Let's go over some failures

Failure:  omission of occurrence or performance.

 Why are the carrot bottoms curving upwards?  Using basic science (i know crazy stuff), i theorize that due to a lack of proper deep ground soaking the carrots had to turn up to get water, because the jackass that runs the operation let the soil dry out and then only watered sufficiently so that the top 3-4 inches of soil got moist.  True they were planted in raised beds, so are more suspect to losing water, but i am aware of these facts... i should do better and not fail. 

 And in figure 2 we see a hooked carrot, a proper carrot and 2 short fat stubby carrots... it would be interesting to see why the short fat stubby ones went that direction, but i suspect it might have to do with the timing of the drought, perhaps a clay pocket, or maybe light.  Soak your soil good so the carrots reach down for the water... a sandier soil works well!

It should be noted that this was my second crop of carrots for the year so they were very young when the hot dry summer came.

A quick note on failure... don't be a wuss and recoil at the negative connotations associated with the word.  Failure is great, one of the finest learning tools in the book, but it is only a learning tool if you face it and look into it's jaws to see where the beast ran wild.  Shutting off in an emotional cocoon upon the mention of the word will only ensure you will meet the same fate again down the road, and perhaps even worse, you may assign a different reason, a wrong reason taking you further off the path of righteousness and spiritual happiness.   I could be a fool and say that the seeds were no good and i got them at this nursery that i thought was a bit suspect so I'm not going to get seeds from that place again cause look what happened.   You can see how not properly dealing with failure can steer you way off course... so don't do it... everybody fails... it makes the successes all the more sweeter... gardening is not about looking good... it's about eating well, and sometimes you have to drink a cup of failure to help the meal go down.

 Figure 3: Is that a baby corn and a stunted white fly breeding ground of a Kale plant?  Hint, there was a large tomato plant in the cage there... those plants got no light and hence produced nothing but weak plants serving as pest cultivation sites.  Bottom line... it probably would have been better to have no plants than those plants.  I did hope the corn would shoot up high over the tomato but obviously it didn't make it... the ones a few feet over were about 10 feet tall... just didn't get that early critical sun to give it the power to escape the shadow.  


Yep it's time to put the garden into a new phase... you have to get stuff out so you can get your garlic in. You can leave some if you are really getting food (lots of Kale), but the tomatoes are not as fine as they were back in august... blight and mold are establishing colonies in your soil... time to cut the loses.  You need to put that garden to sleep, let it rest and don't compost your blight laden or powdery mildew abundant green matter into your garden... that's why God created city green bins... i believe they should have the heat to kill the spores, or at least apply the NIMBY phenomenon (not in my backyard).   Over the past few years i have been observing various gardens and it seems that the ones that fail to remove diseased plants over the winter have a tough time the next year.  It is actually more fun to dig up your garden in the fall... you find surprises and get to properly assess what went down.

People are often come out gangbusters in the spring digging up and bringing in the new, and sometimes they feel defeated or overburdened in the fall and miss this great opportunity.  It can be hard to decommision plants when it looks like they might have a bit left... that's why we focus on the garlic and the leeks. The human brain works better starting things than finishing things... a little Man Robertson tip.  It's like getting a new guitar... you are tricking yourself into writing a new song because you need to justify the decision.  

Know your game, play it well, don't go backwards and don't be sorry.  Embrace failure as a learning exercise... be excited about failure, and if somebody tries to stop you from examining failure, avoid that person.  If failure continues to be negative, work to make it positive or seek professional help... a ball of hate is not positive failure.

Sometimes you eat the garden... sometimes the garden eats you.

I grew Popcorn this year... it's a bit of a different beast than regular corn... which I haven't really grown before either... so lets just say I'm kind of swinging at wild pitches.  But anytime you can garden and use sports analogies, well that's a Man Garden.

