mondays mountain musings

Brrr, the nights are still so cool round these parts. Absolutely gorgeous days in the low 70s but nights still routinely below 40. I  must keep reminding my self that it is only the 12th of April, I guess because of the nice weather I  keep thinking it should be warmer nights. Then again when the warmer nights do get here I will most assuredly complain about that as well. I am a farmer, always have been n always will be so will always complain about the weather, its like a second job.

I have now kicked all  plants but the tobacco babies  and the indoor tomato out to the balcony to live  a while. If I can figure out how to get big momma mater out there she will also be set out there. This way if it gets too cold at night  I can slide them all back inside  without too much hassle.  Speaking of big momma mater, I will take cuttings from her this week and begin rooting them for transplant to the gardens.

On my garden walk about yesterday I noticed that  all but one plant of my taters are now up. Even my   experimental tiny  pieces that I cut from good potatoes are up and  honestly I am quite amazed. Those tiny pieces were shriveled down to all but nothing by the time I actually got them in the ground.It will be interesting to see how well they grow and produce. If this works, I will never  do potatoes like we have been taught to again as it is a giant waste of money on many levels. My taters I planted way back when  in the GH are also up now. I thought my little vole/ mouse had stolen them and presumed they were dead but I noticed them the other day while harvesting collards and they are about 4 inches tall.

The onions n peas are really starting to look pretty  in their growing beds or at least I think they are. I absolutely love seeing plants come alive and change my scenery  on a daily basis. Each day I walk out there something is a bit different and the more it greens up and starts producing the more I enjoy it.  We built the peas  a little tower to  climb on yesterday.  They are not a climbing variety and only grow to about 34 inches but I would like to keep them off the ground if I can as it makes my life much easier  for picking veg later on.. Trying to reach down into a bed that is on a hill can be dangerous work especially when you are like me n wobbly already. One good roll and I would be a 1/4 mile away.

The gutter garden is  sprouting nicely and so long as I  give it one  coffee  canister of water daily it stays moist enough to do well. I would really like to find a few more lengths  of gutter and make a wall of them  on the chicken run. Not only would it look  pretty  but it would block some of the summer sun from the chicken run  and I think the chooks would like it too, I know if I lived in there I would appreciate it.

                                               I found this  volunteer squash   too!

All of the over wintered plantings have now bolted.  When I notice them starting to  bolt, I generally take one more good harvest from the plant, remove as much greenery as I can  and allow the plant to concentrate on  making  seed. I do not know if it helps in any way but it doesn't seem to harm and I can usually get a meal or two out of the picking and critters get nice treats. I also top all  of my onions while they grow, leaving only about 4 inches of green above ground.   I generally cut them down two  or three times and then let them grow out until harvest time.  Again I do not know if it helps the onion to produce larger bulbs or not but I get a whole lot of green onions to dehydrate and use for the remainder of the year and still get my large onions.

We opened the living room area back up yesterday. I am thinking I will leave the shack arranged as is for now and use the LR as a project, craft, drying , seed saving, storage room and maybe make a window garden in the glass door area. We do not need the space in there to live in and it does make a handy "go to" room for all things homesteading.  Today however is being spent cleaning my winter messes up in there and organizing it. It should take me near all day, yuck!

A photo I enjoyed capturing yesterday. I think I followed this feller around for a good half hour before he landed where I could get a decent picture and for a  long enough time that I could fumble with the camera and snap this.