Tag: Homesteading

Voles And Cold Nights In The Garden
Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

Voles And Cold Nights In The Garden

Sarah

This summer has been so frustrating.

My arm injury occurred at the worst time for summer growth, at the height of the growing season.

But that led to other issues that affected our growth in the gardens. I couldn’t weed for five weeks—I am now only starting to weed, and what a mess it is in the gardens. Then, it led to an invasion of voles invading two of our growing areas; as I pull back the weeds, I can see the telltale signs of the rodent tunnels they run through under the coverage of lush green growth (weeds included). I also catch the blur of small gray rodents zipping out as I make their life miserable. Now, as I am starting to weed, I am bringing the rat dog down with me. She may only catch one or two, but they can smell her and don’t like her. Yesterday, I watched a rabbit light out into the woods. It needed a reminder that my homestead isn’t an all-you-can-eat buffet.

The first sign was I suddenly had a couple Artichoke plants fall over. When I went in to figure out was going on, I could see a hole by each plant, where there had been digging, and tunnels shooting off.

Then I started seeing issues in the tomato bed. Plants were suddenly looking dead or dying. They had been gnawed off in half.

The root balls were highly damaged, all with holes in them.

But I have to say, I had a good run these years growing in the garden. Guess it was my turn to have a crappy year. The irony is that I fantasized about turning this in-ground bed into a beautiful raised bed area over winter. Maybe that might be a good idea in the end. Put down hardware cloth, the farm fabric, and the raised beds. Make it primarily rodent-proof.

The youngest and I worked in the evening to find and remove which tomatoes had been killed. This has made grabbing and pulling the weeds easier, opening up the plants. I think we have lost around 14 plants at this point.  It’s not a good number, but it’s still doable. We still have enough plants left.

Then Alistaire saw something in the tomatoes.

It was a Barred Owl feather.

One of our three owls is here looking for a tasty dinner. Thanks, buddy. I’m glad to know they have our back. They had been grooming themselves on top of the strawberry cage, like how they sit on tree snags in the open forest. Most nights, you can listen to the owls talking back and forth.

But the real issue affecting our gardens here in the coastal Salish Sea is that it is a cold night summer. Over and over. It hasn’t gotten over 59° at night.

And that is something I cannot do anything about. Daytime cold is different, I suppose. By 7 p.m., the daytime temperatures drop; by 9 p.m., they are in the low 60s and drop very quickly into the 50s.

It came to me the other evening as I sat outside and noticed how quickly it chilled. I went back and looked at the weather cycle, and there it was.

Normally, we have weeks at least in the 60s at night. Even during the week we had a “heat wave” in the upper 80s, it still cooled at night in the 50s. Most summers, we have those evenings where it never gets cool at night in July.

And that explains so much about our gardening struggles this year. With the colder temperatures at night, plants just don’t grow as robust.

Knowing the reason, though? That makes it OK. I can then deal with my disappointment for this summer and know it isn’t my fault. I cannot control the temperature. But I can work on controlling the rodents and their destruction.

~Sarah

The Patio Restoration Part 2
Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

The Patio Restoration Part 2

Sarah

In July, I wrote about the Crevice Brush tool I had picked up on Amazon and how we used it to restore the lower patio by our house.

As it has stretched into August, I have had the boys out most mornings working on the other patio areas. Work for an hour or two as the sun rises, before it gets hot. And slowly all the patio parts started looking so much better.

The tool we bought came with two brush heads, and yes, we wore the first down! It did such an amazing job however.

We were starting the upper patio here. It had gotten pretty ugly the past 6.5 years. The moss and weeds we had mostly removed by here.

I removed the chairs that sat here, and instead brought up a long line of potted plants to enjoy. Alpine strawberries, parsley, and 4 basil plants. They get full sun after 11 am.

I moved the chairs over and parked more plants around them. Lavender on the ground, Thyme and Valerian starts on the table.

We kept at it. We brought down the loveseat couch, mini table, and the big table. Moved the Solo Stove to its new home.

The upper patio has a lower patio as well, with two separate sets of stairs. I had the boys work on this side first, so I could put the grills all down on it.

I brought up all the strawberry pots from down on the homestead garden, and put them around the couch.

I had two new blueberry bushes this spring, that were in pots. I had them hauled up, and they sit where they Traeger grill used to be .

It encouraged me to bring up all the pretty pots of flowers that I didn’t get to enjoy in the gardens below.

The hardest part has been the lower patio strip. It’s often shaded, so the moss is very thick. Add in that everything swept off the upper patio has gone to die there for six or more years, and there are many weeds growing up.

The second stairs going down to it.

We kept moving the big grill, so we could cleanthe paverst. Slowly, we got it done.

This morning.

We now have a fire pit area and the ability to cook easily out there. Now the big grill isn’t under the trees, for safety. It needs a new cover, but fall is still awhile away.

