Friendly Adventures. May 31, 2010

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We decided to be sneaky and give some plant gifts to a friend who was out of town. She said there was NO plantain at all anywhere on her property. Well, you can't have that!

Michael and I dug up some from our place, and we met some friends who dug some up from their place.





And we drove over to our destination. We parked, got out of the car, and burst out laughing hysterically.





There is plantain all over the place! LOL I guess she wasn't as familiar with this as she thought. Well, now she's got more, and right by her back door, too.

It was a great adventure. We set the day aside to just be with friends. Took walks, took drives, played games, found Mulberry trees, ate a wonderful lunch outside, and just enjoyed being together. Then we had a quick run home, as another friend was coming over for dinner and to watch an interesting video about eclipses and prophecies.

I finally felt just a little rested. And just in time, too. We have to begin school again. Ours is kind of a year 'round school. Michael takes off in the spring when it's so busy around here, then we do school through the summer.

Gladly, he is still ahead of schedule. He's a good student and hard worker.

~Faith

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Getting Closer

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Sweetheart's Mom mentioned a particular type of plantain that is even better than the regular one I am familiar with.

Here is what we've been using.





And I'm wondering if this is what you were talking about, SM?





We tried to get as early a start as we could yesterday, to beat the heat. With the rest of the metal sheeting in place...





...we turned our attention to digging the French drain above the deck.





Adding a little water to make sure there is a drop in level toward the direction we want the water to flow.





That ended up being perfect. Now we had to direct all the rainwater collection off away from the pool dugout. I made this up myself, so I sure am hoping it will work. LOL





We tried to save the turf for reuse.





Now digging out a bit deeper for the pipe.





I forgot to take photos of laying the special pipe for French drains, but if you go to my tag on French Drains you can see how to do that there.

It's finally ready.





Now to cut the PVC pipe at a difficult angle. Directly above the deck is the normal French drain type of pipe. But out in the open lawn we have to have something that will support the tractor for mowing, and some way to have it out there without it being in the way of the mower blade. This is what I came up with.

Normally, cutting PVC is easy with a variety of tools, but the size and thickness made all of those ways difficult without special tools which we do not have.

I had heard of using string to cut PVC, and we found this video...

http://www.wonderhowto.com/how-to-cut-pvc-pipe-nylon-string-218323/

So COOL!

So off we went to work some magic!





Only it didn't work. The string kept breaking.





I have no idea why. I thought it could have been because we had to get a start on the pipe with the hacksaw since the cut was to be at such an angle, but we also tried it straight across on uncut pipe and that did not work either.

After about 50 failures, I was back on the internet trying to come up with solutions. But while I was gone, Michael did it the old fashioned way. Hack away at something until it doesn't exist any more.





It took a while, but it was effective. Awesome!





So we laid it in, attaching it to the drain pipe.





We tried to get it as flush with the ground as we could. The problem is that in order for it to be perfectly flush, the angled pipe cut would have to be a good three feet long. That is not feasable.





And here it is, all covered up with the remaining gravel from the pile in the driveway, and utilizing only a couple of turf squares we'd set aside. The grass will quickly grow over the remaining earth. We'll have to mow over it carefully to get a feel for how high to have the blades.





Lunchtime!!! Michael went for the dark lettuce in the herb garden, and I went to pick lettuce from the shaded bed.





Some of you wanted updates on this particular project. They are doing fine. They are a little spindly, just getting a bit of dappled light in the afternoon, but they taste wonderful. The leaves are more delicate and tear easily.





I had also taken a couple of pear tree trunk suckers, put rooting hormone on them, and stuck them in this very light and rich soil mix. They seem to be doing well after a month.





We washed our lunch outdoors, enjoying the cool water from the hose.





Then we took turns spelling each other on mowing the place, and continuing digging out the caved in banks around the edge.





I am hoping the more gradual slope of the banks in combination with the redirection of water flow will keep erosion to a minimum. I don't want to buy retaining wall stones as they are too expensive.





Now to focus on the deck. We checked to see where we were at for level on all the boards. Of course, to make it perfect we would have to dismantle the entire thing and redo it. Not gonna happen.





So instead we reset the blocks and added a support post where necessary.





And that was where we had to stop. The deck boards have shrunk significantly over the years and we needed another board to add in, as well as new deck screws. We grabbed those really quick on the way to Men's group and Ladies Night.

Can you pick yourself off the floor at the cost of screws? It kills me!

~Faith

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Seed Saving

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Yesterday we tried to collect up as many seeds from our garden as were available. We had so many failed crops that we did not get the seeds I was hoping for, but we got a few.

These are the very last peppers from the garden. It has frosted twice and the plants are now dead.





We also harvested some plantain for drying.













And the last bit of grapes, we are going to keep, since we did no spraying later in the season for this second crop.





Decided to try to dry some chives. No one recommends it, as they seem to lose a lot of flavor, but I buy dried chives at the store, and these would go to waste anyhow.





I can never get enough of the sky.









The fall colors are beginning to be well noticed.









The first thing we did was plant the Jerusalem Artichokes a friend sent me. They arrived with the grains. I've always wanted to try them, and even ordered them once, but they were never planted. So this was a special treat.

You dig a trench about 5 to 7 inches deep.





They say that anything under 2 ounces will not grow. That, in combination with the fact that in the lower 1/3 of the country, they do not thrive as well as the upper 2/3, I went ahead and spaced out the larger ones, and then used the smaller ones as possible filler.





We made two rows, each about 6 or so feet long, and dropped them in.





We shall see what comes up in the spring.





Next we decided to save these marigold seeds. I have no idea if they come up true to form, or if these are hybrids, but I hate letting seed go to waste. There were a lot of seeds on the ground, so I wonder how well these reseed themselves?





Michael is turning into such a man. He gets in there, studies the situation, and comes to me to help me with what he has figured out. I appreciate that so much. Here he's showing me how he found to pull the seeds out more quickly. We saved three colors in three different bags.





We bagged up Cosmos Bright Lights seeds. Again, I have not looked these up to see if they are hybrids. I am guessing they are, so the offspring may be a surprise.





Lovage is a biennial. These should overwinter, flower and seed in the spring. It is the roots that you harvest, for the most part.





The Fernleaf Dill.









Next was the cilantro which has already reseeded somewhat.













And the fennel.





We pulled one, to see about the bulb. But you have to get the bulbs early, as they are above the ground, not below. This one is beginning to grow new stalks, but I suspect it will be killed off before we get new bulbs. Maybe I'll cover the bases of a few and see what happens.





Then the broom corn we'd cut down a few weeks ago. I took most of it for a holiday decor vase, and we saved some seed from the rest.





Basil seed. We'll need to shake these out once they get just a bit drier.





A store-bought pie pumpkin that had not been made into pie yet. I'll save the seeds.





And letting the seeds air dry a bit more in the house as rain is coming again.





I have a craving for scrambled eggs and bacon, biscuits and gravy, fried potatoes with peppers/onion/bacon, sausage, waffles, and a huge glass of orange juice.

Guess I'll go eat an apple. :o)

~Faith

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