I'm stuck in a loop. I think that's what software programmers call it. I know the roots of this hopelessness are firmly planted in the utter destruction of our cabin and property in the forest fire that I alluded to in the last blog's prologue. Knowing the source of a polluted stream doesn't really help if your just wallowing in it. It's the wallowing that is the loop. A sporadic series of should haves and could haves that leave you so second guessed out that I've got little mental energy to accomplish all but the littlest things. Musically speaking I got da blues!
The music is Billie Holiday - Lady in Autumn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npoe5XeeMYE&list=PLbYb5_Imn1rsDMoIU38jxi_O0aRaYj4CG 'cause given my mood - well, it was the obvious choice. If you're a libertarian like me it's hard not to on occasion reflect on a woman who's life included heroin abuse, alcohol abuse, abusive relationships and died at 44. The line between libertine and libertarian is the line between self government and - well, self government. T'ain't nobody's business if I do is certainly one of those brilliant songs that can leave even a good Lib - well, in a loop.
Don't worry or call the guys in the white coats just yet I finish the stack off with Marc Cohn's Walking in Memphis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTVbf44HMkY Which Deb bought me and has to be one of the finest songs ever.
I'll get back to the cabin and my loop in a bit but first the garden. Both because this blog is "small gardens & small government" and because the garden is as I'll explain the cure.
The peas are out and the tomatoes are in. The peas are pretty easy to read. When the vines turn brown and fall over it's time to pull 'em out. No great mystery there. It's hot, "we're done". Save the pods that you missed for planting next year and ponder if you might be clever enough to find a spot and time it just right to get a fall crop. Tomatoes are the queens of the garden, to be a bit misogynistic, and a little tougher to figure out. In trying to understand (tomatoes) a bit better I've got 16 plants of 5 different varieties mixed and matched in different levels of sun and quality of soil. So far I can clearly state I know nothing! Mind you somehow I'm eating tomatoes, which I like -but.. Perhaps the best example is the Silver Fir variety which I got seeds from Travis's family in Siberia and grew last year. They were a nightmare and Delicious. Every problem know to tomatodom they had - Leaf curl, blossom end rot the whole list. I blamed it on the poor soil in a new bed I had stuffed them into having no other spot for them. They were the earliest, the sweetest tomato I'd ever tasted, and yellow. This year again earliest and clearly having problems but just an OK tomato flavor and red. Was it a bad cross from saved seeds with plants too close together, maybe. Was it that if you abuse your tomatoes they actually sweeten up?
I know that this last one sounds like something out of Billie Holiday but there actually is a farmer in California who has been experimenting with this. He's using determinate tomatoes meaning that all the tomatoes grow and ripen at once. At some point after they've set fruit he quits irrigating, rainfall or nothing. He claims the tomatoes are a bit smaller but super sweet. So perhaps I should be pouring whiskey on the plants and talking bad to 'em. I'm going to step off that thread there before Deb reads it and whops me.
In the world of experiments in my garden the potato onions confirmed what I'd been told. The onion bulbs planted in the fall all flowered and all were distinctly smaller both in overall size and usable bulb from the onions planted in the spring. Hard to argue when you've been told something (thanks Kelly!) and than confirmed it yourself. I'll likely occasionally plant a few potato onions in the fall in order to keep some seeds in hand but mostly it will be spring planting. The shallots were more confusing in their results. The fall planted shallots were planted deeper to allow for any frost heaving (we had none!) and were generally bigger than the spring planted ones. I might try a little more fooling around with depth of planting to see results. I say fooling around 'cause to call any of this an experiment is to bastardize the scientific method. My sample size and control of variables leaves about a 100% chance for error. It is however interesting if primitive.
Speaking of interesting but primitive do any of you remember seeing "Giant Atomic Peanuts" advertised in the back of comic books when you were a kid. I wasn't a gardener then but I remember wanting to grow 'em. I think they were supposed to be the size of football or something. Well I came across this video, which has a point I didn't quite get, but the back story on "atomic peanuts" was actually quite interesting. Check it out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gkUZYJY9dY Gardeners are weird!