The raised bed that circles around the patio still needs work. When we moved in in 2018, I ripped everything out (it had been horribly overgrown) and planted herbs in it. It’s out of control once again. We spent the weekend starting to pull plants out and cutting back all the invasive weeds (so many types of thorny blackberry canes, choking everything out). Still a lot more to do in it, but I am grooming and pruning it.

But at this point I am just so happy. We took a horrible mess and made it usable – and pretty – once again. Now we can use our patios and not feel bad about how they look.

Up next? A new kitchen garden to build this fall, along with deer fencing to keep them out of the lower patio area.

~Sarah

Garlic Harvest 2024
Gardening · Homesteading

Garlic Harvest 2024

Sarah

Today, I am 5 weeks out from my arm injury, and I was feeling down a bit. I have watched my gardens barely treading water. We have kept them alive by watering them, but I can’t weed them or do any maintenance work. It is frustrating. Especially when I have had to watch rabbits destroy some of my crops and not be able to fix the fencing with only one functioning arm. I need to put down chicken wire 18″ up and 18″ out. But that won’t be this year. I can do it this coming winter when everything has died back. Maybe the other frustration is that I discovered field rat tunnels along the orchard bed, and they got in and dug up multiple artichoke plants from seeds I had grown. It’s crushing to watch it happen. So it’s not my year. I can accept that.

Add in our very cold and wet spring and early summer. It’s enough to make you want to quit farming and move into a condo.

But last week, I had a victory in all the mess. And it renewed my love of growing. It let me get past my sadness and anger over this summer.

We started pulling the garlic beds. It was time. With our youngest son’s help, we pulled it before a minor heat wave appeared.

It’s a nice color and size. There were no worm or insect issues, and the majority of the bulbs popped out without stem breakage.

Thank you, nature. I needed that boost. For a moment, I felt that things were OK out there. I had many bulbs of garlic come out this big.

I just felt….that at lest I was getting one good harvest this year!

Alistaire was a huge help. He hauled the harvest to where we decided to cure it, cleaned it up, and laid it out to dry. We will go up next week to trim it and pretty it up.

I have a bunch of bulbs in the house and have been cooking with them. It’s a mild but intensely flavored garlic. I have grown this variety that another gardening friend sold me five years ago. It’s one for Whidbey Island growing and does well in our microclimate.

We will go through the harvest and pick the best way to keep back for this fall’s planting. November will be here before I know it.

~Sarah

Tools For The Homestead: Crevice Weeding Brush
Gardening · Homesteading · Urban Homesteading

Tools For The Homestead: Crevice Weeding Brush

Sarah

With my arm healing, I have had far more time to wander online. This has led me to look at many “tools you need!” for your garden articles. This isn’t bad because finding the crevice weeding brush was a winner for an ugly problem with no easy solution I could think of. The kit was less than $27, shipped one day for me, and came with the pole and two brushes. There are no instructions, but putting together and getting outside is straightforward. My thought was…$27 was a low enough price if it didn’t work.

When we bought the property 6.5 years ago, it came with two patio areas that are paver stones. Being by the house, it was easy to ignore it while we worked for years on conquering the outlying areas, building gardens, and such. One of the biggest issues is that it faces the West and is baked by the sun from noon to 8 pm in summer. Sitting outside is too hot and bright, so the patios have been wasted on us. And I let it go. Weeds love to pop up in the cracks around the pavers, and they fill up with moss. It has progressed gradually and has become worse each year. I tried to power wash it last summer, but it didn’t do much. Mostly, I’d bend over and hand-pick weeds as I saw them, but they’d come back quickly enough. And let’s face it, planting a garden is more fun than hand-picking dry weeds and trying to curl back dead moss strips.

Since I was injured this summer and unable to work in the garden area of our land (I rely on the boys to keep it alive until fall), I have had a lot more time to sit and look outside at the awful state of the patios.

It had gotten so bad that we had lost rows of pavers to the weeds growing over them. The youngest helped find the corner on the lower patio, which the lowest level of the house opens out onto. With summer in full swing, the weeds are dying back, making this the best time of the year to do the work.

The weeds have grown up to the stairs and the pathway that heads downhill. The pathway might be the worst, as it is half as wide as it should be. This is my fault for ignoring it. We could barely see the walkway.

The moss is dormant right now, and crispy, which power washing doesn’t remove, but….

The crevice brush is fantastic. It works. I can’t do it with one hand, but it’s quick work for the boys, taking turns—just a few strokes and the dirt, moss, and dead grass pop right out.

The first nine rows are mostly done. Some of the bigger weed masses will have to be removed by hand, by pulling, but the brush will remove the very shallow roots that is most common.

The brush in action.

We used a leaf blower to blow the debris off. After doing a row, we would give it a good blow.

It only took about 3 hours to do it all (and that was a slow 3 hours, with a lot of putzing). If I had been doing it, I probably would have taken 1 to 1.5 hours.

Kirk battled the walkway with the weed eater to get the overgrowth under control. Then they got to it with the brush. It’s not 100% done, but it looked amazing compared to before.

