Spring Planting

Nine littles running around...

 Chickens and guineas snapping up bugs...

 Fresh eggs...

 Friends to help… The potatoes are all planted!  This year, Yukon Gold and Purple Viking.  The exact poundage is unknown, as we are planting sprouted potatoes left from last year.  I would estimate 80 pounds.

Potatoes are at YJ Acres this year, not Purgatory Ranch.  Our difficulty in keeping ahead of the weeds should be ameliorated by the closer location.

It was infinitely more enjoyable to plant with friends than alone, and it's far more compelling to get to work when friends are coming!  We're excited to have the drip tape out and the mainline repaired in preparation for future planting.  Next up is onions!

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

This, That, and the Other

Tomato seeds are started, some even sprouted.

Chicken coops have begun moving again.

We have our first guinea egg of the spring!  (Middle egg)

Plans are developing for the garden this year.  Purgatory Ranch will lie fallow.  Potatoes and onions will be planted at YJ Acres.

Meat chicks are ordered.

Life moves apace.

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

YJ Acres

After 21+" of rain since July 14, we are enjoying drier.  I would not wish away any rain God sees fit to send us, but I am glad we are finally able to wade through the weeds and try to tame the chaos!

One of my three new rose bushes is blooming.  I normally don't choose something yellow, but this rose is cheery and bright against the rest of the green path.

The below hill has been a trouble spot for us.  We lost the only tree planted on it last year in the terrible drought.  When my mom and I were planting bulbs, the tree was so brittle that we could pop off large branches.  We planted a sweet cherry tree in its place.  The hill is also problematic because mowing over it, what with the stones and uneven ground, results in excessive need to trim as well as bald spots where the mower has scalped the high spots.  Our solution, over the next several years, will be to gradually kill of the grass and replace it with rose bushes and mulch.  I had to leave behind my collection of roses at our old house, so I am looking forward to choosing all over again!

 I started the spring with a cleaned up front walkway.  Herb plants were planted, weeding commenced, and... the summer and time escaped me.  This week, every time I leave the house to pick up or take the girls to school, I have been pulling a few weeds.  Although there's plenty left to do, I can now tell where the oregano, basil, echinacea, chamomile, sage, rosemary, lavender, and tarragon are... and where they aren't!  I ran out of mulch from chipped limbs, so I may be at a stopping place in this yard improvement for now.

 Apples and peaches are slowing approaching ripeness in our orchard. When we made a trip to Lowe's for supplies for the new and improved chicken tractor, we also splurged and bought several more fruit trees.  Even better, we already planted them!  Another honeycrisp, gala, and Wolf River apples were planted, as well as a plum.  We're looking forward to maturity in a few years!

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Onion Planting

600+ onions later!
Starting from the east side of the south bed:
Four bunches/rows of Candy
One bunch/row of Red Burgundy (okay... it overflowed into 1/2 of the first row of Vidalia)
Four bunches/rows of Vidalia
Three bunches/rows of Red Candy

I still have one bunch of Red Candy, one of Super Star, and one of Yellow Bermuda to plant.  The kids were too dirty by this time, and I needed to return home for Hope's training appointment.

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Potato Planting Insanity

Our helpers dug too!

As we enter our fourth (can it really be the fourth?) year of planting potatoes at Purgatory Ranch, the situation has changed.  (Year 1, Year 2, and Year 3) Since James and I now live within miles of P.R., driving out is much less of a trial.  However, since we moved, all our potatoes that had been saved for seed were exposed to extreme heat this summer in the moving van, and they were a tangled, vine-y mess.  See what I mean?

I always intended to snap off the sprouts earlier in the winter but never got to it.  Famous last words, right?  So this year, we opted to purchase some seed potatoes and sort through this mess to see what might survive planting.  Since last year we actually had a pretty decent yield from our over-sprouted potatoes, why not again?

I had two buckets and five boxes to sort.  All the small potatoes were pretty well exhausted, so I tossed them into the compost bin.  However, even after discarding all those, I had 35.5 pounds of potatoes (and sprouts) to plant. Add to that the potatoes my dad purchased, and we are well on our way to another record year.

Then, there is always the challenge of calendar.  We received two feet of snow not so long ago, and was the ground still saturated?  James and Dan work opposite schedules.  Myle was caring for a neighbor's children.  I have an almost-newborn.  Spring break is coming and we both had plans that would prevent potato planting by March 17.  Then, the kicker, for me... it was supposed to rain all day this Saturday, meaning the ground would be (God willing: we need rain) saturated, so I couldn't plant in the coming week.

