!!!! SEPP to Boot: Stephen's Experience (BEL)

BRK #585

Happy Taco Tuesday to you...!!!

The rain let up most of the day, so we settled into some outdoor tasks today. The Bobra Line project continues, and Ben, Brian, and I might tackle the toughest part of it by the end of this week. We also prepped a few tent pads for incoming SEPPers and for the summer events.

In the gardens, there were other pleasant surprises. We added several large stumps to one of the hugel berms just outside the Library, and in my haste I hadn't checked for a long-time asparagus plant prior to the construction. Fortunately, we saw the little asparagus heads popping out today. So all's well!



There are more volunteer potatoes emerging from one of last year's potato beds. We've done nothing but mulched this bed so far this year, and it's looking like we'll have plenty of returns this season.



Also popping out were these adorable mushrooms...



At another mushroom fruiting spot, Peaches is not impressed.



Note to self: this is what a daikon radish looks like when it's about to flower. We experimented today by pinching off the flower stalk, hoping that energy will instead go to the root or at least the leaves. We'll see how things work out over the rest of the season.



That's all for now. Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...!

A lovely thing I learned with Daikon not so long ago, should the pinching of flowers not yield the desired result: the immature seed pods are straight up delicious. I often miss the harvest window for the perfect radish root, but these days I only grin and let that flower go.... I actually prefer the seed pods. Like a spicy crunchy snow pea. The only caveat: you have to get them at the right time too. Wait too long and they'll go woody just like their bottom ends.

Is it just me as like 99% of your pictures don't load for me?  I don't seem to have that problem in other posts.

Rob Griffin wrote:Is it just me as like 99% of your pictures don't load for me?  I don't seem to have that problem in other posts.

Sorry about that, Rob. I host my pictures on a non-Permies site, so they need to be pinged from elsewhere, then displayed here. The animated GIF files in particular are considerably larger and while I'm a fan of those they can sometimes gum up the works.

That said, I have suggested to others who are really, really curious about the stuff I post to try and reload their web page. That usually works, though I admit it's a bit of an inconvenience. My apologies...!

BRK #586

Middle of the week, and once I stepped out of the tent first thing in the morning, I received a strong suggestion that I'm living my best life.



Some serious progress on construction tasks today. Still a bit damp out there, and we slopped our way through the mud to take care of the business. We cleared all the plastic debris out of the structure we called Skeleton 2 this morning, and I'm feeling much better about that space. The structure is completely dismantled, and its waterproof membrane is removed. Someone can move in and make it fantastic, or Nature can move back in and return it to how it was before the structure was built. We'll see what happens.



We also made major progress at the Lab's Pump House earlier today. The electrical conduit is now curved where we need it to be, and we can start removing dirt so the waterproof membrane can be added. This one was a slog that took time from several Boot shifts, but now I think the hardest part is done.



We spent the afternoon tending the gardens and paths at Allerton Abbey. While watering the Corn Scoop, I noticed this little butterfly or moth (I still don't know how to tell the difference!), with a fantastic colour and pattern.



That's all for now. Thanks for reading, and enjoy your day...!