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The dark slide begins
Jun. 25th, 2025 09:10 amSolstice is definitely over. I'd been trying to be outside across sunset and there's no longer a sense that the day will go on forever. Even if by just a coupe minutes it's getting dark earlier and earlier.
It's still light hours before I wake up. Though, this morning I was awoken by a rooster on the front porch (not supposed to be there) and now a road crew. I'm never gonna complain about someone fixing my road, especially since it's already 9am, but with all the windows open to catch the breeze it's very noticable.
I've had a fun fact for a long time -- birds don't have capsicum/hot pepper receptors, so hot peppers aren't hot to them. I've known it in the context of coevolutionary development where the pepper fruits have evolved to allow birds to eat them and carry the seeds away when they're ripe, but protect themselves from anyone else (until humans and agriculture etc). Well, in practice this means if a chicken gets into the greenhouse she'll eat all the peppers off the pepper plants. Even the really hot peppers.
The greenhouse, which used to be the wood tent, is super full-- more full than it can accommodate for the full season. My plan is to exclude the animals from one of the other greenhouses and move things there. This is the point Josh asks, which one? Fair question. The goosehouse greenhouse will hold heat longer in the year and needs a good clean out for two years of deep litter anyhow, so it's probably the best. In the long run it would be nice to have all my greenhouses through the summer.
Naming is also a bit of an issue for these things. The winter pig field is no longer a pig field, and so calling it "the winter field" is a bit weird because, well, in winter everything is just snow. The pigs go into the goosehouse greenhouse in the winter. The upper field is upper, for sure, but the back field is upper-- it's just back and upper. I guess the fields could be named winter, spring, and summer: that accords with their time of planting really. But the green houseshave the same issue: the wood tent is now the greenhouse closest to the house, the goose house greenhouse is more the pig greenhouse, and the garden greenhouse, well, technically they're all gardens, right? I'm very happy to have names evolve because I know what I mean, but describing what's going on to Josh is a bit harder.
Maybe someday the names will settle and I'll paint signs for everything.
I went on an (informal) garden tour at a friend's garden and it's a truly lovely place, but I noticed a distinct lack of labelling. I always want to know what things are -- she has a lot of ornamentals, and also varieties are interesting to me and they're harder to sort than just what species it is by just looking. I think I was spoilt by working at botanical gardens for so long. The task of making ceramic tags for all my plants is enormous but I have been picking away at it and will continue to, replacing my popsicle sticks and sharpie. I don't like unlabelled plants, though labelling is very hard to maintain. This is maybe only the second year my tomatoes have stayed well-labeled so late.
It's been hot and I'm definitely running myself down, so an hour or two in the evening is the most real gardening I get to do. I wander around in the mornings but it mostly feels too sticky and I feel too exhausted and slow. Even so, yesterday I weeded the shaded haskap patch, next to the goose greenhouse, from Canada thistle. It has a cardboard and then deep chip mulch so it's a very easy weed, though I'm not getting all the roots the thistles do need to come quite a ways to get back into the light. And I got them before they bloomed.
I also got most of the hardy kiwis planted, even the ones that got eaten off by the (chicken/cats?). They line one of the pathways in the upper field, and will seperate the ploughing area from the strawberries. Hopefully I'll plant the strawberries today. I have six kinds: kent, seascape, honeyoye, ft laramie, flamingo, and natural white. I'd like to keep them all seperate and labelled, though apparently the white ones want to go in close to red ones for pollination. We;ll see what I can do. Also up there from earlier this spring is my mammoth raspberries and some apples.
The couple days before that I got in the shade garden, pulmonaria and alchemilla and hostas, which I believe I'd mentioned but couldn't remember pulmonaria's name. It's the plant I learned the doctrine of signatures on, though, so it'll always be so distinctive to me.
Speaking of which, there's a plant growing from seed near the tap on the north side of the house. I've been looking at it when I use the tap, trying to figure it out. At first maybe it was dandelion? But no, it was developing that grainy, slightly silvery texture and distinctive shape of the chard/beet/sorrel/dock family. Maybe it was sorrel? It would be a great place for sorrel to grow but how would the seed have got there? Could it be dock? How would dock seeds get there? If it was I'd been to pull them pretty quick...
...then I realized they were the rhubarb seeds I'd sprinkled there last summer coming up. As they develop some are getting redder stems and some greener. I'm very pleased. I have pallets along the side of the house, flat on the ground, to stop the ducks digging up my foundation when it rains. The rhubarb is under one pallet so I'm hoping that'll keep it safe from maurauding birds until its bigger.
The birds are supposed to all be away from the house but the muscovies fly over the fence and the chickens sometimes ignore it. Plan is to create a new enclosed chicken coop since the previous one that was here when I got here is super sagging.
Yesterday was close loud thunder and heavy rain in the evening. I went out to pick some feral gai lan and was soaked. These periodic deep soaking rains are lovely, it's been a long time since we've had them, and it's absolutely a perfect time for me to be laying down paths of woodchips on my very sensitive clay soil.
The corn is growing well. I have a lot of mulching and weeding to do and still some planting. My solstice break is over but I've more or less used it to reshape my habits and spend more outside time and less online time. I'll try to hold onto that until equinox, when I'll maybe try and do it all again.