The beets, carrots, broccoli, and Swiss chard are all moving along with some nice additions to meals. The butternut squash and zucchini are flowering with promise of things to come.
The year is clearly just right for fruit, with the nectarine tree showing the need for another thinning of the still green fruit. Weirdly, one of my nectarine trees turns out to be a peach. As this is it's first year with fruit till now it was a nectarine tree. I assumed it was like the others from the mother tree now long gone. Could be a cross with some neighbor tree or perhaps some random peach pit that went from my mouth to the compost pit and into it's currant spot out front. Perhaps I can blame the mailman. For it's second year in the garden the little cherry tree provide exactly two cherries, both delicious. I'm not sure of the mathematical progression but I'll hope year, three, isn't also the number I get. The oldest grapevine is going nuts I think it has as many bunches of grapes ripening as it has leaves. The grapes are unfortunately with seeds and the little Concord is still in it's first year so just going great guns to climb the new arbor.
Billie's winding down and I will also with just a bit about the cabin. What type of idiot builds a cabin in the woods without insurance and a full moat around it? I guess that would be me. Now I can tell you how my insurance agent just laughed when I told him what we wanted to insure. I can also tell you how we were better than most in getting our land prepared against wild fires and were planning a good deal more this year. None of that is very useful and it doesn't change the facts when it comes to disasters.
I don't know that anything could have saved the property after having viewed the scene a few days ago. The fire grew in some mathematical progression of it's own from a fools cooking fire to over a 100,000 acres and it's not out yet. When it reached our property it was just totally destructive. It turned our RV and an aluminum ladder I had stored into a molten pool. Virtually all the trees were left as little charcoal skeletons and stumps It was ugly. If I can draw any lessons out of it I would have to lean on some of the examples of homes and properties that survived. Half measures are not enough. Full measures may not be enough but sometimes they are when preparing for bad things. Get a go bag and a plan. You might not be at risk for a forest fire but bad things happen everywhere and to everyone. Yeah we all like to enjoy life when it's going good and you should. And...
My garden is my hope and cure. It won't magically replace the cabin or restore the land. Heck if the zombie apocalypse hits it won't magically replace Safeway in our food needs. Deb and I will still need to figure out water, power and lord knows what else. Dale Carnegie wrote that to face trouble: a) Ask yourself, "What is the worst that can possibly happen?" b) Prepare to accept the worst. c) Try to improve on the worst. That works for me. I did literally have to say out loud before the fire that if we lost the cabin we could handle the financial loss without insurance. I was less ready for the emotional aspects. If the financial world we live in falls apart, I have thought about and accept at least as I understand what might be the "worst". Yeah it would be a body blow and I don't know about the emotional aspects there either but I think we could survive. The garden seems to work on that emotional piece. A ripe tomato doesn't replace a loss but it gives you something to focus on. I think humans need a something smaller then them when bad things happen. Something they can put their attention into.
The music is Billie Holiday - Lady in Autumn. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npoe5XeeMYE&list=PLbYb5_Imn1rsDMoIU38jxi_O0aRaYj4CG 'cause given my mood - well, it was the obvious choice. If you're a libertarian like me it's hard not to on occasion reflect on a woman who's life included heroin abuse, alcohol abuse, abusive relationships and died at 44. The line between libertine and libertarian is the line between self government and - well, self government. T'ain't nobody's business if I do is certainly one of those brilliant songs that can leave even a good Lib - well, in a loop.
Don't worry or call the guys in the white coats just yet I finish the stack off with Marc Cohn's Walking in Memphis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTVbf44HMkY Which Deb bought me and has to be one of the finest songs ever.
I'll get back to the cabin and my loop in a bit but first the garden. Both because this blog is "small gardens & small government" and because the garden is as I'll explain the cure.