The lower patio and walkway are nearly done. Such a huge difference. The steps are being demossed, so they won’t be slippery this coming winter. We still need to remove the mass at the base of the stairs, a flat shovel works wonders in getting it up, then we will use the brush.

The upper patio has been started. Thankfully it was not as bad as the top, and only truly bad in a few spots.

Money is well spent on this tool! I feel like I got our patio back and it just looks so much nicer now.

Soon we will power wash it for the season, but I don’t feel any rush now.

~Sarah

The Chickens Want To Take You Down
Homesteading

The Chickens Want To Take You Down

Sarah

I do love my chickens. In case anyone takes this wrong. The first group came here in 2020, and they have been part of my life ever since. Overall, they live a good life, doing what North American Dirt Parrots love to do: free-range and wander around all day.

Then predator season begins, which occurs in late Spring. Every coyote, raccoon, Bald Eagle, and Hawk shows up, all wanting chicken for dinner.

We usually lose a couple of hens (and this year, we lost a rooster), and then it is time to lose free-ranging privileges for the foreseeable future. The chickens were returned to their run.

The problem is, they had left a LOT of holes in the garden area. Normally I can see them, but we had a cool and wet Spring. The grass just kept growing. I meant to get out there, and find them, and fill them. And to mow. But anyone with a homestead knows…you have only so many hours in the day, and so many hours to wrangle children to help.

It is Day 19 out.

I was nearly done with my chores, trying to get everything done before the heat got bad, but we also had people coming over. I was heading up the slope, dragging a charged natural rubber hose. With the hose over my right arm, I walked awkwardly and turned slightly right. The hose is heavy and doesn’t slide easily.

And this is what my right foot went into. It was deep and hidden in the grass (mowed there). With my awkward tugging, I never had a chance to balance myself. I went down in a blink.

I am grateful my youngest was with me. I went from normal to about a 9 in pain instantly. I had fallen hard on my left arm. I knew something wasn’t right, I couldn’t move my arm or control it.

Alistaire went running for Kirk. By then I somehow had gotten up (always do squat day, ok? That is the only reason I was able to get up!) and got to a chair a few feet away.

What entailed was a very painful 17-mile drive to the hospital, where I could feel that things were not connected. I am grateful I was not home alone. Nor working alone.

Then, being a rural hospital, I sat for THREE HOURS in the waiting room until I got taken for x-rays. They finally got me into a room. And I got a line in, finally getting pain meds.

All free floating.

Good times.

It was bad enough they had to put me under to reset it. I have no memory of that, but I was “talking” while they did it. I am sure I was screaming and cussing, though the respiratory nurse, of course, denied I was cussing; I know myself, though.

Seven hours in, I was released in a splint and sling.

While I did chip a bone, I didn’t fracture anything. Instead, I had a bad dislocation.

Around ten days in, I saw an orthopedic doctor and had more X-rays done. He was happy with its healing, and I was told to quit using the sling. I had already removed the splint 2 days before, as it was digging into my arm so painfully.

The swelling was starting to come down, but the colors were just starting.

As the yellow started.

I was fortunate in some ways. I didn’t break or fracture my wrist falling.

The yellow and green stage.

The evening of Day 18. The only yellow and green is up on my wrist, with the deepest bruising still visible.

My arm swelling has gone down quite a bit, though now, without that “padding,” I can feel the deep internal bruising. It is like a hard-boiled egg under my skin.

I keep using my arm and fingers as much as I can. The back of my hand can be painful (a lot of the blood from the bruising went that way), but I keep at it. I can type with both hands again. I am so used to typing by feel. I can cook and clean, and I could finally start showering without help.

It’s frustrating when one is independent and needs everyone’s help to do simple tasks. I didn’t like the first week when I needed pain meds just to be able to sleep. Opiates clouded my mind, and I weaned myself off as soon as I could. I still take ibuprofen when it gets really bad, but I am trying to take under two doses a day.

I can’t water the gardens (the boys have stepped up); they care for the chickens. I am not quite ready to drive again. While I can wave back and forth and pick up light items, I can only drop my arm about 60-65% down. I want to be farther out before I drive again, and I also want my wrist and hand to be fully flexible again.

My oldest son went out with me during week one, and we found all the holes with a trekking pole (poking while walking, then marking the holes), then he filled them in. This fall, once the rain returns, Kirk is going to use a land plane to reshape the land down there and remove any swales and gullies that, yay, the chickens created in their quest to have a million dust baths.

It’s wrecked a lot of my summer plans, for sure. No unlimited hiking. No work on the gardens. It’s just keeping them alive. I was about to start a permaculture project, making spirals to grow herbs and strawberries that will wait till fall or winter. However, it’s given me the time to putter close to the house, tidy up the mess, weed my herb beds and such. It’s also given me time to restart my herbalist studies.

Still, you almost feel like the chickens were waiting. To take me down.

~Sarah