Summertime will end when it's over

My tomato plants are stomping balls... trying to focus on the positive and not mention the "S" word... Let me tell you a fine heartwarming story.  Lets say there was this guy Mr. Schnrub... and say Mr. Schnrub went to Home Depo to pick up some bamboo stakes for garden support, because Mr. Schnrubs'  wife Mrs. Screetch likes to think tomato cages and hockey sticks are ugly... anyhoo we are getting off topic.  Schnrub goes into the store with a pack of maniac children to grab the bamboo, and notices one stack seems a bit fatter, so he just grabs that one, out of natural habit and checks out.

It's not until he is in the backyard later that he realises he bought 9 packages of bamboo for the low low price of one... they were all just taped together... Schnrub went looking for the receipt to rectify the system but ran into a beer, and then another, and next thing you know he was giving lectures to the local wives on "neat ways to stake your peas"... he gave away a lot of bamboo that day.

Mr. Schnrub had no bamboo left when i was poking around looking for some. Being a man who discovered that his tomato plants are killing it, i was in need of stakes.  Enter happy Sam... one of the guys on the other side of the street.  Actually back up to the other day when i was tying the grape vine up the telephone pole with my dwindling twine collection, and i lost the tail end of my twine collection... gone somewhere into the soul of a healthy vine.  Happy Sam is always happy to help out... Hell i still have his tree saw and he is loving my presence.. I ask him for bamboo stakes and twine... he comes up huge with the biggest smile on his face... he had twine in the trunk of his car and the motherload secret.  Earl has bamboo.. he gave me a few stakes from Earls plants.  Earl had planted the bamboo as a bit of a privacy wall but now the forest was descending... so when i went to ask Earl if he had any surplus Bamboo his face lit up and asked me if i wanted to prune for him... pretty much the answer i was hoping for.  Harvest your own Tomato stakes.  Bamboo is amazing stuff... I've never gardened it, but i was a bit intrigued.  Considering how expensive bamboo stakes are, i had visions of going to the Farmers market selling "artesian tomato stakes" at a grossly inflate price.  The selling point would be that these artesian tomato stakes have a series of 1/2 inch leave stock stems which will help to maintain twine line verdical from installation to harvest.  It's funny when you start dealing with sticks... you get a full plant specimen and you cut it down to what you need, and then for the first time, when presented with options you realize the possibilities... the kind of thought pattern that can really throw you into one of those "why are humans so fucking stupid mind tirades"... and then you snap out of it and remember to BE the change you would like to see.

But really a fine moment in community.  I was faced with driving a car out to a store to buy something when i realized i could harvest a better version of what i needed from my neighbours backyard doing him a service as well.  One of my aliases by the name of Ziep Poberson has an album cover titled "everything you ever need you already have", he never made the music, but the music is right there... the answer is learn how to find it, or recognize when it is there.

So i guess I spent the day sorting the tomatoes with a sidebar into custom stake building.  It's true i did break out my high powered radial arm saw to make the cuts... i was using the clippers but we were getting stress fractures on the bamboo walls...and the saw kicks ass.  Tomatoes like to collpase on themseoves... well they probably don't actually like to but they do as a result of gravity.  Stake out the branches finding a balance between space and light and the future. The plants in the pots are so thick i had to find new places for some of them, which i had having eyeballed the sunspace on this new land i farm.

Speaking of tomatoes, my old Man Garden took 10 or so new runt tomato plants that the good people at Home Hardware on Commercial drive gave to Gardener Pete.  They charged him for stakes but figured that the tomatoes are kind of late so better to get them out of the store and into the ground somewhere and hope for the best. I think if they get regular regimented watering they will produce some fruit... you never know... one may receive a nice Indian summer (hot september-Mid October).  Once those tomatoes get moving... they like to move it move it!

And i had some of Brian and Ann's tomatoes in a diner today... you see I am on water duty and there were a few ripe tomatoes, so of course i took them.  Was i being greedy taking them?  NO NO NO! This is important... you need to harvest ripe fruit to sent the signal to the plant that it's original mission to reproduce has failed and it needs to make more fruit...  you need to exploit this biological trigger for greater gain in the long haul.  You plant food to eat food... don't be one of those hammerheads who plants food to say they plant food and then have that food go to waste because you just didn't pick it in time.

