Spring garden progress report

We shall try to stay on topic this time and not focus on any various non gardening rage issues.  Although gardening does rely on the growth of life which often forays into segments that ideologically oppose our foolish little consumer impulses... but hey who's counting, besides me, and other various loons. Click on the pictures to enlarge if you feel like it.

The good news is that the mason bees have taken quite nicely to their new home... you see i thought i heard one of them hatching so i set up the camera for a little time lapse filming and it turns out what i heard was bees in the little holes doing their mason bee thing.  Multiple bees using multiple cylinders getting down to business.  Even at night tonight i went out and there were multiple bees in their tubes settling in for the night.  Most pleasing for sure!

Of course things are flowering, and pollination needs to happen, strawberries, blueberries and plums are flowering now but it won't be long before we see some pea flowers.

(for the record all the white things are hail stones) I went and put up a vine and veggie trellis net for the peas to climb up using some bamboo stakes and some twine guy lines... i was fairly pleased with the outcome, and then i just did a replant in the spots where there were no peas because squirrels had dug up the damn place.  it should be noted that squirrel families are booming in both of my neighbours houses, and there hasn't been an incredible amount of digging lately.  Perhaps my flying out of the back door slashing a hockey stick has had an effect, but i think it's more the fact that the delinquent rodents are now nursing young and hence don't have time to bugger old man Robertson's set up.

Better them than me, but i have a hard time understanding how people can live in a house infested with squirrels... i actually did once it was in 2001... i remember one of my drunken Quebecois roommates was referring to the squirrel as "Squirrel Laden" because it was hard to catch much like Bin Laden at the time... uh oh teetering on a political rage here... in the end the house smelt like death and one of the guys ended up getting lice...  rent was cheap and i wasn't home much.. i went to work, played in the band ROADBED and hiked mountains on the weekends.. but soon after the squirrel CT and i bought a loft and started living the good life.  If there was a squirrel living in my house now there would be no other focus than evicting the squirrel... period.  In fact squirrel death would be automatic, and then the problem fixed so that new squirrels live without the knowlege that a great place for them exists.

Potatoes are up and rolling... i was talking to a neighbour and he mentioned a system of growing potatoes in a barrel like item and continuing to put more soil in throughout the season and in the end you get a barrel full of potatoes.  My father would "mound' his potatoes pushing dirt up over them which worked on the same principle...  i think i shall experiment with something along those lines... perhaps put a bucket with the bottom cut out of it over the potato plant and fill it in as the plant grows, and see what happens at the end of the season...  probably more potatoes.

The reseeding of tomatoes from the greenhouse baking fiasco is inching along, but that said i went to the local nursery and grabbed a sweet 100 cherry tomato and a Roma tomato... both are large and healthy.  I also split a tray of broccoli with another neighbour so i have 3 plants in the back garden now.    I waffled on where to put them... they do become very large plants with big leaves that produce very well in the pacific northwest, so i threw one in with the row of spinach with the idea being that when the summer heat comes and the spinach is over the broccoli can have that space, and then i threw a few others in spots near the garlic, as Garlic and broccoli are apparently companion plants according to a few websites.  Remember a companion plant is a plant that grows well with it's companion.  That's why i threw in a hops plant... Zeus to be precise... well there was another reason, but a good one is that ladybugs love hops plants, and lady bugs love eating aphids and other garden pests so by having a hops plant one gets the added benefit of a healthy ladybug population for pest control.  Remember i wasn't going to plant a hops, because it is an invasive species, but hell something needs to do battle with the ivy, and seeing that the hood is full of squirrel feeders i hardly see an issue.

Rhubarb-  we bought a good strain from a nursery and put it in the back and i think it was getting too much hot sun cause it didn't look good so i put it in the front yard where it should get some nice shade and we shall see what happens.  Seemed like a pretty easy crop... hopefully i didn't kill it, time will tell.  i have a weird energy with rhubarb... simple thing, always causing me problems.. kind of like a cell phone... which i don't have... just kind of misses me.