I think it is ruby red popcorn... of course I would know that for sure if I had made proper notes, but that is something we can't change now, so lets not let the things we can't change get in the way of progress... that sounds very corporation like, but I digress... Popcorn is kind of like a cob oven... when is it dry enough to use?  Apparently you want to let it dry on the stalk and then bring it in for some more drying, or you can sun dry it, some even talk about oven drying it.  I tried some test pops the other day and they just cracked open a bit yielding tasty little oil soaked snackers.   Apparently you want to dry it but leave a bit of moisture in there to pop.  That of course is the physics in the popcorn... the moisture in the kernel heats up to a point where it creates pressure and "pops" the corn. It's all about the right level of moisture...  drying times can be confusing... drying something in a desert in Arizona will be faster than drying something in the Pacific Northwest rain forest region.  It's all about the eyeball technique mixed with common sense, and of course some vigorous scientific tests (remember the control).    What is a control?  It's a little thing in an experiment... this would be a known batch of working popcorn to throw in with the test popcorn to observe for proper popping conditions.   OK I'm stalling here... this is why.

My other corn went well...  I had to pollinate it by hand as corn is best grown in a field in rows so that the corn tassels (top of the plant), will drop pollen onto the silky hairs of the corncob and thus pollinate.  When corn is planted scattered in spots where a gardener might have been in a "savage attack planting frenzy", it is good policy to grab some pollen from the tassel and manually rub in into the silky hairs of the cob ensuring full kernel production.

That I did all right on... my main corn problem happened today when I went out to cull the garden of plants that have finished their cycle.  The corn is done so I was getting it out of there.  First I tore out the cucumber plant that supplied me with the last batch of pickles I put in the crock the other day, and then I moved on to the corn... I was in a spirited and invincible mood and so I just grabbed a plant by the stalk and ripped it out... you know... a little man strength, some brute force... what could possibly go wrong.  Well one thing that could go wrong is that the plant doesn't want to give and your hand slides up the stalk and the hard plant material slices your hand  up leaving deep cuts on your fingers causing insane bleeding.  I'm not going to lie to you people... sometimes the Man "use brute force and attack first, and then think" mindset, can occasionally backfire... and sometimes those backfires are like sonic booms... It's OK you just have to own it and come back another day.

Unfortunately we were out of useful band-aids  (this happens when you live in a house with 3 children who more often then not need a band-aid).  I rigged something together with toilet paper and since I figured my gardening day was done I set off to the fencing store to buy some brackets to hold a roof over my newly constructed Cob Oven.

It's all about not letting little setbacks become bigger setbacks... unfortunately when signing for the brackets I moved my fingers and split open the wounds again causing an awkward blooding of the service desk at the fencing supply store.

What to do, what to do! Well better go to the studio and check out this new Tabor song mix... and in the process I run into a nurse doing some gardening (indeed we are still on gardening techniques).  It's always interesting running into a pro when you have Macgyver'ed a solution to the problem.  Suddenly the toilet paper held on by kids blue duct tape over my wound looked less genius and more crude... so that got sorted out next thing you know I have a proper wound dressing.... but then I hear what our nurse is up to.  You see she had a bad gardening year, and she is a bit disappointed with this so now is in the process of physically changing the appearance of her garden area.  No point having bad memories flow into next season... get on the change now and be ready for a "fresh new vibe".  Anytime you can do something to dial in the gardening area and help make it more of a "happy place" the better for gardening yield, and the happier our gardener will be.  We do garden for serenity right people... clearly nothing begets serenity like a dominating yield... some may argue that serenity and dominating don't belong in the same statement... those are the people you don't want to listen to... they operate in the technical blind spots of "yield orientated" gardening.  You know, you don't want to let down your guard when mixing spirituality with gardening.  Next thing you know you will be accepting mind-boggling errors as things that were fun anyways.  Instead of cursing yourself for not wearing gloves and swinging a machete, you will have thoughts like... well at least I got out in the sun today.   Basically that is the same as saying that "I risked UV exposure and injured myself and I'm OK with that because I love myself"... sure you should always love yourself, so it kind of sounds good but sometimes a little hate can be a good motivator.  Now if you can't love and hate yourself at the same time then go for love.  But if you can see the hate with love and the hate can help bring a positive change, then this is a good thing... am I wrong? It's like "waking up" a hockey player with a big hit... you know he is out there kind of sleeping through the game and then he gets hit hard, and gets angry and feels a little hate... next thing you know that guy is dominating the game and changing the outcome.

If it's too hard to understand that, then don't try... it might not be the right answer for you... every problem has many different solutions and our job is to find the one that best suits ourselves. Just because I happen to be inspired by disorganization, brute force, irregular cackling, anger and competition doesn't mean everybody is... (hint it's kind of fun)

Namaste