Harvests sneak up on you... have you bagged your garlic yet?... you better cause it's about to go bad in the ground... get it up and get it drying in the sun, this can garlic your kitchen an provide you for starts for next years crop.

I hum in B... which makes sense now that i see it, and the mouse clicks in F.  I know this because i happen to have a tuner hooked up to the mic on my desk.  Just more facts, take them or leave them.

a tale of 2 gardens

Should we go with some slug killing tips first?  After all, knowledge is power and power corrupts and that's good... right?  Sorry quoting Knockin' Dog songs again... and the song never even got recorded, so it's even more obscure.

So i broke out the slug scissors... you see i inherited about 9 pair of scissors, so i dedicated one of them "slug scissors".  You can just snip the bastards, although some mend and the head half tries to make a getaway.  It works well... you get an effective easy kill, but I'm kind of partial to crushing them on a rock.  You see i like my slug carcasses in one spot because slugs like to carnivore the dead slugs, so if i have all my kills on a rock in a known place then the slugs will then come there to feed on the dead slugs and then whamo! A second round of crushing or snipping.  I'm not crazy about just snipping a slug, say that's on a bean plant, and having it's carcass fall to the base of the bean plant.  The reason for this is because the carcass will just encourage other slugs to come and feed at the base of the bean plant and then of course when that food is done maybe the slug just move on up to the bean plant.  It appears that slugs are creatures of habit... if you see a plant with lots of slug damage in the day then there is a good chance that the slug will be back on that plant in the night.  Come back at night and, as Dad would say "bump them off".

I had a neighbour over who has enlisted me to help with a garden at her aunt's house down the street about 50 blocks... a good bike ride and an excellent destination.  Big yard, shady play area for the kids... all the right things we need for a good time.  She was in my yard the other day to drop off a map shortly after a squirrel ate my whole broccoli plant... i showed her the holes where the peanuts go and what was left of the broccoli.  Her words... "holy shit, i would be seriously pissed" and then "SHE FEEDS THEM!"... and then "you have to get more traps up".  Perhaps my insanity is justified after all... if a loving mother can feel that, then a man gardener is not a savage for thinking the same.

The grey bastard squirrel ate the whole broccoli plant... Hopefully we win our hockey game in Sherwood tomorrow... maybe i will stop at the pond on the way out there to smell the beautiful flowers, hear the birds, feel the sun and take care of other minor business.  You want to be dead sure that your pests don't come back.

So we were at this garden out by 52nd and Woodstock in the fine city of Portland. I of course forgot my camera, but fortunately somebody had a cell phone with a camera so i could take a photo and email it to my desk for the report.  The only problem is that i can't email a photo from a phone... i got into all kinds of strange menus after i tried to change "2" into "@".  I'm a natural Luddite... do people actually have small enough fingers to type on those slide out keyboards?  I'd rather become proficient on the mandolin.

OK back to the garden... Apparently this garden has been a garden for like 60 years... there was a grandfather working the land years ago who wasn't shy about dousing the soil with chemical herbicides and insecticides...  Old school like.  I remember my father actually had DDT for his garden, but he didn't really use it being a man of cautionary paranoia, and a fan of peregrine falcons as well.   I remember he did say "it works really well".  Here's to hoping the soil has returned to a more "organic" nature... apparently they have been working the land for a decade (chemical free), so it's probable that they have eaten all the toxins through the garden vegetables.  Have no fear... there will be no shortage of toxins in the future... shall we say all elements (air, earth, water and tire fires) will be ripe with toxins.  It's is a guarantee, make no mistake, in fact the economy dictates that it must be so.  There is nothing you can do, but you should still grow food... it's a good think to know... things might collapse... it might come in handy.