Beets, Spinach and carrots- because i was a lazy ass i planted them too heavily randomly sprinkling seeds into the ground and now i am soon due for a little thinning.  One of your key things in growing vegetables is to give each plant the proper space to grow, thrive and survive.

I also picked up a Thia Chili Pepper plant just for laughs to see if these supposed hot Oregon summers can produce.  I have been using a lot of hot peppers lately trying to make various curries and Mexican dinners, so why not try and grow something.  i was thinking of a small greenhouse like structure but remembering the last bright greenhouse idea i had that set me back a few valuable weeks on the basis of a mind boggling gap out I'm not sure... perhaps a fall issue to bring the peppers home.

Oddly enough i planted a ton of cilantro, a plant i have publicly loathed for many years... but for Indian and Mexican food cilantro is a must.  My problem was that i met too many knuckleheads who's idea of a fancy new age salad was too cook up some Bulgar throw in some chick peas and douse the shit out of it with cilantro and think that they were doing something radically "organic" and perhaps "gourmet".  And then you are the in the park trying to toss it into the bushes while some pea-head  raves on asking for a recipe for this nonsense.  The problem is cilantro is not a great primary flavour, I'm sure some might disagree, and i would encourage ridiculing them!  Cilantro is an excellent secondary flavour bringing body to the sensation of hot food... it works well in Mexican salsa, and i have a date with some Mexican people who are going to teach me how to make Mexican food... I will report back.  For my purposes cilantro is an essential ingredient in chicken curry and dahl, which i can dial in now and my family likes to eat, so it makes sense to have a fresh supply.  that is the other key thing... fresh... spices need to be fresh for food to be scintillating.

Of course there is a secondary man garden now as well... you see swell friends  Fire-Man  and Sharon came down for a visit...  i might add that Sharon brought me a hat she wove from my Vancouver B.C. hops vine. It might actually be a fruit bowl which is what it is being used for now although i have worn it around as a hat... what happens is some fool sees me wearing one King hell vine woven hat and tries to be a smart ass by saying something and then the said person gets a pretty thorough lesson on Humulus Lupulus... which is of course Latin for hops... if you hit the bastard with that you can stall them and get ready for a good hops lecture.  So this the initial construction of the secondary garden:

Anytime you get to smash concrete with a 16 lb sledge hammer it's good. Smashing is one of the finest tonics around, but then to have that said smashing turn concrete into full sun garden is the kind of transition that I'm all about.  it is by the sidewalk so it will have it's dog piss issues, but really that is just an honest source of fixed nitrogen.  In reality, my testicles probably have more radioactive nuclear waste in them than they should.. but hey accidents happen... so really worrying about a little dog piss seems a little silly.  For the record no root vegetables... so far 2 blueberry, 3 poppies (cool flowers), a cherry tomato (the sweet 100 i mentioned earlier), a grape vine and some rosemary.... i might fire in a hybrid raspberry from another neighbour this weekend.   I think most of those can have piss protected elevated plant regions, so one at least has an alibi for some paranoia that might jump on his brain from time to time.

Mason Bee... did i mention i was susceptible to rage issues due to the lack of pollinating insects

So this is my mason bee sanctuary on the east wall of our house... the bees like morning sun... that is my kitchen window that looks out over my new Man Garden:

  The little box is the cocoons, approximately a dozen, some are big and some are small... the small ones are the males and they will only be around for a short while to fertilize the females of course, and then the females will go about the business of filling the cylindrical tubes with larvae and packing mud in between the larvae and then on the ends of the tube.  That is why they are called mason bees by the way... for their mason skills.

  Pretty sure this one is a male by the size guesstimates of a professional eye-baller, he was the first one out and then did some sunning and then he was off... it worked out well as I have some plums and some blueberries that need a good pollinating.