The peas are out and the tomatoes are in. The peas are pretty easy to read. When the vines turn brown and fall over it's time to pull 'em out. No great mystery there. It's hot, "we're done". Save the pods that you missed for planting next year and ponder if you might be clever enough to find a spot and time it just right to get a fall crop. Tomatoes are the queens of the garden, to be a bit misogynistic, and a little tougher to figure out. In trying to understand (tomatoes) a bit better I've got 16 plants of 5 different varieties mixed and matched in different levels of sun and quality of soil. So far I can clearly state I know nothing! Mind you somehow I'm eating tomatoes, which I like -but.. Perhaps the best example is the Silver Fir variety which I got seeds from Travis's family in Siberia and grew last year. They were a nightmare and Delicious. Every problem know to tomatodom they had - Leaf curl, blossom end rot the whole list. I blamed it on the poor soil in a new bed I had stuffed them into having no other spot for them. They were the earliest, the sweetest tomato I'd ever tasted, and yellow. This year again earliest and clearly having problems but just an OK tomato flavor and red. Was it a bad cross from saved seeds with plants too close together, maybe. Was it that if you abuse your tomatoes they actually sweeten up?
I know that this last one sounds like something out of Billie Holiday but there actually is a farmer in California who has been experimenting with this. He's using determinate tomatoes meaning that all the tomatoes grow and ripen at once. At some point after they've set fruit he quits irrigating, rainfall or nothing. He claims the tomatoes are a bit smaller but super sweet. So perhaps I should be pouring whiskey on the plants and talking bad to 'em. I'm going to step off that thread there before Deb reads it and whops me.
In the world of experiments in my garden the potato onions confirmed what I'd been told. The onion bulbs planted in the fall all flowered and all were distinctly smaller both in overall size and usable bulb from the onions planted in the spring. Hard to argue when you've been told something (thanks Kelly!) and than confirmed it yourself. I'll likely occasionally plant a few potato onions in the fall in order to keep some seeds in hand but mostly it will be spring planting. The shallots were more confusing in their results. The fall planted shallots were planted deeper to allow for any frost heaving (we had none!) and were generally bigger than the spring planted ones. I might try a little more fooling around with depth of planting to see results. I say fooling around 'cause to call any of this an experiment is to bastardize the scientific method. My sample size and control of variables leaves about a 100% chance for error. It is however interesting if primitive.
Speaking of interesting but primitive do any of you remember seeing "Giant Atomic Peanuts" advertised in the back of comic books when you were a kid. I wasn't a gardener then but I remember wanting to grow 'em. I think they were supposed to be the size of football or something. Well I came across this video, which has a point I didn't quite get, but the back story on "atomic peanuts" was actually quite interesting. Check it out. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gkUZYJY9dY Gardeners are weird!
The beets, carrots, broccoli, and Swiss chard are all moving along with some nice additions to meals. The butternut squash and zucchini are flowering with promise of things to come.
The year is clearly just right for fruit, with the nectarine tree showing the need for another thinning of the still green fruit. Weirdly, one of my nectarine trees turns out to be a peach. As this is it's first year with fruit till now it was a nectarine tree. I assumed it was like the others from the mother tree now long gone. Could be a cross with some neighbor tree or perhaps some random peach pit that went from my mouth to the compost pit and into it's currant spot out front. Perhaps I can blame the mailman. For it's second year in the garden the little cherry tree provide exactly two cherries, both delicious. I'm not sure of the mathematical progression but I'll hope year, three, isn't also the number I get. The oldest grapevine is going nuts I think it has as many bunches of grapes ripening as it has leaves. The grapes are unfortunately with seeds and the little Concord is still in it's first year so just going great guns to climb the new arbor.