This is the insanity part.  I made plans to plant the potatoes by myself, with three of the kids.  It's a good thing I had a friend offer to help.  In preparation, I cut up several of the bags of seed potatoes.  After toting up my pounds of seed potatoes, I opted to leave the bags of Red Norland and Yukon Gold uncut for a future planting scramble, as I felt confident we had no business planting 81.5 pounds of potatoes alone.

90 minutes later, we had this:

The north bed is almost entirely full.  My friend had a giant blister, and JoJo was complaining of the wind, even well-sheltered in the Moby wrap.  I consoled myself that even if it rained, we had the lion's share planted.  On our way home, the rain started.

Meanwhile, James' plans of building chicken tractors after school fell through.  Upon learning said information, I wildly suggested we plant the rest of the potatoes.  Right now.  As in, throw the kids in the car, scoop up the cut potatoes, and take on the rain, which had stopped momentarily.

This year, we left most of the south bed empty of potatoes.  We have planted potatoes in this bed every year and are risking disease buildup.  So, the only part of the south bed used was the section planted in onions last year.  It received the remaining Red Norland and Yukon Gold that didn't make the first cut.  This was accomplished in 30 wild minutes (wild, because we had four kids with us) of James digging holes, my tossing potatoes, and the girls burying.

And... Done!  All the potatoes are buried in the ground, and I'm off the crazy potato planting hook for another year... (We shouldn't think about the garden that is planned for Yahweh Jireh Acres)

Final totals:

Type	Pounds	Source	Rows (from the north)
Russet Burkbank	5	seed	3
All Blue	7	saved	5
Kennebec	4	saved	4
	2	seed
Purple Viking	5.5	saved	2
Dakota Pearl/Crisp	12	saved	13
	14.5	seed
Red Norland	7	saved	3
	12.5	seed
Yukon Gold	12	seed
	81.5

If that's not as clear as mud, just ask.  We planted 81.5 pounds of potatoes.  The rows are for my reference in July, when I can't remember what's what.

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Orchard

View from the north/northeast

View from the south/southwest

the lone cherry bush, to the east of the driveway

And, lest I forget:

			(SOUTH)
	Peach		Gala apple		Winesap semidwarf apple
(driveway)	Redskin Peach		Jonathan apple		x
	Honeycrisp apple		Cortland apple		Honeycrisp apple
			Macintosh
			(NORTH)

Spring...

... always tries to come a little early.

Go back to sleep, little bulbs!
The girls, Mom, and I planted hundreds of bulbs last fall.
I look forward to seeing what grows... but not yet!

Site of the future herb garden

a work in progress
but progress is better than nothing!

What are we going to do with this ugly guy?

We should have watered our cover crop a little more last fall.
This is the consequence of a pregnant momma who can't face 100+ heat!

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

katie z.

Fire!

Intentional, fortunately!

The gap in the trees pictured below may not seem like much to you, but multiply it by 10 for the various gaps in our tree break, and you'll understand how startling it is to have such a gap after six months without it.  James and Nathan took out our diseased pine trees, adding them to our ever-increasing burn pile.

On Saturday, the men were finally free and the weather cooperative enough to call for a burn permit.  And burn they did!

We even took care of the Christmas tree!

The pile burned down further, and the men were diligent in supervision, so there are only two stumps left.

Well done!

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Pugatory Ranch.

Labor

... of various sorts has been transforming life here.

On January 14, the newest member of our family joined us.

On January 19, we began an orchard.  Our almost-a-neighbor tree man is planting a cherry bush, soon to be joined by 7 apples and 2 peaches.

We now call early evening/late afternoon (that time with children that is sometimes called the witching hour) the "bobcat hour," as recently, a bobcat has repeatedly tried to kill our cat.  She is smart, though, and has escaped, although (s)he treed Andromeda once.  We're learning to remember to shut her up in the barn before dark, aka, the bobcat hour.

The weather has been unseasonably warm, and now there are tornado warnings for places to the east and south.  Fortunately, we seem to be confined to possible thunderstorms.  As we could use the rain, bring it on!

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

katie z.

Planting Preparation

James hooked up his tiller and went to work.   The existing garden space had been taken over by weeds and grass, so he tilled up the old space... and more than doubled it.  We might be drowning in produce next summer if we actually plant all this!

He also knocked down a tree.  I prefer the saw method, but I'm not a man.

Finally, the future strawberry bed was tilled up.

If I can get my act together, we'll spread some clover seed.  I understand full well that I am very late in the season to be doing this, but when I'm pregnant, I am forced to recognize my limits.

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Garlic Planting

I'm a little late, but had a bit of fiasco with my attempt to order new garlic to plant this fall.  The summary: the company wouldn't be shipping my garlic until early November.

