I had to do it! Ya gotta understand it really wasn't a choice it was an explosion. That's the way it is with passion. Doesn't matter if it's music, art, or the pretty new girl at school. That's the way it was yesterday for me and the garden. Denver can tease you for weeks with spring weather to the point you start thinking I should have planted a few things out in February. Heck, I'm not early I'm late!
March and April are our best months for rain and snow. This March has been dry as was February and the winter as a whole. Yesterday was 70 and sunny with a promise of rain in the evening. Thus with St Pat's day still a couple of days away it was time to start tomatoes indoors and peas outside.
Speaking of St Pat's you'd assume that I'd be cranking the Irish music as I tap out this blog. Ah, but wrong moosebreathe! I've decided to go musicologist and spin backwards to a Saturday of bagpipes, Real McKenzies, and Irish rebel tunes. I'm starting today with the roots. Country and Western and bluegrass music are fairly distinct categories but with a common root. ( I'm not talking modern Country pop which is just crap!) You can see it in the instruments - think fiddle, mandolin, and perhaps peddle steel. Bluegrass in particular can trace it's roots to the Celtic families of the Appalachian mountains.
Thus today I'm starting with a truly great compilation of acoustic Dwight Yoakam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vBgwT06YwI Dwight is to me Country Western in the west coast sense but he grew up in Kentucky. Stick an acoustic guitar in his hands and it shows. The rest of the stack is straight bluegrass, Copperline, Jalan Crossland, a sampler, and Mountain Holler Bluegrass Band.
The work was all long planned in my head and thus just flowed. While planting the peas I was once again appreciative of the design of my raised beds. I built them out of the local red sandstone and thus they are quite beautiful which was one piece of the logic. Additionally, they're not too long so you're not tempted to walk across them (Cooper when chasing a squirrel still believes in a direct line!) and they're just wide enough to allow me to reach the middle easily from each sides. But it's the ability to sit on them while weeding or planting that makes them a joy for an old back.
The tomatoes are a whole thing. Shawn up the street is starting some Black Krim and Brandywine under lights for me. My pots are a mixed bag of, old seed, Red Siberian from Botanical Interest along with some seeds I saved last year from Travis's Pink Bull and Silver Fir. My tomato seed saving skills are iffy thus they all are lottery tickets - we'll see.
The soil temperature (A real key variable in planting I believe) was just at 40 degrees. So a bit cool for the peas and the chard seed I put out. The Mizuna mustard I seeded a row of should like the cool based on the volunteer spinach I saw out by the alley fence. If I get down to our cabin soon I might try tossing a few of the mustard seeds in the spot I'm trying to turn into a garden down there. Last year was a bust at the cabin, so soil will likely have to be improved before this is more an experiment than a waste of seed. The other little experiment was some spring planting of the potato onions I got from Kelly a couple of years back. They handle cool soil just fine and I've in the past planted them in the fall with the garlic. I planted half of each type in bed rows last fall and put the other half out yesterday. The question is essentially will this plump 'em up a bit. They will never be a large onion but a bit bigger would be nice. I've heard that by planting them in the spring they won't develop seeds, which presumably will put more of the plants growth into the bulb. So does that get offset by getting a bit later start for root development than their kin planted in the fall - we'll see.
The sunroom windows are lined today with not just the tomatoes but all the early seed starts. I'm trying Kelly's suggestion with the sweet purple asparagus and starting them indoors as last year's outside seeds were a bust. Marjoram I clearly know nothing about except that I love the flavor. I was planning them to be a perennial addition to a border area. When the seeds arrived a little deeper dive into growing it shows I've got at best a tender which I'll need to bring inside for the winter. I might try that or perhaps it will self seed but for now the thought is I can re-coup the seed price by putting some starts out on Mothers Day in pretty little pots - thus the early start. The windows are further crowded with a "C flat". A seed flat filled with an alliteration of Cipollini, Calabrese, and Chard. (I know but some times I just make myself smile;~) Maisie our indoor cat has inspected all the pots and seems to approve of the use of her space.
I mentioned in the last blog a dry stack stone rubble raised bed wall I was building. It's progressing along with the adjacent sitting area and shading grape arbor in a fits and starts fashion. It will have to be finished up soon as I expect the little Concord grape will want something to grow up real soon and the arbor is waiting on the stone in the sitting area and that ties into the wall, which will soon have squash vining out on the bed behind it. If that description sounds like a Gordian knot, it is in my mind also. Probably why it's taking so long. I don't think I mentioned one additional little twist I'm trying to add into the wall is growing oyster mushrooms. See I've heard oysters will grow off a coffee ground or wood chip medium. Thus I'm filling the crevices between the rocks in the wall with this mix and will add some bottoms from store bought oysters to hopefully get this kicked off. If it all comes together it will be a wonderful companion planting with shade from the adjacent new bed of squash and CO2 off gassing from the mushrooms along with a nice little stone wall to put an ice tea on while sitting under my grapes thinking garden thoughts. Let's put all that in the weeee'll see category.
