Productive Weekend

We had a fairly productive weekend.

Hubby stacked a bunch of  wood that has been sitting in two large piles with assorted cherry and poplar and elm sitting in small piles around the two large piles.  He's wheel barrowing the cut firewood into the shed and stacking it.

Looks like we used about 1 1/2 cords of wood over the winter.  It was a pretty mild winter.  This is our second year of having a wood stove for the winter.

In fact, I am running the wood stove again this morning but only for a couple of hours.  It wasn't super cold in here - 68 degrees.  At first I was going to tough it out because the house was definitely chilly but, hey, 68 degrees inside, 48 degrees outside, high of 60 or even 64 degrees later today, how bad can it be?

I certainly would have toughed it out when I was running the propane for heat.  I realized that I don't have to be tough.  Wood is inexpensive.  By taking the chill off the house, I live comfortably.  Is that such a bad thing?

I am running the water in the East Zone already this morning.  We really do have to keep up on the watering around here.  I need to go out an fix one or two leaks in the system.  I usually get at least a little bit wet.  Coming in to a warm house will be nice!!!

Over the weekend, Hubby also re-rototilled the area I want to put the peas in and the area that I am putting the strawberries in.  I should have moved the strawberries last fall but I ran out of time or oomph or both:)  So, moving them now will be my next best option.

Of course, there is a whole list of projects to get done but I think I will just try to prioritize and do the best I can.

The iris are coming up and some of the daylilies are, as well.  We have our first daffodil blooming.  The forsythia is blooming.  They are still quite small.  Maybe next year they will be big enough to really put on a show.

Garden Notes

Overnight low of 26 degrees.

Yesterday's high was 68 degrees.

Today is a permissable burn day so I think I will work on that.

High noon and I got a lot done this morning. I cleaned the goat water trough and got them some sparkling new water.  I watered the North Zone.  I burned 4 piles of brush.  I got the asparagus in the ground along with some more compost.  I got some more of the compost fluffed up and turned over.  I got a bit of water on the compost pile.  I turned off all the water in the back and turned on the water for the front garden area.

The weather is nice with just the occasional puff of 10 MPH wind.  Break time and then I'll see what else I can get done.

Front and back zones watered.

Emitters replaced in West side or Street zone.  The old bobblers were wearing out and/or I put quite a few one gallon per hour drippers on that zone and that was a mistake since the last elm tree, way at the end wasn't getting any of the water.  The water just wasn't making it all the way to the end.  I already tightened up this zone a bit but it needed more work.

So, I tightened up the back half of the zone.  I took off a couple of more emitters off that weren't watering anything [the plant either died or got moved].  Five or six sagebrush were getting two half gallon emitters and they would be happy with one half gallon emitter so I changed those up.  When a bobbler [emitter] gets worn out the water streams out instead of dripping out and that lowers the water pressure on the line so I checked for that situation and replaced those that were a problem.  I replaced almost all of the one gallon per hour emitters.  I ran out of new half gallon emitters towards the end of the line.  I need to order some more.

I cut some more of the flat tubing.  I have 25 lines cut now and I need about 30.  Looking at the roll, I think we will have enough flat tubing for this year.  I am reusing the flat tubing from the old garden set up, as well.

Did dishes.  Cooked dinner.  Yeah, that should be the other way around but I didn't do dishes earlier today so I had to do dishes and then cook dinner which means now I have to go do more dishes:)

Garden Notes

Nineteen degrees!  Geez, that is cold.  Any hope I had of the cherry tree flowers surviving to make pie cherries is gone.  This is the third really cold night in a row and is the coldest yet!  At least it isn't supposed to be windy today.

The house was a bit chilly at 66 degrees.  Of course, with the wood stove we have higher standards for warmth than we did when we were running the propane furnace.  Hubby got a fire started about 5:30 am and I got up and kept it stoked.  Now it is a toasty 75 degrees in here.  I love that wood stove.

The good news is that I haven't planted any cold weather crops yet.  I felt kind of bad for not having the garden tubing set up and running for the peas and potatoes but now I don't feel badly about that.  A late start is just what I needed.

