! Orin's Boot Camp Pictorials

Thank You Inge!

BRK Day 33

With five people, we gathered materials for the junk pole fence at Alterton Abbey and then started mulching the hugel kulture beds at base camp.

BRK Day 34

Woooweeee!  did alot yesterday!  RMH troubleshoot, junkpole fence material gathering, a different junkpole fence troubleshoot, and planting.

Alterton Abbey's junkpole fence now has three horizontals pre-staged all the way from the West gate to the East gate....plus all the horizontals needed from the West gate to the north edge of Alterton Abbey's wofati!

Two more days and all the horizontals will be collected and pre-staged!

BRK Day 35

mmmm... morning in the mountains!  now what's it we did yesterday?

Dustin, Josiah, and me collected then pre-prepped junk pole fence horizontals.

Then we went planting.  I planted beet seeds again....about 400 yesterday I think.

Planting is relaxing and it gets food to come out of the ground....hmmm....think I might plant another 400 today.

BRK Day 36

Yesterday the low was 26F and the high was 71F!  Winter jackets in the morning, beach clothes after lunch!

Yep! that's right, we harvested more junkpole horizontals  - I think we are about 3/4 finished with the three horizontals per pole gap!!!  

In the afternoon we planted...cullards, beets, and brassicas.

BRK Day 37

mmmm.....Saturday morning....new boots enroute (see if they show)! ....now what'd we do yesterday?

Food!  all about food systems this year!  Yes! I showed up at the right time!  I don't know very much on this subject and there are four people here who can teach me!

So of course we collected horizontals yesterday and pre-staged them   ....we know need only 11 more horizontals (about one morning's, possibly two, work)!   oh yeah, we're gonna have a fence around an entire acre at Alterton Abbey!

Then we planted many seeds....oh, and cuttings, I learned how to professionally do tree cuttings yesterday! I took a series of videos which I will post each day in this thread.

Here's How to Prepare Cuttings Part I

BRK Day 38

Yes!  Sunday morning!  A new boot might arrive today if all goes well.

Did you know bumble bees will sometimes sleep in flowers for the night instead of returning home?!?
  Here's one nestled down for the evening with no intention of leaving:


And here is Part 2 of How to Prepare Kiwi Cuttings:

BRK Day 39

Yesterday, Dustin and I got tired of waiting for another Boot to show up so we went and wrapped a chain around a white van and dragged him outta the mountains  -Welcome E.J.  !


...and here's part three of how to root a kiwi:



oh. remember that bumble bee???  the one that slept in the flower?  Yep, that one, the flower closed on the bumble bee!
A Flower Holds me While I Sleep

BRK Day 40

whut!?!  40 days???  ...and winter still refuses to stop sending snow into my spring time here :)  no worries, I can outlast you winter!  Hah! Also found out I'm immune to COVID 19 besides all the cool things I'm learning about perennials!  ...like you can't graft peaches on to a douglas fir and some people plant flowers that you can't eat (no really! they actually plant stuff you can't eat! unbelievable! -or taste bad- white crocus tastes like grass...you've been warned!).....now I just need to find a perennial corn and squash!


Anyways, we've been planting and Fred showed me how to separate walking onions for propagation into other locations.....yep, the edible plants are going to take over if we have our way (hah! who needs a crocus when a peach tree or cherry tree has so many more flowers off one stem!)

okay, so maybe not all fun and games, we do nesting labor too, like moving sawdust to the willow bank and other barrels like the one for composting.

As promised here's Part 4 of how to do kiwi cuttings (very short clip of Fred showing what could be used to cover the prepared cuttings):

WhooooWho!!!  

William Schlegel just sent me corn, tomato, multiple strains of squash, and sunchoke   ...all grown in MT!


Thank you William, my garden on my one acre can now commence!  I'll post pics to show preparations, planting, care, and harvest so you can see the results of what you sent!  

I get to work on my acre on the weekend, so I'll post my first pics then!

Thanks again William!

You are quite welcome.

If I recall I may have sent four packets of tomatoes sweet cherriette which is 35 DTM cherry, a dehybridizing lizzano a short season cherry with good late blight resistance its homozygous in the hybrid, some of Joseph Lofthouse's Big Hill tomato a productive short season exserted stigma bicolor that was planted with blue ambrosia a yellow blue blushed cherry with exserted stigma, and a big packet of my direct seeded red grex from 2017. Which contained tomatoes from Joseph and some from a tomato lady at Missoula farmers market and some from Triple Divide Seed coop. So generally some fairly problem free Montana hardy tomatoes.

Four species of squash with lots of Joseph Lofthouse's genetics but some local and other genetics thrown in. Except for the pepo which is supposed to be an heirloom grown by the indigenous Mandan tribe in ND called Mandan squash I got my start on it from Sandhill Preservation center. My plan is to cross it with something modern like Lofthouse zucchini or Lofthouse crookneck but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

Also sent a packet of sweet corn which is a grex of several varieties: Yukon Chief from back when Garden City Seeds was here, Ashworth, Hooker's Sweet, Nuetta (which is actually a flint used as a sweet), Yukon Supreme (ossi listed), Lofthouse Astronomy Domine might be in there, as might his high carotene, orchard baby, and a few others I can't remember right now. Lots of them are very short season though.

There were only two vareties of Sunchoke in the backyard clump but I sent you some of both.

I'm curious to hear how they do for you Orin I suspect you are a bit higher in elevation there which means shorter growing season but some benefits like more rain. I tend to collect varieties that are as short season as I can get.