Tornado Flies the Coup
The funky old chicken coup, roof removed by tornado-like conditions.
Venerable huge and beautiful oak tree, broken at the base by the wind.
At the edge of the creek, this old sycamore has been de-limbed by nature many times. Again in this storm.
We are very grateful that the winds, which sounded and acted like tornados, on a day of many officially sighted tornados, skipped over the house and gardens.
The wind made the decision that, after all, I would not go ahead with keeping chickens any time soon, as the roof of the coup "flew the coup"!
I had been debating about having chickens since the huge population of grasshoppers ate so much of the garden last year. Chickens would eat the grasshoppers. Then fewer grasshopper eggs would mean less food for the larvae Blister Beetles, and presumably fewer Blister Beetles. All of which would make a happier gardener.
However, only the gardener would be available to take care of the chickens. No dog to guard them. No fences to keep them off the porch, the flower beds. One thing leads to another, and we left the funky chicken coup as a leaky storage room, pending further inner debate.
Imagine how freaked the chickens would have been, during the middle of a dark and wind roaring afternoon, to have the dubious safety of their nests wisked away by the tornado.
We'll take some of the materials for other projects and perhaps keep the chicken wire part in readiness for the birds.
May the wind blow away from you only that which is no longer needed.
Baby Cone Flower ID help please?
I've read that Echinacea augustofolia needs many cold days and nights in order to germinate. Just putting them in the freezer won't do as they also need sunlight. Finding a bed where they will stay moist, cold and in the sun without being floated off in a storm or carried off by a bird or mouse is an interesting puzzle.
So, can you let me know, if you know, what we might have here? The top three photos seem to be the likeliest candidates. Your comments are appreciated.
Plant #1
Plant #2
Plant #3
Plant #4
Number Four doesn't have the central leaf distribution that the guidebook says echinacea should have, but still, do you know what it is?
Plant #5
There were several of these Number Fives, distributed as if they were meant to be there. I feel a sense of familiarity about them, but I still can't recall what type of plant they are. Do you know?
Indoor Potato Experiment Ends
Greenhouse Winter Potato Growing Experiment Jan.1, '09 - May 4, '09
Four months may seem about the right timing for a successful potato harvest, the number of days for harvest ranging from 70 to 135 (according to The Wood Praire Farm in Maine, which is in no way responsible for this potato comedy. They are lovely growers of seed potatoes already planted outside. We'll see how those turn out in approximately 90 days.)
First mentioned on Feb.11 in the post Greenhouse Potatoes, this experiment was to see if seed potato would be able to last out the warmish winter until planting time by growing in a deep greenhouse bed. Was the experiment successful? That would depend if success was based solely on harvest or by the relative health of the plants and the carefree nature in which I'd wished they had grown.
Summer of '08 was my first potato planting, so I am unfamiliar with their ways. Now I realize that what I'd thought of as dread disease in the greenhouse plants may be just the natural dying off of mature plants. Are you experienced? Please let me know your thoughts.
They looked at first (well after the frost die off in their first weeks of life), to be marvelously healthy, albeit planted too closely together. It was an urgent "save the seed" movement, rather than careful planning of optimal growth conditions. This photo is from March 13th.
Then came the little disfigurements of disease
and depredation.
Then total disaster as the aphids increased, thanks to the ants.
Then it seemed that the plants were truly dying. Of course I never thought to count the days to see if perhaps all was on divine schedule after all. I used nitrogen therapy to try to bolster the leaves. That worked nicely for a couple of days, but alas, just more and more wilt.
Also, I was hoping to see some flowers. I'd read that the potatoes are reaching maturity when the plant flowers. I suppose all its flower-making energy was going into the aphids and I didn't receive the sign to start digging for potato treasures.
Finally today I decided I couldn't stand to see the dead foliage any more, cut the dead branches of one plant off and gingerly dug. First I pushed away the aphid ridden soil so it wouldn't get on the potatoes, then dug up ...
These beautiful, if small, clean and healthy looking blue skin potatoes. There's even enough left of the seed and stems to plant again, if there's room in the garden.
Although the original idea of these was to serve as seed potato, I've ordered many others from Maine. The brothers of the seed planted in the Greenhouse spent the rest of the winter in a friend's crawl space, cooler than mine. It turns out that those seed did wonderfully well and are now ready to plant. I hope that its dry enough tomorrow to do just that. They have wonderfully grown up eyes.
What to do with the new potatoes shown above? If they are not to be used as seed, what then? Hmmm, yummmm, with butter.
We'll know when we eat them, if the winter greenhouse potato experiment was indeed, a success.
May all your experiments bring out the beauty, joy and resiliency of life.