The cross over to politics starts with mushrooms. The winter Youtube videos have included a good bit of learning and trying to learn about mushrooms. Perhaps the two best experts I've found are Adam Haritan and Paul Stamets. Each in his own way is blow you away smart. Check out one of Adam's videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvOvKc4jqBY and see if you don't agree. Paul is equally deep but I've always gotten the sense that he's lived and breathed mushrooms so deeply that he's anthropomorphized 'em, they are his little friends. Thus when I was watching this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxn2LlBJDl0 of an interview with him this morning I wasn't too surprised by his thoughts. Youtube apparently was. Or more exactly what ever algorithm Youtube uses to censor inappropriate material felt this was promoting illegal drug use.
Youtube and Google are privately owned media companies and like CNN or Fox News or Westword newspaper and have the Right to use their megaphone to promote or censor any information they see fit. If I'm annoyed I have that equivalent but much less powerful Right to boycott or send 'em nasty-grams or open my own competition. I doubt I'll be doing any of that. Sometimes we assume that when we're doing nothing wrong and get stepped on by authority that the world will rise up in mass indignation and set right the obvious wrong. Usually not the case. In fact extremely rare if history is any guide (I think Jefferson mentioned something about this in the Declaration).
It seems to be connected in my mind but I can only hope that in tapping this out the connection will become plain because it otherwise is not. Perhaps it is simply numerical in that the 1st Right is followed in our Bill of Rights by a 2nd. Good people can and do see this (and most) issue differently.
I was reminded of this when my good friend Dave sent me a blog http://rootswriterdaviddaniels.blogspot.com/2018/03/high-school-issues.html he'd written about his High School walkout to protest the Vietnam War. Dave and I are about the same age and thus I remember my own High School and my mixed and confused thoughts on that war and the protests. I also remember the criticisms of the kids protesting as simply a way to skip school' or the only reason the guys were there is 'cause that's where all the cute girls were'. Yeah OK, we're talking about kids of course all that's part of it. This past week we saw students walkout of schools to protest for various forms of gun control.
I saw two of the walkouts as I was driving my father to a doctors appointment. Now, I take my 2nd Amendment views from a Libertarian perspective and thus do not support most gun control views. So seeing the protest I jumped into old guy mode and thought "yeah their just skipping school", and "the media spent a week talking it up" and a bunch of other Yeah OK so what thoughts.
Dave's blog reminded me, good for the kids! Doesn't matter if you're 16 looking at too many kids getting killed in Vietnam or too damned many kids getting killed just going to school, kids need to stand up on issues that concern them. As a matter of fact while I see the importance of a well armed populous (militia) being as a deterrent to tyrants so to is standing up for you views (speech) a deterrent. Now I hope that some of them will come to see that the problem has numerically and historically been too many government guns. And I also hope that when they come to voice their view that they're not told that they can't do it on Facebook or Youtube because their view isn't appropriate. Rights are funny things in order to have mine I have to accept they also cover wrong-headed idiots.
Tomorrow, assuming the weather is nice I'll be in the backyard howling with the dogs to bagpipes. No doubt the neighbors will be calling the cops and my wife will be calling her sister. I don't think there will be much discussion of Rights! Doug A.
Before I go while writing this I heard from my niece Lisa she tells me she'll be going into the hospital Monday for a double mastectomy for cancer she's been dealing with. I hope you'll join me in keeping a good thought for her.
March and April are our best months for rain and snow. This March has been dry as was February and the winter as a whole. Yesterday was 70 and sunny with a promise of rain in the evening. Thus with St Pat's day still a couple of days away it was time to start tomatoes indoors and peas outside.
Speaking of St Pat's you'd assume that I'd be cranking the Irish music as I tap out this blog. Ah, but wrong moosebreathe! I've decided to go musicologist and spin backwards to a Saturday of bagpipes, Real McKenzies, and Irish rebel tunes. I'm starting today with the roots. Country and Western and bluegrass music are fairly distinct categories but with a common root. ( I'm not talking modern Country pop which is just crap!) You can see it in the instruments - think fiddle, mandolin, and perhaps peddle steel. Bluegrass in particular can trace it's roots to the Celtic families of the Appalachian mountains.
Thus today I'm starting with a truly great compilation of acoustic Dwight Yoakam. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vBgwT06YwI Dwight is to me Country Western in the west coast sense but he grew up in Kentucky. Stick an acoustic guitar in his hands and it shows. The rest of the stack is straight bluegrass, Copperline, Jalan Crossland, a sampler, and Mountain Holler Bluegrass Band.
