Pole beans, meet twine...

My pole beans appear to be taking quickly to my setup with a single pole in the middle and then multiple lines of twine coming down from the top (making a sort of christmas tree shape).

A lot of the pole beans I planted never sprouted, which is a little disappointing as I bought them from good sources and took the time to soak them beforehand as instructed.

Also found a fair number of little slugs in my potato towers for the first time (babies, I assume)? I know many of the traditional, ground-planting remedies for them, but am unsure what to do about them in a tall tire-tower filled with wet straw? Maybe put an open bottle of beer in each tower? :-)

"Rainy" weekend update...

The forecasts for rain were a bit pessimistic, and the weekend was mostly just overcast, hot, and sticky-as-hell. Spent a lot of the mid-days working in the basement on remodeling projects (my house might as well have AC down there for as cool as it stays during the day... it's like magic!

The potatoes are going crazy... I had to cover most of them with more tires and straw and I'm almost out of tires again. I hope this will translate into lots of taters later!

Took down and cleaned out my grow room, and rejoiced as it magically transformed back into my guest room. I think I'll be starting seeds in the basement next year, as the relative humidity that the process caused played hell with a lot of stuff in the guest room.

Spent an hour or so this morning picking peas. The Blanco's produced quite well despite never really finding or climbing the fence I put up for them... seems like on one side of the fence they were slightly larger and green, and smaller and properly white on the other? Interesting. Also picked some Paso and some Langston's Progress No. 9's which had smaller plantings and much smaller yields. Two 25-foot spans of pea plants yielded about two soup bowls full of fresh peas once all was shelled and done. It is a sobering thought indeed to realize that all that time, effort, and energy went into making about $1 worth of peas at current market prices.

We take for granted how cheap and easy our food has become. It is a valuable reminder indeed that such things cost more (time, money, effort) without the massive power that fossil fuels afford us.

Rainy weekend upcoming...

The weather report calls for thunderstorms all weekend, so looks like I might spend the weekend kicking back with dad and pup, tying up loose ends of some previous projects and getting started on some long-term indoor endeavors.

Garden update: June 5, 2010...

Put a roof and doors on the chicken coop today, and got it almost 100% painted. All that's really left to do is some decorative trim work on the outside and to get it fenced in, and it'll be ready for chickens.

Also planted 2 Mountain Ash trees, 1 Crab Apple, and one apple tree.

Now April and I are breaking off work to head down to the city to meet some friends for hot dogs.

Picked up a decent sized mosquito zapper for $5 today at the local flea market... got it hung up and plugged in... we'll see how it did when we get back. The mosquitoes here are getting increasingly bad and a semi-permanent solution would be a neat trick.

What Are We Composting?

This just in, from The Onion.

I need more tires!

Gonna have to start swinging through the ever generous used tire shop on the way home again... the potatoes are growing fast and I'm actually running out of tires to stack in tower form (an idea that would have seemed entirely humorous some time ago).

On the upside, I may well end up with a crap-ton of potatoes at the end of the year!

Potatoes going crazy...

Turns out, potatoes grow really fast once they start. My potato tires are now racing.

Whomever wins, it'll be delicious!

In unrelated news, got the chicken coop almost finished. It's an Ondura roofing panel and some insulation away from being chook-ready!