Garden on Corliss Homestead Journal

Happy Fourth of July to all of those who celebrate it.

I have found joy today when I have discovered an abundance of black eye susans have taken root and started flowering on some soil that I previously thought was uninhabitable. The railroad dirt reclamation is going well! There will now be a lovely four foot strip alongside my property of a variety of plants. I have a seen a few different plants so far.

Black Eyed Susans
Borage
Yarrow
Oats
Feverfew

I also have a bunch more that I have yet to identify.

It is already been a good day.

Timothy Norton wrote:A week ago, I spent some time gathering up all my garden bed weeds and placed them in a bucket.

I topped it off with water and let it sit in the sun for a week covered with a firm

I removed the plant material and discovered the smell reminded me of slightly less offensive cow manure. Yuck!

I topped the bucket off with additional water and resealed it to let it mellow out. I have some raw biochar that I need to get together and conduct another biochar charging session.

Timothy Norton wrote:A week ago, I spent some time gathering up all my garden bed weeds and placed

I removed the plant material and discovered the smell reminded me of slightly less offensive cow manure. Yuck!

I topped the bucket off with additional water and resealed it to let it mellow out. I have some raw biochar that I need to get together and conduct another biochar charging session.

Hi Tim, in case you are interested in making weed tea that is not smelly, you can try culturing microbes with more specificity. First, use plant leaves that are thin with lots of fuzz, no grass, no dirt, no twig, no hard waxy leaves. Fill bucket with water with enough leaves (0.5 lb in 5 gallon water) but not packed so tight you can't stir it. When the bucket sits in the sun, make sure the temperature won't get too high. Typically in 3 days the tender plant tissues will break down for direct use in the garden. Leave some liquid in the bucket and the next batch will be much faster.

I can give the scientific explanations but it would be too lengthy here. Anyway here is a recent example from my garden where I got rid of a pile of green beans that past peak production. It was easily turned into two parts: high nitrogen liquid fertilizer for direct watering and high cellulose part for mulching.

Well, not everything goes to plan every time!

I don't think I watered enough as well as the weather was kind of wacky with heat this year.

My first year trying to grow garlic results...



Yeah... I got tiny garlic!

Next year will include bigger spacing, more aggressive weeding/mulching during the growing season, and a more serious fertilizer/water schedule.

Time to clean up the garlic bed!

Kind of an impromptu project, but after I watched a box truck almost take out some low hanging branches I knew I had to do something.

I pole sawed down two Siberian Elm branches that hung over the road. I dragged them into our lawn, limbed them up, and started stripping the smaller branches of their leaves. The intent was to use the small leaves to add to the compost pile. The bigger pieces have been broken into small enough pieces that I can dry them and utilize them for campfires/bonfires.

It was an all day affair, but it was fun. Siberian Elm is incredibly easy to snap by hand. The bark is tough but can be stripped off. If you wrap your hand around the branches and use just a small amount of pressure, you can pull off the leaves leaving behind the sticks.

I put in this extra effort because I didn't want to build my brush pile any bigger than it was. The more contact that the material can have with the ground the faster it will disappear. My previous brush piles have been very airy and off the ground.

I'll see how I feel tomorrow, I'm sure my arms are going to be sore. All in a good days work.

I had a little visitor today while I was tending my garden.



I am thankful my small friend did not feel threatened and they readily climbed off my hand onto a tomato leaf when offered. From what I can tell, they are a pale green assassin bug. I don't recommend intentionally handling unidentified critters.

It has been a while, but I have been quite busy!

I got married. So that is exciting.

I had ordered one thousand tulip bulbs to beautify the landscape and surprise my wife in the spring with.



I utilized my Ryobi drill paired with a large bulb auger bit and got to work. I found out that wearing a hoody and using the front pocket as a bulb holder made for an efficient process. Drill a hole in the ground, drop the bulb into the hole, kick the dirt back over the hole.

It took several weekends but I finally finished placing all of them into the ground.



I will have to make sure to post pictures in the spring with the results. The bulbs were 'mixed' so I am unsure of what the tulips will actually look like.

If you know me, you know I like my mulch.

Wood chips, straw, whatever I can get my hands on. Arborist chip is gold to me yet it has been difficult to get my hands on. It has been months without me flagging down a tree company that needs a spot to unload as more and more local gardeners have learned of the benefits of utilizing mulch. People don't like taking coniferous chips but I have found that they work just fine for my processes. Well, that hasn't even helped me for a while until today.



I got in touch with my arborist friend (from earlier in the year) and he just so happened to have a load of around thirteen yards of mixed chip and he offered to stop by in his 1980 Mack. He is a kind friend, and he wouldn't take any money for his troubles so my appreciation is bursting.



Definitely some pine, and as I dig I might be able to identify what else is in there. There are quite a bit of maple so that is a welcome surprise. I'm sure my local mushroom patches will enjoy the food.

I can't wait to get moving it and refresh my gardens before snow.

Well, I have made a dent!



My primary concern is currently topping off where I have had chip previously laid down for garden pathways and areas I'm converting into new gardens. Shovel, transport, dump, repeat.



I have managed to get the outside perimeter of the garden on the right side done up as well as a little in the back.



All of my raked leaves have ended up in my garden paths but I needed more mass. This photo was partway through laying down chip but I have finished the rest of the pathways today. I'm tempted to put chip over the leaves because once they flatten out I do not believe it will have enough depth to suppress weed likes I would like it to do.

More shoveling tomorrow, I want to put a bunch of volume behind my garden to prep for more gardening space but I have more places to top off. Not so sure what I want done first.

Winter is here, freezing temperatures and all!

My hens however are still in the midst of their molting so they have been primarily cooped up. Some have ventured out of their coop and I have found them in the protected area underneath their coop but they keep hopping in and out especially on windy days. I decided to pull the trigger on operation straw bales.

It took a few trips, usually after work before I got home, filling the back of my 2004 Mercury Grand Marquis with two or three bales at a time and hauling them home from the local feed store. My car is COVERED in straw now, but I got it done! I need a truck.



I used straw bales as a wind block and placed them around the hardware cloth exterior of my run only underneath the coop. The nesting boxes provide quite a bit of protection on the back side.



This door is our primarily used door, this straw will be exposed to the elements the most but I have future mulching/gardening plans so it doesn't really matter. I'll be curious to see how they weather over the season.



This is our coop access from the outside of the run, I ended up with an extra bale that wasn't needed to create a wind screen but I'd rather have too much than too little.

So far the chickens seem to like it! They have been in the area underneath the coop, I will have to check in when we have more stormy weather.