 

Later in the day I was on the front porch blasting out some S Robertson style banjo for the neighbours to digest and I saw a very similar bee trying to crawl under the cedar shingles... I tried to alter my song and tell the good bee that the sanctuary was at the back of the house, not this decoy east facing pillar that you seem to be so obsessed with... it got to the point where I was about to put the grab on him, but then I remembered the obvious... he is a free spirit, he will do what he needs... he doesn't owe me anything for the 24 bones I spent on this exercise... and most importantly. Don’t put the grab on things that can sting.  Actually male mason bees cannot sting but years of mental bee sting phobia still play hard on the mind.  What the hell you start going around grabbing male mason bees cause you can and then all the sudden you make an identification mistake and put the grab on a killer bee that whiffs out one of them swarm scents and next thing you know you are writhing around in a ditch being stung 400 times per minute while neighbours try to soak you with underpowered garden hoses. No thanks!

I'll try and do a time lapse of a cocoon hatching tomorrow, I guess they will come when they come.

Oddly enough I was in charge of the mason bees last year at our community garden... I got some smart-ass answers from some Vancouver mason bee suppliers. It is quite possible that I missed the deadline, although it appears that the bee cocoons are kept in a refrigerator and then when you bring them out the heat activates the bee... as which is normal for invertebrates that don't regulate their own body heat internally.  Perhaps it was too late in the season, so what I did in that case was just wash and prepare the mason bee nesting plastic, and put it out as an environment for natural mason bees to find and use.  I guess there is no real guarantee that my bees, or the cocoons I bought will use the house I have for them... I believe our location is optimal (morning sun), so we shall see.  The lady at the bee store... it wasn't actually a bee store, but I kind of like that idea... very human... well she was very nice and walked me through the whole process.  You don't actually have to stuff the cocoons into the holes... just create an exit hole in the box by opening one side and let nature take it's course.

For the record I also replanted a bunch of tomato seeds... my neighbour and I collected a bunch of heirloom varieties... Burbank slicing, Silvery Fur tree and Manitoba... why not try again now.  Buying tomatoes from a greenhouse is always an option, but a wise man takes as many paths as possible, when reasonable of course... reasonable being a word that has great flexibility... reminds me I should some yoga rather than streaming hockey games and cursing events.

That's why the bees make it a good day... I have to say I was pretty stoked to see the first bee.  I like bees, I like the bee mantra... ultimate teamwork... do this! Well I don't feel like it... OK everybody, let's waste no time and sting this fucker to death and keep this machine moving.  You never see an old fat bee trying to tell the other bees they need to do this thing to help make the old fat bee fatter and more comfortable... no no no the others would have dropped his youth full carcass off the edge of the hive the moment the said bee bastard started coasting.

Why are bee colonies collapsing?

They say it's debatable, but those who are "they" happen to make a lot of money making things called insecticides.

Insecticides- icide, meaning kill... death, and of course insect, meaning insect.  Hmmm i think we need more research... perhaps it's this climate change thing we have been denying but also saying it occurs naturally i guess to cover the bases...

Meanwhile the idiot Prime Minister of my home country is fishing for investors of other countries to extract more natural resources from the said country... but that's another story... mother of mercy how did we get to the point where we mentioned that stugot?  Oh yea it was the plight of the bees, and so naturally our hate would be directed at corporate lackeys always interested in selling out human and national long term interest to corporate bidders.

Killer Bees are from south America... perhaps we could all prey that a swarm of killer bees will descend and bring some "sting therapy" to this nonsense... we will probably find out that prayers for impossible things don't happen... which is good to know by the way.

That's why you should dig up your lawn and get a proper habitat in there... to provide bee habitat think natural... they like leaves to shelter ground burrows, different plants that will flower at different times... perhaps we should make new shirts "he who has the greenest lawn is the biggest fool"... I doubt you could sell that, but I have been wrong before

The season is in gear!