Now if you'll excuse me, the cat has discovered that if my window is open he can sit on the front deck and meow to get my attention, and apparently I'm letting it work.
It's still light hours before I wake up. Though, this morning I was awoken by a rooster on the front porch (not supposed to be there) and now a road crew. I'm never gonna complain about someone fixing my road, especially since it's already 9am, but with all the windows open to catch the breeze it's very noticable.
I've had a fun fact for a long time -- birds don't have capsicum/hot pepper receptors, so hot peppers aren't hot to them. I've known it in the context of coevolutionary development where the pepper fruits have evolved to allow birds to eat them and carry the seeds away when they're ripe, but protect themselves from anyone else (until humans and agriculture etc). Well, in practice this means if a chicken gets into the greenhouse she'll eat all the peppers off the pepper plants. Even the really hot peppers.
The greenhouse, which used to be the wood tent, is super full-- more full than it can accommodate for the full season. My plan is to exclude the animals from one of the other greenhouses and move things there. This is the point Josh asks, which one? Fair question. The goosehouse greenhouse will hold heat longer in the year and needs a good clean out for two years of deep litter anyhow, so it's probably the best. In the long run it would be nice to have all my greenhouses through the summer.
Naming is also a bit of an issue for these things. The winter pig field is no longer a pig field, and so calling it "the winter field" is a bit weird because, well, in winter everything is just snow. The pigs go into the goosehouse greenhouse in the winter. The upper field is upper, for sure, but the back field is upper-- it's just back and upper. I guess the fields could be named winter, spring, and summer: that accords with their time of planting really. But the green houseshave the same issue: the wood tent is now the greenhouse closest to the house, the goose house greenhouse is more the pig greenhouse, and the garden greenhouse, well, technically they're all gardens, right? I'm very happy to have names evolve because I know what I mean, but describing what's going on to Josh is a bit harder.
Maybe someday the names will settle and I'll paint signs for everything.
I went on an (informal) garden tour at a friend's garden and it's a truly lovely place, but I noticed a distinct lack of labelling. I always want to know what things are -- she has a lot of ornamentals, and also varieties are interesting to me and they're harder to sort than just what species it is by just looking. I think I was spoilt by working at botanical gardens for so long. The task of making ceramic tags for all my plants is enormous but I have been picking away at it and will continue to, replacing my popsicle sticks and sharpie. I don't like unlabelled plants, though labelling is very hard to maintain. This is maybe only the second year my tomatoes have stayed well-labeled so late.
It's been hot and I'm definitely running myself down, so an hour or two in the evening is the most real gardening I get to do. I wander around in the mornings but it mostly feels too sticky and I feel too exhausted and slow. Even so, yesterday I weeded the shaded haskap patch, next to the goose greenhouse, from Canada thistle. It has a cardboard and then deep chip mulch so it's a very easy weed, though I'm not getting all the roots the thistles do need to come quite a ways to get back into the light. And I got them before they bloomed.
I also got most of the hardy kiwis planted, even the ones that got eaten off by the (chicken/cats?). They line one of the pathways in the upper field, and will seperate the ploughing area from the strawberries. Hopefully I'll plant the strawberries today. I have six kinds: kent, seascape, honeyoye, ft laramie, flamingo, and natural white. I'd like to keep them all seperate and labelled, though apparently the white ones want to go in close to red ones for pollination. We;ll see what I can do. Also up there from earlier this spring is my mammoth raspberries and some apples.
The couple days before that I got in the shade garden, pulmonaria and alchemilla and hostas, which I believe I'd mentioned but couldn't remember pulmonaria's name. It's the plant I learned the doctrine of signatures on, though, so it'll always be so distinctive to me.
Speaking of which, there's a plant growing from seed near the tap on the north side of the house. I've been looking at it when I use the tap, trying to figure it out. At first maybe it was dandelion? But no, it was developing that grainy, slightly silvery texture and distinctive shape of the chard/beet/sorrel/dock family. Maybe it was sorrel? It would be a great place for sorrel to grow but how would the seed have got there? Could it be dock? How would dock seeds get there? If it was I'd been to pull them pretty quick...
...then I realized they were the rhubarb seeds I'd sprinkled there last summer coming up. As they develop some are getting redder stems and some greener. I'm very pleased. I have pallets along the side of the house, flat on the ground, to stop the ducks digging up my foundation when it rains. The rhubarb is under one pallet so I'm hoping that'll keep it safe from maurauding birds until its bigger.
The birds are supposed to all be away from the house but the muscovies fly over the fence and the chickens sometimes ignore it. Plan is to create a new enclosed chicken coop since the previous one that was here when I got here is super sagging.
Yesterday was close loud thunder and heavy rain in the evening. I went out to pick some feral gai lan and was soaked. These periodic deep soaking rains are lovely, it's been a long time since we've had them, and it's absolutely a perfect time for me to be laying down paths of woodchips on my very sensitive clay soil.
The corn is growing well. I have a lot of mulching and weeding to do and still some planting. My solstice break is over but I've more or less used it to reshape my habits and spend more outside time and less online time. I'll try to hold onto that until equinox, when I'll maybe try and do it all again.
Now if you'll excuse me, the cat has discovered that if my window is open he can sit on the front deck and meow to get my attention, and apparently I'm letting it work.