The work was all long planned in my head and thus just flowed. While planting the peas I was once again appreciative of the design of my raised beds. I built them out of the local red sandstone and thus they are quite beautiful which was one piece of the logic. Additionally, they're not too long so you're not tempted to walk across them (Cooper when chasing a squirrel still believes in a direct line!) and they're just wide enough to allow me to reach the middle easily from each sides. But it's the ability to sit on them while weeding or planting that makes them a joy for an old back.
The tomatoes are a whole thing. Shawn up the street is starting some Black Krim and Brandywine under lights for me. My pots are a mixed bag of, old seed, Red Siberian from Botanical Interest along with some seeds I saved last year from Travis's Pink Bull and Silver Fir. My tomato seed saving skills are iffy thus they all are lottery tickets - we'll see.
The soil temperature (A real key variable in planting I believe) was just at 40 degrees. So a bit cool for the peas and the chard seed I put out. The Mizuna mustard I seeded a row of should like the cool based on the volunteer spinach I saw out by the alley fence. If I get down to our cabin soon I might try tossing a few of the mustard seeds in the spot I'm trying to turn into a garden down there. Last year was a bust at the cabin, so soil will likely have to be improved before this is more an experiment than a waste of seed. The other little experiment was some spring planting of the potato onions I got from Kelly a couple of years back. They handle cool soil just fine and I've in the past planted them in the fall with the garlic. I planted half of each type in bed rows last fall and put the other half out yesterday. The question is essentially will this plump 'em up a bit. They will never be a large onion but a bit bigger would be nice. I've heard that by planting them in the spring they won't develop seeds, which presumably will put more of the plants growth into the bulb. So does that get offset by getting a bit later start for root development than their kin planted in the fall - we'll see.
The sunroom windows are lined today with not just the tomatoes but all the early seed starts. I'm trying Kelly's suggestion with the sweet purple asparagus and starting them indoors as last year's outside seeds were a bust. Marjoram I clearly know nothing about except that I love the flavor. I was planning them to be a perennial addition to a border area. When the seeds arrived a little deeper dive into growing it shows I've got at best a tender which I'll need to bring inside for the winter. I might try that or perhaps it will self seed but for now the thought is I can re-coup the seed price by putting some starts out on Mothers Day in pretty little pots - thus the early start. The windows are further crowded with a "C flat". A seed flat filled with an alliteration of Cipollini, Calabrese, and Chard. (I know but some times I just make myself smile;~) Maisie our indoor cat has inspected all the pots and seems to approve of the use of her space.
I mentioned in the last blog a dry stack stone rubble raised bed wall I was building. It's progressing along with the adjacent sitting area and shading grape arbor in a fits and starts fashion. It will have to be finished up soon as I expect the little Concord grape will want something to grow up real soon and the arbor is waiting on the stone in the sitting area and that ties into the wall, which will soon have squash vining out on the bed behind it. If that description sounds like a Gordian knot, it is in my mind also. Probably why it's taking so long. I don't think I mentioned one additional little twist I'm trying to add into the wall is growing oyster mushrooms. See I've heard oysters will grow off a coffee ground or wood chip medium. Thus I'm filling the crevices between the rocks in the wall with this mix and will add some bottoms from store bought oysters to hopefully get this kicked off. If it all comes together it will be a wonderful companion planting with shade from the adjacent new bed of squash and CO2 off gassing from the mushrooms along with a nice little stone wall to put an ice tea on while sitting under my grapes thinking garden thoughts. Let's put all that in the weeee'll see category.
The cross over to politics starts with mushrooms. The winter Youtube videos have included a good bit of learning and trying to learn about mushrooms. Perhaps the two best experts I've found are Adam Haritan and Paul Stamets. Each in his own way is blow you away smart. Check out one of Adam's videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvOvKc4jqBY and see if you don't agree. Paul is equally deep but I've always gotten the sense that he's lived and breathed mushrooms so deeply that he's anthropomorphized 'em, they are his little friends. Thus when I was watching this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nxn2LlBJDl0 of an interview with him this morning I wasn't too surprised by his thoughts. Youtube apparently was. Or more exactly what ever algorithm Youtube uses to censor inappropriate material felt this was promoting illegal drug use.
Youtube and Google are privately owned media companies and like CNN or Fox News or Westword newspaper and have the Right to use their megaphone to promote or censor any information they see fit. If I'm annoyed I have that equivalent but much less powerful Right to boycott or send 'em nasty-grams or open my own competition. I doubt I'll be doing any of that. Sometimes we assume that when we're doing nothing wrong and get stepped on by authority that the world will rise up in mass indignation and set right the obvious wrong. Usually not the case. In fact extremely rare if history is any guide (I think Jefferson mentioned something about this in the Declaration).