Yesterday morning I got 15 or 20 flat tubes cut to 40 feet for the veggie garden before I had to leave.  I want to make sure we don't have to order some more since I have to get an order for bobblers in by April 30th.  They are having a 10 % off sale and I need a bunch of them so that is a great sale to take advantage of.

I still need to keep working on the veggie garden area.  I have a few more roots to pull out and some grasses that need to come out as well.  We also need to spread out the compost and rototill the  garden area. The most important goal I have is bringing my little horse home.  Preferably next week.  We shall see.

Re-configuring the Veggie Garden Headers and Then Some

I got the old header line out of the garden.  It is right where the south row of the new  silver buffalo berries is.  You can't see the hedge very well.  It's still young.  The new 3/4 inch line will run directly from the faucet just outside the green man gate, up the west side of the veggie garden to the center pathway.  Of course it all has to be configured with a filter, pressure regulator and two timers, one for the south side of the veggie garden and one for the north side of the veggie garden.  I have to order some supplies from Dripworks.

I dragged some long, long pieces of 3/4 inch tubing that I wasn't using from the back acreage and placed them on the left or west side of the garden.  They run about 60 or 70 feet to the center of the garden.  Twelve feet to the left of the white pipe is the new silver buffalo berry hedge that will protect the garden from the wind on the west side.  The brown rows on the left are strawberries.  They are moving although I am not positive where I am moving them to.  I have a couple of ideas.

I placed the tubing and found out I have enough used tubing to complete two 90 foot lines up the center of the garden.  One for the north side and one for the south side.  You can see my mountain of compost just inside the line for the north veggie garden section.   The new garden configuration is really nice.  There is plenty of room around the edges and up the center to maneuver a wagon, wheelbarrow or an ATV.   The center driveway is 16 feet wide.  The old Chevy truck will be able to drive in with loads of manure.  Exciting stuff.

The final garden size are two sections of about 90 feet by a little over 40 feet.  That means our rows will be 40 feet long.  Why not 50 feet?  I don't know.  This is just the way it worked out.  I think we were thinking that the flat tube would water more evenly at a shorter distance.

Flat tube will be next.  I found some that was left over from when we originally did the garden five years ago. We will definitely be seeing how far that goes before we buy more.  That stuff is expensive!  

I spent a lot of time today measuring and staking out this final garden configuration.  Then, I cleaned up the dog poop from a winter of pooping.  Yeah, if I lived in Seattle I wouldn't have this problem.  It would all melt away in the rain.  The dogs have five acres to poop on but they really like pooping on the strawberries.  As usual, I took the fencing down months ago and we just got the new fencing up a few days ago.  That always happens to me.  Hubby has a job to work and he also has to do the car repairs.  Throw in some overtime and yard stuff can get put off for quite awhile.  Fortunately, he really has tried hard to get his part done.  Fencing is one thing I just cannot accomplish. 

I took another stab at turning the compost pile and watered it some more. I moved one wagon load of compost from beyond the far side of the goat pen to the main pile. Then I watered the strawberries.   Back to forking some more compost. I cleaned out the goat shed but just left the straw in the pen.  I got them a nice thick bed of new straw. 

I picked up the hoses and such that have been laying around in the garden and brought a couple of slings of wood into the house.  Fed the dogs and cat and goats.  The goats ate their hay so fast, I threw them  a little extra.

I promised myself I wouldn't over do it today and I finally quit working for the day.  I did get a lot done but, it is spring and there is plenty more to do.  At least the veggie garden is starting to come together.  I can start planting peas on St. Patrick's Day according to local gardening lore.  That won't happen but maybe by next week I will be ready.

Really chilly today although over night temps have been well above freezing for several nights in a row the temperature just didn't go up much today.  Fortunately, I have a nice toasty fire going in the woodstove. 

It is snowing pretty good out here.  Maybe I better check the highway reports so that when Hubby calls I can let him know what is going on.  He should be off work in about 20 minutes.