The soil in this garden is a dream for sure... beautiful stuff.   Old Clay Robertson's cement garden has a long way to go, but fortunately Robertson has the will to change the land. They have added a lot over the years, and I'm sure the tilling and growing of roots for the past 60 years has been excellent.  I did a fair bit of weeding in this beautiful soft soil and then started to tend an old neglected lilac tree by the garden, and then i threw in some beans and did some solid pruning on the tomato plants (cutting away the lower and browning tomato leaves to help keep disease at bay).  This garden is up and running pretty good... tomatoes booming, beans a blasting, grapes and raspberries beets, lettuce.  I think its a matter they they are busy so more people tending can help assure the garden will get the best care.

It was really nice to see a garden not so fucking savaged by squirrels.  No holes beside all the plants, no chews, no peanut shells, no unearthed seedlings dying in the hot sun.  It was like a dream garden, big and open and full of sun, just remove the little weeds around the big plants and let them roll.  We put a few bags of compost soil around the plants for nutrients and further soil amendment and it was all good. Grow plants rather than the fighting pests to keep plants alive.  I looked into some pepper spray to put on the plants so the ass hole squirrels won't eat them, it was pretty pricey stuff at the high end nursery, so i will try a SR jones special pepper concoction.

Make a pepper spray by mixing 1 tsp. of mild liquid detergent, 1 gal. of water and 1 small bottle of hot pepper sauce. Mix these ingredients in a gallon jug, then transfer to a spray bottle. Spray this mixture on plants.

A watched garden seems to not grow

Kind of like that watched pot will never boil thing.  Of course it's all rubbish...  a pot on the heat will boil at the same rate whether it is watched or not... being watched has no affect on the equation.  The watching is not stealing heat energy away from the aqueous dihydrogen oxide.  It is the perspective... the impatience of the observer... the person who wants so much for something to happen and happen quickly that they perceive that it is not happening and never will.

I was away from the garden for a week and upon my return i noted how everything has grown so much.  You often don't notice these things day to day but week to week is another matter.  I also noticed that the weeds got a foothold and began competing, and that new slug damage is clear and evident, and clearly the squirrels have been having a free and easy good time in my absence.

I spent a good day weeding... good for the soul, i believe i have explained that before.  Labour that goes on and seems to be going nowhere, but then when you step back an see the big picture you realize you have accomplished a lot.  We need to see that in our lives.

It's 12:35 am, and i will shortly go out for a slug murdering session... word has it that there is a guy in the neighbourhood who talks and laughs to himself in the middle of the night with a head lamp on... i wonder if it's me?  Kind of fits my description, but kind of appears more "crazy" than the "forward thinking" angle i see through my lens.

I slashed a squirrel off the fence with a hockey stick after the bastard bit off a cluster of blueberries from one of my duke blueberry plants.  Some new squirrels have moved in since the last ones seemed to have (sing it with me...) Disappeared!

On the good news front it seems like 2 of the broccoli have made it out of critical condition, and the peas are producing wonderfully... carrots and beets are strong and the berries are coming in.  Things to worry about are...  some of the beans by the back fence are under savage slug attack as is the chard. The melon is now an ex melon and the squash and zucchini aren't really thriving, but that could be an arctic weather phenomenon.

The tomatoes really took off and i had to do a fair bit of tying them up. There are flowers and small tomatoes, the only real problem is the usual... ass hole squirrel burying peanuts (put out by the idiot neighbour) in the planters the tomatoes are in thus causing root damage and hindering growth.  I missed a hockey game in Sherwood on Sunday and a chance to increase the Sherwood squirrel population by one... crimminy.   Perhaps this is getting out of control even my kids are having a blast at the idea of buying me a carved wooden squirrel to haunt me at night... they think it's funny... wait a minute... perhaps i could get the brain damaged neighbour a wooden squirrel carving and perhaps that might fill some void, where perhaps she might come around and agree to go and live in a heavily supervised group home... worth a shot i say.

Just back from a slug run and i caught a massive snail devouring a bean leaf... smashey smashey... i bagged a few slugs as well.

Probably time for a second planting of beans... did i mention i threw in another rhubarb, and it is doing well... slugs snails and squirrels don't seem to have a taste for rhubarb.