecamp. We inoculated them to make sure they'd fix some nitrogen and grow some good mulch before winter.

The third photo is of a sunchoke flower at basecamp. The are doing really well along the top of the berms. It is drier up there, but they don't usually seem to mind. They have multiplied to form a fairly full wall, extending the height of the berms another 5 or 6 feet. I guess they didn't bloom last year, and only a few clumps are blooming this year.

The first photo is the Western conifer seed bug (Leptogolossus occidentalis). These are trying to get in all the buildings to find a warm place to overwinter, similar to the massing of Box-elder bugs we had in Minnesota. The adults and nymphs feed on the sap of cone seeds and buds. When disturbed, they will produce an unpleasant defensive smell.

The second photo is of some kind of mustard growing on a berm at basecamp. Any ideas as to species? I'll try to borrow Kai's ID book to figure it out later.

The third photo is Josh with bug-eyes on. He was moving some dirt for the berm shed and it was pretty windy. He grabbed these goggles to keep the sand from his eyes, and i thought he looked pretty awesome.

We had a frost the last two nights at basecamp and the lab. I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later.

The first photo is some pretty frost crystals that were on some saskatoon leaves outside Allerton Abbey.

The second photo is of a sad squash plant out side Allerton Abbey. It looked better before.

The third photo is of some arugula flowers at basecamp. It didn't mind the frost.