Billie's winding down and I will also with just a bit about the cabin. What type of idiot builds a cabin in the woods without insurance and a full moat around it? I guess that would be me. Now I can tell you how my insurance agent just laughed when I told him what we wanted to insure. I can also tell you how we were better than most in getting our land prepared against wild fires and were planning a good deal more this year. None of that is very useful and it doesn't change the facts when it comes to disasters.
I don't know that anything could have saved the property after having viewed the scene a few days ago. The fire grew in some mathematical progression of it's own from a fools cooking fire to over a 100,000 acres and it's not out yet. When it reached our property it was just totally destructive. It turned our RV and an aluminum ladder I had stored into a molten pool. Virtually all the trees were left as little charcoal skeletons and stumps It was ugly. If I can draw any lessons out of it I would have to lean on some of the examples of homes and properties that survived. Half measures are not enough. Full measures may not be enough but sometimes they are when preparing for bad things. Get a go bag and a plan. You might not be at risk for a forest fire but bad things happen everywhere and to everyone. Yeah we all like to enjoy life when it's going good and you should. And...
My garden is my hope and cure. It won't magically replace the cabin or restore the land. Heck if the zombie apocalypse hits it won't magically replace Safeway in our food needs. Deb and I will still need to figure out water, power and lord knows what else. Dale Carnegie wrote that to face trouble: a) Ask yourself, "What is the worst that can possibly happen?" b) Prepare to accept the worst. c) Try to improve on the worst. That works for me. I did literally have to say out loud before the fire that if we lost the cabin we could handle the financial loss without insurance. I was less ready for the emotional aspects. If the financial world we live in falls apart, I have thought about and accept at least as I understand what might be the "worst". Yeah it would be a body blow and I don't know about the emotional aspects there either but I think we could survive. The garden seems to work on that emotional piece. A ripe tomato doesn't replace a loss but it gives you something to focus on. I think humans need a something smaller then them when bad things happen. Something they can put their attention into.
Thanks for the info on your cabin. I imagine they might have insured it for an outrageous premium. But it would have added up to more than replacing the cabin. And you still have a burned forest for scenery.
ReplyDeleteDoug, my good Libertarian friend! With sadness I read about your cabin. I ABSOLUTELY love how you wrapped up the whole post with the emotional side of gardening and how it relates to an apocalypse. You put the whole thing into another perspective that few ever even consider. Thanks, and condolences.
ReplyDeleteYou are quite possibly correct in some scientific neglect on tomatoes. I have loved the Silvery Fir Tree tomatoes in the past, but for some reason quit growing them as other varieties won out for me. The SFT tomato was early-maturing and large, but the yield of the big fruit was few compared with some of the others. But, with Potato Onions, they need some nutrition and water to make the tastiest bulbs. While Potato Onions are indeed hardy and drought tolerant, when asked to survive with less-than-desirable conditions, yield tougher and smaller bulbs which are much less desirable to eat. BTW, I have found some other pros and cons to fall-planting them vs. spring-planting them, but for eating them, I prefer the spring-planting method. However, some varieties of Potato Onion are poor keepers, and must be fall-planted in place. So, by doing some fall and spring planting, you can better your chances of perpetuation them.
I love your articles and your writing style. Your trial and hardship of losing your cabin gave me and my wife some good conversation tonight - at your expense. But thanks, anyway.
Also you mentioned about your small sample size being worthless when compared to scientific sampling. Remember, plant breeding by indigenous peoples of limited scientific knowledge and lab equipment have been responsible for all those yummy heirloom veggies and fruits we love so much. Your yellow and red SFT tomatoes are one such example! Could have been some rogue, incorrectly labeled seed, or might have been just the mutant expression within the gene pool of them. This is how different landraces in different areas and climates can result in some new and different expression of your own breeding without the use of advanced science and lab equipment. (This is the part I have found so much joy in while I play around in my limited small garden with my Potato Onions. Hopefully I can do something of benefit to my fellow man as I share them around the world!)
ReplyDeleteOh, one more thing! I'll mail you some of my new deep, dark red Potato Onions in October!
Delete