Projects in New Gelderland

There is a small village near Portland, Oregon which has been inhabited by the same family since 1970. It has grown steadily in occupants and area since then. The third generation of that family is now making a dent.

Five acres of prime bottomland. House on the South side of the creek. Barn, field and garden on the North side. We completed a deer fence around the garden this winter, and now I have onions, garlic, strawberries, green beans, peas, potatoes, spinach, broccoli and cabbage. Lettuce we planted this year was eaten, and the broccoli was ravished by worms. But the deer are mostly staying away. They nibbled on the green beans once, but the fence is making a big difference.

I'll post some more photos of the garden and wattle fence later. Weaving the wattle fence was a lot of fun, and it went up relatively quickly. Back in January my wife and I pruned some 1 1/2 inch suckers from our apple tree. Those formed the stakes for our first section of wattle fence. Then we wove the smaller straight branches between them. Once those were used up, I cut a bunch of shoots from a coppiced Ash stump. It took us about three Saturday afternoons to fence thirty feet on the East side of the garden. And those afternoons were short and easy. We also put up about 60 feet of field fence along the South side of the garden because my grandparents had left a roll of fence from their old garden. With the himalayan blackberries to the North and West of the garden, this completed our first defenses.

There are many more projects that are in process or are planned. It has been great fun to put different things that I learned here into practice.

Many things are going well in the garden. We added 2" chicken wire on the West and North sides to keep out the rabbits. I built a gate. So we aren't finding any prints from deer or much evidence of rabbits in the garden. But this cabbage plant was torn to pieces. Does anyone have any idea what might have done that? At this point I am thinking it could be a bird or a raccoon. But I don't know.



Happy cabbage after a dusting of cornmeal earlier this week.


Smashed cabbage.

Gardening this year has turned into a slog. The deer keep jumping the fence and eating things down. The cabbage recovered, and we have one good head. But they keep eating the green beans and the tomatoes. On the plus side, we harvested a big basket full of potatoes yesterday. My little brother's watermelons are doing well. And the Hubbard squash is taking off. We are thinking about moving the garden closer to the house and putting up either a taller fence or a double fence.

And Territorial Seed Company deserves a shout-out for their green bean seeds. The plants have repeatedly given beans after being munched down to nubs by the deer.

I am practicing round wood joinery. My most recent project is an awning that will go beside my garage to cover my cart. Yesterday evening I drilled the hole for the second leg and almost finished fitting the legs. I cut flat shoulders on the tenons because I haven't done that before. In the pictures I have the pieces in my workmates upside down. The verticals are pretty straight, I would say within two degrees of each other.

The awning will be the "lean away from the building" style. Lynae had some ugly old upholstery fabric that she was going to give to Goodwill. It's 4 feet wide by about 12 feet long. So I will cut it in the middle of it's length and join the pieces along their side. Then I will sew a big pocket and slide it onto my horizontal beam. After that, I plan to staple it to the building by screwing a 2x4 to the wall with the fabric in between.

On Saturday we installed an umbrella-style clothesline. My grandma had one that she has used for decades. But she doesn't use it anymore. So we dug it up and brought it down to our house. Now it sits in the bit of grass between the house and the garage. Right off of our laundry room. That area really catches the wind. But it is shaded in the afternoon so our clothes won't get sun-bleached.

My wife grew some pinto beans this year and we needed a place to dry them. In the past we have used a patio table with a perforated top for such tasks. But we have a lot of produce that needs to dry or be hardened off this year. She took a look at our unoccupied chicken tractor and said, "That will work!" So now we have a bunch of pinto beans drying on the hardware cloth. Last night we added some potatoes as well.

This gives "If it fits, it sits!!" a whole new look! Lol! Brilliant! Yet another case of the problem being the solution. An unoccupied tractor taking up good space? Put it to work!

These days I put effort into homesteading projects on Monday and Friday evenings. My current project is to build my first hugelbed. My brother-in-law built one five years ago and had excellent results. So I have high hopes for this one.

I plan to grow herbs and flowers. Just South of it I planted two Italian Prune trees and a number of elderberries. North of it I planted a flowering, weeping Cherry that my Mom wanted. My family's junkyard of vehicles is across this line from my house, right out my front windows. So by planting a line I hope to create some mental separation. It won't block the view entirely, but it will improve it.

I also arranged a Thursday evening mechanic night with my brothers to bring some of those vehicles back to life. But that is on hiatus for now.

Our Kubota tractor was throwing all kinds of codes because it was not seeing enough voltage at the ignition switch and various safety switches. Specifically, the codes were 'E94' and 'E93'. Previously I ruled out low battery voltage and cleaned the terminals. So I was pretty sure that it needed a new ignition switch. On Saturday I installed one. That made it start easily. But it turned off the instant that I stood up. Which told me that it thought that the PTO was engaged. So I took a look at the limit switch and saw that it was out of adjustment. The switch simply turns on a screw, so I was able to turn it in so that it contacted the PTO lever properly.

With that fixed I was able to start it and go hook up the tiller. While I was hooking that up, I realized that the PTO shaft was spinning! Big safety no-no. It meant that the tiller would spin whenever the tractor was on! So I looked up the possible causes and determined that I should lubricate the PTO cable. Apparently this is a somewhat common problem. ButI also talked to my brother and he said he had tightened the cable. I could see what the cable had been adjusted to before so I set it back to that. I started the tractor and it worked perfectly. So that was good. I had spent most of the day on this project. So I had dinner and then I tilled the garden. We aren't quite at no-till yet. But the ample leaves and compost that we spread last fall made the dirt nice and soft.

A big tree fell across one of our less-used paths last year. We let it sit for awhile but it was time to move it along. Several weeks ago I cut it with my chainsaw. On Saturday I got out the old, ugly, homemade boompole and pulled the log out of the woods. It's two feet in diameter. I was a bit concerned that it was too big for the log tongs. But they held.  I will probably turn part of the log into a bench. But there is a lot of wood there.

My dad has a flat bed dump truck. It's a Ford 250 from the 1970s. One of my brothers tuned up the engine and replaced the brakes several years ago. Now it is time to rebuild the hydraulic lift. When you raise the bed, it will go up, but it drops down over time with a series of "clunk" noises. You also have to gun the engine to raise the bed. I've read up on PTO lifts like this and everyone suggests that it should be able to raise the bed while the engine is idling. So I think there are some hydraulic leaks in the system.

We put a lot more dirt on the hugel today. It comes up to my knee, now. I might put some manure on it in the spring and then I plan to plant it.

I just planted some camas seeds at the base of the hugel. Some on the North end of the East side where the ground looked damp. And then some more on the North end of the West side where there is standing water that ran off of our driveway. It should be a perfect micro climate for Camas.