It seems to be connected in my mind but I can only hope that in tapping this out the connection will become plain because it otherwise is not. Perhaps it is simply numerical in that the 1st Right is followed in our Bill of Rights by a 2nd. Good people can and do see this (and most) issue differently.
I was reminded of this when my good friend Dave sent me a blog http://rootswriterdaviddaniels.blogspot.com/2018/03/high-school-issues.html he'd written about his High School walkout to protest the Vietnam War. Dave and I are about the same age and thus I remember my own High School and my mixed and confused thoughts on that war and the protests. I also remember the criticisms of the kids protesting as simply a way to skip school' or the only reason the guys were there is 'cause that's where all the cute girls were'. Yeah OK, we're talking about kids of course all that's part of it. This past week we saw students walkout of schools to protest for various forms of gun control.
I saw two of the walkouts as I was driving my father to a doctors appointment. Now, I take my 2nd Amendment views from a Libertarian perspective and thus do not support most gun control views. So seeing the protest I jumped into old guy mode and thought "yeah their just skipping school", and "the media spent a week talking it up" and a bunch of other Yeah OK so what thoughts.
Dave's blog reminded me, good for the kids! Doesn't matter if you're 16 looking at too many kids getting killed in Vietnam or too damned many kids getting killed just going to school, kids need to stand up on issues that concern them. As a matter of fact while I see the importance of a well armed populous (militia) being as a deterrent to tyrants so to is standing up for you views (speech) a deterrent. Now I hope that some of them will come to see that the problem has numerically and historically been too many government guns. And I also hope that when they come to voice their view that they're not told that they can't do it on Facebook or Youtube because their view isn't appropriate. Rights are funny things in order to have mine I have to accept they also cover wrong-headed idiots.
Tomorrow, assuming the weather is nice I'll be in the backyard howling with the dogs to bagpipes. No doubt the neighbors will be calling the cops and my wife will be calling her sister. I don't think there will be much discussion of Rights! Doug A.
Before I go while writing this I heard from my niece Lisa she tells me she'll be going into the hospital Monday for a double mastectomy for cancer she's been dealing with. I hope you'll join me in keeping a good thought for her.
Doug, I'm glad I know you. You are quite a fellow and I'm sure our souls are somehow cosmically related to the same parentage. My High School days were 1970 through 1973, so I remember the talk of the Vietnam War and how we had to register for the draft and all. But lucky me, the draft ended before I got old enough to actually be drafted. But I remember the protests; not that I took part in them myself - I had other things on my young mind. But I think you and I are the only ones who remember the connection of students protesting then with the students protesting now! It just seems that in the 70s, we were protesting a more-worthy cause. The killing of hundreds of thousands of innocent Vietnamese children, students and women in all those outback villages was somehow much more tragic and wrong than one crazed shooter who is on SSRI drugs in what seems to be a staged event. Even if the event itself were not staged, the Powers That Be and the controlled media are sure staging the broadcasting and outcomes of the event to sway the minds of the students to some sort of action towards a gun control agenda. It makes me wonder a couple of things: If students were aware that there are also students' lives being saved by the presence of good people having concealed weapons, would they then be staging walkouts from school to keep the second amendment alive? Or, if they want to protest innocent lives being taken by guns, would they be as bold as their 1970s counterparts by protesting the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent lives being taken by our guns and bombs in the Middle East wars that have been going on since 2003?
ReplyDeleteI don't know the reasons why and when I stopped growing Silvery Fir tomatoes. They were a great tomato! I guess I just standardized on some others I liked a bit better. As I remember, they were very early and large and tasted great, but they didn't produce very many. And, as far as large Potato Onions go, it is for me an on-going learning trial on their size and productivity. The more I learn, the more I realize I really don't know. Each successive season of cloning seems to see them age and become smaller and less vigorous. One thing I do know for sure is that cleaning up the accumulated disease load of the bulbs by going through a true seed can get their size right back up. But, I have sadly learned just recently, one of the diseases I'm fighting is Pink Root. This year, before planting out the bulbs, I am going to try a 2 to 5 minute soak of the bulbs in a 10:1 bleach solution to see if this will proactively keep disease load down a bit. Pink Root disease is also accentuated by hot and dry soil, exactly what I had last season. This leads me to think size of the bulbs might be increased by a cooler, more uniformly-moist soil, so I am going to try maybe mulching around them with straw.
Good thoughts and prayers to Lisa. There are no words I can give there of any wisdom, just that my scalar energy of good thoughts and prayers might be felt on her and your behalf.
I love your writing style of gardens and governments. But sorry, I am not into the music end!
Kelly
Ah, my brother by another mother, I am indeed lucky! Thanks for your thoughts and prayers for Lisa. As to the music, having given up drinking 1/2 a lifetime ago I find it a good lubricant for writing, something which does not come easily for me. Doug A.
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