So today, after admiring the asparagus for a time (we were delighted to discover an overgrown asparagus bed when we moved in), I cleaned out the weeds, grass, and dead iris foliage to make space for my garlic planting.

We love garlic, and I love that planting it in the fall leaves me one less thing to do in the spring.

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Potato Planting

Last week's plowing cut today's work down from 10 hours to 96 minutes.  (Last year, tilling, composting, moving the compost, digging rows, and planting took nearly 10 hours.)

First, James and my M., my sister, marked the rows with yard sticks and a broken hoe.

Each line is approximately two feet apart.

(Remember it from last year?)

 Next, James, my dad, my sister, and I began digging trenches for the potatoes.  Dad and I worked under the "dig a row, plant a row" banner while James and M. dug like machines!

Not too long after, some new-to-the-Ranch friends came with another trusty shovel and strong back.

On with planting!  Each potato is loosely 12" away from the previous.  Loosely because we didn't measure.

After covering the potatoes with SIGNIFICANTLY less labor than last year, we celebrated with a little lunch.

Tuna salad and egg salad on homemade bread.

Welcome to Purgatory!

Many thanks to our friends and family who made such short work of planting!  Dan and Myle, we missed you.

There's still plenty of space for more goodies.  We're thinking onions.  What else?

And, one more important item of business:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE SCREAMER!

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

Potato Preparation

Start with seed potatoes.  Lots of seed potatoes, if you're as crazy as we are.  This year, we're planting

31 pounds of Kennebec (2011's champion)

10 pounds of Yukon Gold (2011's least productive)

15 pounds of Purple Viking (2011's middle in productivity)

15 pounds of Dakota Crisp, new to us this year

5 pounds of Red Norland, another new potato to us.

(76 pounds!) 

Also, 5 pounds of All Blue will be coming in a few weeks.

You also need a good, sharp knife.  I used a knife from my kitchen..

 Each of my potatoes was cut into smaller pieces, about the size of a hen's egg, and each piece had to contain at least 2 eyes, although some contained plenty more.  I noticed the Yukon had a bad habit of being full of eyes at its narrow end, but then the bulk of the potato had no other eyes.  Does that coincide with productivity in any way?

Some people recommend cutting the potatoes several days in advance, then lying them out to dry and heal, but I cut mine the day before since I don't have space for 76 pounds of seed potatoes to lay out.

After cutting into pieces and discarding any moldy/rotten parts, I loaded the potatoes back into their bags and into the back of the van for moving to their planting sight.

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.

katie z.

Plowing

 Saturday, "plowing day," in three parts.

Part I, 8 am delivery of 6 tons of compost at less than $15 a ton.  It was chilly, in the 30s, but once we started working, I had to take off my winter coat.

6 tons of compost.

Preparing to sell our mower, as we have no tractor for it currently.

After Mike the compost guy left, we began felling red cedars.  Why, you might ask?  Red cedars are considered a noxious week and make it hard for us to plow up larger plots for our food.  When we bought the land over two years ago, the previous owners had cut and burned the largest of the cedars.  Our original plan had been to burn our front 20 acres, thus killing all the cedars and any other not-so-pleasant undesirables, but county regulations had other things to say.  Since we are within a mile of an air strip, we are not allowed to burn.

Plan B?  Axes and bow saws.  Next time, I'm using loppers.

Excellent camouflage, no?

Our tree hauler!

Early in our tree piling, before James used it as a resting place,
 only to discover I had also been cutting down honey locusts!
(Ouch!)

 Unfortunately, I failed to snap a picture of James as he felled cedars with one blow.

The end of the pile, over 100 trees.

 Intermission, we attended a nearby auction when we learned that the man with the plow would not arrive until 12:30.  It should be noted that we (James in particular) are not to be trusted alone at most auctions.  Last time, we bought a tractor that nearly killed James.

This time, being more prudent, we only bought a tool box and a fence post driver.  (I really appreciate the Google search engines for things like this.  Fence post driver?  We called it all kinds of things as I didn't know its proper name!)

Part II, in which I fail to take pictures of the tilling.  My dad asked that we plow this year, as our heavy clay needs to be broken up, but he found a man who thought we only needed tilling (again... James still maintains we never needed to plow) since the ground was soft from all the rain.

Wow.  The two plots look amazing.

Supervising the plowing and assisting with his own hoe.
Doesn't the drive look lovely with gravel?!

 After plowing, we showed the girls how to plant sprouted potatoes left from last year's harvest.  It will be their own little garden to care for, and will hopefully keep them busy!

Next week, planting!  We have 6 varieties of potatoes, including All-Blue.  We're going to make a party of it!

Until next time, remember, this is not paradise.  It's Purgatory Ranch.