There have been some successes and many failures… the greatest failure being the greenhouse fiasco... you see I built this greenhouse:

My problem was that I wasn't in a "greenhouse state of mind"...  I am a greenhouse rookie so to say.  What went wrong?  Two words: Blast furnace!  Put it to you this way... since we went with failure before success lets look at the positive in the failure...  So,  say some moron forgets to open up the greenhouse on some suddenly hot day with peak sun and the temperature rises inside... well we now know that beets are the species most likely to survive this insane indiscretion, followed distantly by kohlrabi, and a lone cherry tomato plant.  Clearly ventilation and temperature regulation are key elements of greenhouse mastery... call it a learning failure... making it a good failure!  Once again I will buy big tomato plants from the nursery paying for the head start (or wait until they start blowing them out… most likely). This growing plants inside in suspect conditions with little children bombing around is perhaps a net negative.   Comparing a small tomato seedling and a large tomato plant from a greenhouse you will see that the greenhouse plant has probably more than a thousand times the chlorophyll filled energy producing green matter.  And that is your head start, and it is a race, make no doubt about it. That plant has to get big, flower and produce tomatoes before the fall monsoon comes in.  On a financial issue it is a failure because seeds are much cheaper but at this level it is about the joy of growing your own food. With that logic we are here to get in touch and to be comfortable with growing food... I would even  go so far to say that it would be negligent to deprive our children from growing up and not seeing food grown by the people that sit at the dinner table.  Too busy my ass... that's the thing, the plant does all the work... you just set the parameters.  Gardening is very spiritual on that level.  I haven't yet abandoned the idea of a shelter for the tomato plants...  my reason being to keep the rain off them and discourage the growth of blight.  Did I mention I might have done the same greenhouse “blast furnace” bit on my neighbours plants... the ones I stood in front of and stated my word as a man gardener that “these plants will not die”... I guess I still have a few weeks to work some magic... I'm thinking of an illusion where I replace the heat baked crumpled sprouts with some king hell plants and just eyeball the bastard when he gets back and say... "Yea that's the way I roll, what can I say, I have a green thumb"... or I could admit failure... but I think if he had some real nice plants he would be happy and I, for some short period, could avoid the tagline "absent minded savage maniac".

Blueberries- I have a Patriot and a Duke by the plum tree... I have 3 Chandler (red stalk), another 3 Duke, 3 Early Blue and a Ruble (keeps leaves)...  these notes are for my use.  That is a lot of blueberry bushes for our hero, but you see I got a deal...  At the local Nursery, which is a very good Nursery the Blueberry plants were going for 20 greenbacks.  I located a guy and his brother that sell bigger plants from a farm down near Salem Oregon for 6 dollars so I went down there before a hockey game I had in Sherwood.  Holey mackerel it is a long way, and I almost missed the game cause some jackass in a sports car tried to turn around on a narrow farm road rather than back up a half a kilometer and got stuck... I was figuring I am not coming back here (due to distance issues... excellent plants I might add) so I bought as many plants as I could fit in the car and for a while, a short while, I became the neighbourhood blueberry broker.  Alarming lack of bees of course, which reminds me to get a mason bee colony... a nice buzzing honey hive would really do the trick... we shall see.

Random planting notes starting with planting a blueberry. Notice the soil prep,.. Potato- every eye will produce a plant cut 21 hours before planting to develop a scab to help prevent mold growth... Plant red onion starts in rows with room to grow... imagine large red onions and plant accordingly.  Strawberries... It was recommended I buy "hood" so I did, CT also bought some ever bearing variety and there are some others that were in the garden before... should give us a good variety, even though as you may remember, I swore off growing strawberries given the Vancouver fiasco.  Basically I have strawberries at the base of the fruit garden (plums and blueberries), and in the rocks that support the garden, so I am not really losing space, I am just using space that is not ideal for vegetables:

Garlic- coming along quite nicely... a few suffered collateral damage from the squirrel insanity, and that whole plot has taken on a new level of mind crushing.  I hate to get off topic again, but we really do need a neighbouhood wide cull of the squirrels… but murder is such a harsh word to the local squirrel sympathizers.  It's really my time for a BB gun; I never had one as a kid... too dangerous, so now as a parent I am moved to the line of justifying bringing one into the home.  Oddly enough my father had a BB gun... he just failed to mention to me that he had one... probably saved him having to replace windows at the cottage... and outdoor light bulbs.  My "community together" project that starts with a major coordinated squirrel eradication, has received divided support, so in pulling a page from the great community activists I have welcomed the dissenting voices to the conversation... "Very interesting you feel that way... perhaps we could get a taxidermist to set a squirrel stuffed pelt on you balcony that you could enjoy until the new squirrels move in for the next scheduled slaughter".

Yes the garlic is growing well.

Beets& Spinach- are up and off to the races... bare patches where fucking squirrels, dug fucking peanuts supplied by fucking neighbour

Peas- are up... similar squirrel issues.

Did I mention I planted again?  The greenhouse fiasco lay hard on my heart... what to do, what to do,… and then we came up with (we... me and silent Internet partner) the idea that a Stanley Cup victory salad garden was in order... plant the salad and by the time the Cup has been won the salad will be ready... excellent idea for sure as it has now begat a salad eating frenzy, and how can that be bad?

Being more experienced this time I used the greenhouse material and some chicken wire to create a seed protected zone (A barrier where squirrels cant get at to dig in peanuts).  I sewed the chicken wire together with the PVC piping... we cannot tolerate this nonsense:

Who knows what new failure is around the corner?  We are better off this month than we were last month.

 I guess I should mention... a man took a poke on the index finger from some chicken wire that he had on his garden plot of land.... he did it too himself.

No pain no gain.

The new Man Garden

When it comes to Man Gardening one of the fine tasks is the initial preparation of the garden... the separation of the men from the boys. It's your biggest and most unique opportunity to affect your growing medium... you can go soft, or you can go hard, this is where you set your garden's potential... the culling of undesirable plants, the moving of stone and earth, the engineering one has to do while pacing and rolling their moustache ends around their index finger. Peering out the window, watching the sun, calculating what will happen in July, and then just plain getting in to it. Life is an amazing thing... you think you are seeing something but it's not until you get up close and start doing that you really see what is happening... the essence of gardening!

From the photo above you can see where the garden goes and the most obvious problem is the dubious infection of Ivy. Ivy is one nasty bastard, I believe it is called English Ivy and it is a non-native species that does very well... Ivy’s resilience and lush growth make killing it or removing it a difficult task, but difficult tasks is what man gardening is all about... to shy away from labour is a clear admission of failure... totally unacceptable! That said the roots are everywhere and if you think for a second that you got them all you are a simpleton fool with a small mind that would do well to vote Conservative. But that's not Man Gardening... we observe, take knowledge, process facts, and make decisions with respect to gaining the highest vegetable yield. The sun isn't going to rise and set where you want it to, it's going to do what it always does, Ivy will out compete peas and do nothing for the palate... not to mention supply far less Vitamin A, C and K and of course Folate... so the Ivy has to go, and it's up to the man to deliver the Ivy it's walking papers and he does that by digging the damn roots out! That was actually a rose bush (Oregon being the Wild Rose State) that was overrun by Ivy... so to get the Ivy roots out, lets just say the rose bush took a pretty bad hit. It might seem simple but rose bush roots entangled with Ivy Roots and a sawed down cedar tree root make for a gnarly mound of roots that needed to be removed. My wife saw what was left of the rose bush, and immediately identified me as a "savage plant murderer" oozing hate in my general direction, but I was busy sacrificing other species for the greater good to pay it much attention.

On this weekend I filled my own and 2 of my neighbours green bins full of ivy, lemongrass and their roots. Also seen here is a fence part blown into my yard by some natural hurricane that happened that week. Also there was the rock wall that needed to be taken down so that the garden area could be expanded to maximize crop yield... there was a delicate balance between leaving some yard for the children to play in, and some yard for them to learn how to grow food in.

I got 4 yards of triple mix soil, if I could do it again I would have gotten 6 or 7... for some reason I pulled back thinking that, yes I am a natural maniac who has historically overdone everything, and the "new me" will be different... I let it go. I will get more fresh soil next year... I will have a better idea of what happens after next year. Not to mention this fact: I went to a Yoga class last week and while everybody was in their postures breathing deeply, and I was cramped over trying to suck breaths into my fat collapsed diaphragm, the teacher said something prophetic... she said "when you are in your practice, don't be there criticizing what's wrong with your form, if you practice that, that is what you will become good at... criticizing yourself". I kind of have the market cornered on that one, so lets turn the page.
This is 4 yards of soil:

Soil going into the garden... with 2 photobombers Hailie and Emily:

And then Peter, my good neighbour got in on the action... a swell man who said "my doctor said I should get some exercise but the gym costs a lot of money so helping you actually saves me". With a beard like that you might even get a plaque in the "man garden".

After the soil got moved to the garden area I needed some help "stomping down the soil", so like my father before me I put my kids to work... actually my Father put his son to work while his daughter claimed to be too busy with various excuses... I have 3 daughters… equal treatment for all: I puzzled and waffled for a week before I put the rock wall back up... Should I make a staircase up to the garden? But that would create a pathway for the children to lead them for some "stomping... And as I was tinting my fingers thinking about what I was going to do a squirrel came along and buried a peanut in my garden, and then another, and then a rat went by with a peanut. Upon further investigation it appears my neighbour has squirrels living under her roof area of her porch and her answer to that is to feed them peanuts! Perhaps I mentioned that. Yes I did. OK so this is the garden with the soil minus the rock wall:


It takes a while before you accept somebody as a "squirrel enabler", a rodent sympathizer, but in the end all you can do is build your garden and defend it.

The hack is back!

Sorry I disappeared there last fall, I could safely say that I had more chaos going on last fall than most, but as we know when you start making excuses that's when you really deserve a savage beating! So none of that, my life is good, I have garden, will grow vegetables and other brew related vines.

Truth be told I think one of the real reasons I checked out was that I was suffering from a condition known as Incompetent-city-worker-rageitus. Meaning when I thought of the garden all I could see was the paid boneheads that were savaging the plants, and then there was the crazy lady with her "compost" and wild animal feeding piles... move away Robertson, move away.

What did I do to end the season on a positive note? I brought in all the damn tomatoes when they were green (before they could be blight ridden) and we ate tomatoes into December... they were good. I got some broccoli feeds and then I planted a massive pile of Bold Point Road Garlic because the people taking over the garden for me in my absence are having a baby this year and are newbie’s with respect to gardening, so I figure a good garlic crop is an easy tend and a fine crop to have. Still some room for them to do some magic... I'll probably be back a few times this season for some workhorse sessions.

Did I mention I moved to Portland Oregon? Have no fear, our hero is in for a good season, and in the next blog we will go through the preparation of the new Man Garden and outline some of the threats that our gardening space will be under. Like the squirrel population that lives in my neighbours roof, and apparently the method of dealing with that is to feed them peanuts (totally serious). Which means they are not afraid of humans, which means one can easily race out of the house and slash them with a Easton hockey stick... although you can't do that anymore, they are wise to that one after I wrist shot a squirrel high over back into the neighbours yard. Did I mention the rats like peanuts too... did I mention the possum?

Squirrels and rats are rodents, Possums are the only North American marsupials, and they are actually more correctly called Opossum. Possum is a word I can more easily declare war on... apparently they eat anything, as will rats and squirrels and I guess the word is out in the local rodent population that free peanuts are for the having next door.

Honestly I kind of prefer rodents and marsupials as my archenemy over city workers. In essence my tax dollars were paying the city workers to savage my plants, and I had to witness their stupid movements, and listen to their inane excuses and then call lines with automated voices telling me to press digits and stay on the line to file complaints that really never got anywhere. If I were to say... trap a city worker and then drown that said worker, there might be a bit of an outcry. I guess "drown" is a strong word, lets use the word re-locate. The union wouldn't allow the re-location of the city worker because that system is flawed in that manor, and who's to say the next mouth breathing hammerhead on the job cares any more. When a rodent is re-located (to the bottom of the Columbia river), it's not going to get the massive public outcry, and a police investigation. Provided my wife, my kids, and the naughty neighbour aren't a witness to the re-location, everybody will sleep well... well one of us might be chuckling a bit when he should be sleeping, but everything has its price.

Did I mention getting guns in Oregon is about as easy as getting popcorn in a movie theater... not sure about the silencer. My crazy wife is a real stickler when it comes to firearms… one of those liberal loons who believe in the “no gun under any circumstance” philosophy. Truth be told it would be a lot of work to hide a gun and snipe rodents from my daughters bedroom window without being noticed. Basically I'd have to buy a T.V. and put my kids in front of it and then slaughter and hide the carcasses, but in no way do I think it is acceptable to put a child in front of a T.V.

So I guess it comes down to some man made contraptions... man vs. rodent and marsupial... should be fun.

The Plot thickens...

Get it. The Plot of land... fills out.

Facts are facts... I need to lose the "Oh i have been emotionally diminished by unfair forces beyond my control and now i Just Don't Care anymore" Chump Robertson tripe and focus on the positive again. What do you have? And how can you make it better? I have some fucking carrots to get across the finish line... pluck them big ass broccoli leaves that are shading them. Get those damn tomatoes staked up and prune prune prune the blight away.

Other good news is that the beans are flowering and kicking into to another round of production. I'll give myself credit for savage watering that has sent the signals of bounty conditions to the plant's DNA to yes, kick into high gear after that period of inadequate care while i was away. You can always tell a human but you can't tell them anything.

A few days ago i was down on the garden... just not a good year... it was because i had it in my head how things were going to go down and when things went sideways i went over the handle bars and had a swearing fit... good times for sure.

We have Beans, Broccoli and a good tomato crop... there is some wild chard and some beets that look like they should be in a textbook with the heading "Examples of severe drought" And a paragraph about planting seeds at the wrong time... which perhaps might even make a finer point about if you are to plant at the wrong time then make sure you have full surveillance so that you can water regularly and even shade from scalding sun during extreme periods. Instead I plant and go on holiday leaving a human in charge... actually i left 4 of them in charge. A human needs to be inspired to do what needs to be done and i believe in most cases the word "inspired" has been modified to some consumer or pop culture timbit so that the idea of growing food properly is this weird fantasy that is like super cool but you don't really have the time to do it... and then you just shake your head and go into a dream sequence where you imagine the level of co-ordination required if we actually had to do that. i always go back to the Hive... the Bee hive... a model of efficiency... tasks are expected and any stepping out of line means automatic execution. We don't have time to hear you explain why you think you might be right... cause hell if you did it would be January and the hive would be out of honey and the colony would be freezing their ass off probably listening to the jackass bee who in August held up the hive with his fucking whiny ass tale about why he couldn't do 45 pollen runs in a day as expected in the Bee contract union handbook, and now when we are all dying of starvation we have to hear him complaining about his relationship with the Queen bee.

That would be silly... because of course the Queen Bee would be an honest leader and not sitting on a million tons of honey while the workers starved...

OK.

So as i was saying... you have too look at your garden, recognize what you have and bring it home.

Cultivate- to promote or improve the growth of (a plant, crop, etc.) by labor and attention.

Sometimes people think of cultivation as just working the soil... and it does mean that too. But seriously, now is the time for hard decisions... you have to decide what needs to be cut back so that room for others to thrive can be created. Is that Zucchini getting white mould and is it going to produce anymore? Perhaps it just needs to go as it is now a source of disease and is shading other crops. One has to start making calls... what has the best chance right now, and how do i make it's chances better.

Reminder... Build a serious shelter for those tomatoes. it's time to man up a make shift greenhouse... guide what you have home.

Of course I caught the old non English speaking Vietnamese lady ( a friend of the lady that has the plot next to mine) watering my Tomatoes at dusk again... I was trying to tell her to back the fuck off but from her actions i believe she understood that i was telling her to water the tomatoes more to yes, splash the blight around... i think i might have gotten through after a while, but i took a soaked foot in doing it. I need to calm down, I will go to Yoga and clear my mind. Have you ever heard of restorative Yoga? i hadn't either... I'm a kind of sun salutations guy, but in restorative Yoga you just go into gentle rest poses and try to relax... definitely not Man Yoga... and even worse if you happened to be stiff as a board due to anger related issues, alcoholism and general neglect then doing a slight twist leaning on a pillow isn't as relaxing as the sales pitch might make it seem... in fact i could only gulp small breaths while the rest of the class took long breaths counting to five on the inhale and five on the exhale... i could feet the tendon attached to the base of my skull going into spasm but i tried to man it up and breath through it... apparently you are suppose to relax and feel cleansing thoughts. I had an idea... i dig up that old coot's garden, grab the cement out of my garage and turn her garden into a concrete slab perhaps writing the words "water this you simple son of a ..."

I wouldn't do that of course... she means well. The Kook that lives in the apartment behind is another story and a booby trap is coming her way... she leaves a tray of rotting food by my garden every day. I think she might be feeding an imaginary monster as well as some very real rodents.

Apparently you can plant lettuce, spinach, radish's and various greens in September in the Pacific Northwest... I should plant some Radishes this week in the small space i have left... in fact since i have been back i seem to have cultivated the garden back to being a producing machine... need to leave room for garlic of course.

Keep your eye on the whole picture, see the garden thought the plants, and the plants through the garden. You are always at a fork in the road and whichever way you go do it completely, no regrets, never retreat, never apologize. Nature doesn't have emotions... the one who can take advantage of the conditions does the best.

Opps sorry starting to talk in terms of evolution... so to be a fair blog i guess we should present a creationist view of gardening... You don't need to plant anything, God will do it for you, in the meantime you should go to your toilet and put your head in the nice cool water in the bowl and give it a flush. Once you have given yourself a baptism swirly god will know to rain vegetables on you and all your problems will be solved so long as you always vote within you religious doctrine sticking to asinine beliefs and your bubble will be protected.

Various thoughts...

I went to the garden the other day and a couple of aggressive hammerheads ( 2 separate folk) watered my garden for me at dusk... they soaked the shit out of the green leaf matter of my Tomatoes. I appreciate the effort in thinking of helping me by watering my garden, but i also find it frusterating that people always forget the golden rule when watering tomatos in a blight festering climate. You have to keep the damn leaves dry especially at night or the blight will be nurtutred. Clearly this is where a greenhouse comes in in spades (keeps rain off plants), but in absence of a greenhouse don't water your tomatoes after 4PM or if you do soak the ground only.
Seems like a simple thing to remember but remember when you are dealing with humans then you will have problems... I just happen to hate making the same mistake over and over again.

Ok- speaking of mistakes i hauled in the second lot of garlic tonight and I'll be a fatso in a fasting commune if i didn't leave it in the ground too long... Why didn't i pull it all weeks ago when i did the garlic harvest? Because i wanted to learn that if you leave it too late it starts to rot and regenerate in the ground. If i do that next year kill me. Mind you it was the great Bold Point Farm garlic stock and i think i want to replant all of it to get a real good haul next year, so i think it should still be good to replant. I was warned by a fine farming neighbour that it was garlic harvesting time, and i left it too late.. perhaps i have poor drainage in the area, could be one thing, because it was in September that the Garlic was harvested in Bold Point... although it would be reasonable to assume that the Quadra Island season is a few weeks behind the Vancouver season.

Apparently the report is for a cold fall, but seeing that the report was for a hot summer, i like my chances... Chances for fall harvest that is. One thing that turned out to be gangbusters was my Hops plantation... put my hops by a 4 year old compost and let it climb to full sun all day and got one hell of a harvest... the amazing thing here is this is the plant i dug out of a back alley last year and i went back to visit the mother plant and it is way behind. Conditions are really everything. Like berries some are early and others late, depending on the conditions. Clearly a plant with ample nutrients and ample sunlight can do what it needs to do in a shorter period of time... of course reproduction is the name of the game in life... only in humans is the personal "life" more important... and hey it's pretty good... I'm digging it.



I'm making beer with my life and swilling it and then typing shit on a keyboard and perhaps somebody might read it and learn something, or think something that they might otherwise not have. It's hard to say, and in the end it's all just memories.